A childhood home more likely to smell of gunpowder than cooking odors functioned as de Becker s personal academy for the acquisition of survival skills. As a boy he used his talent to keep himself and his baby sister alive. Today de Becker advises celebrities, corporations and law enforcement agencies on the prediction and avoidance of violence. Arguing that we already possess the expertise needed to predict myriad varieties of human behavior, de Becker implores us to respect our intuition. The next time you drive in morning traffic pay attention to the role intuition plays in many of your decisions.
Parents predict their child's response to a new teacher.
Some of the voices in which intuition speaks to us include curiosity, wonder, suspicion, apprehension, and even humor. Think of fear as your intuition shouting at you at the top of its lungs. Once you listen and take action the clamor subsides. Yet because so many of us deny our gut reactions we live in a constant state of anxiety. Fearing all people all the time not only depletes our lives of joy, but squanders the most potent survival signal in our arsenal.