Latest / Author Hour / S. Gale Bleth: How a Retired Crime Prevention Officer Made Decades of Safety Expertise a Bestseller

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S. Gale Bleth: How a Retired Crime Prevention Officer Made Decades of Safety Expertise a Bestseller · Author Hour

• speaker-0: If you don't write any of your goals down, you're never gonna get there. For those people out there that want to write a book, you you just have to do it. You gotta start somewhere. And I'm glad finding scribe was you just can't go back. If you don't throw that hat over the fence, you're never going to get anywhere. It's always gonna just gonna be on the back of your mind. Then five, 10 years down the road, you're gonna be saying, you know, I should have done that when I was thinking about it five years ago or 10 years ago. You gotta just start now. speaker-1: Thank you so much, Gail, for being here today. speaker-0: Thanks for having me, Eric. speaker-1: before we set the stage to dive into your book, I would love to just get a sense of your your background because I think that's really what this book was born out of, right? Is like your amazing career. speaker-0: Yes, absolutely. I I started I didn't really start thinking about the book until about five years ago, six years ago, but I started out working at a university, but I was also working and going to school there. And I was a speech com major. So I knew that I wanted to be a public speaker. I I just love the fact that I get to go out there, talk about anything that I want, and changing kind of their mindset a little bit. And I I like to inspire people. So that was like my goal. So working at the university, I got a full-time job. Then I was asked by the university police department to do some of their training for them. And I'm like, yeah, I'll do it because I'm I'm a public speaker. I I want to change people's mindset. So so I did that. And then they sent me away to be a self-defense instructor. And and I thought that was really interesting. And I thought, okay, I want to do that. So I did and and just teaching the women to do Self-defense was really cool, like really, really cool. Then I thought, well, you know what? Let me go a different direction. So I just start decided to work for the university police. I mean, I'm sorry, the local police department as a crime prevention. So higher education for 16 years, crime prevention for 16 years. And then I was still still teaching self-defense, which I still doing today, which has been 26 years, which is awesome. So then somebody came into my class and and she was late. She said, Can I have your PowerPoint? So I thought, sure. Like I I don't have anything to hide here. And it's not like copyrighted or anything. So I just gave it to her. And then she said, It would be really fun if you wrote a book. Of course, this was years ago. So I just said, you know what? I like to teach the class. I like to be able to see people's faces when I talk about all of the stuff that's in the book, like the color code of awareness. victim pyramid and all of that, which is different. People don't teach that in self-defense or personal safety. So I decided to go that route of not writing the book. Then my nieces were getting older and and I thought I retired. I've been retired for four years from law enforcement. And then I thought, I think it's a good time for me to do it. So I started doing my research. I thought, how do I take my PowerPoint and make it actually into a book. So I started kind of writing it out and then I did my research with and I found you guys, which helped a lot. So speaker-1: That's amazing. I love I love the book's ability to sort of capture not its in its entirety, but at a reasonable level, like an entire career's worth of developed expertise. speaker-0: Yes. Yes. And it's really cool because in the book it it's it's not just like a how to and what to do, what not to do. It tells stories. There's characters in there. So the chapter one is about Lily. And so it it's just a character written book. And I would have never known to do that unless I I I reached out and Candace was my first person that I she helped me like like actually put it together. And and I thought, brilliant. Because she goes, we have to put stories in there. You just can't have your PowerPoint. You got to put stories. And I go, let's do it. So we did. And I really enjoyed talking about it with her and how we put it all together in all of these chapters. And and I had to tell my own stories about me and my sisters doing like telling them you should be taking my self-defense class. So I tell a lot of stories about what happened. And so it was a great collaboration. So I'm really glad I did it. speaker-1: That's very funny. I was ⁓ curious kind of what your initial idea was for the book when you sort of started thinking about it or started to take it seriously at least, versus how different it was when you were actually completed. speaker-0: Wow, that's good question. And I I was just looking at of let's just put everything I have on my PowerPoint and just write about it. Like this is the five color code of awareness and this is the victim pyramid. And and then it was just so blah. Then that's when Candace came in and she said, you know what, let's let's redo this whole thing and let's let's make it, let's give it life. Life to where it can resonate, especially the younger generation, because that's what the book is for. It's for working in higher education, I met a lot of students who would come in from different parts of the country, different parts of the world, and they would become a victim of crime. And that was really sad. And I thought, wow, if I I'm teaching this class, so I wish those students were in my class so that I could say, hey, look, you gotta know what being in your color code of awareness is. Because if you don't, then that's ninety percent of your safety. So if they knew that. So that's where she goes, We gotta put characters in here and and it was she was right. And so that's that's why the book is so fluid. You know, it's it's awesome. speaker-1: Yeah, well I'm sure it's a an amazing tool for retention too. It's it's much easier to identify with a story and to remember a story than it is to just, you know, have a framework for something. speaker-0: Absolutely. Then these names of these characters are the ones we always talk about, like Lily is in the chapter one and you know being a victim of crime. And and and then so the younger generation that's reading it are are gonna resonate with someone. You know, there's Jack is in there, he is trying to be a hero, but he ends up getting beat up. And then so it's better to be a good witness, you know, and that's chapter seven. So it's just there's just a lot of things in there. My niece already read it. So and she she read it in one day, actually in twenty four hours. So I had to ask her, Camila, you sure you read this book? Tell me what the five color code of awareness. I had to drill her and she knew it all. speaker-1: That's fantastic. At twelve. I mean, that says a lot about the readability of the book. That says a lot about, you know, the memorability of the ideas. So you you said that your nieces sort inspired this book. What was it? What was there was there a moment? Was there a story? Like what happened that made you flip from, ⁓ I'm thinking about this one day to like, no, now, now is the project. speaker-0: Yeah. And that's a good question because I don't see them very often. They live up in Northern California. I'm normally in Southern California, in San Diego area or in Arizona. So when I do get a chance to see them, they're just growing up so fast. So there's a time where we were all sitting together and we're just I'm like, hey, what books are you reading? And so and what are you doing with your activity? Cause I don't know. They're in everything. They're in cheerleading, they're in karate. I mean, they're in plays. They are playing violin. I mean, that all of these things. And I thought, gosh, you're growing up so fast. And then that's when it clicked. And I thought, I think I better write this book before they get out of call that they go into college. So I did a book signing just ⁓ three weeks ago up in the Bay Area where they are. And that's when she her her dad, my aunt, my brother, bought the books for them for the girls. And she just my brother sent me a text like, ⁓ Camila, finished the book. Like, The book signing was just yesterday. Like how how did she read it so fast? But she's a smart girl. You know, she loves to read. That's all they do is read books. Yeah. So but prior to that, I started writing the book in the beginning of two thousand twenty five. And that's so just prior to that is when I decided I gotta write this book. So I speaker-1: It who is the specific kind of target reader that you're most hoping to reach and what are you hoping that they'll take away from the book? speaker-0: So because I did higher education for those sixteen years, that's that's where I'm focusing it on. And that's what the subtitle is is like a personal safety playbook for leaving the nest. And that's exactly what it is. So but it is for not just for the younger, the adults that are just leaving, that don't really know about what's out there that they can get themselves into and get in a lot of danger or be a victim of crime, but also for their parents and for for my friend who's my age read the book and she's like I get got so much out of it and she's she's not twenty years old or eighteen. She's like in her fifties. So and there is it it is for everybody, but the purpose of this book were so that when you leave the nest, you don't get yourself in a situation because you would be able to know what AWAR And AWER is an acronym for like if you knew the AWARE method Then that would be ninety percent of your safety. speaker-1: Okay. And ⁓ I mean you c when you tease it like that, we gotta know the acronym. What's the acronym? speaker-0: So the acronym starts with so it is aware. So it's gonna start with alert. And so when you go out to anywhere you're gonna go, you're just gonna be alerted that you're going either to the store, you're going to a concert, and or wherever it is where there's gonna be people, there's gonna be predators, you're getting on a bus or getting on a train, then you're gonna watch and you're gonna make sure that you're just gonna be aware of your surroundings. You're just watching for anything that's out of the ordinary. Then if you do see something or something's not just right, then you're gonna assess that situation. You're gonna find out like what okay, what's going on here? Then you're gonna respond to your assessment, your own assessment. Like, how do how am I feeling? How is this making me feel? And then once you make that response, then you're gonna decide if you're gonna escape or if it's safe enough to stay. So that's what aware is. And if you No matter where you go in an any day situation, if you have that aware concept or the method, then it is ninety percent of your safety because you're gonna make that decision whether you wanna go or not and stay safe. speaker-1: Yeah. And is it the right rule of thumb is generally just like be aware enough of the situation early enough to just get the hell out of there. Like d exactly. Don't be involved in anything that you don't have to be involved in. speaker-0: Exactly. Exactly. Like you don't want to be going, What's going on here? And then you get closer and closer and closer and next you know you're in the midst of all of this chaos. So assess it yourself, respond to it, and then escape if you need to. That's kind of that's kind of where I I got that from. speaker-1: Well, as a former Californian, I can testify that the market for crime avoidance is is booming. Yeah. Very unfortunately. Like it seems like ⁓ you know, it it's hard to especially in San Francisco where I lived, you've got to be very aware a lot of the time. And yeah, weird stuff's going on all the time. speaker-0: ⁓ yeah. On BART, right? If you're not aware of your surroundings, you're on your phone and somebody's gonna take it and run when the doors open. Happened all the time. Yeah. When I was living there. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, it's a really Yeah, i i one of these things that you never want to happen, but you always gotta be prepared for it and a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, for sure. speaker-0: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. speaker-1: So what what were your expectations going into writing a book? What did you what did you hope that it would sort of do for you? Because you were you said you were retired at this point. Were you hoping to sort of start another career? Were you hoping to just give back to the community? Like just always wanted to write a book, or is this a return to your public speaking sort of aspiration? Tell me about it. speaker-0: So what I wanted to do was write a novel. I I actually already have one written. And I was just trying to find someone that would kind of help me enhance it a little bit, kind of with scribe. So that was kind of really my route in a way. But yet I still had this in the back of my mind that I was gonna do a book. So running into Ricky, because she was the first person that I spoke to early, I think it was the end of twenty twenty four. is when I actually I found you guys online. So after talking to her, she's like, Well, we don't we we don't do novels or we don't do fiction books. So I said, ⁓ okay. I thought, wait a minute, I might have another one in mind. And then that's kind of where it triggered this whole effect of, Okay, you know what? Ricky, I really like you. I really like Scribe. I think let's go for it. So, but I didn't really know how to begin. So that's when I partnered up with Candace and I said, Look, this is what I got. This is what I think I want to write. And she's like, let's let's go a different route. And then boom, there it is. So yeah, I didn't know where it was going to go or what I was looking at one thing and then I got the another one. And then from there I'm like, I gotta get it in all the colleges and universities. I want to get it during their orientation. I I have friends that still work at the university that I worked at and said, Yeah, no, what come on out and Let us see your book and maybe we can make it as part of a a requirement for orientation for a first time freshman, which is that's really my goal is to get it out there. speaker-1: Yeah, it's really incredible. I think it helps so much to have a book that is for a very specific life point where like new people are sort of graduating into this moment in life all the time. You know exactly who they are, you know exactly where they are, and and there's people who are interested in you know achieving the same goal. I always say like find someone carrying the same flag. And so if obviously universities want their students to be safe and aware and you know, not become victims of crimes. And so, like, hey, if you can show up and help them accomplish that. Fantastic. And if you could do that for the same group coming through every year, you know, that's how you could be kind of a perennially perennial selling book. It's a fantastic arrangement. speaker-0: Yeah. No, once it's been written, and I know I I was listening to one of your podcasts, is now that it's been written, it's there's a lot more involved. Like, okay, you know, it launched last month. Okay, what else? ⁓ my god, it's now the marketing part of it and trying to get the book out and doing conferences and and public speaking. And so that's kind of my next my next step. speaker-1: Yeah, it is a different, ⁓ a little bit of a different mindset than just the purely creative, but it's really fun and it's ongoing and it's you know, hopefully where the you get to pick the fruit and and the rewards of the impact on the readers that you're hoping to. F for people who maybe you're in a similar position that you were, you know, a few years ago just starting out and like I really like this picture of you sort of sitting there with a slide deck. You're like, I I give this seminar all the time. I have presentations, I have materials, I speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Have spent a decade plus studying this and teaching it. W what were the materials that you sort of brought to your scribe to say, Okay, this is what I think the raw material is? Like some people show up with like empty hands and a full head, and some people have tons of notes, tons of materials. Like, what was that for you? Yeah. speaker-0: Well, it it started with showing what my PowerPoint was, basically. And it it's just and I speaker-1: After a course, was it one talk? Like what does that PowerPoint look like? speaker-0: Yeah. So back in the year in in 2000, that's when the university police department sent me to be a a self-defense instructor. So that that actual course was called RAD. It's rape aggression defense. So I took that and and all of the stuff that I learned in there and I shoved it into a PowerPoint. It's actually a 12 hour course. And and it starts with the education part of it. Then you do the like the you do the kicks and the punch and the strikes and all that. And then you do a real life simulation. So you're in a ⁓ a suit, you have to fight a red man, a guy in a red man suit and try to escape. So that's that was the class. But a lot of people couldn't be in the and do the 12 hour class. So I sh I I condensed it into a 90-minute presentation. So that's when I took parts of it from the book or the the actual the student manual and I shoved it into a PowerPoint. So And the PowerPoint had the color code of awareness, the victim pyramid, and everything else that involves your personal weapons and then the assailants vulnerable locations. So so that that's the other ten percent. So ninety percent is education and knowledge, ten percent is actually having to fight for your life or escape. So so all of that was in the book. And then putting all that together with stories, that's what made it really challenging and with the help of scribe. I mean you guys like pulled it, pulled it right out. Even the cover also is like awesome. So and Anna did a good job because I told her it needed to have a little bird in there. And I'll show you. So so here's the book with the bird. And then it's leaving the nest. So I said I want a bird to be leaving the nest. And so and then this is the color code of awareness, all the five color codes. And so I wanted to be really colorful. I wanted it to be like to stand out on bookshelves and then and she did it like boom. Thank you, Anna. Like did a great job. Amazing. She's amazing. Yeah. speaker-1: She's so good. So glad you got to work with her. So that leads me into what was the high point for you in in the whole process? As we record this, we're only a month or two out from publication. So I know the book has only been out for a little bit, but what's been your biggest moment of of celebration or relief or joy throughout this process? speaker-0: Knowing that ev everything was gonna be locked. Like I you know, I'm learning the the terminologies of book. And so when she said when I got the email that it are we ready to lock it, because I had to read it all the time and then we do read write, then I read it again and I'm like, ⁓ my God, there's something there's this isn't right. And then finally it's like, can we lock it? And soon as it was, then I felt a lot of relief that it's done. ⁓ my God, no more writing, no more reading it and then other things come up like okay and now it's time to do your book cover and ⁓ my god okay and then now it's time to do there's just so many different steps than just writing but that gave me the relief. I was so done in in a good way. I was so done with just having to keep reading and writing and and then the the the gals that did the proofreading did a great job too. Like Just stuff that I would never have noticed. Yeah. Because I'm not a writer. So but they were like spot on. This sounds really professional. And and so I was glad that they did that for me. speaker-1: Yeah, as we like to say, half professional is unprofessional. And you know, in this day and age, there's a lot of people who kind of think you could just like upload a Word document to Amazon and, you know, you wrote a book. There's just so many steps to do it in a really high level professional, polished way that you know, where where your book can go on a shelf next to something from one of the big publishing houses and be indistinguishable because every aspect of it is is professional. Yeah. I I I ⁓ I resonate deeply with the moment of lock Yeah, when you're done with that manuscript and you're like, Okay, everything everything else is just going to happen. Like I'm on a conveyor boat now and the book will come out and like I don't have to wake up and pull the plow every single day anymore. speaker-0: Exactly. Exactly. It was like like I said, it's it was a relief. Like, okay, no more writing. What else do we have to do? speaker-1: Yeah. And everything else feels like kinda fun and fresh and it's a new project. Yeah. speaker-0: Yes, yes. I needed something new. Like, okay, no more. speaker-1: Yeah. What is what is something an unexpected good thing that has resulted from this book being out in the world? speaker-0: Unexpected good thing is I didn't expect it to be number one bestseller. Literally in I think it was the second day. It launched on a Tuesday. And then on Thursday, I got an email saying that it hit number one in three categories or two categories on Amazon. So that was totally unexpected. I was able to kind of tell my whole family, ⁓ my God, you're not gonna believe what happened. So that was pretty cool. Didn't expect speaker-1: Incredible. That's awesome. Fantastic. What are you hoping let's say, you know, in the next five years, what are you hoping that this your big moment of celebration will be if this book can deliver for you? speaker-0: Yeah. I told you my goal that trying to get in all the colleges and universities. Do you remember ⁓ in high school? I don't know if you probably read, I'm definitely much older than you are. We had to read in ninth grade Catcher in the Rye. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Same. speaker-0: So and now I thought about that book when I was writing mine, this one. And so I thought, how do I get it to all of the students out there? And that was kind of my goal. Like, well, if my if my safety book could help the students who are the young adults who's just leaving the nest, why can't it be on every child person's hands and even their family? So that's where I would like to see it in five five years from now. to still for it to still not be to still be out there and people talking about it and seeing it in people's hands or students' hands and in their backpacks and in their purses or whatever, watching them reading on the bus. Yeah. So that's kind of where I see I don't see it dying off like any time soon. speaker-1: I love it. I like that because it's a it's a series, it it's a small, it's an individual goal that is like achievable many times. Right. And so it and it's one that's within your control, which a lot of authors I think pick stuff that they they can't control. And well, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. speaker-0: Yeah, and plus I want it to go it it's it can go to other countries as well. Like they just need to change the language. But the concept is the method is still the same. You don't need to change it. Yeah. Yeah. In another country. You just change the the the language and that's it. So that's kind of what I look at too. speaker-1: Okay. So one of my one closing questions here is what is your advice for someone who's where you were four or five years ago? Maybe someone planted the seed in them that they they or maybe they hope to write a book one day, but they haven't really taken that first step to commit to make it a reality. What do you how would you coach them? speaker-0: So one thing that they have to do is if you don't write any of your goals down, you're never gonna get there. You're you won't. Because I had to write down my goals after retirement. Like, okay, what am I gonna do? Okay, well, I'm gonna I don't have to work again. So what else could I do? So I was thinking, okay, I took up golf. I wanted to see my grand my grandkids more. And you know, there's just all these things. But then one of the things that I wanted to do was I wanted to take some classes. And these are just classes where you can take like meditation classes and things like that you find online. Like, ⁓ this is 30 day course and stuff. But if you don't write things down, you're never gonna do it. And and so I had to write it down. Like I'm gonna write a book. I'm gonna whether it's the novel, whether it's the the self-help book, it's gonna be written and I am gonna do it. And so I made a goal in ⁓ two thousand twenty four twenty twenty four that in twenty twenty five I was gonna do it. So at the end of twenty twenty four I started. And so and that's when I met Ricky and then and I'm like, I'm not gonna ignore this. I'm gonna go for it. So for those people out there that wanna write a book, you you just have to do it. You gotta start somewhere. And I'm glad finding scribe was you just can't go back. And that's kind of how I felt with with you guys is I'm not gonna say, sorry, Ricky, I'm not interested. I just kind of you have to throw the hat over the fence. If you don't throw that hat over the fence, you're never going to get anywhere to ⁓ it's always gonna just gonna be on the back of your mind. Then ten years, five, ten years down the road, you're gonna be saying, I you know, I should have done that when I was thinking about it five years ago or ten years ago. You gotta just start now. speaker-1: And in your case, you know, I I imagine it was a much easier to do it while it was still fresh, where you were kind of newly retired and all this ⁓ all this information was still really fresh and you had a lot of energy and momentum to and connections to carry into to promoting it. Amazing as great advice. speaker-0: Yeah. W and it was a fun journey. I had a really good time. Good. And I don't want it to end. speaker-1: It's not. It's you g this thing is gonna be with you for a long time. There's plenty of work left to do. ⁓ god. Gail, thank you so much for for taking the time. Where should people go to learn more about you? Follow along on your your author journey and pick up the book. speaker-0: Yeah. So I have a website. It's stay hyphenaware dot com. Yeah. So on the website has all the information you need for anyone who wants to buy the book, follow, subscribe, so that I I send out safety tips every every two weeks. I send it out. So it should be something that people can contact me through there too as well. speaker-1: Amazing. Thank you so much, Gail. I appreciate ⁓ all that you have done in your career and now this new form that this important and noble work is taking. Thank you for taking this. speaker-0: Good. Thank you so much for having me.