'No' is a complete sentence.

After I read this book I became aware that when I say no and the person persists, this person does not respect me or does not respect no and this disrespectful person is not welcome in my life. Excluding close friends or relatives of course.

"When a man says, "No", it's the end of a discussion. When a woman says, "No", its the beginning of a negotiation. "There was an illusion that news was a public service; it is a business." -- Gavin de Becker

this book is seminal. it saved my life from an abusive boyfriend. Mr. DeBecker is a hero and a treasure.

I saw this man on Oprah years ago and his message about not being polite if it puts you in danger is something everyone, especially women, need to take to heart. If you offend an innocent person it will momentarily put them ill at ease but they'll get over it and continue to live their life. If you give a real threat the benefit of the doubt, it could be the end of your life.

Women often feel internal pressure to “be nice” and not “hurt other people’s feelings”. I was once walking on a city street in a neighborhood and saw that my route would take me past an underground parking garage. As I looked ahead, there was a man standing at the edge of the entrance to the underground garage. My first thought was this: “hmm that could be a dangerous situation for me. I will need to walk right past him and the proximity to the garage would mean if he grabbed me I could be quickly hidden from any help.” A slightly secondary thought was that also seemed somewhat “off” to me that a grown man was simply standing there. Not walking; just loitering at a public parking garage. So that was my first and second thought. My NEXT thought however (the logical brain” was, thought it would be would be an easy precaution for me to just cross to the other side of the street to continue my journey ; then I wouldn’t be within grabbing distance.. But my third thought that followed quickly after was, “ oh but what if he sees me cross the street and I hurt his feelings by implying that I thought it was dangerous to walk past him.” Further complicating this, I am a white woman and this guy was black… so the “cost” to me was to appear racist. When actually the race of the man wasn’t my concern it was the weirdness of his loitering on the street in the middle of the day, and the choice to loiter literally in the shadow of a dark underground parking structure… In the end, I faced my own chagrin and fear of possibly offending him and thought, “Well, it’s a bad situation. It’s understandable to feel nervous” and I gave myself PERMISSION to risk offending him by crossing over to the farther side of the street… the whole time feeling bad that he might think it was personal but telling myself that the downside of being “wrong” and being over fearful was far less than the downside of possibly offending an innocent guy… Telllimf myself that because the situation was clearly so sketchy that any truest decent guy would understand that it’s not personal but just “single woman walking” protocol… I took the “risk” of overreaction and crossed. As I did, the guy jumped up and started shaking his fist at me and YELLING in anger, “You crossed the street because I’m black didn’t you? How dare you! Come back here!” And started after me. I was flabbergasted. Even in my fear of social embarrassment I hadn’t expected this. But it confirmed my intuition that he had ill intent. I ducked into a salon and asked the girls there if I could wait for a bit. They were fine w that and I waited until he passed by before proceeding to my apartment. Knowing that I didn’t want to give him a blueprint for how to find my house. It was really terrifying. And when I think of how much agony I went into worrying about “hurting his feelings” when clearly he had no regard for my fear of the context and the greater risk that women face, and frankly his entitlement evidenced by his willingness to yell at me for taking the most basic of safety precautions, revealed that removing myself from proximity to him was the best decision I could have made.

This reminds me of a gut feeling I had about a guy years ago. A girl that I befriended at work was seeing a guy for about a year and a half. I finally met the guy one day when me and a couple of other friends went to his house to pick her up to go out on a girls night out. We were invited in the house and as soon as I met him my gut instinct told me this was a bad person and I was creeped out. When I told my friend about it the next day she got upset with me and said you just met him so you just don't know him. Well they did eventually break up and went their separate ways and I was happy. Then approx a year later he started dating another girl and she broke up with him. He went to her house and waited for her to come out. When she was walking down the driveway to her car to go to work he got out of his truck and shot her dead. A neighbor witnessed it and called the police. They surrounded his house and he killed himself. When I saw it on the news my first thought was, I knew that guy was bad, I just felt it.

I knew this man and worked with him in Los Angeles in the early 80’s. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for him.

Gavin de Becker’s seminal The Gift of Fear is one of the most valuable and, truly, essential nonfiction books of the past 100 years or more. I have read it multiple times and every time I get more and more from it. Every person in the world should read it, ESPECIALLY women. He covers death threats, domestic violence homicides, violence by children, workplace violence, and most importantly, ties it all together with the most important resource we all have: intuition. As an autistic person who has struggled with reading people, his book has helped me respect and discover my own intuition, as I always believed I didn’t have one. But I DO! We all do. God bless this man for Having helped so many.

“How do you tell the difference between anxiety and worry and true fear. ...unwarranted fear will always be in response to something you imagine or something you remember. True fear is always based on something in your environment- something you sense.” “If you think of fear as being a brief signal in the presence of danger, then it’s obviously something to listen to.” <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="2019">33:39</a> This man’s truth has gotten me through many situations. Few people talk about these basics today.

I bought the gift of fear at a time that I was being stalked.The book literally was a step by step guide to how this man approached me, try to familiarize himself with me and so on. fantastic book. 18 months on stalking until I finally moved. scared to death.

Niceness is a strategy, a beginning of a negotiation.

Here I am watching this video 8 yrs later and it is timeless. I was down in the park with my dog, now this park is a park you don't go down into unless you have a dog or a friend with you, at the time women were getting sexually assaulted. I'm walking and I see this young girl about 14 yrs old by herself on a swing head down ear phones in oblivious to her surroundings, what do I do, I go right up to her until she realizes I'm standing right in front of her and she jumps because I startled her. I look at her and said do you know anything about this park? No, well I'm going to enlighten you, so I did and then I said you had no idea I was standing right in front of you until a couple of seconds later, this man would have been on you and you would have been assaulted no questions asked. Now you make the decision right now are you going to stay in this park or are you going to leave? She stands up and says sorry, I said those earphones are what's going to get you into trouble, be cognizant of your surrounding is all I'm saying, she said goodbye and I've never seen her again. I can only hope she learned something that day. This is before I read your book. Thank you Mr. De Becker.

bought his book many years ago and immediately bought another one for my sister after reading it. A few years ago, I bought another one for my wife to be. I've been recommending this book to many people. This book can literally save your life.

I believe this should be required in school to the young people whos parents may not teach them. Things and people are NOT always what they seem. You cant assume anything when dealing with people other than alot of the time what people say is entirely different than what they are going to do.

I loved his book. It has taught me to value my gut feelings. Amazingly enough how often do others respond to intuition with "don't feel that way" "you're just being paranoid" or to "act opposite" to what you sense is safe.

See people and things for what they are, not what you wish they were. Best lesson I've ever learned in life. Honestly, I could stand to have a little *less* fear and distrust. Constant fear and anxiety are as destructive as total lack of fear in terms of health effects. Yes, women are conditioned to be "nice" and ignore their intuition, but some of us are just the opposite and can't turn it off. Listen to your gut instincts, but learn to distinguish real danger from pointless anxiety.

BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. .......

This work has helped me from being abducted and re-traumatized by former perpetrators. THANK YOU! I am now teaching a sibling who is not yet free, to help her discover ways to stay and be safe.

The audio quality is quite painful for such a great talk

This talk made me remember an experience when time slowed down like he talked about...it was a time I was walking in an area that wasn't very good, and as I was diagonally crossing the road, two guys that had been coming down the sidewalk also began quickly crossing from the opposite direction so they would hit the sidewalk right where I was headed. Right as I got to them, time went very slowly - like he said, into milliseconds. I "saw" myself very quickly reaching both hands out and hitting them both in the throats with the area between my thumb and forefinger. What actually happened, was I quickly walked between them and nothing happened. But it seems like something very complex happened where my mind rapidly assessed the situation, and they somehow recognized it and decided to leave me alone. Not trying to tell this story to seem like a badass, because I'm not, but to say that it's definitely real that your mind can slow time if needed.

I saw Gavin speak when I was in undergrad...this changed my life!!!! Share this with every woman you love!!!

Have used this in classrooms for many years. The beauty is that grade 6 remembers and ask in grade 11!

As someone who has been around sketchy/crazy/untrustworthy people since age 10 (and abuse before that), this man speaks a lot of truth. Truth you could receive from any decent person who has lived a somewhat "outlaw" life, but still. Self-preservation is, in my view, the strongest force in our collective egregore.

this guy is brilliant, as is his bk. It probably saved my life, from a lunatic stalker....

His book The Gift Of Fear shows us know how important it is to go with our gut.Instincts are never wrong. de Becker is a brilliant man.

One of my favorite books ever. It can save lives. Millions of lives.

*Imagine how many grieving loved ones would give anything to go back in time to tell this to their loved one!*

When you’ve been groomed it’s really hard to judge until it’s close to that cliff, that’s what I’m coping with. I love this book this gentleman is brilliant!

No comment less than an essay could convey how valuable this entire talk is. I've read 'The Gift of Fear'. All I can say is read it at your own pace and take time to digest all of the lessons it offers.

This man is brilliant. I was introduced to 'the gift of fear' over 10 years ago now... I think I need to re-read it.

"Intuition is knowing without knowing why." In the afternoon while parked I had this feeling to push the lock button. I wondered why, because my doors were probably locked, but did it anyway. After that, a man wearing a hood that was pulled nearly closed around his face and a baseball cap walked out of my vehicle's blind spot and beside my door. It was not cold outside. Other odd behavior followed. I am here to say that nothing bad happened because I had read this author's book.

@Marisa Martin that about acting aggressive to "scare" them off really is true and works... I will NEVER forget a night back in 2010 when me and my best friend were heading home after a night out and we got into some car with 2 guys we didnt know (she always loved doing crazy shit like that... I dumped her too after acouple of years of toxic friendship) anyways... The guys had been nice and all but suddenly they left the town area started driving to some harbour, it was quite dezerted from all the clubs/café and party ppl, and they kept switch looks between themselves and looking at us and they started talking on phone on another language... Suddenly I felt everything going in slowmotion... My brain just started going into this survivalmode and without even any plan of anything I whispered to my friend to trust me and play along with me... I dug out my phone and just started rambling things about my cousin going into labour (so not true but my brain just made things up and I didnt even know where it was coming from), I yelled at the guys to stop the car. They hesitated and said we are middle of nowhere?! And I just got "crazy" and started yelling they need to stop now, I have a taxi coming to take us to my cousin... After what seemed like ages, they stopped and I told my friend to run... We started running not knowing what direction an we finally came to train station and we hid behind some statue and I could see the car had reached our destination. We ran inside the station to be surrounded with ppl... I have always had my intuition get me out of what would probably be a dangerous situation so I am so happy... Even if it makes me look crazy... Rather crazy and alive than.... Something else..

One of the most brilliant books I have ever read. The Gift of Fear. Thank you.

Great book...his other book, "Protecting the Gift" (for protecting our children) is also great. As a Marriage and Family Therapist I've shared his book with many women who are in abusive situations. "The Gift of Fear" is a wake up call that makes an impact on them, helping them to see the danger they are in. It is more effective than any amount of "reasoning" with the women, especially two pages where De Becker lists the characteristics of danger, pages 174-175 in the chapter " intimate enemies.

I completely understand what it’s like to be stalked and harassed! No one deserves to experience that kind of fear. I went through this while dealing with a chronic illness and then cancer. Gavin De Becker’s advice...in Gift of Fear...is valuable for an victim like myself.

I have read your book, read it to my classes,told my friends. It has saved my life-- time over time over time. Thirty years! You are amazing! If your not still lecturing, please have someone else! I’ll do it-- am good at it!! Taught for 40 yrs!

Read his book years ago after it was recommended by a martial arts teacher to me. Currently rereading it. Very valuable book, and I say that as a relatively young man.

Whenever I'm walking alone and I feel someone walking behind me, I'm not afraid to look behind me/cross the street/pinpoint immediately someone else who would hear me if I screamed. My friend was followed twice, and one of the times she walked to her nearest neighbors house and went up to her door to ring the bell. They were thankfully home and let her stay till the car left. Don't be afraid to go up to a strangers house if your scared. As long as you think someone's home, it would be ideal to tell them if you could go inside because you think your being followed. Best to be mistaken then kidnapped.

Lovell was right, this guy is freaking amazing

as a mercedes mechanic i frequently come in contact with predators. when my body feels uncomfortable i take notice and stop. then I stop being polite. Sometimes when I know I am dealing with a predator i change my body posture into a fighting posture. I don't say anything but they see that I am taking notice of them and my body is saying I am ready for violence. this simple act has saved my ass many times. when something feels wrong I know there is something wrong. I stop being polite and start being forceful. sometimes just staring at someone with dead cold eyes is more than enough to warn them I will not make a good victim and it is them who is in danger. I had 2 men half my age and twice my size charge me to attack me and instinct took over and I charged them and exploded in rage. the sht that came from my mouth I have never heard before. these punks backed down really fast and never bothered me again. I have been a victim of narcissistic abuse and when I learned what it was my life has completely changed. i now know how to spot these creatures and how to deal with them.

De Becker we need more of your Lecture/ talks! This information should be available globally.

ABSOLUTELY one of the best books I've read. I've given it to a few people as well. Recommend it to everyone, but especially to women. Give it to your daughters, your sisters, anyone you care about. Just checked out his book on protecting kids and teens from the library (I don't have any but work in an environment where they are around) and the very first story he told here, was the first thing presented in the book. I'm thinking I need to buy that book as well.

He is a great salesman! I listened him on the Art of Charm Podcast and consider I learned a lot!

The book is such a treasure! Thank you so much! People need to read it!

BRILLIANT. he always has such great insight

Every woman should buy his book The Gift of Fear.

I listened to his podcast with Sam Harris today, brilliant!

There was a time I was driving and it was a pleasant drive, wasn't rush hour, no one was driving wildly, everything good and I had no reason to have a strange feeling. I pull up to the intersection and it's a red light. I remember looking away from the traffic and light and specifically thinking, "I'm going to get into a car accident today." I look back at the light, I drive across the intersection, before crossing it completely, I instantly get T-Boned and my car is totaled. Isn't that just out of this world?

He knows he is saving lives

just got this book..can't wait to start reading it!

My thanks to Mr. de Becker for his book The Gift of Fear for a number of reasons including acknowledging the importance of intuition which has been dismissed by the devotees of Logos. Mr de Beckers' insights, which I have applied have spared me in some situations which would not have had a positive outcome. I for one am thankful for his book and presentations.

Is the audio quality terrible for anyone else?

Every 4 hours … crikey 😢😢😢 and this is a global issue. Every woman and child should read this book. I’ve only just discovered this man and the book is on order. I should have read this book years ago. It would have saved me allot of bother.

Anyone who would give this excellent video a thumbs down are those who are VIOLENT AND VICTIMIZE OTHERS. They don't want you to know the tactics they use to victimize a vulnerable human being.

Fantastic Book, "The Gift Of Fear" listening to your intuition can save your life!

I love your book. Especially the part about the intuitive button.

Intuition is simply non empirical information....its still information. Great information!

Love, love, love your book!

great video. Thank you SFC.

+Ming OnMongo What he wants his readers to be is more educated in the way of avoiding being a victim of violence. In the case of the young girl on the airplane, she was acting polite, perhaps due to social conditioning, and giving the guy too much freedom to take over. She was ignoring her intuition.

This content saves lives.

A definite favorite book of mine. I have read this over two dozen times and everytime you reread you'll get even better insight and awareness alertness as well as imperative critical thinking and plan implemention as well as responsive or reactive. God bless

Amazing, absolutely Amazing, Thank you !

Thank you Sir!

It’s GAVIN DeBecker. I read his book, The Gift of Fear, years ago. It’s brilliant.

This man is brilliant!!!

Gavin, i have one of your books on fear this one good book read most of it been doing researching a lot of different things just basics of in counters of life I'm retired now, Laura black is a live cause of her intuition it saved her i believe we all have it !!! thank you

Watching from Tulsa Oklahoma and studying with you. This book saved my life.

The constant gas lighting makes us doubt our own perceptions......and they switch so fast back to Mr Nice guy when they sense you are about to leave. And then the guilt tripping and emotional blackmail and threats of suicide. In the end I told my ex it would be the best thing he could do for everybody, but of course he never did commit suicide. But he nearly drove me to homicide and if I hadn't gotten out when I did.......

Most interesting. Thankyou so much.

Always put your safety first. If they appear, intuitively feel or act dangerous youce got your answer..

Great lecture! Thnx for sharing

"Unwarranted fear is always something based in your imagination." - I want to get this freaking tattooed lol. I am legally federally disabled by OCD, and I find the topic of fear fascinating as such. My psychiatrist, whom I adore and have worked with for almost 8 years now, regularly corrects me when I say I did or didn't so something because I was scared - he says that I was anxious, and that I need to word it that way. I've found that changing my wording, even in my own internal monologue, has helped me tremendously. But honestly, I never really took any sort of deep dive on the true divide between fear and anxiety. I think Gavin has worded it better than anyone I've ever heard. There are really only three experiences in my life where I felt true mortal fear, one of which was caused by a wild animal. The rest of it, no matter how absolutely traumatic and life-ruining it may have been, was purely an internal playing out of hypothetical scenarios. Of course, that's just part of OCD, but to have this succinct description of the GULF between these two things feels immensely valuable to me in my recovery. I'm buying this book next month :D

Courage is not the absence of fear

You are fabulous! Years ago I read some of your book. Seven yes ago a teenager asked me who you were!

Many stalkers do phone and write their victims threatening to kill them. And then they do kill them.

Though I greatly appreciate this video and what it does offer, there were a few points I was like idk about that. Shannan Watts was told by friends to ignore her feelings when opening up about concerns in her relationship. When you confide in people you trust and they normalize things, it can create self doubt. In some of the texts, she'd seem to have discovered Chris Watts was a cold person yet decided to try and do the work for his role in the relationship as well since she didn't want to be alone with 3 kids. In some circumstances, there are people would literally rather die than be alone or face an unknown fear as such as I've learned listening to women in these situations talk about why they haven't left. Sometimes it's a fear of losing kids and custody, financial and other things. Then of course there are people who do call and threaten to kill someone while actually about to do it or in the house already. So we can't rule out that the phone call means they are far away, they can be on a cell phone outside the home, getting off on creating some extra anxiety if they are sadistic. Predators can come in many forms and behaviors. Often there are people who ignore those threatening phone calls and within the hour the person ends up dead. We can't always know the reason for the warning, or the intention. Whether it's a game of cat and mouse or just empty threats. Better to be safe and take that as a serious threat than to be like oh they are on the phone so they are far away then and I'm not in any imminent danger. Then there is the fact that most women, even those in denial can be aware to some degree of danger that their partner poses in terms of risk and threat. Though those who do not have experience with what all forms of abuse look and start like, may not know how to handle it as they can be duped like that 17 yr old on the plane with the use of clever language. A question concealed by friendliness, a threat concealed by creating self doubt in one's intuitive feeling. Gas-lighting, a skilled manipulator can surpass some people's natural fears where people will think that they are just being 'paranoid' or silly because of the constant news and knowledge that it won't happen to them because they know better, are smart or the guy has a decent side so he's not all bad. Or the guy just really knows what to say because he has done it so many times before and is good at what he does. Knows how to play on the empathy and compassion of people. There's many reasons people are slowly brought to a boil like a frog in a pot and then don't end up jumping out at what seems like obvious signs. Since most people actually think many are inherently good, it leaves them to become victim to have hope in human nature that someone will do the right thing even when they show otherwise. This could be for many reasons not mentioned here, like exhaustion from a previous experience, other trauma experienced which makes them not want to have to deal with another potential danger or have the energy to fight yet another battle. Being made to feel exhausted, becoming pregnant and facing poverty if it means leaving, cultural reasons and so on. It's not always that black and white as he makes it sound on those points. Also being a man you generally will feel a lot safer in the world compared to women. So no doubt this book is written by a man who has privilege in this way to be able to see things with more clarity. It is no secret that many girls are raised to be polite and nice while boys will be boys right. When we stop raising our kids to behave spoiled and not take no for an answer from girls, stop teaching them to prey upon and play the field, breaking hearts to practice for the right one, rather than learning to be the right one, we will continue to raise a lot of boys who become men who can't handle rejection. A female is at risk for being punched in the face for saying NO. Or even being raped or and killed for being yet another to reject a man on a date. So many things as a female is centered around being safe and these things are not mandatory in schools to learn. A lot of it starts when we are 12, 13 yrs old and a lot of the time we get the blame for men's poor attitudes and behavior. Told it's how we look that attracted such events or that there was a vibration we put out to attract that. There is a lot of complexity around things like this not mentioned here but at least videos like this start the conversation. That much is always appreciated. I have lived through and experienced a lot of these things, more than most ever will in a life time. I am living proof of surviving predators using both logic and creativity in becoming a good problem solver in an instant with what I have to work with in the moment. All I'm saying is while he mentions a lot of good points, there is more insight to be shared and viewed on this.

Wow. This is amazing information. Brilliant

Preach brother Gavin👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

This is such an important message from Gavin de Becker, it is my hope that something could be done about the sound quality. It detracts from this message. Also I highly recommend reading his book The Gift of Fear, not only for women but for men as well. We all need to up our game in staying safe.

This was a great talk. Acting on intuition is more effective than a black belt in a martial art.

Thank you Sir for this amazing video 😍

this is amazing - thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!

now he is taking about the different types of denial literally every single thing he says it is like he has me all figured out its insane I will never doubt any of my ideas again (I will of course which is as you know good= more ideas= more futurity) but to hear him say all these things literally my thoughts is utter ly mind blowing like really other people think lived like me like this really?? wow well apparently because hey we are all here right right <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="640">10:40</a>+ just pfffff woah

Excellent Excellent Excellent!!!!

tough crowd with the denial joke

🙂 thank you ..great chat..

I love this man.

Thank you.

Make sure you separate niceness from kindness. As for myself, I don't trust strangers.

Good lord, this talk is more important than ever now. Blessed to have discovered Gavin de Becker today. The news is the single biggest reason the world is going to 💩 in 2022.

I like his description of logic.

about the people that don't let go; they should be put down. seriously!

It would be interesting to hear what his thoughts are now with smartphones, social media, hacking etc .

i sent my daughter the link to this praying she'll give it a look, she's in an abusive relationship currently and doesn't see it totally though she tells us what he does, nothing physical currently, just controlling who she's with, her phone, who she talks to etc. picking her up from school during school etc. and there is diddly i can do legally and she thinks he's the best thing ever and i'm just crazy, called cops 2 days ago on them cause she had an argument with him on the phone, didn't want him to come but he did and i heard him yelling 'get in the car' twice, she left and than didn't answer for like 45 min, so i called 911, she was fine and i'm the ass now and she doesn't want to come home... so lost on this now

Great video.

Saying "I know it" is better than saying "I knew it"..

To guard and protect = safety.

Becker is freakishly brilliant wth wow up to <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="170">2:50</a> only whole world unpacked already