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Public & community service

Emergency & first-response work

Calm, triage, trust, recovery, recurring system failures, and the invisible work between crises.

12 questions, 184 answers on the record, from 150 members. Every question is asked in FLAPSS wording — nobody answers as anybody else.

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Worth reading

What are you best at that nobody watching would notice?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1993–2020; Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit 1980–1993

I have followed that advice - with, I confess, occasional lapses not only at home, but in the places I have worked, even in relating to my colleagues at the Supreme Court.

Recorded · New York Law School Law Review (digitalcommons.nyls.edu) · 1999

Haruki Murakami

Novelist, short-story writer and translator

I want my readers to laugh sometimes. Many readers in Japan read my books on the train while commuting.

Recorded · The Paris Review · 2004

Keith Black

Neurosurgeon; chair of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

I’ve done almost 4,000 operations for brain tumors. I’m thinking of what’s going to happen ten or 12 steps before.

Recorded · American Academy of Achievement · 2001

Read all 26 →

Every question in this questionnaire

  1. What does staying calm require when other people are frightened or in danger? —
  2. How do you make a defensible choice when several urgent needs cannot all come first? —
  3. What are you best at that nobody watching would notice? 26
  4. What helps the public trust instructions during an emergency? —
  5. What is the biggest professional obstacle you have faced? 24
  6. What helps you return to ordinary life after a difficult shift or incident? —
  7. When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do? 23
  8. When you need counsel, who is the first person you call? 12
  9. Which emergencies recur because a preventable system failure remains unfixed? —
  10. How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? 69
  11. What are you unwilling to optimise? 30
  12. What does the public most misunderstand about the work between emergencies? —

Who has answered

Members with enough answers in this questionnaire to be worth arriving at — listed A–Z, not ranked by count.

  • Barack Obama

    44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008

    2 answers United States b. 1961

  • Bill Clinton

    42nd President of the United States, 1993–2001

    2 answers United States b. 1946

  • Brian Eno

    Composer, record producer and visual artist

    2 answers United Kingdom b. 1948

  • Cathy Freeman

    Australian sprinter, 1990–2003

    2 answers Australia b. 1973

  • Charlie Munger

    Vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, 1978–2023

    2 answers United States b. 1924

  • Chris Hoy

    British track cyclist, 1994–2013

    3 answers United Kingdom b. 1976

  • David Vélez

    Co-founder and chief executive of Nubank

    2 answers Colombia

  • DS
    Derek Sivers

    Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want

    2 answers United States

  • Edmund Hillary

    Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953

    3 answers New Zealand 1919–2008

  • FC
    Francis Collins

    American physician-scientist

    2 answers United States b. 1950

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