{"id":21877,"date":"2022-01-10T18:05:49","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T00:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cfosimplified.com\/?p=21877"},"modified":"2022-01-10T22:36:48","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T04:36:48","slug":"mindset-for-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cfosimplified.com\/personal\/mindset-for-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Mindset for Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"
I could provide you with a list of simple safety tips in the hopes that it will be helpful to you, or maybe I could even give you scary statistics demonstrating why most of you reading this are not at all prepared to deal with a life-threatening situation.\u00a0 I think instead though, I will say that over this upcoming series of blog posts, I hope to change your thinking and views on how you see personal safety and the safety of those around you.<\/p>\n
How often do you think about your physical safety or what it means to be \u201csafe\u201d?\u00a0 How prepared are you to deal with a life-threatening situation that might arise even as you\u2019re reading this?\u00a0 I would venture to say that one\u2019s answer to this question will be greatly informed by two things- your own life experiences and your overall sense of security. For some, it means they rarely think about safety at all. For others, their activities, environment, or circumstances dictate that safety is a constant concern.\u00a0 In our work at RedHawk, we encounter both sides of this spectrum. More often than not, and especially in risk-related cases, we are dealing with people that have been thrust into a threatening situation they were neither expecting nor prepared for. For some context, I will give you an example.<\/p>\n
In June of 2015, I received a call from a client explaining that the previous Friday there was an altercation at their manufacturing facility. During the altercation, an employee made threats of physical harm against a co-worker- for confidentiality purposes, we will call the co-worker \u201cJim.\u201d\u00a0 This was not the first time the employee had been in an altercation, and he had previously made other employees uncomfortable with comments that could be interpreted as threatening. The employee was told not to come into work while the situation was being investigated by HR. Over that weekend, Jim\u2019s tires were slashed in front of his home. There was no evidence that the employee in question was the person who slashed the tires, but tensions were high, and Jim was very concerned for his safety and the safety of his family.\u00a0 He was afraid that if this employee were to be terminated that he would be targeted even more.<\/p>\n
As part of mitigating this situation, we provided physical security at Jim\u2019s residence during the investigation and termination process.\u00a0 We also provided Jim and his family with a security assessment of their residence. We went over several steps that they should take to be more security conscious and to improve their overall situational awareness in this situation but also in general. Through this experience, Jim was forced to look at his personal safety and the safety of his family from a very different perspective than he previously had considered.\u00a0 Upon concluding our time with Jim, he contacted me to ask what other steps he should take to continue to ensure his family\u2019s safety. Should he get a gun in the home? Should he enroll his family in self-defense classes?<\/p>\n
What I told Jim is also the single most important piece of information in this article that I hope you will take with you as well. I told Jim that the best and most all-encompassing thing he could do both for himself and for his family would be to focus on changing his mindset about safety and security. A sense of safety and security is more about a pivot from the idea of what tools you can get, or weapons you can use to the idea of what behaviors you can change and habits you can create. We\u2019re talking about Jim protecting his family and his home, but this also applies to you, your colleagues, and your business. We talked to Jim about changes that, if consistently practiced,would become habits to greatly increase his security mindset.\u00a0 We also worked with Jim on strategies to introduce these behaviors to his kids in a way that would engage them and encourage their practice. We focused our work with Jim and his family in three areas:<\/p>\n
These three things can easily be applied to you, your family, home, workplace, business, and assets, as well.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to 2019\u2026 One of Jim\u2019s daughters is now 17 years old.\u00a0 While leaving work, she notices someone across the street that appears out of place to her.\u00a0 She asks a coworker to walk to her car with her and begins to drive home. She immediately notices that someone seems to be following her.\u00a0 She proceeds to contact her parents and then the police, as she reroutes herself toward the police station, the car still following. As she continues to be on the phone with the police, a traffic stop was performed on the vehicle. It was found that the driver of the suspicious vehicle was wanted on aggravated criminal sexual assault and kidnapping charges. Jim\u2019s daughter attributed her observing and awareness to the things her dad taught her over the last several years.<\/p>\n
Small and manageable steps can lead to big and lasting changes. It takes one seed of knowledge to plant something that has the potential to become a lifelong skill. Over the next blog posts, I hope to show you how simple changes can significantly increase your ability to identify and mitigate potential risks to your personal safety.<\/p>\n