{"id":172327,"date":"2022-07-20T11:24:08","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T16:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=172327"},"modified":"2026-09-09T17:23:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T22:23:48","slug":"podcast-820-escape-the-safety-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/skills\/tactical\/podcast-820-escape-the-safety-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #820: Escape the Safety Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>We like to think that our personal&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">safety<\/span>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">safety<\/span>&nbsp;of our loved ones is something&nbsp;that other people \u2014 law enforcement, school administrators, social media moderators \u2014 will take care of for us.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<p>My guest today, Spencer Coursen, would say that while this mindset&nbsp;may help us&nbsp;<i>feel<\/i>&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">safe<\/span>, it&#8217;s actually when we feel the most&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">safe<\/span>, that we&#8217;re in the greatest danger. Spencer \u2014 who&#8217;s a combat veteran and a threat management expert \u2014&nbsp;calls this paradox &#8220;the&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">safety <\/span><span class=\"il\">trap<\/span>,&#8221; and he&#8217;s the author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Safety-Trap-Security-Experts-Dangerous\/dp\/1250258146?&amp;linkCode=sl1&amp;tag=stucosuccess-20&amp;linkId=7dcf4f5d350e573041319449c6c0587d&amp;language=en_US&amp;ref_=as_li_ss_tl\">a book of the same name<\/a>. Today on the show, Spencer shares the factors that can put us in the&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">safety<\/span>&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">trap<\/span>, and ways to escape it. We discuss how an avoidance mindset and a reliance on false authority&nbsp;can put us in greater danger, how the run-hide-fight rubric for responding&nbsp;to an active shooter has been misapplied, and how being too polite can get you killed. From there we turn to ways you can take responsibility for your own&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">safety<\/span>, including knowing the warning signs that someone may take violent action and staying physically fit. We also discuss what to do if people are sending you potentially threatening messages online.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We like to think that our personal&nbsp;safety&nbsp;and the&nbsp;safety&nbsp;of our loved ones is something&nbsp;that other people \u2014 law enforcement, school administrators, social media moderators \u2014 will take care of for us.&nbsp; My guest today, Spencer Coursen, would say that while this mindset&nbsp;may help us&nbsp;feel&nbsp;safe, it&#8217;s actually when we feel the most&nbsp;safe, that we&#8217;re in the greatest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":194898,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,42259,42394],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","category-skills","category-tactical"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/820-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/820-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/820-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/820-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/820-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Podcast #820: Escape the Safety Trap | The Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/skills\/tactical\/podcast-820-escape-the-safety-trap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast #820: Escape the Safety Trap | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We like to think that our personal&nbsp;safety&nbsp;and the&nbsp;safety&nbsp;of our loved ones is something&nbsp;that other people \u2014 law enforcement, school administrators, social media moderators \u2014 will take care of for us.&nbsp; My guest today, Spencer Coursen, would say that while this mindset&nbsp;may help us&nbsp;feel&nbsp;safe, it&#8217;s actually when we feel the most&nbsp;safe, that we&#8217;re in the greatest [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/skills\/tactical\/podcast-820-escape-the-safety-trap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-07-20T16:24:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-09T22:23:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/820.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brett &amp; 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