A Message for Preppers -- The best piece of gear is YOU!

Description

Although I'm not a prepper myself, I've heard from prepper friends that they're concerned it's becoming "all about gear". Here's how to forge the best piece of gear ever -- YOU.

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Tags: prepping,bushcraft

Video Transcription

some proper friends have told me that their concern that prepping has become all about fear gear is great but we all know the truth and that's it the most important piece of gear this video gives you actionable steps to make you into a more effective prepper hi there this one is for all of you Preppers out there or anybody that is concerned with being prepared in the event that we should experience some sort of social upheaval I will bet that 99% of the Preppers out there you're not trying to be prepared so that you can save your own butt you're concerned about family about friends about your community and you want to be able to serve those around you and to be not only an example of how to smoothly deal with a really crappy situation but you want to be able to be in a position to save lives to defend people if necessary to help them access resources today I'd like to cover some things that I think are really really essential and that have been forgotten by a lot of the proper community if this will make a really big difference in your ability to be prepared for negative situations I'd like to start this out by saying that I don't consider myself a proper I consider myself a real wild earth however I've consulted for prepping groups in the past and you look at my overall philosophy it's probably very much the same as yours if you're proper in the sense that I acknowledge that our social structure is probably more fragile than most of us think and I'm developing a skill set that would make me an asset if things got rough now having some good friends in the past that we're Preppers and again working with some propers in the past I know that there's a real concern with gear and and what can be sad to me is to see that this movement which has so much potential has been usurped in some big ways by people that just want to make money off of it and it usually happens through gear there's this illusion that if you have enough gear enough stored food enough guns enough ammunition whatever it is that you're going to be fine

but all of us know deep down right we know that the real thing that's going to make us prepared is up here in here it's going to be having courage the ability to function under stress the ability to creatively solve problems this is where we need to focus not saying gear is bad nothing wrong with having some stuff stocked up but that's the only thing we're focusing on or missing out on the most essential aspects of profit the first thing I'd like to cover in this video is something that some people might consider philosophical but I actually think that in a subtle way this is one of the most essential things that each of us looks up and assesses within ourselves before we move forward on our prepping journey because it is going to make all the difference in the world this is to understand whether you are being motivated by fear or you're being motivated by a healthy sense of responsibility now there are a lot of prepper publications out there and some of them are really focused on fear you're going to see them talking about how everything's going to fall apart next month look at the signs everything's going downhill always pointing out the signs making predictions now if you're in taking those sorts of articles then you are creating buying into this culture of fear now fear breeds reaction and when we are in reaction mode we behave in very predictable ways when I've talked to veterans they have said the warrior they want beside them is not the one who in a fearful situation just starts laying in and going into into a fear reaction they want the person that's clear-headed calm and a stressful situation can assess the situation respond appropriately you talk to MMA fighters you're going to say do they want to go up against the person that just spazzes out or do they want to go up against the person that is calm and collected and if they've been fighting in there for a while the ones I've talked to have said hey I don't want to go up against the person that's calm and collected right I want that person that I know I can hit them once or twice they're going to lose it and then they're going to react very very predictably they're easy to take down over the calm collected person it can take some blows they're still collected they're able to respond I don't know what's coming next that is a lot scarier to deal with so each of us must ask are we being influenced by media in such a way that we are motivated by fear and thus we are in reaction mode because if that's the case then if and when a negative situation does come upon us we have been training ourselves for years to have a fear generating stimulus and to react to it when we do that when the crap does hit the fan we're going to find ourselves doing the same thing and then we're going to be acting predictably that means we're easy to take advantage of and we're not going to be in service to anybody now if we can switch that around and this might mean not reading some of those fear generating publications if they're affecting you but really trying to switch it over inside of ourselves so that we are honor prepping journey in order to be there for other people in order to be a service store community we're doing it out of a sense of responsibility we do that then we're training our minds to respond and that's going to make a huge difference

in a crappie situation number two is emotional resilience and this one is vital it speeds right off of that last thing I was talking about which is are you going to react to a situation when things get crappy or are you going to respond intelligently creatively effectively this is the question we have to ask ourselves and our emotional resilience is the main tool it's going to give us the ability to be in response mode instead of reaction mode here's a challenge question for each of us and it's not going to be a fun one to answer probably when asking us to do is to look at our everyday life your work situation your marriage your family situation your friend situation do you find yourself losing your cool you find yourself dwelling in frustrations got a couple dealer's really going to the Wood tart here here

if we find ourselves falling apart in our everyday lives how are we going to possibly be resilient when things get crappy it's going to be really tough what I'm talking about here is the stress induction is teaching ourselves to respond when situations are really really negative right now the toughest thing we might be dealing with is a boss who's giving us crap or our marriage partner who comes home in a really sour mood these are optimal places for us to start to develop emotional resilience and seriously if we cannot be resilient in these situations we're not prepared mentally emotionally for dealing with crap hits the fan situation so this is our training ground our everyday lives and there's a lot of ways to develop emotional resilience look into it from meditation to cognitive mindfulness based cognitive therapy to just getting down and saying hey the next time that my wife or husband comes home in a sour mood I am NOT going to fall into frustration I'm not going to fall into stress I'm not going to be yelling back if we can start to develop calm strong emotional resilience that is going to be our most powerful tool for dealing with stressful situations all right this next one is going to be a challenge for a lot of us too that is the ability to sit still

with awareness for an extended period of time if you've played scenario games airsoft if you if you bet in the military you know there is a great advantage to being able to sit still with awareness for an extended period of time

the truth is the most of us because we're plugged into our gadgets we're so used to the mental stimulation most of us can't sit still with awareness for five minutes let alone for a few hours but if you can develop the ability to sit still and quiet for an extended period of time with awareness then you're developing a really really powerful ability whether it's hunting so I still have this deer walking by over here whether it's hunting whether it's trying to spy on a location whether it's trying to escape from someplace people may expect movement and running often they don't expect someone to be able to stop sit not move and still be aware of your surroundings

meditation sorry to say it is an awesome tool for this if you haven't been meditating it's tough to start up it's going to pay huge dividends because you're teaching yourself to do exactly this but we need to take it further than that we need to actually practice it especially in situations like the one I'm facing right now there's a lot of mosquitoes and bugs where it is ring where there's you know actively people looking for me and some sort of a scenario training game again and again I'm saying you need to train in real stressful situations not just in our living room sitting still great very very powerful tool but it also comes a point when we have to move that's where Fitness comes in now again this is a tough one because it requires physical training but if I have a 50 pound pack and it's filled with all kinds of awesome stuff and I put it on and I can only walk 200 yards uphill before I'm exhausted it doesn't do me much good so developing enough physical fitness that you can be of service to others now all of us have different physical gifts some of us have suffered injuries or health setbacks and so it doesn't mean that we all have to become Conan but it does mean that we have to do our best to keep ourselves as physically fit as possible for our body and our current lifestyle this might mean going to the gem muscular development and also endurance and stamina but if you are going to the gym or your training on the road do not forget that it is essential that we also train on terrain we're not training on terrain those skills that you develop that strength you develop in the gym that endurance you develop running down well a flat road it's not going to do you as much good as you think I know this when people come out here and they get on our ninja course and they might be super buff but they've only been training in the gym they cannot move their body over this stuff they're falling the camp climb trees it's it's the people who have trained on terrain that really really can function well in the real world which is what we see around us I've seen it with marathon runners too they they can go forever on the road in their running shoes you get out here and we're trying to go up and under and crawl leap over things they're exhausted in ten minutes they don't know what happened this is because again just like we have to train our emotional resilience in stressful situations we have to train our physical fitness on terrain and that means when you have your bug out bag you put it on your back that you're going to add an extra ten pound weight and make sure that you can you can hike miles I'll peel both ways right

but really to the best of your ability making sure that you're developing the highest level of physical fitness that you can and definitely trying to develop the strength and the stamina to be able to carry your bag for an extended period and throw somebody over your shoulder and carry them for an extended period not easy especially if we're more smaller like myself or we are you don't have a lot of weight on our bodies but there are ways we diet through exercise and make a huge difference this segues into talking about prescription drugs now they're tough one to look at but hey prepping is not easy right if you are on a prescription drug for any condition from depression to hard soil blood pressure medication whatever it is that is probably not something that you're going to have access to in a crappy situation sometimes it's not possible to get off these drugs but usually it is and your doctor won't always tell you about how lifestyle changes can make a huge difference

movement regular movement and exercise a super-clean diet

meditation mindfulness these things amp up make your immune system more intelligent and more resilient they can correct a lot of problems chronic problems that doctor might be saying knowing one choice here and that's to go take this prescription drug have a healthy sense of questioning that authority do your research ask other doctors their opinions and directly ask your doctor if you're on the prescription drug are there lifestyle changes I could make that could wean me off of this drug it's essential that we try to get off of these prescription drugs before a negative situation hit on the subject of drugs alcohol caffeine nicotine these are three legal readily available drugs that a lot of us are using and the problem with that is that if you are using a lot of caffeine and you're kind of dependent on it to get up in the morning then the first morning when you have to get up without that caffeine fix

you're going to be grotty you're going to be compromised and so think about that a little bit same with nicotine if you're using nicotine in some form and you're going to have to go off of it what's going to happen you're going to be dealing with all the mental food anguish of going off of that drug let's do with the withdrawal essentially and you're going to be compromised alcohol same thing if you're dependent on alcohol you go through the withdrawal going to be compromised now is the time to go with through withdrawal from these substances tomorrow get off of those things so that you are not going to be suffering from withdrawal in the event that a negative situation requires you are present in your service speaking of addictions let's talk about media we're in taking a lot of media watching The Evening News every night we're surfing the internet our mind gets used to being on a revved high cycle that media it's inducing fear teaching us to be in reaction mode that media keeps our mind revved up so that we're not able to sit still and be aware for an extended period of time and that media as withdrawal period when we get off of it just like nicotine alcohol caffeine it's okay to take some media but we need to do it consciously and intelligently if we're addicted to media and all the electricity goes off there's no more media available we're actually going to have a mental withdrawal period where our my mind wants that rev it's going to be seeking something out it's going to be distracted again we're going to be compromised so tomorrow's the day to begin with the media fast from media and that's one of the best ways to get off of it take a week off and after that week and try to introduce media very consciously back into your life that's the last thing I'd like to cover today before this video gets too long and that is the ability to fast food is in something that in a crappy situation often we just don't have time for food we don't have food available and we're going to make the choice to give our food to somebody who's in more need of it than ourselves in our culture few of us have gone even one day without food few of us have gone even one night without sleep developing the ability to go without sleep to go without food important skills don't overdo it with the sleep sleep is really vital to our overall health but once a year just say I'm waking up this morning and I'm not going to go to bed until tomorrow night and see if you can pull that one night with no sleep then go back to good healthy sleep patterns but developing that ability that teaches you to be able to function if sleep is not going to be coming and that's that's a very rare very real scenario in almost any negative situation that you can imagine there's probably going to be times when the sleep is not the thing to do sword

if we can so look up that adaptation right now most of us are sugar adapted that means if we go without even one meal we start to become compromised we get angry angry we a mind isn't quite quite right your body feels weak that's very typical of a sugar Death is human being and that is not functional in a crappy situation in crappy situation we very well may have to go for skipping a meal or two meal or whole day of food or two or three days of food who knows if you do some fasting you're going to find over time that it's easier than you think especially if you look up that adaptation and you learn how to fat adapt your body then skipping a meal you will not even notice it still be 100% fully functional if you have to skip a day or two days you're still going to be highly functional under those conditions it's important to actually fast to do it so you can learn what it feels like be prepared for it so you're not going to be again you're not going to be compromised in a situation where you don't have the same amount of food available as you do right now fad adaptation is the thing to look up learn how to do it do it now what your body is prepared alright that's all for today I hope that this is useful to some of you out in the prepping community who may be I mean I've heard whispers of this who maybe are just feeling a little bit frustrated with the direction that that prepping is going we need to reclaim prepping because when we start looking at elements like this here's what happens not only do we remove ourselves from the fantasy land of thinking that a backpack full of gear is going to make us into a superhero we move into the reality land of making ourselves as functional as possible so that when a negative situation heads we are better able to be of service to others

number two these things all then have benefits in our regular lives if you are developing emotional resilience in order to be prepared for a crappy situation but it also makes it so that you're no longer having arguments at home with your husband or wife you're no longer losing your temper with your children you're no longer pushed around by your boss who can easily just flip your switches then you've actually bettered your own life right here in the situation that we're in so maybe at some point something's going to happen where your skills will be called into service but if they're not skills you're developing they're functional right here right now they're making a difference in your life and in the lives of the people around you so that you are not only observers to people in that possible future scenario but your service to people right now if you found this video to be valuable please like it share it and in the comments below share your thoughts what are other important elements of prepping where do you feel like you are you've got these bases covered where do you feel like you're lacking what are some good strategies or tactics for developing some really ironclad abilities that are going to make a difference in a crappy situation what are your favorite stress induction scenario training methods share all that we can benefit from it together down in the comments below thank you much for watching we'll talk with you soon