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

Transcript

S. Gale Bleth: If you don't write any of your goals down, you're never going to get there. For those people out there that want to write a book, you just have to do it. You've got to 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 going to just going to be on the back of your mind. Then five, 10 years down the road, you're going to be saying, you know, I should have done that when I was thinking about it five years ago or 10 years ago. You got us to start now.

Eric Jorgenson: Thank you so much, Gail, for being here today.

S. Gale Bleth: Thanks for having me, Eric.

Eric Jorgenson: 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.

S. Gale Bleth: Yes, absolutely. 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 comm major. So I knew that I wanted to be a public speaker. 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 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. I'm like, yeah, I'll do it because I'm a public speaker. I want to change people's mindset. So I did that. And then they sent me away to be a self-defense instructor. And I thought that was really interesting. And I thought, OK, I want to do that. So I did. 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 decided to work for 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 she was late and she said, can I have your PowerPoint? So I thought, sure, like 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 I thought, I've 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, I found you guys, which helped a lot.

Eric Jorgenson: That's amazing i love i love the books ability to sort of capture. Not as in its entirety but at a reasonable level like an entire careers worth of developed expertise.

S. Gale Bleth: Yes. Yes. And it's really cool because in the book, it 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's just the character written book. And I would have never known to do that unless I I reached out. And Candice was my first person that I she helped me like I 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. 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 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.

Eric Jorgenson: 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.

S. Gale Bleth: Wow, that's good question. And I, I was just looking out 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 Candice 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 got to know what being in your color code of awareness is, because if you don't, then that's 90 percent of your safety. So if they knew that. So that's where she goes, we got to 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 awesome.

Eric Jorgenson: Yeah, I'm sure it's an amazing tool for retention too. 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.

S. Gale Bleth: Absolutely. And 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 then so the younger generation that's reading it are going to 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, 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 24 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.

Eric Jorgenson: That's fantastic at 12. 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 said that your nieces sort of inspired this book. What was it? What was that? Was there a moment? Was there a story? Like what happened that made you flip from, oh, I'm thinking about this one day to like, no, now, now is the project.

S. Gale Bleth: 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 is a time where we were all sitting together and we're just I'm like, hey, what books are you reading? And so what are you doing with your activity? Because 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, 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 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 her dad, my brother bought the books for them, for the girls. And she just, my brother sent me a text like, oh, Camila finished the book. The book signing was just yesterday. Like how, how did she read it so fast? But smart girl, you know, she loves to read. That's all they do is read books. So, but prior to that, I started writing the book in the beginning of 2025. And that's so just prior to that is when I decided I got to write this book.

Eric Jorgenson: So 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?

S. Gale Bleth: So because I did higher education for those 16 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 getting 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 got so much out of it and she's, she's not 20 years old or 18. She's like in her fifties. So, and there is it, it is for everybody, but the purpose of this book war. So that when you leave the nest, you don't get yourself in a situation because you would be able to know what aware is and aware is an acronym for, like, if you knew the aware method, then that would be 90% of your safety.

Eric Jorgenson: Okay, and I mean, when you tease it like that, we got to know the acronym. What's the acronym?

S. Gale Bleth: 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, 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 going to assess that situation. You're going to find out like what. Okay, what's going on here? Then you're going to respond to your assessment, your own assessment. Like how am I feeling? How is this making me feel? And then once you make that response, then you're going to decide if you're going to escape or if it's safe enough to stay. So that's what AWARE is. And if you, no matter where you go in any day situation, if you have that AWARE concept or the method, then it is 90% of your safety because you're going to make that decision whether you want to go or not and stay safe.

Eric Jorgenson: 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, don't be involved in anything that you don't have to be involved in.

S. Gale Bleth: Exactly. Like you don't want to be going, what's going on here. And then you get closer and closer and closer. And then she, you know, you're in the mix 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 got that from.

Eric Jorgenson: Well, as a former Californian, I can testify that the market for crime avoidance is, is booming. Very unfortunately. Like it seems like, you know, 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.

S. Gale Bleth: Oh, yeah. On BART, right? If you're not aware of your surroundings, you're on your phone and somebody is going to take it and run when the doors open. Happened all the time.

Eric Jorgenson: Yeah.

S. Gale Bleth: When I was living there.

Eric Jorgenson: Yeah. Yeah, that's a really. Yeah, one of these things that you never want to happen, but you always got to be prepared for it. And a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure for sure.

S. Gale Bleth: Yes, absolutely.

Eric Jorgenson: Yeah. So 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.

S. Gale Bleth: So what I wanted to do was write a novel. 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 going to 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 2024 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. I said, oh, OK. 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, OK, you know what? Ricky, I really like you. I really like Scribe. I think let's go for it. But I didn't really know how to begin. So that's when I partnered up with Candice and I said, look, this is what I got. This is what I think I want to write. And she's like, 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 another one. And then from there, I'm like, I got to get it in all the colleges and universities. I want to get it during their orientation. I have friends that still work at the university that I worked at and said, yeah, no, come on out and let us see your book. And maybe we can make it as part of a requirement for orientation for a first time freshman, which is that's really my goal is to get it out there.

Eric Jorgenson: 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 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, 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 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. Fantastic arrangement.

S. Gale Bleth: Yeah. Once it's been written, I know 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? Oh my God, it's now the marketing part of it and trying to get the book out and doing conferences and public speaking. And so that's kind of my next step.

Eric Jorgenson: 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 you get to pick the fruit and the rewards of the impact on the readers that you're hoping to.

S. Gale Bleth: Yeah.

Eric Jorgenson: For people who maybe are in a similar position that you were, you know, a few years ago, just starting out in like, I really like this picture of you sort of sitting there with a slide deck, you're like, I give this seminar all the time, I have presentations, I have materials, I have spent a decade plus studying this and teaching it. 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, 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?

S. Gale Bleth: Yeah. Well, it started with showing what my PowerPoint was, basically. Was it for a course?

Eric Jorgenson: Was it one talk?

S. Gale Bleth: What did that PowerPoint look like? In 2000, that's when the University Police Department sent me to be 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 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 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 and do the 12 hour class. So I condensed it into a 90 minute presentation. So that's when I took parts of it from the book or the actual the student manual, and I shoved it into a PowerPoint. So in 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 that's the other 10%. So 90% is education and knowledge. 10% is actually having to fight for your life or escape. 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, maybe you guys Like pulled it, pull it right out. Even the cover also is like awesome. So Anna did a good job because I told her I 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. I did a great job.

Eric Jorgenson: She's so good. Amazing. She's amazing. Yeah. So glad you got to work with her. So that leads me into what was the high point for you 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 celebration or relief or joy throughout this process?

S. Gale Bleth: knowing that if everything was going to be locked, like, you know, I'm learning that 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, oh, my God, there's something this isn't right. And then finally is like, can we lock it? And soon as it was, then I felt a lot of relief. that it's done oh my god no more writing no more reading it and then other things come up like okay now it's time to do your book cover and oh 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 that was so done in a good way. I was so done with just having to keep reading and writing. And then the gals that did the proofreading did a great job too. Just stuff that I would never have noticed because I'm not a writer, but they were spot on, this sounds really professional. And so I was glad that they did that for me.

Eric Jorgenson: 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 at a really high level, professional, polished way that, you know, 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 professional. Yeah. I resonate deeply with the moment of Locke. Yeah. When you're done with that manuscript and you're like, okay, everything else is just going to happen. I'm on a conveyor belt now and the book will come out and I don't have to wake up and pull the plow every single day anymore.

S. Gale Bleth: Exactly. Exactly. Like I said, it was a relief.

Eric Jorgenson: Like, okay, no more writing.

S. Gale Bleth: What else do we have to do?

Eric Jorgenson: Yeah. Everything else feels kind of fun and fresh and it's a new project. Yeah.

S. Gale Bleth: Yes, yes, I needed something new.

Eric Jorgenson: Like, okay, no more. What is what is something an unexpected good thing that has resulted from this book being out in the world?

S. Gale Bleth: Unexpected good thing is I didn't expect it to be number one bestseller, literally. And 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, Oh my God, you're not going to believe what happened. So that was pretty cool.

Eric Jorgenson: Didn't expect it. That's awesome.

S. Gale Bleth: Yeah.

Eric Jorgenson: 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?

S. Gale Bleth: 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've probably read, I'm definitely much older than you are. We had to read in ninth grade, Catcher in the Rye.

Eric Jorgenson: Same.

S. Gale Bleth: 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 years from now, for it 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 read in on the bus.

Eric Jorgenson: Yeah.

S. Gale Bleth: So that's kind of where I see. I don't see it dying off play of like any time soon.

Eric Jorgenson: I love it. I like that because it's a, it's a series, it's a small, it's an individual goal that is like achievable many times. Right. And so it's one that's within your control, which a lot of authors I think pick stuff that they can't control. And while you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

S. Gale Bleth: Yeah. And plus I wanted to go, 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 know, you don't need to change it in another country. You just change the language and that's it. So that's kind of what I look at too.

Eric Jorgenson: Okay, so one of my 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 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. How would you coach them?

S. Gale Bleth: So one thing that they have to do is if you don't write any of your goals down, you're never going to get there. You won't because I had to write down my goals after retirement. Like, OK, what am I going to do? OK, well, I'm going to I don't have to work again. So what else could I do? So I was thinking, OK, I took up golf. I wanted to see my grant 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, oh, this is 30 day course and stuff. But if you don't write things down, you're never going to do it. And so I had to write it down, like I'm going to write a book, whether it's the novel, whether it's the self help book, it's going to be written and I am going to do it. And so I made a goal in 2000. 2024, that in 2025, I was going to do it. So at the end of 2024, I started. And so, and that's when I met Ricky. And then I'm like, I'm not going to ignore this, I'm going to go for it. So for those people out there that want to write a book, you just have to do it, you got to 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 going to 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 going to just going to be on the back of your mind. Then 10 years, five, 10 years down the road, you're going to be saying, you know, I should have done that when I was thinking about it five years ago or 10 years ago. You got to just start now.

Eric Jorgenson: In your case, I imagine it was much easier to do it while it was still fresh, where you were kind of newly retired and all this information was still really fresh and you had a lot of energy and momentum and connections to carry into promoting it. Amazing. Yeah. That's great advice.

S. Gale Bleth: It was a fun journey. I had a really good time and I don't want it to end.

Eric Jorgenson: It's not. This thing is going to be with you for a long time. There's plenty of work left to do. Oh, good. Gail, thank you so much for taking the time. Where should people go to learn more about you, follow along in your author journey, and pick up the book?

S. Gale Bleth: Oh yeah. So I have a website it's stay hyphen aware.com. So on the website has all the information you need for anyone who wants to buy the book, follow subscribe so that 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.

Eric Jorgenson: Amazing. Thank you so much, Gail. 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 the time.

S. Gale Bleth: Oh, good. Thank you so much for having me.