Within our Switchback training after we have described a dynamic like Phil’s two week break from fire and then his observations when he returned we often pause and say… “if you can see it… you can understand it… if you can understand it your brain has been given the opportunity to leverage human agency… the ability to choose.” Sometimes just seeing the dynamic will give us the ability to change.

The psychological term in Phil’s example might also be “emotional contagion.” This concept tries to explain how one person’s mood can transfer into a group and eventually the whole group can own the same mood. I also think of it like the frogs in the pot of boiling water. Phil’s crew were working hard under very adverse conditions which slowly “heated up the pot.” When Phil hopped out of the pot in 2015 for 2 weeks he was exposed to an alternative “contagion” environment. At his return Phil really noticed the negative mood partly because he had hopped out and then hopped back in…

If the Dog Day’s of Summer or Dirty August and SNAPTEMBER are predictable… Are they preventable?

Let me know what you think?