How To Keep Cool in a Crisis

Summary

Episode Summary: "How To Keep Cool in a Crisis"

Podcast: How To! with Mike Pesca
Host: Peach Fish Projects
Episode Date: July 7, 2026
Guest Host: Amanda Ripley
Guests: Matt Smith (de-escalation trainer), Dan Christensen (Portland bus driver)

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Overview

In this episode, Amanda Ripley revisits a critical and heartbreaking incident from 2017 on a Portland train to explore the question: How can ordinary people de-escalate a dangerous public conflict without getting hurt? She’s joined by two guests with deep real-world experience diffusing crises—Matt Smith, who teaches de-escalation nationwide, and Dan Christensen, a long-time Portland bus driver. Together, they break down what works, what doesn’t, and the key mindsets to keep yourself—and others—safe.

The tone is practical, humane, and occasionally darkly humorous, as the guests share both successes and hard-learned lessons from chaotic moments on buses, emergency rooms, and beyond.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Portland Train Tragedy and the Ethics of Intervention

[01:45-03:38]

• The episode starts by recounting the 2017 train stabbing in Portland, when bystanders intervened to protect two teenage girls from a man yelling racist slurs—two men died, another was injured.
• Amanda frames the core question: Is there a way to intervene or de-escalate without risking your life? Is it ever possible to defuse extreme situations safely?

2. De-escalation Is Everyone’s Job—But Safety Comes First

[03:38-04:34]

• Matt Smith: “De-escalation is everyone's job, as long as there's not an imminent safety threat.” (03:38)
• Dan Christensen emphasizes the importance of action, but above all ensuring “everyone goes home safe.”
• Dan shares personal experiences dealing with unstable passengers—including the very perpetrator from the Portland train attack, reflecting on the unpredictability and complexity of these individuals.

3. The Power of Early, Small Interventions

[04:40-06:26]

• Dan often sets expectations with passengers, warning them about repeat troublemakers:

  "If you just be patient for 20 blocks, he'll get off and we'll keep going at rush hour. No hassle." (05:54)

• The key: Sometimes it’s safer to “let the juice not be worth the squeeze”—that is, let a disruptive person pass through rather than confront them and risk escalation.

4. Understanding the Roots of Crisis Behavior

[11:48-13:09]

• Matt Smith: The biggest mistake bystanders make is asking, “What’s wrong with this person?” instead of, “What happened to this person?” This reframing helps respond with humanity rather than hostility. (11:55)
• Collective reactions (crowd “righteous rage”) often make things worse, not better.

5. Two-Step Approach: Rapport, Then Leverage

[13:17-14:05]

• Amanda introduces “the two-step”:
  1. Earn rapport (acknowledge struggle)
  2. Leverage rapport (ask what they need)
• This is tough under pressure, but vital.

6. Humor, Empathy (and What NOT to Do)

[14:05-18:22]

• Dan Christensen recounts a time when a humiliated passenger (after walking into a pole) attacked him:

  "To this day, I think I could have handled that better... I could have said, hey, are you hurt?" (14:44)

• Humiliation, sarcasm, or making people feel small can rapidly escalate conflicts.

  "Humiliation is as painful as striking some people." (15:10, Dan Christensen)

• Matt Smith shares a personal “failure”—making a joke about a teenager literally digging himself into a hole, only to be hit with the digging pot:

  "In that moment, I couldn't resist being right... In crisis, I think we just need to let go of right or wrong." (18:25-19:22)

7. Let Go of Being Right

[19:22-21:14]

• Amanda and the guests invoke a Rumi quote as a guiding principle:

  “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” (21:10, Rumi, cited by Dan Christensen and Amanda Ripley)

• Effective de-escalation requires letting go of the urge to win or prove a point.

8. Practical Prevention: Setting the Tone Early

[24:10-26:49]

• Greeting passengers warmly and seizing every moment to build rapport lowers the odds of conflict:

  "How you greet people on the bus matters... Come on aboard the love bus!" (24:31, Dan Christensen)

• Even masked, a smile “shows in your voice.” (26:49, Dan and Matt)
• These small gestures act as “seeds” for later, giving you credibility to calm someone down when needed.

9. Use Humor—With Caution

[27:31-28:28]

• Dan shares how joking with repeat fare-skippers broke the ice:

  "If they ever pay, I'm going to die of a heart attack." (27:31, Dan Christensen)

• Building trust through humor led to real change.
• But Amanda and Matt caution: this takes practice, and humor should never be at someone’s expense.

10. Empathy is NOT Agreement; Don’t Physically Touch Someone in Crisis

[28:37-31:40]

• Matt warns: empathic statements should never start with “at least…” and empathy is not the same as approval.
• Never touch or confine someone in crisis (e.g., don't point and order them to sit, don’t grab an arm)—it can lead to violent reactivity.

  "When you touch someone when they're in crisis, that creates tremendous reactivity." (31:23, Matt Smith)

11. How Police and Institutions Can Change

[32:00-34:16]

• Law enforcement is under pressure to balance “command presence” with empathy and de-escalation.
• Positive trends noted in some Portland police and D.C. departments: staying back, relaxed posture, less escalatory presence.

12. Final Reflections: You’re Not Alone

[34:52-35:16]

• Matt Smith:

  “There's a ton of common threads between what we're doing as a training provider and what you're doing driving your bus and keeping people safe." (34:52)

• Dan Christensen:

  “I love knowing that I'm not alone... fighting this fight and thinking this way. It's great to talk with you." (35:03)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “De-escalation is everyone's job, as long as there's not an imminent safety threat.”
  – Matt Smith, 03:38

• “I always treat everyone on the bus like they're better armed than me, because they are. And I'm buckled to a chair. So the main thing in my mind always is everyone goes home safe.”
  – Dan Christensen, 06:33

• “The biggest mistake... is looking at someone in crisis and asking... what’s wrong with this person instead of what happened to this person.”
  – Matt Smith, 11:55

• “Humiliation is as painful as striking some people.”
  – Dan Christensen, 15:10

• “In crisis, I think we just need to let go of right or wrong.”
  – Matt Smith, 19:22

• “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
  – Rumi quote, 21:10

• “How you greet people on the bus matters.”
  – Dan Christensen, 24:31

• “When you touch someone when they're in crisis, that creates tremendous reactivity.”
  – Matt Smith, 31:40

• “I love knowing that I'm not alone... fighting this fight and thinking this way.”
  – Dan Christensen, 35:03

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Quick Tips & Takeaways

• Safety first—if you can leave, do so; don’t try to be a hero if there’s imminent risk.
• Diffuse, don’t escalate—avoid humiliation, sarcasm, or proving you’re “right.”
• Rapport matters—small gestures and humor, when delivered with respect, can make all the difference.
• Never physically confine or touch someone in crisis.
• Empathy ≠ agreement—you can be empathetic to a person’s emotions without excusing their actions.
• Change begins early—a warm greeting, a smile, or a joke sets a positive tone.
• Institutional change is possible—training and culture shifts are underway in some policing.

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Most Important Segments (Timestamps)

• Portland train attack and why this matters – 01:45-04:34
• Dan’s approach to keeping peace on the bus – 04:34-06:26
• The most common mistakes in de-escalation – 11:48-13:09
• Humor and humility in action – 14:05-18:22
• Letting go of right/wrong; Rumi’s “field” – 19:22-21:14
• Practical advice: setting the tone early – 24:10-26:49
• Rapport and humor with repeat offenders – 27:31-28:28
• Why not to use certain phrases or touch – 28:37-31:40
• Reflections on police de-escalation culture – 32:00-34:16

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Further Resources

• Follow Dan Christensen and Matt Smith for more tips (see episode show notes).
• Send your own crisis de-escalation experiences to howtoslate.com.

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This rich, engaging episode combines tragedy with practical hope, equipping listeners with actionable advice for public conflicts. “Cool in a crisis” starts before the crisis begins—with empathy and small, everyday human gestures.

Transcript

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[Amanda Ripley]

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[Kiana]

Hello and welcome to how to these days. We're facing a lot of crises. In fact, they invented a word for it. Crises. That's how many crises there are. But you know how to tackle this on a specific episode back in 2021. And that episode was about a specific incident back in 2017. It is a compelling lesson and it actually contains good actionable advice. How to advice, if you will. Amanda Ripley hosts this encore episode of how to Stay Cool in a Crisis.

[Dan Christensen]

We want people to take action when there's injustice. You know, we don't want people to just walk by and ignore, but we also want people alive.

[Amanda Ripley]

You're listening to how to I'm Amanda Ripley. Back in May of 2017, something terrible happened on a crowded train in Portland, Oregon. It all started when a self described white nationalist named Jeremy Christian started ranting and ra Police say he shouted racist anti Muslim slurs at a 17 year old Somali girl who was wearing a hijab and her friend, a 16 year old black girl. Frightened, the girls moved to the back of the train car and three other men tried to de escalate the situation. One told Christian in a loud voice, you need to get off this train. Christian shoved a man and then the man shoved him back and everyone started screaming. According to a witness, Christian said, touch me again and I'm going to kill you. Christian then fatally stabbed two of the men and injured the third. Last year, Christian was sentenced to two life terms in prison. This is a tragedy in so many ways. On the one hand, it's an example of humans heroically standing up to hate and trying to protect each other. On the other hand, two people are dead. This is not how anyone wants any public confrontation to end. We'll never know if there could have been a better outcome. And we'd hate to second guess anyone who tries to stop a bad actor. But we can't help but wonder, is there a way to defuse a volatile situation like this without getting hurt in the process? Is that even possible? This is a really hard question. So today we're continuing our conversation with two veteran conflict interrupters. Matt Smith travels the country teaching people how to de escalate crises.

[Matt Smith]

And one of our taglines is de escalation is everyone's job, as long as there's not an imminent safety threat.

[Amanda Ripley]

And Dan Christensen is a bus driver in Portland who often deals with unruly passengers. He's still haunted by the train attack in his city.

[Dan Christensen]

The whole situation saddens my heart so much, and I always feel if I was on that train, I could have helped.

[Amanda Ripley]

It turns out Dan actually knew the perpetrator.

[Dan Christensen]

I'd had him on my bus. To me, he was what I call a lost soul. He went around and joined groups. Most groups didn't even want to have him on board. But what he really wanted to do was talk about comics on my bus. And I know everybody on that train was trying to do the right thing, but when it's a crowd of people reacting, that can make things much worse.

[Host / Narrator]

So these people were trying not to be. Trying not to make the bystander non intervention mistake, right?

[Dan Christensen]

Yeah. And of course, no one wants anyone hurt and no one wants anyone assaulted on the bus. Right. Verbally assaulted or racially, you know, that's just all. It's all manner of wrong. I had similar situation. He just pissed someone off once, I can't remember. And I just said, come up here. Leave that guy alone. Let's talk. You know, stop the bus. You're the bus. Open the doors, say, hey, come up here. Talk to me. And I would talk to him about comics. And that was it. It's so frustrating. Conflicts between people on the bus is the hardest thing because as you're solving one issue, the other issue can just bubble up, you know, this righteous rage of a whole crowd. And I had one guy who just. His thing was he got on the bus, he pretended to see Someone in the back of the bus, he had a conversation with him, got mad, went back there and yelled profanity and racial slurs and people. And I tell him, this is going to happen. This happens every day. He gets on the bus, but he only rides 20 blocks. If you just be patient for 20 blocks, he'll get off and we'll keep going at rush hour. No, no hassle.

[Host / Narrator]

So this guy who comes on and is every, you know what he's going to do? He's going to scream profanities for 20 blocks. And you usually warn the other passengers about this. And does that usually work?

[Dan Christensen]

Yes, it does. I tell them, look, we all want to get home. That's what we're here on, rush hour in a bus.

[Matt Smith]

So you're kind of saying the juice is not worth the squeeze.

[Dan Christensen]

Yeah. And I tell him he's all, jump, no trampoline, so don't just let him go.

[Host / Narrator]

And so, God, it must have broken your heart to read the stories about that train attack, knowing what you know.

[Dan Christensen]

Yeah. And then when I saw the breakdown of it later, you know, it's, it's like you have to realize that a lot of people you're dealing with aren't on your level. They're not a rational person who just happens to be mad or doing that. They may have chemical treatment they're on. They may have severe impairments, unable to judge other people's emotions and actions. Like I said, I always treat everyone on the bus like they're better armed than me, because they are. And I'm buckled to a chair. So the main thing in my mind always is everyone goes home safe.

[Amanda Ripley]

On last week's episode, we talked about how to stop a fight before it starts. The safest option often is to leave or aggressively egress. As bus driver Dan said, get out of there. But what if that's not possible? On today's show, the second in our two part series, we're focusing on what to do and most importantly, what not to do once a fight is underway. Both Matt and Dan are experts in defusing conflict, but that doesn't mean they've never been caught up in a rumble themselves. In fact, that's how they learn some of their most surprising tips, including the power of humor in a very tense moment. Stay with us.

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[Amanda Ripley]

So, Matt, what is one of the most common mistakes that you have seen people make when they're trying to de escalate?

[Matt Smith]

The biggest mistake people make, in my opinion, is looking at someone in crisis and asking themselves what's wrong with this person instead of what happened to this person that they got to this point. That's one of those things that changes the whole scope of how you deal with people. It truly does. And then like Dan was talking about, grouping up is we always want to remove the audience factor. And sometimes that, like Dan said, it's as simple as saying, hey man, why don't I got a great seat up here in the front of the bus. Why don't you come talk to me? Let's look out the window together. What real violence looks like is pig piles, people losing their fine motor control. It's just messy and fast and it usually involves way too many people. Whether it's the front end of an emergency department or the common area of a library in New York City. That's what it looks like.

[Dan Christensen]

People don't understand that, you know, above anger and rage and all that is something worse when it involves other people, when you start to get collective action.

[Amanda Ripley]

Basically when we're talking about a public conflict, more people can mean more problems. It may feel like there's strength in

[Host / Narrator]

numbers when you're confronting someone, but it

[Amanda Ripley]

also ratchets up the pressure and can escalate things.

[Matt Smith]

It's also, I want to say, not excusing their behavior. It's not. At no point are we saying it's okay to use racist language, it's okay to threaten someone. We're not saying that at all. We're just saying within that what's going to be more helpful in the moment is not trying to fix them and solve what's wrong with them. That doesn't really leave us anywhere helpful. But having that connection, having the professional courage to see them as a human and connect in that way. And that's just another articulation of the two step, you know, the rapport.

[Amanda Ripley]

First, the two step Matt just referred to is a simple method we learned about in our last episode. Basically, you want to earn rapport and then leverage that rapport. Acknowledge the person's struggle and then ask them what they need. But this is really hard to do in a split second, as Dan experienced on one of his shifts.

[Dan Christensen]

You know, this person was yelling at me, got off the back of the bus. I couldn't figure out why he was mad. He walked by the front. I said, hey, what happened? Because I thought maybe somebody did something to him while he was back there. And then he started yelling directly at me about me. And I went, wow, I must have done something. And he's walking down the street away from the bus in front, looking back at me, pointing at me and yelling. He walks right into a phone pole. Everybody on the bus roars with laughter. And he runs back on the bus and punches me.

[Host / Narrator]

Yes, he was humiliated.

[Dan Christensen]

To this day, I think I could have handled that better, because what could you reacted more empathic. I could have said, hey, are you hurt? As I look back, in retrospect, I think I had time to do something. There was, like, this couple second delay. I could see his brain working, and I could have swayed that. But, you know, oh, my God.

[Host / Narrator]

Guaranteed to explain.

[Dan Christensen]

Humiliation is as painful as striking some people.

[Host / Narrator]

That's why you don't want to use sarcasm, right? You don't want to do anything to

[Dan Christensen]

make people feel small. That was my experience in that area of. Of where it goes wrong, where you freeze, right? My. My fight flight or freeze. And I froze. I was fine.

[Host / Narrator]

What happened? He said he starts whaling.

[Dan Christensen]

No, no one moves. No one ever helps the driver.

[Host / Narrator]

So they could laugh, right? But they can't help.

[Dan Christensen]

He was punching at me, and I kept saying, what's happened? What are you doing? What are you doing? And he kept punching me, but he wasn't really connecting. And then he got one good kind of overhand hit on my head and hit my head against the window. And then he just walked away.

[Host / Narrator]

Now they drive in her.

[Dan Christensen]

So it's just a human issue you got to overcome, and it doesn't stick to you. People can call me any name in the book and makes no difference to me. When I get off work and my foot touches the parking lot, I'm laughing and whistling and singing and playing music, and it doesn't stick to you.

[Host / Narrator]

Wow. It's like you depersonalize. It's not about you.

[Dan Christensen]

Just like bumps on the road. I could get mad at potholes, but it wouldn't help.

[Host / Narrator]

I mean, I think a sense of humor helps. I saw you had a Tweet the other day. There are special risks you face as a TriMet bus driver. Yesterday, mine was a drunk guy on my bus who kept singing the Brady Bunch chorus over and over.

[Dan Christensen]

40 minutes of the Brady Bunch. The Brady Bunch.

[Host / Narrator]

Oh, my God. That's some mandatory overtime pay.

[Dan Christensen]

I stopped. I started laughing.

[Amanda Ripley]

Here's another universal tip. In any conflict, never humiliate anyone. It will make things worse. Matt learned this lesson early in his career when he worked with troubled teenagers in a wilderness therapy program.

[Matt Smith]

There was this one student that I worked with in wilderness, and he was struggling, and he, for whatever reason, was escalated and decided that he was going to dig a hole. But he had been, you know, shouting obscenities. He had been threatening behaviors. He had been throwing things at people, like rocks and sticks. So he kind of. Kind of spouts off, goes off about 20, 20 yards, and starts digging this hole. And literally digging a hole. But at one point, I look over, and I see half his body sticking out of the hole. And then another point, I look over, and I just see dirt flying out of this giant hole. I couldn't believe it. I was astonished. So I walk over, and he continued to, like, get away, get away. And I was just. I figured, all right, he's working off energy. He's digging a hole. He's not hurting anything. Let's let him work off some energy. He's taking space, you know, all good. And I said, hey, man, are you aware that you are digging yourself into a hole while you're digging a hole?

[Host / Narrator]

This is what I've been thinking the whole time. Yeah.

[Matt Smith]

Like the. And it was like, just literally. The metaphorical significance was too much for me not to say. But he immediately took. He had a Billy can he was digging with. He immediately took that Billy can and whipped it at me and hit me in the head with it. And I was like, you know what? That was my bad. And I walked away and gave him space. And it just. Honestly. So the takeaway was that in that moment, in my honest moment that I'm not proud of, like, I wasn't trying to antagonize that kid. I believe I made a great effort with him in that moment. I couldn't resist being right because he was. I couldn't resist being right. And so often when we see people in conflict, when we see the guy in the train shouting obscenities or racial slurs, we're just sure that we're right, and you probably are right. But where does that leave us? In crisis? I think we just need to let go of right or wrong. Because in that moment, I couldn't resist the urge to be right. And what happened? I got rocked in the face with a Billy can.

[Amanda Ripley]

Oh, man. Quick tip. And this is important. Let go of being right, at least in the midst of hot conflict. It's not worth it.

[Host / Narrator]

So you get hit in the face, beamed in the face with a metal pot. How did you then say that was my bad?

[Matt Smith]

Honestly, at that point in my life, I've been exposed to a tremendous amount of violence and behavioral aggression. And I think for some people, things get worse when you've been exposed to a lot of things. And for others, things slow down. So I have a strange ability. Like, I don't get angry. Like, when someone assaults me, things slow down for me. But other things, like benign things, tend to get under my skin. So in that moment, I took that Billy can as feedback.

[Host / Narrator]

I just realized, well, you didn't escalate, right? I mean, you didn't throw it back at him, right? No, I just said, when he's trapped in a hole.

[Matt Smith]

Yeah, I just. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, and it was, I just, like, I was, I, I knew that what I said was not helpful. I was standing outside the hole. He was standing in the hole. So just like we want to be on people's level when they're in crisis. So I, I, I took the Billy

[Dan Christensen]

Cannon's feedback and you, you reminded me there was a quote by a Sufi mystic. And this sounds strange to add in here, but it was. I'm going to butcher it somewhere beyond right thinking and wrong thinking is a garden and I'll meet you there. And I always. It was sort of a quote to get yourself out of the conflict of who's right and who's wrong.

[Host / Narrator]

I can't resist from jumping in here because I used that quote by Rumi to open my last book, High Conflict. Because I love it so much and

[Amanda Ripley]

I'm so glad that you like it too.

[Dan Christensen]

I love it. I love it.

[Host / Narrator]

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing. There is a field. Meet you there.

[Dan Christensen]

Yes.

[Amanda Ripley]

When we come back, we'll hear a few more nuggets of wisdom on how to meet people in that field somewhere beyond right and wrong. Don't go anywhere. To listen to how to with zero ads. Read unlimited articles on Slate.com and support all of our journalism. Sign up for Slate plus now. For a limited time only, you can get $25 off your first year. There are so many perks to joining Slate Plus. No ads on any Slate podcast. Plus you'll get an extra episode of our how to Do It Sex Advice podcast every Monday and a member exclusive segment on Political Gabfest every week. Again, if you sign up right now for a limited time, you'll get $25 off your first year. Just go to slate.com howtoplus Again, that's slate.com howtoplus this is Bethany Frankel from

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[Amanda Ripley]

We're back with crisis intervention expert Matt Smith and bus driver Dan Christensen.

[Host / Narrator]

We've talked a little bit about some tactics, some things you can do, not do. Probably worth pointing out that the ideal thing is to prevent conflict to begin with. Is there anything that you can do? Dan when you're driving the bus to lower the odds before a flare up

[Dan Christensen]

occurs, this seems almost cliche, but how you greet people on the bus matters.

[Matt Smith]

I couldn't agree more. Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Christensen]

Hi. Welcome aboard. I say welcome aboard like I'm a conductor of a welcome aboard. Come on in. You know, this one guy I saw the other day, he was dressed, it looked like the 70s. I'd lived through the 70s, so I knew, you know, he had these corduroy bell bottoms and that he didn't have a shirt, he had a vest. And I said, come on aboard the love bus. And he laughed so hard, he thought that was so funny. And people's initial experience on the bus sets a tone.

[Host / Narrator]

You're like seizing that opportunity every time someone.

[Dan Christensen]

I only have a second or two to do this, so I put on a little show at the start. It's like planting seeds in a garden. And that matters.

[Host / Narrator]

You never know when you're gonna need to harvest them, Right?

[Dan Christensen]

Yeah.

[Host / Narrator]

And they subconsciously or consciously, they remember, oh, that guy was a guy who said welcome aboard. Like he's a friendly. They consciously. Matt, I know you're dying to chime in here. What do you think about this?

[Matt Smith]

Yeah, I mean, I think where the rubber meets the road, I mean, for you, Dan, literally is that it's the interaction, conversation, exchange you had with someone two minutes ago, 15 minutes ago, a day ago, three days ago, that gives you the power or not to de escalate them. I think that's so true. And something we spend a lot of time looking at with training is positive or negative refraction. So the idea is that when you approach someone in crisis, their emotional brain is going to make a snap judgment about you as good or bad, safe, unsafe, positive or negative. Because that kind of thing has survival value. And that's what our emotions do for us. They navigate us through life, keep us away from danger and move us towards safety, which is connection with other people. So it's not what we say, it's how we say it. What we know, looking at the science behind this is that when someone's in crisis, they get often enough, they get louder messages from our body language and our facial expressions and the tone of our voice.

[Dan Christensen]

That's perfect. Yeah. Little things and you don't know what little cues you're sending out. Like, I notice there's a difference. If I say welcome aboard and if I'm smiling, even though they can't see my smile under the mask, they'll pick that up.

[Host / Narrator]

Yeah, yeah, you can hear it in the voice.

[Matt Smith]

And then that's sticky and that sticks with them and that carries you into. But if you have to go in, calm them down, that's quite helpful.

[Amanda Ripley]

Here's another surprising tip. Seize every opportunity to build rapport with strangers. You never know when you'll need it. In Dan's case, he's learned that humor works wonders.

[Dan Christensen]

Yeah, yeah. The person who drove my route before I did stopped me once and says, you're going to have a miserable time. And I'm like, why? I just got his route. And he goes, there's this group of five kids on this route that you'll get them all the time. They never pay. And my first thought was, I don't care. And so I started joking with them when they got on and I like, clutch my heart. And I went, oh, God, thank God you guys didn't pay. And they looked at me and I said, I heard about you. And they said, if they ever pay, you're going to die of a heart attack. And I like, Please, I'm 50 years old. And so I joked and joked about that. I'd like, oh, I touched my heart as I pulled up in my bus and I'd look at him with like scared eyes and they'd laugh. Guess what? They're paying now. They have passes and every time they get on, they go get ready for a heart attack. You know, but that, that humor built.

[Amanda Ripley]

Okay, okay. But that takes practice to build, right? I mean, Matt, are there ways that people try to show that they're sympathetic in crisis that backfire?

[Matt Smith]

We literally have a list of them. There's some funny examples.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Matt Smith]

So a good example. Something I think is helpful for me is empathic statements rarely begin with the words. At least I think that's a good example. We were talking about where. So the other. So the other night I was on the road traveling for training and our son Grayson had been up all night. And my wife has got the two and a half year old and we got a six week old at home and she's been up all night long. And the next morning we're checking in. And I came to this point in the conversation as I'm literally running into a training. Well, at least they slept better the night before. As soon as the words left my mouth, I couldn't bring it back. I couldn't call that back. And I think another one mistake people make is thinking empathy is agreement. That's another big one. Oh, yeah, you know, we can. If I can let go of that part and still have Empathy for someone, if they've done something bad or they're doing some behavior that's not okay and they're threatening someone else's safety, causing a big problem, whatever. I can have empathy for them without agreeing with what they're doing.

[Host / Narrator]

What about, you know, if someone's upset and they're, you know, really angry and you, is it helpful to sort of, you know, put your arm around them and show them you're on their team?

[Matt Smith]

Definitely not.

[Host / Narrator]

Okay.

[Matt Smith]

Definitely not. Honestly that we see that all the time. That is a very common thing that the other person wants to do. And I just saw this the other day. So I'm in line waiting to pick up a med at the grocery store, at the pharmacy, and there is a gal a few spots ahead of me, an older woman, and she's there having some issue with their men. Obviously I couldn't hear exactly what's going on, but I can tell by their non verbals that they're in a huff. And then the woman behind the counter, who I happen to know is a very nice, good person, she pointed and said, go sit down. That's a big mistake. You don't want to point because that signals aggression and communicates arousal and everyone that's looking at someone point. So that's triggering for people in crisis and then people off. When people see someone in crisis, they often want them to sit down. It gives them a false sense of security. But when someone's escalated and they're emotionally hijacked, that's the last thing they want to do because that's not conducive to running away or fighting, which is what people feel urged to do when they're escalated.

[Amanda Ripley]

The woman eventually sits down, Matt says, but she's stewing, just glaring at the pharmacist, clearly upset. So then another female pharmacist comes out from the back to try and calm her down, which seems like a nice thing to do, right? But she makes one big mistake.

[Matt Smith]

This woman kind of swoops in on the escalated woman's flank and grabs her arm. The woman immediately jumps and cocks her arm like she's going to punch. And in my experience, people often get hit when they do that. So when you touch someone when they're in crisis, that creates tremendous reactivity.

[Amanda Ripley]

This is another counterintuitive tip. Even though you have the best of intentions. No, never touch someone in crisis. Just because it feels right doesn't mean it is right.

[Dan Christensen]

I mean, it goes back to what I said. First, it's that confinement drives the reaction Upwards on the scale.

[Host / Narrator]

Yeah. It reminds me, I mean, we've been hearing a lot. Right. About better training around crisis de escalation for law enforcement. And we've certainly seen plenty of videos of, you know, violating some of these basic tenants. When police officers go to confinement really quickly. Right.

[Matt Smith]

Or escalate things, you know, a police officer with their current training is expected and coached to have a strong command presence and control the scene. And that tends to create a lot of that negative refraction that we talked about, which leads up to a lot of the conflict we see in diagnosing those videos. And so part of that is the practical limitations. Part of that is some policy work on the use of force continuum. And a big part of it I'm not. I don't feel the need to hold back in saying as a culture shift, there's been resistance to de escalation training because you have politicians and senators calling for de escalation when someone's pointing a gun at a police officer, or there's an imminent need for some kind of physical response because that police officer wants to make it home to their family. And we can encourage that by not saying de escalation is going to replace a safe response.

[Dan Christensen]

What if every time that person had encountered a police officer, they had a different type of encounter? Right. Instead of the authoritative in your face, they had a de escalation approach that made sure that resolved someone's human issues first. Then you don't get to the moment of criticality because it changes the script.

[Host / Narrator]

Right?

[Dan Christensen]

Right. It changes that script to, hey, I need this policeman to help solve this problem. And I've seen. I've seen changes in the last 15 years in the Portland police, for instance, in when they even talking to somebody who might seem out of control, they stand way back. They're not in your face, they're stand back. Their hands are on their bus. They're just like relaxed posture. The policemen actually have started to, I think, buy into some of this. And I've seen different approaches.

[Amanda Ripley]

I've seen this where I live too, in D.C. where there are over a dozen different police departments between the locals and the feds. And you can tell which departments seem to understand de escalation and which don't. There's a lot of variants, but hopefully that's changing. Which brings us back to where we started. Understanding how to defuse a crisis can really make the difference between life and death. But none of us are born knowing how to do it. That's why I'm so grateful to get to learn from people like Matt and Dan.

[Matt Smith]

You know, as from my perspective on this conversation, Dan, like I think we, I think there's a ton of common threads between what we're doing as, as a training provider and what you're doing driving your bus and, you know, keeping people safe.

[Dan Christensen]

You know what? I love knowing that I'm not alone, you know, fighting this fight and thinking this way. It's great to talk with you.

[Amanda Ripley]

I highly recommend following bus driver Dan on Twitter. We'll add a link to his account and to Matt's de escalation training program in the show notes. In the meantime, we want to know what you think of the advice you've heard in these two episodes about de escalating conflict. One thing we didn't get to is road rage and we want to hear your advice. What helps you keep your cool when other drivers do something infuriating? Any advice for what works or what definitely doesn't? Send us a [e-mail] or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001. That's also where you can send us other difficult problems you want help solving. Howto's executive producer is Derek John. Rosemary Belson produces the show. Our theme music is by Hannis Brown, remixed by Merritt Jacob. Our technical director, Charles Duhigg created the show. I'm Amanda Ripley. Thanks for thanks for listening.

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