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Author Ben Sherwood, in his book ‘The Survivors Club (2009),’ reviewed life-threatening ordeals and looked for the ‘secrets’ and personality profiles of those who somehow survived horrendous events/accidents. One of his main points is that anyone who is now alive is already a survivor. All of us have experienced some extreme challenge(s) that we have meet and overcome and are still alive. This understanding that you have overcome life’s obstacles in the past can be a strong source of strength in the present when it comes time to deal with yet another dangerous situation. You survived your abusive parents, a bad illness, a terrible car accident—now you will survive getting lost/injured. During his research, Sherwood developed a large database of survivor tools and behaviors that resulted in defining five different Survivor Types.

The Survivor Profiler Quiz is available online at http://www.survivorprofiler.com/getcode/. After you complete the free quiz, you will receive your Survivor IQ that tells you what type of survivor you are, your top three Survival tools, and in-depth profiles of real-life survivors who match your profile. Knowing your strengths will also help you to work on your weaknesses; knowing the Survivor Type for the members in your hiking party will help you prepare for any group challenges.

Interesting test. My Profile is Fighter. My top three survivor tools are Resilience, Flow, and Tenacity. It's how I was raised and how I grew up. My bottom three aren't completely missing but aren't as strong as the other twelve tools. My bottom three tools are Faith, Hope and Empathy. The bottom line is to know your strengths and go with your strengths. I've survived a lot, still going through a lot and hope I never end up as a chapter in the Survivors Club book. The other six skills are Adaptability, Purpose, Love, Intelligence, Ingenuity and Instinct. One of my favorite books is Victor Frankl's "man's Search For Meaning" on his observations after surviving the Holocaust. "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." Victor Frankl

Enlightening book by Frankl. Those with goals and a purpose in life outside of the concentration camps were survivors. Those without anything to live for - did not. I remind myself often that I am the only one who can control my attitude, especially when the chips are down. Don't let others dictate how you feel. Easier said than done.

My wife's father survived being a slave laborer on the "Bridge on the River Kwai". (The real one, not the glamorized movie version.) He said the guys who made it were the younger guys who lived one day at a time. Whereas the older guys, who wondered "why me?", and thought about the future, were the ones who didn;t make it,

My uncle was second in line to go out of the tunnel in the real story of "The Great Escape." He never did want to talk much about it, but did fill in a few details about his time in prison camp, When they completed the tunnel and attempted their first escape, the first man out was shot dead and he retreated back through the tunnel to the "safety" of the camp. I truly wish I had more details or a journal or anything describing the real-life saga that inspired the movie. He did say the movie was relatively close to the actual events.

@paulhubbard
That would make an awsome book. My great uncle was in the Darbys Rangers in WWII. Robert W. Black wrote a very informative an interesting book, Rangers In World War II, that tells the stories of , well, Rangers in WWII.

Matter of fact, they wrote two books about it: "The Great Escape" by Paul Brickhill, and "The Wooden Horse", about an earlier escape attempt at the same camp. ;)