Author: Mark Grobbelaar
One evening in December 1994 a life-threatening situation with a friend of mine was getting her washing off the passenger seat of her car when the door opened, a man put a knife to her throat and said, “Move over or I’ll kill you.” She moved over into the passenger seat, and even helped him […]
One evening in December 1994 a life-threatening situation with a friend of mine was getting her washing off the passenger seat of her car when the door opened, a man put a knife to her throat and said, “Move over or I’ll kill you.”
She moved over into the passenger seat, and even helped him start the car because the ignition was faulty.
They drove into town where they picked up a friend of his. They then drove to a secluded beach where they both raped her, slit her throat multiple times, disembowelled her and left her for dead.
ADVERTISING
The story of Alison, who survived this ordeal, shocked the nation, but it was this event that changed the course of my life.
After speaking to Alison about her ordeal, I wrote a thesis for my fifth-dan karate grading on “self-defence for women” because I realised that Alison had made the wrong choice. She just hadn’t known any better. She did not know she had choices and what they were. Had she known, she would have chosen a different course.
You need to decide what you are going to choose. Doing nothing (freezing) when you don’t know what else to do is very different to when you choose to do nothing, knowing all the options. I believe you will be able to live with your decision better.
I sent Alison a copy of my thesis and she called me and asked, “Why did I do nothing?”
I said, “Ali, you didn’t have a choice. You didn’t know all the options!”
She was a victim, and no one should ever blame a victim for what happens to them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from our choices, as Alison has. She has also said that if she lived her life again she would go through that again to be where she is today, something that I still find amazing.
There are only three things you can choose to do in a life-threatening situation: ONLY three!
Flight, fight or freeze.
The most important of these is always flight. Leave the situation if you can. Get away! Trust your gut. When something feels wrong, it is wrong. Leave!
Don’t go looking for what it is to prove yourself right.
If you can’t leave or you choose not to leave, there are only two things left: fight or do nothing.
The term “fighting” is a little confusing. During my INpowered sessions, I always ask: “How long does it take the average person to learn how to fight?”
The answers range from a few years to a long time … the answer, however, is that the average person will probably NEVER learn how to fight. Not properly, anyway. Fighting is an art and requires many hours of training and dedication – we are not talking about “brawling”, which every guy thinks he can do after a few cold ones.
Something I believe is key and which most self-defence practitioners or “Friss Chris Frikkies” as I like to call them, don’t seem to realise or tell you is that anything you do to a would-be attacker that does not immobilise him is going to more than likely make matters worse.
Or, as I like to say, “If it does not switch him off, it’s going to piss him off!”
Do you want to infuriate a person that is intent on hurting you anyway and has probably done it many times before? Of course not. You need to immobilise him.
So, fighting in a life-or-death situation when you are not highly trained is not a good idea.
Which is why I replace the word fight with immobilise or incapacitate. If you know one thing, one thing that you will never forget, that you know can immobilise anybody, you will have a choice that most people do not have – an option that could perhaps save your life.
I’ve had many people say they would rather do NOTHING and hopefully make it out alive, while others say they would rather DIE than just submit. There is no right answer here, unfortunately.
But how do you make that decision if you do not know all the options?
Choice is so powerful and is sometimes all we have. When someone stops you from leaving a situation that you feel is threatening, they have taken away one of your choices and you only have two left.
They say that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you choose to react to it.
Alison made the wrong choice that evening, and this is something I will discuss in a future column, but she also chose to live and she chose to turn what happened to her into a positive, and has gone on to touch thousands of lives with her story.
If it wasn’t for her decision that night, I would never have found my own path as the founder of INpowered.
They say the two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. The day Alison chose to live was the day she helped me find my why, and I know my life’s mission is to help you to understand that you always have a choice!
Contact Us at WeSpeak Global and follow us on Twitter
The articles, video and images embedded on these pages are from various speakers and talent.
These remain the property of its owner and are not affiliated with or endorsed by WeSpeak Global.
In organizational culture, there are two types of people: those who look for reasons to be offended, and those who look for ways to understand others. The former type tends to lash out at coworkers, saying cruel things in private or criticizing them in public. They seek revenge on their managers if they feel they […]
Until someone creates a way to accurately predict the future and Beyond Disruption, there is no way to prepare your business for every change that will come its way and beyond disruption. Whether it is a pandemic that changes the economic outlook, societal trends that change consumption patterns, or machinery or infrastructure that breaks down, […]
I first met Julie Faupel during a week-long personal growth retreat and learnt how to get Closer to Your Customer. The retreat required a total digital detox and abstinence of any conversation related to career, work or business. Julie and I became fast friends and for me personally, the retreat experience was transformational. Fortunately, the […]
Corporate motivational speakers for team building and leadership development. 1 Why corporate motivational speakers are needed now more than ever I am a corporate motivational speaker and my real job is to directly address the major factors contributing to an organization’s successes and failures. As I’ve spoken around the globe, to organizations across just about every […]
“I’m getting angry at myself just practicing these things and why Your Team Isn’t Listening !” The comment by a business owner in my leadership training session caught me off guard. When I asked him to explain, he responded with, “I know the value of listening, but I won’t take the time to do it […]
Before the pandemic, we saw a clear Qubit mindset trend in evolving away from binary thinking and extending our thinking to the endless possibilities between 1 and 0. Gender identity no longer has to correspond with the one ‘given’ at birth. Business profit could go hand in hand with improved human and societal justice. Embracing […]
If I am not like you, I tend to not like you…so it becomes an Us vs Them = toxic environment If I am like you, I tend to like you Us vs Them = toxic environment How can we get rid of unnecessary trash talk from the organization, like “We in production and […]
During my tenure as a vice president of human resources for a credit union in Maryland, I worked with how to manage a high performing employee and with two human resources generalists on my team. Both were good at their jobs; they each had completed training and certifications in HR. Yet one was exceptional—she had […]
Our Mission
© All rights reserved 2025. Created using VOXEL THEME
