FEATURED SEPTEMBER 2008 GUEST: Laurence Gonzales

"Creative minds have always been known

to survive any kind of bad training." - Anna Freud

A conversation with Laurence Gonzales, author of
DEEP SURVIVAL - Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

Q: How would you define a survivor?

A: A survivor is anyone who successfully navigates life's challenges. The stories we hear the most about are those of shipwrecks or mountain climbers surviving against all odds. But without a moment's notice, you may be called on to survive without ever leaving your home. You may get cancer. You may face divorce or business catastrophe. You may lose a loved one. All of those call on our deepest survival skills.

Q: What is the most important characteristic of the survivor?

A: To have a solid inner core. At heart, a survivor trusts himself and relies on himself. He or she is confident, but also humble. Survival is always a balancing act between opposing skills or forces. And when the crisis comes, he doesn't say, “Oh, my God, how could this have happened to me?” A survivor doesn't complain or blame others. He or she says, “Okay, what's the next right thing to do to get out of this? I know that there is always one more thing I can do, and I'm going to do whatever it takes. I'm going to do my best.” That's survivor thinking.

Q: How can I tell whether I'm a survivor?

A: You can start by looking at how you've reacted to adversity in the past. Are you adaptable? Do you rebound from setbacks quickly with the attitude that you'll learn and grow through this experience? Or do you spend a lot of time blaming others for what happens to you? Do you look back on hardship with bitterness, or do you cherish it as part of what has built your character? A victim–which is what I call someone who doesn't survive–tends to blame others and look outside himself for rescue, even from everyday difficulties. A victim slips on the sidewalk and looks around for someone to sue. A survivor says: That was careless of me. I'd better watch where I'm going. Ask yourself if you've struggled with adversity and prevailed with your sense of humor intact.

Q: What motivated you to dig so deep for these answers?

A: It began with my father's remarkable story of survival during World War II; he fell 27,000 feet without a parachute, behind German lines, and lived. I tell the full story in Deep Survival. But as I grew up, I was taught in school that reason rules our lives. Yet the behavior I saw around me contradicted that. Rational people did the most irrational things, and afterward, everyone would say, “What was he thinking?” But then they'd dismiss it. I guess I never dismissed it and kept on asking: Well, what exactly was he thinking? How can people do these things and still claim to live rational lives? The answer is: We don't. Our behavior and the outcomes it produces have much deeper explanations than that.

Q: Will reading Deep Survival give me a better chance of surviving? In the wilderness? A terrorist attack? Loss of job? A bad divorce?

A: Based on what I've heard from readers since the book came out, the answer is definitely yes. I have heard from everyone from cancer survivors to Navy SEALs, from firefighters to engineers who build satellites, that the principles and insights in Deep Survival speak to them at a deep level. Becoming a survivor is lifetime job. Each of us is unique but in surviving, we follow predictable patterns of behavior, emotion, and thought. Once you see those patterns, you can begin reflecting on how you live your own life, and if you can be honest with yourself, it becomes clear where you stand. It has been very gratifying to hear from readers all over the world who have used Deep Survival to push themselves from what might be a victim's role to that of a survivor.

Q: Doesn't luck or fate play a pretty big role in who lives or dies?

A: When I was doing a lot of work with Air Force and Navy pilots, they had a term for that type of accident. They said, “It's not your day.” In my experience, there aren't many “not-your-day” type of accidents. Most accidents turn out to grow from a series of little steps, little mistakes, little decisions–none of which is significant in itself–that eventually add up to a big catastrophe. In many cases, we have done the wrong thing before and gotten away with it, and that tells us that it's okay. If we do it enough times, we get in trouble. There was a recent bush crash in which 14 people were killed. Evidently, the bus driver was speeding, eating his dinner, and lost control on a rain-slicked road. He had undoubtedly learned from experience that he could go 70 or 75 miles an hour. He had also learned that he could eat while driving. He'd gotten away with it. But in doing that, he put himself at a critical point in his ability to control the bus, and it only took a tiny push to bring him to catastrophe–a distraction, for example, coupled with the rain-slicked highway. He died because he'd unconsciously made a series of little decisions. A lot of others died, too.

Q: Is it easy to predict who in a given group will survive and who won't? Are the traits obvious?

A: Well, if your ship is sinking and the guy next to you is screaming, “We're all gonna die!” that's a good indication that he might not make it. But in general, I'd say to stay away from people who are the extremely macho, Rambo types. And stay away from complainers, whiners. Look to people who have a sense of humor–especially about themselves–and a solid sense of who they are. People who make the most of the circumstances they're in, who accept it and learn from it, people who care about others–they tend to be the better survivors. After all, survival is nothing more than adaptation to the environment in which you find yourself.

Q: Speaking of Rambo types, do Army Rangers or Navy SEALs have a better chance or survival? In one case you mention in Deep Survival, an Army Ranger drowns on a commercial rafting trip. What happened?

A: He was too well trained. Ranger training is intense. And if they have to be rescued, they're out of the program. Rescue equals failure. When he fell into the river after the raft overturned, he pushed his rescuer away. He had survived much worse conditions than the river he was in. But his training was wrong for that particular environment. He floated away and was sucked into a hole, pinned, and drowned, probably all the while feeling that he was in control and doing the right thing. Confidence is good. Too much confidence is deadly. He lacked the humility to recognize that he didn't understand every environment he might find himself in. So the answer is, maybe. If Rangers and SEALs, in addition to being given that intense training, are also schooled in recognizing when that training is inappropriate, then yes, they are more likely to survive.

Q: How well do kids survive? Better or worse than adults?

A: Studies have been done of how children survive when they're lost in the wilderness. Children under the age of six or seven tend to survive better than children between the ages of six and 12–and even better than adults. But kids between the ages of six and 12 are the worst survivors when they're lost. They'll panic and run. They'll even run across roads, back yards, not realizing that they might find people there. Children under six or seven haven't yet developed a sense of getting from one place to another, so they stay put and stay warm. They still have the instincts of a little animal, and it saves them. There is evidence that young children also cope with serious illness better than adults.

Q: Have you ever been lost?

A: Yes. I've been lost in the woods, and I've been lost in my own neighborhood. Most of us are lost most of the time. We're in environments where artificial cues, such as signs, lead us around. The slightest failure of that system will leave us lost. When I was lost in the woods–a story I tell in Deep Survival–I was found by dumb luck, and it's a good thing, too. There was an ice storm, and I was going the wrong way, completely turned around. It would have been bad. The key here is believing that you can get lost.

Q: Beyond controlling panic, what are the most important things to do once you realize you might face a survival situation?

A: Let's say you've just been told by your doctor that you have cancer. What can you do? Just like being lost in the woods, you have to sit down, calm down, and take stock of your resources. Get your friends and family together–you're going to need a team. Learn everything you can about your disease–you're going to need to be smart. Start building yourself a program for your health and well being–exercise, diet, activities to keep you motivated and optimistic. Attitude is everything in a survival situation, whether you're stranded in the jungle or sitting in a hospital ward. Read the stories of other survivors to see how they did it, such as Lance Armstrong's story or the ones in Deep Survival. If nothing else, they'll give you a new idea of what's possible. Believe it: It is possible to survive the impossible.

Q: Is avoiding of life-threatening situations one of the survivor's most important tools?

A: Definitely. Let me ask you something: If you're staying in a hotel and the fire alarm goes off, do you leave the building, or do you assume it's a false alarm? I leave the building. Because as my flight instructor used to say, I'd rather be on the ground wishing I were in the air than in the air wishing I were on the ground. Believe it: If it looks bad, it is bad. Survivors perceive their surroundings and react accordingly. This applies in all areas of life. When a marriage goes bad, it doesn't usually happen suddenly. The storm clouds gather gradually. Do you ignore them or seek help early on? The same is true in business. When the personal computer came along, huge companies went out of existence simply because they denied the clear evidence before them that the environment was changing radically. In avoiding such survival situations, there's one simple rule: Perceive and believe.

Q: What about survivor schools? Is there any value in them?

A: I think everybody should go to a good survival school. It makes you think. It gives you skills. It makes you realize that you're not always protected. And it gives you confidence. Because of the way we're protected by civilization, we don't have to think about survival. In today's world, we should. The lessons learned in a wilderness survival school penetrate all the other areas of our lives if we let them. Thinking about survival–in love, in life, in business–isn't paranoid. It's just smart. I like to say: Everyone has a mountain to climb. Everyone has a wilderness inside. Learn to explore it or you may find yourself lost in it.

© Laurence Gonzales 2008