In your family or group of friends, is there one person you look to in a panic or emergency situation you rely on to "come through"? Are you that person and if so, how do you keep yourself calm inside while being on the spot?
I guess it comes natyurally to me to start giving orders. I am not calm on the inside, or probably not. I am not thinking about my inside at all. I am completely focused on the situation, and all I see is what is and what ought to be done about it. “You go call the hospital You go get a blanket. You, hold his head.” Or “You shut down the disk drives, all of them. You look up the last backup. You call tech support.” I haven’t always given the right orders, but people jump to obey them anyway, and they’ve never made the situation worse. They keep us from going to pieces until somebody who actually knows what to do shows up. [Edit] If somebody who knows what to do is already there, I meekly obey.