PeaceWalker Blog

The Resilience Perscription By Dr. Dennis Charney   1. Positive Attitude • Optimism is strongly related to resilience. • Optimism is in part genetic, but it can be learned (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Neurobiological Mechanisms: Reward circuits, converse of learned helplessness 2. Cognitive Flexibility Through Cognitive Reappraisal • Traumatic experiences can be re-evaluated by altering the event’s perceived value and meaningfulness. • One can receive a benefit from stress and trauma: one can reframe, assimilate, accept and recover. These skills can be learned. • Failure is an essential ingredient for growth.   Neurobiological Mechanisms: Memory Reconsolidation, Cognitive Control of Emotion, Memory Suppression 3. Embrace a Personal Moral Compass • Develop a set of core beliefs that very few things can shatter. • For many, faith in conjunction with strong religious and/or spiritual beliefs is associated with resilience. • Altruism has been strongl...

  It's a sunny Saturday afternoon, you sit down across from the salesman to buy a new car. The young salesman sits across from you with a salamander smile and says, "I'm so excited that you're here today! It's the end of the month and I need to get my sales quota." He asks you a couple quick questions regarding your financial status, then slides over a sales form for a new top of the line luxury car and hands you a pen. You're thinking... WTF?!? How do you feel about this guy right now? How likely are you to buy from this joker? Whose needs is concerned about, his or yours? How persuasive do you think he is going to be? Yep, you guessed it, not very! Meanwhile, somewhere across the city in a glass citadel, an employee for MassCorp sits in her cubicle working on a team project... only she's the sole person working on it. Her team members dumped all the work on her. Her phone rings, "Hey babe, you coming home for dinner?" ...

Craig Gray (me) Teaching an Active Shooter Defense Training Seminar in Grand Rapids, MI - USA Brussels attacks: Zaventem and Maelbeek bombs kill many More than 30 people are believed to have been killed and dozens injured in attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station. Twin blasts hit Zaventem airport at about 07:00 GMT, with 11 people reported killed. Another explosion struck Maelbeek metro station near EU headquarters an hour later, leaving about 20 people dead. BBC News Report 3/22/2016 A Day After the San Bernardino Shooting A man and a woman shot and killed 14 people at a social-services center in California on Wednesday, Dec. 2nd 2015. The shooters have been identified by police as 28-year-old Syed Rizwan Farook and 27-year-old Tashfeen Malik. The married couple who killed 14 people and wounded 21 others at a social-services center in San Bernardino, California, fired up to 75 rounds in the attack, left behind three pipe...

  Quite a few years ago I was asked to fill in on an executive protection assignment for a mid-level politician. One of the team members was sick and the team needed someone to fill in at the last minute. At the time I was training several guys from the industry and "someone knew someone" who referred me in.  I had worked with these guys a few times before. We got along. Although it wasn't a full time gig for me; I was young, liked the adventure of it and the money was good; so I typically jumped at the chance to make a quick $500 bucks for a nights worth of work. The assignment was pretty straight forward; take the principal to the event; keep an eye on things; escort him out and take him home. Simple. An easy way to make $500. The event went without incident until the team I was working with went to escort the principal back to his vehicle. The exit strategy that we had planned was overridden by our principal who decided that he wanted to be more discrete, avo...