Andy Stumpf

All of the preparation, though, that will help you in these moments occurs before you sit down in the movie theater.

It's the time you spend on the range, the familiarity that you have with your weapon system, and honestly, conversations that you would have with your wife as well.

I would hope that after this, you not only have shared this with me, even though this occurred years ago, that you shared it with your wife.

There's no reason to not have, especially if you are focusing on preparedness.

I would hope that your spouse is to at least a degree as well.

Or you have talked about some what ifs or have a vernacular that you could use that is maybe a little bit different of your outside of normal communication where she's going to realize and understand that you are recognizing a threat or perceiving a threat that maybe she doesn't.

And it doesn't have to get crazy and it could be just something between the two of you because if you're with a team, you're only going to be as strong as your weakest link.

If she doesn't understand what's going on, if she doesn't understand why you're doing what you're doing,

You know, you could do everything right in air quotes and actually potentially put her in more risk because of a bizarre reaction from her just because she's confused and doesn't understand what is going on.

So I hope that you shared this with her, the communication with her up front, the preparation up front, realizing that you want to be able to see at night up front, all of those things.

And also the recognition that more than likely it's going to be a horse.

not a zebra, but you're put in the work in case it is a zebra.

So you're going to be okay.

This is how it feels, you know, on the edge of your seat, because you were questioning yourself or you got yourself to a place where you were a little bit emotionally escalated.

That's what it feels like.

You know, I'm not immune from having those things in my life as well too, whether it's even overseas where it's, it's up and down and it's peaks and it's valleys and it's spikes and it's cliffs and

Your body has natural emotional reactions and physiological reactions to these things.

You can see people who can be cool, calm and collected in the middle of a tactical situation and they shake afterwards.

And a lot of people view that as like some type of, oh man, they must be a pussy or they must be scared.

It's like, no, it's probably just the adrenaline working its way out of your system.