I just finished reading the book Survivor's Club by Ben Sherwood.
It is a survey of Survivors and an analysis of what they did right and how you can adapt that to your life. People who have found themselves in situations that would kill most people. For example - knitting needle through the heart, attacked by a mountain lion, falling overboard a cruise ship drunk, sinking ferry boat in the middle of icy waters, prisoners of war....the list goes on.
It was a fascinating book on these circumstances and the book is well written and very entertaining.
What I took away from this book was several things:
1 - This is not a drill.....nope - you never know when your survivor situation will arise and so be ready. When that fire alarm goes off at work - your butt should be out of your chair moving for the door while most people will be milling around wondering if its a "Real" alarm or a fire drill.
2 - Stay in the present - work the situation you find yourself in - dont wish, hope, daydream about something else, you waste time and energy and you may need both.
3 - Eat your elephant one bite at a time - take on one small task and then another always working toward the end goal of eating your elephant. You are so much stronger than you think you are....
Lastly, I learned that knowing you can get through anything puts you a long way towards getting there. Not the blind optimistic hope, but reality based faith - Faith (if you would prefer). Those that got through difficult circumstances almost always had a belief system - God. Those prisoners of war who died first - the optimist. Be a realist - UNDERSTAND THE DIRENESS OF YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES and KNOW YOU CAN GET OUT OF IT.....
I bought this book, read it and recommend it - no monies have changed hands except for what I gave to Barnes and Noble ;) Although, if Ben Sherwood wants to use this on the book jacket of the next printing, we can talk....Call me.....
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2 comments:
I will keep that in mind. Seems like a pretty darn good book.
After you mentioned this book previously I went and checked it out and then bought it. Seems to be pretty good so far.
It has already got me thinking about past and current situation where I needed to think fast under pressure, and how I reacted.
I dare say that while I won't freeze and die I'm definitely not going to be superman :)
Queue flash back music and wavy linesFor instance the other day at Wal*Mart I was standing in the pharmacy section waiting to check out. (In our store the pharmacy is next to the toy section.) A thunderous boom echoed through the store and most people froze in place. I admit I also froze but within a second I was already analyzing the situation and had figured out my escape route if necessary. After figuring where to exit I processed the other info in my head. I decided that what I heard wasn't a gun shot and there was no smoke so it wasn't anything major. The next logical thing was that one of the kids must have been to rough with one of those big bouncy balls. I took my eyes off the location of the sound and started glancing around and everyone was still stuck in place. I waited a second and announced that it was probably just a kid with a ball and I watched as people just "believed" what I said without question and went back to shopping as if I was some .gov official telling them it was all OK now and they could resume their normal activities.
End music and wavy linesJust goes to show you most people don't want to lead or decide for themselves. They just want to follow SOMEONE ELSE and let them take action and take responsibility in case everything fails. I think some how it makes us feel better to know that we didn't screw up and kill us someone else did that for us.
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