The key ideas

The Gift of Fear

Gavin de Becker, 1997

A woman gave in to a polite stranger who offered to carry her bag. Then one small detail, a closed window, told her it was time to leave. Security specialist Gavin de Becker explains how intuition may notice danger before logic does and which tactics, in his experience, sometimes reveal someone with bad intentions.

Who it is for

For anyone who habitually dismisses a sense that “something is wrong” out of politeness, and everyone who wants to feel calmer about personal safety.

Intuition is always right in at least two important ways: it is always responding to something, and it is always on your side.

What the book is about

A woman named Kelly climbs the stairs to her apartment. A grocery bag tears, and cans of cat food roll down. A polite man approaches from below, gathers the cans, and offers to carry the bag to her door. Kelly refuses: she feels uneasy for some reason. But he is so nice, and she gives in.

This man attacked her in her apartment. Then came the event that leads Gavin de Becker to open his book with this story: at one point Kelly stood up and left, which the author believes saved her life. What did she notice? The answer comes a little later.

De Becker is an American specialist in assessing threats of violence. His book concerns danger signals that often arrive before we can explain them. This is the author’s model and professional experience rather than a scientific test for assessing people. An important frame from the first page: responsibility for violence rests with its perpetrator rather than someone who did not read a signal in time.

Idea 1. The man who left the store

The book tells Robert Thompson’s story. He entered a 24-hour convenience store, took a few steps, and suddenly turned toward the exit without understanding why. It turned out a robbery was underway, and a police officer who entered after him was killed.

Later, answering the author’s questions, Thompson could name what he had seen. One car stood in the parking lot with its engine running and someone inside. A customer at the register wore a heavy jacket although it was summer. And the clerk, looking at Thompson, appeared frightened for a split second.

De Becker believes this is intuition: rapid processing of details the conscious mind has not yet named, rather than mysticism. Logic proceeds step by step; intuition jumps straight to a conclusion.

You enter an empty apartment-building entrance and suddenly decide to wait for a neighbor by the door. The explanation comes only later: the bulb that was always on has been unscrewed.

“Something is wrong” may be a compressed report on details already noticed but not yet named. It is therefore worth at least listening before dismissing it.

Read in Livria

About the author

Gavin de Becker is an American security and violence-threat assessment specialist. In 1978, he founded a firm that protects and advises prominent people. He experienced domestic violence as a child. The Gift of Fear spent 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

All books by this author: Gavin de Becker

Terms from the book

  • Denial
  • Messengers of intuition: An image from the book rather than a scientific term: signals ranging from curiosity and a recurring thought to doubt, suspicion, and fear that may, in the author’s model, indicate danger.
  • Forced teaming: A tactic in de Becker’s framework: a stranger says “we” and creates a sense of a shared undertaking that does not exist. The author’s term rather than a diagnostic sign.
  • Unsolicited promise: A promise nobody asked for. In the author’s model, a signal that someone is trying to persuade you, and a reason to ask yourself why.
  • True fear: In the author’s model, a brief signal in the presence of danger that prompts action. De Becker distinguishes it from worry about what might happen.

All terms

Similar books