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Deep Survival - Laurence Gonzales

This post contains my personal notes about the big ideas in Deep Survival by
Laurence Gonzales. My book notes are different from many of the book
summaries you’ll find on the web. Instead of following the structure of the book
in question, we’ll isolate and examine the key ideas and themes that make the
book useful. Enjoy!

At first blush, this book has absolutely nothing to do with business - it’s a book
of wilderness survival stories. Dig a little deeper, however, and you’ll find a
wealth of principles that explain how human beings get into trouble… and how
they survive the worst.

Here are 10 big ideas from Deep Survival.

1. Humans notice patterns in the world, simulate potential consequences,

and make predictions about what will happen next - constantly and
automatically.

The human mind is essentially a prediction machine. Every moment of every

day, your brain is collecting information about the world around you. Your
mind’s Pattern Matching capability isolates the important parts, and your
capacity for Mental Simulation helps you figure out what to expect.

Our pattern matching and mental simulation capabilities evolved to keep us

alive. The better we’re able to predict what’s next, the better we’re able to stay
safe and take advantage of opportunities.

2. When our mental models don’t accurately reflect reality, we can

suddenly find ourselves in big trouble.

Your mind’s ability to predict what happens next is limited: it’s only as good as
the accuracy of the information you have and the patterns stored in your
memory. If a fact is wrong, or a pattern is not quite accurate, you can find
yourself in dire straights very quickly.

In business, even markets that have been solid for decades can experience
sudden and extreme difficulties. Publishing was a stable and profitable
business for hundreds of years - until it wasn’t. Housing prices always went up
- until they didn’t.

3. You must train yourself to see what’s really happening and changing
around you without freezing or denying the truth of the situation.

When the Environment around you changes, your mental models must change
along with it. Failing to update your patterns and predictions can lead you to
make disastrous decisions.

Unfortunately, Threat Lockdown makes us prone to freeze when we face the

unexpected. Gonzales calls the situations that trigger threat lockdown the “Four
Poisons of the Mind”: Fear, Confusion, Hesitation, Surprise.

4. Always have a backup / failsafe /contingency plan.

Since we’re not omniscient, unexpected situations will always arise - some very
good, some very bad. You never know when or where something bad will affect
you, so it pays to be as prepared as possible in advance.

Fail-Safes and backup plans are invaluable. Having resources in reserve or a

retreat/regroup option at the ready helps cover you in the event of disaster.

Here’s the catch - your fail-safes and backups have to be prepared in advance.
If your computer hard drive crashes, it’s too late to look into backups. A little
planning and preparation now can save you a world of hurt later.

5. Sunk costs can kill you - know when to walk away.

Sometimes, it’s not worth pushing a project to completion. If you’re a day’s
climb from summiting Everest and a killer storm blows in, you’re better off
descending… and living to climb another day.

It’s important to realize how difficult these decisions can be in the moment -
and be emotionally prepared to make them. Sunk Costs kill because we’re
emotionally invested in the result we’re seeking, so we throw caution to the
wind and push forward. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Define your success criteria in advance, and if something critical changes, be

prepared to walk away.

6. Learn enough about what you’re doing to recognize early warning

signs.

Ignorance in certain fields is fatal. If you don’t know what’s important enough
to be life-threatening, you can find yourself in a great deal of trouble.

For example, one of the biggest threats nature presents to humans is

hypothermia: a life-threatening drop in body temperature. When you’re about
to go for a hike, hypothermia is the last thing on your mind, particularly if it’s a
pretty day.

If a mid-afternoon thunderstorm strikes, chilling winds and soaked cotton

clothing can create hypothermic body temperature very quickly. A little advance
preparation and knowledge can give you the foresight to do things to reduce
the risk, like wearing wool instead of cotton and packing rain gear.

In the same way, what you don’t know about running a business can sink your
venture. There are three primary causes of business failure: running out of
Purchasing Power, financial insufficiency, and irreconcilable differences
between business partners. If you’re not aware of these common issues, and
how to prevent them, you increase the probability you’ll experience them
accidentally.
A little knowledge can help you prevent these common mistakes. For example,
books like Accounting Made Simple can help you understand your business
financial records, while The Partnership Charter can help you think through the
details of establishing a business relationship and agree on certain decisions
before things get ugly.

7. Excitement can be more dangerous than fear - impulse control is

critical.

Often, it’s the things that make us excited that present the greatest risks.
Neurotransmitters called catecholamines are released whenever we notice
something exciting - it’s the way our brain primes our body for action.

This neural response happens automatically, even if what we’re excited about
isn’t a good idea. A vivid story in the book illustrates this point: a group of
snowmobilers roared ahead when they saw a wide-open area of snow, even
though they were rationally aware of an avalanche risk. Their excitement buried
them.

Potential business opportunities and partnerships are exciting, and they prompt
the same release of pleasurable neurotransmitters. Evaluating the direct and
Counterparty Risks before signing on the dotted line is absolutely essential if
you want to stay out of trouble.

I’ve found a mandatory waiting period (usually 48-72 hours) before committing
to major decisions or projects a prudent strategy. It’s long enough to ensure
you evaluate the risks dispassionately, but not so long that it stalls the deal.

8. When the going gets tough, keep calm and carry on.

When something unexpected or negative happens, Threat Lockdown is your

worst enemy. Your first priority is to assess your current situation, and focus on
keeping your wits about you.
Stop, think, observe, and plan. Keep yourself busy to avoid panic. Use
Scenario Planning to consider your options, and Counterfactual Simulation to
sanity test potential courses of action before you move forward.

9. Do everything you can to maximize your flexibility and resilience.

A little preparation goes a very long way. Knowledge, tools, and skills make
you more able to withstand sudden changes, and more able to take advantage
of unexpected opportunities.

The more you prepare, the more resilient you become. Preparation, however,
has an Opportunity Cost - spending too much is sub-optimal. The more basic
skills, tools, and knowledge you possess, the better the probability of success.

10. Positive Mental Attitude is the key to survival.

No matter how bad things are, you must continue to have an unshakable faith
that you’ll find a way to make things work. This isn’t a form of denial: you still
need to accurately assess the current situation. Pretending things aren’t bad
doesn’t help you.

“Positive Mental Attitude” is different - a belief in your ability to survive the

situation, and a commitment to do whatever it takes to live to see another day.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re fighting for your survival or trying to find a job
after being laid off - having confidence in your ability to prevail makes an
enormous difference.

Never give up on yourself, or give up hope that a solution will be found. You
can handle this.
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php/7939-The-12-Rules-of-Survival-
Laurence-Gonzales-Based-on-his-book-Deep-Survival

Make appropriate adjustments for sample representativeness, dumb luck and

survivor bias (only the survivors get interviewed) and reporter bias (this
reporter may have seen what he wanted to see, a la Maslow & his
"actualization") from his book: Deep Survival - Copyright (c) 2003 by
Laurence Gonzales

_____
As a journalist, I've been writing about accidents for more than thirty years. In
the last 15 or so years, I've concentrated on accidents in outdoor recreation,
in an effort to understand who lives, who dies, and why. To my surprise, I
found an eerie uniformity in the way people survive seemingly impossible
circumstances. Decades and sometimes centuries apart, separated by
culture, geography, race, language, and tradition, the most successful
survivors–those who practice what I call “deep survival”–go through the same
patterns of thought and behavior, the same transformation and spiritual
discovery, in the course of keeping themselves alive. Not only that but it
doesn't seem to matter whether they are surviving being lost in the wilderness
or battling cancer, whether they're struggling through divorce or facing a
business catastrophe–the strategies remain the same.

Survival should be thought of as a journey, a vision quest of the sort that

Native Americans have had as a rite of passage for thousands of years. Once
you're past the precipitating event–you're cast away at sea or told you have
cancer–you have been enrolled in one of the oldest schools in history. Here
are a few things I've learned that can help you pass the final exam.

1. Perceive and Believe. Don't fall into the deadly trap of denial or of
immobilizing fear. Admit it: You're really in trouble and you're going to have to
get yourself out.

2. Stay Calm – Use Your Anger In the initial crisis, survivors are not ruled by
fear; instead, they make use of it. Their fear often feels like (and turns into)
anger, which motivates them and makes them feel sharper.

3. Think, Analyze, and Plan. Survivors quickly organize, set up routines, and
institute discipline.
4. Take Correct, Decisive Action. Survivors are willing to take risks to save
themselves and others. But they are simultaneously bold and cautious in
what they will do. They handle what is within their power to deal with from
moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day.

5. Celebrate your success. Survivors take great joy from even their smallest
successes. This helps keep motivation high and prevents a lethal plunge into
hopelessness. Viktor Frankl put it this way: “Don't aim at success–the more
you aim at it and make it a target,the more you are going to miss it.”

7. Enjoy the Survival Journey. It may seem counterintuitive, but even in the
worst circumstances, survivors find something to enjoy, some way to play and
laugh. Survival can be tedious, and waiting itself is an art.

8. See the Beauty. Survivors are attuned to the wonder of their world,
especially in the face of mortal danger. The appreciation of beauty, the feeling
of awe, opens the senses to the environment. (When you see something
beautiful, your pupils actually dilate.) When Saint-Exupery's plane went down
in the Lybian Desert, he was certain that he was doomed, but he carried on in
this spirit: “Here we are, condemned to death, and still the certainty of dying
cannot compare with the pleasure I am feeling. The joy I take from this half an
orange which I am holding in my hand is one of the greatest joys I have ever
known.” At no time did he stop to bemoan his fate, or if he did, it was only to
laugh at himself.

9. Believe That You Will Succeed. It is at this point, following what I call “the
vision,” that the survivor's will to live becomes firmly fixed.

10. Surrender. Yes you might die. In fact, you wil die–we all do. But perhaps it
doesn't have to be today. Don't let it worry you.

11. Do Whatever Is Necessary

12. Never Give Up If you're still alive, there is always one more thing that you
can do.

Survivors are not easily discouraged by setbacks.

Copyright (c) 2003 by Laurence Gonzales

http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.co.za/2009/08/laurence-
gonzales-12-rules-of-survival.html

Laurence Gonzales, "The 12 Rules of Survival"

"The 12 Rules of Survival"

by Laurence Gonzales
From "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why"

"As a journalist, I've been writing about accidents for more than thirty years. In the last 15 or so
years, I've concentrated on accidents in outdoor recreation, in an effort to understand who lives,
who dies, and why. To my surprise, I found an eerie uniformity in the way people survive seemingly
impossible circumstances. Decades and sometimes centuries apart, separated by culture,
geography, race, language, and tradition, the most successful survivors–those who practice what
I call “deep survival”– go through the same patterns of thought and behavior, the same
transformation and spiritual discovery, in the course of keeping themselves alive. Not only that
but it doesn't seem to matter whether they are surviving being lost in the wilderness or battling
cancer, whether they're struggling through divorce or facing a business catastrophe– the strategies
remain the same. Survival should be thought of as a journey, a vision quest of the sort that Native
Americans have had as a rite of passage for thousands of years. Once you're past the precipitating
event– you're cast away at sea or told you have cancer– you have been enrolled in one of the oldest
schools in history. Here are a few things I've learned that can help you pass the final exam.

1. Perceive and Believe: Don't fall into the deadly trap of denial or of immobilizing fear. Admit
it: You're really in trouble and you're going to have to get yourself out. Many people who in the
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, died simply because they told themselves that
everything was going to be all right. Others panicked. Panic doesn't necessarily mean screaming
and running around. Often it means simply doing nothing. Survivors don't candy-coat the truth,
but they also don't give in to hopelessness in the face of it. Survivors see opportunity, even good,
in their situation, however grim. After the ordeal is over, people may be surprised to hear them
say it was the best thing that ever happened to them. Viktor Frankl, who spent three years in
Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps, describes comforting a woman who was dying. She
told him, “I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard. In m former life I was spoiled and did not
take spiritual accomplishments seriously.” The phases of the survival journey roughly parallel the
five stages of death once described by Elizabeth Kubler Ross in her book On Death and Dying:
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In dire circumstances, a survivor moves
through those stages rapidly to acceptance of his situation, then resolves to do something to save
himself. Survival depends on telling yourself, “Okay, I'm here. This is really happening. Now I'm
going to do the next right thing to get myself out.” Whether you succeed or not ultimately becomes
irrelevant. It is in acting well– even suffering well– that you give meaning to whatever life you
have to live.

2. Stay Calm – Use Your Anger: In the initial crisis, survivors are not ruled by fear; instead, they
make use of it. Their fear often feels like (and turns into) anger, which motivates them and makes
them feel sharper. Aron Ralston, the hiker who had to cut off his hand to free himself from a stone
that had trapped him in a slot canyon in Utah, initially panicked and began slamming himself over
and over against the boulder that had caught his hand. But very quickly, he stopped himself, did
some deep breathing, and began thinking about his options. He eventually spent five days
progressing through the stages necessary to convince him of what decisive action he had to take
to save his own life. When Lance Armstrong, six-time winner of the Tour de France, awoke from
brain surgery for his cancer, he first felt gratitude. “But then I felt a second wave, of anger... I
was alive, and I was mad.” When friends asked him how he was doing, he responded, “I'm doing
great... I like it like this. I like the odds stacked against me... I don't know any other way.” That's
survivor thinking. Survivors also manage pain well. As a bike racer, Armstrong had had long training
in enduring pain, even learning to love it. James Stockdale, a fighter pilot who was shot down in
Vietnam and spent eight years in the Hanoi Hilton, as his prison camp was known, advised those
who would learn to survive: “One should include a course of familiarization with pain. You have
to practice hurting. There is no question about it.”

3. Think, Analyze, and Plan: Survivors quickly organize, set up routines, and institute discipline.
When Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer, he organized his fight against it the way he
would organize his training for a race. He read everything he could about it, put himself on a
training schedule, and put together a team from among friends, family, and doctors to support his
efforts. Such conscious, organized effort in the face of grave danger requires a split between
reason and emotion in which reason gives direction and emotion provides the power source.
Survivors often report experiencing reason as an audible “voice.” Steve Callahan, a sailor and boat
designer, was rammed by a whale and sunk while on a solo voyage in 1982. Adrift in the Atlantic
for 76 days in a five-and-a-half-foot raft, he experienced his survival voyage as taking place under
the command of a “captain,” who gave him his orders and kept him on his water ration, even as
his own mutinous (emotional) spirit complained. His captain routinely lectured “the crew.” Thus
under strict control, he was able to push away thoughts that his situation was hopeless and take
the necessary first steps of the survival journey: to think clearly, analyze his situation, and
formulate a plan.

4. Take Correct, Decisive Action: Survivors are willing to take risks to save themselves and others.
But they are simultaneously bold and cautious in what they will do. Lauren Elder was the only
survivor of a light plane crash in high sierra. Stranded on a peak above 12,000 feet, one arm
broken, she could see the San Joaquin Valley in California below, but a vast wilderness and sheer
and icy cliffs separated her from it. Wearing a wrap-around skirt and blouse, with two-inch heeled
boots and not even wearing underwear, she crawled “on all fours, doing a kind of sideways
spiderwalk,” as she put it later, “balancing myself on the ice crust, punching through it with my
hands and feet.” She had 36 hours of climbing ahead of her– a seemingly impossible task. But Elder
allowed herself to think only as far as the next big rock. Survivors break down large jobs into
small, manageable tasks. They set attainable goals and develop short-term plans to reach them.
They are meticulous about doing those tasks well. Elder tested each hold before moving forward
and stopped frequently to rest. They make very few mistakes. They handle what is within their
power to deal with from moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day.

5. Celebrate your success: Survivors take great joy from even their smallest successes. This helps
keep motivation high and prevents a lethal plunge into hopelessness. It also provides relief from
the unspeakable strain of a life-threatening situation. Elder said that once she had completed her
descent of the first pitch, she looked up at the impossibly steep slope and thought, “Look what
you've done...Exhilarated, I gave a whoop that echoed down the silent pass.” Even with a broken
arm, joy was Elder's constant companion. A good survivor always tells herself: count your blessings–
you're alive. Viktor Frankl wrote of how he felt at times in Auschwitz: “How content we were;
happy in spite of everything.”

6. Be a Rescuer, Not a Victim: Survivors are always doing what they do for someone else, even if
that someone is thousands of miles away. There are numerous strategies for doing this. When
Antoine Saint-Exupery was stranded in the Lybian desert after his mail plane suffered an engine
failure, he thought of how his wife would suffer if he gave up and didn't return. Yossi Ghinsberg,
a young Israeli hiker, was lost in the Bolivian jungle for more than two weeks after becoming
separated from his friends. He hallucinated a beautiful companion with whom he slept each night
as he traveled. Everything he did, he did for her. People cannot survive for themselves alone;
their must be a higher motive. Viktor Frankl put it this way: “Don't aim at success– the more you
aim at it and make it a target,the more you are going to miss it.” He suggests taking it as “the
unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-
product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.”

7. Enjoy the Survival Journey: It may seem counterintuitive, but even in the worst circumstances,
survivors find something to enjoy, some way to play and laugh. Survival can be tedious, and waiting
itself is an art. Elder found herself laughing out loud when she started to worry that someone
might see up her skirt as she climbed. Even as Callahan's boat was sinking, he stopped to laugh at
himself as he clutched a knife in his teeth like a pirate while trying to get into his life raft. And
Viktor Frankl ordered some of his companions in Auschwitz who were threatening to give up hope
to force themselves to think of one funny thing each day. Survivors also use the intellect to
stimulate, calm, and entertain the mind. While moving across a near-vertical cliff face in Peru,
Joe Simpson developed a rhythmic pattern of placing his ax, plunging his other arm into the snow
face, and then making a frightening little hop with his good leg. “I meticulously repeated the
pattern,” he wrote later. “I began to feel detached from everything around me.” Singing, playing
mind games, reciting poetry, counting anything, and doing mathematical problems in your head
can make waiting possible and even pleasant, even while heightening perception and quieting
fear. Stockdale wrote, “The person who came into this experiment with reams of already
memorized poetry was the bearer of great gifts.” When Lance Armstrong was undergoing horrible
chemotherapy, his mantra became his blood count: “Those numbers became the highlight of each
day; they were my motivation... I would concentrate on that number, as if I could make the counts
by mentally willing it.” Lost in the Bolivian jungle, Yossi Ghinsberg reported, “When I found myself
feeling hopeless, I whispered my mantra, ‘Man of action, man of action.’ I don't know where I had
gotten the phrase... I repeated it over and over: A man of action does whatever he must, isn't
afraid, and doesn't worry.” Survivors engage their crisis almost as an athlete engages a sport. They
cling to talismans. They discover the sense of flow of the expert performer, the “zone” in which
emotion and thought balance each other in producing fluid action. A playful approach to a critical
situation also leads to invention, and invention may lead to a new technique, strategy, or design
that could save you.

8. See the Beauty: Survivors are attuned to the wonder of their world, especially in the face of
mortal danger. The appreciation of beauty, the feeling of awe, opens the senses to the
environment. (When you see something beautiful, your pupils actually dilate.) Debbie Kiley and
four others were adrift in the Atlantic after their boat sank in a hurricane in 1982. They had no
supplies, no water, and would die without rescue. Two of the crew members drank sea water and
went mad. When one of them jumped overboard and was being eaten by sharks directly under
their dinghy, Kiley felt as if she, too, were going mad, and told herself, “Focus on the sky, on the
beauty there.” When Saint-Exupery's plane went down in the Lybian Desert, he was certain that
he was doomed, but he carried on in this spirit: “Here we are, condemned to death, and still the
certainty of dying cannot compare with the pleasure I am feeling. The joy I take from this half an
orange which I am holding in my hand is one of the greatest joys I have ever known.” At no time
did he stop to bemoan his fate, or if he did, it was only to laugh at himself.

9. Believe That You Will Succeed: It is at this point, following what I call “the vision,” that the
survivor's will to live becomes firmly fixed. Fear of dying falls away, and a new strength fills them
with the power to go on. “During the final two days of my entrapment,” Ralston recalled, “I felt
an increasing reserve of energy, even though I had run out of food and water.” Elder said, “I felt
rested and filled with a peculiar energy.” And: “It was as if I had been granted an unlimited supply
of energy.”

10. Surrender: Yes you might die. In fact, you will die– we all do. But perhaps it doesn't have to
be today. Don't let it worry you. Forget about rescue. Everything you need is inside you already.
Dougal Robertson, a sailor who was cast away at sea for thirty-eight days after his boat sank,
advised thinking of survival this way: “Rescue will come as a welcome interruption of... the
survival voyage.” One survival psychologist calls that “resignation without giving up. It is survival
by surrender.” Simpson reported, “I would probably die out there amid those boulders. The
thought didn't alarm me... the horror of dying no longer affected me.” The Tao Te Ching explains
how this surrender leads to survival:

The rhinoceros has no place to jab its horn,

The tiger has no place to fasten its claws,
Weapons have no place to admit their blades.
Now,
What is the reason for this?
Because on him there are no mortal spots.

11. Do Whatever Is Necessary: Elder down-climbed vertical ice and rock faces with no experience
and no equipment. In the black of night, Callahan dove into the flooded saloon of his sinking boat,
at once risking and saving his life. Aron Ralston cut off his own arm to free himself. A cancer
patient allows herself to be nearly killed by chemotherapy in order to live. Survivors have a reason
to live and are willing to bet everything on themselves. They have what psychologists call meta-
knowledge: They know their abilities and do not over–or underestimate them. They believe that
anything is possible and act accordingly.

12. Never Give Up: When Apollo 13's oxygen tank exploded, apparently dooming the crew,
Commander Jim Lovell chose to keep on transmitting whatever data he could back to mission
control, even as they burned up on re-entry. Simpson, Elder, Callahan, Kiley, Stockdale,
Ghinsberg–were all equally determined and knew this final truth: If you're still alive, there is
always one more thing that you can do. Survivors are not easily discouraged by setbacks. They
accept that the environment is constantly changing and know that they must adapt. When they
fall, they pick themselves up and start the entire process over again, breaking it down into
manageable bits. Survivors always have a clear reason for going on. They keep their spirits up by
developing an alternate world, created from rich memories, into which they can escape. They see
opportunity in adversity. In the aftermath, survivors learn from and are grateful for the
experiences that they've had. As Elder told me once, “I wouldn't trade that experience for
anything. And sometimes I even miss it. I miss the clarity of knowing exactly what you have to do
next.” Those who would survive the hazards of our world, whether at play or in business or at war,
through illness or financial calamity, will do so through a journey of transformation. But that
transcendent state doesn't miraculously appear when it is needed. It wells up from a lifetime of
experiences, attitudes, and practices form one's personality, a core from which the necessary
strength is drawn. A survival experience is an incomparable gift: It will tell you who you really
are."

Laurence Gonzales is the author of "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why" (W.W. Norton
& Co., New York) and contributing editor for "National Geographic Adventure" magazine. The
winner of numerous awards, he has written for Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, Conde Nast Traveler,
Rolling Stone, among others. He has published a dozen books, including two award-winning
collections of essays, three novels, and the book-length essay, "One Zero Charlie" published by
Simon & Schuster. For more, go to www.deepsurvival.com.

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