Ep 109 | Part 1: What Makes People Respond in Moments of Crisis

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into today's topic. Today I'm going to start part 1 of a 3-part series around an interesting topic that has to do with responding, why some people run towards the fire, whereas others stand still or even retreat. I want to start by telling a story and what prompted this, this topic to even come about. A few days ago, this past weekend, I was in Carlsbad, California, just north of San Diego, and I was with my dad. We were visiting a friend and his family. And we were out there just for the night. And the next morning, we are standing outside on Carlsbad Boulevard, which, which runs along the beach. And we're waiting for our Uber in order to go to the airport. And we're standing there and we've got our bags and coffee and whatnot, and just kind of looking around. And it's, it's early, right? So it's pretty calm, few cars. Lots of people walking up and down, some people running, walking their dogs. And we're just looking around, and, and I'm looking across the street, and this couple's walking down the sidewalk, man and woman walking down the sidewalk. I watched them as they're walking, and there's a car about to turn on the Carlsbad Boulevard, a truck actually. And as I'm watching this gentleman walk ahead of his wife just a slight bit, he steps off the curb, and unfortunately, the truck that was turning onto Carlsbad Boulevard did not see him, ran into him. He fell, and then the truck actually ran over him. The front right tire ran over the guy. Now, real quick, everybody was fine. The guy was banged up. He was a little bloody, definitely bruised. But he was okay. When this happened though, I, without hesitation, dropped my coffee, just threw it, dropped my bag, and immediately sprinted towards the scene. I mean, it was just across the street, not many people out, and I happened to be looking that way and, and saw everything from start to finish. I sprint towards the truck and, and the gentleman who's now on the ground, he kind of crawled out from under the truck. And I, you know, did the best I could to calm everyone down. And, and the guy that it was hit was clearly— his body wasn't sure. He was in shock. His wife was hysterical. And the, the, the guy's driving, there's actually two kids in 18, 19-year-old guys that were barefoot. I'm assuming both just got done surfing and the driver was shaking and, and thought he had probably paralyzed somebody. And so I did my best to calm the wife and told the guy on the ground to, you know, stay where he's at, not move, gave him my jacket to put under his head. The kid that was driving calmed him down to the best of my ability. I called 911. And not too long after that, cops showed, paramedics showed, and gave my witness statement. And, uh, the Uber came and I got in the Uber and we drove off. Now, as I'm driving in that Uber to the airport, I can't help but start thinking, why in the world did I drop everything and run at the scene? Ironically, just a few months ago, I witnessed an accident and with like, like saw an accident at an intersection. And there were multiple cars that saw that witnessed it. I was actually probably 5 cars back. And again, without hesitation, opened the door, jumped out of my car, ran at the accident, And fortunately just had to, you know, help move some, you know, not move the people, but calm everyone down and, and kind of orchestrate. Now I share this, these stories with you, not because I think I'm special at all. As a matter of fact, as you'll see in the next couple episodes, my decision to run at these scenes was not the best one. And we're going to examine as to why that may be. But I'm— I became so curious, like I share, because I ran at it. And I'm so curious to why do people do that? Why did I do it? 98% of people that were standing around did the opposite. Were they smarter than me? Did they know something I didn't know? Was I just so reactionary? Was I emotional? What was it? So I did some research. Of course, naturally, when you start, you know, researching response, what you come across is good information around first responders and first responders. First thing I read around first responders is that they're often very dedicated people who have very high control needs, meaning that they value being in command of a situation. Well, I kind of fit that bill. They have high control needs. In addition, through training, these workers, these first responders learn how to better suppress their emotions while at the scene of an emergency, and it allows them to operate in the face of danger. They have training. So what does that mean to me? It means they have confidence. So they have high control needs and they have confidence. Not only do they have confidence, but through repetition— police, firefighters, soldiers, EMS workers— they've been trained. There's repetition. It's been drilled into them. So they're— they have high control needs, they're confident, and they're competent. So in a moment of crisis, when instinct takes over, they're more likely to react professionally. As I start digging further, I come across heroism, like what makes for a hero? Why do people exhibit heroic behavior? And I, by no means did I deliver or exhibit heroic behavior. I just ran at a scene and helped facilitate some things. I didn't save anybody, none of that. Right. But you, you get into like what makes for a hero. Well, Arthur Ashe, the professional tennis player, has a great quote. He says, true heroism is remarkably sober and very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. So why do people exhibit heroism? Why do they go about doing that? Well, the first thing that I come across, in addition to the characteristics I mentioned about first responders, is that oftentimes when someone displays heroic behavior, it involves some risk of personal harm. And one can then say, if someone finds themself in that position or running at a fire, they likely have a higher tolerance for risk-taking. So they have risk-taking behavior. And based on the research I've seen, maybe they're more generous. There, there's generosity at play there. In terms of personality, while some people stand still, which is known as the bystander effect, when you stand still, when you're trapped by inaction, by assuming that someone else will offer assistance, like that's known as the bystander effect. While many, I would say most are impacted by bystander effect. Other individuals immediately get into action because they have some degree of personal responsibility, right or wrong. They have this personal responsibility and these personality traits that may predispose them to behave in an altruistic or even heroic way. So where am I going with all this? Part 1 of the 3 parts is to understand what makes people run at the fire. What makes people run towards an emergency? And I think what you're hearing is some degree of confidence and competence, some desire to control a situation, generosity, altruism, risk-taking behavior. These are things that those that run at tend to possess. Now, I'm not saying we should run at run away from. I don't mean to cast any judgment. I don't know what's right for you, but I do want to ask you the question. I want the focusing question to be with respect to this episode. When you look in the mirror, are you one that— like, would you say you're one that runs at the fire, or are you someone that stands still or runs away? And again, no judgment here, but as you're looking in the mirror, how do you feel about that? Would you like to be the one that gets into action immediately? Well, cool. We could talk about that. Should you be the one that gets into action immediately? We're also going to talk about that, which kind of brings it to my situation and why I wanted to talk about this over the next few days. So some good focusing questions, but I think in summary, you know, what makes people run towards the fire? It's probably something good to study because of course, you know where I'm going to go with this. I'm giving a very specific scenario, but in business, in life, many of our listeners, you guys are leaders and leaders have a responsibility from time to time to take charge in these scenarios. And I think it's important, right, to be the right person to run at the fire, to know what you're doing, to have strategy. These are things we're going to talk about in the coming days. So that's all I have for you today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.