Teaching Others – Tuff Tactics

  • By Antoinette Tuff
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  • Posted Monday, March 25th, 2019

My speaking career has been an amazing journey. I started out recounting how all of the challenges in my life prepared me for a purpose to save more than 870 lives, but it has evolved into teaching others how to handle difficult situations based on the strategies, Tuff Tactics, that I used in convincing Michael Brandon Hill, a troubled young man to peacefully surrender his gun.

My Conversation in the Crosshairs presentation focuses on preparation as a key to success in a life-threatening or hostile situation. I use events of that fateful day to illustrate my Tuff Tactics, which include cautious compassion, clever confidence and taking control of the situation. It is hard to believe that I am one of the few individuals that survived a conversation in the crosshairs of an AK-47.  Last year I gave this presentation at the  Texas School Safety Center: Annual Texas School Safety Conference.

I am still humbled when I reread some of the coverage, including that on MSNBC http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/how-antoinette-tuff-was-trained-be-hero.

“She did all the things we try to teach negotiators,” said Clint van Zandt, former FBI profiler and hostage negotiator, on NewsNation Thursday. “She was a great ‘go-between,’ she identified with the aggressor, she offered help, she minimized what he had done, she helped develop a surrender ritual, she told him what to expect, and told the police what to expect, she offered love, said she was proud of him, she offered him a positive future–every one of those things is something we spend weeks teaching negotiators, and this lady did it intuitively.”

To learn more about my Conversation in the Crosshairs presentation, check out http://antoinettetuff.com/speaking/.