In Depth

Interview with Gavin de Becker

Called the Slowest Pulse in Hollywood, Gavin de Becker has a cool style of executive and celebrity protection that has gained him the trust of Hollywood stars, CEOs and even U.S. presidents.

By Sarah D. Scalet

How do you keep a client's anxiety from rubbing off on you?

People naturally want you to get as excited about things as they are; likewise, they want you to be as anxious as they are. "Don't you see how serious this is?" they ask. "Don't you see the urgency?" They want to see our anxiety. In truth, they are better served by not seeing it. You don't show people the light by going into the dark with them. If you stay outside the well, you can become the arm reaching down to help.

They say you have the slowest pulse in Hollywood. Do you think that's true?

I've seen a great deal in my life, and it takes a lot to get me off-center. But I don't think that the universe puts in front of us things that we can't manage. Where we suffer is when we want a specific outcome. Where we thrive is when we accept our ability to flexibly meet the challenges of life.

For example, America's ability to respond to crisis is far stronger than our ability to prevent crisis. Throughout our lives, we've seen our government respond with remarkable effectiveness to unusual and unpredictable occurrencesearthquakes, floods, hurricanes, fires, bombings, workplace violence incidents, school shootings. And if we've learned anything from these emergencies, it's that our infrastructure is strong and resilient.

You can take that philosophy and apply it to yourself—you, the CSO, in your own corporation. You can cultivate the knowledge that the issue is not how well you'll predict what's coming but rather how well you manage what does come. The confidence that you can manage what comes down the pike is what people will see when you sit down in a meeting. Nothing's going to come at me in this meeting or in this lifetime that will destabilize me or that will persuade me that I can't meet the challenge. There's a beautiful way of saying this: The anticipated may never occur, but the unexpected will always occur. Our product is to calmly manage change because change is coming.

Your book The Gift of Fear explores the role of intuition in protecting one's personal safety. What do you think the role of intuition is for the CSO?

I believe that intuition is the single greatest resource that we bring to our work. Experience without intuition is like knowledge without wisdom. Someone who's very experienced has many memories. You've heard the expression "collect your thoughts." To collect those memories and turn them into wisdom, that requires intuition, because intuition will draw on everything you ever saw, learned or experienced. And it will produce a reaction that even can be felt in the body about what feels right.