Don't think, you're not good at it.

I would like to preface today’s entry with, “Happy Independence Day”; a  day when we celebrate all those who came before us, people who sacrificed so we may live in freedom.  So in honor of those who took the time to think this through and then do something about it, here is today’s entry. The same fire melts wax, hardens clay and strengthens steel.

Our cognitive abilities are certainly paramount to our success as a species. The human mind, with its reasoning, curiosity, sensual and factual memory have lead us to great achievements. Language, arts, science, math are hallmarks to the comprehension, calculation, reasoning and decision making skills that define us. However, it must be noted that as much as we pride ourselves on this ability, it is not prudent to assume we do it well all the time, especially when we are under stress. As a matter of fact, some of our most tragic decisions are made in such circumstances. I think back to those moments when either myself or others were under fire for a poor decision followed up with an obvious error. When grilled about the intent, the phrase used to excuse the behavior often begins with “I think…” or “I thought…”,  to which I say, “Don’t think, you’re not good at it.” There is certainly a time to think; during the times of planning.  When we are calm and focused, good decisions can be made. But when we think under pressure we usually arrive at the wrong course of action because really our only goal is making the situation stop, not creating an environment for our success.


“Chef I think the fryer is on fire”; Not exactly what you like to hear minutes before a kitchen opens for service. It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting, but was nonetheless something that needed to be dealt with. It all started, as many such situations do, with a bit of unpreparedness followed by a bad decision. In the absence of all the necessary components, sometimes it is best to wait until you have what you need in order to continue. This is certainly the case when turning on a deep fat fryer and what this particular cook overlooked when setting up his station.

Let’s face it, people do not think well under pressure. Pressure induces stress and stress changes the nature of our cognitive being back to that of a primitive animal. Stress is good for fight or flight, not thinking. Even when you analyze all the ways self help coaches tell you to better yourself at thinking under pressure; you realize that they are actually ways of alleviating the pressure, not thinking well during it. Most sources have one thing in common, negate the stress, whether by familiarizing yourself with it, accepting it or avoiding it. The theme is common;  acclimate to or avoid stress.

Best thing to do is not to think. Adrenaline is shown to divert blood flow away from certain parts of the brain and other organs to muscles, limiting cognitive performance and interfering with clear thinking. The release of adrenaline can enable the body to perform far beyond its normal parameters, but the mind? Not so much. So why use your brain in this environment when it clearly is not suited for the task. Truth is you shouldn't, at least not yet.

Don’t think; know. How do we know? We prepare for it, we do it enough, we see it enough so we can reason that it’s coming. We don’t allow ourselves to get into a situation that we don’t know how to deal with. 'State dependency' tells us there is something to operating in the environment in which something was learned. Recall is bolstered when tested in the environment where it was first encoded. So, train yourself to be in stressful situations. In this way you can find yourself functioning better in them. Additionally, repeated exposure to stress increases levels of neuropeptide Y (NPY), an amino acid which dampens fear responses and enables animals, at least the tested monkeys and mice, to perform better under extremely stressful situations. Yet another indicator that control under stress is made better through consistent exposure.

So what do we gain from all this?  There's one way to get through stress, avoid it. Not avoid the stress per se, but rather avoid it being stressful; prepare for it. There will be times in your life that are stress filled, and you will have to be productive. Best advice, consistently expose yourself to such things so the stressful becomes manageable and suddenly the beast has lost its teeth.  So when you see someone who’s cool as a cucumber in a crazy environment know that they are either oblivious to the situation or have conditioned themselves to be in it.


"Chef I think the fryer is on fire".
As I made my way towards his position, fire extinguisher in hand, I asked "What makes you say that?".
"There's fire coming out of it!".
"That would do it." I calmly noted the tongues of fire lapping away feverishly at a strategically placed sheet tray. One that (unfortunately) blocked his view from the dangerously low level of oil yet (luckily) prevented the flames from engulfing the kitchen. Even more unfortunately, the same sheet tray was diverting the fire into the adjacent deep fat fryer, which was filled and up to temp. Not a good situation at all.

This situation highlights both approaches to a stressful encounter. A cook, who decided to turn on his deep fat fryer without setting it up properly, filled it just enough so it could superheat, go aerosol and combust. In his moments of debilitating fear he did what most do, shut down. Then there's Chef. With an ability to remain calm in the face of it all because maybe he'd been through something like this before.


Whoosh. A well placed dose of pressurized chemical tamed the situation. I looked over the wreckage.
"What made you turn on a fryer that only had a few quarts of oil in it?" I asked.
" Well Chef, I thought if I turned it on it would be warm for when I added the rest of the oil."
To which I responded, " Don't think son, you're not good at it."