Bi-lateral symmetry is the trick of the day when it comes to self-defense.

Hello mates!

Tactically speaking, a Mother is most at risk when she is with her kids – depending of course on what it is the “bad guy” is actually after.

What’s his target? Is it you, the kids, your vehicle, your purse, or possibly your jewelry? And which of these things are you most likely to fight over keeping?

In order of probable preference I’m going to guess that the kids will be first, then yourself, and then maybe your jewelry if it has a high sentimental value to you.

Let’s deal with the jewelry first, as it is the most straight forward. Ask yourself this question,

“Would whomever gave you that piece of jewelry rather have the rock back, or you?”

“Would whoever bequeathed that piece of jewelry to you rather you die protecting it, or give it up and live?”

It is more likely they want you back not the jewelry – so no on both counts.

Very little is worth the price of a loved one lost – no matter what it’s monetary or sentimental value. Just give it up. Knowing this in advance is key to making things run smoothly.

Do not play games.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about a change of heart at the last second and “faking” the ring being too tight to remove, or trying to talk the robber out of taking your necklace because it belonged to your late Aunt Gilda and means so much to you.

Just give it up, and quickly. If your ring really is too tight to take off in a hurry, get it resized so you can remove it. Why? Because it’s significantly better to be able to remove it voluntarily, than have some guy with bold cutters cut your finger off to get at it.

Or maybe he thinks you’re trying to get clever with him about the necklace and he punches you in the face a half dozen times just to prove a point, before forcibly removing the thing and getting it anyway.

When I first mention thinking offensively during my Seminars in regards to Situational Awareness, most folks construe the reference to simple strategies for fighting back.

But in most cases the material things we covet most aren’t worth losing our lives over.

Thinking offensively, or tactically, also means having a pre-determined action plan for the things we will not fight for, and even a plan to make the bad guy’s job easier.

I know, some of you are wondering what the hell I’m talking about – make things easier for the bad guy! You’re thinking I’ve lost it.

Not so quick, Kimosabe! Part of thinking tactically also involves thinking about what sort of mental state your particular bad guy is in to commit such a crime. Do you think he’s going to be jacked up, nervous, stressed, afraid, or calm and collected?

Well, actually he could be any one or all of these things depending on how many times he’s committed this sort of crime and gotten away with it.

My point is, if you already know you are not willing to go toe to toe with the bad guy over the things he’s after, then making his life easier could limit the chances of him escalating his violent proclivities out of a heightened state of emotional arousal.

Do not start ridiculing the aggressor. It will not help your case...

Don’t stir him up for the sake of it!

We were taught in the Commandos if you can’t escape in the first few hours of capture it’s best to remain compliant and do nothing to antagonize your captors.

That whole spitting in the face of your interrogator is Hollywood bullshit. It looks good on film. But in reality it only serves to make the guy mad as hell and want to hurt you more.

Remaining compliant doesn’t mean that it isn’t your duty to still continue looking for and planning an escape attempt.

You never stop examining possibilities.

You just don’t make things worse than they already are until the odds are better than a 50/50 success of escape.

Your bad guy won’t be able to tell the difference between you really having trouble taking your rings off, and you faking it to stall. In either case, he may well escalate his violent behavior in response to your perceived games.

I would also like to mention that being compliant and doing the things I’m suggesting isn’t necessarily going to make you any safer. There was a recent robbery in an upscale shopping center near to where I live.

A women going to her parked car was attacked from behind and held up at knife point. She sensibly complied with his demands handing over her purse and the guy sliced her face anyway before he fled.

Either he was a sicko and did this just for fun, or, he knew before hand that she was less likely to be worried about turning around and getting a look at him if he sliced her first. Most of us when injured immediately focus our attention on the wound.

For any woman getting her face sliced it has some deep psychological implications making this reaction even more likely.

Please take this into account: you might do absolutely everything right and still get hurt, or killed. The bad guys are labeled so for a reason. They usually have little if any empathy for others and deliberately prey on people less able or likely to be effective in defending themselves.

Pre-plan what you are willing to give up and walk away from, and then in the event it happens don’t make a big song and a dance over giving them up. Think of it as the price you’ve paid to hopefully stay alive.

If you are willing to fight over your jewelry, purse, or vehicle, you are probably doing so as a matter of principle. If you do fight over these material things then you better be damn good at it and practice a lot.

I would suggest if you are the type of person willing to go to these lengths (and on some level I can hardly blame you) then please research getting into a good reality based martial arts school and be prepared to get roughed up learning the skills – assuming you haven’t already acquired them and practice at least three or four times a week.

In my humble opinion, you are nearly always better off giving these things up.

Which brings us to the bad guy going after either you, or your vehicle - which may or may not have your kids already inside!

This is where we’ll look at specific tactics involved with this scenario and how the dynamic will change from relative compliancy to flat out war with the bad guy. In most cases, now is not the time to begin playing along and being helpful – but what should you be doing if this happens?

That’s what is next on the Blog.

Cheers, Terry.

Have you ever been this tired..?

This should help remind the fellas about their anniversaries….(click anniversaries to follow the link.)

“He’s never been very successful. When oppurtunity knocks, he complains about the noise..” – Unknown.

This video is like a VERY weird train wreck – strange….but you’ll find your foot tappping along anyway about three minutes in..LOL

Lady Gaga  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I

Jk: The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.

“Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, ‘There’s Jennifer, she’s a lawyer,’ or ‘That’s Michael, He’s a doctor.’ A small voice at the back of the room rang out, “And there’s the teacher, she’s dead.”

    …taking multitasking to a whole new level…

Jk. A guy walks out of a store and sees a traffic cop writing a parking ticket. He rushes over and says to the Officer,

“Come on mate, how about cutting a guy a break and tearing that up?” 

The officer ignores the man competely and finishes up by sticking the ticket under the windshield wiper.

The mad gets mad and starts insulting the cop.

“You’d think with a face like yours, you’d be a bit more forgiving of the rest of us! Even your Mother is probably hard pressed to love that disaster…”

The officer smiles and begins writing another ticket, this time for bald tires.

“Shouldn’t you be somewhere else eating a dozen donuts? It must have been at least ten minutes since your last snack, fatty!”

This infuriates the traffic cop and he starts writing another ticket for a cracked winshield.

“Even out here I can smell your breath – when was the last time you laid anything other farm animals?”

For the next twenty minutes the exchange continues, until there is at least 11 tickets under the windshield of the car.

 Then the man smiles, walks another fifty feet to his own car, and leaves….

Etrade is rocking it out with the “baby” commercials and this is a pretty good compilation of the “outtakes”… Watch long enough to hear the Wilderbeast reference… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHPg262Kr9c&feature=topvideos

Some funny quotes:

“My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.”  
Jimmy Duran

“My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.”
Rodney Dangerfield

“We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress.”  
Will Rogers 

“Don’t worry about avoiding temptation. . as you grow older, it will avoid you.”  
Winston Churchill

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.” 
Groucho Marx

….of course I’m happy Dear..

I hadn’t heard about this festival in Japan until this morning, but these sculptures are amazing and well worth a look!  http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2009/02/05/8275886.html

True Story….  A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel plans. So, the husband left Minneapolis and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down the following day. The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an email to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without realizing his error, sent the email.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband’s funeral. He was a minister who was called home to glory following a heart attack. The widow decided to check her email expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she screamed and fainted. The widow’s son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:To: My loving wife

Subject: I’ve arrived     Date: April 6, 2006

I know you’re surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send emails to your loved ones. I’ve just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then. Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.

P.S. sure is freaking hot down here!!!!! – The Fun Hunt.com

Cheers, Terry

 

 

 

P.S. “The average American is someone who deplores violence in the street and has seen High Noon five times…” – And I quote.  Thomas Dunn Books, ST. Martin’s Press.

Let’s carry on from yesterday examining the way we are going to trick our minds into not letting us obsess over our negative emotions.

First things first, let’s recap what we’ve rooted out from Monday’s Blog:

1       Bad days are a thing of the past – it’s no longer a bad day unless your life was taken.

2       If your life wasn’t taken, that means you survived and it’s no longer a bad day – which means you’ll have fewer bad days than ever.

3       Taking into consideration that none life-threatening days aren’t really bad days, just frustrating days, dealing with the emotions of frustrating days can be made easier.

4       Understand that any negative emotions we feel are simply a byproduct of evolutionary survival training. We obsess over them because we needed to do so as cavemen, so we wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Our emotions helped remind us of the long term detrimental effects of doing whatever it was, that we shouldn’t have done, in the first place.

5       It is very hard to feel sorry for yourself, when after a small amount of research, we can discover people who have overcome some of life’s most challenging and awe inspiring situations. This helps us keep a little bit of perspective on our own problems.

6       It’s all going to come down to YOUR mindset. How you manage your emotions will dictate your ability to either just survive or barely make it. You really can thrive even when others around you begin to falter and crumble under the stress. It really is your choice..

Now, in order to achieve this new mindset we are going to employ a technique I refer to as contrary counterfactual thinking. Essentially we are going to take the best that regular counterfactual thinking has to offer, and twist it around a bit to make it work in our favor!  

The links below will explain the typical negative association with normal counterfactual thinking, but as with all things in life, you must take the best bit of anything new that you learn and apply only what you need!

 http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/counterfactual_thinking.htm

 http://www.psyarticles.com/intellect/counter-factual-thinking.htm

Here is an example of what I believe contrary counterfactual thinking should sound like:

 A friend of yours has recently bought a new house, and can’t wait to show it off to you the first time you visit. After a guided tour of the upstairs you begin your decent. You place your foot down on the second from top step, directly onto a kid’s small toy metal car.

 You don’t have a chance. Your foot screams out from under you and you go tumbling down the stairs…

 At the bottom you are now graced with a severely bruised ass, no wind in your lungs, and an ego that might never recover – but that’s all…

Do you feel lucky at this point? (Most people say no to this by the way)

 Well, if you are a contrary counterfactual thinker you will, and here’s why…

 Your first thoughts should be something like this,

 “Holy Crap! I could have been killed. I could have broken my neck! ….but I didn’t.”

“I’m alive!!”

Contrary counterfactual thinking allows you to consider the “what ifs” we typically love to play in life, but we only apply it to situations where the outcome to any given situation could have been worse, much worse!

As in, “I could have died falling down the stairs at my friends’ house… But, I didn’t!!”  Hooray..lucky you.

This is on par with the Bronze medal winner at the Olympics, she’s just happy to be on the podium. Contrary counterfactual thinking says, I could have been one zillionth of a second slower and not even placed, then I wouldn’t have even gotten the Bronze.” She feels lucky to have gotten that because of how close she came to not being a “finisher” at all – her Contrary counterfactual thinking illuminates this fact and makes her feel better about herself. This is why I want you to begin mastering this technique.

 Whereas, the Silver medal winner is probably playing regular counterfactual thinking games, blaming themselves for some slight stumble that excluded them from first place…. Their thinking is, if I hadn’t done this or that, I’d be the winner.

 I would be getting the Gold medal.

 It is being used in a way that is detrimental to their long term mental health as this thinking only promotes self blame and regret.

And who would want to live like that?

The next time something bad happens to you, and something bad is always going to happen, ask yourself,

 “Could this______________ have been worse, and if so how?”

 You will discover this train of thought will have you looking on the bright side of life like never before. Instead of getting caught up in focusing on what you may have done wrong, think about how many things you did right to have stopped it from being worse than it is.

What’s that? You crashed an Airplane? Into the Hudson?!?!

 In that case you’re a freaking hero! Think of what would have happened if you’d crashed it into those buildings less than a quarter mile away from your watery landing site….

It’s very easy to attribute Contrary counterfactual thinking to huge events, especially those that could have resulted in massive loss of life – which, by the way, would have qualified as having a bad day…

What we need to learn to do is apply this outlook to smaller issues in our lives. If we can forgive the guy who crashes a commercial airliner into the Hudson, I think we can forgive you for your screw ups, right?

FYI I really do think the pilot of that particular airplane did a fantastic job of keeping everyone alive. If I ever got onto a plane he’s flying, I would feel freaking lucky to have him as the Captain…just as long as he doesn’t crash again; once can be forgiven, twice is a habit…haha.

Tomorrow we are going to look at whether optimism or pessimism is best for helping control emotions. We’ll review some information garnered from Prisoners of War as examples of what sort of person typically faired the best, in the worst of circumstances. Then you and I can learn how to apply their hard learned lessons to improve our own lives.

Cheers, Terry

 www.highintensityteambuilding.com

P.S. “People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something that one finds. It is something that one creates.” – Thomas Szasz

Hello mates!

Welcome to the new week..

Depending on your current state of mind, ”welcome to a new week” could be interpreted in a couple of ways:

1  Warmly and with enthusiasm…

2   Or, what the hell is he thinking, welcome to a new week – I’ll give him a “welcome” all right…(this is all said with scathing resentment and less than a subtle undercurrent of pure disdain).

Which one are you?

I’ve got to admit it, today, I’d  be the guy you’d love to hate! After my first cup of coffee I found my joy for the coming week firing on all cylinders. My workout was without the typical old age induced pain, haha, which is always nice.

Now I’m all showered and ready to start blasting out the first installment for this weeks Blog, full of optimism and promise. Of course, it’s still early, so there’s still plenty of time for someone to ruin my day….LOL. I’m joking.

No one is dragging my jolly ass down today. Yep, it’s that good.

               Have you ever met someone, whether at a professional networking function, or social event, that the moment they told you what they do, or in my case, did, you found yourself so engrossed in their occupation you asked a million questions. This wasn’t because you felt obligated to keep you both from slipping into a sort of moronic coma, but because you genuinely wanted to hear what they had to say. Maybe because you found yourself genuinely impressed with their “job”.

This happened to me recently, and believe me, most times I couldn’t give a crap what you do, if you are interesting as a person I’ll chat with you, nothing (or very little) that folks do for work is either interesting nor exciting to anyone but the individual doing it.

Point and case, have you ever chatted with an insurance salesman, if so, I rest my case.

So it was with more than a large dose of surprise that I found myself chatting with a woman who used to work at Pixar. Yep, the computer animation folks.  I’m sure there’s someone out there now yelling the correct title for someone that does this sort of work, but to the layman, me, that’s how I think of them. Well, that and geniuses. Anyone that can keep me, and my kids entertained in the same room, at the same time, cannot be described as anything less.

Of course I wanted to know all about it. I asked her questions with enough enthusiasm she might have thought me slightly nuts. Apparently she was very used to it, as she said most people reacted to her in much the same way. This news made me feel a bit better, I must say. She talked at length about the reasons she moved away from California and her dream job, and I listened intently. Without giving this poor woman’s life story away, she moved because of family, and still missed her old profession.

What I wanted to know is, where the hell did they get all their ideas from? And her answer surprised me no end,

“I have no idea!”

HUH?!?!

I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. Then she explained: “Everything about their culture was designed to promote creativity. Nothing else mattered.  Nothing. There was one goal, make the best “product” they possibly could and no one gave a crap about where the idea came from. They would brainstorm endlessly about one “shot” and how to maximise it’s effectiveness.

No one was ever happy with the first draft…or the thirty third draft. Often she said they would work for months on a particular piece only to have the director come in and watch it and say he wanted it to be changed in such-and-such a way… Imagine months of work and then the “boss” walks in and says, “wow, but wouldn’t it look good like this…”

Often times she said the changes he wanted couldn’t be done. She stressed this point, not just a wee-bit tough, we’re talking the sorts of changes that were impossible. Couldn’t be done. No way no how. Forget it. So guess what the team told him? 

“We’ll do it.” She explained that 90% of the time things that they agreed to do couldn’t be done; at least not then. 

They said YES before ever really knowing if they could do it!

How scary would that be?

Their ability and desire to say yes first, and figure it all out later, is what we are going to be chatting about for the next few days. Was it resources or resourcefulness that got them through it? And how does this weave a common thread through your life, work,  hobbies, or even wilderness and/or disaster survival?

We shall have a gander at it and see what we can come up with.

Cheers, Terry

P.S. “You can’t depend on your judgement when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain.

www.highintensityteambuilding.com

With this week fast becoming a distant memory, I though it would be a great idea to start Fiasco Friday. So, instead of carrying topics that are work related for this fine end of the week day, I’ll be scouring the Internet and magazines looking for funny jokes, stories, escapades, adventures, quips, and ironic observations from across the globe.

Your help would be greatly appreciated, please!

If you find something that has you laughing, or pausing for thought, entertained or amazed, I’d like to hear from you! The only condition is that it has to be funny. We will be looking for things to close the week out on a positive note – so knock yourself out and send me your best. I won’t reveal more than your first name and city, (unless you want your email address posted) so I can attribute where the “quote” originated.

Spread the word and invite others to send in their best stuff too – you can post this link for them to follow: www.highintensityteambuilding.com/wordpress

Here’s a couple of things I tripped over and found funny, or entertaining, this week…

John is the kind of guy you love to hate.

He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.  When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”  He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

He replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or … you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.” Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or… I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes, it is,” he said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life” I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,” he replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or…I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

 ”Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked.

He continued, “..the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’. I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said John. “She asked if I was allergic to anything.

 ’Yes, I replied.’

The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity’.”

Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude… I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

Submitted by Andy, Gettysburg, Pa.

IF the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside. Anonymous.