Meet
Larry Wilson
Larry's Story
I guess the difference with me was that I was the only one in the crowd who was blown away. I was in a conference session with over 200 people when the presenter shared that their company had reduced injuries by 50%, just by eliminating or significantly reducing rushing at their company. I instantly knew this was the missing piece that the safety industry hadn’t discovered yet. Why nobody else seemed to pick up on this the way I did will forever remain a mystery. The case study presented that day was what started me down the path of figuring out what causes over 95% of human error. And after that, it was just a succession of one thing happening—paying attention, thinking about it, then another and another until I had the four states and four errors in the “self area.”
Larry's Inspiration
“I guess what inspires me are people who go out of their way for the common good."
Back in 2008, when SafeStart had only been on the market for ten years, my business partner called me from India. “They really need SafeStart here Larry. They've got nothing else, you've got to help them.”
When I first found out that more children and teenagers die accidentally than all the workers put together, I began producing videos to teach children about human error and unintentional injuries.
When I announced that our vision was to take SafeStart to every child, every school, every athlete and every worker—in every country—in our lifetime—you can probably imagine the skepticism it produced; even with the people working at the company. “Well, who should be left out?” I answered. Should we say “Only the people at companies who can afford it? Too bad you live in the developing world—I guess you'll just have to try to be more careful?” But perhaps, the best quote comes from the most pragmatic, logical and sarcastic person I’ve ever met—my father.
What he said was, “You’ve got the cure for malaria, but you're selling it in Norway—you need to go where the mosquitos are.”
And so, that’s what I'm doing. Taking SafeStart to all the countries, all the workers and all the children. And as far as the “in our lifetime” part is concerned, I guess that’s where you come in. How can you help? I’m not getting any younger…
SafeStart
Larry’s first course SafeStart has educated thousands of companies to support personal safety and improve safety culture. It has taught millions of employees to be mindful of human error. On every continent, SafeStart has guided people to take practical safety skills from the workplace into their homes and communities.
SafeStart’s 24/7 approach is what really sets it apart from other personal safety programs.
HeadStartPro
Being an alumni varsity basketball player at Carleton University Larry is passionate about helping athletes stay on top of their game. His brainchild HeadStartPro
helps coaches and athletes to get in and stay in “the zone,” the peak performance zone where everything clicks and you play at your best. By recognizing the physical and mental states you are in before you make a performance error or get hurt, you can activate techniques to prevent an error or injury from happening.
Public Speaking
Are you looking for an engaging keynote speaker for your upcoming conference or a safety-industry leader to speak at your company?
Defenseless Moments: A Different Perspective on Serious Injury
This book is based on a series of 12 short articles that were published in safety magazines all over the world. These articles–now chapters–were written and designed to provide a number of different perspectives–or paradigm shifts–in terms of how most people think about industrial safety, and how most people think about accidental injury causation in general. Perhaps the most serious injuries and unintentional fatalities, whether they occur at work, on the road or in the home/community.
Larry Wilson Blog
