The Tipping Point - How Do I Choose to React?

I remember as a very young mining engineer on a mine site, I had done the qualifications to become an open cut examiner which meant that I could run a coal mine. I was in the Hunter Valley and it was a little difficult to get my open card examiner's ticket because I'd never had a girl do it before and it was challenging for them. But I did get the certificate to say Jane has shown that he has the knowledge for him to run an open cut mine. And so I was on the day shift as an open cut examiner. And the last thing that you want to hear is that fact there's been an accident. And I had been training in the mines rescue team as well. So we'd been prepared for what could happen if there was an accident and what could be the circumstances and what could we face and some of the horrific things we may see but how we would deal with them. And so as I came, I heard the fact that there had been one of these 240 ton trucks that had collided with one of the electrical utes and there'd been some injuries. And so as I came over the hill and came down, I could see these 240 ton truck. I could see a lot of people hanging around, I could hear screaming. And it was my job to take control of the situation, at least secure the situation until the mines rescue team arrived. And so I got into there and I came screaming in. I was going to this poor apprentice out of the car where he'd been pinned into, get everyone out of the way, take control. And it was interesting when I was in the mines rescue and a couple of years before I qualified to be in the team, they'd asked me to be in one of the competitions as one of the patients and they had set up this situation and the situation was essentially an overturned ute or people traveler with 10 people in it, some screaming, some not screaming, but there had actually been an electrical wire that had come down. And my job was to basically try to get the mines rescue person as close as possible. So they got electrocuted. Now obviously it wasn't a live wire, but to talk to them and talk big screaming and needing help and they wanting to save me. And it was amazing. Team after team, all I had to do was scream a little bit and then ask me what's wrong, I'm like a gobble something. And so they tried to get closer and closer to here and they'd get electrocuted. And there was one team that came into this situation and the team captain said wait Hold. What are the dangers here? And so as I came down that hill and I saw everything that was happening in this accident, I thought, wait, what are the dangers here? I need to get people out of the way. The mines rescue can get in here. I need to secure this young boy to make sure that he can breathe and that there's no risk of the truck catching on fire or anything. I need to secure and look after the truck driver because he's thinking he's possibly killed someone. So I had someone appointed to look after him. I had this whole situation under control. I had all of the men allocated to tasks. I had the area closed off. I stopped all the rest of the 240 ton trucks coming down. Everything was under control. And then over the hill came a ute flying down, nearly took half the people out. And this guy came running out of it. He was the head electrical engineer and it was his son that was the electrician apprentice that was in the butte that the mines rescue team were working on releasing at that time. And the boy was actually okay until he saw his dad and then he went into shock. And then we had a significant situation. And what it made me realize was that there's the importance of stopping and being aware that there's a situation that's going on. And not all of the situations that we have that come up are going to need to have life or death situations, obviously, but there's going to be things that come up and we have to be vigilant to the fact that the situation can get worse before it gets better or before it's under control or before there's an awareness. But there is this tipping point. There is this point where you sit back and you go, what's going on here? And how do I choose to react? Because choice is the key and awareness is the key. Now David Goggins talks about that taking the knee, the one second rule. There's another podcast that I heard during the month when I was exploring this by Mel Robbins. And she talks about, she has a book called the 54321 book. And this is kind of a technique that she came about by herself and she was saying when she gets into these situations where everything's going wrong and she'd been fired from a job, the mortgage was due, the husband didn't have a job, there was a lot of issues with her financial situation, her own sense of worth. The next thing comes along, she's like, that's I'm all over it. And she learned this technique where she actually stops and she counts. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And what it does is it takes you out of the emotional part of your brain and gets you connected to this prefrontal cortex. And it turns on the logic. And because it's not an easy thing to count backwards, you actually have to focus. And whilst you're doing that, you're breathing because you're talking. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You get oxygen in and you're taking that moment. So the first thing I want to really cover today is the fact that there is a piece around the awareness. There is a piece around the fact that there is something that triggers you to go, what's going on? And often it's going to be an emotional pull that either gets you into fight, flight, fawn or freeze. And you feel that you have no way out. And that's when the ego comes up, when it's strong. The old beliefs, the old conditions, the old limitations, the old patterns that activate you into actually going into your ego. And what I want to give you is some tools. Take the knee, start breathing, count backwards. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And have that awareness point where you stop and you consider that there's options.