Visualization: Inspiration from Matt :-)

I was in a group interview one time and was asked an interesting question. The recruiter asked "You just arrived on scene of a mass casualty incident with 20 red (critical) patients. It's you and your partner, the supplies in your truck and bag, and what you can find around you. You have no other help available. How many people do you think you can save?"

A lot of people said they would save 3, maybe 4. One person said he probably wouldn't be able to save any because most would die during triage. Then the recruiter asked me how many I would save. Reluctantly, as I knew the response I would get, I said "All of them." The recruiter laughed for a minute and repeated what I said back to me and then said "and just how to you plan on saving all of them? That's completely unrealistic."

To which I answered ...

"When unrealistic situations become realities, it requires that unrealistic improvising become realities as well. In EMS we are taught to improvise, adapt and overcome. I'll do whatever it takes and use whatever I can find to make sure every single patient lives."

He then asked me, "And do you really believe all of them will survive?" I answered, "No one knows the future, we only know the future we visualize. When I see myself in this situation, I'm not planning for failure, I'm planning for success."

This was a lesson I learned when I was a child playing basketball at the YMCA. Some of us were having trouble putting the ball in the basket. The couch pulled us aside and said, "Guys, you can't just throw the ball and hope for the best. You have to slow down, think, and in your mind, see yourself throwing the ball and it going into the basket." Our success rate greatly improved once we mastered this.

Henry Ford said "Whether you believe you can, or can't, you are right."

Believe it or not, we all learned this as children... perhaps, we have forgotten.

A little engine worked at a train station, pulling a few cars on and off the switches. One morning it was waiting for the next call when a long train of freight-cars asked a great big engine to take it over the hill. "I can't; that is too much for me," said the great engine that was built for hard work. Then the train asked another engine, and another, only to hear excuses and be refused.

In desperation, the train asked the little engine to draw it up the mountain and down on the other side. "I think I can," puffed the little engine and it put itself in front of the great heavy train. As it went on the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can."

As it neared the top of the mountain, which had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, "I--think--I--can, I--think--I--can." It reached the top by drawing on bravery and a belief that it could, and then went on down the other side of the mountain, congratulating itself by saying, "I thought I could, I thought I could."

Are you a little engine that can or a big engine that can't?

Our outcomes are most often based on what we visualize and what we think we can do. If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can't, you can't. And as the little train taught us, if you think you're big enough and think you can, then you will.

Think big my friends... think big.