In this episode of The Self Experiment, I sit down with Lance Burdett, former New Zealand Police crisis negotiator, to explore what happens to the human mind and identity under extreme pressure.

Drawing from more than two decades on the frontline, Lance shares what he learned from negotiating in life-and-death situations — not from an operational standpoint, but from a deeply human one. Together, they unpack how fear hijacks the brain, why staying calm is a skill rather than a personality trait, and how empathy and presence can shift even the most volatile moments.

The conversation also moves beyond the uniform. Lance opens up about the personal cost of sustained stress, the slow creep of burnout, and the moment he realised he needed to rebuild himself. He reflects on recovery, vulnerability, and how redefining strength became a turning point in his life.

This episode is an honest exploration of resilience, self-awareness, and what it means to remain human in moments that test us most — a reminder that the real work often begins after the crisis ends.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. warreninternational.com

But, but, but, yeah, I spent a lot of time overseas, you know, and she said to me once, you know, her mum died and I was in London and she said, where are you?

Why aren't you ever here when I need you?

And it broke my heart.

And it's time.

It's times like those when you go, is it.

Is it worth it?

It's not worth it.

Yeah, because you're helping everyone else.

But it's good for the cv.

Yeah, it is.

And then.

But you know your family and that means you probably just as much as everyone else does.

Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

You go home and I tell her just all the funny things that would happen, but I'd never tell her.

No, same.

All the shit things she said to me once when I.

Because I had depression, you know, caused depression, had been the job.

And she said, why don't you tell me that stuff?

And I said, well, I tell you what.

That I wasn't a man.

That I was, you know, I was falling apart.

I didn't know what was going on, that thoughts were coming into my head, that I had no idea what they were about.

That I felt like I was a loser, a failure.

What?

Do you want to talk about that, dear?

You want me talk about the.

The baby I got?

Do you want to talk about when I walked in with a gun to take a person down who just cut somebody out with a knife and they were sitting in a suitcase?

Should I tell you that?

Yeah, yeah.

She was always like, oh, it sounds like you have fun at work.

I'm like, well, not really.

Not really.

I don't.

I just want to just forget it, mate.

I'd see.

Yeah, and I could.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd come home and, yeah, she would just, like.

I didn't really tell her how I felt about work and how badly it was getting to me until the end.

Until I was like, I'm done with this.

Like, I can't.

Yeah, that's.

That's fine.

So you and I, the story's the same.

So I knew it was time to go because I was getting into trouble, like, really getting into trouble.

And under investigation, I did 22 years instead of 21, because at 21 you get your clasp, your good conduct, long service, good conduct.

And they delayed it by a year.

Yeah, right.

So I stayed for another year till I got it.

And then I said, see ya.

Because I was near the end, I was going to work and just being angry and I was like, I don't.

I can't I can't go out because I was angry at the.

At my, you know, at my offsiders.

Like, before I even left the station, I was just.

I was in a mood where I just, like, hopefully I just get to meet good people today.

But you really got told by my detective who was in crime Squad.

I said to her one night, night shift, why are you, you know, just jeans and that?

Because you always dress so well.

She said, because you keep getting us into fights.

Did I?

Sure.

Yeah.

You're an angry bastard at night.

It's time to go.

There are some of those ones where you, like, you.

You go to a job and you're like.

You see the other unit going, and you're like, okay, I need to be prepared for.

For what's happening.

Because a lot of people are just at their wits end and a lot of them are older sergeants who didn't speak up when.

When it was all happening.

Yeah.

And now it's not the cool thing to do just yet, but it's.

It's a bit more open to speak up.

But if you're struggling, that's a.

That is.

It has changed.

It's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

All right, let's go.

Good night, mate.

Welcome back to the Self Experiment podcast.

Today's guest is a former New Zealand police crisis negotiator who spent over two decades working in moments where fear, pressure and consequence collide.

Lance Burdett, welcome and thank you for joining me.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Yeah, it's great.

Rocky just over here at the moment, we're in a bit of a heat wave, so I apologise if I'm sweating and I need a break and have a drink and so forth.

There is just.

This is the first podcast since sort of what happened in Bondi, and I don't want to speak on it too much, but regardless of what your stance on religion and politics or guns are, what happened there was horrific.

I was just wondering, given your background, are you comfortable speaking about it from, like, a psychological and human perspective rather than an operational one?

Yeah.

So I work in the area of neuroscience these days, so human behavior.

So I work in human behavior and how the brain processes information.

So, in fact, I studied radicalization and I've got a master's in terrorism.

That's the only part I use.

It's Terrorism Safety and Security from Start Sturt University.

And so very happy to talk about all that stuff.

No problem.

So just from your perspective, why do acts like this in, like, everyday spaces affect Us like so deeply as a society because I think it's affected everyone over, over here a lot, a lot more than even I, I would have thought because when I heard it I was like, like, like I'm, it's kind to a point where you got to look at certain activities in the public and go is it worth going to like who's going to be there?

What's it for?

A lot of people I speak to are, are scared to go out in public.

Yeah.

What?

What?

Yeah, yeah.

So look, the worst things that, that happen to us are the unexpected.

So we had something very similar over here in Christchurch with the mosque shooting.

Right?

Now they come from nowhere and the first thing I say is people, why did, why didn't you know this was happening?

As a cop, why didn't you see this happening?

And the reason is because it's easier to join the dots post incident.

Right?

So start from the finality and go backwards.

That's the easy thing.

So the indicators are there.

Now human behavior is unusual in that inside our brain if we isolate ourself for whatever reason a, a chemical called tachynnin is produced.

And tachynnin causes fear and anxiety and long term, if we isolate ourself we feel isolated and long term it causes paranoia.

So it's not an excuse, that's a reason, right?

It's not an excuse for what paranoia people do.

But when we feel isolated, when we isolate ourselves, fear and anxiety starts.

So the brain reaches out to find like minded people.

Because we are a social species, we want to hang around, you know, some of us belong to clubs that we want to associate with, we want to be with people who, you know and as, as cops, most cops on off duty will be with other cops because that's where we feel comfortable, that's where we feel safe.

That's the known.

And so when people go off on a different tangent and isolate themselves.

Now I studied my, that 15 years ago radicalization and those days we had to have face to face contact.

So it was either in, in, in mosques and universities, gyms were another place where people associate and we had to speak with people to become fully radicalized.

Now our brain has changed so much that we can watch videos to become fully radicalized.

And so we start a form of self radicalization by watching things that engage with our brain, that give us dopamine, that give us that buzz, oh that's me.

And if we continue to do that, reality distorts and this becomes the new norm.

And it's a phenomena that Happens globally.

So people isolate themselves.

They feel disconnected from society, they don't, they're just alone essentially and looking for like minded things.

They go on straight onto YouTube or whatever it might be and watch some things go, yeah that's me, that's my tribe.

And they become so radicalized that you know, it takes five, 10 years to become de radicalized.

And so in that point when people get to the stage where they fully believe that they're doing good by going out and shooting people, it's a horrible thing.

And we look at from a rational perspective these are people who are irrational but believe they're rational.

So we have to start looking for early signs rather than let it happen when it hits like it's affected us in New Zealand too.

I can tell you the day it happened I couldn't believe it.

Oh, Christchurch all over again for us.

Right, so it's.

So we're with you.

There's a great, great picture going out of a Kiwi holding a kangaroo in their arms.

Right, so we're with you.

It's a terrible, terrible thing mate.

Is the feelings over there still one of fear in Christchurch do you know?

So I work a lot in Christchurch.

It's not so much fear now, it does disappear understanding that where it came from right now the same thing will happen again.

But you've had other things, you've had other major incidents, you know New South Wales, I remember that, that cafe.

Yeah.

So you know you've had other things, you've had, you've had Tasmania.

These things come and hit us out of nowhere and they, they really shock, shock everybody and shock everything.

But you do recover, right?

It does, it leaves a legacy.

So I've been asked now just in fact yesterday I arriving back in the country I was straight on a MAA and off to deal with a, a council I do, I work with, with city councils of wanting to know what to do for active shooter situations.

And so yeah that fear comes out but it does dissipate but it, it just sort of lingers there, you know and little noises will set people off and we're all affected differently.

Like those in the Jewish community are hugely affected because of the, it's, it's historical that, that and when things are historical when there's a lot of, you know, we go back to the, you know, World War II and all, all of that horrible stuff that happens.

So that becomes part of the psyche.

I work with the Juris Security group here in New Zealand as part of that and so it affects the communities, it affects More than it does the general population.

So the Jewish community will remember this and they will hurt for a long, long time.

In fact, many of them won't recover because of it and will become fearful, which is understandable.

I guess.

Australia being bigger, it's more likely.

But you were just saying before how you're working with councils about active shooters.

How is the mosque incident the catalyst for people being worried about active shooters in New Zealand or what's going on there?

Yeah, it's an interesting thing.

It brings it to the front, but we very quickly go back into.

So here it's motorcycle gangs, a criminal or also the motorcycles.

Now it's organized criminal gangs.

So it's gone wider.

Not many of them ride bikes anymore, do they?

No, they don't.

No.

That's why I just stopped and went, what, where does that come from?

No, it's organized crime.

So we've had the gang, the banning of gang patches over here, which has actually increased gang membership because it's now become more of a challenge.

And so it's more of a cult following.

It's become more of a. Yeah, that's this whole mystique around it.

Right.

And so that's, that's where the real fear is.

The lone wolves.

That, which is what happened in, you know, in Australia just recently, that lone wolf type situation.

You can, there are indicators of that and we tend to not see them.

So some of the indicators are people that completely change their behavior.

One of the biggest indicators for me is they start wearing camouflage now.

Not fashionable camouflage.

I mean they go to the, the surplus store and they buy military paraphernalia.

Never been in the military.

Right.

They start doing things like that.

That's, that's a sign that something, you know, they'll start carrying a knife in their belt for hunting.

Allegedly.

Right.

So just there's indicators that we've got and we're missing them, we're missing those people.

And I think what you and I are doing now, talking about it openly will help people to understand that they've always been there, they will always be there.

And we, we do get affected by it.

It does bring it to our psyche, to our attention more.

But that's okay and that's normal.

But realize that it's not who we are, we are not those people.

And so getting together with other like minded people, like, such as ourselves, such as you and I talking about it and being more open about how people feel about it, as to how we work through this very quickly, you've got to get out of Your head.

Nothing good happens in the dark.

And we hold things inside our head.

It exaggerates it.

It's called catastrophizing.

And so talking about how you feel, talking about how you were scared, talking about all that stuff.

Right.

So we must talk about emotions.

Now this is something that cops don't do.

You and I wouldn't have done it, no, not back in the day.

But because our brain has changed.

So our brains are now more hyper vigilant and more neuroplastic than they've ever been since lockdown.

So there's a whole lot of behaviors have come out since lockdown.

And this heightens the effect of these incidents for us because our amygdala is now enlarged.

And so a lot of people are having a dry mouth most of the day.

Headache won't go away.

Random thoughts about their past, mood swings over their day, feeling overwhelmed.

Panic attacks are really common at the moment.

Having trouble getting to sleep, waking up three or four times a night, having unusual dreams are actually a mashup of your memories.

Or you go to bed thinking of something and you dream it all night and wake up still and you don't even think you've slept, you know, because your brain didn't stop.

So these things are a direct correlation with lockdown.

So when we have incidents such as you've just had, what it does is make it even worse.

Because our brain is this hyper vigilant state that we're on, that we're all on.

And because of that, anger, aggression, if you've got any fragility, if you've been through anything in your life, right now it's at the forefront because of our new brain.

So understanding that and how you can control it and the best thing to control it is connection.

And I talk about, talk, read, write, so we can write things down.

That's great, gets it out of your head, but it doesn't help it.

We can read information that's only going to be depending on what we read.

It's either going to help or hinder.

The best thing you can do is talk.

Because when you talk with people, number one, it's out of your head.

Number two, you start to share experiences.

You start to realize that all of us are afraid, all of us are fearful.

And so you find that connection there.

And that's when oxytocin is produced.

But the biggest thing is we must talk about how we feel.

And that's a weird concept, particularly for men, because of the way men were wired.

Now it's changed now Very young.

So boys and girls think the same way now and they fact they talk very, very similar to what it once was, you know, and that's to do with access to everything.

Yeah.

Right.

So if we put all that together, we're in a perfect storm for these things.

And so this will be a long term process for people to go through after such an incident because of the way our brain is now wired.

Yeah.

I was speaking to someone the other day about how much information and access to the world kids have these days and how much more advanced they are in terms of knowledge.

And I think they're desensitized to a lot of things nowadays because of the access they have.

I just want to touch on.

Yep, sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, no, I think, I think you're right.

So the other thing that access to too much information because they, you know, the brain doesn't, we don't get logic until our mid-20s.

And because they don't have experiences also they don't have this whole range of I've been through this before type.

So everything's new for them.

And because they are now really hyperactive in their brain, you'll find that most of them, I mean most kids today have anxiety and, or on the spectrum.

Right.

And this is, there's a direct correlation again with the information in the brain.

We will get through this.

And I noticed that, you know, Australia's going through this big social experiment of banning social media.

It's a huge experiment to go through and one that those in the industry where I work see it as.

There's going to be a backlash at some point.

There is going to be repercussions for it.

You know, if it's that bad, it should be banned for everybody, not just kids.

Yeah.

Well, I think social media companies get fined, don't they?

Yeah, they do.

Yeah, they do.

For not doing the right, for not blocking it.

But you know, kids will find ways around that.

Exactly.

But if it's that bad for kids, then why, why should adults be able to, you know, because it's bad for adults too.

You get trapped in that rabbit hole.

Sometimes it causes radicalization.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do get trapped in that rabbit hole.

And no matter what the subject is, I'm just.

Sometimes you're just sitting there watching the same video over and over again for like half an hour.

You're like, what?

I just wasted all their time?

It's.

Exactly.

And that's what it's designed to do.

So we're born curious.

And the way I always say to People, if you see a sign on the door that says staff only, what do you want to do?

Most people want to go through the door because of the word only.

If you remove the word only and it just says staff, there's no challenge there.

There's no curiosity.

And so we know who's behind the door.

Staff.

And so it's that whole curiosity factor.

And once we start going down, you know, I read once where you might be, want to become a, you know, get into bike riding, maybe mountain biking, and, you know, within two or three videos, you're watching somebody on the edge of a cliff face.

And so it's to, it's to hold you there.

So the algorithms are designed like that to go straight to extremes, because we are wired to look at extremes to avoid it.

Does that make sense?

So we want to avoid these extreme situations, but the only way to avoid them is to look at them to see how extreme it is.

Because of the curiosity factor, media is the same.

So media will extrapolate the negative aspects of it.

And you won't find many written about the heroes, but if they write a story about a hero, as I've just seen, next thing, the negative stuff comes out, oh, this person's about to get deported.

And there's a whole lot of misinformation all of a sudden, starts as people want clickbait for their own.

And so then you get that coming into it, right?

We will get used to this.

Look, I'm old enough to know that when TVs came out, we were doing the same thing.

The reason why children didn't play outside when TV first arrived is because TV wasn't on till 6 o' clock at night.

But as soon as it was on during the daytime, we were there.

And when color TV came in, you know, we invented tv.

Dennis?

Yeah, so we couldn't.

So we could watch TV the whole time because it was this new.

And if you sit too close, you're going to end up with square eyes.

So we've had our time, and now it's another time.

We will adapt to it, but the onslaught is overwhelming at the moment.

So you add that to the mix and, you know, I've just written a book on anxiety, it's recently published, and so that's what's causing anxiety.

And the definition is worried thoughts.

So all of us are worrying more than ever before because our amygdala are now hypervigilant.

They've actually enlarged in size.

So the amygdala controls our start of fight or flight.

And so it's now larger.

So therefore we are all on this precipice of listening.

We're just anything that people say we're snapping at and we're not sleeping.

And it's all a direct effect of all of these things coming together for the perfect storm.

Yeah.

Well, also, with the advancement of AI and stuff, it's hard to know what online is true and what is not.

And like you said, there's a lot of misinformation happening about Bondi at the moment in regards to the gentleman who helped out and the police action and what.

What was actually going on there.

Over 20 years of you being in New Zealand, police would think that you've been to a lot of scary situations and incidences.

Was there ever one where you thought, when you got there as a negotiator, you thought in your.

Yourself, this is.

No matter what I do, this is not going to end well.

Well, that's a great.

That's the first time anyone's gone straight to it.

Yeah.

What a great question.

Yeah.

So it was called the Napier.

They called it the Napier Siege.

And this is where three police officers went to somebody's house on a cannabis warrant.

And one was shot dead and another was shot.

A detective was shot and injured, badly injured, and another neighbor was shot as well.

And this person was in a house.

And initially, when I was in the helicopter flying down, at that stage, I was the lead crisis negotiator.

So the negotiation team had been set up, the person was basically contained within their home.

And I was sort of thinking, oh, this will be over.

It's just another pig user or something like that, it's gone off.

But when I landed, there was just this feeling when you see military aircraft on the ground at the airport, the airport shut and you know what they're there for, right?

So they brought in APCs, they brought in all sorts of support, they brought in the Special Tactics Group from across New Zealand.

And you knew, I just knew then that something was going to happen.

And when we.

He wasn't answering the phone, all that.

And I just, for some reason when I got there, I just said, we need to set up a cell.

Because they were still working, the.

The team was still working in a truck, from a truck.

And I said, no, no, this is going to be a long one.

And then as it went through the night, I just, you know, no one sleeps.

And I thought, this is just going to go.

Nothing we do is going to really help.

But we did our best.

And, you know, luckily, as it turns out or unluckily, depending on which way you look at it.

For us, it was unlucky.

He took his own life, shot himself as a consequence of some of the things that we did as negotiators to try and break the deadlock because we were given a tight time frame because of the risk to population, to public, around.

Yeah.

So in those sorts of situations, you feel that you sort of drop back into just that automatic mode.

You know, you just turn up and you just go through it, but you go through the process.

And I remember saying to the two other commanders that were there, saying, look, let's just go back to our training.

Let's go back to the way we did things, let's go back to the basics and let's see what happens, because that's all you can do.

And we were pretty close to being successful by going back to those basics.

And that's what you rely on that you're training.

And I think you ask anybody, the first thing they do is they don't realize it until afterwards you go back to your training.

And so that was an incident where I really thought, um, initially it was going to be easy.

Um, and then when I got there and realized what was actually going on, it was going to be a, a no win situation for everyone.

Because that went for, did that go for three days or.

Yeah, it was three days.

Yeah, it went really two days, I think.

Yeah, overall, um, it was, but I think took three days because I had to clear the house and he'd put IEDs all around his property.

And so it took a long time for it to be, to be everything to be cleared up.

It was a hell of a thing at the time.

And I remember just thinking, this is just training, this is just training.

And I just, just keep thinking it.

And that's what, that's what it was to try and what can we do next?

And we tried everything.

We used everything.

In fact, the coroner in the inquest said, you know, it was an inevitable end, but congratulated police and particularly the negotiators for what was an outstanding job.

But just doing those things, you know, there's other little jobs that you turn up in and that you think, you know, I'm not sure how this is going to go, but that was the major one where I really thought, wow.

I mean, the most riskiest jobs are those where there's a kidnap situation.

So there's, there's two types.

There's a kidnapper and a hostage.

So a hostage situation, you're holding somebody Basically for ransom.

So those are actually safer because they need that hostage alive.

Kidnap situations, the person's got what they want.

So in kidnap situations, they are the ones that you're really thinking on your feet, and you have to dig deep in those because they've got what they want.

Now what's going to happen?

Nothing you do or say.

And if you threaten, it's going to be worse for the person who's been held captive.

So, you know, those sorts of things, they really do get you.

Get you thinking.

And I've really put them behind me simply because they just keep replaying.

Managed to put them on a certain box on the back of my brain and just leave it sitting there.

Yeah, it's one of those things where there's no point to sort of rehashing it in your brain, I guess.

It's.

It's done and it's.

It's in the past.

And I was speaking to someone the other day on one of the other podcasts about the power of now.

So the past and the future don't exist.

It's.

We have to live for today and right now.

Yeah, that's.

That's all part of that mindfulness.

Right.

Bringing you back to the moment.

So I just do a simple sigh.

You know, why don't we do it now for everybody?

If it's listening and you as well.

So it's everybody, take a big deep breath.

Go breathe in.

Quick sigh as hard as you can.

Now try and think of something.

The only two things you can think of is what you love dearly or food.

Right.

So that's it.

So that brings you back to the moment.

A sigh brings you back to the moment.

And it's, you know, Maslow, he nailed it.

Food, water, shelter, air, sleep.

If we go back to those basics of life when we're struggling, it will get us through stuff.

But a simple sigh clears your head of all thoughts, brings you to your prefrontal cortex.

It's got to do with the alveoli in our lungs, et cetera.

And so what it does is like turning the computer off and on again.

So sigh more.

You know, when you're feeling overwhelmed, take a big deep breath and sigh.

It just drops everything and it brings you back to that moment.

Do you have to be mindful of who's around, though?

I had someone sign around me the other day and I just had to walk out.

You're bringing me down, so that's an interesting.

Yeah, I was.

I sigh a lot and I was doing it.

And the reason I Found out about a sigh is I sit down every night after a big day and I'll watch a movie with my wife and I sigh.

And she said, you sigh every night.

Are you bored?

And I thought it was kind of funny to say.

Yeah, it's not funny apparently.

So rather than do that, all you do now and everyone can do this is breathe out as slowly as you can.

So start breathing out, keep breathing out and keep breathing out very slowly.

And now you'll be calm.

So when you breathe out, your heart rate goes down and your heart rate determines your head rate.

So that's the physiology of the body, the mechanics of the body.

The faster you breathe, the faster your heart, the faster you think.

So simply.

And when we get triggered by things, so we see something in the media, or we get triggered by things or we get taken back to our memory if you, we take, we tend to take a deep breath in which increases our heart rate.

And within that one pump we get adrenaline and cortisol.

Now it's the cortisol, a release of sugars that is causing all of those problems.

I said at the start around, you know, the headache, all of this sort of stuff, the mood swings and so by simply breathing out, you reverse fight or flight and you just breathe out slowly and then from then on you breathe in and out as slow as you can and you recover so much faster.

And so I wish I'd known this stuff when I was a cop, right?

So what I would do these days if I was a cop is what I'd say to everybody, right?

Get around, big deep breath, sigh.

Right, here's the game, this is what we're going to do.

Now control your breathing.

Nice and slow, off you go, right?

If you can slow your breathing down, you have a better chance of getting through things without an impact post incident.

And so the, the breathing is really important for our, for our well being.

You know, forget, forget the box breath and all that that's designed for snipers.

You know, unless you're a sniper, don't do the box breath.

And when you count, when you breathe, your brain stays engaged.

So breathe out and then breathe as slowly as you can in and out and you'll be in a much better place.

You know the old story, when in doubt, breathe out.

I worked as a peer support worker for VicPol and I actually learned it from the All Blacks and the New Zealand warriors about after, after big incident like that, telling everyone to take a deep breath in and just to carve the warriors.

Oh did you?

It was me who taught the warriors.

Yeah, that's why they get around and they do that big huddle.

Yeah.

And then they had Kieran Reed came in from the All Blacks to teach them some more.

And now, if I might respectfully say, warriors stop breathing.

They're over breathing now and because of that they're hyperventilating and their thoughts are racing.

So the sigh is where you stop.

You just sigh and then breathe as slowly as you can.

Don't over breathe.

There's a breathing exercise I do in my workshops at the very end of it, if you breathe in and out at six second intervals, which is the body's natural rhythm.

So what you do is you set your phone to beep or vibrate.

Just that one tap and you breathe in at the first beep and then you breathe out and you get into that flow of six seconds in, six seconds out.

It's really slow.

Once you get into that flow, after a minute just have it stop and continue with that flow of in and out.

It puts you into the alpha zone where you're aware you're awake, but your thoughts diminish.

And it's a great way to get to sleep.

And so that's all you have to do.

So when you start doing counting, what you're doing is actually bringing yourself to your prefrontal cortex.

Whereas if you get into the natural rhythm of the body, you go into the alpha state, which is where the brain can completely stops thinking, or you can't actually stop thinking, but, you know, that's basically where.

And it's fantastic.

So it's six seconds in, six seconds out.

So that's all we need to do and that's what we should be doing a lot more of.

And I do it when I actually, you know, because I've had to hold, I have to show the.

I have to look at my phone for the counter.

But I do the breathing in and out and I just say in, out.

And I do it and I do it, you know, three, three times a day.

Two or three times a day.

And it's so, you know, I just feel so much more relaxed these days.

Isn't it crazy how one of them.

First things.

Well, the first thing we learned to do this is the most important thing going through life.

And I was just talking before we started the podcast about Nigel Latter, who was one of New Zealand's leading psychologists and he had ran lots of TV shows.

And he passed recently with cancer, with a terrible cancer.

And he saw me once, we were on a gig together on the same Conference.

And an interesting for me fact was I got told explicitly three or four times in correspondence, do not swear at any stage.

So I don't swear on stage anyway.

And I watched Nigel latter get up and first few words out of his mouth.

I think the first two of the three words were, you know, one was the F bomb.

And you can imagine what the others were.

And I was like, oh, he didn't get the memo.

And he was absolutely engaging.

People were laughing.

Cause it was so natural for him to do it.

And then I got up and I did some of the breathing techniques.

And I caught up with him afterwards, and I've always admired him.

And he said to me, he said, I never thought about breathing.

He said, I did those breathing.

What are such simple techniques?

And you're right.

The first thing we ever do is learn to breathe.

And then we forget it.

Breathing controls our body.

Yeah.

It controls our thoughts.

It does everything.

You know, we're breathing too much through our mouth, as we now know.

And so it's changed our jawline, it's changed our nasal passages, you know, so we can.

It's very hard to go for a run and breathe through your nose.

But if we can learn to do more nose breathing, which is what we were born to do.

Did you ever do breathing while you're a negotiator or was there something else that sort of your internal signal that was like, I need to slow.

Yeah, it was.

So mine was really thinking about the process.

And rather than try and use, you know, oh, how can I use active listening skills?

I mean, no, I would stop it.

How can I be more natural?

Right.

So, you know, should I use an effective pause here?

Should I use a no, be natural and just slow.

You're breathing down now.

What I focus on is three steps.

What's happening right now?

How can I.

What happened immediately before it?

And then how can we get you out of here?

So I focus on that.

So I focus on the process which keeps me disconnected from the emotions.

So that's what I did then.

Which when you do that, believe it or not, slows your breathing.

So I was doing one without consciously while thinking about something else.

And it's only just now in the work that I do that I've realized that connection of if you focus on the process, it disconnects you from the emotions.

Therefore your breathing is slower.

It's the emotional stuff that makes our breathing faster.

Because of that social connection.

Yeah.

Just with that connection, what do you think?

Someone in crisis being truly listened to and having that Connection with a negotiator or anyone else.

What can that do for them?

That.

Nothing else.

It makes people feel connected, it makes them feel alive, it makes them give them hope.

It's all of those things, right?

So we feel hopeless and helpless.

I'd been there, I've had depression.

And I have to say I was very unwell.

I was in a place, in a bad, bad hole.

And it's.

So when we.

I started to have an.

I had an ideation, a suicidal ideation I thought of.

So I was standing at the photocopy and you know, photocopies are like.

And the police, they're just shit.

Yeah.

And it kept breaking down and I was getting, I was just like, oh, I'm over all of this.

And for some reason I looked out the window and my brain just had this thought, you've got to go higher.

And I realized that that's an ideation.

And I'd just become a crisis negotiator and learned about what ideations are.

You know, these thoughts of, here's a shortcut, here's a way out to stop the pain.

Here's a way to rest, right?

And that's what happens, right?

So whenever, whenever people, you know, take their own life, it's, it's, it's because of, they're in pain.

It's because they're in a.

In a world where the brain says, here's a way out, it's extreme fight or flight, right?

So they fought and fought and fought, and some of the fights are very quick.

And then it's, nah, here's a way out, here's the pain.

And so I guess just understanding that, how the brain works, it's a hell of a long journey back.

And then I started to explore why.

And that's where I got to where I am today by being selfish and finding out in my brain, why was I broken?

Why did I become different?

And the very first meeting I had with a psychologist, he said to me, you're human.

He said, you're a loving husband and father.

You've got something called accumulated stress disorder.

And so, you know, I did short term UC stuff I was working for, and then what they called the Crime Control Unit.

So plain clothes officers setting up stings, doing all sorts of real, you know, cool stuff.

And, you know, police aren't armed, but we were armed most of the time.

Gun down the back, just like you see TV down the back of the pants.

And then you go, it's just doing dumb stuff and not looking after myself and just to have somebody say, well, here's a diagnosis.

And by the way, you know, you're normal.

And just gave me such a feeling of, I'm not broken, I'm not a failure, I'm not weak, I'm human.

And I think that's what we need to remind ourselves.

We don't remind ourselves enough that we are human.

The word human means humane, right?

And so that's who we are.

And a lot of people actually block that these days.

They blocked that humanity to protect themselves.

And we can go back in time to something called stoicism.

It was a way of becoming more resilient.

There's a term, isn't it?

We call it coping skills.

It's a way of being able to take on life.

And it was actually the wrong thing because we must learn to feel and then acknowledge and express emotion.

It was taken away from us.

And so as somebody who grew up as a young boy, I watched.

I looked at a photo the other day.

I was a feature in a magazine, Woman's Weekly.

I'm sorry, you know, you made it.

Right.

I liked it.

I thought it was very cool.

Very good.

Lovely of them to say so and so.

Well, that's an institute in New Zealand, isn't it?

Women's Day?

Yeah.

Actually, a lawyer friend of mine at King's Council said, I just sent me a text saying, I just saw you in the.

Read you in the Woman's Weekly from my subscription.

I went, what?

And there was a photo of on my desk when I got home from being on the road.

And I said to my wife, what are these photos for?

They're all me as a young child, you know.

And I.

She said, oh, it's the Woman's Weekly wanted a photo of you as a young boy.

And so they.

I chose that one.

And it's me holding a pencil for a school, right?

And it was.

I was six years old and I looked at the photo, I went, that pen is in my right hand.

That pencil's in my right hand.

I'm left handed.

And at that point I remembered my first fear.

What had happened is I.

Cause I'm left handed.

I picked a pencil up and I sat at the desk.

And the teacher came up and grabbed the pencil and put it in my right hand and said, we all hold the pencil in our right hand without saying for the photo.

And I thought from that point on, I had to relearn how to write and do it with my right hand.

That was my little brain, right?

And so I just had this whole Shudder down my spine.

And so it showed me then that that was my first fear.

And so that's how we learn our fears, right?

So we have two fears.

When we're first born, we have a fear of falling and a fear of loud noises.

That's called self survival.

The species self survival.

And then we learn our fears.

And so all of us have different fears.

But the biggest fear that we then learn is until I was told, don't cry because I started to tear up.

No, you don't do that.

And that's what stoicism did, right?

So to become more, you know, put on that tough face, you know, drink that cup of cement, harden up all that stuff has destroyed humanity and has been harmful to us.

So being able to say I was scared, being able to say, you know, I shit myself, being able to say I hate being able to say things that, you know, I just, I can't do this.

Being able to say these things is what we need to do because it reduces the impact on our memory.

So our memory's held by two things.

It's held by repetition.

That's how we learn to do stuff or the emotion.

So our longest, strongest memories are because we were in our most emotional state, which as we were talking before, you and I, similar careers, we remember the bad because they were.

And we were highly emotional in those times, you know, I can't remember.

I got asked by somebody when I wrote my very first book on my police career.

I hope you're going to put some of those really funny stories we did when you first joined the job, when we're all together, because we're all quite young.

Most of the cops on my work, on my section were less than two years, so they hadn't.

Most of them hadn't even got their permanent appointment yet.

And so we're all.

While I was 35, young and dumb.

Yeah.

And I know we had good times, but I don't remember them, only remember the bad times.

So coming back to the point of what stoicism did, it took away that ability to share and connect with how we feel.

And then when somebody tells you how you feel, you validate them.

Yeah, I feel like that too.

Yeah, I was scared myself, you know, and so you and I have talked about a couple of things and already we validated each other by saying.

Yeah, I felt like that too.

It's that connection, right?

And so when you connect and you can share and you can be open.

Open about it, which the police are starting to get to, but society needs to do A bit more.

Certainly the police can do a lot more on that.

It just brings us together and we bring back that humanity to being human.

Speaking of getting back to being human, when you left police, were there parts of yourself that you realized you had neglected for years?

Oh, mate, lots.

You know, I'd lost myself.

I'd lost everything that I ever knew, everything I'd ever treasured.

I just.

I.

When I was a. I was a builder for.

For 20 years, and there was a group of.

There was 25 apprentices in this building company, and we got on like a house on fire.

We had a strike over here in the building industry, and so they put all their precious apprentices.

Can't strike.

So they put us all on one construction site for six months.

Boy, was that.

I'd hate the foreman.

Boy.

There was three foremen to look after us because we were just.

Blast.

There was no work done.

But we formed this really cool bond, and I'd gone away from that, you know, I had to reconnect with them, which took me back to where we were, and it completely changed my life.

I became so cynical.

I never trusted even my own family.

Right?

Everyone lies.

You only see two sides of humanity.

You see the bad and the victims, the bad and the sad and sometimes the mad.

Right?

And you see the worst of things, and you see things that no one should ever.

I mean, even ambulance officers say, boy, some of the stuff that you have got to put up with, and so you do lose yourself, a little part of you dies.

When you join the police, you can get it back.

It will come back, but it still stays there, right?

So when I'm doing podcasts like this, I'm taken back there and I remember another great question.

You know, you're coming at it from different angles to what others do.

Yeah, I lost a bit of Lance in the police.

How long did it take for you to feel yourself again?

Or.

Or was it the fact that you had to become someone new again?

Like, re.

Like reborn?

Yeah, let's.

I was.

I had to become me again.

But people wanted to hear the stories, right?

So I get.

I get back with my.

With my mates again.

I'm back with the apprentices.

And, you know, this is.

We're still.

We're still good friends today.

So that's.

That's 50 years we've been knocking around together, but they still want to know about the job.

You know, how did this go?

And, you know, what did you do here?

And you just want to forget all that stuff and go back, but you still do it.

How long did it take?

Well, writing my book was the start.

It's very cathartic and I know somebody who did exactly what I did, so I wrote a book and, you know, had it published.

But he wrote down everything in his career and didn't publish it just to get it out of his head.

So writing is very cathartic when you write stuff down.

And that was the start of it.

But look, it's.

And so I get asked oftentimes, can you put some of your anecdotes from the police?

Oh, yeah, no, I will, you know, and I do a keynote presentations.

I did these sorts of things.

Oh, yeah, no, I can.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I don't.

Oh, that was really good.

Yeah.

Well, I didn't put any anecdotes in, so I don't tell them that.

Yeah.

But they, they think it's there because that's what they expect from the cop.

Right.

And so, yeah, I, I don't know if you ever really get back to there.

I've spent two years rebuilding my life.

I, I did a diploma in positive psychology and well being through the Langley Institute.

It's in Australia.

Through Sue Langley and.

And that last.

This last year, I've been going through a whole process of finishing that and doing what I'll be teaching others.

And it really opened up.

So starting with that photograph and then coming through.

Understanding yourself will give you an insight into who you actually are.

Now I know who I am.

I'm somebody with ADHD and have the traits of OCD and high empathy.

Those are the two traits that people with ADHD have, which I've only just recently found out.

The tidy thing, I thought it was because my mom tidied and cleaned all the time.

No.

So ocd.

And so that's why a lot of people with ADHD cannot stand untidy desks and things.

I thought it was because I was just a neat freak and both my parents were military and I thought it was part of that.

But the thing that I did learn was that I'm an impasse.

So I can feel people.

I can feel.

And you know, a lot of cops have this and they don't know what it is.

So you walk into a domestic dispute or something like that and you just look at the kids, you go, oh, those poor children.

And you feel it.

You can tell when, when somebody's going to rack up.

Not from their body language.

You can feel it.

Right.

You just know.

People go, I just knew he was going to.

Well, how did you know So a lot of cops and a lot of first responders, particularly police and fire ambulance.

So those three have high empathy and some of them are empaths.

I was running a keynote for volunteer firefighters recently and there was over, you know, a thousand of them in the room.

I said, right, hands up.

Who can feel others emotions and can feel when the mood changes in this room, 90% easily put their hands up.

And I went right, let's start there.

Then I changed the whole, my whole presentation to let's go there.

Why do you do your job?

And when you understand that we hid this stuff, that we buried it, but we still.

What did I join the police for?

In my head it was to, I wanted to become a community cop, right, to do, make a bit of difference but really to have a bit of an easier lifestyle to be, have that certainty of job to have, you know, those sorts of things.

And then I become a crisis negotiator and sort of, oh, that's sort of changed things and, and, and now I know why I became a cop.

And that was to make a difference, not for anything else but to make a difference to people, to individuals, to those people I, I helped, not those people I locked up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think about all the people that would come back like a month or so later and say thank you and stuff and I could see their faces but don't ask me anyone that I arrested or anything because they all blended into one.

Yeah, that's it.

I could tell you when the point that I had had enough.

Looking back now, did you see any signs that your resilience was, was slipping?

You look back now and you think in hindsight.

So I was very lucky.

I got quite high in the police.

So in Australia it's called Chief Inspector.

I was a DI for a while and then became, they call it here a band 3.

They took the Chief Inspector rank away because it made the police look too top heavy.

That was the rationale.

So now we have a thousands of inspectors which really made it difficult when you turned up at a scene, right, an emergency scene.

So whenever the chief turned up you listened, right?

But not knowing who you are, unless they know you, then they won't listen.

And so yeah, I guess for me I just knew things weren't going well when I wasn't doing what I was doing.

It started the very first trigger was I went for a job at the police college, a role there.

And so the interviewer said to me they, I think they call them a director now, Commandant, as I was now on Them, but they're called directors now.

Said, so who are our customers at the college?

And I said, the public.

And he said, no, they're not.

They're the district commanders.

I went, well, you've lost it.

So I'm not one to hold back, right?

I speak my mind.

Said, no, they're not.

Who do they work for?

They work for the commissioner.

Who's the commissioner?

Work for the government.

I'll stop that.

It's the public, right?

So you lose that whole identity of what you're there to do.

And then, you know, I'm sitting in these meetings and I finished up in our Triple one course.

And so you're triple zero.

You're triple zero in the Police Triple zero center.

And I was saying, we need more staff, we need more staff, we need more staff.

And they were going, no.

And we were having people who were so dedicated to their job that they were having bladder infections because they felt like they couldn't even go to the bathroom.

And, you know, so I.

And I started speaking my mind.

And then they did these annual surveys.

And the first thing on the annual survey is, we're required to do this by the State Services Commission.

I'm like, well, there's a good way to start an engagement survey.

You're required to.

You don't want to.

And I said to an assistant commissioner, I said, you know, the way this whole thing's worded, it depends on the day.

Oh, no.

I said, well, this is the way I feel.

And he said to me, he used to quote, you know, one swallow does not make a summer.

I went, well, that sums up the police.

You're all just rhetoric, right?

And then I started speaking my mind too much.

And then I started getting into a bit of mischief and just.

You just know, right?

And even my wife, I said, look, I think I've come to the end.

And my wife said, I can see that.

And she encouraged me.

She said, you always like standing up in front of people talking, so why don't you start your own business?

And at 57, I resigned or retired.

The reason?

Retirement rather than resigned.

A retire makes you sound like, you know, you went out gracefully.

Yeah.

You're.

If you're saying you resign.

Oh, what, What.

What did you resign for?

Well, I retired, right.

And so people don't understand about pensions and things, right?

If you resign.

Oh, you shouldn't get a pension if you resign, it's my money.

Shut up.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, it really got to the point where I knew that time for L to go and and, you know, within a month, I'll tell you this, I drove into Auckland, where I worked at the Auckland Central Police Station.

And I drove past the building and I looked across and saw that the facade that was on, I went, what an ugly building.

And I looked up and saw that it was the police station.

So almost instantly, as soon as I left, there was a whole release of I'm back into the world.

Yeah.

It was the right time, you know.

You know when it's time to go.

Yeah.

Recently, like, I missed the members and the camaraderie, but they can keep everything else just with the politics inside the station.

And like I've learned, the police is not one.

If you're outspoken and not argumentative, but willing to stand up for yourself and for your members, it's.

Yep, definitely not one to.

You're not going to get promoted as fast.

Because like I was saying, I spoke to Keith Banks on one of the episodes and he was saying that the majority of like over here, senior sergeants and management, the management side of police, that's what they've worked towards.

So they don't understand.

They've barely spent any time operational and they understand the issues that are with the members and they are just black and white and this is what needs to happen.

Like, you are required to do this.

Instead of going, these are people, let's treat them as such instead of just sending them out there and just numbers.

Because that's all you become after a while.

It's just a number.

It is.

And when that happens, you end up with all sorts of slippage, operational slippage.

Right.

So cops start taking shortcuts and there's no.

Oh, yeah.

And then you get punished.

Yeah.

I remember when I first joined the police, the sergeant said to me, the instructor said, you've spent a lot of time to get in here.

We're going to spend the rest of your career trying to get rid of you.

Yeah.

And I was like, you can't say that.

That's the fifth hour and everyone's like, oh, what to do this for?

But he was right.

You know, you spend a lot.

So he said that.

All he was saying is, you watch what happens.

Right.

And you get sucked in.

The number of ex senior cops.

I've spoken to assistant commissioners, superintendents, after they've left the job, you know, two years after.

I say, when you look back, do you now see some of the things we did in the police as being wrong?

And one of the people who was the superintendent, he.

He was then joined something over here called the ipca, the Independent Police Conduct Authority.

And, and so he was investigating, you know, police officers and he was investigating police officers in the job.

And I, I said, you see?

He said, yeah, I can see now that some of the things we're told and some of the things we were, we had to do were wrong, but we believed it.

So they were for ideological reasons.

So when ideology comes in, it destroys ideology, destroys empathy.

And so a lot of the work that police does is ideologically because it's law.

That's been brought in by government.

And what are governments there for?

The ideologists.

Right.

They're not.

Very few governments are 100% for the people.

They want to get elected next time.

Yeah, they want to get elected.

That's what it's about, survival, getting into power.

And so, yeah, the government has a big influence in place and policing.

Yeah.

Over everything you've learned, especially with crisis negotiation.

What do you think one negotiation skill people need most in like relationships and work?

What's something that most people don't do that you've learned as a negotiator that would help them?

I think don't fix.

Help people help themselves.

Yeah, don't fix things.

Don't help people.

We help people too much.

Help them help themselves.

And the other thing is take your time.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Take your time and help people to help themselves.

That would be the biggest thing I'd say to people is, is be there, but show them the way and plant the seed and watch it grow.

Give them some form of control.

And you've done that in this podcast.

You've just every so often dropped little one liner type questions and watched it grow.

I was talking to someone yesterday about it and he asked me, how do you help, especially drug addicts and so forth.

How did I help them when I was in the place?

And I said I didn't because you'd give them options.

But really they need to want to help themselves because they're all adults and if I spend a lot of time helping them and they don't want it, it's not going to work anyway.

That's it.

No, that's exactly it.

And that's what crisis negotiated.

So I call it shake and take.

And that's what you do, right?

You shake them from out of where they are and then you take them for help and somebody else can help them.

But it's really about putting it back on them.

You know, psychologists do a great job at this and psychotherapists even better of showing people how they can work with what they have, and so they get them to help themselves and that we can learn a lot by that.

So that's our biggest mantra.

So hurting people hurt people.

So help them help themselves.

All right.

If someone listening today is sort of in their own quiet crisis, what would you want them to hear right now?

It too well shall pass.

Right.

And I say this to a lot of people.

You won't see it right now, but it's about one step at a time, working your way through it.

And I've said it, and I oftentimes will have somebody two or three years later send me a message and going, say, you were right, I did get through this.

At times it's bleak and it's horrible and it's hard, but just get out of bed.

That's it.

Don't do anything else.

Just get out of bed.

Don't make the bed.

No, just get out.

Just take and do these little small things and the slower you go, the easier it is.

We rush at things and we're trying to fix things.

Right.

It's just take your time and know that you will get through this.

I promise.

Before we wrap up, I'd love to end with this.

What is one sort of self experiment you'd put in the hands of the listeners something that they could try and improve their day?

Yeah, I go back to breathing just every so often, consciously breathe out just every so often.

Excuse me.

And then maybe, you know, then slow your breathing down.

We do have a, on our website, a document they can get on a lot of this that I've talked about.

It's called Under Sleep Tips.

So, you know, Warren International, if they go there, there's something called document called Sleep Tips.

It's free.

It's how to get a good night's sleep.

But a lot of this stuff is in there and the breathing techniques that I spoke about are in there as well.

And just take that moment to read through it.

I mean, it's 16 pages long.

It will put you to sleep.

But it's all based on neuroscience.

Medical professionals are giving it out for free to their patients these days, and I'm humbled by that.

But just take that one step.

Just take that one step now and watch what happens.

Every time you do something positive, you get oxytocin, sorry, dopamine.

And dopamine is a motivator to do another thing.

And is a motivator to do another thing.

But yeah, be as patient with yourself as you are with those around you.

We are our own worst Enemies, aren't we?

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

100%.

So warn international is the website.

Yeah.

W A R E ninternternational dot com.

What's the names of the books and where can people find them so you.

Can get them off my website?

We post into Australia, so websites probably.

And then I'll devalue it.

I'll sign it.

Yeah.

So the first one was behind the Tape, Life on the Police Frontline.

It was about some of the stuff that I did, but mainly around how my journey into depression and how it started.

And so a lot of people like to hear that story and there's just some graphic detail in there.

The second one was Dark side of the Dark side Of the Brain, and that's about.

Mainly around suicide and what happens there.

But it's got a lot of other stuff and how to, you know, stay in a good place.

And then the last one is Anxiety is a Worry.

It's a double entendre on the play, on the word anxiety.

Now, that took four years to write.

Uh, it's my best.

So all three of.

I've been very lucky.

All three of bestsellers, but that is the one that people are now using as a textbook.

Nice.

Again, thank you for your time.

Um, it's been a great talk.

I've really appreciated your time and jumping on this.

Um, so for all the listeners, again, as I always say, look out for yourself and look out for your people.

Probably see in the new year, it's going to have a bit.

Be a bit of a break with some guests lined up already.

So, Lance, again, thank you very much and I'll talk to you again.

Rock.

It's my pleasure.

And I do hope that we can get to chat again.

Have a great Christmas, mate.

Oh, definitely.

You too.

Cheers, Sam.