I’m a former big-city violent crimes detective and my wife is also a retired police officer. When we go out to a restaurant, we enter into a little competition that’s so instinctive neither of us notices it’s happening. We both try to grab the seat with the best view of the entire restaurant and its doors, and the loser of that little battle remains just a little uneasy throughout the meal.

If you’ve ever been dining in the neighborhood coffee shop and several uniformed cops come in to grab lunch or dinner, you’ll notice that most walk right past the “prime” tables and take those in the far corner of the room. I’ve conducted many training sessions for law enforcement, and invariably, the first to arrive instinctively take seats in the back corners of the room.

All that behavior is related to what some call a “warrior mentality.” Training and experience combine to heighten awareness of place, environment, and activity. At meals when my wife gets the better seat, I might notice her attention shift for a moment, which tells me that something out of the ordinary has caught her eye. Maybe a couple at another table is in the early stages of what appears to be an argument. Maybe someone who seems out of place has walked in the door and is looking around suspiciously. No matter the reason, her senses have shifted to a higher level of awareness, so she’ll be quicker to react if something happens.

Once that warrior mentality becomes ingrained, you can’t shut it off. Even when I’m sitting in church, I always know where I am in relation to the emergency exit that’s closest to the kids’ area. If something were to happen, I’d be through that door and next to my kids in a heartbeat. When most people go to the mall, they’re looking at displays of merchandise. I’m watching the people around me, looking for anything that just doesn’t seem right.

Some might think that’s a paranoid approach, but it’s not based on imaginary threats. I’ve seen and experienced enough to know that there are real threats out there, and it’s been my sworn responsibility to protect the community from those threats. It was that way when I carried a badge and it’s at the heart of why our company exists.

Adopting a warrior mentality can help you in two different ways. First, it will improve your own protection. If you practice enhancing your awareness of everyday situations, it becomes a habit. You may never encounter a situation in which your personal safety is threatened, but if something does happen, you’ll have more time to prepare and react. People who lack that kind of awareness often freeze in an emergency because their minds are focused on processing what they’re seeing. They think “what should I do?” when the warriors among them think “what needs to be done?” and then do it.

The second way a warrior mentality helps is that it will give you a framework through which you can evaluate the security of your facilities. Whether you’re responsible for an office, a warehouse, a middle school, or a suburban church, spend some time walking through the building and thinking about how a threat may present itself. Then ask yourself how you or anyone else would behave if that threat were to happen. How would they get out, and where would they congregate once outside?

Next, look at the building the way someone who wanted to carry out that threat might do. If a shooter wanted to target a large group, which door would he enter? If someone wanted to steal from your employees, how easy would it be to do that? If an estranged husband wanted to reach his wife who worked or worshipped in your facility, what’s there to deter him?

Once you start looking at facilities through those warrior eyes, you’ll begin to rethink how you do things. For example, your church may want to present a welcoming image to attendees and visitors, but do you really need to leave six exterior doors wide open all Sunday morning? Would it be better to funnel traffic through a couple of entryways and have a “greeter” or two stationed at each who’s eyeing the folks who walk in? A simple deterrent like that may make someone who plans to cause trouble think twice.

You can invest in all sorts of security systems, but one of the most powerful and effective is one you were born with: your eyes. Train them to see like a warrior, and those for whom you’re responsible will be much safer.

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