Spotting Danger Before It Spots You

I am a Federal Air Marshal. That's the career path I chose, and for the past nineteen years, I've had a first-class ticket into the world of covert surveillance, surveillance detection, and self-defense. If I had to access all the training I've received throughout my career and pick one essential skill I could pass along to everyone I care about, It would be situational awareness.

Today more than ever, it is imperative that we pay close attention to our surroundings and learn how to interpret what’s happening around us. Tragic events can often be both predictable and preventable.

When people think of situational awareness, they usually relate it to some spy movie they’ve seen.

The methods I outline in this book were forged in the fires of realworld operations, and the lessons they carry were hard-won. The skills you take away from here can save your life if you are willing to put them into practice.

As an agency, we thought we had a pretty good grasp of what the threat was, but in fact, we had become complacent. As we sat back waiting for the next cookie-cutter, standard-issue hijacking, the enemy SPOTTING DANGER BEFORE IT SPOTS YOU 4 was moving right under our noses, surveying targets and conducting dry runs for an attack we had never imagined. The signs were all there, but we missed them because we failed to give up on our old points of view.

Process predators, on the other hand, are much different. Process predators aren’t interested in your watch or wallet; they get off on the act of violence itself. This category of predator includes the likes of rapists and murderers.

NOW I’M GOING TO ASK YOU TO DO SOMETHING that may make you uncomfortable. I need you to take a long, honest look at yourself and evaluate what you see based upon what you’ve learned regarding the predatorial mindset.

MY PERSONAL DEFINITION OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS is this: the ability to identify and process environmental cues to accurately predict the actions of others. When most people think of situational awareness, they probably think of someone sitting with their back to the wall in a restaurant or constantly looking over their shoulder, but real situational awareness goes quite a bit deeper than that. It involves equal measures of comprehension, planning, and intuition. In some cases, when people set out on the path to become more of a hard target, they get their priorities backward. T

Since situational awareness is a mental exercise, I think it’s only appropriate that, as with physical activity, we first warm up. A great way to do this is with what’s known as a KIM’s game, or Keep-inMemory game.

Now that we’ve covered the concepts of predatory behavior and situational awareness, it’s important to acknowledge that not every situation is avoidable. At some point in your life, you may find yourself confronted by something or someone you did not see coming. When this happens, you’ll need to have a good understanding of what role your mindset plays in the outcome of those situations.