Latest / The You Project / #1046 Wonder Woman - Dr. Sabrina Cohen-Hatton (PT2)

Transcript

#1046 Wonder Woman - Dr. Sabrina Cohen-Hatton (PT2) · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: Good a team. This is part two of the conversation
0:03
Speaker 1: we started yesterday with Sabrina. I hope you're enjoying it.
0:06
Speaker 1: I won't get in the way of what is to
0:09
Speaker 1: come enjoy see you at the end. Does that mean
0:15
Speaker 1: Sabrina your honor doctor? Does that mean that? Like my
0:19
Speaker 1: thinking is generally like when I would like I've worked
0:23
Speaker 1: with first responders over here, with Victoria police and with
0:26
Speaker 1: the military a little bit, and with lots of elite athletes.
0:30
Speaker 1: And we just did a big study out of Monash
0:31
Speaker 1: where I study which I had my first academic paper published,
0:35
Speaker 1: which is hilarious, which is hilarious. Hang on because there's
0:39
Speaker 1: like fifty authors, so I really don't deserve any credit whatsoever,
0:45
Speaker 1: but my name is on it. What I wanted to
0:51
Speaker 1: say was generally speaking, we train a soldiers and police,
0:59
Speaker 1: especially special operators like in Victoria they call it Special
1:06
Speaker 1: Operations Group, they call them soggies, and you know the
1:09
Speaker 1: elite soldiers where they do a lot of like intense
1:16
Speaker 1: high level, high pressure, uncomfortable like they just get put
1:21
Speaker 1: through the grind. It's it's as it's as as realistic
1:26
Speaker 1: as it can be without it being real. Is there
1:30
Speaker 1: a similar approach to train firefighters to be able to
1:33
Speaker 1: deal with that, because you can't perform under pressure if
1:36
Speaker 1: you're never under pressure.
1:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally agree. I totally agree. And if you are
1:42
Speaker 2: just going through the motions. I mean, there's an element
1:44
Speaker 2: where you can do that for skills development, right where
1:47
Speaker 2: you're learning a skill and you're doing it slow time
1:49
Speaker 2: and then you get better at it. But unless you're
1:52
Speaker 2: actually testing that skill under pressure, actually, how do you
1:55
Speaker 2: know that you're going to be able to use it
1:57
Speaker 2: when you need to use it, because, by the way,
1:59
Speaker 2: that time is going to be under intense pressure, both
2:02
Speaker 2: in terms of the pressure of the environment, the moral
2:05
Speaker 2: pressure that you're under from people who are watching on
2:08
Speaker 2: the people that you might be trying to rescue, and
2:10
Speaker 2: experiencing someone else. You know, when someone else is in
2:13
Speaker 2: pain or someone else has just experienced the death of
2:16
Speaker 2: someone that they love literally next to them in a
2:19
Speaker 2: car or in a house that you've managed to rescue
2:22
Speaker 2: one from, and someone else, there is nothing that prepares
2:26
Speaker 2: you for the emotion that you hear in that person's
2:31
Speaker 2: There is nothing that prepares you for that. But you
2:34
Speaker 2: have to carry on. You have to be able to
2:36
Speaker 2: do what you need to do. And I'm particularly interested
2:40
Speaker 2: in non technical skills. In the UK, we term them
2:42
Speaker 2: command skills, so your ability to make decisions, your situational awareness,
2:47
Speaker 2: your communication skills, your leadership skills, your ability to work
2:50
Speaker 2: as a part of a team. You know, all of
2:52
Speaker 2: these things are skills. They're not you know, they're not.
2:55
Speaker 2: They're not some kind of higher gift that you get
2:58
Speaker 2: that you know you're kind of born with. If you're
3:00
Speaker 2: either a great decision maker or you're not, you've got
3:02
Speaker 2: to work at it. And working at it means doing
3:05
Speaker 2: it in the kind of environment that you're readily going
3:07
Speaker 2: to expect to use it in, and in our world,
3:10
Speaker 2: that means that it's going to be emotionally charged, dynamically changing,
3:13
Speaker 2: with little or incomplete information, sometimes inaccurate information, and it's
3:19
Speaker 2: really tough. And it's a bit like swimming. If you
3:22
Speaker 2: wanted to swim the length of the channel or swim
3:25
Speaker 2: in the sea, but you only ever trained in an
3:28
Speaker 2: Olympic sized swimming pool. You know what, you might be
3:31
Speaker 2: the fastest, the best, that you might have the greatest
3:35
Speaker 2: endurance in a pool, but as soon as you get
3:38
Speaker 2: out in the sea, even though it's the same skill,
3:41
Speaker 2: the context is so different, the application changes, and so
3:44
Speaker 2: you're not going to be able to do it in
3:45
Speaker 2: the same way. And those kind of non technical skills,
3:48
Speaker 2: the development of those are similar. So whatever technical skill
3:52
Speaker 2: you might be doing under pressure, it is determined by
3:56
Speaker 2: your non technical skills. Your ability to make a judgment
3:59
Speaker 2: on when that needs to applied or how that needs
4:01
Speaker 2: to be applied, Your ability to communicate your intentions, your
4:04
Speaker 2: ability to absorb the information from around you that you
4:07
Speaker 2: need to create, your situational awareness, your mental picture, that
4:10
Speaker 2: which is the basis of every single decision and every
4:13
Speaker 2: single judgment that you make. That is tough, and if
4:17
Speaker 2: you want to do that under pressure, we need to
4:19
Speaker 2: recognize that stress affects the processing capacity that you have available.
4:23
Speaker 2: It reduces it, so you have less processing capacity available
4:26
Speaker 2: to absorb that information. You have less processing capacity available
4:30
Speaker 2: to make a decision, You have less processing capacity available
4:33
Speaker 2: to think about the message that you're trying to communicate
4:35
Speaker 2: and whether or not that meaning has landed in the
4:38
Speaker 2: way that you intended it to land. These are all
4:40
Speaker 2: really important factors for the success of the overarching incident
4:43
Speaker 2: because it's complex. So if you want those to work effectively.
4:47
Speaker 2: You have to train them under pressure. Is no good
4:50
Speaker 2: just doing it in slow time. You have to train
4:53
Speaker 2: under pressure, and so making people feel uncomfortable by putting
4:58
Speaker 2: if you're doing a command atercise, for example, by throwing
5:01
Speaker 2: lots of injects in so you don't have time to
5:04
Speaker 2: think about something, you don't have the luxury of being
5:07
Speaker 2: able to hold lots of things together in your mind
5:09
Speaker 2: at one point. It creates that sense of pressure where
5:12
Speaker 2: you then have to prioritize your activity. And actually, even
5:15
Speaker 2: if in real time the situation might not be like that,
5:19
Speaker 2: for you know, the full duration of the hour that
5:21
Speaker 2: your command exercise is, actually you're compressing it, and so
5:25
Speaker 2: what you get is like really deep practice. If you've
5:28
Speaker 2: heard the term deep practice, it's what you're kind of synthesizing,
5:33
Speaker 2: and it's about feeling uncomfortable. It's about doing things wrong
5:37
Speaker 2: and then repeating them in a different way so that
5:39
Speaker 2: you can do it better next time. But creating that
5:42
Speaker 2: sense of pressure in whatever way you can do it
5:45
Speaker 2: is super important. I'm a really big fan of realistic exercises.
5:49
Speaker 2: I know they're super expensive to do. I know it's hard,
5:53
Speaker 2: especially when you get places like I mean In the
5:55
Speaker 2: UK we have the Casualties Union, who are an amazing
5:58
Speaker 2: group of people, many of whom are amputees who've been
6:01
Speaker 2: through traumatic incidents themselves, who will come in and role
6:04
Speaker 2: play that they have incredible makeup on to simulate, to
6:09
Speaker 2: simulate traumatic injuries, and they respond in a way that
6:14
Speaker 2: is really realistic. And these people are incredible because bear
6:17
Speaker 2: in mind they've had their own traumas. To come in
6:19
Speaker 2: and to be able to do that those experiences to
6:23
Speaker 2: help develop the people that they know other people will
6:27
Speaker 2: rely on in the future to go and rescue them
6:29
Speaker 2: from similar circumstances is a level of courage that to
6:32
Speaker 2: me is absolutely god worthy. It is awesome. But that
6:40
Speaker 2: kind of realistic opportunity is worth waiting gold, absolutely worth
6:45
Speaker 2: its weight in gold. But whatever you're doing when you're training,
6:48
Speaker 2: don't just go through the motions. Don't just go to
6:50
Speaker 2: get through the end of the exercise. Make it count.
6:53
Speaker 2: You can never train too hard for a job where
6:57
Speaker 2: you know people die.
7:00
Speaker 1: I love that and it's so like I always you know,
7:03
Speaker 1: I use this analogy of white belt to black belt
7:06
Speaker 1: and I say, you know, the way that you become
7:08
Speaker 1: a black belt in any martial art is. You start
7:11
Speaker 1: as a white belt, you get punched in the face,
7:13
Speaker 1: you get kicked in the deck, you get choked. You know,
7:16
Speaker 1: this is what happens. You know, you get beaten up,
7:20
Speaker 1: and then eventually you're a yellow, then eventually a green,
7:23
Speaker 1: and a brown, and a purple and a blue, and
7:25
Speaker 1: then whatever the system is, you know, and then one
7:27
Speaker 1: day you wake up. You're the same person with the
7:30
Speaker 1: same potential and the same genetics, but now you've got
7:34
Speaker 1: new skills, new awareness, new resilience, new understanding, new insight.
7:38
Speaker 1: Same human but not really. And now you've got that
7:42
Speaker 1: you can perform under a level of pressure that you
7:46
Speaker 1: couldn't even think about when you're a white belt, because
7:49
Speaker 1: you didn't know what you were doing. You couldn't be calm,
7:52
Speaker 1: you didn't know how to self regulate. And now five six, seven, eight,
7:56
Speaker 1: ten years down the track, you've got this high level
8:00
Speaker 1: of ability and skill to be able to do this
8:02
Speaker 1: thing that most people can't. And it's because you did
8:05
Speaker 1: the work, and it's because you weren't fucking around. It's
8:08
Speaker 1: because you had five dislocated elbows and these, it's because
8:12
Speaker 1: you've got a thousand black eyes, it's because you've got
8:14
Speaker 1: choked fifty times. It's like that's you can't get good
8:18
Speaker 1: at the thing that you're not doing. You can't master
8:20
Speaker 1: the thing that you avoid. And you can read about
8:23
Speaker 1: it and hear about it and watch fucking videos on
8:26
Speaker 1: it and listen to lectures about it, but unless you're
8:29
Speaker 1: actually doing it, like unless you're actually at the coal face,
8:33
Speaker 1: rolling up your sleeves and doing the shit or a
8:36
Speaker 1: version of it, then when the storm cometh, Brothers and Sisters,
8:42
Speaker 1: you capitulate. You know, We've had lots of people and
8:47
Speaker 1: speaking to that, just as an example, we've had people
8:50
Speaker 1: on the show and I can't say who, but it
8:53
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Well, no, I can't say who. But even
8:58
Speaker 1: something like this where people can obviously, you know, they've
9:02
Speaker 1: got their expertise like you, they've got skill knowledge, you know,
9:06
Speaker 1: all of that. They can communicate and sometimes they've written
9:10
Speaker 1: a book and you know, some whatever. But then you
9:13
Speaker 1: put them on either I used to work in radio
9:16
Speaker 1: as well, and so you put them in a radio
9:19
Speaker 1: interview or on an interview with this where you say,
9:22
Speaker 1: you know, you give them a backstory of you know,
9:24
Speaker 1: how many people listen and what we do and and
9:27
Speaker 1: all of a sudden and we're live. That person goes
9:32
Speaker 1: from being interesting and funny and articulate too. Yes, no, no, yeah,
9:40
Speaker 1: I'm like, fucking hell, somebody just removed his personality in
9:43
Speaker 1: the last thirteen seconds. And it's just it's terrible because
9:49
Speaker 1: to them, there's when you say, I used to say
9:53
Speaker 1: to people, there's only twenty thousand people, don't you know listening,
9:56
Speaker 1: don't worry, And I would say that to fuck around.
9:59
Speaker 1: I don't say it anymore or how I can say
10:02
Speaker 1: it to you because you do this all the time.
10:03
Speaker 1: But like and then people, especially if you're thinking of
10:07
Speaker 1: a stadium of humans or something, but something that they
10:12
Speaker 1: do all the time, which is talk and share and educate,
10:15
Speaker 1: now you're doing it in a different context and they
10:17
Speaker 1: can't string three words together because there's a level, a
10:21
Speaker 1: self created level of pressure. Yeah, and maybe I influenced
10:25
Speaker 1: that a little bit.
10:27
Speaker 2: It's true though, And it's you know, it's really similar
10:30
Speaker 2: when you think about things like, you know, even a
10:32
Speaker 2: job interview or a presentation. How many times when you've
10:36
Speaker 2: got a big presentation of you kind of practiced that
10:39
Speaker 2: in front of a plant pot or in front of
10:40
Speaker 2: the dog. Well, guess what the dog's never going to
10:42
Speaker 2: troll you on Twitter.
10:43
Speaker 3: It's a safe environment. You know, You've got to do
10:47
Speaker 3: it in front of people that make you feel uncomfortable,
10:50
Speaker 3: because when you step in to do that presentation or
10:52
Speaker 3: that job interview, you're going to be running on adrenaline.
10:56
Speaker 3: You're going to feel anxious, you're going to feel uncomfortable.
10:58
Speaker 3: So you need to know that you can do it
11:01
Speaker 3: despite that feeling. You need to know that you've practiced
11:04
Speaker 3: it in that kind of envirovement. You need to know
11:05
Speaker 3: the places that your head is going to go black,
11:07
Speaker 3: where you're going to stumble, so then you can go
11:09
Speaker 3: and focus on those bits and make sure you know
11:11
Speaker 3: it better.
11:12
Speaker 2: You know that for me, it's a gift. It's an
11:15
Speaker 2: absolute gift to have an opportunity to practice something before
11:19
Speaker 2: you go in and before you do it, and to
11:21
Speaker 2: develop those skills. And if it means, you know, you
11:23
Speaker 2: feel uncomfortable, it means you mess something up, or it
11:27
Speaker 2: means you feel a bit silly, well, you know what,
11:29
Speaker 2: that's a really small price to pay for all of
11:32
Speaker 2: the good stuff that could come out of you being
11:34
Speaker 2: successful at this, you know, and in my world that
11:37
Speaker 2: means people walk away, They get to go back to
11:40
Speaker 2: their families. At the end of the day. There's not
11:42
Speaker 2: this great, big void left by someone that's no longer
11:45
Speaker 2: walking this planet. What a gift, What a gift.
11:49
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, and I know you've got
11:52
Speaker 1: to go. We'll talk about your book in a moment.
11:54
Speaker 1: But a couple of years ago, Sabrina, that's actually it
11:58
Speaker 1: was it three years ago, the Crab. Yeah, three yeah,
12:02
Speaker 1: So I was you know, I think I told you
12:06
Speaker 1: before we went live. I've been training my whole life.
12:08
Speaker 1: I owned gyms all that, so go to the gym
12:10
Speaker 1: every day and just left. Shit, I'm not very good anymore.
12:12
Speaker 1: I'm old, I'm a bit fucked. But anyway, I still
12:14
Speaker 1: go down, you know, sit on a dumbbell. But anyway,
12:18
Speaker 1: The Crab my training partner, Mark, who I lovingly call
12:22
Speaker 1: the Crab because he moves like a crab. He's like
12:26
Speaker 1: a large crustacean with biceps. But anyway, so we were
12:29
Speaker 1: training and he did a set of chin ups, held
12:35
Speaker 1: his breath the whole time. Sabrina did thirty chin ups,
12:38
Speaker 1: not an exaggeration. X pro body built, a very strong,
12:41
Speaker 1: very big all of that did thirty chins came down
12:46
Speaker 1: and went to his hands and knees, and I thought
12:48
Speaker 1: he was having a seizure, and he had a cardiac
12:53
Speaker 1: arrest and died in the gym, on the gym floor.
12:57
Speaker 1: So he came back to life, I need say quickly,
13:01
Speaker 1: but he was dead for seventeen minutes. And and talk
13:07
Speaker 1: about you know, people under pressure, I would say there was.
13:11
Speaker 1: There's probably twenty people in the gym, but in him
13:14
Speaker 1: because there's there's levels to the gym. But within a
13:18
Speaker 1: couple of minutes there were thirty or forty people in
13:20
Speaker 1: the gym, and so i'd you know, his big unit
13:23
Speaker 1: is one hundred kilos, which I don't know what that
13:25
Speaker 1: is in stone, seventeen stone maybe, So I, you know,
13:29
Speaker 1: I got him on his back, I got him into
13:31
Speaker 1: a position where I could work on him, and I
13:33
Speaker 1: did that like as soon as I realized what had happened,
13:38
Speaker 1: which was quite quickly. So I started working on him
13:43
Speaker 1: by myself. Now thirty people were standing on the other
13:46
Speaker 1: side of the gym, not one thing like looking terrified.
13:52
Speaker 1: Not one person went what can I do? Ye, not
13:56
Speaker 1: one person said can I help? And so I just
14:00
Speaker 1: looked up and said I need somebody, and they all
14:03
Speaker 1: stood there like nobody came, and so here's here's my
14:08
Speaker 1: friend on the floor. I'm doing the compressions and the breaths.
14:13
Speaker 1: I'm so I'm alternating, and I'm you know, I'm busy.
14:16
Speaker 1: I got shipped on and I look up and nobody
14:19
Speaker 1: moved forward. Nobody came. They all just stood there looking terrified.
14:25
Speaker 1: And then this one bloke kind of looked semi like
14:29
Speaker 1: like he was thinking about it. And I said, what's
14:32
Speaker 1: your name? And he said his name? And I said,
14:35
Speaker 1: let's just go, Steve, and I said, Steven, get the
14:37
Speaker 1: fuck over here. He's like, I don't know what to do.
14:40
Speaker 1: I go get the fuck over here. I'll tell you
14:42
Speaker 1: what to do, right and that that but that a maze,
14:46
Speaker 1: Well that was messy, and that was you know, like
14:49
Speaker 1: a daunting scenario, of course, but I was upon reflection later,
14:56
Speaker 1: I was amazed at how I don't know if nobody
15:00
Speaker 1: knew what to do, but nobody, nobody came forward. Like
15:05
Speaker 1: I literally had to swear at someone to get someone
15:08
Speaker 1: to help me. And that's, you know, because who's standing
15:12
Speaker 1: next to someone when they die. Very few people, you know,
15:16
Speaker 1: not in not where we live anyway, you know. And
15:19
Speaker 1: then so you're right, people just don't know what to do. Yeah,
15:23
Speaker 1: and normally comfortable, competent, you know, pretty adaptable, flexible people
15:30
Speaker 1: fucking freeze in certain circumstances.
15:34
Speaker 2: Do you know. Well, firstly, I'm really sorry that you
15:36
Speaker 2: had that experience, but also you are incredible because you
15:40
Speaker 2: have literally saved Mark's life there in that in that scenario.
15:45
Speaker 2: So he's alive because of the intervention that you made,
15:49
Speaker 2: and that's that's pretty incredible and definitely something worth recognizing.
15:54
Speaker 2: But it's it's funny how other people respond in a
15:57
Speaker 2: situation where they feel deeply uncomfortable. There's been some really
16:02
Speaker 2: interesting research that's looked at how when in an emergency situation,
16:07
Speaker 2: if there's somebody that's already intervening, other people will stand by,
16:11
Speaker 2: will be less likely to come forward and help because
16:13
Speaker 2: they think it's dealt with. And it's really challenging because
16:17
Speaker 2: in that kind of circumstance, actually you need all the
16:19
Speaker 2: hands that you can get right, You need that help
16:21
Speaker 2: and you need that support, and some of it comes
16:24
Speaker 2: from a lack of confidence, I think. And it's interesting,
16:26
Speaker 2: you know, because we almost had kind of the opposite
16:29
Speaker 2: problem in the fire service. So there was One of
16:32
Speaker 2: the things that we introduced when we were doing all
16:36
Speaker 2: of the research and the policy changes on the back
16:38
Speaker 2: of the research was some work around something that we
16:41
Speaker 2: term operational discretion, and that's the flexibility to recognize when
16:46
Speaker 2: a policy doesn't apply that you will actually do what
16:51
Speaker 2: you think needs to be done, used your professional judgment
16:54
Speaker 2: to do whatever you need to do in that circumstance.
16:57
Speaker 2: And there were some incidents, some really high profile incidents
17:01
Speaker 2: that we had in the UK where people had died
17:04
Speaker 2: because people were One of the contributing factors part of
17:08
Speaker 2: me one of the contributing factors was that everybody was
17:11
Speaker 2: so focused on sticking to the policy that the policy
17:16
Speaker 2: wouldn't have worked for that situation. Sticking to the policy
17:18
Speaker 2: actually made the outcome worse. There was one called there
17:23
Speaker 2: was one in Gosden Mine where a mine shaft had
17:26
Speaker 2: collapsed and a lady had fallen down the mine shaft
17:32
Speaker 2: and was trapped down there for a considerable amount of time,
17:35
Speaker 2: and one of the incident commanders, the fire commanders, wanted
17:39
Speaker 2: to adapt some equipment to be able to get them out,
17:42
Speaker 2: and another disagreed because it was outside of policy and
17:45
Speaker 2: stopped it all and insisted on waiting for the mine rescue,
17:50
Speaker 2: and the woman ended up being trapped down there for
17:52
Speaker 2: so long that one of the contributing factors to her
17:54
Speaker 2: death was hypothermia. Now it would be wrong to say
17:57
Speaker 2: it was solely because of the the delay caused by
18:02
Speaker 2: that or sticking rigidly to the policy, but what was
18:05
Speaker 2: talked about by the judge afterwards when they were looking
18:09
Speaker 2: at her death is that that was one of the
18:10
Speaker 2: inflexibility was one of the contributing factors. So it's funny
18:14
Speaker 2: because if you were not in a uniform, you'd grab
18:17
Speaker 2: whatever you could grab and you would do what you
18:20
Speaker 2: could to try to make it work right. But as
18:22
Speaker 2: soon as you put up that uniform, you have that
18:24
Speaker 2: different responsibility, that different level of accountability, and the judgments
18:29
Speaker 2: I think, and you know, the judgment that you would
18:33
Speaker 2: have after an event once you're wearing that uniform and
18:36
Speaker 2: representing one of the services is far greater than a
18:40
Speaker 2: member of the public would have if they were just
18:42
Speaker 2: trying to do their best to help out. Of the
18:44
Speaker 2: things that we introduced was this concept of operational discretion,
18:48
Speaker 2: where if you recognize that adhering strictly to the policy
18:52
Speaker 2: either is going to make it worse because that happens sometimes,
18:56
Speaker 2: or the policy it's such a novel situation that the
18:59
Speaker 2: policy does apply, then it gives that kind of flexibility
19:02
Speaker 2: to choose what to do in that circumstance. And we
19:05
Speaker 2: did some research on this and we were looking at
19:08
Speaker 2: the impact of stress and uncertainty on decision making when
19:12
Speaker 2: applying operational discretion. That was our kind of driver for it,
19:15
Speaker 2: and we gave fire commanders two scenarios. One was really
19:20
Speaker 2: straightforward runner the mail. It was a high rise fire
19:22
Speaker 2: where they knew what to do, they knew what to
19:24
Speaker 2: expect them, was a super superclear policy, no need to deviate.
19:27
Speaker 2: And the other one was similar to this. It was
19:29
Speaker 2: a mind shaft. It had collapsed a sinkhole, sorry, it
19:33
Speaker 2: had collapsed, and there was a group of children stuck
19:35
Speaker 2: at the bottom and it was outside of the reach
19:37
Speaker 2: of their normal equipment, so you would have to use
19:40
Speaker 2: operational discretion. And we took measures of stress as well,
19:45
Speaker 2: and rather than just relying on self report, because you
19:47
Speaker 2: could ask a firefighter with a mushroom cloud behind them
19:50
Speaker 2: how they are and they'd be like, yeah, everything's fine,
19:51
Speaker 2: I got this under control. Even if the heart beating
19:54
Speaker 2: tens of the deserts. So we took blood samples so
19:58
Speaker 2: that we could measure it was actually a leukocyte response
20:02
Speaker 2: rather than a single measure of quarters are. We were
20:04
Speaker 2: looking more holistically at a range of measures, because when
20:07
Speaker 2: you experience stress, your cells respond differently, and so we
20:12
Speaker 2: looked at at the leukocyte response to give us a
20:15
Speaker 2: better measure. And what we found is the more uncertain
20:18
Speaker 2: the situation, the higher the stress levels. Not surprising there,
20:22
Speaker 2: but the more uncertain the situation and the higher the
20:24
Speaker 2: stress levels, the more certain people were to reach for
20:27
Speaker 2: a set of rules even when they didn't apply. And
20:31
Speaker 2: so this was a really interesting one because we all
20:33
Speaker 2: do this sometimes when we're making a decision under uncertainty
20:36
Speaker 2: or we're not quite sure what to do and it's pressured,
20:39
Speaker 2: and we'll reach for something that might feel familiar because
20:42
Speaker 2: it gives us that sense of security, but it might
20:44
Speaker 2: not actually be the right thing for that set of circumstances.
20:48
Speaker 2: So my advice to people, whether they're in the fire
20:50
Speaker 2: service or not, is if you are making a decision
20:52
Speaker 2: or under the decision under those circumstances and you find
20:55
Speaker 2: yourself reaching for something that makes you feel better, or
20:58
Speaker 2: something that gives you that sense of comfort or something
21:00
Speaker 2: that's familiar to you. Just pause and just double check
21:05
Speaker 2: your assumptions to make sure that it's actually delivering the
21:08
Speaker 2: outcome that you're hoping it's going to deliver.
21:10
Speaker 1: That makes so much sense, And I can understand why
21:13
Speaker 1: people do that, because they're protecting themselves because if this
21:16
Speaker 1: turns out bad, it's not my fault. It's the rules.
21:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right.
21:22
Speaker 1: And if I kind of be the rebel and it
21:26
Speaker 1: turns out bad, it's my fault, whereas it might have
21:29
Speaker 1: been bad anyway.
21:30
Speaker 2: You know, it's such a litigious society now as well,
21:33
Speaker 2: and you know, you see the way that incidents where
21:37
Speaker 2: people we're not automatons in a uniform. We're human beings.
21:40
Speaker 2: You know, we're real people at the end of the day.
21:43
Speaker 2: And when you see the way that people are judged
21:46
Speaker 2: after an event who might have got it wrong, but
21:48
Speaker 2: they've gone in genuinely wanting to do their best, you know,
21:51
Speaker 2: it could be really difficult then for someone to find
21:53
Speaker 2: the courage to take a leap to do the thing
21:55
Speaker 2: that they think needs to be done without that security
21:58
Speaker 2: of a set of rules to wrap around them get it.
22:02
Speaker 1: Now. I know you don't have any spare time because
22:04
Speaker 1: you're an author and you're a mum and you're a
22:07
Speaker 1: dog mum, and you're a wife, and you're a bloody
22:10
Speaker 1: superstar at fifty things, and you're a researcher and you're
22:12
Speaker 1: a fire fighter and you've got a thousand test subjects
22:16
Speaker 1: whenever you want them. But you definitely should have your
22:19
Speaker 1: own podcast. Ah, you'd be so good. Like you're such
22:24
Speaker 1: a brilliant communicator and storyteller, and you you're such a
22:28
Speaker 1: good science communicator too, because you explain complicated stuff in
22:34
Speaker 1: an uncomplicated way or what can be complicated stuff. Because
22:38
Speaker 1: we're a largely non academic you know, we've got a
22:42
Speaker 1: percentage of academics that listen, but you know it's not
22:45
Speaker 1: an academic show per se. And so my constant, or
22:50
Speaker 1: my not every episode, but a lot of episodes, I'm
22:53
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, how do we say this, and
22:54
Speaker 1: how do we navigate this conversation and make it you know, interesting,
22:58
Speaker 1: but also really relevant and unders stable so people can
23:01
Speaker 1: do something with it. And you just do that automatically.
23:04
Speaker 1: It's a real gift and a real skill. So well done.
23:08
Speaker 1: You it's amazing.
23:09
Speaker 2: Thank you.
23:10
Speaker 1: Tell me about before we go, tell me about the book.
23:12
Speaker 1: So your book is called The Heat of the Moment. Yeah,
23:15
Speaker 1: that's right to tell us about that, did you? Is
23:19
Speaker 1: that your one and only book?
23:22
Speaker 2: I've got another one coming out in March. But the
23:24
Speaker 2: Heat of the Moment I wanted to take something that
23:29
Speaker 2: would talk about the way that we make decisions under pressure,
23:33
Speaker 2: because it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, you know,
23:36
Speaker 2: our brains are going to work in a similar way.
23:40
Speaker 2: So I took everything that we'd learned from more than
23:43
Speaker 2: twenty years of firefighting and more than a decade of
23:45
Speaker 2: research about how we make decisions in the heat of
23:49
Speaker 2: the moment, when we're experiencing pressure, and I wanted to
23:52
Speaker 2: talk about it in a way that could be then
23:54
Speaker 2: applied to everyday life. So each chapter talks about a
23:58
Speaker 2: specific aspect of decision making with it gut decision making,
24:01
Speaker 2: whether it's you know, the way that you develop your
24:04
Speaker 2: situational awareness, whether it's the way that you communicate all
24:07
Speaker 2: of these concepts. And it opens with an incident that
24:10
Speaker 2: I've been to and so that you can see that
24:12
Speaker 2: part of that aspect of how your brain is working
24:17
Speaker 2: actually kind of at a real life incident in reality,
24:22
Speaker 2: and then I unpick the research that's relevant to it,
24:25
Speaker 2: and then I kind of talk about how it applies
24:27
Speaker 2: to everyday life as well. So, yeah, that was a
24:31
Speaker 2: real That was a real labor of love to write.
24:34
Speaker 2: It was a real joy. Actually, it's just nice to
24:37
Speaker 2: be able to share what we've done with the broad
24:39
Speaker 2: or audience because I think, you know, there are some
24:41
Speaker 2: really important lessons that we've learned in the fire service,
24:44
Speaker 2: and they've been learned through a lot of pain, as
24:46
Speaker 2: I described earlier on, and so isn't it great that
24:49
Speaker 2: you can share that with as many people as possible
24:51
Speaker 2: and not just limit it to those that were the
24:53
Speaker 2: same color perform as you?
24:56
Speaker 1: Do you think that being able to self rid in
25:00
Speaker 1: the middle of the mayhem and you know, make decisions
25:03
Speaker 1: and stay relatively calm. Do you think that we spoke
25:12
Speaker 1: about it a little bit before, but do you think
25:14
Speaker 1: that is more innate? Like I feel like there are
25:17
Speaker 1: people that are just better than that. And also my
25:20
Speaker 1: part B of that question is are people more anxious
25:25
Speaker 1: now than thirty years ago? Or we just more aware
25:29
Speaker 1: of anxiety? Sabrina.
25:32
Speaker 2: Really good question, I think that it's I think that
25:35
Speaker 2: it's a mixture of nature and nurture every every single time,
25:39
Speaker 2: And I think that it can be developed as well
25:42
Speaker 2: of what you expose yourself to and how you respond
25:44
Speaker 2: to that exposure and how willing you are to put
25:47
Speaker 2: yourself in those uncomfortable situations like we talked about. And
25:51
Speaker 2: the anxiety question is a really good one. I think
25:54
Speaker 2: that I don't think people are more anxious than they
25:56
Speaker 2: are today than they were before. I think they just
25:59
Speaker 2: weren't allowed to show it before because of the societal
26:02
Speaker 2: pressures that people were experiencing. I think the world was
26:06
Speaker 2: super different, wasn't it. So I think there's that element.
26:09
Speaker 2: I mean, there are things that make us feel anxious
26:12
Speaker 2: today that weren't around before. Exposure or social media, I
26:18
Speaker 2: think is a key one. I mean, I can have
26:20
Speaker 2: firefighters at a job and the job will be uploaded
26:23
Speaker 2: onto YouTube by someone with their camera phone before they've
26:26
Speaker 2: even packed up and left the scene. You know, so
26:31
Speaker 2: previously it would never be like that. You never had
26:34
Speaker 2: to kind of worry about those kind of things. So
26:36
Speaker 2: I think my point is if someone does make a mistake,
26:39
Speaker 2: it's usually recorded and there forever, and you've seen the
26:43
Speaker 2: way that people respond publicly to people who've made mistakes,
26:47
Speaker 2: and it's kind of huge debate, isn't there around cancel
26:50
Speaker 2: culture and things like that? So I think there is.
26:55
Speaker 2: I think whilst judgments would have been the same across
26:58
Speaker 2: the ages, I think that they are a lot more
27:02
Speaker 2: public now than they perhaps were previously. So it's really difficult,
27:06
Speaker 2: isn't it to compare times to say whether people were
27:09
Speaker 2: more anxious thirty years ago or whether they're more anxious today,
27:12
Speaker 2: because I think the context is so different that it's
27:15
Speaker 2: really tricky to kind of weigh everything up and go
27:18
Speaker 2: one or the other. But I certainly think that there
27:21
Speaker 2: are things today that can make you feel anxious that
27:23
Speaker 2: you didn't have thirty years ago. I think we have
27:27
Speaker 2: the luxury today of being able to be really open
27:30
Speaker 2: about being anxious, which means you can deal with it
27:33
Speaker 2: better than you might have been able to do thirty
27:35
Speaker 2: years ago. So there's definitely a silver lining there.
27:39
Speaker 1: All Right, We've got to go, because I feel like
27:41
Speaker 1: I'm dragging you you on, but I'm so interested in
27:45
Speaker 1: your stuff. I want to ask you two quick questions
27:47
Speaker 1: and I'm promise we'll go. So Number one is so
27:50
Speaker 1: you're all about excellence, high performance, performing under pressure, you know,
27:54
Speaker 1: being the best you can be. And are there any
27:57
Speaker 1: other fire serve around the world that you look at
28:03
Speaker 1: in any country or it might just anywhere in the
28:06
Speaker 1: world where you go, they're the best, they are amazing
28:12
Speaker 1: for these reasons.
28:14
Speaker 2: Oh, I think that's a great question. And I think
28:16
Speaker 2: there are different fire services that are really excellent at
28:19
Speaker 2: different things. And sometimes you have the persona of the
28:26
Speaker 2: biggest and the best, and you hear about, you know,
28:29
Speaker 2: the great ones around the world and things. I won't
28:32
Speaker 2: mention any names, but when you actually scratch the surface,
28:36
Speaker 2: they don't always turn out to be as shiny as
28:39
Speaker 2: you might have thought they were outside. So I think
28:42
Speaker 2: there's real value if you are looking for the best,
28:47
Speaker 2: in looking really specifically at what you want to see
28:49
Speaker 2: the best of and not stopping until you've turned over
28:53
Speaker 2: for all the stones that you can to find it,
28:55
Speaker 2: because the places that you might find it might just
28:58
Speaker 2: surprise you.
29:00
Speaker 1: And do you do you ever look across the pond
29:05
Speaker 1: with any curiosity on our Australian summers with the bloody
29:08
Speaker 1: bushfires that we we seem to be having more and
29:11
Speaker 1: more of that have been devastating in the last few
29:14
Speaker 1: years over here.
29:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have been utterly devastating, and your first responders
29:21
Speaker 2: I have a huge amount of admiration for the way
29:23
Speaker 2: that they've tackled them, because those kind of incidents are relentless.
29:27
Speaker 2: They're not the kind of incidence that you go to
29:29
Speaker 2: and a couple of hours later you're back at the
29:31
Speaker 2: station and its job and not you know, it's all finished.
29:34
Speaker 2: Is day after day, week after week with those kind
29:37
Speaker 2: of incidents, and they are exhausting. So your first responders,
29:40
Speaker 2: I have to say, I think are exemplary in the
29:43
Speaker 2: way that they have They've dealt with that and shown
29:45
Speaker 2: incredible resilience and courage in the face of doing so,
29:49
Speaker 2: as have been your communities actually who I've seen a
29:52
Speaker 2: huge amount of resilience from having gone through those incidents
29:56
Speaker 2: and they are utterly devastating. And one of the things
30:00
Speaker 2: that we are thinking about more and more now as
30:03
Speaker 2: fire services is the impact of climate change on weather
30:05
Speaker 2: related incidents. You know, we've been having some awful wildfires
30:10
Speaker 2: here in the UK, not like not to the extent
30:14
Speaker 2: that you do in Australia, because our demography is very different.
30:18
Speaker 2: You know, we don't have the same kind of forested
30:21
Speaker 2: areas that you do there and the expanse that you
30:25
Speaker 2: do there, but they have been devastating for the wildlife
30:28
Speaker 2: that we do have here, and they're happening more and
30:31
Speaker 2: more regularly. Same with flooding. So actually thinking about what
30:34
Speaker 2: we can do to prevent those happening in the first place,
30:37
Speaker 2: to really get ahead of that is something that's super
30:40
Speaker 2: important to us, and we're doing a lot of work
30:42
Speaker 2: at the moment in my own fire department looking at
30:44
Speaker 2: how we can kind of improve the work that we
30:48
Speaker 2: do in rural communities to stop those kind of incidents
30:52
Speaker 2: happening in the first place.
30:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. Perfect, Well, Sabrina, you're fascinating, you're grey communicator. We
31:00
Speaker 1: appreciate you having a chat with us on the You project.
31:04
Speaker 1: Thank you, and I want you to come back when
31:06
Speaker 1: your new books out so we can talk about that
31:09
Speaker 1: and stell lots of books for you.
31:11
Speaker 2: Is that all right, my pleasure? It would be great.
31:15
Speaker 2: And it's been an absolute joy to speak to you today,
31:18
Speaker 2: So thank you so much for having me.
31:21
Speaker 1: Absolute pleasure, Melissa, do you like Sabrina?
31:23
Speaker 2: Oh, of course, thank you so much for spending all
31:26
Speaker 2: this time with us.
31:27
Speaker 1: What a privilege to listen to your story.
31:30
Speaker 2: And yeah, I've just been sitting here and all, so
31:32
Speaker 2: thank you very much.
31:33
Speaker 1: Are you crushing hard just a little bit? And I
31:37
Speaker 1: can tell. I can tell because you get that goofy.
31:39
Speaker 1: I love her look on your face. Hey, Sabrina, stay there.
31:43
Speaker 1: We'll say goodbye off air, but thank you so much,
31:47
Speaker 1: and thanks everyone. We appreciate you.