Minimum Survival Kit

I was a soldier in the Romanian army. For 6 months, I woke up at 5 AM each morning (except during the 6 nights of Romanian Revolution, when I didn’t sleep at all), I practiced fight techniques and learned tremendously..

Romanian army wasn’t what you may call a summer camp. On the contrary. It was a tough place to be in. From the physical environment to the relationship level, everything was rough. When it was cold, it was really cold, we had to sleep with clothes on and didn’t have any other way to get warm. When a superior asked something from you, you didn’t have any other choice than to obey. And most of the time the superiors were asking really humiliating things, like crawling in front of them in the mud for 15 minutes, for no reason at all, other than they being older than you in the army. It was a very clearly enforced power game. Also, when we’re doing fight exercises, sometimes we had to run continuously for 10 kilometers and more with all the fight equipment on us. No wonder that in only a few weeks from the beginning, a quarter of my group become regular clients of the infirmary.

Yes, it was a rough place, but it also had some interesting ups. I was enrolled in what they call a “research and diversion” group. Our goal, as a fight group, was to do research in the enemy field, gather information and create diversions. Exciting, if you look at it form the outside, frightening if you have to do it. Part of our regular exercise was to penetrate other units territory. The soldiers guarding those units had no ideas that we were soldiers too, doing an exercise. They had all the reasons to believe we’re the enemy, and they could open fire at any time. Told you it was rough…

The Survival Exercise

Part of our training involved also learning survival tactics and techniques. I don’t know why I was attracted to that, but fact is I really enjoyed learning all the things they were teaching us about surviving. I know I was always the first to respond when we had surviving classes.

One day the captain came to our dorm and told us: “time to pack your equipment, we’re going out on a survival exercise”. I remember that 2 of our team mates became pale and started to talk something about infirmary. They were the guys who were most of the time ill and did whatever they can to avoid getting involved in anything remotely dangerous. The captain looked at them and said they can stay if they want.

The rest of the group took the fight equipment (no real ammunition was allowed though) and went down. I remember I put a bag of nuts and a bottle of Pepsi in my sac. I always did that when I knew we’re going out on some exercise thing. By the way, at that time, 20 years ago, under the communist regime of Ceausescu, Pepsi was considered almost a medicinal drink and it was barely available on the stores.

Down, a big truck was waiting, engine started. Without many words we get up, squeezed together and the truck started to move. It didn’t went on the regular road, to the city, but took it over the field. Just crossed the field, bumping us up and down while we’re numbly trying to get a grip of where we were.

At some point, after we crossed a few forests and hills, after we didn’t see any house for at least 20 minutes, the truck stopped. “Down, down, down, on the double”, the captain said. He didn’t smile. Usually, he was smiling, but not this time. In less than a minute we were down, near the truck. I confess that I started to feel a little bit strange at that time. What was going to happen, after all?

“Split in teams of two”, said the captain. “You can only use your knife and whatever you can find around yourself. Walk in different directions for 10 minutes, then stop. From that point, you have 48 hours. In 48 hours we’re going to meet in the unit yard. If you can make it earlier, good for you. You’re on your own now.” After that he jumped in the truck. In less than 30 seconds we were alone in the middle of nowhere, looking at the truck becoming smaller and smaller between the hills and after the forests.

We started to walk in different directions for 10 minutes, in teams of two.  Now I was really feeling strange. Suddenly I realized I didn’t have any food, except for the nuts bag and the bottle of Pepsi. Nor did I have anything else except my fight equipment. Out of which I could only use my knife.

In a split of a second I realized also that I was on a real survival situation. Nobody would come to help us. We were really alone there…

The first thing I did was to see what else do I have except myself. We were in teams of two and my team mate was a guy who became famous in our group for sleeping all the time. He was always relaxed and ready to get a nap. Not much of an initiative guy, but a very soothing presence, after all. Well, at least he’s not hysterical, I said to myself.

We were still on a decently populated area. We didn’t see any houses but there were gardens and paths. It wasn’t complete wilderness so in a few minutes I realized that the survival in itself wasn’t such a big deal. I think I was more overwhelmed by the “unexpected” way of the things. Didn’t expect this to happen, yet I was still in the middle of nowhere, with a colleague who was always sleeping, trying to find our way back to the unit.

Little by little, we started to organize things. We established a zero point, marked by scratching small signs under the knee level on trees (signs under the knee level aren’t usually visible in the forests, so we minimize the chances that a potential enemy would find our base camp). We did a few researches in the field, some together, some separately. We put two traps for the birds, made by some rope, some breadcrumbs (my colleague used to carried dried bread in his pockets) and rocks. We didn’t catch any bird, but we soon found some food in a vegetable garden and also got a pretty clear idea of where we were.

It was getting close to the evening so we sit near our zero point and had our dinner. Some vegetables, a part of the nuts I was diligently packed and we drank some Pepsi. Boy, that Pepsi was good!

My team mate was getting pretty sleepy and it was starting to get dark. As we sat near the tree trying to figure out what we should do, I saw a difference in the light. Didn’t knew at first from where it was, but I soon realized it was a moving light. Somewhere between the hills a car with the lights on was moving.

I instantly decided that I wouldn’t wait 48 hours. “Let’s go, you will soon sleep” I said to my team mate and started to move towards that light. In a few minutes I discovered a country road. The car was also a military car and I recognized one of the drivers. “What are you doing here”, I asked where I was close enough. “Patrolling, trying to pick up guys from the survival exercise”. the driver answered. “Well, you found us, we’re from the survival exercise”, I smiled. “Then jump in”, he smiled back.

In fifteen minutes we were back at the unit. In the yard there was a big fire. Half of our colleagues were there too. At the fire, something was cooking. I learned that some of our team mates found some houses and “borrowed” some chickens. Some of them also borrowed potatoes and carrots. From what I saw, what was cooking at the fire was far more than we usually had for dinner. And far more tastier too.

I sat down at the fire, near my colleague who was already snoring on the side. The whole exercise was no longer than 6 hours. While I was getting ready to get my meal, sipping from my bottle of Pepsi, I saw the 2 guys who weren’t with us in the exercise. It may have been because of the fire, but they looked even more pale than usual.

A Survival Situation

Every time I get caught in a really nasty thing, I think at that survival exercise. I remember all the phases of this exercise, all the tools I used, all the results. And every time I apply the things I learned during that exercise, I get over it.

Now, you may wonder what’s a survival situation, after all? How can you differentiate a survival situation from just some tough times? It’s an important distinction, because you will use different tools and attitudes. If you’re just getting through some tough times, a general positive attitude and some reasonable adjustments will get you through.

A survival situation is different in that all your regular resources will disappear, you’re on a different land and your life may be in danger. Now, it may be about your physical life, as in a war, or it may be the life as you used to think about it. Every major breakup or career change may be seen as a survival situation. Every major shift in your existence is in fact a survival situation, because it challenges the way you actually live your life.

Minimal Survival Kit

From that first survival exercise in the army I’ve been through many survival situations. Some of them involved violent financial crisis, others involved personal relationships breakups and others were related to my career choices. Being an entrepreneur is one of the careers when you get loads of survival situations, and I’m not the only one telling you that.

But, somehow, I managed to get out of them. The fact that you’re reading this right now might be the most important proof, by the way . After getting out (and in, for what matters) those difficult times, I started to see some patterns. Some attitudes proved to be better than others and some techniques helped me overcome the obstacles easier.

So, here I come with a minimum survival kit. It’s not a first aid kit, in that it doesn’t tell you what to do immediately after you get hit. I may write another post on that, but for now, let’s just talk about the 5 things you may need to master in order to get out safely from a life survival situation.

1. Be Prepared

That doesn’t mean you should stop living your normal life and act like the end of the world is near. But acknowledge the fact that the life is unexpected and that you may be exposed to situations you’re not really prepared to. In my survival exercise I took that bag of nuts and that bottle of Pepsi. It was a prevention measure. And it proved to be a very good one.

I’m not saying to put aside white money for black days, but be in a continuous movement. Live in such a way that you will always have supplementary resources to resort to, if need will be. In business, although I was successful in my niche, I always had smaller projects going on, just in case. They were just boiling slowly and sometimes those projects saved me from some pretty tough cash-flow situations.

There is a very important part of this approach. The moment you’re prepared, something very powerful happens: you’re getting stronger. By being exposed to those sudden changes, your strength increases. The 2 colleagues who instantly declined the survival exercise were even more pale at the fire. They avoided the challenge but their strength was decreasing.

2. Avoid Excessive Baggage

If you’re on a real survival situation, any excess baggage may drag you down. What does mean in a real life situation? Well, it may mean: sell your stuff fast, don’t get attached to relationships that may drag you down and just be flexible. If you’re going through a survival situation in business this may lead to difficult decisions which may lead to let people go or to sacrifice some part of the business in order to make sure the rest will be fine. As tough as it may seem, this is extremely necessary.

A survival situation will ask each of any resource you may have, so just carrying out extra baggage will make you slower and heavier. During my survival exercise in the army, I was fortunate enough to get out quickly. But I can only imagine what would have happen if I would have to carry out my sleepy partner. In all honesty I tell you that I would just have him parked somewhere and after I would have found some help, just get back to rescue him. Trying to get out of a real survival situation when you’re with a lazy partner is suicide, you’re both going down.

3. Take Good Care Of Your Health

First things first. Eat. Hydrate yourself. Get plenty of sleep. Too often I saw people in survival situations surrendering to worries and neglecting their health. Why? Why spending your night thinking how to pay your mortgage because you’re jobless now, instead of just sleeping? Why jumping on the avoidance side by drowning in alcohol? What’s the use of it? Not only it will never solve your problem but it will ruin your health. And with less and less energy you’ll have less and less resources to break through.

4. Jump To Opportunities

Use whatever you have and once you see something that could prove even remotely helpful, just go for it. Don’t wait. Don’t second thought. Don’t hesitate. Don’t wait for better condition because you may not get any. Don’t assume things will get better, because usually they don’t.

If you’re in a survival situation, you have to act. You have to do stuff, you have to move. When I saw the light of the car, in my survival exercise, I decided I will just go for it. I will follow it and see what happens. It proved to be the best thing that could happen to me. That approach was verified in other survival situations I’ve been through: the moment you summon the courage to take advantage of an opportunity, that opportunity is in fact the end of the survival situation. It’s your escape.

5. Have Hope

I intently left this at the very end, because it’s the most important part of all five. Hope is the fundamental tool in your minimal survival kit. Whatever you’re going through right now, it’s temporary. It shall pass. You can’t get caught forever in this survival situation. At some point the wall will break. Keeping this kind of thoughts in your head means keeping hope.

But if you don’t keep this hope, you’ll lose the battle even before it will start. Because hope is the fundamental ingredient in keeping your sight clean. In keeping your mind fresh and ready to react. If you surrender to worries and negative thinking, your focus will shift from outside to your own internal, dark reality. You may actually miss opportunities, real life opportunities, just because you’re not paying attention. The outside situation is really bad right now, but once you move to the internal part, you’ll lose the hook. You’ll get caught in your own whirl of negative thoughts and you won’t see the light moving through the hills.

Hope is the thing that will make you enjoy the dinner at the fire camp after the survival exercise. Because, in the end, all of these survival situations are only exercises. And, always, they are less scary than we think they are. We may get the shivers in the beginning, but after we’re out, life is even better. Tastier. Nicer.

What does not kill you makes you stronger.

Positive Motivation Versus Negative Motivation

What makes you move forward? Which are the most powerful stimulus for you? Are you doing stuff only to avoid potential dangers, or are you just curious? In today’s post I’ll talk about negative motivation versus positive motivation.

You may ask now: motivation is just the power which moves you to do stuff, are there anything like “negative” or “positive” to it? Isn’t this something related to what you do, not to what motivates you? Well, in my opinion, your motivation is directly shaping you actions. If you’re positively motivated, your action will most likely have a positive outcome. If you’re negatively motivated, your action will have an undesirable outcome.

Negative is rooted on fear, while positive is rooted in service.

The Fear Root

Fear means you’re acting on the pressure of losing something, This is what fear is: the menace of losing something: your current context, your money, your life. Fear was for a long time a fantastic survival mechanism, and for that it was a good asset on our old life kit. It was fear which made the weaker one to run or to hide when a real threat was around. And fear made the weaker survive.

Our brain has a very deep connection with fear. Deep in our limbic brain (the oldest part of our brain, also called the “reptilian” brain) lies the centers of fear. On top of them other layers of our brain have grown. But the deeper core is still there and it can still be activated.

Fear can manifest in our life on various levels. Some of them are social norm, like “keeping up with the Joneses” (fear of losing prestige) or like blind competition (fear of losing market share). On a personal level, fear is manifested by the need to prove something (fear of being inadequate) or by revenge (fear of coping with a loss).

The Service Root

On the other side, service means giving to others. Offering support, knowledge, material or emotional assets. On the human evolution scale, service is a little bit younger than fear. It was only when the need for survival was met that individuals could gather in communities and start to experiment with sharing. Until then, fear was necessary in order to survive.

There is this inverse connection between fear and service: the lower the fear level, the higher the service level. If you’re not afraid you can easily go out and share, because, well, there’s nothing to be afraid of. If you’re afraid of something, you’re going to limit the contexts in which the danger could manifest, therefore, you’ll going to limit your sharing activities.

Another opposite to the fear is curiosity: if you’re eager to find out more, you’ll have to get rid of your fears. You can’t be curious if you’re afraid. If your fears will tell you that something bad will come out  of this action you’re so curious about, you’ll never do it.

The Black Power Of No

Wether we like it or not, we’re still conditioned to act on fear. Our limbic brain is still stimulated by a variety of factors. We translated our old fears related to survival to our modern indicators of success: we’re afraid of being taken for less than we are or we’re afraid that somebody talks bad about us. We’re afraid that we’re going to lose something if we’re not talking “immediate and aggressive” action towards the potential danger.

Negativity is powerful.  Every time you’re afraid, you’re giving your focus and power to the potential danger. All your energy must be there, because your reptilian brain is telling you’ll have to survive. Doesn’t matter for that reptilian brain if the fear was socially induced, if you scream “fear” it will be activated.

The more fear factors you have, the more energy you’ll have to allocate. And you’re going to pay attention to a lot of potential dangers. Sooner than you think, you’ll measure your success by the rate of your survival actions. And you’re becoming accountable to your fear sources. You’ll be actually driven by your fear sources. This is why a fearful person is so easy to manipulate.

The Difficult Honesty

If you’re not afraid of anything, you’ll have nobody to be accountable than yourself. All your energy is still inside you, there’s no threat you have to monitor. And so, you’ll have to assess your success by other metrics. The survival mode is off. There’s nobody to be afraid of. There’s only you. Honestly.

Honesty is difficult. Being accountable to ourselves is something we’re not used to. For millions of years it was so easy to feel good by only avoiding danger. Now it’s incredibly difficult to feel good by creating something. Avoiding dangers and creating stuff are mutually exclusive, of course. You can’t do both at the same time.

Motivation

Every time you’re going on a negative motivation, you’re giving away your energy, this is why the outcome will be most of the time undesirable. Except a few rare situations in which your fears are real, you’re only picking up socially conditioned fears. There’s no real danger there. You think you’ve done something appropriate in order to survive, but the danger was a fake. And you feel cheated. Frustrated. Ashamed.

If you’re braking the circle of fear, your motivations will be based on curiosity and service. Out of the fear circle, you can create and share. You can learn. You can experiment. You can enjoy.

Happiness and fear cannot live in the same individual. Because fear will always take historical precedence, there will be simply no energy left to feed the happiness. All the energy is going to the fear. You simply don’t have enough.

If you’re curious enough to investigate the root of your fears you’ll find out they are just shadows. Somebody else is projecting some twisted lights and your environment is all of a sudden filled with a lot of shadows. If the source of light is not twisted, the environment is clear and neat again, no shadows. All you have to do is to investigate who and why is projecting the light. If you don’t agree with what you see, nobody stops you to project your own light, and get rid of the shadows for good.

The difference between negative and positive motivation is the difference between surviving and living.