Amanda Bear

I obviously could not have done this alone. I would say that my mother was definitely somebody who has always supported me, believed in me, and helped to shape who I am. She wanted me to be an independent, strong woman, and raised me accordingly as a single mother who was a teacher. She instilled in me to be a life learner, but also to go after what I feel is right, and she's always been there. So definitely my mother, and then there have been numerous people along the way that have believed in me and helped guide me in my path and my journey. There's quite a few of those, but I would say that the base foundation definitely was my mother. It takes a village, and I've been pretty lucky in that. I have to say, there's always pitfalls, right? But at the same time, I definitely think that I'm one of the lucky ones, and I'm blessed and grateful.

Give myself grace. Not be so hard on myself, and also feel that I had so much to prove when I was enough. I was enough, and to just give myself some grace. As women in general, we are so hard on ourselves than we need to be. We want everything to happen exactly as planned when we want it to happen, and it kind of takes or steals the joy of the journey. Don't steal the joy of the journey. Everything will happen the way it's supposed to, and just ride the wave.

You have to have a mindset that you're going to succeed, and don't let the naysayers and haters get to you. There are always going to be people who push back, but there are also a lot of really good individuals that want to mentor those, especially females, because they do see the value in what we have to offer. Make sure to seek that out and allow them to guide you, because there are really some great, amazing individuals out there. Your mentor may be a male, but that doesn't mean that you can't have them as a mentor. I do personally try to mentor other females - that's one of the reasons why I became a firearms instructor and defensive tactics instructor, because there are not a lot across the country that have the multiple certifications that I do. You always have to have goals, and you always have to know that you want to be better than the last generation, because I wanted to be a good role model for those that wanted to come up, especially the females, because I didn't really have one. I think that it's starting to take shape and I'm setting that presence accordingly. There's always going to be people that are going to push back on you, but I think that ultimately, it's your mindset. And as long as you have a good mindset and you have a strong network, I think we can do anything. If it was easy, everybody would do it, so be a trailblazer.

I'm in a new role at Emory with threat assessment and intelligence, and we're trying to incorporate insider threat due to all the confidential and proprietary research at the university. For me, I want to build out this unit so that it's a more robust platform to grow on. I'm also part of the team at ASIS that's going to be putting together an international standard for protective intelligence. There's never been one before, and so a lot of different organizations kind of piecemeal a lot of stuff and do it to the best of their abilities with the tools and research that is out there. But this will be that northern star that everybody can now take, and we'll be able to build upon that even in the future and expound upon the original standard that we're going to put out. It's going to be broad in nature, and then we'll dive in deeper. I'm the fresh face in a new role, so I'm trying to make it for what I think it should be, how it should benefit everybody and pave a new path.

For me, I have a really great network and a good balance at home. I try to make sure that every so often, I get to do something where I give back. I do security consulting work with Group 9, and what's great about them is that they like to give back to the community. We're starting to get involved with City of Refuge, which helps human trafficking victims, and that speaks to my heart because I used to work with crimes against women and children for a very long time. When I get to see stuff like that, that helps me emotionally balance everything and kind of get into the depths of the bad, but this is something that's good, and something that we can give back to. I'm very fortunate for people that I work with. Not only do we try to correct the wrongs in our daily lives and our work, but at the same time, we're taking it a step further and making sure that the community as a whole is going to be better for it. I love to work out, I'm very involved with helping out at shelters, and I have a lot of my own animals, so it's therapeutic in nature.