A woman gets pushed off a subway platform on the train tracks. Do you scream and run for help? Or do you jump down on the tracks and try to save her? What if an earthquake rattles and damages your building…do you run for the stairs or help your coworkers evacuate? What if you’re in the theater and a man with a gun comes in and starts shooting? Do hide on the floor? Run for an exit? Start streaming it on Facebook Live? Do we ever know the answers to questions like this until something happens? These random, unpredictable, awful events can actually be somewhat prepared for – not by thinking through every scenario but by practicing remaining calm.
The United States Military Academy knows this. Plebes are put through hell their first year – not as some sort of passed-down hazing ritual, but as a technique that inures them against stress…they practice, again and again and again, being under stress and still functioning, still making decisions. All the facts and poems they are expected to memorize and recite on demand are on top of the excellence demanded of them academically and physically. Some will wash out of this, but for those who endure, they become some of the calmest people in high stress circumstances – able to think clearly and make decisions quickly and instinctively. It’s not about being brave as much as it’s about practice. Did you know that in general, your odds in a scary situation are much better if you act than if you don’t? It seems that if you’re already acting, that by itself helps you to stay calm. Your decisions are better when you are calm than when you are highly stressed.
How calm are you under stress? I can tell you this – if you ever see me get strangely silent when everyone else’s hair is on fire, it’s because I’m running 500 different possible responses through my head in about 30 seconds. I’m not swearing or crying or screaming. I’m assessing -- and I won’t move or release anything until I have my course figured out. Rash I’m not. But am I fast enough? My 10-second risk assessment of jumping onto a NY subway track to rescue someone would make that a really bad idea. For one thing, I don’t know which rail is the ‘third rail’, but I think that’s the one that could kill me by electrocution if an oncoming train didn’t get me. So, how would I respond? I’d hope somebody else was already helping, but if not, I don’t imagine I could just be an onlooker.
The United States Military Academy knows this. Plebes are put through hell their first year – not as some sort of passed-down hazing ritual, but as a technique that inures them against stress…they practice, again and again and again, being under stress and still functioning, still making decisions. All the facts and poems they are expected to memorize and recite on demand are on top of the excellence demanded of them academically and physically. Some will wash out of this, but for those who endure, they become some of the calmest people in high stress circumstances – able to think clearly and make decisions quickly and instinctively. It’s not about being brave as much as it’s about practice. Did you know that in general, your odds in a scary situation are much better if you act than if you don’t? It seems that if you’re already acting, that by itself helps you to stay calm. Your decisions are better when you are calm than when you are highly stressed.
How calm are you under stress? I can tell you this – if you ever see me get strangely silent when everyone else’s hair is on fire, it’s because I’m running 500 different possible responses through my head in about 30 seconds. I’m not swearing or crying or screaming. I’m assessing -- and I won’t move or release anything until I have my course figured out. Rash I’m not. But am I fast enough? My 10-second risk assessment of jumping onto a NY subway track to rescue someone would make that a really bad idea. For one thing, I don’t know which rail is the ‘third rail’, but I think that’s the one that could kill me by electrocution if an oncoming train didn’t get me. So, how would I respond? I’d hope somebody else was already helping, but if not, I don’t imagine I could just be an onlooker.