Lesson 1 - How to Thrive in A Crisis - Immediate Response
The majority of this e-course
is going to be about dealing with a crisis
after the initial phase
of getting out of immediate or reverting immediate danger "element",
is already off the table.
I mean chances are if you're sitting here
and able to even do an e-course, this phase has already come and gone.
But I am going to acknowledge
that there are some circumstances where
needing to take steps to avert immediate danger
is an element of some of these crises.
For example, if you've got a car crash, or an accident, or a natural disaster.
For that reason,
I'm going to give you some tips for that process.
Before I get into them,
I'm gonna also tell you something:
If you're in this "must take immediate action to avert danger"
type of a scenario in a crisis,
you're not going to get it perfectly right.
And that's totally fine.
Some things you are going to get right,
those survival mechanisms kick in to get you out of immediate danger,
and they do a lot of things right very quickly.
They also do some things wrong,
because you're not going to be able to be in your objective mind
when those primal elements of your being are activated.
So just know,
mistakes are going to be made.
No, nobody's gonna get that perfectly.
Know that you're in a situation
where you got to do the best with what you have from where you are.
So let's say you're in one of those
"must avert immediate danger" types of crisis.
Here are some steps that you want to take
This is the bare minimum of how to deal with it the best way you can.
The first is, you're going to begin diaphragmatic breathing.
Now I'm not talking sitting in meditation,
I'm talking wherever you are,
even if it's on the side of a freaking highway,
I want you to start to breathe as deep as you possibly can
and the best way to do this, is to do what professional singers do.
You're going to start breathing deep into your lower back.
The deeper that you can get those breaths,
the better this is going to go.
It's going to keep you in your rational objective mind,
better than probably any other practice.
What breathing in this way really does,
is it mitigates panic.
Panic cannot happen when you're in this type of a crisis situation,
because chances are, in about half a second,
you have a million things that have to be done, and all of them ASAP.
Panic is not going to help with that.
In fact, it's going to make it impossible
to really accurately prioritize in that situation.
So diaphragmatic breathing,
you can do it from wherever you are,
you don't need to be sitting in a meditative state.
You can do it, even if you have to move really really fast.
2. You want to get the immediate situation
under control as fast as you can.
This means ensuring the safety and well-being of people.
You definitely in this phase,
need to prioritize people
over property.
And this phase,
this step may mean immediately making a call to somebody
who is more knowledgeable
relative to that particular crisis, than you.
For example, this may be the time to call in crisis management
or emergency teams, for example.
3. The next step is you're going to analyze the situation
to the best of your ability.
Obviously, this is not going to be a perfect exact science.
But this is the phase where you've got to gather all the information
that you can get your hands on,
and gather it freaking fast.
So here's the three questions you're going to ask yourself,
in this analyzing phase.
What happened?
What happens now?
&, What needs to happen next?
Base everything that you're about to do,
on those three questions.
Once you've gathered this information
and you've asked yourself those three questions,
you're going to start taking those minut steps
that are laid out in front of you.
This is the time to consider
whether you've experienced anything similar before.
When you immediately access that memory,
it's about:
"Oh wait what did I do last time when I was in a similar situation
that really sucked?
And what did I do last time that may have benefited me?"
And start implementing those things you've learned, immediately.
What you want to be thinking, in this "analyze mode"
of an immediate response type of the situation, is:
"What can I do to make any tiny improvement?"
In the next few minutes,
in the next few hours,
in the next few days,
in the next few months?
It's really important during this phase,
that you seriously analyze the ethical and legal implications
of every step that you are taking,
because this is the phase in which
you could make knee-jerk reactions
that get you into ethical and legal trouble later.
So, this is a time to remember
that every single action you take
causes a ripple effect.
Another way of looking at that, is a domino effect.
You've got to be aware of and analyze that domino effect,
before you start to take immediate actions.
4. And this is probably the most important one to responding immediately;
A crisis has a way
of putting so much pressure on you,
that you are immediately going to have to define your values.
So this next point is,
to act in alignment with your values
and stay true to what really really matters to you,
and do so, in a very profoundly powerful way.
This means. stick to your conscience,
stick to your morals,
stick to the things that are important and meaningful to you,
stick to your values
and make your actions
come from that space.
That's the best way to make sure that any action you take,
in this immediate response scenario,
is not going to come back to bite you later.
It's not going to be something that makes you stay up at night,
rolling around wondering whether you did the right thing.
I must say here
that you've got to try to not let
an immediate response crisis,
put you in a position,
to do things that aren't really the right things.
Because in a crisis,
everyone wants relief.
I mean, we want relief "that quick"
because it hurts like hell.
So you may be very tempted
to do the wrong thing,
because it's the thing
that will make you the quickest relief.
Even though a crisis comes to you
in order to define or redefine your actual values,
one of the best ways to respond
in this immediate response required,
type of a scenario,
is to stick to the convictions that you had before the crisis occurred.
Stick to the values you had
and you know you have
before the crisis occurred.
With those points out of the way,
now we can move beyond
the "immediate response required to avert a danger" phase,
and we can get into the rest of this e-course,
which is about how to thrive through a crisis.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte