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Becoming Bulletproof by Evy Poumpouras

Review: 4 / 5

Becoming Bulletproof is a mix of lessons to help you protect yourself and to help you learn to read, analyze, and influence people, and stories from the author’s time as a Secret Service Agent protecting the Clinton, Bush, and Obama families. The book opens with the author’s experience at Ground Zero on 9/11, when she was a new agent with the Secret Service. The story is frightening and inspiring, and helps us understand who the author is and why she might have interesting advice for us on protecting yourself and those around you. It was an excellent way to open a book like this, and got me hooked right away.

The most interesting parts of the book to me were the stories, especially the brief stories about Bill and Hillary Clinton, George (H.W and W.) Bush, Laura Bush, and Barack and Michelle Obama. The author has a unique perspective on these incredibly famous, powerful people — her job was to protect them at all costs and as a result she closely observed them as they worked and lived.

The advice for protecting yourself was fine, but nothing groundbreaking — have cameras, don’t plant trees in front of your windows, make sure your doors and windows are properly secured, pay attention to your surroundings and do not advertise what you have in your home or whether you are home or not. Easy enough.

The advice for interacting with people mostly draws on the author’s experience interrogating suspects and interviewing applicants for the Secret Service, so much of it is aimed at learning to look for red flags that someone is being dishonest with you or hiding something. I am not that concerned about people lying to me, but I am always interested in getting better at building rapport and connecting with people, and there were concrete, useful pieces of advice in the book that I have found useful so far.

Details

Title: Becoming Bulletproof
Author: Evy Poumpouras
Published: 2020
ISBN: 9781982103750
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