Decide to Become a Sheepdog
by BRETT & KATE
MCKAY
on MAY 28, 2013
Unlike the real-life sheep or sheepdogs
which are born into their animal roles, humans default into passivity unless
they make the choice to become proactive protectors. Grossman emphasizes the
weight of this decision in his book, On Killing:
“In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born
as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn’t have a
choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you
want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.
If you want to be a sheep, then you can be
a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the
wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog
there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the
sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety,
trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path,
then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip
and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf
comes knocking at the door.”
So the first step in becoming a sheepdog
is to simply decide to become one. Don’t take this decision lightly. There are
heavy moral, physical, emotional, and psychological costs that come
with it. When you decide to become a sheepdog, you’re also deciding to live a
life of service to your fellow man, to run to danger when others flee, and to
stand up for right despite the cost. Are you ready to accept those
responsibilities and risks, and the consequences that come with them?
Adopt “If Not Me, Then Who?” as Your
Mantra
As we discussed in our previous post about
our natural sheepishness, all of us are prone to the Bystander
Effect. Whenever we’re part of a group, our inclination to
help or take action when we see a threat or a need diminishes. You think that
someone else in the group will do something, so you hold back. The problem is,
that’s exactly what everyone else in the group is thinking too. While everyone
is waiting for someone else to do something, no one does anything.
To overcome the Bystander Effect, adopt “If
not me, then who?” as your personal mantra. Decide today that you will take
action whenever you see something that is wrong. Stop thinking that someone
else will come along and do it. Chances are they won’t. If you don’t do
something, nobody will.
One example of a man who overcame the
Bystander Effect by living “If not me, then who?” was an 18-year-old busboy
named Walter Bailey. Because of Walter’s decisive action, he saved hundreds of
lives in one of the most fatal fires in U.S. history. Back in 1977, Walter was
working at the Beverly Hills Supper Club, a popular nightclub and theatre just
outside of Cincinnati. Around 8:30PM on May 28, a fire ignited in one of
the club’s rooms due to faulty wiring. Two waitresses walked into the room,
noticed the fire, and went to alert their supervisors. Fire trucks
were dispatched to the club, but no efforts were made to evacuate
patrons. At the time the fire started, nearly 3,000 people were in the
building, including members of a large wedding reception. Because the building
lacked adequate firewalls, the blaze began to quickly spread to other parts of
the club.
When the fire started, Bailey was working
in another room, clearing dishes as over a thousand people listened to a
comedic act. A waitress told him about the fire and he immediately went to let
his supervisor know and recommend that he clear the room. His supervisor just
gave him the brush, so Bailey went to find the club’s owners. But then he
turned around. “This is stupid,” he told himself. “I’m wasting time.
Either he has to clear this room or I will.” He told his supervisor again
to begin the evacuation, but the supervisor shrugged and walked away. Instead
of waiting for someone else to do something, Walter Bailey took matters
into his own hands.
“This isn’t going to do,” he told himself.
“This room has to be cleared out, and it has to be cleared out soon. I’m
probably going to lose my job, but I’m just going to do it.”
Bailey boldly walked up the steps of the stage
and grabbed a microphone right from the hands of a comedian in the
middle of a bit. An awkward silence fell over the crowd. “I want everyone to
look to my right,” he said. “There is an exit in the right corner of the room.
And look to my left. There’s an exit on the left. And now look to the
back. There’s an exit in the back. I want everyone to leave the room calmly.
There’s a fire at the front of the building.” Then he left to warn other
customers in other parts of the club.
Some of the people who heard Bailey’s
warning began to leave, but many just stayed put (Normalcy
Bias!).
The fire soon consumed the entire
building. Two hundred people were injured and 165 people died that night,
making the Beverly Hills Supper Club the third deadliest fire in U.S. history.
But thanks to one young man who overcame the Bystander Effect by asking
“If not me, then who?” hundreds of people survived.
Adopt “Not if, but When” as Another Mantra
“Instead of saying, ‘If it happens then I
will take action,’ the warrior says, ‘When it happens then I will be ready.’” –
Grossman, On Combat
I first learned this next mantra from AoM
contributor and survival instructor, Creek
Stewart. It’s how he ends all his emails and blog posts. As I
researched for this series, I learned that not only is it a popular phrase
among preppers, but also “professional” sheepdogs like soldiers, police
officers, and firefighters.
“Not if, but when,” is a reminder not to
live in denial of the fact that bad things can and will happen to you and those
around you – that it’s not a matter of if, but when they happen.
In truth, you might very well go your
whole life without getting in a violent altercation, being faced with an
emergency situation, or grappling with a weighty ethical dilemma; the mantra
describes a mindset rather than a statistical truth. But most folks seize on
those chances and swing their mindset in the opposite direction — pretending
that bad stuff will definitely never happen to them. While they
recognize that evil exists or that natural disasters occur, they try to, as
world-renowned security expert Gavin de Becker puts it, “compartmentalize the
hazards in order to exclude themselves.” They tell themselves things like,
“Sure, violence is a problem, but that doesn’t happen in this part of the
city.” “Well, yeah tornadoes kill people every year, but we don’t have to worry
about that here.”
Besides giving people a false sense of
security, denial gives people a false sense of sophistication. People don’t
want to seem overly paranoid about unseen dangers – it makes them feel cool and
smart and above it all to wave off the need for such preparations. To them it
doesn’t seem rational to train for things that might not happen, and figure
that if by wild chance they do happen, they’ll just figure things out then, or
that the government or aid organizations will see them through it anyway.
But to me, training to be a sheepdog is
very rational. Here’s my own thought process on it: 1) even if my skills aren’t
called upon in a crisis, learning those skills is enjoyable, offers a sense of
confidence and mastery, and makes me a more complete and knowledgeable man, 2)
even if my training isn’t called upon for a big crisis, those skills, along
with my sense of confidence, will be very effective in solving smaller
problems, 3) training for a variety of scenarios doesn’t necessitate paranoia,
just awareness, and 4) if something does happen, I am completely ready, and
don’t have to live with the “if only” regret: “If only I had a bug
out bag!” “If only I took the handgun training!” “If only I
took action!”
To me, there’s no downside, and it’s a
very rational calculation. There is a time investment, of course, but I think
all men would be better served carving out some time from our abstract cyber
surfing to learn some tangible, hands-on skills. It feels good to have them,
very good indeed.
I think in the end people don’t like to
think of themselves as vulnerable, and to soothe the cognitive dissonance they
feel when they do, they wave off training for those scenarios as paranoid or
stupid. The discomfort is gone and they feel great about themselves. But
they have no bulwark against a crisis besides this feeling of complacency.
Grossman says the thing that separates
sheep from sheepdogs is denial. “The sheep pretend the wolf will never visit,
but the sheepdog lives for that day.” When you live your life as if danger and
evil will never come knocking at your door, you might as well open your mouth
and say “Baaa.”
Be a Leader
Remember, most
folks quickly congeal into a mass of conformity
when crisis strikes. They
simply follow the herd, even to their detriment. And
they’re easily led by someone who tells them what to do and where to go. Humans
are predisposed to obey authority; they’ll follow anyone who seems credible.
“It was a very strange phenomenon,” says retired New York City firefighter Jim
Cline. “People will follow you, even when they don’t know why they’re following
you.”
Now this can be a scary part of human
nature, because it means that wolves, sometimes in sheep’s, or more accurately,
sheepdog’s clothing, can direct people down a very bad path.
But it also means that true sheepdogs are
absolutely vital – both to protect the sheep and to keep these
wolves-in-disguise at bay and prevent them from luring the sheep into danger.
Grossman defines true sheepdogs as those who not only have the capacity to
lead, but do so in harmony with an inner moral compass that compels them to act
for the good of the flock.
In times of crisis, when there is no
leader, people become paralyzed by inaction, endlessly milling about and asking
each other, “What should we do?” Studies have shown that groups that had
leaders in a disaster were more likely to survive than groups that didn’t. For
example, one study by the U.S. government that looked at
three different mine fires found that the commonality among the eight
groups that were able to escape was that each had a clear leader.
When it comes to leadership during a
crisis, sheepdogs share a few things in common. First, they don’t bully their
way into power; they earn the respect of others by their decisiveness,
knowledge, and calmness. Second, like real-life sheepdogs, human sheepdogs
aren’t afraid to bark at sheep-people if it means lives will be saved. In other
words, sometimes you have to forsake niceties in order to save lives.
Airlines have spent a lot of time and
money trying to figure out how to get more people off a plane after it crash
lands. As we discussed in our previous post, normalcy
bias causes most people in a plane crash to remain placidly
in their seats. And even those who do get up have a tendency to look for their
carry-on luggage before heading towards the exit! Then, when they finally reach
the exit, they often pause indecisively for a long period of time before
jumping to safety. Yet time is of the essence. You typically have about 90
seconds to get out of a downed plane safely, so there’s no time for
lollygagging.
Aviation experts have found that by simply
having a flight attendant (or some other person) stand at the exit and
aggressively yell at people to move and jump, escape times decreased. The key
is aggressiveness. These same researchers found that if flight
attendants acted politely during evacuations, “they might as well not have been
there at all,” meaning escape times increased.
Rescue workers tasked with saving people
from a body of water will often bark at victims before getting to them. They’ve
found that if they don’t, victims have a tendency to grab the rescuer and pull
them under the water. Firefighters in Kansas City will often yell
profanity-laced threats as they approach a victim in order to get their
attention and so they don’t drag the rescuer down. Captain Larry Young says, “I
hope I don’t offend you by saying this. But if I approach Mrs. Suburban
Housewife and say, ‘When I get to you, do not f***ing touch me! I will leave
you if you touch me!’ she tends to listen.”
Bottom line, if you want to be a sheepdog,
you can’t be afraid to take the lead like Walter Bailey did at the Beverly
Hills Supper Club and you can’t be afraid to get aggressive and bark at others.
So if you’re a quintessential “Nice Guy,” the
time to start working on your assertiveness is now;
if you can’t tell your boss you can’t work this weekend, you’re sure as hell
not going to be able to tell people to get out of a building. Practice being
assertive in little things, so you have the confidence to be aggressive with
big things.
Sure, some people won’t like you telling
them what to do and will even resent you for it, but that’s to be expected. As
Grossman says, “the sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot
like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. ” Rubbing a few
folks the wrong way is a small price to pay to preserve the safety of the
flock.
Train Hard
“The more you sweat in training, the less you
bleed in battle.”
The most important thing you can do to
overcome your sheep-like tendencies is to train them out of yourself. At least
that’s what all the research on surviving combat and disaster scenarios tells
us. It’s typically the people who trained and prepared for those events that
survived and thrived.
To overcome the normalcy
bias, you need to repeatedly train yourself to instinctively
respond to dangerous situations. Training also inoculates you to the
deleterious effects of stress that come with high-stakes scenarios.
There’s a saying amongst soldiers: “you do
not rise to the occasion in combat, you sink to the level of
training.” You can’t expect to magically perform in high-threat scenarios
if you’ve never practiced for them. Moreover,
when you do practice, it needs to be regimented and deliberate.
You can’t half-ass it.
If you decide to own a handgun, make the
commitment to learn how to use it safely and effectively every day. Attend
classes taught by professionals; do your daily 20 minutes of focused dry fire
so that handling your gun becomes second nature; make it to the range at least
once a week for live fire training.
To ensure that your family (and business,
for that matter) survives a tornado or fire, routinely have practice drills on
what to do in those situations.
If you want to be able to help injured
victims, regularly practice first aid skills.
If you want to be able to do the right
thing when you notice an ethical wolf wreaking havoc in your company or
community, role-play with your friends and colleagues on what you
would do in various scenarios.
The day you commit to become a sheepdog,
you also make the commitment to keep your warrior’s edge constantly sharp.
There’s no time for periods of slacking off. The moment you stop training is
the moment your skills begin to decline.
Mentally Rehearse
In addition to regular physical training,
researchers and combat experts are discovering that mental rehearsal is a vital
part of success in high-conflict and dangerous scenarios. High performance
athletes have known for decades the power of visualization exercises. Research
has shown that athletes who regularly take part in intense visual imagery
exercises perform better than athletes who don’t. It’s only recently that
military and police forces have begun to apply this technique to combat and
emergency situations.
Emerging research shows that warriors
who take part in visual exercises display better marksmanship than those who
don’t. There’s also evidence that visualizing successful
management of high-stress situations reduces a combatant’s anxiety and stress
response when the events actually occur.
Research has also shown that individuals
trained in CPR who regularly visualize having to perform the technique respond
faster to actual emergencies than individuals who just received the regular
training. Not only that, individuals who regularly visualized
performing CPR did the technique more correctly than individuals who didn’t
practice visualization.
I plan on devoting an entire post to how
to use visualization to boost your performance in a variety of situations — not
just tactical or survivor scenarios — in a few weeks. Until then, here’s a
brief rundown on how to use visualization to prepare yourself for life or death
situations:
▪
Make the visualization as vivid as
possible. Incorporate all your senses and emotions.
▪
Visualize problems and sticking points,
but — and this is the critical part — always visualize yourself successfully
overcoming the problem or obstacle. Never visualize failure.
▪
Never rely on visualization alone. It’s
important to combine it with tactical practice and role playing.
A few example scenarios you can use during
your visualization exercise:
▪
Visualize what
you would do in a severe bleeding scenario. Vividly see
yourself performing the requisite steps to successfully treat the victim.
▪
If you’re taking a defensive handgun
class, visualize a live shooter situation. Are there instances when you would
or wouldn’t draw your gun? If you do draw your gun, visualize yourself
successfully overcoming gun jams and other problems you might encounter. Always
visualize yourself winning the fight.
▪
To prepare yourself for becoming a whistleblower,
visualize yourself finding incriminating evidence. Visualize yourself talking
to the authorities; visualize the consequences of that decision — job loss,
media scrutiny, etc. — but visualize yourself successfully managing and
overcoming that stress and anxiety. Visualize the emotions and personal
satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing.
▪
Visualize what you would do in a plane
crash. See yourself immediately grabbing your loved ones and heading towards
the nearest exit. Don’t forget to imagine the smoke and flames that will likely
surround you.
Build Your Resilience
When you decide to become a sheepdog, you
accept the responsibility of running towards danger when others flee. A natural
consequence of this responsibility is that you’re going to encounter
potentially traumatizing events that can break your will to survive and thrive.
While training, role-playing, and visualization can help give you confidence
and inoculate you from stress, if you don’t have that iron will to keep going
even when the chips are stacked against you, you can’t call yourself a
sheepdog.
Research on survivors and professional
sheepdogs shows that they tend to be a resilient bunch, some naturally
so. While genetics plays a role in how resilient we are, we can actually
strengthen our resilience through concerted effort.
A few years ago, we devoted an entire series
of blog posts to how to increase your resilience.
They’re all based on the latest psychological research. I
recommend that you read through them and put the suggestions into practice. For
a more in-depth look on how to boost your resilience, read the
following books:
▪
Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest
Challenges by Steven M. Southwick and Dennis S.
Charney
Develop Your Intuition
“Technology is not going to save us. Our
computers, our tools, our machines are not enough. We have to rely on our
intuition, our true being.” —Joseph Campbell
For us men, intuition is one of
those touchy-feely concepts that we typically associate with women.
As Gavin de Becker explains, men “much prefer logic, the grounded,
explainable, unemotional thought process that ends in a supportable
conclusion.” But to become a truly effective warrior or sheepdog, you need
to become more intuitive and instinctual.
According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman,
our minds have two systems or ways of thinking. First,
there’s slow thinking. That’s the type of thinking that we’re most
familiar with. It’s what we use when we do math, make logical arguments, or
deliberate a decision with facts and figures. Fast thinking, on
the other hand, is subconscious, automatic, and emotional. Kahneman
calls this type of thinking “System 1.” A better name for it would
be intuition.
While our intuition can certainly steer us
in the wrong direction, if properly trained and relied upon in certain
contexts, it can save your life or the lives of those around you. That’s the
premise of de Becker’s book, The Gift of Fear,
a book I highly recommend you read.
It’s interesting to note that the root of
the word intuition, tuere, means “to guard, to protect.” How appropriate
for a sheepdog.
Take up a Martial Art/Combat Sport
Sheepdogs, unlike sheep, have a propensity
for violence – they just channel that capacity towards honorable ends.
Sheepdogs must be capable and willing to use force to eliminate or at least
subdue a threat. But as Grossman thoroughly explained in his book, On Killing, most humans (at
least of the modern, civilized variety) have a natural repulsion to kill or
even engage in conflict, be it physical or verbal.
I was talking to a gentleman at church a
few months ago who is probably in his early 70s. Somehow fighting came up and
he mentioned that he’s never been in a fistfight in his entire life. It’s not
that he tried to avoid them; the opportunity just never presented itself. The
great majority of men in America are in the same situation; they’ve never
punched another man, nor know what it feels like to be punched. They’ve never
grappled with another man, or been put in a headlock and experienced the surge
of fear and adrenaline of being locked in hand-to hand combat. This doesn’t
prevent the average man from imagining how he’d totally kick ass if the
opportunity did present itself, of course, but if the experience of being in a
physical fight is completely foreign to you, you won’t automatically know what
to do when you find yourself in one. This is a specific area where it’s particularly
important to train before the moment comes.
Develop Your Capacity to Love
Sociologist and holocaust survivor Samuel
Oliner has spent his career studying what causes some people to go to the aid
of their fellow man. His research found that heroes
have a few things in common. First, rescuers tend to have had
healthier and closer relationships with their parents. Second, they’re more
likely to have friends of different religions and classes. Third, and most
importantly, heroes are empathetic.
While the sheepdog and wolf both have a
propensity for violence, what separates them is that the sheepdog has a deep
and abiding love for the sheep he watches over. Thus, while you’re training to
use violence, you must simultaneously train to love.
How do you do this?
First, it’s important that you develop
your empathy. Teddy Roosevelt called empathy “fellow-feeling.” It’s that
ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see and feel how they see
and feel. As the great Atticus
Finch put it, “You never really understand a person until you
consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk
around in it.” It’s hard to show love towards someone that you can’t empathize
with. To
gain empathy, you have to step away from your screen, and from solely
interacting with fellow humans as disembodied selves.
The more we rub shoulders with people in the flesh, the more fellow-feeling we
develop for them. This feeling is heightened through service, especially to
those who are different than us. The leadership of a sheepdog is that of a
servant leader — so volunteer, become a mentor, and look for opportunities to
serve in your day-to-day life. As you serve, you will come to love your flock.
Get in Shape
Being physically fit gives you two big
advantages in a high-conflict/high-stress situation. First, the man who is
physically strong has a strength and endurance advantage over the man who
doesn’t. All fights aren’t gunfights. Do you have the strength and endurance to
successfully win in hand-to-hand combat? Could
you chase down a purse snatcher? Lift
debris off another person? Carry
someone to safety? Could
you even save your own life?
Second, and more importantly, physically
fit men handle stress better than their less fit counterparts. “Overall stress
tolerance is great in well-conditioned individuals,” says Grossman and “they
demonstrate a more stable mood,” as well as “show a clearer mental functioning
under stress.” As we’ve discussed before, our physical and mental abilities
begin to deteriorate in high-stress situations. However, it is possible to
train our minds and bodies to continue to perform despite high levels of
stress. Skill training and visualization are important pieces of this puzzle; fitness
training is the third.
If you haven’t started a regular workout
routine, but fancy yourself a sheepdog, make the commitment to start exercising
today. We’ve
laid out several workouts on the site over the years. Pick
one that appeals to you and do it. I’ve always found it helpful to have some
sort of goal or benchmark to work towards in order to stay motivated for
exercise. Make it your goal to be able to pass the WWII
military fitness test or fulfill
the benchmarks old-time strongman Earle Liederman
argued were proof a man could save his own life.
Nip Dishonesty and Unethical Practices in
the Bud
While Grossman concentrates his discussion
of the role of the sheepdog in physically confronting wolves, I think a true
sheepdog is equally prepared to deal with wolves that weaken the fabric of
society through dishonest and deceitful practices. He’s willing to stand up, be
a whistleblower, and stop sheep from being fleeced. While it’s easier to
imagine training for a combat or disaster situation, you can train yourself to
be an ethical sheepdog too.
Grossman argues that only around 1% of the
population are true wolves – real sociopaths – and psychologist Dan Ariely
interestingly found this to be true when conducting experiments on cheating.
Even when given the opportunity to cheat, and offered a financial reward for
doing so without any consequences or chance of being caught, very few
participants in his experiments cheated to the full extent possible. And yet
most people still cheated – just by a little bit. For example, when given math
puzzles to solve, offered a few dollars for each one they got correct, and
allowed to self-report their performance, participants on average reported
solving two more problems correctly than they really did. Ariely calls this the
“fudge factor theory” – people want to gain financially, but they also want to
be able to keep seeing themselves as good, honest people. They solve the
dilemma by cheating just a little — enough to get an advantage, but not so much
that it affects their positive self-image.
The problem with these little dishonest
acts is that they can lead to a domino effect that poisons the ethics of a
whole culture. Ariely found that the more someone cheated, the more likely they
were to reach an “honesty threshold,” the point in which they became subject to
the “what-the-hell effect” in which they would think, “What the hell, as long
as I’m a cheater, I might as well get the most out of it.” They went from
cheating a little, to throwing caution to the wind and cheating at every
opportunity they could during the experiment. Ariely also found that dishonesty
can spread like an infection through groups; because we look to each other to
see what’s socially appropriate, when we see someone else cheating, we’re more
inclined to do it too. His experiments led him to conclude that the best way to
curtail unethical behavior in society is by nipping it in the bud while it’s
still small and emerging:
“The bottom line is that we should not
view a single act of dishonesty as just one petty act. We tend to forgive
people for their first offense with the idea that it is just the first time and
everyone makes mistakes. And although this may be true, we should also realize that
the first act of dishonesty might be particularly important in shaping the way
a person looks at himself and his actions from that point on—and because of
that, the first dishonest act is the most important one to prevent. That is why
it is important to cut down on the number of seemingly innocuous singular acts
of dishonesty. If we do, society might become more honest and less corrupt over
time…
Passed from person to person, dishonesty
has a slow, creeping, socially corrosive effect. As the ‘virus’ mutates and
speeds from one person to another, a new, less ethical code of conduct
develops. And though it is subtle and gradual, the final outcome can be
disastrous. This is the real cost of minor instances of cheating and the reason
we need to be more vigilant in our efforts to curb even small infractions.”
To train to become an ethical sheepdog,
practice integrity even in the small things – telling the cashier that they
gave you too much change or fighting the temptation to offer a lie to excuse
your tardiness. Setting an example of honesty will encourage others to act
honorably too.
Ariely has also found that cheating
greatly diminishes when people know they are being observed. That’s why it’s so
important to have sheepdogs who are alert and aware (see below) and are willing
to speak out even when small moral and ethical standards have been violated.
Again, this may not make the sheepdog popular – people don’t like a “narc.” But
the sheepdog’s role is to stop the “infection” before it slowly spreads and weakens
the flock.
Semper Vigilantissimi
Semper vigilantissimi.
Always vigilant. Real-life sheepdogs are constantly on the lookout for
threats. They’re always scanning their environment and investigating if
things don’t seem right. If you wish to be a human sheepdog, you must be
equally vigilant. You should always be in a “relaxed alert” frame of mind,
or what defense expert Jeff Cooper calls “Condition Yellow.” When
you’re in Condition Yellow, no specific threat exists and you’re not paranoid about nonexistent threats.
You’re simply aware that the world is a potentially dangerous and
unfriendly place and you’re ready to defend yourself or take action to assist
others. When you’re in Condition Yellow, you’re constantly taking in
information about your surroundings in a relaxed but alert manner. You’re what
tactical experts call “situationally aware.”
Conclusion
As I mentioned at the outset of the post,
there’s no way that I could cover everything a man needs to know in order to
become a sheepdog in a single article. As you can see, even laying out these
general principles has taken up quite a bit of space! However, I hope that this
post has provided you with a roadmap on what you need to do in order to
overcome your natural sheepishness. I know many of you are hungry for more
details on many of these concepts, but I hope you will believe me when I say
they’re each worth an in-depth post of their own. I’m really excited about
revisiting them in the coming months and hope you are too. Here are some of the
subjects we will be taking up in-depth this year, in addition to continuing our
usual sheepdog-related articles on things like gunmanship, first aid, fitness,
self-defense, and survival:
▪
How to Develop Your Intuition
▪
How to Inoculate Yourself Against Stress
▪
How to Use Immersive Visualization
▪
How to Develop Situational Awareness
▪
Levels of Awareness
▪
Hack Your Mind Like a Twenty-First Century
Soldier
▪
How to Increase Your Personal Integrity
and the Foster Integrity in Society
▪
The Sheepdog Library (the best books on developing
into a sheepdog)
Any other skills and mindsets you think I
should cover in the future? Please let me know in the comments!
______________________________________
Sources:
On Killing by Lt. Col.
Dave Grossman
The Gift of Fear
by Gavin de Becker
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