But nobody ever knows what that is.
Let’s just say I’m a bodyguard.
Lots of people get it wrong and call me a “security guard,” but to be clear: That’s not even remotely what I do.
I don’t sit in a golf cart in a supermarket parking lot.
What I do is elite. It takes years of training. It demands highly specialized skills. It’s tough to break into. And it’s a strange combination of glamorous （first-class travel, luxury hotels, off-the-charts wealthy people） and utterly mundane （spreadsheets, checklists, counting carpet squares in hotel hallways）。
Mostly, we protect the very rich （and occasionally famous） from all the people who want to harm them. And we get paid really well to do it.
I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking I’m five-foot-five, and female, and nothing even close to brawny. You’re conjuring a stereotype of a bodyguard—maybe a club bouncer with skintight shirtsleeves squeezing his biceps—and you’re noting that I’m pretty much the opposite of that. You’re wondering how I could possibly be any good.
Let’s clear that up.
Steroid-inflated bruisers are one type of bodyguard: a bodyguard for people who want the whole world to know they have a bodyguard.
But the thing is, most people don’t.
Most clients who need executive protection don’t want anyone to know about it.
I’m not saying that the big guys don’t have value. They can have a deterrent effect. But they can also do the opposite.
It all depends on the type of threat, to be honest.
Most of the time, you’re safer if your protection goes unnoticed. And I am fantastic at going unnoticed. All women EP agents are, which is why we’re in high demand. No one ever suspects us.
Everyone always thinks we’re the nanny.
I do the kind of protection most people never even know is happening—even the client. And I’m the least lethal-looking person in the world. You’d think I was a kindergarten teacher before you’d ever suspect that I could kill you with a corkscrew.
I could kill you with a corkscrew, by the way.
Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin.
But I’m not going to.
Because if things ever get to the point where I have to kill you, or anybody else, I haven’t done my job. My job is to anticipate harm before it ever materializes—and avoid it.
If I have to stab you in the eye with a dinner fork, I’ve already failed.
And I don’t fail.
Not in my professional life, at least.
All to say, my job is not about violence, it’s about avoiding violence. It’s much more about brains than brawn. It’s about preparation, observation, and constant vigilance.
It’s about predictions, and patterns, and reading the room before you’re even in it.
It’s not just something you do, it’s something you are—and my destiny was most likely set in fourth grade, when I was first recruited as a carpool monitor and got a Day-Glo sash and a badge. （I still have that badge on my nightstand.） Or maybe it was set in seventh grade when we moved into an apartment that was around the corner from a jujitsu studio, and I convinced my mom to let me take classes. Or maybe it was set by all those terrible boyfriends my mother could never stop bringing home.
Whatever it was, when I saw a recruiting booth near the campus jobs kiosk during my freshman year of college with a navy and white sign that read ESCAPE TO THE FBI, it was pretty much a done deal. Escape was my favorite thing. When I tested off the charts on conscientiousness, pattern recognition, observational skills, listening retention, and altruism, they recruited me right up.
That is, until Glenn Schultz came along and poached me away.
And the rest became history. He taught me everything he knew, I started traveling the world, this job became my entire life, and I never looked back.
The point is, I loved it.
You have to love it. You have to give it everything. You have to be willing to step in front of a bullet—and that’s no small choice, because some of these people are not exactly lovable—and getting shot hurts. It’s high stakes and high stress, and if you’re going to do it right, it has to be about something bigger than you.
That’s really why people who love this job love this job: It’s about who you choose—over and over every day—to be.
The luxury travel is pretty great, too.
Mostly, it’s a lot of work. A lot of paperwork, a lot of advance site visits, a lot of procedural notes. You have to write everything down. You’re constantly on guard. It’s not exactly relaxing.