W.I.N. – Life’s Most Powerful Question

W.I.N. is a simple but powerful acronym used by the famous college football coach Lou Holtz. It stands for ‘What’s Important Now’? Holtz would remind his players at Notre Dame to ask themselves this question thirty five times a day; when they awakened in the morning, in class and study hall, in the weight room, on the practice field, on the sidelines during a game and when on the field during games.

As law enforcement professionals we need to take a lesson from Coach Holtz and ask ourselves this same question. Every day, in our personal and professional lives, we are faced with a number of choices and decisions – some more critical than others. Our responses to those choices (the decisions we make) can have a lasting impact on our health, relationships, careers and finances. In order for us to achieve excellence in our lives we must ask ourselves this simple, but powerful question throughout every day – What’s Important Now? Doing so forces us to focus on what is important and in the field allows us to prioritize tasks, threats and actions necessary to safely and effectively win each confrontation.

The simple act of asking this question causes us to briefly pause while our mind imagines the impact of the choices we have and rapidly brings to mind the most desirable one. When I say most desirable I do not mean the choice that will give us the most immediate gratification. Instead, I mean the choice that will have the most positive impact for us in our lives based on the foreseeable future. This one powerful question allows us to prioritize decisions, choices, actions, and events in our personal and professional lives. The reason What’s Important Now is such a powerful question is that although it is about the present it has a powerful impact on the future.

Eleanor Roosevelt had this to say about the importance of choices:

“One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”

These choices you face every day can vary greatly in difficulty and long-term implications.

Some should be relatively easy:

- Large or extra large coffee?
- Do you want room for cream in your coffee?
- Regular or premium gas?
- Do you make a healthy selection from the menu at the restaurant or do you make the unhealthy choice that you know you will regret later?
- Does this tie go with this shirt?
- White wine or red?
- Do you drive home after ‘a few drinks’ or do you ask for a ride or take a cab?
- Do you hit the snooze button repeatedly to get the extra 45 minutes of interrupted sleep or do you get up and work out to start our day off with energy and vitality?

Some get at the true core of: What’s Important to You in Life:

- Do you spend an hour on the couch watching mindless television or do you spend the hour in a personal development activity such as working out or reading? (One hour of reading a day equates to 364 hours, or 9 forty hour weeks of learning per year.)
- Do you listen to the radio in your vehicle while commuting or use the time to listen to educational and motivational CD’s? (Another opportunity for 364 hours of learning a year for the average person.)
- Do you, once again, go for a drink with the people from work at the end of the day or do you go home and spend time with your family?
- Do you take the opportunity to praise the good work and effort of co-workers or do you take credit for their work?
- Do you celebrate the successes in your life or do you focus on the failures?
- Do you do what is right or what is popular?
- Do you do what is right or what is expedient?
- Do you celebrate the strengths of your children and your significant other or do you focus on their mistakes and weaknesses?
- Do you focus on the strengths and talents of your co-workers and your subordinates or do you focus on their weaknesses and failures?
- Do you bring up a colleague’s mistake which was made in front of everyone at a meeting to embarrass he/she or do you address it in private to draw out the learning points from the experience?
- Do you take responsibility for your actions and decisions or do you look for someone and something to blame?

Others are more challenging and unique to the profession of law enforcement:

- Do you make 10 minutes a day to train your skills and tactics or do you only train when the department makes you? (10 minutes a day, 4 days a week, for 48 weeks a year equates to 32 hours of training a year.)
- Do you rush in to make the arrest, or wait until you have sufficient backup?
- Do you pursue or use other means to apprehend the suspect?
- Do you terminate the pursuit or stay in it?
- Is this a foot chase or a foot-surveillance?
- Do you talk or do you fight?
- Do you know when it is time to walk away and when it is time to stand and fight?
- Do you close the gap and use empty hand control, or maintain distance and use an intermediate weapon?
- Do you shoot or not?

As a law-enforcement professional, What’s Important Now may change from minute to minute or second to second. An officer may observe a motorist commit a traffic violation and decide to stop the driver and take enforcement action. W.I.N. issues at this point include intelligence gathering, threat assessment and determination of what additional resources, if any, are necessary. If the intelligence gathering and initial threat assessment determine that the officer will treat this as an operational traffic stop then the W.I.N. issues include determining when and where to initiate the stop and calling in its location and vehicle particulars. As the stop takes place W.I.N. involves a continual assessment of the environment, watching for changes in the behavior of the vehicle occupants, assessing environmental factors such as traffic and lighting, and determining the safest positioning of the police vehicle for the stop. Once the vehicle is stopped W.I.N. issues include: making a driver’s side or passenger side approach, continued environmental awareness, and watching for changes in behavior of the vehicle occupants. On the approach What’s Important Now are traffic, monitoring movement in the vehicle and positioning of the officer(s). In the majority of traffic stops the officers obtains the driver’s particulars, conducts the appropriate checks, determines enforcement actions and concludes the stop. There are of course a series of W.I.N. assessments that take place during this time.

If however, the contact officer is shot by the driver as he approaches the vehicle to obtain the driver’s particulars What’s Important Now changes in an instant from taking enforcement action to taking action to win the fight. Once the officer has won the fight W.I.N. includes moving to a sound tactical position, scanning for other immediate threats, calling for backup and medical assistance and self assessing and self treating wounds or injuries.

The principle What’s Important Now applies to every aspect of law enforcement including (but not limited to) officer safety, investigations, interviews, incident command, fitness, continuous learning, allocation of resources, time management, professionalism, how you treat members of the public, peers, superiors and subordinates, career development choices, and leadership. It also has powerful implications on our personal lives in the areas of: relationships, commitments, priorities, time management, and financial decisions – to name just a few.

As you go throughout your day, your career and your life let life’s most powerful question – What’s Important Now, guide your decisions and actions.

About the author:

Brian Willis is an internationally recognized professional speaker and trainer drawing on his 25 years of law enforcement experience as a member of the Calgary Police Service and 19 years of training experience to provide cutting edge training to law enforcement officers and trainers throughout North America. Brian is the president of Winning Mind Training, editor of the highly acclaimed book W.I.N.: Critical Issues in Training and Leading Warriors and a contributing writer for the book Warriors: On Living With Courage, Discipline and Honor (www.warriorspiritbooks.com). He is also a principle for the functional strength and fitness company Kick Ass Conditioning (www.kickassconditioning.com). Brian is a an Advisory Board Member for ILEETA and a member of NTOA, ITOA, IALEFI, the National Guild of Hypnotists and is a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) with the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers. Brian can be reached through his website at www.winningmindtraining.com.

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