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WARN International provides consultancy and training in managing challenging situations to minimise

26/03/2026

Before you fall asleep tonight 💤💤

25/03/2026

Five years ago, I fell awkwardly and badly injured my shoulder, a double injury to my rotator cuff.

After the fall, my brain kept replaying the moment, sometimes even in dreams.

You might know that loop yourself - Why did this happen? What was I thinking? This is my fault.

When something negative happens, the brain automatically replays it to learn from it. It’s trying to protect us from it happening again.

Helpful in theory, damn uncomfortable in reality.

If the replay goes on too long, it can lead to acute stress and, at the extreme end, post-traumatic stress.

Post-surgery, I underwent physiotherapy. Physio is painful, tiring and necessary.

In my workshops, I always ask, “Who here has had physio?” Almost everyone has.

Then I point out, “So you’ve all had therapy then – physiotherapy.”

Why is mind therapy treated differently?

Physiotherapists get us talking about the injury, then apply pressure to the painful part to help it release and heal.

Psychologists do the same for emotional injuries; they help us release the emotion that’s been stuck.

Emotions must come out!

If we don’t express emotions, they don’t disappear; they build.

Talking helps the brain process the event so it can finally move forward.

I openly talk about the fall, the fear and the emotions that came with it. No hiding. No pretending.

And the flashbacks are easing.

Showing vulnerability also allows others to open up. Healing becomes something shared.

Talking about emotional pain should be as normal as talking about physical pain.

Seeing a counsellor or psychologist is no different from seeing a GP or physio; both help us recover.

Let’s normalise the conversation.

Let’s talk.

23/03/2026

I can't remember my first keynote presentation; it was all a blur. I paced the stage, going through a presentation by simply following the slides. Apparently, it went okay, but I couldn't tell.

I got off stage thinking, “How do people do this for a living?” And then the rush of adrenaline wore off, replaced by dopamine and endorphins, which left me feeling elated.

Having always challenged myself to overcome my fears, I saw it now as a challenge to continue keynote speaking alongside the workshops we were running for businesses.

We know now it is important to overcome our fears, or at least do our best to.

I had a fear of heights, which, ironically, led me to take up skydiving. While it didn’t cure my fear, it was an extreme experience that taught me a lot about myself.

Perhaps it was the near-death experience of hurtling towards earth when all you can think about is pulling the ripcord that brings clarity to every sense.

As a crisis negotiator, undertaking su***de interventions was another fear I had to overcome. How will I start the conversation? How will I keep the conversation going? What if I say the wrong thing?

What if they jump?

Fortunately, no one ever jumped. I again learned a great deal about myself, others, and how to engage in a conversation, no matter how intense it might be.

Keynote speaking hasn’t come naturally to me. Even after years of speaking, I still get butterflies before every keynote.

So why do I keep doing it?

Why do I keep putting myself up on stage under pressure? Why don't I just focus on presenting our workshops in a controlled environment?

It is the challenge to overcome my fears that motivates me.

My largest audience to date for a keynote was over 2000 people, where I was the opening address at a conference. I was told I was the opener just before going onstage. Awesome, that little rush of fear produced an amazing presentation.

These days, I am often asked to open or close a conference, which is truly an honour.

I also love the most difficult time for keynotes, the first speaker after lunch! I refer to that slot as the graveyard shift, as most people are recovering from lunch.

There was a time early on when I decided to stop being a keynote presenter. I viewed the nerves as stress rather than what they should have been – a means to be at my best and overcome the challenge.

As soon as I saw it differently, it became easier. Excitement and anxiety are processed in the same part of the brain and share the same physical symptoms. Perhaps I was simply seeing it wrong.

Whilst I still get nervous before every keynote, it is those nerves that keep me focused, at my best, and provide me with humility.

Stepping out of our comfort zone to overcome our fears is a powerful experience; seeing it differently can be even more powerful.

Let's talk!

19/03/2026

Let your smile change the world 🌏

18/03/2026

"Yet" carries a lot of weight because of its ability to transform a statement from finality to possibility, and from possibility to certainty.

The power of a word depends on its context and how it is used.

"Yet" is incredibly empowering for personal growth and overcoming our challenges.

"Yet" provides us with motivation when we are striving to achieve a goal. It suggests that while something hasn’t happened at this time, it still has the potential to happen.

“Yet” can turn a negative statement into a positive one, filled with optimism and hope. Rather than saying, "I can't get through this," we can add the word "yet" at the end: "I can't get through this, yet."

Adding "yet" to a statement can also shift our mindset from a fixed one to a growth one. It’s a reminder that we’re constantly evolving and that our current state is not our final destination.

The word "yet" is a great tool for keeping conversations positive and forward-looking.

You can use the word “yet” in many situations:
1. Self-improvement:
🧠 "I haven't learned to do this, yet."
🧠 "I can't solve this, yet."
🧠 “I haven’t got out of this rut, yet.”
🧠 "I am not where I want to be yet, but I'm working on it."

2. Encouragement to others:
🧠 "You haven't mastered this skill yet, but you're well on the way."
🧠 "We haven't reached our goal yet, but we're along the path."

3. Future Plans:
🧠 "I haven't been there yet, but it's on my list."
🧠 "I haven’t reached my full potential, yet”

4. Handling Workplace Challenges:
🧠 "I haven't figured out the solution yet, and I will."
🧠 "This project isn't complete; yet we are finding ways forward."

Adding the word "yet" to our vocabulary can truly make a difference in how we perceive our challenges. It turns the impossible into the possible, the unreachable into the reachable, the goal into an ongoing opportunity.

Success is not about what you can achieve right now; it's about the potential you haven't unlocked - yet.

Let’s talk!

16/03/2026

When grief comes, it doesn’t ask permission. We’re often told to stay strong, to hold it together, to be positive.

I believed that for years, until life taught me a deeper lesson: feelings don’t disappear when we ignore them; they just go quiet and go inward.

In my TEDx talk, I shared how suppressing emotions can pile stress onto the body and brain.

It can look like fatigue we can’t shake, irritability we can’t explain, or numbness that creeps into the best parts of our lives.

In grief, I’ve learned from two people I deeply respect: Dr Lucy Hone and Dr Denise Quinlan.

Their work doesn’t offer quick fixes. It offers something better – permission.

Permission to honour your pain and to keep living alongside it.

Denise facilitated my Diploma in Positive Psychology and Wellbeing; her presence modelled compassion in action.

I have admired Lucy’s work for many years, which I try to emulate – practical, kind and real.

There is no right way to grieve, only your way.

Some people speak. Some write. Some move, garden, pray, surf, build, sit quietly, or cry loudly.

The point isn’t to perform resilience; the point is to practice it.

As a family, we have been through tremendous grief, as have we all.

Sharing emotions hasn’t made the grief vanish. It has made room for love to keep breathing.

If you’re reading this in the thick of it, here’s what I hope you hear today:
❤️‍🩹 Your way of grieving is valid.
❤️‍🩹 You can let your feelings out slowly.
❤️‍🩹 You don’t have to be okay to be loved.
❤️‍🩹 Help is a strength, not a verdict.

If you have the capacity, check in on someone quietly carrying a heavy load. Not with solutions, just with presence. Ask one kind question and stay for the answer.

Thank you, Dr Lucy Hone and Dr Denise Quinlan, for your practical, compassionate wisdom.

And to anyone navigating loss, we are with you.

Let’s talk!

12/03/2026

You only need to be acccepted by yourself 🙏

11/03/2026

At school, I ridiculed people I knew were hurting.
As a teenager, I pushed away friends who got too close to me.
As an adult, I used alcohol as an excuse for erratic, irresponsible behaviour.

How many of us have looked back and wondered - why did I behave that way, why didn’t I care more, why didn’t I show compassion when it mattered most?

If I could go back, I’d choose to be kinder. To listen. To care. To help.

It all comes down to one word: empathy.

Empathy is what makes us human. It’s the bridge between ‘me’ and ‘you.’

It’s what turns judgment into understanding, distance into connection, and pain into healing.

Neuroscience tells us empathy is both wired into our brains and shaped by experience.

Deep inside, we have mirror neurons - tiny circuits that fire when we see someone else in pain, allowing us to feel a shadow of their experience.

Yet empathy isn’t automatic. It grows when we slow down, notice and choose to care. We must consciously activate it.

As children, we learn it from those around us. As adults, life humbles us as our own struggles teach us why compassion matters.

Empathy is a strength. The strength to feel someone else’s hurt without turning away.

I don’t always get it right, but I keep trying. For those I hurt. For those who hurt me. And for myself, because self-compassion is where empathy begins.

I wonder if you have ever looked back and wished you’d acted with more empathy. Or is it just me?!

Let’s talk!

10/03/2026

How many times have you said, "Why does this always happen to me?!"

As my dear departed Mum used to say, "It's not all about you, son".

She was right.

Often, things just happen for no particular reason. It is these adversities that make us who we are, not the adversity itself. In some ways, our response to these events is more important.

There is a saying that goes something like this: 'It's not how we fall, it's how we get back up again.'

I prefer to say, "It's not that we fell, it's that we got back up".

We can believe ourselves, or believe IN ourselves.

As we go through life and negative events happen, our brain places a marker in our memory as a point of reference for the future, mainly so we can avoid similar situations in the future. The problem is that the marker doesn't clarify the cause or how we got through the event; it simply records the part of the event where our emotion was at its highest.

Generally, we repeat our behaviours because our brain prefers to stick to patterns of behaviour, known as habits, which are based on neural pathways. These pathways are there to keep us safe.

Our brain is a dumb tool designed for simpler times, and although our world has developed, our brain hasn't kept pace. Sure, the brain has developed from the basic stem to one now that is more complex, yet the fundamentals remain since the earliest of times - fight, flight, or freeze.

We learn by doing, and until we have experienced something several times, we might not get things right on the first, second, or even third occasion.

Do we learn from our past, yes, but only if we go back and examine what took place to change it.

A simple technique is to start by looking for similarities:
👉 Write a list of the occasions where the same event has happened.
👉 Next, write down beside each event what was similar about each one and see if you can identify a common theme or single causal factor about them, apart from the fact that you are involved.

Was it a choice that you made, or were you drawn to the similarity for a reason? Was your judgment clouded by emotional attraction? Is there one common action that you can now learn from and change? This is how we learn: looking back, opening it up, and examining the events.

👉 To complete the process, and this is a very necessary part, look for the differences in each event. These are often more difficult to find because we are all consumed with the commonalities, the 'why me' factor.

It is the differences in each event that we realise it was not necessarily us that was the cause. It was the situation, the emotion, or it just ‘was'.

It is better to do this technique with someone else to provide perspective. Coming together with others makes us feel safer knowing that we are all very similar, knowing others have faced similar events, and knowing we are not alone.

It is what it is because it was what it was; it's what you do now that matters - I have this tattooed on my chest as a reminder.

Let's talk!

09/03/2026

You’d think that after years as the Lead Crisis Negotiator for the New Zealand Police, I’d have a brain wired for calm, clarity, and perfectly timed decision-making.

But here’s what I know - my brain can handle armed offenders, but give it a puddle and suddenly it wants to take annual leave.

A few years ago, I was driving home from Northland during Cyclone Gabrielle. Stay up there, it’s safer, I was told by my family. Ha, I’ve got this, I told myself.

Rain sideways, winds howling, trees doing yoga poses they were never designed for.

Ignore that, Google said it can get me home if I go this way, an idea from my dumb brain!

I came around a bend and drove into flooding across the road.

My professional crisis-trained mind said, “We can assess this calmly.”

My amygdala: “Send it.”

Not ideal, but if you go fast enough, the water will disperse, and another idea of my dumb brain.

I drove in, the car stalled instantly, so I went from “experienced crisis negotiator” to “man sitting motionless in a slowly floating car questioning all his life choices.”

I had to call Fire and Emergency New Zealand; I couldn’t open the door due to the water up to window height.

And here’s the best part: by the time they arrived, the water had receded so much that it looked like I’d parked slightly enthusiastically in a damp driveway.

They didn’t have to say anything, the look said it all: “Really? You needed rescuing? Here?”

I wanted to explain neuroscience - how the brain misjudges risks during sensory overload, and how the amygdala hijacks rational thinking.

But honestly, nothing excuses getting defeated by a puddle.

So, I just stood there, nodding, trying to look like someone who called emergency services for a situation that a particularly motivated duck could have walked through.

I was slightly comforted by the fact that I was saturated up to my waist as I got out of the car.

Upon reflection, maybe that’s the point of what happened to me, a reckoning of sorts to bring reality to my training.

We can train for decades, teach emotional regulation, understand human behaviour, and stay calm under real pressure.

Yet real life still finds a way to humble us.

If your brain ever overreacts to the wrong thing or fails to react to the right thing, trust me: you’re not alone.

Even crisis negotiators need rescuing sometimes. Mine just happened to be a puddle.

Let’s talk!

05/03/2026

If the world feels heavy, be a counterweight 🙏

04/03/2026

Possibly one of the biggest misconceptions about traumatic events is that we should be able to control our emotions in the moment.

Neuroscience shows the opposite. When something overwhelming happens, the brain takes over:
🧠 The amygdala, our threat detection centre, fires instantly, triggering an involuntary survival response.
🧠 The prefrontal cortex, the part we use to regulate emotions, temporarily shuts down.
🧠 Adrenaline and cortisol surge through the body, pushing us into fight, flight, freeze, or dissociation.

So whatever emotion you showed during the event – whether fear, numbness, confusion, or silence - wasn’t a choice.

Afterwards, the brain begins a different process:
🧠 The hippocampus struggles to organise the memory clearly, which is why things feel fragmented at first.
🧠 The stress system can stay active for days or weeks, affecting sleep, irritability, and concentration.
🧠 Biological markers like cortisol and inflammation can remain altered for months. Your body remembers the event long after your mind thinks it should be “over it.”

Expressing emotion afterwards is not only normal, but also healthy.

Research consistently shows that suppressing emotion keeps the survival system activated, while safe expression helps the brain re regulate and integrate the experience.

So, if you didn’t feel in control during the incident, that’s exactly how the human brain works.

If emotions surface days or weeks later, that’s recovery, not weakness.

If you’re still processing something months on, you’re not broken, you’re human.

I’ll share more neuroscience-backed tools for recovery in future posts.

Let me know what you’d like to see.

Let’s talk!

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Our Story

With 22 years policing experience at the highest level, Lance has expertise in responding to emergencies and communicating in challenging situations. Lance specialised in su***de intervention and on predicting violent behaviour in his 13 years as a crisis negotiator and instructor for the NZ Police.

While working at the 111 Emergency call centre, Lance's resiliency programme was adopted nationally and formed part of the mandatory training for all Police call centre staff. This led to the founding of WARN International, aimed to enable organisations to mitigate the effects of stress on their employees by enhancing communication skills, managing their safety & security, and by providing personal resilience coaching.