Watching the latest episode of the popular television show, Gray’s Anatomy, highlighted a very simple, basic fact: some people choose to become victims where they surrender and cower in the face of evil. If you don’t want to be a victim, then read on.

For anyone who identified with the actions of the characters in that show, or said, “Well, he has a gun, there’s not much you can do!” just stop reading now.  You are a victim in the making.  Someday, your number will be called and you will be helpless and completely at the mercy and whim of a sociopath.  Good luck.  Nobody can help you because you refuse to help yourself.

For those who watched and wondered, “Why doesn’t he/she DO something?”

Read on. You can learn to help yourself and refuse to ever lie down or surrender in the face of evil and become a victim.

To avoid any confusion, let us be clear: this is a blog written about actions taken in a make-believe scenario, scripted dramatic effect and portrayed by actors.  With that as a qualifier however, there are some instructive points and lessons to be learned from this show, which was sadly all too close to the headlines.

The first point is that the shooter was quite simply a predator. Regardless of his motivation, past life or mental status at the time of the attack, he was nothing more than a sociopathic predator who could only be stopped through one method: physical force.  Historically, this has been true for most real-world active shooters as well.  They can’t be reasoned with, bargained with or talked down. In every active shooter scenario, there has never been a two-way conversation with the shooter: the active shooter comes in and  shoots as many people as he or she can until the shooter is shot, stopped physically, runs of ammunition, or until the shooter shoots himself. There is NEVER a conversation. The only way to stop them is to neutralize them through physical confrontation.

From historical situations, the majority of active shooters crumble under the first physical confrontation because they enter the situation planning to die.

The second point is that the mental attitude and prior preparation for such an incident of each individual in the show played an enormous role in their reactions. Of all of the people who were shot throughout the course of the show, only one continued to function.  That was the shooter himself.  Why (television scripting aside)?

The answer is simple, because he prepared himself for the fight.  He knew that he was going to a fight.  He expected that he would be shot, and he was prepared to fight through it and complete his mission.

The others?  They were not prepared for a fight. Normal people can prepare for this scenario without being a warrior and without self-defense knowledge!

For all of the blood and guts that the medical personnel saw on a daily basis, nothing prepared them mentally to deal with violence on a first person basis; to stand and fight, knowing that they might get hurt, even killed, but fighting anyway and refusing to sit and idly become a timid, passive victim to a mentally deranged, physically limited sociopath.

There is a strong kernel of truth to be harvested from this show: the fact of the matter is that mental attitude and preparation plays a huge role in how people perform in the worst situations.

Statistically, 80% of people in the United States who are shot with handguns LIVE. Any one, or group of the victims in that show, just like in real life, could have made the choice to do something other than cower, beg and plead with a deranged killer who clearly was of an altered mental status…they could have chosen instead to attack; to refuse to lie down and become a victim and to end the situation once and for all by neutralizing the killer.

People can do amazing things when they have the mental discipline to do so.  They can fight through pain, shock, gunshot wounds, knife wounds, emotional trauma and just about anything else life can throw at them.

Any one of those victims had the capacity to stop the killer, IF they had cultivated the proper mental attitude by learning what they did not know and what they should do in that type of situation.

Any one of those victims had the capacity to stop the killer, if they had decided ahead of time that they would NOT become a victim.

Any one of those victims had the capacity to stop the killer, if they had made the decision to TAKE ACTION.

The world can be an ugly place sometimes.  When the ugliness rears its head, you have two choices. You can get down on your knees, cower and plead and hope for the best, or you can take charge of your own destiny, refuse to be a victim and refuse to give in and surrender to evil.

Alternatively, you can choose right now to NEVER become a victim.  You can choose to gain the knowledge, mindset and skills that will allow you to DO SOMETHING when that moment comes.  Here at Sealed Mindset, we can teach you the knowledge and the skills.

The choice however, is up to you.

When I heard the news today about Chelsea King, my heart broke. I was in the middle of speaking to my mother about the fact that I had reached out to the King family on Facebook after being asked to do so by a classmate of Chelsea’s at Poway. This classmate was also a student of our Sealed Mindset “15 Seconds to Safety” awareness program, and she believed that our knowledge could make a difference to families and volunteers who were looking for Chelsea.

I reached out to Chelsea’s family to offer the only true value I have, which is the safety and awareness expertise compiled and developed by my husband and our team.  As I told my mother how much it meant to me that there were people in the world who recognized the value of the information to help keep our children safer, she mentioned that the police believed they had found Chelsea.

At many times in my life, and in all our lives, each one of us could have been Chelsea. I played an instrument, I jogged alone, and I excelled in school. I could have been Chelsea. For any student who did well in school and played an instrument or a sport, you could have been Chelsea. For any woman who goes jogging, you could have been Chelsea. All of us can identify with some aspect of her life because we have all been 17 with the world at our fingertips.

I am not preying on fears with this blog post. Nor am I writing these words to scare anyone. I am writing these words for two reasons: (1) to inspire action, (2) to tell you that there is a solution to our shared nagging safety fears that we haven’t been able to address yet. My husband and I have created an educational solution that is based on awareness, and we know this solution can make American families safer.

Awareness is the most important aspect of self-defense. It is the most talked about, but the least taught. We are working every day to change this: we are partnering with self-defense programs to make certain each woman who takes a self-defense workshop can receive a more complete safety solution. We are working with corporations who have proactively decided they want to offer the education to their employees. We are doing everything we can, but we need your help to spread the word and to let people know there is a knowledge-based solution out there, accessible to any family.

As Chelsea’s classmate at Poway states, “In light of what has recently happened to Chelsea, the efficacy and importance of my Sealed Mindset training has become especially obvious to me. Volunteering with the Chelsea King search efforts has reminded me of all the ways in which Sealed Mindset has changed my life and, more importantly, my behavior. Small habits, like checking around cars before I approach parking lots, have become routine. Furthermore, Sealed Mindset helped me to develop a sense of self-value: I am important. I deserve to protect myself. The wealth of practical knowledge that Sealed Mindset has provided me is invaluable, and something every parent and child should be made well aware of.”

Please reach out to us as we are here to help any community. For more information, please email anne@sealedmindset.com. To see how we teach, please take our free lesson: http://www.sealedmindset.com/

For the price of a pair of shoes, you can learn the knowledge you need to keep yourself safe. Fear is based on a lack of knowledge, and we are here to provide knowledge that your mind and heart know you seek. Please take advantage of our experiences and lessons from some of the world’s most difficult locations to bring this knowledge to your family.

The Evil that Predators Do:

Just recently a new, but all too familiar type of terror struck Prince William County Maryland as a suspected serial rapist assaulted two teenagers on their way home from trick-or-treating.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121604242.html?hpid=moreheadlines

What makes people act like this?  Why would someone assault and rape two innocents who were clearly unable to effectively resist?

For most of us, actions such as these are incomprehensible.  Nevertheless, there are members of society who prey upon the helpless.  They are the predators.  For reasons that the rest of us will never understand, these predators move through the world looking for victims.

Many people choose to ignore and block out these terrifying situations, preferring to believe that good things will happen to good people and to ignore the evil that exists in our society.  Many of the people who choose this approach do so out of fear.

As it turns out, this fear is often less about the criminals themselves and more about being unknowledgeable and powerless to do anything about this fear.  In other words, it is a lack of knowledge that keeps individuals from seeking out the proper means to stay safe.

Unfortunately, tucking our heads in the sand does not eliminate the evils in society, nor does it effectively stop them.  In fact, all this “head in the sand” approach really does is make a person more likely to become a victim.

A better approach is recognizing and acknowledging the existence of evil.  Recognizing the existence of evil is the first step although it does not eliminate fear, it will empower you to take action to keep yourself safe.  Understanding the existence of evil allows you to face the fear and to understand that you CAN do something about it.  No matter who you are or what your physical capabilities may be, you can always take charge of your own personal safety.

To learn more try the 10 lesson “15 Seconds to Safety” course at www.sealedmindset.com

Here is a fascinating You-Tube video.

This is a prime example of an average citizen who flat-out refused to become a victim of violent crime. His security planning could have been improved to avoid some of these incidents but nonetheless, he steadfastly refused to be a victim. If every citizen aggressively exercised these same rights, violent crime rates would plummet nationwide.  Armed defense isn’t the right solution for everyone.  However, all citizens have both the inherent right to self-defense and the capability to refuse to become a victim of violent crime.

Toughest Watchmaker in America