December 1, 2022 • 43 mins
Content Warning: There is conversation about spousal homicide and attempted sexual assault. If you would like to avoid this content, please see exact timecodes below.
If you watch any news or doom scroll for 20 minutes, you expose yourself to all kinds of worst case scenarios. And those are dramatic and often terrifying. Gavin de Becker is a leading expert on the prediction and management of violence who says managing fear is surprisingly simple. He also, importantly, talks about intuition - the center of his work - which he calls our personal nuclear defense system and our body’s communication method for survival. They also talk about the influence of news media on our psyche and why governments love division in society.
If you have questions or guest suggestions, Ali would love to hear from you. Call or text her at (323) 364-6356. Or email go-ask-ali-podcast-at-gmail.com. (No dashes)
Trigger Warning Timecodes:
AFTER AD BREAK 1
Hearing of “serial rapist” in news = 20:58 - 21:29
Spousal homicide / pre-incident indicators = 21:30 - 22:50
AFTER AD BREAK 2
Ali’s experience of attempted sexual assault = 32:41 - 34:11
If you need help -
RAINN & Sexual Violence Help Line: (800) 656-4673 (HOPE)
Resources: The Joyful Heart Foundation
Links of Interest:
Book: The Gift of Fear
Master Class on Personal Safety
**Go Ask Ali has been nominated for a Webby Award for Best Interview/Talk Show Episode! Please vote for her and the whole team at https://bit.ly/415e8uN by April 20, 2023!
CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sandie Bailey, Lauren Hohman, Tyler Klang & Gabrielle Collins
Producer & Editor: Brooke Peterson-Bell
Associate Producer: Akiya McKnight
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Rolling on the full.
Loafing is a thing I can I've seen you know,
We've all seen people do it. I've done it kidding.
For me now, the work is to want what I have,
even kind of shinny stuff. You know, that's my work.
It's it's imperfect. So let me ask you a question
(00:22):
about actors because you are Yeah, me too. We are
old funny duddies. We go to sleep at ten, we
wake up at six, but we go to bed at eight,
So there are more funny duddies than you. You are
the funny duddiest. Yes, welcome to go ask Allie. I'm
(00:43):
Alli Wentworth. I don't know about you, but I feel
like we're all immersed in a very fear based culture.
I'm scared of everything from global warming to nuclear war
to the things I'm streaming on television which all see
to be true crime. I think people read little things
(01:04):
in magazines and then you somehow put them in a
scenario within your own life and just scare the ship
out of yourself. So what is our relationship with fear?
What does it mean? How do we reduce it, how
do we understand it? How do we intuite it? Well?
My guest today is the genius of all these things.
(01:27):
Gavin de Becker is a leading expert on the prediction
and management of violence. Gavin's work has earned him three
presidential appointments and a position on a Congressional committee. He
was twice appointed to the President's Advisory Board at the
U S Department of Justice. He's also a senior fellow
at u c l A School of Public Policy and
Social Research. Gavin is a New York Times bestselling author
(01:49):
of The Gift of Fear, which I encourage everybody to read.
His books about violence and safety are now published in
eighteen languages and have been profiled in Time and Is Week,
featured on Oprah Winfrey Sixty Minutes, and many many others.
Please note that this episode contained some conversations about violence
that some people may find disturbing. If you prefer to
(02:12):
avoid this content, the topics and time codes are in
the show notes. Gavin de Beecker, I have never been
so scared in my life. And this is complete truth
and honesty. And I think I can speak for my husband,
George and most of my friends, Because, as you've talked
about in your book and in lectures and stuff, you know,
(02:36):
this isn't a These aren't l A freeway shootings. It's
not some serial killer. I feel like the whole world
is on fire, and I'm afraid of of our politicians
being killed, of nuclear war, of global warming, of domestic
and international terrorism. And you must hear this a lot.
(02:57):
But how do I call my nerves? How do I
live my life without constantly not being able to sleep
because of anxiety and being in perpetual fear of so
many things? I love the question because I can fix
that in just a few seconds. Excellent with a pill.
(03:19):
Now it actually takes a lot of pills, I'm sure.
So you know, there is a thing that that governments
tend to spray at people, which are worst case scenarios.
Worst case scenarios. And the worst case scenario is not
a prediction. It's not a uh an organized thought process.
(03:41):
It is a creative process where people think, as they
have to in government, what would be the worst thing
that could happen with a virus, for example, this virus,
what's the worst thing that could happen? Now, rarely do
they say, here's the best thing that could happen, right,
it could peter out, it could the variance could be
better instead of worse, that kind of thing. So we
see a lot of worst case scenarios, and I think
(04:01):
it's valuable for people to know that the words scenario,
of course, comes from scene. It is a creative exercise.
And when we do that in our minds, you could say,
for example, Captain, what's the worst case scenario on the
flight fiery crash. That's the worst case scenario. Officer, what's
the worst case scenario? Homicide? Doctor, what's the worst case scenario?
(04:23):
Sudden death? But we don't live our lives that way,
asking what are the worst case scenarios? Rather we ideally
live our lives asking what are the likely events. So
at home, on your refrigerator, you might have a list
of phone numbers. You've got Dr Kellerman, you've got the pediatrician,
you've got so and so, But you don't have the
Nuclear Emergency Search Team, which is the organization that tracks
(04:47):
down radioactive material that might be used by terrorists, for example,
and they've got a bunch of helicopters, etcetera. But that's
not on your refrigerator because it's actually not likely. And
so what I encourage people to do is look at
the likely events in their lives as opposed to the
worst case scenario events. And this is the opposite of
(05:09):
what government does, and it's the opposite of what media does.
News media, right, news media. It's only news because it
is something that isn't likely in your life. You know
what is it that makes news? It is the unusual.
It is specifically that which is not typically happening. If
we were to be honest with the public and to
(05:31):
shout at them about what's alarming, let's say the public
health institutions of America, CDC, f d A, etcetera. What
would they shout at us, If they were being accurate
to reality, they would say, Um, accidents in the home
a major killer. Millions of you will suffer these this week,
and three thousand of you will die. That's exactly true,
(05:53):
accidents in the home. However, because we know that accidents
in the home are slightly under our control, because we
know that they are not new, we tend to be
less afraid of them than of any of the things
you mentioned. Uh, the newest virus you know at the moment,
for example, while while COVID is a current variant that
(06:16):
is not particularly serious for the overwhelming majority of people,
people your age and even my age, I'm sixty eight. Uh.
The average age of death from the very beginning back
in two thousand twenty was one. In Canada. This will
be an interesting fact. In Canada, sevent of all the
people whose deaths were attributed to COVID they lived in
(06:37):
nursing homes. They were nursing home residents. So right away
you could say, if I'm not a nursing home resident, um,
I have a massively greater chance of surviving this virus
than if I am a nursing home resident. And what
kills nursing home residents, by the way, everything they're they're
generally to die. Right in Los Angeles County, the average
(07:00):
term of residency in a nursing home is less than
six months. So when you say you've got a lot
of deaths and you attribute them to COVID, for example,
and the majority of them are in nursing homes, you
basically can begin to and this is my answer to
your question, exclude yourself from the likely candidates for that outcome.
(07:23):
There are two forms of fear anxiety isn't even on
the list. By the way, anxiety is not a fear.
Anxiety and worry are a different thing, different part of
the brain, different part of the heart. But there are
two forms of fear. One that's enormously valuable, and that
is true fear. True fear is a signal in the
presence of danger. That means I see it, I hear it,
(07:44):
I feel it, I taste it, I perceive it. It's
a signal in the presence of danger lying right there,
snake right there. I need to know that information. Unwarranted
fear is not based on your senses. It is always
based on your imagination or your memory. So I share
this example with you. You're at the airport, you're boarding
(08:04):
a plane, and you think, don't get on that plane.
That I don't I don't feel good about that flight.
I don't want to do it. I don't want to
do it. So you can you can ask yourself what
is the cause of that fear. Is it, uh, something
you saw on the news about an airplane crash in
Brazil three months ago, in which case it's in your
imagination or your memory, or is it because you just
(08:26):
saw the two pilots stumbling out of the bar and
wobbling their way onto the aircraft. That would be in
your environment. That would be something you sense, and that
would be true fear. So the difference between true fear
and unwarranted fear is the answer to your question, which
is could it happened that we would have nuclear war?
For example? Could it happen? Is never the question to
(08:49):
ask could it happen? We always know the answer. I
can give you the answer for every good question right now. Yes,
yes you can have heart failure right now, Yes you
could it, absolutely. But the question we all ask in
our lives is what's most likely? What's most likely to happen.
I'm gonna give you one last example in the longest
answer in podcast history, I don't think so oh oh,
(09:13):
you must have had somebody even more longer. I think
my third question is going to have a longer answer,
But go ahead. I'm gonna get ready, I'll have a
I'll have a brief break between now and then. Um,
the in your home, in anybody's home, any viewer or
listener of the podcast. Uh. We know that helicopters could
land on the roof with intruders who could core through
(09:35):
the ceiling and lower themselves with ropes into our apartment
or home. That could happen, but we've made the decision
that a more likely area of entry is the front
door or the front window, so we put locks on
the front door and the front window. My point there
is that could is simply always the wrong question when
it comes to safety, because we have to be able
(09:59):
to to act every day and and face life, and
life itself is a sexually transmitted, always fatal condition. Everybody dies,
and the question we have to ask ourselves is not
how shall we die, but how shall we live? And
(10:21):
that's the choice. And so we do have to set
aside risks. To fly to the moon. As an astronaut,
I have to set aside the risk of getting on
top of a giant uh, you know, a bag of
fuel and lighting the match, which is basically what a
rocket is. To build that bridge, I have to set
aside the risk of crossing that big expanse of water
(10:41):
and the bridge that you drive over, often yourself. Brooklyn
Bridge and others. People died building those bridges, all of them,
and so it they had to set aside risks and
and take risks and and and still act you know,
as a parent, we have to you know, we're walking
around almost like our hearts are outside our bodies. These
(11:02):
these children we care about so much, and yet we
have to say, Okay, you can go, you can go
on that thing, you're old enough to cross that street,
you can ride that bicycle. We know, of course all
variety of injury can come to them, as it can
come to us, but we we act with courage and
almost done. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage
(11:25):
is acting in the face of fear. I know something,
I'm doing a podcast. I could make a terrible mistake
and be canceled for something I say. But I'm acting anyway,
and I'm not unafraid of the mistakes I might make
or you might make her who knows what may happen.
But I'm willing to act in the face of those fears.
That's courage, and that I would say that I do
(11:48):
that with my children. I don't want my daughter to
go out at ten o'clock at night to a party downtown.
But if I don't let her go and she doesn't
go out and experience the world, I'll stimately I'm not
helping her, even though I saw the the movie Abducted
or whatever it was called. I mean, I feel like
everything on streaming right now starts with a dead white girl.
(12:11):
So you know, my my fears are always with my daughters.
Oh my god, something's going to happen. So but I
try to override that. Um. I do want to talk
about the media with you, because you do. You've talked
a lot in your book, particularly about using fear to
get people to watch. And I feel like it's everywhere
(12:32):
everywhere I look. When I try to escape and watch
something on TV, it it makes me scared. And I
don't know, should we turn off the news? Should we
only watch Seinfeld? Um? How do we find a constructive
balance between everything that is we're inundated by on a
(12:54):
day to day basis with the media. All right, So
a couple of things. One is that I do believe
that the news media, and particularly television and particularly local news,
is very bad for people when it comes to getting information.
I encourage people to choose their avenue for going and
getting the information. Meaning the Internet is so remarkable, with
(13:15):
all its failings. It's so remarkable that I could say, oh,
I'm a little interested today in the homicide rate in Sweden.
I can go find that information, but if I wait
for the local news to scream it at me and
spray it at me, it will be presented in the
most alarming way possible. Years ago, I used to joke that, uh,
the Channel two News ought to say, welcome to the
(13:35):
Channel two News. We're surprised you made it through another day,
and here's what happened to those that didn't, and then
they would give you the death litany all the ways
in which people died. And so you know, years ago
there was a big earthquake in l A. And after
the earthquake there was all kinds of news media reports,
was this the big one? What about if the big
one comes? And one of my favorites was on CBS
(13:59):
uh k n x T I think was the CBS
affiliate in Los Angeles, and it said what would have
happened if the earthquake had also caused a tsunami? And
they had Los Angeles graphics showing waves going over forty
story buildings in downtown l A. And my first thought was,
if there had been a tsunami, we wouldn't have to
pick up all this glass that we were sweeping around
(14:20):
our House. That was the funny part. The not funny
part was that they did a graphic and they showed
you what Los Angeles would be like if if if, if,
if could could could could, And so that is bad
for us. That very element is bad for us. And
I think one thing that's going on now that is
new and particularly destructive, and we see it probably most
(14:42):
of all with public health issues is that the government
and the news media are aligned. Now, you could say
how nice, but of course the history of the value
of the news media was to ask tough questions of
an Anthony Fauci or a doctor more La, the CEO
of Viser. Whenever prior to this time did the news
(15:06):
media say, oh, okay, okay, great viser, Sure we like it, Yeah,
that's a good enough for us. There'd be questions. There'd
be a lot of questions, and there'd be a lot
of press conferences, and there'd be people refusing to attend
press conferences and people reporting on that. And there is
something about public health and pharma that somehow takes the
(15:27):
spine and the legs out of the news media. And
that's something might include the fact that between seventy and
of cable news channels are sponsored by Visor and other
pharma companies. That's a problem. Uh. And so it's why
is it a problem? Because it does incline you to
(15:49):
not want to begin your telecast today with all the
failings in a clinical trial if you feel there wordy
for example. And so what we're seeing is, I is
there more fear because at the current moment we don't
have an advocate in the news media or in the
government balancing the only thing we get. So, for example,
(16:11):
politicians starting with Trump going through Biden um talk about
the big story of our lives, which is this pandemic
probably the biggest event in world history. And I don't
mean because of COVID, I mean because of government reaction lockdowns.
When you have billions of people affected in terms of
their day to day lives, that's a big deal. So
(16:34):
that issue that I'm that I'm zeroing in on, which
is that normally you had government saying here's the new
thing to be afraid of, and I a politician, I'm
going to fix this for you, and you've got to
be aware of it. Blah blah blah. Historically, governments throughout
human history have used fear to control populations, it's either
(16:54):
fear of the other, the bad guys in the next village,
or it's fear of internal uh risks like terrorism. But
whatever it is, that's what governments do. They use fear
to control conduct and behavior. So, if you imagine, to
put it in very simple terms, the king and the queen,
they're looking over the castle wall, and there's always a
(17:15):
castle wall. They're not walking around with everybody else for
good reason. And they look over and they see the
population is fighting with each other, and that is good news.
They high five each other, because the only bad news
for the king and the queen is when everybody feels
the same way. That's when you get real change. That's
when you get Tunisia or Egypt or the Arab sprint.
(17:37):
And so at the current moment, the division that we see,
and it is profound. It is civil war profound. The
division that we see. That division is encouraged by those
in power. It is not discouraged. And I say those
in power doesn't mean just an administration. I mean a government.
Administrations come and go, government stays. And so when you
(17:58):
have government doing what governments do they never haven't, which
is used fear to control populations. And to and to
influence events. And you also have the news media doing it,
which they always have, but they were a check in
balance prior to this moment. The challenge there is that
at the moment we are being hit with fear from
(18:19):
government and media and they're not in conflict, they are aligned.
COVID is the worst thing in world history. It ain't
not even close. Uh lockdowns are good, they ain't not
even close. So anyway, my, my, my, My ending to
this answer is that fear is worse today for everyone
(18:40):
than it was two and a half years ago. In fact,
I would add sounds like a politician, but everything is
worse than it was two and a half years ago.
And so you don't you don't see the King and
Queen looking down and seeing this polarized political parties um
as a good thing? Now do you know? It's it's
(19:01):
like you said, there's civil unrest. Do you think that's
a good thing or a bad thing? Well? I think
it's a bad thing, But I assure you politicians think
it's a good thing. Uh, leaders and and people in
the White House that comes and goes. Of course, I'm
sixty eight, so you get a fair number of people
coming and going in the White House, and it's and
you see that it's not all about them people in power,
(19:22):
like division among the population period that includes the news media,
who would have very little to report. CNN would have
even less viewership than it has now. Fox would have
even less viewership than it has now if they didn't
have the the stridency of their disagreements. Uh. And the
and the division. The division is good for business. It
(19:44):
is extremely bad for the citizens. However, extremely bad because
we are social animals. And yet what's happened in the
last two and a half years that, in my view,
must never happen again, is the ability for direct communication
from power to the individual news media or direct communication
from controlled power social media to the individual, and not
(20:08):
a whole lot of communication among each other. So all
we're left with is our controversies. Whereas when we're allowed
to be together, concert, beach, shopping, uh event, we are
at our best. So that's their thing, that's okay, But
you don't give them the central position in our lives,
(20:30):
top of the news, top of the White House all day,
twenty four hours. When you do that for any one topic,
we suffer. It could be a war, it could be crime.
Anything that you make one topic. That's not what life
is like. There's a lot more to come after the
short break and we're back. I read your book a
(21:01):
while ago, but I remember thinking, yes, I'm somebody that
sees a serial rapist on the news and I'm convinced
he's out right outside my door, when in fact it's
a guy in you know, northern California who's three thousand
miles away from me. But yet I kind of and
I think a lot of people do this. You make
(21:22):
it about you, You put yourself in that scenario, in
that creative, you know, image that you have. UM. But
I want to talk about spousal homicide because you say
you can actually predict the violence that is imminent. Yeah,
pre incident indicators. But I do just want to say
quickly because you said, I say it's it's predictable. Yes,
(21:45):
I think it's the most predictable serious crime in our
lives that that never happens. Where everybody says or the
victim says, well, I had no idea that was coming.
Bob just came home and killed me. That's not what's
going on. She's been afraid, she's been concerned. There have
been police calls, there have been visits. You know, he
had usually witnessed violence in his childhood. He uh, he
(22:07):
made threats, He used weapons as an instrument of power.
He glorified weapons. He broke things in the house, which
is called symbolic violence. He you know, tore up the
picture that she was in. He tore up the wedding gown. Um,
she showed up at work wearing sunglasses. On and on
and on and on. It is never uh that. It's
(22:27):
the example I use as you have two wolves on
a mountain path somewhere and they meet each other face
to face, and one the ears go back, and the
tail gets big, and the hair goes up on their neck,
and a low growl starts, and then one attacks the other.
The victim wolf never says, oh, I had no idea
that was coming. All the signals have been exchanged, and
(22:49):
human beings are no different. Do you think you can
predict violence not only in a spousal homicide, but can
you predict violence in so many different other scenarios? Like
could you tell me if there's gonna be a lot
of civil unrest? It's true different each kind of prediction,
(23:09):
and there are many that society makes. Is this employee
gonna work out well for me? Is this boyfriend going
to turn out to be a great guy or a
dangerous guy? Is this pilot gonna do a good job? Etcetera.
And what people often say is, well, you never know
about people. And who says that is the principle of
the school that hired the teacher who molested the kids, Oh, well,
(23:30):
you never know about people. Um, going directly to your question.
The years ago, when I used to give speeches, I
would ask the audience, is there anybody here who is
at this talk today and had had to have childcare
arranged in order to be here? And several hundred people
would raise their hands, and I would say, is there
anybody here who's not fully comfortable with the child care
(23:52):
that they've arranged? And a bunch of people would raise
their hands, and I would say, go home. Yeah, you know,
this is not where you want to be. But when
I interviewed people in the audience, invariably the people who
told me I am absolutely comfortable with my child care,
they say, we love her, we consider her a member
of our family, we trust her completely. They don't say, well,
(24:13):
you never know about people. They have a strong feeling
of certainty about it. And when you have a strong
feeling of certainty in either direction, that's meaningful. The prediction
you asked me about, can we predict social unrest, Well,
it couldn't be easier to predict because we already have
social unrest. We've had sixteen thousand, thousand demonstrations since the
(24:37):
beginning of lockdowns in the United States, so you already have.
You'd have to describe Los Angeles as a being in
a state of social unrest, between homelessness, between crime. It's
not all organized social unrest, like they're all standing in
the same place holding the same sign. But the universal
(24:57):
pre incident indicator for violence, there is a universal pre
incident indicator. It's always present, and that is misery. Yeah.
The person who comes to school uh and shoots up
his former students or former teachers, the person who comes
to work and shoots up as co workers. These are
people in misery. They are alienated, they are in need,
(25:20):
they are suffering, and so that is always present. Otherwise,
human beings don't don't kill each other. There are very
minor exceptions to that, which includes soldiers and police officers
and people who we accept all right, that's a killing
we brought into But the the pilot in the Middle
(25:41):
East who kills a group of people on the ground
with a missile, and the terrorist who comes to New
York City and flies an airplane into a building, they're
making the same kind of rationalization for killing. One is
not a monster and the other one a saint. Both
are deciding, based on the narrative in their heads that
(26:04):
this is justified. So justification is the key. January six
justified in the in the minds of the people who
showed up to demonstrate outside the capital uh Minneapolis. All
the fires and riots and looting, justified in the minds
of people who were reacting to the death of George Floyd.
(26:26):
And so justification is a key component. Um. I think
about a lot of our politicians now, I would guess
there are a lot more death threats on our congressmen
and women and our senators than ever before. That's true,
that's true. Okay, that's what I thought. Um. And yet
(26:47):
yet the government doesn't pay to have them have any security.
That's that's that's that's not correct. The security is now
provided to more public officials than at any time in
our history. It used to be that the Secretary of
the Interior had a driver, but he didn't have bodyguards.
Now every member of the cabinet has bodyguards assigned in
(27:10):
the In the Senate, you have the Speaker of the
House has a full time protective detail. Vice President, vice
president's family, President president's family, former presidents, former president's family,
Secretary of State, on and on and on. But can
we provide it to thirty five members of Congress. No,
we can't do it. I mean, what do do you
(27:31):
want to do? You want to spend billions of dollars
protecting people who go into public life. And one of
the risks of public life, be it the small town
mayor or the president, is that you're going to uh,
You're going to encounter people who are angry, people who
are hostile, mentally ill. People that goes with public life. Now,
(27:51):
I support protection for presidents, even though mayors get attacked
more often than presidents. Oh yes, and a bunch of
mayors have been shot and killed. And there you know
where they live, and they live in your town and
you're piste off about what happened with your building permit
and you show up at the mayor's house. Um, and so.
But but I don't think we can we can solve
(28:12):
that problem with bodyguards. Uh, look what we're already doing
a few billion dollars now being spent after January six
on on fences and all variety of physical changes for
this very small facility. It's only a few acres the
US capital. Um, do we need to do it? Well,
we have had one event in our history that would
(28:34):
tell us that we need to do it, But it doesn't.
It's not a good direction to move in because what
happens is when every federal building is bulletproof, and every
federal building has a you know, five yard space around
it with ballers that you can't drive a truck toward it, etcetera, etcetera. Um,
it's a different kind of future, and it is letting individuals.
(28:55):
We had the you know, the bombing in Oklahoma City
of the Federal building. Now, teen children died that in
that bombing because there was a child care facility there.
But nineteen children die every week killed by a parent
in the United States. And so we have to sort
of balance, and unfortunately politics doesn't balance very well because
(29:16):
politics talks about what's got our attention. You said the
rapist in the park. You know, those stories are so
interesting Because I'm here in such and such park, Candlestick Park,
where yesterday the serial rapist was arrested, and I'm interviewing
a woman. I'm terrified to go in the park. Wait
a second, back up, he was arrested yesterday. There's one
less rapist. It's better than it was before. And yet,
(29:39):
as human beings, and as you said, you do naturally
we put ourselves in that circumstance and we think, I
don't want to go to that park. But when we
do that, now the park becomes less occupied. Look at
New York City. New York City is safe and was
much safer years ago because we occupied it. We were
out there on the streets, we were out there in
the parts, we were using the space. As soon as
(30:02):
we stop using the space, the only people left are
criminals and victims. That's what happens in city and LA
has its version. In l A, we have something called
fort Apache architecture. Fort Apache is a is a concept
that says that in the Old West you used to
scurry through the Indian territory to get to the next fort,
(30:23):
and you'd only be safe if you were in the fort.
So we surrendered all the land outside the forts Los Angeles,
the Beverly Center, big center, tiny little door to go in,
the Bondaventure Hotel downtown, big glass building, tiny little door
to go in. When you go in, wow, beautiful atrium, plants, fantastic,
but outside ship. And so when we do that, we
(30:44):
go through our gated to state, We get in our car,
we drive through the dangerous park, we pull into the
Beverly Center, and then we're okay. But what we're doing
is surrendering two criminals all the other space, two criminals
and poor people ultimately who suffered the most and who
are the predominantly the victims of homicides and crimes. So
(31:04):
we need to be brave. We need to do what
Israel does. Israel has a bus is blown up, and
the next day people are lining up to ride that
next bus on the same route. What does America, doing
the same circumstance, put our guards on the bus, make
the bus bulletproof, change the bus, don't take the bus,
(31:27):
of course, and uh and you know next up people
who took the bus and their funerals and blah blah blah.
So yeah, it's a it's a challenge. Look, it's a challenge,
but we've never what's changed in world history? You asked
me about the King and Queen? And do people still
like division? They love it? Yes, politicians, please more. But
what's changed is over a thousand years ago with the
(31:48):
King and Queen. Is this electronic business we're on right now?
What's changed is the ability to speak globally and influence
news globally. Facebook takes off hate speech, for example. Ain't
that great? But do we want Facebook deciding what's hate
speech or what's got to be said or what's I
don't not at all. I prefer that the solution to
(32:12):
speech we don't like is speech we do like. I
prefer that method, and that's how you and I grew
up most of our lives. Of Course, people are going
to say ship you don't like. Of course they are,
and they usually suffer for it. And it's time for
a short break. Welcome back to go ask Ali. So.
(32:41):
I didn't know the difference between intuition and fear until
I was living in Los Angeles and I was attacked
by a gang and they robbed me and they threw
me up against the car they were preparing to gang
rate me. They were lining up, they were came my
clothes off and then started screaming at each other in
(33:03):
Spanish and then tried to push me in the car.
And I was in a complete submissive state. I was
going to do exactly what they told me to do,
and I was shut down. I mean it was a
survival thing of just completely shutting down, leaving my body.
And at one point I looked over at this guy
that I was with when we were both attacked, and
(33:24):
he mouthed to me, don't get in. And it hit
me on such a visceral level, and it immediately my
instinct was if I get in this car, I'm going
to be killed. And I turned around and I ran
as fast as I could. Two of the gang members
chased me, couldn't catch me. You know, long story short,
(33:44):
I tried to I stopped some cars. My friend was
being stabbed but survived. But this experience taught me that
I that a part of me that I wasn't even
aware of, which I call my gut, said to me,
in its most survivalist way, run basically run. And so
(34:07):
that's what I you know, that's uh, I don't know
how you I mean, you could term it better than me,
but it's almost like survival. It's my my survival gut
or that voice or tendency. It's not really fight or flight.
It's more, um, you've got your hyper instinctual about a situation.
(34:32):
It's true, and it's it's really at the center of
my work is intuition. And when I was writing Gift
of Fear, the the word I learned the origin of
the word is in tear, which means to guard and
to protect. And you mentioned your gut. The gut actually
has neurons. It has more neurons, more brain cells in
effect than a dog has. It has a great deal
(34:54):
of intelligence, and it has intelligence that's unfiltered when when
it's up here we filter it. Oh, I don't want
to be that kind person. I'll just get in the
elevator with that scary guy and so we get into
a steel, sound proof chamber with somebody we're afraid of.
No other animal in nature would do that. So I
think that when I'm a big believer in listening to intuition,
and intuition says, in effect, shut up and do exactly
(35:15):
what I tell you, and I'll get you out of here.
And sometimes it's counterintuitive, Like you were told, always cooperate
with people or they'll kill you. Know, very often that's
exactly the opposite of true. And so the the the
experience you just recounted to me reminds me of a
woman I interviewed where she said, uh that. She said
it was like an animal uncoiled inside me, and I
(35:38):
was a passenger on my own legs, meaning the thing
was happening, and the there's a woman I interviewed who
was attacked with her six year old daughter. She'd put
in the car and she had to get around the
car and get into the driver's seat. And she as
she got into the driver's seat, the guy was upon
her and he was trying to hold her legs, and
(35:59):
she heard the in her mind car key, and she thought,
I don't want to be the kind of person who
sticks a key in this guy's eye. But amazingly she
had already done it, and the car door had already
closed and she had already driven away, and then she said, um, gee,
at least I didn't, you know, stick him in both eyes.
And then she realized she had done that too. Boom boom,
(36:22):
And so intuition had handled the whole situation. So I'm
a big believer in intuition, and I believe that it
is our nuclear defense system. Nature has made such a
huge investment in human beings, every one of us, with
these millions of neurons and this remarkable system that we are,
and this shared collective genius and the individual genius that
(36:43):
there's no way your daughters were built as the most
recent model of human being without a defense system, and
they have a nuclear defense system. And that is intuition.
Intuition is just the communication method by which you get
the signal for your survivor. So how does intuition speak
with us? It speaks with us through gut feelings, through um,
(37:06):
through hunches, through suspicion. Uh, that is an interesting word
to suspicion, because suspicion people think, oh, I don't want
to be suspicious of somebody. But all it means the
words suspice are the root. It means to watch. It
just means watch, just means pay attention. So fear is
one of the signals of intuition. It's the one that's
hardest to ignore because we feel terrible and and it
(37:29):
gets our attention. But there are many signals of intuition, hunches,
gut feelings. Curiosity is a signal of intuition, like why
did I and then you get the idea and you
don't go in that underground parking lot. So the key
is to listen to it, to listen to intuition and
give it a voice and let it, don't prosecute it,
and send it on its way. That's what we do
(37:49):
a lot. Oh, I don't want to be like that.
I'm gonna get in this elevator or this is a
this is a very sophisticated hospital, the Sisters of Mercy.
For Christ's sake, I should listen to the doctor, not
if you think you should, not if you have a
strong feeling that says whoa, whoa, wha, not this guy.
And there's a bunch of stories in my book of
people who did listen to doctors who were doing surgery
on their kids and regretted it because they had the
(38:11):
feeling not this doctor. Is it okay to take your kid,
get in the car and go home. Yes? Is it
okay to stand in line at the at the clinic
or hospital for some treatment and feel I'll change my mind? Yes,
you can do that. You can do that, and I
do want to be sure at some time that there
is that I tell everybody there is a Gift of
(38:31):
Fear master Class series that's available for free at Gift
of Fear dot com. I'm not charging anybody for it's
it's ten episodes long. I'm very proud of it. It's
interviewing a lot of people who prevailed through violence, and um,
and I can. I can plug it mercilessly because it's free. Um.
Not everybody reads books, and not everybody has time to
(38:53):
read books, and so Gift to Fear is a great book.
It's out there. Uh. But the Gift of Fear master
Class series is I really aimed at younger people who
could absorb it in in video form, and it's Gift
of Fear dot com. That's it. End of the plug,
which is great. It's a perfect way to end the
podcast before we go. You know, I ask in my
(39:19):
podcast lots and lots of questions to my guests, and
then I get to turn around and you get to
ask me anything, my my cupcake recipe, whatever you want.
So what would you like to ask me? Thank you
so much. It's not about cupcake recipe. I have no
interest in baking, but I love banana bread that my
wife makes. That's a plug for our banana bread. My
(39:39):
question for you has to do with the news media also,
but in a in a very specific sense. How do
you deal with disagreement with your um, your husband, with George?
How do you deal with disagreement when you see something differently,
when you feel differently about it, how do you deal
(40:00):
with it? Well, when we first got married, how we
dealt with it was I thought, well, he's a Rhodes scholar,
so he probably knows better than me. That didn't last
very long. And now I think, I mean, I think
that our fundamental beliefs are the same. I don't you know,
we're not a James Carvill Mary Matlin. You know, we
(40:20):
don't fight over politics. I would say that George is
incredibly receptive to conversation, UM, but we we rarely disagree.
There are times where I'm more of an alarmist about things.
You know, I just a week ago, you know, I
was hearing from people, Oh my god, you know, nuclear
war missiles North Korea, Uh, you know Putin And people
(40:44):
are like, you know, we're gonna go live in Portugal
or we're gonna go to Malta. And I was eating
dinner with George and I looked over at him and
I said, so, what are we going to do in
case of a nuclear war? And George just looked at
me and he said, We're going to die. And I said, oh,
shouldn't we be planning anything? Is No, I think it's
better we just die. And then I was like somewhat calmed,
(41:06):
and you know, finished my meat loaf. But so we
do listen to each other, you know. And if I
have a very and I've had very strong opinions, um,
he knows when that tone and that passion comes out
of me that I'm serious. And usually I'm right. When
I get to that heightened state, I'm usually right. That's intuition.
(41:31):
That that's intuition usually and and true for my wife
and me too. And I just want to say, you
said your values are aligned, and that's at the core
of this issue of public division, because in fact, if
we knew the values of those terrible people we judge, um,
we would find they are also aligned. The reality is
(41:52):
that the people in those countries, and the people in
the South, and the people who voted for Trump, and
the people of this. The people of that all care
about their kids having a good life, all care about
the people they love, all care about being heard and recognized,
all care about being part of something vastly more, as
I write about in Gift of Fear, vastly more we
have in common than we have in contrast. And thank
(42:15):
you for the answer, by the way, that was a
great answer, and I really appreciate and I'm glad you
guys talk about everything. That's a great way to do it.
Because all forbidden speech in relationships is toxic, All forbidden
topics are toxic because we don't actually have a dialogue
and we don't get anywhere. No, I always say to George,
our whole country needs to be in couple therapy. Really, yeah,
it's very true. So anyway, Gavin, thank you very much,
(42:42):
Thank you for listening to go ask Ali. You can
watch his free master class on personal safety at Gift
of Fear dot com and learn more about Gavin and
his company at g d b A dot com. For
more info and what you've heard in this episode, and
for link to Gavin's book, The Gift of Fear, check
out our show notes. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and
(43:02):
review go ask Alli and follow me on Instagram at
the Real Ali Wentworth Now. If you'd like to ask
me a question or suggest a guest or a topic
to dig into, I would love to hear from you,
and there's a bunch of ways you can do it.
You can call or text me at three to three
four six three six, or you can email a voice
memo right from your phone to Go ask Alli Podcasts
(43:22):
at gmail dot com. And if you leave a question,
you just might hear it. I'm go ask Alli. Go
ask Alli is a production of Shonda land Audio and
partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
(43:44):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Rolling on the full.
Loafing is a thing I can I've seen you know,
We've all seen people do it. I've done it kidding.
For me now, the work is to want what I have,
even kind of shinny stuff. You know, that's my work.
It's it's imperfect. So let me ask you a question
(00:22):
about actors because you are Yeah, me too. We are
old funny duddies. We go to sleep at ten, we
wake up at six, but we go to bed at eight,
So there are more funny duddies than you. You are
the funny duddiest. Yes, welcome to go ask Allie. I'm
(00:43):
Alli Wentworth. I don't know about you, but I feel
like we're all immersed in a very fear based culture.
I'm scared of everything from global warming to nuclear war
to the things I'm streaming on television which all see
to be true crime. I think people read little things
(01:04):
in magazines and then you somehow put them in a
scenario within your own life and just scare the ship
out of yourself. So what is our relationship with fear?
What does it mean? How do we reduce it, how
do we understand it? How do we intuite it? Well?
My guest today is the genius of all these things.
(01:27):
Gavin de Becker is a leading expert on the prediction
and management of violence. Gavin's work has earned him three
presidential appointments and a position on a Congressional committee. He
was twice appointed to the President's Advisory Board at the
U S Department of Justice. He's also a senior fellow
at u c l A School of Public Policy and
Social Research. Gavin is a New York Times bestselling author
(01:49):
of The Gift of Fear, which I encourage everybody to read.
His books about violence and safety are now published in
eighteen languages and have been profiled in Time and Is Week,
featured on Oprah Winfrey Sixty Minutes, and many many others.
Please note that this episode contained some conversations about violence
that some people may find disturbing. If you prefer to
(02:12):
avoid this content, the topics and time codes are in
the show notes. Gavin de Beecker, I have never been
so scared in my life. And this is complete truth
and honesty. And I think I can speak for my husband,
George and most of my friends, Because, as you've talked
about in your book and in lectures and stuff, you know,
(02:36):
this isn't a These aren't l A freeway shootings. It's
not some serial killer. I feel like the whole world
is on fire, and I'm afraid of of our politicians
being killed, of nuclear war, of global warming, of domestic
and international terrorism. And you must hear this a lot.
(02:57):
But how do I call my nerves? How do I
live my life without constantly not being able to sleep
because of anxiety and being in perpetual fear of so
many things? I love the question because I can fix
that in just a few seconds. Excellent with a pill.
(03:19):
Now it actually takes a lot of pills, I'm sure.
So you know, there is a thing that that governments
tend to spray at people, which are worst case scenarios.
Worst case scenarios. And the worst case scenario is not
a prediction. It's not a uh an organized thought process.
(03:41):
It is a creative process where people think, as they
have to in government, what would be the worst thing
that could happen with a virus, for example, this virus,
what's the worst thing that could happen? Now, rarely do
they say, here's the best thing that could happen, right,
it could peter out, it could the variance could be
better instead of worse, that kind of thing. So we
see a lot of worst case scenarios, and I think
(04:01):
it's valuable for people to know that the words scenario,
of course, comes from scene. It is a creative exercise.
And when we do that in our minds, you could say,
for example, Captain, what's the worst case scenario on the
flight fiery crash. That's the worst case scenario. Officer, what's
the worst case scenario? Homicide? Doctor, what's the worst case scenario?
(04:23):
Sudden death? But we don't live our lives that way,
asking what are the worst case scenarios? Rather we ideally
live our lives asking what are the likely events. So
at home, on your refrigerator, you might have a list
of phone numbers. You've got Dr Kellerman, you've got the pediatrician,
you've got so and so, But you don't have the
Nuclear Emergency Search Team, which is the organization that tracks
(04:47):
down radioactive material that might be used by terrorists, for example,
and they've got a bunch of helicopters, etcetera. But that's
not on your refrigerator because it's actually not likely. And
so what I encourage people to do is look at
the likely events in their lives as opposed to the
worst case scenario events. And this is the opposite of
(05:09):
what government does, and it's the opposite of what media does.
News media, right, news media. It's only news because it
is something that isn't likely in your life. You know
what is it that makes news? It is the unusual.
It is specifically that which is not typically happening. If
we were to be honest with the public and to
(05:31):
shout at them about what's alarming, let's say the public
health institutions of America, CDC, f d A, etcetera. What
would they shout at us, If they were being accurate
to reality, they would say, Um, accidents in the home
a major killer. Millions of you will suffer these this week,
and three thousand of you will die. That's exactly true,
(05:53):
accidents in the home. However, because we know that accidents
in the home are slightly under our control, because we
know that they are not new, we tend to be
less afraid of them than of any of the things
you mentioned. Uh, the newest virus you know at the moment,
for example, while while COVID is a current variant that
(06:16):
is not particularly serious for the overwhelming majority of people,
people your age and even my age, I'm sixty eight. Uh.
The average age of death from the very beginning back
in two thousand twenty was one. In Canada. This will
be an interesting fact. In Canada, sevent of all the
people whose deaths were attributed to COVID they lived in
(06:37):
nursing homes. They were nursing home residents. So right away
you could say, if I'm not a nursing home resident, um,
I have a massively greater chance of surviving this virus
than if I am a nursing home resident. And what
kills nursing home residents, by the way, everything they're they're
generally to die. Right in Los Angeles County, the average
(07:00):
term of residency in a nursing home is less than
six months. So when you say you've got a lot
of deaths and you attribute them to COVID, for example,
and the majority of them are in nursing homes, you
basically can begin to and this is my answer to
your question, exclude yourself from the likely candidates for that outcome.
(07:23):
There are two forms of fear anxiety isn't even on
the list. By the way, anxiety is not a fear.
Anxiety and worry are a different thing, different part of
the brain, different part of the heart. But there are
two forms of fear. One that's enormously valuable, and that
is true fear. True fear is a signal in the
presence of danger. That means I see it, I hear it,
(07:44):
I feel it, I taste it, I perceive it. It's
a signal in the presence of danger lying right there,
snake right there. I need to know that information. Unwarranted
fear is not based on your senses. It is always
based on your imagination or your memory. So I share
this example with you. You're at the airport, you're boarding
(08:04):
a plane, and you think, don't get on that plane.
That I don't I don't feel good about that flight.
I don't want to do it. I don't want to
do it. So you can you can ask yourself what
is the cause of that fear. Is it, uh, something
you saw on the news about an airplane crash in
Brazil three months ago, in which case it's in your
imagination or your memory, or is it because you just
(08:26):
saw the two pilots stumbling out of the bar and
wobbling their way onto the aircraft. That would be in
your environment. That would be something you sense, and that
would be true fear. So the difference between true fear
and unwarranted fear is the answer to your question, which
is could it happened that we would have nuclear war?
For example? Could it happen? Is never the question to
(08:49):
ask could it happen? We always know the answer. I
can give you the answer for every good question right now. Yes,
yes you can have heart failure right now, Yes you
could it, absolutely. But the question we all ask in
our lives is what's most likely? What's most likely to happen.
I'm gonna give you one last example in the longest
answer in podcast history, I don't think so oh oh,
(09:13):
you must have had somebody even more longer. I think
my third question is going to have a longer answer,
But go ahead. I'm gonna get ready, I'll have a
I'll have a brief break between now and then. Um,
the in your home, in anybody's home, any viewer or
listener of the podcast. Uh. We know that helicopters could
land on the roof with intruders who could core through
(09:35):
the ceiling and lower themselves with ropes into our apartment
or home. That could happen, but we've made the decision
that a more likely area of entry is the front
door or the front window, so we put locks on
the front door and the front window. My point there
is that could is simply always the wrong question when
it comes to safety, because we have to be able
(09:59):
to to act every day and and face life, and
life itself is a sexually transmitted, always fatal condition. Everybody dies,
and the question we have to ask ourselves is not
how shall we die, but how shall we live? And
(10:21):
that's the choice. And so we do have to set
aside risks. To fly to the moon. As an astronaut,
I have to set aside the risk of getting on
top of a giant uh, you know, a bag of
fuel and lighting the match, which is basically what a
rocket is. To build that bridge, I have to set
aside the risk of crossing that big expanse of water
(10:41):
and the bridge that you drive over, often yourself. Brooklyn
Bridge and others. People died building those bridges, all of them,
and so it they had to set aside risks and
and take risks and and and still act you know,
as a parent, we have to you know, we're walking
around almost like our hearts are outside our bodies. These
(11:02):
these children we care about so much, and yet we
have to say, Okay, you can go, you can go
on that thing, you're old enough to cross that street,
you can ride that bicycle. We know, of course all
variety of injury can come to them, as it can
come to us, but we we act with courage and
almost done. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage
(11:25):
is acting in the face of fear. I know something,
I'm doing a podcast. I could make a terrible mistake
and be canceled for something I say. But I'm acting anyway,
and I'm not unafraid of the mistakes I might make
or you might make her who knows what may happen.
But I'm willing to act in the face of those fears.
That's courage, and that I would say that I do
(11:48):
that with my children. I don't want my daughter to
go out at ten o'clock at night to a party downtown.
But if I don't let her go and she doesn't
go out and experience the world, I'll stimately I'm not
helping her, even though I saw the the movie Abducted
or whatever it was called. I mean, I feel like
everything on streaming right now starts with a dead white girl.
(12:11):
So you know, my my fears are always with my daughters.
Oh my god, something's going to happen. So but I
try to override that. Um. I do want to talk
about the media with you, because you do. You've talked
a lot in your book, particularly about using fear to
get people to watch. And I feel like it's everywhere
(12:32):
everywhere I look. When I try to escape and watch
something on TV, it it makes me scared. And I
don't know, should we turn off the news? Should we
only watch Seinfeld? Um? How do we find a constructive
balance between everything that is we're inundated by on a
(12:54):
day to day basis with the media. All right, So
a couple of things. One is that I do believe
that the news media, and particularly television and particularly local news,
is very bad for people when it comes to getting information.
I encourage people to choose their avenue for going and
getting the information. Meaning the Internet is so remarkable, with
(13:15):
all its failings. It's so remarkable that I could say, oh,
I'm a little interested today in the homicide rate in Sweden.
I can go find that information, but if I wait
for the local news to scream it at me and
spray it at me, it will be presented in the
most alarming way possible. Years ago, I used to joke that, uh,
the Channel two News ought to say, welcome to the
(13:35):
Channel two News. We're surprised you made it through another day,
and here's what happened to those that didn't, and then
they would give you the death litany all the ways
in which people died. And so you know, years ago
there was a big earthquake in l A. And after
the earthquake there was all kinds of news media reports,
was this the big one? What about if the big
one comes? And one of my favorites was on CBS
(13:59):
uh k n x T I think was the CBS
affiliate in Los Angeles, and it said what would have
happened if the earthquake had also caused a tsunami? And
they had Los Angeles graphics showing waves going over forty
story buildings in downtown l A. And my first thought was,
if there had been a tsunami, we wouldn't have to
pick up all this glass that we were sweeping around
(14:20):
our House. That was the funny part. The not funny
part was that they did a graphic and they showed
you what Los Angeles would be like if if if, if,
if could could could could, And so that is bad
for us. That very element is bad for us. And
I think one thing that's going on now that is
new and particularly destructive, and we see it probably most
(14:42):
of all with public health issues is that the government
and the news media are aligned. Now, you could say
how nice, but of course the history of the value
of the news media was to ask tough questions of
an Anthony Fauci or a doctor more La, the CEO
of Viser. Whenever prior to this time did the news
(15:06):
media say, oh, okay, okay, great viser, Sure we like it, Yeah,
that's a good enough for us. There'd be questions. There'd
be a lot of questions, and there'd be a lot
of press conferences, and there'd be people refusing to attend
press conferences and people reporting on that. And there is
something about public health and pharma that somehow takes the
(15:27):
spine and the legs out of the news media. And
that's something might include the fact that between seventy and
of cable news channels are sponsored by Visor and other
pharma companies. That's a problem. Uh. And so it's why
is it a problem? Because it does incline you to
(15:49):
not want to begin your telecast today with all the
failings in a clinical trial if you feel there wordy
for example. And so what we're seeing is, I is
there more fear because at the current moment we don't
have an advocate in the news media or in the
government balancing the only thing we get. So, for example,
(16:11):
politicians starting with Trump going through Biden um talk about
the big story of our lives, which is this pandemic
probably the biggest event in world history. And I don't
mean because of COVID, I mean because of government reaction lockdowns.
When you have billions of people affected in terms of
their day to day lives, that's a big deal. So
(16:34):
that issue that I'm that I'm zeroing in on, which
is that normally you had government saying here's the new
thing to be afraid of, and I a politician, I'm
going to fix this for you, and you've got to
be aware of it. Blah blah blah. Historically, governments throughout
human history have used fear to control populations, it's either
(16:54):
fear of the other, the bad guys in the next village,
or it's fear of internal uh risks like terrorism. But
whatever it is, that's what governments do. They use fear
to control conduct and behavior. So, if you imagine, to
put it in very simple terms, the king and the queen,
they're looking over the castle wall, and there's always a
(17:15):
castle wall. They're not walking around with everybody else for
good reason. And they look over and they see the
population is fighting with each other, and that is good news.
They high five each other, because the only bad news
for the king and the queen is when everybody feels
the same way. That's when you get real change. That's
when you get Tunisia or Egypt or the Arab sprint.
(17:37):
And so at the current moment, the division that we see,
and it is profound. It is civil war profound. The
division that we see. That division is encouraged by those
in power. It is not discouraged. And I say those
in power doesn't mean just an administration. I mean a government.
Administrations come and go, government stays. And so when you
(17:58):
have government doing what governments do they never haven't, which
is used fear to control populations. And to and to
influence events. And you also have the news media doing it,
which they always have, but they were a check in
balance prior to this moment. The challenge there is that
at the moment we are being hit with fear from
(18:19):
government and media and they're not in conflict, they are aligned.
COVID is the worst thing in world history. It ain't
not even close. Uh lockdowns are good, they ain't not
even close. So anyway, my, my, my, My ending to
this answer is that fear is worse today for everyone
(18:40):
than it was two and a half years ago. In fact,
I would add sounds like a politician, but everything is
worse than it was two and a half years ago.
And so you don't you don't see the King and
Queen looking down and seeing this polarized political parties um
as a good thing? Now do you know? It's it's
(19:01):
like you said, there's civil unrest. Do you think that's
a good thing or a bad thing? Well? I think
it's a bad thing, But I assure you politicians think
it's a good thing. Uh, leaders and and people in
the White House that comes and goes. Of course, I'm
sixty eight, so you get a fair number of people
coming and going in the White House, and it's and
you see that it's not all about them people in power,
(19:22):
like division among the population period that includes the news media,
who would have very little to report. CNN would have
even less viewership than it has now. Fox would have
even less viewership than it has now if they didn't
have the the stridency of their disagreements. Uh. And the
and the division. The division is good for business. It
(19:44):
is extremely bad for the citizens. However, extremely bad because
we are social animals. And yet what's happened in the
last two and a half years that, in my view,
must never happen again, is the ability for direct communication
from power to the individual news media or direct communication
from controlled power social media to the individual, and not
(20:08):
a whole lot of communication among each other. So all
we're left with is our controversies. Whereas when we're allowed
to be together, concert, beach, shopping, uh event, we are
at our best. So that's their thing, that's okay, But
you don't give them the central position in our lives,
(20:30):
top of the news, top of the White House all day,
twenty four hours. When you do that for any one topic,
we suffer. It could be a war, it could be crime.
Anything that you make one topic. That's not what life
is like. There's a lot more to come after the
short break and we're back. I read your book a
(21:01):
while ago, but I remember thinking, yes, I'm somebody that
sees a serial rapist on the news and I'm convinced
he's out right outside my door, when in fact it's
a guy in you know, northern California who's three thousand
miles away from me. But yet I kind of and
I think a lot of people do this. You make
(21:22):
it about you, You put yourself in that scenario, in
that creative, you know, image that you have. UM. But
I want to talk about spousal homicide because you say
you can actually predict the violence that is imminent. Yeah,
pre incident indicators. But I do just want to say
quickly because you said, I say it's it's predictable. Yes,
(21:45):
I think it's the most predictable serious crime in our
lives that that never happens. Where everybody says or the
victim says, well, I had no idea that was coming.
Bob just came home and killed me. That's not what's
going on. She's been afraid, she's been concerned. There have
been police calls, there have been visits. You know, he
had usually witnessed violence in his childhood. He uh, he
(22:07):
made threats, He used weapons as an instrument of power.
He glorified weapons. He broke things in the house, which
is called symbolic violence. He you know, tore up the
picture that she was in. He tore up the wedding gown. Um,
she showed up at work wearing sunglasses. On and on
and on and on. It is never uh that. It's
(22:27):
the example I use as you have two wolves on
a mountain path somewhere and they meet each other face
to face, and one the ears go back, and the
tail gets big, and the hair goes up on their neck,
and a low growl starts, and then one attacks the other.
The victim wolf never says, oh, I had no idea
that was coming. All the signals have been exchanged, and
(22:49):
human beings are no different. Do you think you can
predict violence not only in a spousal homicide, but can
you predict violence in so many different other scenarios? Like
could you tell me if there's gonna be a lot
of civil unrest? It's true different each kind of prediction,
(23:09):
and there are many that society makes. Is this employee
gonna work out well for me? Is this boyfriend going
to turn out to be a great guy or a
dangerous guy? Is this pilot gonna do a good job? Etcetera.
And what people often say is, well, you never know
about people. And who says that is the principle of
the school that hired the teacher who molested the kids, Oh, well,
(23:30):
you never know about people. Um, going directly to your question.
The years ago, when I used to give speeches, I
would ask the audience, is there anybody here who is
at this talk today and had had to have childcare
arranged in order to be here? And several hundred people
would raise their hands, and I would say, is there
anybody here who's not fully comfortable with the child care
(23:52):
that they've arranged? And a bunch of people would raise
their hands, and I would say, go home. Yeah, you know,
this is not where you want to be. But when
I interviewed people in the audience, invariably the people who
told me I am absolutely comfortable with my child care,
they say, we love her, we consider her a member
of our family, we trust her completely. They don't say, well,
(24:13):
you never know about people. They have a strong feeling
of certainty about it. And when you have a strong
feeling of certainty in either direction, that's meaningful. The prediction
you asked me about, can we predict social unrest, Well,
it couldn't be easier to predict because we already have
social unrest. We've had sixteen thousand, thousand demonstrations since the
(24:37):
beginning of lockdowns in the United States, so you already have.
You'd have to describe Los Angeles as a being in
a state of social unrest, between homelessness, between crime. It's
not all organized social unrest, like they're all standing in
the same place holding the same sign. But the universal
(24:57):
pre incident indicator for violence, there is a universal pre
incident indicator. It's always present, and that is misery. Yeah.
The person who comes to school uh and shoots up
his former students or former teachers, the person who comes
to work and shoots up as co workers. These are
people in misery. They are alienated, they are in need,
(25:20):
they are suffering, and so that is always present. Otherwise,
human beings don't don't kill each other. There are very
minor exceptions to that, which includes soldiers and police officers
and people who we accept all right, that's a killing
we brought into But the the pilot in the Middle
(25:41):
East who kills a group of people on the ground
with a missile, and the terrorist who comes to New
York City and flies an airplane into a building, they're
making the same kind of rationalization for killing. One is
not a monster and the other one a saint. Both
are deciding, based on the narrative in their heads that
(26:04):
this is justified. So justification is the key. January six
justified in the in the minds of the people who
showed up to demonstrate outside the capital uh Minneapolis. All
the fires and riots and looting, justified in the minds
of people who were reacting to the death of George Floyd.
(26:26):
And so justification is a key component. Um. I think
about a lot of our politicians now, I would guess
there are a lot more death threats on our congressmen
and women and our senators than ever before. That's true,
that's true. Okay, that's what I thought. Um. And yet
(26:47):
yet the government doesn't pay to have them have any security.
That's that's that's that's not correct. The security is now
provided to more public officials than at any time in
our history. It used to be that the Secretary of
the Interior had a driver, but he didn't have bodyguards.
Now every member of the cabinet has bodyguards assigned in
(27:10):
the In the Senate, you have the Speaker of the
House has a full time protective detail. Vice President, vice
president's family, President president's family, former presidents, former president's family,
Secretary of State, on and on and on. But can
we provide it to thirty five members of Congress. No,
we can't do it. I mean, what do do you
(27:31):
want to do? You want to spend billions of dollars
protecting people who go into public life. And one of
the risks of public life, be it the small town
mayor or the president, is that you're going to uh,
You're going to encounter people who are angry, people who
are hostile, mentally ill. People that goes with public life. Now,
(27:51):
I support protection for presidents, even though mayors get attacked
more often than presidents. Oh yes, and a bunch of
mayors have been shot and killed. And there you know
where they live, and they live in your town and
you're piste off about what happened with your building permit
and you show up at the mayor's house. Um, and so.
But but I don't think we can we can solve
(28:12):
that problem with bodyguards. Uh, look what we're already doing
a few billion dollars now being spent after January six
on on fences and all variety of physical changes for
this very small facility. It's only a few acres the
US capital. Um, do we need to do it? Well,
we have had one event in our history that would
(28:34):
tell us that we need to do it, But it doesn't.
It's not a good direction to move in because what
happens is when every federal building is bulletproof, and every
federal building has a you know, five yard space around
it with ballers that you can't drive a truck toward it, etcetera, etcetera. Um,
it's a different kind of future, and it is letting individuals.
(28:55):
We had the you know, the bombing in Oklahoma City
of the Federal building. Now, teen children died that in
that bombing because there was a child care facility there.
But nineteen children die every week killed by a parent
in the United States. And so we have to sort
of balance, and unfortunately politics doesn't balance very well because
(29:16):
politics talks about what's got our attention. You said the
rapist in the park. You know, those stories are so
interesting Because I'm here in such and such park, Candlestick Park,
where yesterday the serial rapist was arrested, and I'm interviewing
a woman. I'm terrified to go in the park. Wait
a second, back up, he was arrested yesterday. There's one
less rapist. It's better than it was before. And yet,
(29:39):
as human beings, and as you said, you do naturally
we put ourselves in that circumstance and we think, I
don't want to go to that park. But when we
do that, now the park becomes less occupied. Look at
New York City. New York City is safe and was
much safer years ago because we occupied it. We were
out there on the streets, we were out there in
the parts, we were using the space. As soon as
(30:02):
we stop using the space, the only people left are
criminals and victims. That's what happens in city and LA
has its version. In l A, we have something called
fort Apache architecture. Fort Apache is a is a concept
that says that in the Old West you used to
scurry through the Indian territory to get to the next fort,
(30:23):
and you'd only be safe if you were in the fort.
So we surrendered all the land outside the forts Los Angeles,
the Beverly Center, big center, tiny little door to go in,
the Bondaventure Hotel downtown, big glass building, tiny little door
to go in. When you go in, wow, beautiful atrium, plants, fantastic,
but outside ship. And so when we do that, we
(30:44):
go through our gated to state, We get in our car,
we drive through the dangerous park, we pull into the
Beverly Center, and then we're okay. But what we're doing
is surrendering two criminals all the other space, two criminals
and poor people ultimately who suffered the most and who
are the predominantly the victims of homicides and crimes. So
(31:04):
we need to be brave. We need to do what
Israel does. Israel has a bus is blown up, and
the next day people are lining up to ride that
next bus on the same route. What does America, doing
the same circumstance, put our guards on the bus, make
the bus bulletproof, change the bus, don't take the bus,
(31:27):
of course, and uh and you know next up people
who took the bus and their funerals and blah blah blah.
So yeah, it's a it's a challenge. Look, it's a challenge,
but we've never what's changed in world history? You asked
me about the King and Queen? And do people still
like division? They love it? Yes, politicians, please more. But
what's changed is over a thousand years ago with the
(31:48):
King and Queen. Is this electronic business we're on right now?
What's changed is the ability to speak globally and influence
news globally. Facebook takes off hate speech, for example. Ain't
that great? But do we want Facebook deciding what's hate
speech or what's got to be said or what's I
don't not at all. I prefer that the solution to
(32:12):
speech we don't like is speech we do like. I
prefer that method, and that's how you and I grew
up most of our lives. Of Course, people are going
to say ship you don't like. Of course they are,
and they usually suffer for it. And it's time for
a short break. Welcome back to go ask Ali. So.
(32:41):
I didn't know the difference between intuition and fear until
I was living in Los Angeles and I was attacked
by a gang and they robbed me and they threw
me up against the car they were preparing to gang
rate me. They were lining up, they were came my
clothes off and then started screaming at each other in
(33:03):
Spanish and then tried to push me in the car.
And I was in a complete submissive state. I was
going to do exactly what they told me to do,
and I was shut down. I mean it was a
survival thing of just completely shutting down, leaving my body.
And at one point I looked over at this guy
that I was with when we were both attacked, and
(33:24):
he mouthed to me, don't get in. And it hit
me on such a visceral level, and it immediately my
instinct was if I get in this car, I'm going
to be killed. And I turned around and I ran
as fast as I could. Two of the gang members
chased me, couldn't catch me. You know, long story short,
(33:44):
I tried to I stopped some cars. My friend was
being stabbed but survived. But this experience taught me that
I that a part of me that I wasn't even
aware of, which I call my gut, said to me,
in its most survivalist way, run basically run. And so
(34:07):
that's what I you know, that's uh, I don't know
how you I mean, you could term it better than me,
but it's almost like survival. It's my my survival gut
or that voice or tendency. It's not really fight or flight.
It's more, um, you've got your hyper instinctual about a situation.
(34:32):
It's true, and it's it's really at the center of
my work is intuition. And when I was writing Gift
of Fear, the the word I learned the origin of
the word is in tear, which means to guard and
to protect. And you mentioned your gut. The gut actually
has neurons. It has more neurons, more brain cells in
effect than a dog has. It has a great deal
(34:54):
of intelligence, and it has intelligence that's unfiltered when when
it's up here we filter it. Oh, I don't want
to be that kind person. I'll just get in the
elevator with that scary guy and so we get into
a steel, sound proof chamber with somebody we're afraid of.
No other animal in nature would do that. So I
think that when I'm a big believer in listening to intuition,
and intuition says, in effect, shut up and do exactly
(35:15):
what I tell you, and I'll get you out of here.
And sometimes it's counterintuitive, Like you were told, always cooperate
with people or they'll kill you. Know, very often that's
exactly the opposite of true. And so the the the
experience you just recounted to me reminds me of a
woman I interviewed where she said, uh that. She said
it was like an animal uncoiled inside me, and I
(35:38):
was a passenger on my own legs, meaning the thing
was happening, and the there's a woman I interviewed who
was attacked with her six year old daughter. She'd put
in the car and she had to get around the
car and get into the driver's seat. And she as
she got into the driver's seat, the guy was upon
her and he was trying to hold her legs, and
(35:59):
she heard the in her mind car key, and she thought,
I don't want to be the kind of person who
sticks a key in this guy's eye. But amazingly she
had already done it, and the car door had already
closed and she had already driven away, and then she said, um, gee,
at least I didn't, you know, stick him in both eyes.
And then she realized she had done that too. Boom boom,
(36:22):
And so intuition had handled the whole situation. So I'm
a big believer in intuition, and I believe that it
is our nuclear defense system. Nature has made such a
huge investment in human beings, every one of us, with
these millions of neurons and this remarkable system that we are,
and this shared collective genius and the individual genius that
(36:43):
there's no way your daughters were built as the most
recent model of human being without a defense system, and
they have a nuclear defense system. And that is intuition.
Intuition is just the communication method by which you get
the signal for your survivor. So how does intuition speak
with us? It speaks with us through gut feelings, through um,
(37:06):
through hunches, through suspicion. Uh, that is an interesting word
to suspicion, because suspicion people think, oh, I don't want
to be suspicious of somebody. But all it means the
words suspice are the root. It means to watch. It
just means watch, just means pay attention. So fear is
one of the signals of intuition. It's the one that's
hardest to ignore because we feel terrible and and it
(37:29):
gets our attention. But there are many signals of intuition, hunches,
gut feelings. Curiosity is a signal of intuition, like why
did I and then you get the idea and you
don't go in that underground parking lot. So the key
is to listen to it, to listen to intuition and
give it a voice and let it, don't prosecute it,
and send it on its way. That's what we do
(37:49):
a lot. Oh, I don't want to be like that.
I'm gonna get in this elevator or this is a
this is a very sophisticated hospital, the Sisters of Mercy.
For Christ's sake, I should listen to the doctor, not
if you think you should, not if you have a
strong feeling that says whoa, whoa, wha, not this guy.
And there's a bunch of stories in my book of
people who did listen to doctors who were doing surgery
on their kids and regretted it because they had the
(38:11):
feeling not this doctor. Is it okay to take your kid,
get in the car and go home. Yes? Is it
okay to stand in line at the at the clinic
or hospital for some treatment and feel I'll change my mind? Yes,
you can do that. You can do that, and I
do want to be sure at some time that there
is that I tell everybody there is a Gift of
(38:31):
Fear master Class series that's available for free at Gift
of Fear dot com. I'm not charging anybody for it's
it's ten episodes long. I'm very proud of it. It's
interviewing a lot of people who prevailed through violence, and um,
and I can. I can plug it mercilessly because it's free. Um.
Not everybody reads books, and not everybody has time to
(38:53):
read books, and so Gift to Fear is a great book.
It's out there. Uh. But the Gift of Fear master
Class series is I really aimed at younger people who
could absorb it in in video form, and it's Gift
of Fear dot com. That's it. End of the plug,
which is great. It's a perfect way to end the
podcast before we go. You know, I ask in my
(39:19):
podcast lots and lots of questions to my guests, and
then I get to turn around and you get to
ask me anything, my my cupcake recipe, whatever you want.
So what would you like to ask me? Thank you
so much. It's not about cupcake recipe. I have no
interest in baking, but I love banana bread that my
wife makes. That's a plug for our banana bread. My
(39:39):
question for you has to do with the news media also,
but in a in a very specific sense. How do
you deal with disagreement with your um, your husband, with George?
How do you deal with disagreement when you see something differently,
when you feel differently about it, how do you deal
(40:00):
with it? Well, when we first got married, how we
dealt with it was I thought, well, he's a Rhodes scholar,
so he probably knows better than me. That didn't last
very long. And now I think, I mean, I think
that our fundamental beliefs are the same. I don't you know,
we're not a James Carvill Mary Matlin. You know, we
(40:20):
don't fight over politics. I would say that George is
incredibly receptive to conversation, UM, but we we rarely disagree.
There are times where I'm more of an alarmist about things.
You know, I just a week ago, you know, I
was hearing from people, Oh my god, you know, nuclear
war missiles North Korea, Uh, you know Putin And people
(40:44):
are like, you know, we're gonna go live in Portugal
or we're gonna go to Malta. And I was eating
dinner with George and I looked over at him and
I said, so, what are we going to do in
case of a nuclear war? And George just looked at
me and he said, We're going to die. And I said, oh,
shouldn't we be planning anything? Is No, I think it's
better we just die. And then I was like somewhat calmed,
(41:06):
and you know, finished my meat loaf. But so we
do listen to each other, you know. And if I
have a very and I've had very strong opinions, um,
he knows when that tone and that passion comes out
of me that I'm serious. And usually I'm right. When
I get to that heightened state, I'm usually right. That's intuition.
(41:31):
That that's intuition usually and and true for my wife
and me too. And I just want to say, you
said your values are aligned, and that's at the core
of this issue of public division, because in fact, if
we knew the values of those terrible people we judge, um,
we would find they are also aligned. The reality is
(41:52):
that the people in those countries, and the people in
the South, and the people who voted for Trump, and
the people of this. The people of that all care
about their kids having a good life, all care about
the people they love, all care about being heard and recognized,
all care about being part of something vastly more, as
I write about in Gift of Fear, vastly more we
have in common than we have in contrast. And thank
(42:15):
you for the answer, by the way, that was a
great answer, and I really appreciate and I'm glad you
guys talk about everything. That's a great way to do it.
Because all forbidden speech in relationships is toxic, All forbidden
topics are toxic because we don't actually have a dialogue
and we don't get anywhere. No, I always say to George,
our whole country needs to be in couple therapy. Really, yeah,
it's very true. So anyway, Gavin, thank you very much,
(42:42):
Thank you for listening to go ask Ali. You can
watch his free master class on personal safety at Gift
of Fear dot com and learn more about Gavin and
his company at g d b A dot com. For
more info and what you've heard in this episode, and
for link to Gavin's book, The Gift of Fear, check
out our show notes. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and
(43:02):
review go ask Alli and follow me on Instagram at
the Real Ali Wentworth Now. If you'd like to ask
me a question or suggest a guest or a topic
to dig into, I would love to hear from you,
and there's a bunch of ways you can do it.
You can call or text me at three to three
four six three six, or you can email a voice
memo right from your phone to Go ask Alli Podcasts
(43:22):
at gmail dot com. And if you leave a question,
you just might hear it. I'm go ask Alli. Go
ask Alli is a production of Shonda land Audio and
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(43:44):
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