Ever wonder how the U.S. military teaches its personnel situational awareness? They should be taught the best from the best, right?  

This week’s guest, with Marine Corps Hunter training, admitted, “(the term situational awareness is) thrown around the military constantly. Make sure you have situational awareness. We say it all the time, but no one really defines what situational awareness is.”  She then shares throughout the episode how she personally ended up “really defining what situational awareness meant to me and then how it could impact not just how I carried myself, but passing that knowledge along to everyone else.”

Katheryn Basso is a former U.S. Marine Officer trained in the Marine Corps Hunter program.  Her knowledge, understanding, and practice with situational awareness is eye-opening.  More recently, she started the Kadri Clothing Company to shed light on and help fix the problem of gender bias in the military via lack of appropriate clothing options for women.  You can check out more on that here. 

Listen to this episode of Thrive Unafraid for more on:

• Defining what situational awareness means to you personally
• How gender bias still manifests in the U.S. military to date
• How to use the OODA loop to assess your personal safety
• How many chances you should give your gut/intuition when it flags a situation or person before choosing to act
• The importance of practice in personal safety
• How to form a baseline when entering a new environment
• And so much more!

Here’s the Ted Lasso link that Doug mentioned.

Dive into this episode chock full of interesting stories, personal experiences, and hands-on advice.

Ready to join the conversation?  

Follow The Diamond Arrow Group on Instagram and Facebook, and Kelly Sayre on LinkedIn and Twitter.

You can find Doug at @texasspydad, or on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Check Kelly’s new book Sharp Women that guides you through embracing your best self-defense weapon – your intuition. 

Please click ‘Follow’ or ‘Subscribe’ on your favorite podcast platform, and we’d love to hear what you think is the best piece of advice you’ve heard on the podcast to-date in a Review on your podcast platform!

View the Transcript

Read the transcript for the episode.

Kelly and Doug answer four burning questions from listeners in this mailbag episode:

• What do I do if someone (such as a coworker) is presenting red flags toward me?  How do I approach them about it?
• How to approach someone in your life that is displaying red flags or harmful behaviors toward others.
• What do I do if I have a stalker?
• What self-defense moves should I learn first?

They cover the three best practices for keeping yourself safe in all situations: be aware, be confident, and avoid potentially dangerous situations. They highlight the importance of learning both the knowledge and skills needed to react in any situation. They also discuss different tools for self-defense. 

Scroll down for this week’s Episode Key!  You’ll find all of the mentioned links, articles, daily habits, and other tips and tricks in there. 

Knowledge and experience are the two most important tools in situational awareness and self-defense. Having a basic understanding of self-defense concepts and being aware of your surroundings can help you recognize dangerous situations and avoid them altogether. Additionally, Kelly and Doug discuss various tools that can be used, if needed. It’s important to understand the capabilities and limitations of each tool and practice with it before you need to use it in a real situation. 

It’s our hope that you never walk into any potentially violent experience without preparation. Aside from physical tools, it’s also important to understand your own decision matrix when it comes to escalating or de-escalating a situation. Kelly and Doug emphasize the importance of confidence; having the knowledge and the ability to protect oneself can give people confidence and make them less of a target for bad actors looking for easy targets. All in all, situational awareness and self-defense is a learning continuum. With the right knowledge and practices, you can learn how to protect yourself in any situation.

Ready to join the conversation?  

Follow The Diamond Arrow Group on Instagram and Facebook, and Kelly Sayre on LinkedIn and Twitter.

You can find Doug at @texasspydad, or on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Check Kelly’s new book Sharp Women that guides you through embracing your best self-defense weapon – your intuition.    

Please click ‘Follow’ or ‘Subscribe’ on your favorite podcast platform, and we’d love to hear what you think is the best piece of advice you’ve heard on the podcast to-date in a Review on your podcast platform!

View the Transcript

Read the transcript for the episode.

Download the Episode Key

Subscribe and gain access to the episode key.