Deep Survival with Laurence Gonzales Mob Mentality: The Failures of Groupness

Text by Contributing Editor Laurence Gonzales, author of the books Everyday Survival and Deep Survival

Illustration by David Plunkert

The power of groupness is not to be underestimated. It has been the downfall of organizations, blinding them to evidence that was there for everyone to see.

In the 1930s, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) was the most popular grocery chain in the United States, with nearly 16,000 stores. Its strategy was to focus on a single need: cheap groceries. After all, the Depression was on. A&P introduced self-service, no-frills,
cash-and-carry food with no credit, no deliveries, and no premiums.

By the end of World War II it was one of the biggest companies in the world. Then something strange happened: Leftover production capacity from the war created new industries. In that booming economy, people wanted more than cheap, plentiful groceries. They wanted more choices, more convenience, exotic foods, and new products almost weekly. They wanted bright lights, flashy decor, loud music, and even a pharmacy.

Ralph Burger, who ran A&P, dedicated himself to carrying on the company tradition, regardless of evidence that it was a doomed strategy.

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Deep Survival with Laurence Gonzales Everyday Survival Nationwide Book Tour

Meet Laurence Gonzales and have him sign your copy of Everyday Survivial during his upcoming nine-city book tour.

Monday, September 22
7:00 p.m. Talk/Signing
Bookstall
811 Elm Street
Winnetka, Illinois

Wednesday, October 1
7:30 p.m. Talk/Signing
National Geographic
Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, October 7
7:30 p.m. Talk/Signing
Tattered Cover
1628 16th Street
Denver, Colorado

Wednesday, October 8
7:30 p.m. Talk/Signing
Boulder Bookstore
1107 Pearl Street
Boulder, Colorado

Friday, October 10
6:30 p.m. Talk/Signing
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way N.E.
Lake Forest Park, Washington

Saturday, October 11
2:00 p.m. Talk/Signing
Elliott Bay Book Company
101 South Main Street
Seattle, Washington

Monday, November 3
7:00 p.m. Talk/Signing
Half King
505 W. 23rd Street
New York, New York

Saturday, November 8
4:00 p.m. Talk/Signing
Collected Works Bookstore
208B West Sanfrancisco Street
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Sunday, November 9
3:00 p.m. Talk/Signing
Bookworks
Flying Star Plaza
4022 Rio Grande Blvd. NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Deep Survival with Laurence Gonzales How Hypersensitivity Can Save Your Life

Text by Contributing Editor Laurence Gonzales, author of the books Everyday Survival and Deep Survival

Illustration by Arthur E. Giron

When Peggy Orenstein, a best-selling author, was told that she had breast cancer, she remarked with odd detachment how curious it was that the colors all drained out of her world. She noticed “how the colors in my home office . . . went flat. Isn’t that odd, I thought, looking down at my newly alien torso. My red shirt has turned gray. My red shirt has turned gray, and I might die.”

In emergencies, under extreme stress, it is common for sensory perceptions to change. How we perceive the world—and what good those perceptions do us—are partly a matter of our emotional state. A few years ago I talked to a woman named Jana who had been on vacation in Mexico with her husband, sister, and brother-in-law. One night they all went skinny-dipping in the bay behind the resort. A bit tipsy, they splashed and cavorted and laughed. Then an eight-foot crocodile surfaced behind Jana, and her senses immediately went into a new and unfamiliar mode.

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Deep Survival with Laurence Gonzales Everyday Survival: Losing Your Cool Makes You Stupid

Acting cool is not the same as being cool. As the head of training for the Navy SEALs once said, "The Rambo types are the first to go." Siebert wrote in his book The Survivor Personality that "combat survivors . . . have a relaxed awareness." People who are destined to be good at survival will get upset when something bad happens, but they will quickly regain emotional balance and immediately begin figuring out what the new reality looks like, what the new rules are, and what they can do about it. In the past few decades, technologies like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have allowed researchers such as Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller University to demonstrate that stress changes the shape and chemistry of the brain, resulting in trouble remembering, difficulty completing tasks, and altered behavior. In effect, losing your cool makes you stupid. Examine the way you handle yourself under pressure: Do you blow up when you’re stuck in traffic or when someone cuts you off? Are you able to accept failure philosophically and move on with resolve to do better next time? If you’re rejected—in love, in business, in sports—do you stew over it? Practice being calm in the face of small emergencies and you’ll be more prepared to deal with large ones.

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Deep Survival with Laurence Gonzales Everyday Survival: Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

In our August 2008 issue (on newsstands now), we've published a new feature by Laurence Gonzales, "Everyday Survival," featuring 14 real world skills for any crisis. Here, we've pulled just one of his potentially life-saving tips. Gonzales's new book, Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things, will be released in September.

Every new challenge you face actually causes your brain to rewire itself and to become more adaptable. A study at University College London showed that the city’s cab drivers possessed unusually large hippocampi, the part of the brain that makes mental maps of our surroundings. The fact that London has very strict requirements for cab drivers forced them to create good mental maps, which caused their hippocampi to grow. For most of us, a normal routine at work, home, and play will provide plenty of opportunities for simple mind-expanding exercises. For example, if you’re right-handed, use your left hand. Learning to write with your nondominant hand can be extremely challenging and builds a part of your brain that you don’t use much. Learn a new mental skill, such as chess or counting cards for blackjack. Learn a musical instrument or a foreign language. A recent study suggests that Chinese uses entirely different parts of the brain than Western languages. Take tasks that require no thought and re-invent them so that you have to think. This bears repeating: Survival is not about equipment and training alone. It’s about what’s in your mind and your emotional system. Living in a low-risk environment dulls our abilities. We must make a conscious effort to learn new things, to force ourselves out of our comfort zones.

Illustration by The Heads of State

Deep Survival with Laurence Gonzales Lightning Victim Likely Saved By Wet Clothing

In the News: Doctors are amazed that a Minnesota man survived being struck by lightning last Friday while trying to save his outdoor furniture. Though the bolt zapped the metal button on his baseball cap and and the steel tips of his work boots, his wet clothing may have prevented the jolt from traveling through his body.

Analysis: This is a classic case of failure to 1) be mindfully aware of your surroundings and 2) do a risk-reward loop.

Mindfully aware: I am about to go out in a lightning storm. Bad idea in any case. But an even worse idea while wearing metal. Time to reconsider.

Risk-reward loop: Question: What do I stand to gain? Answer: Dry furniture or perhaps a gazebo that isn't bent up by wind. Question: What do I stand to lose? Answer: My life. Seems like a clear choice.

Deep Survival By Laurence Gonzales#4 The Dangers of the Vacation Mindset

The unconscious conclusion we draw is that our little corner of the world is safe. Our culture of plenty keeps us permanently in a vacation state of mind.

Text by Contributing Editor Laurence Gonzales, author of the book Deep Survival
Illustration by Dan Page

Last summer I traveled to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. The house I rented was on the dunes above the beach, and I could sit and write and listen to the surf thundering beneath my window as the constant wind blew the tops off the waves. Out on the deck I’d watch the pelicans, big and prehistoric-looking, wheel around their circuit from south to north and back again. In the angled light of afternoon, pods of dolphins leapt and dove, and children played in the waves while I fretted about rip currents carrying them out to sea.

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Deep Survival By Laurence Gonzales#3 Emotional Connections

Text by Contributing Editor Laurence Gonzales, author of the book Deep Survival

I once worked on an assignment for this magazine with a photographer named Mark Gamba. Mark was an avid steep creek boater. He and I were knocking around on an Army base in Oregon, watching helicopters take off and land, when he told me a story about getting caught in a strainer. A strainer is a tree that’s fallen across a river, creating a network of branches that can trap paddlers. Once someone is sucked into the branches, it’s a pretty dodgy business to get out. Mark was pinned, and each time he managed to pull himself up, he caught a breath and was sucked under again. The endgame was obvious: The exertion would eventually exhaust him. Then he’d drown.
I asked what he did next.

“I thought of my son,” he said. “I wanted to see him again.” And with one last surge of adrenaline, he vaulted up and over the log.

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Illustration by Dan Page

Deep Survival: Brain Vs. Gadget

On a solo backpacking trip this winter, reader Nate Freund was stranded high on California's Ontario Peak during a snowstorm. Read his story, then see Deep Survival author Laurence Gonzales's analysis of the situation.

Submitted by Reader Nate Freund
After reading your article "Folk Wisdom" in National Geographic ADVENTURE [April 2008], I was inspired to write to the author whose concepts played a critical role in my survival.

On January 22, 2008, I set out for a solo backpacking trip to summit Ontario Peak of the Cucamonga Wilderness. I was rescued by Search and Rescue forces from the San Bernardino Mountains after a U.S. Air Force satellite detected my distress signal from my Personal Locator Beacon. It was the first successful rescue of this kind in California--one initiated from a legitimate activation of a personal EPIRP carried by a recreational hiker.

I had spent months staring into the snow-capped mountain range from the Claremont roads as I drove to school everyday. My third attempt to summit this season began on a clear Sunday morning. After hiking a mile above the city, I set up camp on top of Big Horn Peak. I woke up the next morning to see clouds covered everything below me.

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Deep Survival: #2 Folk Wisdom

FOLK WISDOM
By Contributing Editor Laurence Gonzales, author of the book Deep Survival

One of the most respected psychologists of our time is Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard and the author of numerous books on human behavior and evolutionary biology. Pinker says that our brains contain a “baloney-generator” that offers up explanations of our behavior. Often those explanations have nothing to do with reality. They’re simply the stories we tell ourselves that help us get around in the world. “The conscious mind,” he says, “is a spin doctor.”

Joseph LeDoux, an author and neuroscientist at New York University, demonstrated that “people normally do all sorts of things for reasons they are not consciously aware of . . .” and that “[o]ne of the main jobs of consciousness is to keep our life tied together into a coherent story.” LeDoux and Pinker confirm a long line of research going back to William James concerning how well we can know ourselves and how that knowledge—or lack of it—influences the decisions we make. The results aren’t encouraging. “If the human mind is a formal logic machine,” LeDoux adds, “it is a pretty poor one.”

Research in neuroscience confirms that we turn experience into stories—simple narratives about what we’re doing and why—and then use those stories to explain our past behavior and to shape what we do in the future. The most useful stories have emotional impact. And emotions, scientists have learned, are immensely important in helping us to act. Because we are human and have language, we not only generate our own stories, we also acquire them from others through legends, books, movies, and songs. Sometimes, if we are paying attention, we even acquire them from school. When our narratives reflect the world as it really is, we do well. When they don’t, we find ourselves in trouble.
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