You are Your First Responder: How You Can Survive - Why Others Won't. This Is a Mind Game You Can Win

By Mike Walker

The question is not, “Do you have the Right Stuff?” You do.
What you want the answer to is, “What is the Right Stuff and
how do I use it?”
The book, told in short stories and without jargon, shows you how to control
your mind and body to survive disasters: shots fired at the mall, an explosion at a restaurant, terrorist bombing at a sporting event or your church. You learn how to switch your mind and body from the primitive reaction of Fight, Flight, Freeze to reasoned decision making.
No tools needed - This is a mind game explained with humor and without excess. This book will prepare you to save your family, friends and yourself if disaster strikes.
First you start. The rest is easy.
by mike walker - a common man

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483500829

Book preview

mike walker

a common man

Very happily married to Princess Bonnie with five kids: Kathy, Kristen, Michael, Jeffrey and Maureen.

My car has usually been a pick-up truck and I've always had large dogs: dobermans, rotties and mutts, always two at a time. My faith pleases me as does knowing which end of the tube the bullet falls out of.

School, Marquette University, and the University of Chicago, never interfered with my education.

Along the way cancer and being an alcoholic challenged my family and friends. Cancer's gone and no booze for 30 plus years.

My qualifications for writing a book are, well, common.

Curiosity, asking questions and listening to the answers has always served me well. So has having an early fascination with reading everything from Hemingway to Playboy. The latter for the pictures and sometimes the stories.

My name does not end in Expert anything and I think that's good. It assures me some degree of open mindedness.

My businesses, some with partners, sometimes made money and sometimes made just enough to pay the employees first. Our customers still like us after all these years.

The bottom line at this point seems to be summed up saying, I'm enjoying being me.

I hope you enjoy the book.

YOU ARE YOUR FIRST RESPONDER.

Copyright 2013 by michael walker: All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manor whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For information, address:

Palabra Smith Publishing, West Wing

2656 Fairway Ave. S. St. Petersburg, FL 33712

ISBN: 9781483500829

Acknowledgments - Oh, well.

I have been told by some of my elders and betters that this is not the way to format a book. I'm thrilled every time I hear that, because this isn't their kind of book. It is meant to be an easy read with lots of space and emphasis on important items. Somewhat configured like the series created by John Brockman wherein he solicits great short answers to question from the best of the best in a variety of fields. The similarity is in having short stories and information broken up into bite size easily digestible morsels under pointed chapter headings. Unfortunately that is the only similarity to Brockman's wonderful work and mine.

This has been a collaborative effort and includes so many people and sources that citing all would require more space than is practical. For those that I have omitted, rest assured it has been inadvertent.

Here is a list of people that have seeped through the fog of my memory and deserve a tip of the pen in acknowledgment. With great thanks they are: Niccolo Machiavelli, Pat Luther, Ed Carrow, Dody Matthias, Michael, Cha-lea, Philip, Joan Lander, Joan Walton, Susan Doyle, Eve Kress, Bob Cummings, R.T. Bale, Carl Schwebl, Luke Skyler Walker, Ron Knight, Bob Kay, Pope Francis, Helen and John Hill, Kristen, Clark and Samantha, Scott Strader, Laurence Roberts, Dale Kitt, Billie and Morry, Mark Bohrnsen, Neal and Laura, Ruth Maur, Hap and Bev, John Connor - Gun Crank, Scottidot, J. Doyle, Gautama Budda, and that very special person whose name escapes me at the moment. You know who you are, thanks.

And finally. Very special thanks to my Princess Bonnie and Kathy for enduring the writing, the rewrites and the foolishness.

mike walker a common man

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 -

The Basics: How You Can Survive

and Why Other's Won't

Survival Is A Mind Game That You Can Play - And More Importantly Win

First Of All It's Dark

Shark, Barracuda or Poppin-Fresh DoughBoy

Cut To The Chase - What Do I Need To Know?

We Don't Know What We Will Do In An Emergency. Actually We Do

What Is The First Thing You Do In A Disaster?

Mental Rehearsal Saves Lives - Yours

Step One In Your Plan - Larry Bird

Making Brownies

Close Your Eyes. Where Are The Exits?

You Have A Plan - They Don't

Gaining Control

Chapter 2 -

One Man With A Plan

RICK RESCORLA

Bumblers to Bombers Bloody Warm Up For 9-11-2001

Take Action Tear Off The Ceiling And The Walls

The Disaster Plan Was A Deadly Joke Of Administrative Incompetence

The Little People Knew The Experts Refused To Listen

A Real Leader Not Just The Guy At The Top

Practice So You May Live (and take off the high heels)

No Protocol To Save People Above A Fire In The Towers

All Available Boats Boatlift Evacuation

Chapter 3 -

Brain, Body, Breathing

Too Much Thinking

It Is Not The Striking Of The Bell, But The Reverberations That Affect You

Keeping It Simple Has Complex Consequences

I Would Rather Be Resilient Than Tough, or Better Yet Both

Our Brain What makes us Do the VooDoo We Do?

Dark Sky, Black Cold Water A decision made.

Dopamine - A Grade School Example

Knowledge Is Power! No it's not! That is taken out of context and is a cliche.

We Don't See What We Don't Focus On

Let Me Add A Personal Story

Take A Breath, No Really, Now

Serendipity - Doberman - Daughter - Mr. Morgan

Just one more shutter click and then another...

Just one more beautiful breath and then another...

ENDURANCE

Chapter 4 -

Disaster Myths

Disaster Myths false notion - fallacy - cock & bull story

Murder, Arson, Pillaging and not niceness

Fear Tends To Be Less Of A Problem Than Missing Family And Affiliations

We Can Handle Any Emergency We do have Superman's number - don't we?

Let's Make The Rumors True By Staging Pictures

PANIC What really happens

Chapter 5 -

Bureaucracy

Experts Get it Wrong All The Time. No, Really They Do!

Bureaucracy Can Be A Killer We're from the Government to help you.

More Bureaucracy.

Religion, Academia, Business and the ever expanding Government

We Have No Money For Books - Let's Buy Star War Statues

The Administrators And Their Lawyers Have Your Best Interest At Heart. Right

Not For The Soft Squishy People.

To: The Administrators and their Lawyers...

SOTEIGAI 1

SOTEIGAI 2

Rules From On High

GroupThink

Don't rock the boat - the Emperor's new clothes will get wet

The Nerve Of The Guy

Up Your Bureaucracy

The Emergency Procedure Manuals Are Ten Years Old.

They're Next To The Dusty Experts

What's Behind The Door With All The Noise?

2 + 2 = 4

Easy for us to understand - difficult for our (?) leaders.

Chapter 6 -

Hard Leadership

Remiro d'Orco Is Not Half The Man He Used To Be

Machiavelli, Virtu and Fortuna

Eisenhower

I like Ike, he had Vertu

Chapter 7 -

I Want a Lucky Placebo.

Is That a Quack?

I Hear Behind the Curtain?

All The World's A Stage For Our Mind

From Placebo to Nocebo

Super Size That Placebo

My Seven Minute Solution - A Mental Placebo?

You have to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?

As Luck would have it

Chapter 8 -

FIRE

Everybody Gets A Taste.

Did You See Frank?

Ego, Imagination, Drive Having the Gun and being under the gun.

A Detour From FIRE To Three Mile Island? Yes

Can A Zebra Change Its Stripes?

Only If It Is A Room

The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday

Semper Fi

Panic - Rare, But There

The Inside Story Was Now Told... On The Outside

There Is No Truth!

Meaningful Life In A Disaster

Meet At The Mailbox By The Curb

FIRE - The short course.

What you probably already know.

Probably

Chapter 9 -

Your Mind Game

Alligator Alley

Alligator Alley - Fear, Anxiety, and Tension

DADA And Deliberation

Captain Denial

Our Mind Controls Our Body and We Control Our Mind

The Gatekeeper of Pain - Your Mind

Is This A Disaster Or A Challenge?

If You Have A Plan It Will Dramatically Help You Cope With Stress.

Most Of Your Brain Never Sleeps

Your mind never rests. And that's good

Positive Thinking

The Best Laid Schemes O' Mice An' Men Gang Aft Aglee

Are You As Smart As A Doberman?

The Invisible Gorilla

Your Mind Controls Access To Everything and always keeps something in reserve

Chapter 10 -

Let's review and wrap it up.

Bibliography

I leave out the parts that people skip.

--Elmore Leonard

Preface

I was having coffee with Ed Carrow an owner of an Animal Capture company in the Tampa bay area of Florida. By the name of his company you could surmise that his job was to remove critters like rattlesnakes, moccasins, an occasional gator and the mundane raccoons, from human habitat and you would be correct. My mention of his profession is to establish his bonafides as a resourceful man who matches actions with some of natures most dangerous and lives to tell the tale.

Having set the stage, let me proceed with his book inspiring question. "Have you