The Art of Manliness - #610： Who Lives in Survival Situations, Who Dies, and Why

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.180 In disasters or accidents, why do some people survive and others perish?

00:00:15.480 In exploring this question, my guest has uncovered psychological and philosophical insights into

00:00:19.700 not only dealing with life-threatening crises, but strategically navigating any situation

00:00:23.780 that involves risk and decision-making.

00:00:25.720 His name is Lawrence Gonzalez.

00:00:26.780 He's a pilot, a journalist, and the author of several books, including the focus of today's

00:00:30.740 conversation, Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.

00:00:34.360 Today on the show, we discuss how the story of his father being shot out of the sky during

00:00:37.720 World War II set Lawrence on a journey to explore the mysterious underpinnings of survival.

00:00:42.220 Lawrence then explains what happens to us mentally and emotionally in a disaster situation that

00:00:46.040 causes us to make poor decisions, how our mental models can get us in trouble, and why rule

00:00:50.340 breakers are more likely to survive than rule followers.

00:00:53.460 Lawrence then walks us through complexity theory, and how trying to make things safer can

00:00:57.320 counterintuitively make them more dangerous.

00:00:59.220 We then talk about why the frequency with which you yell at your kids correlates to your

00:01:02.540 chances of surviving a life-threatening emergency, before ending our conversation with a discussion

00:01:06.420 of the paradoxes would-be survivors must grapple with, including being both realistic and hopeful

00:01:11.220 at the same time.

00:01:12.320 After the show is over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash deepsurvival.

00:01:16.040 Lawrence joins you now via clearcast.io.

00:01:18.540 Lawrence Gonzalez, welcome to the show.

00:01:33.320 Thank you.

00:01:33.940 So you wrote a book, we're coming up on almost 20 years ago, Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who

00:01:39.420 Dies, and Why. 0.53

00:01:41.060 This is a book about the psychology of survival, where you go and you look at accidents that

00:01:45.280 happen in the wilderness, mountain disasters, people getting lost, people drowning in rivers.

00:01:51.240 But this is also a very personal book, because throughout it, we have a story of your own

00:01:56.180 story, but also the story of your father.

00:01:58.180 The story of your father sort of began this search of why people survive in dire situations.

00:02:05.020 Can you tell us about that story and how it sort of kick-started this journey of yours?

00:02:10.140 Absolutely.

00:02:10.620 My father was a combat pilot in World War II.

00:02:14.460 He was a B-17 pilot.

00:02:16.680 He flew out of England and over Germany.

00:02:20.600 And on January 23, 1945, he was doing a bombing raid on Dusseldorf, where there's a big railroad

00:02:28.200 marshalling yard.

00:02:30.040 And before he got to the target, he had his left wing shot off by anti-aircraft fire.

00:02:35.120 Now, this was one of those gigantic raids near the end of the war, where they would put

00:02:41.900 up sometimes upwards of 1,000 planes.

00:02:45.000 This particular mission was 700 planes, approximately.

00:02:48.780 And my dad was the very first plane, and he was the pilot.

00:02:53.320 And so he was ahead of everybody else.

00:02:55.220 Everybody saw this happen.

00:02:57.060 And his left wing was shot off, which meant his right wing was still flying.

00:03:01.660 So it rolled upside down and started spinning, and it spun so fast that the G-forces pulled

00:03:07.900 the airplane apart.

00:03:09.180 And my father was in a little fragment of the cockpit that had torn off, and he fell 27,000

00:03:15.780 feet.

00:03:16.760 He never got out.

00:03:17.960 He never got his parachute, which was under his seat.

00:03:21.420 The G-forces were too great.

00:03:23.140 And so essentially, with the aerodynamics of a bathtub, he fell 27,000 feet and survived.

00:03:31.740 And in fact, he was very badly injured, but the Germans took him to a prison camp.

00:03:36.840 It was a prison camp hospital, and there was a French surgeon who put him back together

00:03:41.140 a bit, as best he could.

00:03:43.200 And my father actually made it home.

00:03:45.140 He was liberated by Patton, and he came home.

00:03:48.200 This was 45.

00:03:49.160 I was born a couple of years later, and I grew up with these stories, which to me sounded

00:03:54.640 incredible.

00:03:55.680 But I grew up also with the sense that, hey, I might not have been here.

00:04:00.320 You know, if my father, everybody else in his crew was killed except him.

00:04:04.180 And if my father had somehow not survived that fall, I wouldn't be here.

00:04:07.960 And that was a very existential kind of thought for a little kid to have.

00:04:13.240 And it was also a very big deal in my growing up, because every January 23rd, my mother would

00:04:19.620 have a special meal and make a cake and celebrate my father's survival.

00:04:24.180 So we were all very aware of this.

00:04:26.420 And it began my quest to find out who lives, who dies, and why, and ultimately led me to

00:04:32.260 write the book Deep Survival.

00:04:34.460 And what's interesting, your father never flew after that, but then you went on yourself to

00:04:38.200 become a stunt pilot.

00:04:40.160 Yeah, I did indeed.

00:04:42.080 So I grew up with the idea that flying an airplane was the coolest thing in the world,

00:04:46.800 and that even cooler would be to fly upside down with smoke.

00:04:51.460 And just as soon as I could arrange it, I got my pilot's license.

00:04:55.180 I've been a pilot most of my life.

00:04:57.260 And for about eight years in the early 90s, throughout the mid-90s, I flew aerobatics.

00:05:04.600 And I flew mostly for fun.

00:05:06.620 I did fly competition a little bit.

00:05:08.380 But I flew a very high-powered aircraft called the Pitt Special, which I probably had no

00:05:13.720 business doing.

00:05:14.620 But there it was.

00:05:15.800 It was the most fun I'd ever had.

00:05:17.540 I think it's interesting.

00:05:18.460 You know, I mean, I think most people, they heard their dad almost died in a plane.

00:05:22.260 They would avoid planes.

00:05:23.360 But you were like, no, I'm going to go.

00:05:25.400 I'm going to do some of the most dangerous things you do.

00:05:27.400 I'm actually going to turn upside down and do flips in a plane.

00:05:29.540 Well, you know, it's funny.

00:05:32.440 I took my father.

00:05:34.300 So when I was flying competition, they have these aerial routines that you have to do.

00:05:38.660 It's like compulsory set of figures that you do in the sky.

00:05:42.540 So it might be, you know, a spin and a roll and a Cuban 8 and an Immelman and whatever other 0.99

00:05:50.280 things they prescribe for you.

00:05:52.240 And I was getting ready for a contest.

00:05:53.760 And my father was 70.

00:05:56.200 And I said, you want to go?

00:05:57.620 You want to see what I do?

00:05:58.520 And he said, sure.

00:05:59.340 And we went up and I took him through my sportsman routine in the aerobatics competition.

00:06:06.120 And he didn't say much, you know, we were on headphones together and got back on the

00:06:11.440 ground.

00:06:12.000 And he said, you're a really good pilot, which is like the ultimate, you know, that I've

00:06:17.820 been waiting for all my life.

00:06:20.020 Well, in your book, Deep Survival, you focus primarily on disasters that happen when people

00:06:26.220 are doing recreational activities in the outdoors.

00:06:29.040 Why did you key in on that particular topic?

00:06:32.500 So I had been working for National Geographic doing what we would call adventure journalism.

00:06:38.340 National Geographic had a magazine for some years called National Geographic Adventure.

00:06:44.000 And I would go out.

00:06:45.460 We had a joke.

00:06:46.240 My editor, John Rasmus, and I had a joke.

00:06:49.080 It was that he would try to get me killed and I'd try to come back with a story.

00:06:53.140 So we'd go, you know, on adventures.

00:06:55.060 Like I would go learn rock climbing or I'd go to Glacier National Park and get myself lost.

00:07:00.520 And after a few years of doing this, I came to him one day and said, you know, we glamorize

00:07:07.380 this stuff and we publish these beautiful photographs and people want to go out there

00:07:12.100 and do what we've done. 0.93

00:07:13.140 And I think we owe it to them to say, hey, you can get killed out there.

00:07:16.580 And here are some things that maybe you should think about before you go.

00:07:19.420 And he said, like, no, no, no.

00:07:21.480 The advertisers would never go for that.

00:07:23.380 They'd hate that.

00:07:24.340 And I kept after him actually for a couple of years before he finally said, okay, go ahead

00:07:29.660 and do it.

00:07:30.540 And I did a piece in the magazine called The Rules of Adventure.

00:07:35.600 And it was this stuff about the psychology of like how people make, essentially the meaning 0.99

00:07:43.120 of it was why smart people do stupid things.

00:07:46.660 And that got me started down the road of doing deep survival in earnest. 0.88

00:07:53.320 And this really all began back in the early 70s when I was investigating airline

00:07:59.540 crashes.

00:08:01.120 And I would always go to the NTSB and say, you know, this guy who crashed his plane,

00:08:07.620 the pilot, he's a really smart guy.

00:08:10.340 He's got 30,000 hours.

00:08:12.140 He's ex-military.

00:08:13.060 He's got a master's in engineering. 1.00

00:08:14.880 How come he did this stupid thing and flew his plane into the ground? 1.00

00:08:17.700 And they would always say, well, we don't know. 1.00

00:08:19.740 He's dead.

00:08:20.700 And we can't interview him.

00:08:22.140 We'd like to know that too.

00:08:23.280 And I always thought that's the most interesting question. 1.00

00:08:26.360 It's like, why did the smart guy do this stupid thing? 0.98

00:08:30.140 And so when I wrote Deep Survival, I did write about all these wilderness accidents and recreational 0.99

00:08:35.520 accidents.

00:08:36.100 But I tried also to connect them to other things in our lives that involve risk and decision

00:08:41.600 making, such as running a hedge fund, being a cancer doctor, you know, any kind of ordinary

00:08:48.400 activity that involves incomplete information or confusing information where you have to make

00:08:54.400 a decision.

00:08:55.780 Well, yeah.

00:08:55.940 And the thing about the outdoors, it's you're in a complex environment where you have very

00:09:00.960 little control.

00:09:01.760 I mean, I have actually no control over most of the stuff, the weather, the terrain, and

00:09:06.420 that's like most of life.

00:09:07.820 You're living in a complex environment, a business.

00:09:09.820 There's so many decisions you have to make, and you don't have a lot of control over those

00:09:12.460 factors.

00:09:13.680 Right.

00:09:14.820 So yeah, in the first part of your book, you talk about, okay, why do people get in these

00:09:19.140 pickles in the first place?

00:09:20.200 Why do people get into accidents in the wilderness?

00:09:23.400 And you focus in the first part of the book talking about the role of emotions play that

00:09:27.920 people, sort of, I don't know, cause people to make bad decisions.

00:09:31.760 So what happens to our emotions whenever we face a survival or disaster scenario?

00:09:38.100 So everyone is familiar with this scenario.

00:09:42.000 I'm at home.

00:09:43.360 My wife is at home.

00:09:45.060 We both know we're here.

00:09:47.040 We both know that nobody else is here because we're sheltering in place because of the coronavirus.

00:09:52.360 Moreover, we know that there most likely aren't any bears in our house right now.

00:09:58.480 So I come up the stairs and I come around the corner and all of a sudden my wife is right

00:10:02.560 in front of me coming the other way and I grab my chest and I go, oh my gosh, you scared me.

00:10:07.840 And we laugh.

00:10:09.460 And then the whole thing settles down.

00:10:11.040 But during that moment of getting startled, some interesting things take place because

00:10:15.300 none of my cognitive knowledge that I just told you about makes any difference at all.

00:10:20.200 The emotional response of being startled is full-blown almost instantly.

00:10:26.240 And it means my heart is racing, my steroid levels go up, my bloodstream, my muscles tense,

00:10:31.520 my breathing quickens.

00:10:33.020 Everything for a fight or flight response is amped up, even though there's absolutely no

00:10:38.580 logical reason for it.

00:10:40.900 So what does this tell us?

00:10:42.840 This tells us, first of all, emotion and reason work like a seesaw for the most part.

00:10:47.460 And when emotion is very high, reason goes out the window and it just doesn't function

00:10:53.640 at all.

00:10:54.420 In these situations like this, we don't tend to make up new behaviors.

00:10:59.640 We tend to do what we've done before and we don't tend to get much choice in how we

00:11:05.220 react.

00:11:05.640 So no matter how many years my wife and I have been married, no matter how many times this

00:11:10.140 has happened in our little house, I can't prevent it from happening.

00:11:13.380 And we have this joke because she'll be coming around the corner and she'll hear me on the

00:11:17.520 stairs and she'll say, bear, bear. 0.75

00:11:21.240 Like she knows she's going to startle me and is trying to prevent it.

00:11:24.720 So that's essentially in many of the scenarios I describe in the book, Deep Survival, I'm

00:11:30.980 describing people who are overcome by emotion when if they took the time to sit down and think

00:11:36.040 about what they were doing, they wouldn't do it.

00:11:37.660 Well, and you also talk about this concept of there's primary emotions and there's secondary

00:11:42.400 emotions and people who survive tend to, they've trained up those secondary emotions.

00:11:47.540 Yeah.

00:11:48.360 So when we're born, we have a set of built-in emotions.

00:11:52.640 Little babies have, you know, they can cry if you hold a baby up, you know, under his arms

00:11:58.980 in front of you, he'll kick his legs rhythmically.

00:12:01.520 And there are a bunch of reactions he'll have.

00:12:04.080 In fact, babies have a real powerful startle reaction.

00:12:07.800 If you make a loud noise, the baby will startle and cry.

00:12:10.920 And most animals of our kind, I believe, are born with an innate fear of snakes and shapes

00:12:17.500 like snakes.

00:12:18.880 But beyond these primary emotions, as they call them, you will develop all kinds of secondary

00:12:24.520 emotions.

00:12:25.280 So, and they follow a pretty well-known path.

00:12:29.560 You will learn to like the things that are good for you.

00:12:32.360 And you will learn to dislike the things that are bad for you.

00:12:35.920 And that means you will label those things with either a good emotion or a bad emotion.

00:12:41.260 And it just depends on who you are, what things you're going to be attracted to.

00:12:44.780 But food obviously is a big one.

00:12:48.540 Some of that is primary.

00:12:50.480 We're born with the response to sweet things that we have, which is we like them.

00:12:56.320 We don't have to train that.

00:12:57.820 But like when my son Jonas was, I don't know, two, maybe two or three, when the garbage truck

00:13:04.180 would come in the alley, he would get all excited and scream, garbage truck, garbage truck.

00:13:09.640 And he would be like quivering with excitement because to him, this was a great, you know,

00:13:15.760 display of something that he enjoyed.

00:13:18.760 And gradually over time, he got used to the garbage truck and it faded into, you know, the

00:13:23.860 background.

00:13:24.240 And so this is kind of the course that emotions take.

00:13:28.760 And I mean, those sort of those emotions that we associate with events, you call those

00:13:32.840 emotional bookmarks, right?

00:13:34.040 So like if something happens, you either bookmark it as good or bookmark it as bad.

00:13:39.380 And then you might even bookmark it with certain actions that you do as a result of experiencing

00:13:44.100 that event that triggered that emotion.

00:13:45.880 Yeah, so one of the stories I tell in the book is about a group of snowmobilers, and they

00:13:52.840 are actually going out in search of a snowmobiler who didn't come back.

00:13:56.860 And they're told at the beginning of the day, the avalanche danger is very high.

00:14:01.900 There will be no high marking today.

00:14:03.780 And high marking is where you run your snowmobile up the side of the mountain, see how high you

00:14:08.140 can go.

00:14:08.620 And then before you have to turn around and come back down.

00:14:10.800 And the guy who makes the highest mark is the winner.

00:14:15.220 And this is a real fun thing to do with a snowmobile.

00:14:19.460 And so they're puttering along out there in the woods trying to find this guy.

00:14:23.960 And they stop for some reason.

00:14:26.780 And one of the guys suddenly is overcome by emotion and races up the hill.

00:14:33.280 And he knows not to do it.

00:14:35.240 He's been told not to do it.

00:14:36.440 He's agreed not to do it.

00:14:38.280 He understands the danger.

00:14:39.440 But at that moment, with the smell of the woods and the sound of the engines and the

00:14:44.220 throttle in his hand, he just couldn't resist.

00:14:47.280 And he races up the hill.

00:14:48.900 Of course, the reason the story is in the book is because it ends badly.

00:14:52.580 He triggers an avalanche and somebody dies.

00:14:55.320 And then everybody stands around and says, well, you know, why did he do it?

00:14:58.800 And the answer is he did it because of the nature of the emotional response.

00:15:02.460 And that's an emotional bookmark.

00:15:03.720 Or something in that scene or a combination of those things in the scene had been embedded in his emotional system time and again until it became automatic.

00:15:14.100 And just the smell of the pine, you know, could have been enough to make him do this without thinking.

00:15:19.860 And so, you know, it's an extremely powerful system.

00:15:24.820 It's meant for our survival and obviously has worked because here we are.

00:15:29.620 Yeah.

00:15:29.680 So that was an example.

00:15:30.460 He probably, he'd done that lots of times before, had a positive emotional experience with it.

00:15:36.200 And then he had it again.

00:15:37.220 He did it thinking it would be like the other times where it'd be a fun experience and it didn't turn out the way.

00:15:42.060 Well, and the key to it is you don't think.

00:15:44.500 So his body had told him this is good.

00:15:47.440 And every time he'd done it before, it had been good.

00:15:50.060 It had been reliably good.

00:15:51.880 All his time on a snowmobile, he'd had the same experience.

00:15:55.760 And you hear this all the time from people who get dead, as the saying goes.

00:16:01.620 And their friends would say, but we always did it this way.

00:16:04.320 We've done it before.

00:16:05.160 We've never had a problem before.

00:16:06.440 And I say in the book, you know, you read in the newspaper about the accident and it says he was a very experienced snowmobiler.

00:16:14.280 And very experienced may simply mean he's done the wrong thing more times than you have.

00:16:19.980 And it finally caught up with him.

00:16:22.140 Right.

00:16:22.320 Well, and the other example you gave of someone who had some emotional bookmarks, you know, embedded in him, but it ended up poorly for him was, I guess he was like a former army ranger, special forces guy.

00:16:32.860 And he went whitewater rafting, fell out of the boat, and he actually was pretty calm and relaxed.

00:16:38.920 He's like, oh, yeah, this is, you know, I don't have to worry about this.

00:16:42.100 I've come out good when I've been put in situations like that.

00:16:45.320 And he wasn't thinking and he made a bad choice.

00:16:48.000 He ended up drowning.

00:16:48.860 He got pinned in to a log.

00:16:52.120 Yeah.

00:16:52.220 And so he was an army ranger and in army ranger training, if you need to be rescued, you're out of the program.

00:16:58.940 You do not get rescued.

00:17:01.420 You're trained that rescue is not a good thing.

00:17:03.900 You're the guy who rescues other people.

00:17:06.040 So when he fell out of the raft, the guide jumped in the water to rescue him.

00:17:10.980 And I think it was Colonel Gabba was his name.

00:17:14.460 Pushed the rescuer away and laughed at him like, you know, I'm an army ranger.

00:17:18.300 You don't need to rescue me.

00:17:19.260 And moreover, he had a bad emotional bookmark associated with being rescued and a good emotional bookmark for taking care of himself.

00:17:28.660 He just didn't understand the nature of the hazard he was in.

00:17:32.660 And that's often the case with people who get in trouble.

00:17:36.400 They don't realize how big the hazard is.

00:17:38.920 And so it's, you know, it's always good to think about your environment and what you don't know about it.

00:17:44.260 When your environment changes, you can't just keep acting the way you've acted all your life.

00:17:48.640 All right.

00:17:49.380 So the big takeaway there, oftentimes when people make decisions that kill them in the wilderness, they're not typically thinking.

00:17:55.800 Their emotions are making the decisions for them.

00:17:57.980 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:17:59.960 And now back to the show.

00:18:04.480 What I love about your book is you go in deep in this idea of mental models.

00:18:07.800 And we've written about this on the website and had guests talk about mental models with, you know, John Boyd and his OODA loop and whatnot.

00:18:15.180 But what role do mental models play in accidents happening in the wild?

00:18:19.440 So just to, for those of your listeners who aren't sure about this, mental models are something we create all our lives to make ourselves efficient.

00:18:29.820 And if you have little children around, you can watch them doing it.

00:18:32.740 You get a one, one-and-a-half-year-old who's able to say a word or two and walk, and this child encounters a dog, and somebody will say doggy, and the child will immediately learn what a dog is.

00:18:46.280 And it doesn't matter from there on if it's a Great Dane or a Chihuahua.

00:18:50.600 This child is never going to mistake a goat for a dog.

00:18:54.000 They will have a sort of template for what a dog is, and I call this a mental model.

00:19:00.000 And it will free them of the necessity for examining every dog they encounter to see if it's not actually a buffalo or a cat.

00:19:08.200 They know it's a dog.

00:19:09.640 And we do this with everything in our environment.

00:19:12.020 Anything that we see multiple, you know, if you look at a book,

00:19:15.420 at different books, at different angles, they all give different visual impressions, and yet we know exactly what they are.

00:19:23.420 So we tend to find these big groupings of things.

00:19:26.360 And then once we have them, we figure out things to do with them that I call behavioral scripts.

00:19:31.340 So, for example, you can teach a child to tie his shoe.

00:19:36.240 Teaching someone to tie his shoe is very difficult to do,

00:19:39.180 but it produces this kind of miracle in which something that takes all of his attention and conscious, deliberate thought

00:19:46.220 turns into something that takes none of his attention and is absolutely automatic.

00:19:50.760 So we tend to do this with everything in our lives.

00:19:54.180 If we do something enough, it becomes automatic.

00:19:57.080 We instantly recognize the thing and what we're supposed to do with the thing,

00:20:01.480 and we also label it with emotional valence of some kind, that it's good or that it's bad.

00:20:07.480 Most people will very quickly and early on, if it's not a primary emotion already, learn to, you know, brush an insect off.

00:20:16.020 So if an insect lands on your face, you're going to immediately respond to it.

00:20:21.080 But everything in our life will become that way.

00:20:23.520 It's like learning how to swing a golf club.

00:20:27.060 It becomes fully automatic.

00:20:28.820 But the problem with mental models whenever you're out in the wild is,

00:20:33.640 and you face a situation where things get dangerous,

00:20:36.420 like you might not ever experience that situation that you're finding yourself in,

00:20:40.800 and as a result, you still behave based on prior assumptions or a prior mental model,

00:20:47.120 and that ends up getting you killed. 0.98

00:20:49.300 Right.

00:20:49.880 So we tend, as I think I said this earlier, we tend not to invent new behaviors under stress.

00:20:56.080 If we're in a stressful situation, a high emotional situation, we tend to do what we've done before,

00:21:02.320 and that can lead us into a dangerous place or take our lives.

00:21:08.900 There's one case in the book in which a guy gets lost, and he, people don't tend to backtrack.

00:21:16.480 He's under a lot of stress.

00:21:17.560 He's exhausted.

00:21:18.720 The hike has taken longer.

00:21:20.200 He's been through a storm.

00:21:21.260 A bunch of things happen, and he's stopped making good decisions.

00:21:25.860 And so he starts running around in a kind of panic to try to find out where he is,

00:21:31.700 which is a very typical, you know, you run from danger, and it's kind of an automatic thing.

00:21:38.280 Eventually, he gets himself under control and survives.

00:21:40.760 But many times, young kids, not very young, but like teenage kids, will start running,

00:21:47.020 and they'll just run themselves to death.

00:21:49.100 So this automatic response can be quite dangerous.

00:21:52.800 And you also talk about how, you know, our mental models are so embedded in us.

00:21:57.220 You talk about the research that shows whenever people do face a disaster situation,

00:22:02.180 like a fire in a building or like in a plane crash,

00:22:05.480 people, you think the normal response would just be panic,

00:22:09.480 but like a lot of people just sit there and act like everything's normal.

00:22:12.720 Because like the mental model still hasn't updated that,

00:22:15.880 oh, wait, something bad is happening right now.

00:22:18.140 So there are a couple of things I would say about that.

00:22:20.560 The first is there's a case, and I don't know if it's in the book Deep Survival or not,

00:22:25.640 but it's in a dorm room.

00:22:28.620 A girl has been in the habit of coming out of her dorm room,

00:22:32.720 going to the left to get to class every day, you know, going to the left in the hallway on,

00:22:39.200 I believe it was the second floor, and there's a fire.

00:22:42.640 And the exit is to the right that's closest to her room,

00:22:45.820 and she goes out her door and runs to the left and dies, 0.95

00:22:48.340 because that's what she had done all along.

00:22:51.200 In the case of freezing that you mentioned,

00:22:54.220 yes, it's very common in airline crashes to find people strapped in their seats,

00:22:58.680 otherwise uninjured, but dead from smoke inhalation because they just didn't do anything.

00:23:04.740 This is a very common mammalian reaction to freeze.

00:23:08.940 And if you look at the video, I believe it was 1996 when the Atlanta Olympics were bombed,

00:23:15.460 there's a video of a crowd seen there.

00:23:18.220 And when the bomb goes off, everybody drops to one knee.

00:23:21.000 And then after a moment or so, they run away.

00:23:25.080 But that first freezing response is very, very typical of mammals,

00:23:30.720 and it's kind of an orienting response.

00:23:33.840 However, under extreme trauma, you can get a very deep freezing response

00:23:38.900 that can actually do damage and in some cases can even kill you.

00:23:43.440 This is a response inherited from our reptilian ancestors

00:23:46.740 whose primary defensive mechanism is freezing.

00:23:51.000 And they can lower their metabolism so that they can stay underwater for a long time.

00:23:55.700 If you're a mammal, you're hot-blooded,

00:23:57.640 and you need a lot of oxygen for the big brain if you're a person.

00:24:01.140 And so if you do this freeze response and lower your own metabolism,

00:24:04.380 you can hurt yourself.

00:24:05.680 But it's a very real thing.

00:24:08.280 I think another example, you just mentioned the Atlanta bombing that happened in the 90s.

00:24:12.180 That jogged my memory, something I remember reading from your book,

00:24:15.200 of a mental model getting people killed was with the world trade attack.

00:24:19.120 And so the example you gave was, first, we all know about the bombing that happened in the 90s.

00:24:25.260 And the thing that people did to help them survive was go up.

00:24:29.060 Because down was where the bombing happened.

00:24:32.240 And so when the World Trade Center attack happened in 2001,

00:24:36.340 when they felt the building shake and they say there's an explosion,

00:24:40.280 like people's mental models, well, last time this happened,

00:24:43.060 you had to go up to get rescued.

00:24:45.380 But that actually ended up getting people killed.

00:24:47.820 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:24:49.520 There had been, at the time of the first bombing,

00:24:52.840 I forget how they got there,

00:24:54.180 but they had somebody who was able to unlock the door to the roof.

00:24:57.200 And they got on the roof of the building and were rescued from there.

00:25:00.840 And so the people who had that memory

00:25:03.380 had formed an indelible mental model

00:25:06.980 and behavioral script that matched that.

00:25:10.600 And they went up.

00:25:11.960 By the time they realized they couldn't get out on the roof,

00:25:15.120 which wouldn't have done them any good anyway,

00:25:17.020 they started to go down and they could no longer get down.

00:25:20.320 As you say, they perished.

00:25:21.840 And this, again, is a very common response.

00:25:24.800 And we have to be aware of, in stressful situations or dangerous situations,

00:25:30.800 we have to be aware of that response

00:25:33.940 and take the time to think and plan and act.

00:25:38.880 And in the book, Deep Survival,

00:25:40.240 I have at the end of the book an appendix

00:25:42.660 with 12 sort of traits of good survivors

00:25:45.700 that include these pieces of advice of how to manage that.

00:25:51.280 Well, and yeah, with mental models,

00:25:52.820 one thing that stood out to me is that

00:25:55.020 the people that typically survive are rule breakers.

00:25:58.020 Like they break the rules.

00:25:58.860 They don't follow those scripts

00:26:00.580 that they thought they're supposed to do.

00:26:02.440 And that actually ends up saving them.

00:26:04.220 Yeah, exactly.

00:26:05.920 And it turns out that in medicine, for example,

00:26:09.000 doctors find that in cases like cancer,

00:26:13.460 people who follow the rules tend not to do as well.

00:26:18.320 So if you say to somebody, you know,

00:26:19.620 you've got six months to live,

00:26:20.820 they die in six months because that's what you told them.

00:26:23.880 Whereas the rule breaker, the rebel, 0.93

00:26:26.900 will probably say, well, to heck with you.

00:26:29.240 You know, I'm going to live again.

00:26:30.460 It's a typical, we hear this all the time.

00:26:32.740 It's like they come back from war 0.97

00:26:34.460 and the doctor says, you'll never walk again.

00:26:36.940 And the guy says, oh yeah, well, watch this.

00:26:39.120 And he learns to walk again.

00:26:40.680 And so in the book, there is a case

00:26:44.540 where a fellow breaks his leg at 19,000 feet

00:26:48.160 on a mountain in Peru.

00:26:51.380 And he says to himself, wow, I'm dead.

00:26:54.680 I just broke my leg at 19,000 feet.

00:26:56.760 There's no way to get off this mountain.

00:26:59.400 However, I can see that I can make my way

00:27:02.500 over to that spot over there.

00:27:03.800 I think I'll make my way over there to that spot.

00:27:06.240 And each time he does one thing, he thinks, wow, I'm dead,

00:27:10.160 but I'll just do one more thing.

00:27:11.720 And he keeps going and eventually actually

00:27:13.700 gets himself off the mountain.

00:27:14.920 And this is a rule breaking kind of scenario.

00:27:19.300 All right.

00:27:19.440 So our emotions make our decisions for us,

00:27:22.180 which ends up killing us.

00:27:23.500 We oftentimes are using out-of-date mental models

00:27:27.240 to make decisions and behavioral scripts

00:27:28.940 that can get us in trouble.

00:27:30.920 But besides human psychology causing accidents,

00:27:33.640 you also get into complexity theory.

00:27:36.240 Which I thought was really fascinating.

00:27:38.400 I think we've heard ideas of like,

00:27:39.980 I think people have heard about complexity theory,

00:27:42.420 but can you kind of walk us through

00:27:43.860 what role complexity theory plays

00:27:46.380 and why accidents happen?

00:27:49.040 So complexity theory applies to certain kinds of systems

00:27:52.920 where there's no central authority.

00:27:55.180 So if you take an example like the stock market,

00:27:57.800 the stock market is really pretty simple.

00:27:59.740 You can buy something or you can sell something.

00:28:01.840 I mean, there's lots of complex schemes in there,

00:28:04.800 but those are the basic rules.

00:28:07.640 And yet out of those basic,

00:28:09.460 and you have a bunch of agents,

00:28:10.900 each of which is making his own decision

00:28:14.620 about what to buy or what to sell.

00:28:16.680 And out of that simple interaction,

00:28:18.880 you get this very complex,

00:28:20.900 mathematically beautiful result,

00:28:23.500 which is the price of stocks.

00:28:25.420 And the price of stocks moves each day

00:28:28.180 by a certain amount.

00:28:29.120 And there's a bunch of small movements

00:28:31.300 that are typical.

00:28:32.580 But every once in a while,

00:28:33.580 you get a really big movement,

00:28:34.900 either up or down,

00:28:36.220 like we saw recently in the crash.

00:28:38.860 People are attributing this crash

00:28:40.720 to the coronavirus.

00:28:41.980 But in fact, that's not really correct to say.

00:28:45.360 The crash is typical of a complex system.

00:28:49.560 And so in the book,

00:28:51.440 in Deep Survival,

00:28:52.480 I say that if you look at mountaineering accidents,

00:28:56.040 and I use Mount Hood as an example,

00:28:58.740 you will see that all kinds of people

00:29:01.320 go out there to climb these mountains all the time.

00:29:03.600 They're very crowded with people.

00:29:05.820 And every day that there are

00:29:07.800 a bunch of people out there,

00:29:08.860 you have people making

00:29:09.760 these individual decisions

00:29:11.160 and you're having little accidents

00:29:13.120 of all sizes.

00:29:14.780 People slip and fall.

00:29:16.040 They use an ice axe to self-arrest,

00:29:19.480 you know, or somebody may break a leg

00:29:20.940 or somebody may try glissading and fail.

00:29:23.620 But all these little accidents

00:29:25.380 are happening all the time

00:29:26.360 in the background of this system.

00:29:28.320 And then every once in a while,

00:29:29.820 they all get together

00:29:30.640 and you get a really big accident.

00:29:32.520 Or some days you get no accidents at all.

00:29:34.780 So it behaves kind of like a complex system.

00:29:37.760 And it is certain

00:29:39.860 that you will get these accidents.

00:29:42.380 There's no way to take the accidents

00:29:43.960 out of the system.

00:29:45.260 And the same is true with the stock market.

00:29:47.300 There's no way to take the crashes

00:29:48.720 out of the system or the bubbles.

00:29:51.520 Well, yeah, with that Mount Hood example,

00:29:52.640 I think is a good one

00:29:53.860 to explore complexity theory.

00:29:55.820 Because yeah, the mountain itself

00:29:57.400 is a complex thing.

00:29:59.380 The terrain is always changing.

00:30:00.860 The weather is changing.

00:30:02.020 And then you have all these people

00:30:03.720 who are interacting with that terrain

00:30:05.240 who are modifying it and changing it.

00:30:07.340 But the other way that complexity theory

00:30:09.540 can cause accidents

00:30:11.160 or is a part of the reason

00:30:12.880 why accidents happens is

00:30:13.900 when we oftentimes,

00:30:15.900 when we try to make things safer,

00:30:17.980 we only add more complexity

00:30:19.960 to the system,

00:30:20.680 which increases the chances

00:30:23.100 that a big accident can occur.

00:30:24.840 And this happens with mountaineering

00:30:26.000 with how people try to be safe

00:30:29.120 by roping themselves

00:30:29.920 to everyone that's

00:30:31.080 on their little mountain group.

00:30:33.180 Yeah.

00:30:33.460 So the accident that I described

00:30:35.460 in Deep Survival,

00:30:37.500 there were several groups

00:30:39.280 on the mountain above,

00:30:42.220 you know, one above the other,

00:30:44.000 which is not a good idea anyway.

00:30:46.680 And they had roped themselves together.

00:30:48.680 However, they hadn't attached

00:30:50.640 the rope to the mountain.

00:30:52.780 And so when you rope yourself

00:30:54.400 together with someone else,

00:30:56.080 the mountaineers who know

00:30:57.520 what they're doing

00:30:58.280 refer to it as a suicide pact,

00:31:00.020 because if one of you falls,

00:31:02.140 the other will fall

00:31:02.900 or all of you will fall.

00:31:04.740 And they don't appreciate

00:31:05.740 the forces involved

00:31:07.200 when somebody falls.

00:31:09.040 And so they think

00:31:09.800 they can self-arrest

00:31:11.080 with an axe,

00:31:12.440 which they carry,

00:31:13.760 but they can't.

00:31:15.280 And that's exactly

00:31:16.000 what happened at Mount Hood.

00:31:18.700 The guy at the very top fell.

00:31:21.380 And the rule

00:31:22.140 in roping yourself together

00:31:23.400 is the top man must not fall

00:31:25.220 because if the top man falls,

00:31:27.140 he's going to pull everybody

00:31:28.040 off the mountain.

00:31:28.620 And that's exactly what happened.

00:31:29.820 So this tumbling effect

00:31:32.040 of people coming down with ropes

00:31:34.000 caught the next group

00:31:35.340 and they went tumbling

00:31:36.640 and that caught the next group

00:31:38.020 and they went tumbling

00:31:38.820 and everybody wound up

00:31:39.920 in a crevasse

00:31:41.180 and three people died.

00:31:43.020 And so they had created

00:31:44.100 this very complex,

00:31:45.500 high energy system

00:31:46.560 without ever realizing

00:31:47.880 what they were doing.

00:31:49.380 And of course,

00:31:50.020 it gave way.

00:31:50.940 Then it got even more complex

00:31:52.900 because now all of a sudden

00:31:53.980 there's an accident,

00:31:55.220 a fatal accident,

00:31:56.460 and rescuers start pouring in

00:31:58.280 from every direction.

00:31:59.140 Now you've made the mountain

00:32:00.100 more complex

00:32:00.920 and raised the likelihood

00:32:03.200 that there'll be more accidents.

00:32:05.260 And indeed,

00:32:05.740 a helicopter came up

00:32:06.900 to try to work the incident

00:32:08.720 and the helicopter crashed.

00:32:10.840 So it's one of these systems

00:32:13.040 that just gets worse and worse

00:32:14.300 as you tweak it.

00:32:15.940 And complex systems

00:32:17.180 tend to be this way.

00:32:18.740 They have a number

00:32:20.180 of striking characteristics,

00:32:22.640 one of which is

00:32:23.280 small inputs

00:32:24.620 can lead to very big outputs.

00:32:27.780 So this is called

00:32:28.580 the butterfly effect.

00:32:30.280 The flapping

00:32:30.720 of a butterfly

00:32:31.820 in Brazil

00:32:33.220 can cause

00:32:34.380 a hurricane

00:32:35.000 in Texas.

00:32:36.840 And that's a

00:32:37.640 sort of famous

00:32:38.620 catchphrase

00:32:40.220 having to do

00:32:41.080 with complex systems.

00:32:42.820 And the big takeaway

00:32:43.740 I took from

00:32:44.240 your section

00:32:45.360 on complex systems

00:32:46.380 is that

00:32:46.800 if you're going to

00:32:48.380 engage in an outdoor activity,

00:32:50.280 there's always going to be risk.

00:32:51.300 Like, you can't eliminate the risk.

00:32:52.640 It's just

00:32:52.920 that risk is part of the system

00:32:54.480 and you cannot eliminate.

00:32:55.440 And even if you try to eliminate,

00:32:56.820 you might just make things worse.

00:32:58.320 Yeah.

00:32:59.620 Exactly.

00:33:00.340 And so

00:33:01.100 in trying to make it safer

00:33:03.080 by roping themselves together,

00:33:04.260 they made it worse.

00:33:05.160 If they had gone individually,

00:33:06.680 only one guy would have fallen.

00:33:08.300 And machines are like that too.

00:33:10.260 We take things

00:33:11.080 like nuclear power plants

00:33:12.440 and we put a safety valve on

00:33:13.880 that's going to shut it off

00:33:15.040 if something goes wrong.

00:33:16.620 And it turns out

00:33:17.340 it shuts off

00:33:18.860 the one section

00:33:20.440 that's cooling the thing

00:33:21.740 and the whole thing melts down.

00:33:23.500 And it's typical,

00:33:24.640 there's a guy named Perrault,

00:33:26.060 Charles Perrault,

00:33:27.120 who wrote a book

00:33:28.600 in the 1980s

00:33:29.540 called Normal Accidents.

00:33:31.700 And it was about

00:33:32.320 this very phenomenon

00:33:33.400 of how

00:33:34.580 when you deal

00:33:35.380 with these complex

00:33:36.300 machine systems

00:33:37.600 that are tightly coupled,

00:33:39.160 you get all kinds

00:33:39.820 of weird interactions

00:33:41.460 that were not intended

00:33:42.780 so that, for example,

00:33:44.780 the lavatory

00:33:46.140 on an airliner

00:33:47.320 can cause the plane

00:33:48.720 to crash,

00:33:49.360 you know,

00:33:50.100 because it leaks

00:33:50.880 and the ice forms

00:33:52.040 on the outside

00:33:52.720 of the airplane

00:33:53.560 because it's so cold

00:33:55.020 and the ice breaks off

00:33:56.100 and flies into the engine

00:33:57.460 and there you've got

00:33:58.960 an accident

00:33:59.460 that who would expect

00:34:00.560 a toilet

00:34:01.040 to bring down an airplane.

00:34:02.820 And so,

00:34:03.340 understanding complex systems

00:34:04.700 and understanding

00:34:06.340 how they

00:34:07.000 don't work

00:34:08.640 the way you expect

00:34:09.660 normal things to work

00:34:11.200 that is

00:34:12.240 in a linear fashion

00:34:13.320 can save you

00:34:14.480 a lot of grief.

00:34:16.100 So,

00:34:16.320 the accidents happen

00:34:17.240 and our typical,

00:34:18.200 the typical response

00:34:18.960 that we talked about earlier

00:34:19.960 is people panic

00:34:21.460 and they start 0.99

00:34:22.080 making dumb decisions 0.97

00:34:23.240 but survivors tend 0.99

00:34:24.420 not to do that.

00:34:25.880 I mean,

00:34:26.080 or they do

00:34:26.840 but then they're able

00:34:27.440 to get control

00:34:28.100 over it really fast.

00:34:29.240 What have you,

00:34:29.780 in your research,

00:34:30.360 what did you find that,

00:34:31.320 what's the difference

00:34:31.960 between people

00:34:32.520 who don't panic

00:34:33.340 and let their emotions

00:34:34.580 get the best of them?

00:34:35.560 So,

00:34:36.620 as I've said

00:34:37.400 a couple of times already,

00:34:38.440 you don't tend to invent

00:34:39.520 new behaviors

00:34:40.460 in stressful situations

00:34:42.160 and so,

00:34:43.420 how you behave

00:34:44.400 in your life

00:34:45.500 before the event,

00:34:47.320 whatever it is

00:34:48.100 that's going to

00:34:49.120 demand that you survive it

00:34:50.540 will be how you behave

00:34:52.080 in the face of an emergency

00:34:53.740 for the most part.

00:34:55.000 There will be exceptions

00:34:56.160 to this

00:34:56.720 but if you're

00:34:57.720 the kind of person

00:34:58.580 who

00:34:59.260 is used to

00:35:01.040 being calm

00:35:01.960 in the face

00:35:03.000 of adversity,

00:35:03.660 you will bring

00:35:05.460 that same ability

00:35:06.500 to be calm

00:35:07.280 to whatever

00:35:08.260 emergency faces you.

00:35:10.180 If you're the kind

00:35:11.080 of person

00:35:11.520 who's constantly

00:35:12.460 going off,

00:35:14.280 you know,

00:35:14.800 half-cocked,

00:35:15.880 this does not bode well

00:35:17.480 for how you'll behave

00:35:18.540 when things really

00:35:19.460 go wrong

00:35:20.100 and so,

00:35:22.020 so it's really

00:35:22.580 a lifelong quest

00:35:24.140 for equilibrium

00:35:25.760 that brings you

00:35:27.520 to survive better

00:35:29.260 when you're called

00:35:30.560 on to do so

00:35:31.500 and

00:35:32.800 this can be

00:35:34.020 anything from,

00:35:35.280 you know,

00:35:35.960 are you always

00:35:36.540 yelling at your children,

00:35:38.040 you know,

00:35:38.400 when you could be

00:35:39.260 calmly talking to them,

00:35:41.060 you know,

00:35:41.260 are you always

00:35:42.020 irritated by things

00:35:43.340 that happen in life

00:35:44.320 when you could be

00:35:45.720 simply facing them

00:35:47.120 and saying this is life.

00:35:48.280 One of the

00:35:48.800 things that psychologists

00:35:50.220 talk about

00:35:51.020 is the locus

00:35:52.080 of control

00:35:52.940 and there are two

00:35:54.620 forms that that takes.

00:35:55.880 One is external

00:35:56.860 and that person

00:35:58.440 believes that things

00:35:59.320 are happening to him,

00:36:00.680 that the world

00:36:01.680 is falling down

00:36:02.620 on him,

00:36:03.100 that things are

00:36:03.700 other people's faults.

00:36:05.680 If he trips

00:36:06.540 over the sidewalk,

00:36:07.620 he'll sue somebody

00:36:08.800 instead of saying,

00:36:10.300 wow,

00:36:10.460 I should be more careful

00:36:11.400 and the person

00:36:12.460 with the internal

00:36:13.240 locus of control

00:36:14.120 believes that he's

00:36:15.160 in charge

00:36:15.800 and can make

00:36:16.740 things happen

00:36:17.480 and if bad

00:36:18.560 things happen,

00:36:19.700 he asks,

00:36:20.380 well,

00:36:20.980 how can I make

00:36:21.680 that into an

00:36:22.300 opportunity?

00:36:23.480 There's some

00:36:24.340 lesson to be learned

00:36:25.560 here or some

00:36:26.280 opportunity to take

00:36:27.300 from this.

00:36:28.460 I know lots of

00:36:29.240 people who are

00:36:29.920 in the world

00:36:30.860 of investment

00:36:31.500 and when the

00:36:32.820 stock market

00:36:33.400 crashed in

00:36:34.480 the face

00:36:35.080 of the

00:36:35.520 coronavirus

00:36:36.160 epidemic,

00:36:38.020 they said,

00:36:38.820 oh,

00:36:39.220 bargain basement,

00:36:40.240 time to buy

00:36:40.740 some stocks.

00:36:42.000 These people

00:36:42.560 have what they

00:36:43.260 call an internal

00:36:44.040 locus of control.

00:36:45.180 They view the

00:36:45.820 world as something

00:36:46.420 they can manipulate

00:36:47.280 and be successful

00:36:48.160 at and they make

00:36:49.300 much better

00:36:49.740 survivors.

00:36:51.100 Another thing

00:36:51.420 you talk about

00:36:52.080 with survivors,

00:36:53.220 particularly survivors

00:36:53.860 who are having

00:36:54.700 to survive

00:36:55.660 for a long time,

00:36:56.580 say you're lost

00:36:57.220 in the woods

00:36:57.700 for a long time

00:36:58.420 or the worst

00:36:59.200 ones you talked

00:36:59.680 about,

00:36:59.880 people lost

00:37:00.400 at sea

00:37:00.900 for weeks.

00:37:03.000 That's hard

00:37:03.660 because on one

00:37:05.980 hand,

00:37:06.140 you want to hope

00:37:06.680 that you're going

00:37:07.080 to live

00:37:07.660 and you'll survive,

00:37:09.020 but on the other

00:37:09.380 hand,

00:37:10.100 you can't focus

00:37:10.880 on that too much

00:37:11.640 because it might

00:37:13.140 drive you crazy

00:37:14.100 and might cause 0.58

00:37:14.860 you to make

00:37:15.220 bad decisions.

00:37:16.160 How do people

00:37:17.000 who end up

00:37:17.360 surviving,

00:37:17.780 how do they

00:37:18.140 balance that?

00:37:19.340 That hope,

00:37:19.940 I'm going to live

00:37:21.200 and get past this,

00:37:22.040 but also maybe

00:37:23.700 think I might not

00:37:24.480 get through this

00:37:25.340 and this might be

00:37:25.960 my new situation

00:37:26.700 forever.

00:37:28.420 Steve Callahan

00:37:29.480 is a guy,

00:37:31.580 a sailor,

00:37:32.540 who I write

00:37:33.020 about in Deep

00:37:33.580 Survival,

00:37:34.340 and he was lost

00:37:35.660 at sea,

00:37:36.620 I think it was

00:37:37.140 72 days.

00:37:38.200 It was a long

00:37:38.660 time.

00:37:39.800 And Callahan

00:37:40.200 is an exact

00:37:41.180 example of what

00:37:42.320 you're talking

00:37:42.820 about.

00:37:43.540 He was pretty

00:37:44.320 sure he was

00:37:45.040 going to die, 0.96

00:37:46.460 but like the

00:37:47.120 mountaineer in

00:37:47.760 Peru who broke

00:37:48.600 his leg,

00:37:49.300 he said,

00:37:49.660 you know,

00:37:50.760 I probably am

00:37:51.940 going to die, 0.96

00:37:52.440 but I think I 0.56

00:37:53.060 will just take

00:37:53.740 this one step

00:37:54.560 and try to

00:37:55.200 catch that fish

00:37:56.080 and see if I

00:37:57.260 can't feed

00:37:57.940 myself something.

00:37:59.400 And sure

00:37:59.720 enough,

00:38:00.040 he succeeded

00:38:00.540 in catching

00:38:01.060 a fish.

00:38:02.120 In addition,

00:38:02.860 he did things

00:38:03.560 like he had

00:38:05.060 a life raft.

00:38:06.940 He used the

00:38:07.600 fly cover for

00:38:08.780 the life raft

00:38:09.380 to catch water

00:38:10.180 so he was able

00:38:11.460 not to dehydrate

00:38:12.500 completely.

00:38:13.680 And he just

00:38:14.300 did these little

00:38:14.960 things.

00:38:15.380 And I think

00:38:15.760 the broad

00:38:16.800 answer to

00:38:17.440 your question

00:38:18.020 and looking

00:38:19.120 at something

00:38:19.580 like coronavirus

00:38:20.360 right now

00:38:21.240 is we have

00:38:23.080 to take

00:38:23.460 things a

00:38:23.960 day at a

00:38:24.360 time,

00:38:25.040 in some

00:38:25.340 cases an

00:38:26.000 hour at a

00:38:26.600 time,

00:38:27.400 in some

00:38:27.720 cases minutes

00:38:28.840 at a time,

00:38:29.460 but we have

00:38:30.480 to not try

00:38:31.960 to concentrate

00:38:32.760 too much on

00:38:34.160 the grand

00:38:34.680 future of

00:38:35.720 things,

00:38:36.080 which will

00:38:36.920 tend to

00:38:37.340 frustrate us.

00:38:38.320 I use

00:38:39.060 examples of

00:38:40.180 people who

00:38:40.760 were prisoners

00:38:41.360 in Nazi

00:38:42.540 death camps,

00:38:43.400 Auschwitz and

00:38:44.000 other places,

00:38:44.840 who tried

00:38:46.180 to not only

00:38:48.020 get through

00:38:48.780 every day as

00:38:50.200 best they

00:38:50.640 could,

00:38:51.240 but tried

00:38:52.060 also to

00:38:52.660 see,

00:38:53.820 hear,

00:38:54.280 and do

00:38:54.600 things that

00:38:55.360 would uplift

00:38:56.000 them somewhat.

00:38:57.560 And so

00:38:57.860 there's a

00:38:58.300 scene in

00:38:58.860 Viktor Frankl's

00:38:59.660 book,

00:38:59.960 Man's Search

00:39:00.440 for Meaning,

00:39:01.740 Viktor Frankl

00:39:02.380 was in

00:39:02.720 Auschwitz,

00:39:03.380 in which he

00:39:03.960 and a group

00:39:04.340 of people

00:39:05.000 come out

00:39:05.500 of their

00:39:05.840 huts to

00:39:06.980 watch the

00:39:07.460 sunset,

00:39:08.280 because it's

00:39:09.180 really beautiful.

00:39:10.720 And this

00:39:11.300 promotes survival,

00:39:12.960 if you can

00:39:13.500 find things

00:39:14.500 in your

00:39:15.500 environment to

00:39:16.440 see that are

00:39:17.640 beautiful.

00:39:18.580 And I see

00:39:19.500 in this

00:39:20.320 quarantine,

00:39:21.100 business we

00:39:22.860 have with

00:39:23.560 the coronavirus,

00:39:25.260 people are

00:39:25.780 kind of going

00:39:26.300 stir-crazy and

00:39:28.180 doing dangerous

00:39:29.300 things because

00:39:30.500 they're just fed

00:39:31.200 up with it.

00:39:32.280 And it's like,

00:39:33.240 okay, already,

00:39:33.980 I've had enough

00:39:34.540 of this.

00:39:35.400 But you have

00:39:35.860 to be,

00:39:36.860 you know,

00:39:37.560 you have to

00:39:38.260 look just a

00:39:39.180 little bit ahead,

00:39:40.900 not months or

00:39:42.380 years ahead,

00:39:43.040 in order to

00:39:44.160 survive properly.

00:39:45.640 And I have,

00:39:46.060 again,

00:39:46.320 in the back

00:39:46.820 of Deep

00:39:47.200 Survival,

00:39:47.680 there's an

00:39:47.960 appendix that

00:39:48.580 lists 12

00:39:49.460 traits of

00:39:50.500 survivors,

00:39:51.260 and one of

00:39:51.860 them is see

00:39:52.640 the beauty.

00:39:53.820 That is,

00:39:54.800 find something

00:39:55.440 beautiful today

00:39:56.440 that will uplift

00:39:57.640 you,

00:39:58.220 and it'll make

00:39:58.980 your day easier.

00:40:01.020 And one of them,

00:40:01.780 too,

00:40:01.900 you hit on this

00:40:02.620 in your answer

00:40:03.300 just now,

00:40:04.340 set out tasks

00:40:05.380 for yourself,

00:40:06.180 like little

00:40:06.600 small things,

00:40:07.280 then celebrate

00:40:07.920 those small

00:40:08.460 successes.

00:40:09.100 And you talk

00:40:09.380 about people

00:40:10.120 who survived,

00:40:11.200 they would say,

00:40:11.860 hey, I'm going

00:40:12.220 to build a

00:40:12.780 fire today,

00:40:13.260 that's my

00:40:13.540 task for

00:40:14.040 today.

00:40:14.660 And once

00:40:15.000 they built

00:40:15.340 that fire,

00:40:15.940 they would

00:40:16.120 be like,

00:40:16.440 all right,

00:40:16.800 I got a

00:40:17.160 fire.

00:40:17.500 They were

00:40:17.680 like Tom

00:40:18.400 Hanks,

00:40:18.960 right,

00:40:19.500 in Castaways,

00:40:20.660 I've got

00:40:21.340 fire.

00:40:22.300 And they do

00:40:23.220 that day in

00:40:23.800 and day out.

00:40:24.820 Yeah,

00:40:25.380 right.

00:40:26.380 And this is

00:40:27.080 a perfect

00:40:27.400 opportunity.

00:40:28.200 I know I'm

00:40:28.960 doing this

00:40:29.400 with a number

00:40:29.820 of things,

00:40:30.580 because my

00:40:31.320 wife and I

00:40:31.880 are, you

00:40:32.500 know,

00:40:32.580 we're staying

00:40:33.020 home.

00:40:33.440 We are very

00:40:34.180 lucky that we

00:40:35.460 have kids who

00:40:36.020 can go shopping

00:40:36.680 for us,

00:40:37.360 but we're

00:40:38.020 basically staying

00:40:38.800 home so as

00:40:39.760 not to get

00:40:40.160 exposed because

00:40:41.620 we're both

00:40:41.960 vulnerable for

00:40:43.360 different reasons.

00:40:44.320 And it's like,

00:40:44.960 hey, I always

00:40:45.680 wanted to learn

00:40:46.240 German.

00:40:46.960 Well, I've got

00:40:47.860 a lot of time

00:40:48.460 right now.

00:40:50.120 And so,

00:40:50.900 you know,

00:40:52.300 there's got to

00:40:52.700 be something

00:40:53.160 that you wanted

00:40:53.800 to do.

00:40:54.380 You've always

00:40:54.760 said, hey,

00:40:55.320 I'd like to

00:40:55.780 learn to play

00:40:56.220 chess.

00:40:57.260 Well, here it

00:40:58.140 is.

00:40:58.440 And you've got

00:40:59.100 all these

00:40:59.800 wonderful computer

00:41:01.100 internet resources

00:41:03.100 to work with.

00:41:05.040 So this is,

00:41:05.900 again, a

00:41:06.740 survivor takes

00:41:07.960 adversity and

00:41:09.100 sees

00:41:09.440 opportunity.

00:41:11.200 And this is a

00:41:11.740 perfect example

00:41:12.620 of that.

00:41:13.560 No, in

00:41:13.980 surviving,

00:41:15.220 there's a lot

00:41:15.940 of paradox

00:41:16.520 involved.

00:41:17.500 And throughout

00:41:17.720 the book,

00:41:18.120 you quote

00:41:19.200 stoicism,

00:41:20.500 the Tao

00:41:20.780 Ching,

00:41:21.180 where they

00:41:21.680 deal with

00:41:22.060 paradoxes.

00:41:22.800 Or you talk

00:41:23.260 about the

00:41:23.540 Stockdale

00:41:23.900 paradox,

00:41:24.480 like James

00:41:24.840 Stockdale,

00:41:25.860 who was a

00:41:26.420 prisoner of war

00:41:26.920 during Vietnam,

00:41:27.920 he studied

00:41:28.440 stoicism,

00:41:29.680 and he credited

00:41:30.780 stoicism to

00:41:32.000 getting him

00:41:32.600 through that

00:41:33.280 experience.

00:41:34.240 And it's

00:41:35.380 sort of that

00:41:35.620 thing, he had

00:41:36.080 to hope that

00:41:37.020 he would get

00:41:38.000 released, but

00:41:38.940 also at the

00:41:39.800 same time

00:41:40.340 accept that

00:41:41.080 it might not

00:41:41.680 happen.

00:41:42.940 Yeah, and

00:41:43.300 again, going

00:41:43.840 back to the

00:41:44.800 Nazi death

00:41:45.960 camps, a lot

00:41:47.280 of these guys

00:41:47.780 who were in

00:41:48.520 there talk

00:41:49.100 about how

00:41:49.660 the optimists

00:41:50.920 were in

00:41:52.260 greater danger

00:41:53.080 because they'd

00:41:54.260 be saying,

00:41:54.880 like, oh,

00:41:55.360 you know, we're

00:41:55.760 going to be

00:41:55.980 out by Easter.

00:41:56.840 I know that

00:41:58.220 we're going to

00:41:58.440 be through by

00:41:59.300 Easter.

00:41:59.700 Easter comes

00:42:00.320 and goes and

00:42:00.980 you're not

00:42:01.280 out and it's

00:42:01.840 like depressing

00:42:03.080 and you kind

00:42:03.760 of give up.

00:42:04.440 And the

00:42:05.500 other people

00:42:06.160 are not

00:42:07.760 trying to

00:42:08.480 see that.

00:42:09.380 They're not

00:42:09.880 trying to see

00:42:10.360 that end.

00:42:11.480 They're trying

00:42:11.960 to see today.

00:42:13.200 How do I

00:42:13.760 make today

00:42:14.460 good and

00:42:15.640 how do I

00:42:15.980 get through

00:42:16.300 today?

00:42:16.660 And as you

00:42:16.980 say, little

00:42:18.140 tasks, complete

00:42:20.380 them, celebrate

00:42:21.880 your success, and

00:42:23.720 enjoy the task.

00:42:25.040 And this is

00:42:25.620 something that

00:42:26.940 will get you

00:42:27.360 through.

00:42:28.340 And you also

00:42:28.860 talk, I mean,

00:42:29.180 there is a

00:42:30.060 spiritual element

00:42:30.820 to survival.

00:42:31.440 A lot of

00:42:32.180 these people

00:42:32.640 that you

00:42:33.880 described, they

00:42:34.820 all had a

00:42:35.440 moment when

00:42:35.960 they knew,

00:42:37.040 like at a

00:42:37.740 spiritual level,

00:42:38.780 like in the

00:42:39.200 bones, like, I'm

00:42:40.380 going to survive

00:42:40.920 this.

00:42:41.420 Like they knew

00:42:42.020 it.

00:42:42.280 Exactly.

00:42:43.260 Even while

00:42:43.860 admitting that

00:42:44.680 the chances

00:42:45.200 are bad, many,

00:42:47.900 many, many of

00:42:48.420 these people

00:42:48.920 report the same

00:42:49.880 thing that, you

00:42:50.900 know, at that

00:42:51.340 moment, I

00:42:51.940 thought I'm

00:42:52.600 going to live.

00:42:54.180 And I think

00:42:55.540 it's very

00:42:56.180 important.

00:42:57.040 It's, you

00:42:57.740 know, part of

00:42:58.400 our emotional

00:42:59.840 system, when

00:43:01.420 which is kind

00:43:01.860 of like our

00:43:02.320 immune system,

00:43:03.180 you know, it

00:43:03.500 tells us what's

00:43:04.140 good and bad.

00:43:05.160 Part of it is

00:43:05.860 feeling joy.

00:43:07.580 And the

00:43:08.740 reason joy

00:43:09.460 exists is

00:43:10.560 because it

00:43:11.600 helps us to

00:43:12.220 move forward

00:43:12.820 and go on

00:43:13.480 and do things

00:43:14.120 that need to

00:43:14.540 be done.

00:43:15.480 And if we

00:43:16.580 can find a

00:43:17.820 little bit of

00:43:18.300 joy in that

00:43:19.860 thought, then

00:43:21.440 we will tend to

00:43:22.520 do the next

00:43:23.060 right thing.

00:43:24.200 And that's

00:43:24.840 really what

00:43:25.220 surviving is.

00:43:26.000 It's doing the

00:43:26.540 next right thing.

00:43:27.320 It's not

00:43:27.720 collapsing and

00:43:28.840 giving up.

00:43:29.880 And whatever

00:43:30.200 the next right

00:43:30.780 thing is,

00:43:31.420 tends to be

00:43:32.560 the thing

00:43:32.980 that you

00:43:33.280 do, such

00:43:34.780 as, you

00:43:35.280 know, I'm

00:43:36.360 going to make

00:43:36.820 it over to

00:43:37.220 that boulder

00:43:37.700 over there.

00:43:38.340 I know that

00:43:38.740 I might die,

00:43:39.760 but I'm

00:43:40.080 going to get

00:43:40.360 to that

00:43:40.680 boulder.

00:43:41.480 And now I

00:43:42.060 got to that

00:43:42.500 boulder and

00:43:42.980 I feel like

00:43:43.620 certain that

00:43:44.500 I'm going to

00:43:44.880 live.

00:43:45.480 And that

00:43:45.860 motivates me to

00:43:46.620 get to the

00:43:46.980 next boulder.

00:43:48.060 And that's

00:43:48.260 pretty much

00:43:48.580 life.

00:43:49.060 It's just

00:43:49.300 doing the

00:43:49.620 next right

00:43:50.040 thing.

00:43:50.380 It's life.

00:43:51.160 It's life.

00:43:51.940 Yeah.

00:43:52.200 Yeah.

00:43:53.280 Well, Lawrence,

00:43:54.020 this has been a

00:43:54.440 great conversation.

00:43:55.160 Where can people

00:43:55.560 go to learn more

00:43:56.200 about the book

00:43:56.980 and your work?

00:44:01.420 If you Google

00:44:02.260 Deep Survival,

00:44:03.180 it's very, very

00:44:03.940 easy to find.

00:44:04.980 I'm easy to find.

00:44:06.580 And so they can

00:44:07.080 order the book

00:44:07.560 online.

00:44:08.300 If they order it

00:44:09.420 through my website,

00:44:10.180 it goes to any

00:44:11.520 number of places

00:44:12.580 your choice,

00:44:13.920 Barnes & Noble,

00:44:14.800 independent

00:44:15.180 bookstores,

00:44:16.560 Powell's, a bunch

00:44:18.060 of different places

00:44:18.680 you can choose

00:44:19.320 from.

00:44:20.080 And it's

00:44:20.640 available online

00:44:21.640 in other places

00:44:22.460 too.

00:44:22.780 But if they want

00:44:23.260 to see the

00:44:24.460 range of books

00:44:26.140 that I've written,

00:44:26.960 they're all on

00:44:27.640 that website.

00:44:28.300 And one that may

00:44:29.280 be important to

00:44:29.980 people coming

00:44:30.700 in very soon

00:44:32.420 is, it's called

00:44:33.300 Surviving Survival.

00:44:34.260 It's a sequel

00:44:34.840 to Deep Survival.

00:44:36.360 And it's like,

00:44:36.900 okay, I survived

00:44:37.760 the thing,

00:44:38.320 now what happens?

00:44:39.740 And I think a lot

00:44:40.760 of us are going

00:44:41.220 to be facing

00:44:41.840 that when this

00:44:42.620 coronavirus pandemic

00:44:44.660 is over.

00:44:45.880 And we see

00:44:46.640 that our old

00:44:47.220 lives aren't

00:44:47.960 waiting for us

00:44:48.720 there, and we

00:44:49.700 will have to

00:44:50.200 reinvent ourselves.

00:44:51.960 Fantastic.

00:44:52.300 Well, Lawrence

00:44:52.660 Gonzalez, thanks for

00:44:53.460 your time.

00:44:53.760 It's been a pleasure.

00:44:54.860 My pleasure too.

00:44:56.340 My guest today

00:44:56.860 was Lawrence

00:44:57.260 Gonzalez.

00:44:57.740 He's the author

00:44:58.320 of the book

00:44:58.860 Deep Survival,

00:45:00.040 Who Lives,

00:45:00.520 Who Dies,

00:45:01.200 and Why.

00:45:01.740 It's available

00:45:02.060 on Amazon.com

00:45:02.980 and bookstores

00:45:03.440 everywhere.

00:45:04.060 You can find

00:45:04.400 out more

00:45:04.680 information about

00:45:05.180 his work at

00:45:05.680 his website,

00:45:06.360 deepsurvival.com.

00:45:07.800 Also, check out

00:45:08.420 our show notes

00:45:08.860 at aom.is

00:45:10.020 slash deepsurvival,

00:45:11.180 where you can

00:45:11.380 find links to

00:45:11.840 resources where

00:45:12.540 you can delve

00:45:12.780 deeper into this

00:45:13.480 topic.

00:45:13.780 Well, that wraps

00:45:21.840 up another edition

00:45:22.600 of the AOM

00:45:23.040 podcast.

00:45:23.700 Check out

00:45:23.960 our website

00:45:24.300 at

00:45:24.460 artofmanliness.com

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00:45:25.880 podcast archives

00:45:26.920 as well as

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00:45:56.380 Until next time,

00:45:56.960 this is Brett

00:45:57.200 McKay, reminding

00:45:58.060 you not only to

00:45:58.460 listen to AOM

00:45:58.900 podcast, but put

00:46:00.000 what you've heard

00:46:00.640 into action.

The Art of Manliness - May 13, 2020

#610： Who Lives in Survival Situations, Who Dies, and Why

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