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Becoming
Bulletproof
by Evy Poumpouras
c.2020, Atria
$27.00 / $36.00 Canada
323 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
Every schedule, every plan
you made in February was shot.
March began and in about three weeks' time, life changed in
big ways and small, calendars were tossed, and things got
scary. Maybe they still are. So how did you deal with the
virus, its impacts, its unknowns, and what will you do if it
recurs? In Becoming Bulletproof by Evy Poumpouras,
there may be many distinct answers to that question. |
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Five months after joining the NYPD at the age of 23, Evy
Poumpouras received a "conditional offer of employment" with
the Secret Service. By the time the offer arrived, she was
physically fit, emotionally ready for challenge, and had
learned a lot about herself and others – which was a good
thing, since this wasn't long before September 11, 2001.
That
day, she helped others and received a commendation for it,
though she was reluctant to get the kudos. Helping was her
job and, she says, "being willing to help... is the first
step toward becoming bulletproof."
The second step is knowing your adversity reaction, or your
"F3." Do you Fight, Flee, or Freeze when disaster happens?
Knowing your automatic response will let you harness your
fears and give you a split-second chance to decide on the
validity of instantaneous reactions. In decision-making,
knowing your F3 will help you recognize which kind of regret
you fear that's keeping you from making an hard-to-decide
choice. Your F3 will also help you to "prepare your mental
armor," which you'll want to do soon, to give yourself more
control over any sort of adversity you might face.
"Fear is like fire," Poumpouras says. "If you extinguish it
while it's small, it won't become an inferno."
Once you know how to handle your fear and your reactions to
it, then "become a Human Lie Detector" by knowing exactly
how to read people. That's also a good time to know how to
present yourself, to keep others from reading you...
For the last few weeks, you've used books to distract you,
and there's nothing like a good spy story for that. Nothing,
except maybe a thrilling and true story
that'll help you survive crisis and calamity. Nothing that's
all cloak-and-daggerish, though; no, maybe something like
"Becoming Bulletproof."
You'll like this: author Evy Poumpouras uses brutal, serious
honesty generously tinged with spirit, humor and confidence
in a personal look at the hard road that leads to one of the
most elite organizations in this nation, and how she
traveled it. That's impressively fascinating but not a
distraction: Poumpouras returns to the meat of her book
again and again, never letting readers lose focus on the
reason for it, which is how to gain resilience and control.
Don't be surprised, then, if you find latent superpowers, or
you sudddenly feel 10 feet tall.
This book will appeal to lovers of espionage, business
readers and, because of her work with the Secret Service, to
presidential history buffs. Or if you're just up for an
action-packed, informational, steely-eyed read, give
Becoming Bulletproof a shot.
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