This lesson brings some people a lot of business success, but it’s useful for small women, too, (and everyone else I suppose) to keep themselves safe while abroad in the world.
Watch this video of some African tribesmen stealing food from lions.
Remarkable, isn’t it? We have a small cat who does that – despite her diminutive size, she can eject large, aggressive, loud, human-biting dogs out of the yard (I even heard one go ipe ipe ipe once as it went).
You’ve all probably seen a video of a cat chasing a bear, too. Here’s one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdAKxxdRYTE
The point is, we are as big as we think we are. We are as able as we need to be.
This lesson works in business but it’s also essential to teach any people you know who are concerned about safety and security – for example travellers or young adults about to go out into the world.
The lesson is this: If you act like prey, you are prey. If you act like the boss, you’re the boss.
When I used to work with university security, walking fellow students around campus late at night, the first lesson we were taught in training was something called situational awareness. The second lesson is about your posture, which is tied to how aware you are.
Situational awareness means that you consciously decide to be aware of who is in front of, beside you, across the street, and behind you. You’re alert.
I’ve just realized – this ties in to something else -- the terrible modern habit of blocking out everyone around. Not greeting the people you sit beside at the café, burying yourself in your telephone. This isn’t just rude, society-destroying behaviour, it’s also personally dangerous.
People who bother, for kindness and politeness, to greet other people around them, to notice whether they get in others’ way, to take the time to smile at strangers simply to improve their day, these people are safer. They also live better lives and create a better space for the rest of us, of course!
They are safer because by their simple polite habits, they are also noticing what goes on around them. And it is statistically proven that people who pay attention to what is going around them experience much less theft and violent crime. The following criminal behaviour is well-documented by the police:
- Someone who is intent on mugging a victim for their valuables will turn away from a victim who gives a clear impression that they can identify the mugger. It is much easier to mug someone who is walking with their head down, not paying attention.
I have never been a believer in perceiving or imagining danger around every corner. My son, for example, became very confused when he went to play school and people tried to teach him to be afraid of strangers. I never taught him that nonsense, and never will. I taught him that most strangers are friends you haven’t met yet. And that’s true. Strangers are not dangerous. A lack of awareness is dangerous.
Fact: victims hunch their shoulders. Women, particularly, who are taught and taught to never put themselves forward, who are forced to behave submissively, hunch their shoulders. They bow their heads. They try to pretend that there isn't a problem. And that posture instinctively signals “prey” to predators. Anyone can look at someone with hunched shoulders and a bowed head and see that they are not strong.
The cure? Fake it! Throw your shoulders back and pretend you’re tough. That’s all you need, is to pretend. And if you start to pretend, if you start to look around you and look people straight in the eye when you pass them, you’ll be much safer.
If you take on habits of being situationally aware, you no longer need to walk around being fearful. You can walk around stronger than a lion. You know there’s a patch of ice there, you know there is a smiling man across the street, you know there is a rather odd looking fellow who you’re not going to get to close to, on the sidewalk ahead of you.
So when you notice there’s someone you don’t want to get too close to, because you are strong and situationally aware, you do not duck your head and scurry like a mouse. You keep your head up, your shoulders back, walk as strong as that tribesman stealing meat from the lion, and cross to the other side of the street if you want to.
If you walk like a fierce person who can steal food from a lion or chase a carnivore 100 times your size, then you can steal food from a lion, you can get what you want at the office or in group situations, and you can frighten away most criminals.
Attitude also enables us to have greater strength than it might seem we are humanly capable of. I am thinking now of my grandfather, who, in his understanding of my need for kindness, helped me to push a log onto the little log cabin I was building in the bush when he was more than 90 years old. (This might sound trivial -- it was not at all. The log weighed several hundred pounds and I had been trying for days or maybe weeks to do it myself.)
Because he saw a need, he was stronger than everyone else. He had the strength to listen to my goals, and the attitude of empathy to understand them. And then, because he was there, at my cabin, and the log was ready to be moved and I had nobody else to help me, he had the strength to move it.
This same attitude made many people of "the Greatest Generation," as I have heard the generations born just during or after the First World War called, (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation) better than the rest of us modern folks. Before the mechanization of our society, there were many difficult jobs to be done. Farming. Animal husbandry. Early mechanics. They all require a strength that have many of us nowadays deciding we "can't" do that alone, and reaching for a machine or calling a professional with a machine to come do it.
But in days past, particularly on farms, when a thing needed to be done, a person decided to do it. They might have needed to do it for survival. They might have needed to do it for commercial success. Or they might have simply wanted to, and refuse to be told "no" for an answer.
Kindness takes strength, and so the willingness to be kind automatically makes us stronger than weaker human beings who are not willing to be kind. It's all about a decision and a belief in ourselves and our need to serve others.
It’s all in your attitude. Send out big vibes, and you’ll be the boss. Believe you can, and you can. Act like a little ninny, and you’ll be the victim, the pathetic person who can't. Your choice.
(The picture is our small large-dog-chasing cat -- she's only about ten pounds but she's amazing at looking tough.)
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