Inside My Canoehead: Recent Episodes
Jeff - AKA Dr. D
A podcast about leading a more self-reliant, resilient life in the face of 21st century climate change, disasters, pandemics and government policy. A series-based thought provoking discussion on important topics, with humour, candour and facts. Your host Jeff is an Army veteran, holds an MA and PhD in Emergency Preparedness and is the Principal Researcher at Preparedness Labs Incorporated.
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Artificial intelligence is helping businesses move faster than ever, but what happens when productivity quietly becomes dependency?
This episode explores why the greatest operational risk may not be adopting AI, but allowing it to become embedded in critical business processes without governance, oversight, or human judgment.
In this episode, you'll learn why AI should be treated as business infrastructure rather than simply another software tool. The discussion examines how AI can shift and concentrate risk, create hidden operational dependencies, and gradually erode human judgment when organizations rely on it without a clear framework.
You'll also discover the importance of keeping humans at both the front and back end of AI-enabled processes, using secure environments where appropriate, conducting AI dependency mapping, and balancing automation with governance, redundancy, and human capability.
As AI becomes increasingly integrated into everyday operations, resilient organizations are distinguished by how intentionally they manage technology, maintain human oversight, and prepare for disruption before it occurs.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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AI is transforming business, but it may also be exposing the weaknesses already hidden inside your organization. Most leaders believe the challenge is adopting AI fast enough. I believe the real challenge is ensuring your business is resilient enough to use it safely.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, I explain why AI doesn't create operational problems, it amplifies the ones that already exist. Weak processes, poor governance, undocumented workflows, and single points of failure don't disappear with AI. They accelerate.
You'll discover:
Why your business doesn't have an AI problem, it has an operational resilience problem.
How AI magnifies weak processes and poor decision-making.
Why governance and "human-in-the-loop" oversight remain essential.
How resilient organizations gain a lasting competitive advantage while others chase the latest AI tools.
Practical steps founder-led businesses can take before expanding their use of artificial intelligence.
Technology will continue to evolve. Operational resilience, however, is a strategic capability that compounds over decades and enables businesses to adapt, recover, and grow through uncertainty.
If you're a founder, CEO, executive, or business owner looking to build a stronger, more resilient organization, subscribe to Mastering Risk for practical, evidence-based insights on operational resilience, business continuity, leadership, cyber risk, and preparedness.
What role do you think AI should play in your business? Let me know in the comments.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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Every entrepreneur hopes tomorrow will look a little better than today. The reality is that no one knows what the next disruption will be. It may be an economic downturn, a cyberattack, a supply chain failure, the loss of a key employee, new regulations, geopolitical instability, or simply an unexpected event that changes everything overnight.
The real question isn't what the disruption will be.
The question is whether your business is ready.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, I explore why small and medium-sized businesses are often the hardest hit during periods of uncertainty and, more importantly, why some organizations emerge stronger while others struggle to survive.
You'll learn:
• Why resilience has become one of the greatest competitive advantages in modern business
• The hidden danger of single points of failure inside growing companies
• How the "Roller Coaster Test" can quickly reveal weaknesses in your business
• Why documented systems outperform institutional memory when pressure mounts
• The practical habits resilient companies use to prepare before disruption occurs
This episode is not about fear, doom, or predicting the next crisis. It is about building confidence. When leaders understand their critical operations, identify key dependencies, and prepare their teams before disruption strikes, they make better decisions, respond faster, and earn greater trust from customers and employees alike.
If you're a founder, entrepreneur, executive, or business owner who wants to build a company that can withstand uncertainty while continuing to grow, this episode is for you.
Download our free resilience resources and learn more at:
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
If you enjoyed this episode, please Like, Subscribe, and share it with another business owner. Every week on Mastering Risk, we provide practical, evidence-based strategies to help organizations anticipate disruption, strengthen resilience, and build businesses prepared for whatever comes next.
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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Every entrepreneur expects challenges. Few expect the disruption that threatens the survival of their business.
Whether it's a cyberattack, the unexpected loss of a key employee, a supplier failure, an economic downturn, or a sudden operational crisis, the real question isn't whether disruption will happen, it's whether your business is prepared when it does.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, I break down the four practical steps I use to help organizations build genuine operational resilience. This isn't theoretical risk management or academic jargon. It's a straightforward framework designed for founders, solo entrepreneurs, and small and medium-sized businesses that need practical solutions they can implement immediately.
You'll learn:
• Why resilience begins with leadership, not software or consultants.
• How to identify the hidden single points of failure inside your business before they become expensive crises.
• A simple dependency mapping technique that reveals operational vulnerabilities most owners never see.
• Three practical strategies for reducing business risk without creating unnecessary complexity.
• Why regular "test and adjust" reviews can dramatically improve your confidence, decision-making, and ability to navigate uncertainty.
At Preparedness Labs, we believe resilience isn't about eliminating risk, it's about building the capability and confidence to keep moving forward when unexpected events occur.
If you're building a business, leading an organization, or responsible for protecting your operations against disruption, this episode will give you a practical process you can begin using today.
If you found value in this discussion, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment with the biggest operational risk facing your business, and share this episode with another entrepreneur who would benefit from strengthening their organization before the next disruption arrives.
Because resilient businesses aren't the ones that avoid disruption, they're the ones prepared to win despite it.
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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Most business owners think resilience means predicting the next crisis.
They’re wrong.
You can’t control the economy. You can’t control government policy, cybercriminals, supply chain disruptions, competitors, or the next reputational crisis.
But you can control how prepared your business is to respond.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, we strip away the complicated frameworks, endless spreadsheets, and risk management jargon to focus on a much simpler question:
What happens when something your business depends on suddenly stops working?
Every business operates within four critical risk domains:
Cyber Risk: protecting the technology, systems, data, and digital infrastructure your business depends on.
Operational Risk: identifying hidden dependencies, vulnerable suppliers, key personnel, and single points of failure that could disrupt your ability to deliver.
Strategic Risk: understanding the regulatory, economic, competitive, and political environment that can change the rules governing your business.
Reputational Risk: preparing for the event, mistake, controversy, or online crisis that can damage years of trust in a matter of hours.
The objective isn’t to eliminate risk.
That’s impossible.
The objective is to understand the business you’ve built, identify where it is vulnerable, and decide what you will do before disruption occurs.
Because the middle of a crisis is the worst possible time to start figuring out your response.
If you’re a founder, entrepreneur, CEO, or business leader who wants to protect revenue, maintain customer confidence, and build a company capable of growing despite disruption, this episode is for you.
Subscribe to Mastering Risk for practical, evidence-based strategies to help you build a stronger, more resilient business.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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Every founder has a growth strategy.
Far fewer have a survival strategy.
The truth is that businesses rarely fail because they lack great products or loyal customers. They fail because a disruption arrives before they are prepared to respond. Cyber attacks, supplier failures, tariffs, AI disruption, economic uncertainty, key employees leaving, technology outages, and unexpected crises all have one thing in common, they steal time.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. D explains why operational resilience may be the single greatest competitive advantage available to founder-led businesses and solo entrepreneurs. You'll discover why resilient companies recover faster, protect revenue, continue serving customers when competitors cannot, and often gain market share during periods of disruption.
You'll learn:
• Why resilience buys your business time when every second matters
• How resilient companies protect revenue during disruption
• The hidden competitive advantage most businesses completely overlook
• Why founders need systems that continue operating without them
• How operational resilience becomes a growth strategy, not simply an insurance policy
If you're a founder, CEO, entrepreneur, or executive responsible for protecting your business, this episode provides practical strategies you can begin implementing immediately.
Download the free Operational Resilience Guide linked below and start building a business that can absorb disruption, recover quickly, and continue growing in an increasingly unpredictable world.
If you found this episode valuable, please Like, Subscribe, and share it with another business owner who wants to build a stronger, more resilient company.
Free Resilience Download
https://preparednesslabs.ca/products/smb-risk-management-free-download
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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What separates the companies that survive disruption from those that never recover?
It's not technology.
It's not compliance.
It's not the size of your crisis management plan.
It's leadership.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, we explore a powerful but often overlooked reality: organizational resilience is a leadership function.
Every founder, CEO, and business owner will eventually face disruption. A cyber attack. A supply chain failure. A key software outage. A reputational crisis. An economic downturn. The question isn't whether disruption will occur, it's whether your organization is prepared to respond, adapt, and recover.
You'll discover why resilient organizations consistently outperform their competitors during periods of uncertainty, and why culture often matters more than procedures. We discuss how trust, empowerment, training, and decentralized decision-making create organizations that can absorb shocks and return to normal operations faster than their peers.
Inside this episode you'll learn:
• Why resilience begins at the leadership level
• How organizational culture determines crisis outcomes
• Why empowered employees are your first line of defence
• The dangers of over-reliance on plans, technology, and compliance frameworks
• How cyber, supply chain, strategic, and reputational risks all share a common solution
• Practical steps founders can take today to strengthen operational resilience
If you're a founder-led small or medium-sized business, this conversation may fundamentally change how you think about preparedness, risk management, and business continuity.
The organizations that recover fastest aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets.
They're the ones whose leaders invested in their people before the disruption occurred.
Because when disruption happens, culture will always outperform paperwork.
Free Download: SMB Risk Management
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DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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Risk management specialist Dr. Jeff Donaldson explores one of the most overlooked threats facing modern businesses: AI dependency.
As organizations rush to adopt AI tools, many are unknowingly creating new single points of failure. Customer service platforms, operational workflows, sales systems, cyber monitoring, and business intelligence functions are increasingly dependent on third-party AI providers that business owners neither control nor own.
If those systems fail, disappear, change pricing models, suffer outages, or become unavailable, could your business continue to operate?
You'll learn why resilience planning must keep pace with AI adoption, how dependency risk develops, and what practical steps small and medium-sized businesses can take to maintain continuity when critical systems are disrupted.
Key topics include:
• AI dependency and hidden operational risk
• Human-in-the-loop decision making
• Single points of failure in modern businesses
• Operational resilience for SMBs
• Cyber, operational, reputational, and strategic risk
• Building continuity plans that survive disruption
If you're a business owner, executive, entrepreneur, or risk professional, this episode will challenge the way you think about AI adoption and resilience.
For operational resilience training, threat intelligence, and risk management resources designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses, visit Preparednesslabs.ca.
Because the goal isn't avoiding disruption.
The goal is staying operational when disruption inevitably arrives.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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Most small business owners are moving fast—chasing revenue, managing teams, solving problems. But while you’re focused on growth, serious risks are quietly building inside your business and most founders never see them coming.
In this episode, we break down six hidden risks that can disrupt operations, damage revenue, or even shut your business down entirely often without warning. These aren’t obvious threats like market downturns or competition. These are the internal vulnerabilities that develop when your business is running at full speed.
From key person dependency where your entire operation relies on one individual to informal processes that only exist in someone’s head, these risks are far more common than most leaders realize.
We also dive into vendor concentration, where relying on a single supplier creates a fragile supply chain, and legal blind spots in contracts that leave your business exposed when things go wrong.
And perhaps most overlooked of all cyber complacency. Many small businesses believe they’re “too small to target,” when in reality, that’s exactly what makes them vulnerable.
Finally, we explore revenue concentration risk, where losing just one or two key clients could threaten your entire operation.
Individually, these risks may seem manageable. But together? They can compound into something far more dangerous.
The good news: most of these risks are preventable—with awareness, structure, and a small amount of consistent effort.
👉 Take 30 minutes this month to evaluate your business.
👉 Identify your blind spots.
👉 Strengthen what you’ve built.
Because the biggest threats to your business… are often the ones you don’t see.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
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What would really happen if your business stopped running for three full days?
Not slowed down. Not partially disrupted. Stopped.
In this episode, we break down the brutal reality of what unfolds inside a small or mid-sized business when operations come to a sudden halt, the confusion, the revenue drain, the reputational damage, and the tough leadership decisions that follow.
Most entrepreneurs believe they’d “figure it out.” The truth is far more complicated.
We walk through the first 72 hours of a real disruption, what employees experience, how customers react, and why reputational damage accelerates faster than you think. You’ll see how lost sales, frustrated clients, and shaken trust can turn a short outage into a long-term crisis.
But this episode doesn’t stop at the problem. You’ll learn practical, real-world steps to build resilience, protect revenue, and prepare your team to respond instead of react. From understanding your operational risks to building a realistic contingency strategy, we explain how to strengthen your business against the inevitable disruption.
This isn’t theory. This is what actually happens when things break, and what you can do about it.
If you run or support a small or mid-sized business, this episode is a must-watch.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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Most business owners don’t lose their companies in a dramatic collapse.
They lose them quietly… over 72 hours, while telling themselves they still have time.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, we break down the uncomfortable truth that disruptions don’t destroy businesses, delayed action does. Whether it’s a cyberattack, supply chain failure, or the loss of a key employee, the real threat isn’t the event itself, it’s your inability to keep operating when it hits.
Here’s the reality:
40% of businesses never reopen after a major disruption
Of those that do, 50% are gone within a year
And 91% experience disruptions every single quarter
So the question isn’t if your business will be tested.
It’s when and how fast you’ll collapse when it happens.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
Why “we’re too small” is the most dangerous belief in business
The hidden risk of relying on a single supplier or system
How cyber threats really take businesses down (it’s not what you think)
The overlooked danger of key-person dependency
A simple way to think about operational resilience that actually works
Most importantly, you’ll be forced to answer one critical question:
👉 If disruption hits your business tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM… what fails first?
Because if you don’t know the answer, your business is already at risk.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
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Most small business owners believe disruption is something that happens to other people.
It’s not.
According to real-world data, 91% of small businesses experience some form of disruption every quarter, from minor outages to full-scale cyber attacks.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, we break down real incidents from the past week, including telecom outages, ransomware events, and system failures, and extract the lessons most business owners miss.
This isn’t theory. This is what’s happening right now.
You’ll discover:
Why your business is more vulnerable than you think
The hidden single points of failure inside most SMB operations
How a 20-minute outage can expose a catastrophic weakness
Why automation and AI, without oversight, can create reputational risk overnight
Simple, practical ways to reduce impact when (not if) disruption happens
Here’s the reality:
You cannot prevent disruption.
But you can reduce the probability.
And you can dramatically reduce the damage.
The businesses that survive and grow are not the ones that avoid risk.
They’re the ones that prepare for it better than their competitors.
If you’re a founder, operator, or leader responsible for people, revenue, and continuity… this episode will change how you think about your business.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
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What would happen if your business suddenly stopped operating tonight?
A fire. A cyberattack. A supplier collapse. A platform outage.
Could you reopen tomorrow, or would everything grind to a halt?
In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. D breaks down a practical, no-nonsense framework that helps small and medium business owners create a simple business continuity plan in just 60 minutes.
Most continuity planning is designed for large enterprises. Consultants can charge $8,000–$12,000 and take months to build a formal program. But 95% of businesses don’t have the budget, the time, or the dedicated teams required for that approach.
This episode shows entrepreneurs a smarter alternative.
You’ll learn how to quickly identify your five critical business functions, map the people, software, suppliers, facilities, and data that support them, and design simple redundancies so your business can keep operating even when disruption strikes.
Instead of thick binders and theoretical frameworks, this episode focuses on practical resilience for real business owners.
Because disruption isn’t a hypothetical risk.
Every quarter, the vast majority of businesses experience some form of operational disruption: cyber incidents, supplier failures, infrastructure outages, or unexpected staff loss. The difference between companies that survive and those that fail is preparation.
Inside this episode you'll learn:
• The 5×5 dependency map that reveals your operational vulnerabilities
• How to identify single points of failure in your business
• Simple redundancy strategies for suppliers, platforms, and data
• Why monthly rehearsals are the secret to real resilience
• How to protect revenue and customer trust during disruptions
Risk can never be eliminated.
But with the right preparation, your business can recover faster than the disruption itself.
Subscribe for more episodes on risk, resilience, and preparedness for entrepreneurs.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
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The Gulf conflict is escalating fast, Strait of Hormuz disruptions, Houthi threats in the Red Sea, skyrocketing oil and shipping costs, and warnings of Iranian cyber retaliation against critical infrastructure.
For small and medium business owners, the real danger isn't the headlines... it's the downstream shocks already rippling through supply chains, prices, and operations.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, I break down the three major downstream risks hitting SMBs right now in the short to medium term (0–6 months):
Double Price Shocks, immediate spikes from logistics/oil chaos, followed by scarcity-driven increases as suppliers scramble. Landed costs are surging, don't get caught flat-footed.
Rising Cyber Warfare Threat — Playbooks from past conflicts are live. Expect more attacks on critical infrastructure (power, water, transport, comms) that your business depends on. One outage can cascade into disaster, map your vulnerabilities before it's too late.
The Shift to Friend-Shoring & Near-Shoring, Globalization's "free oceans" era is over. Political risk now trumps cheapest-per-unit. Diversify suppliers geographically and politically for resilience, not just cost.
I share battle-tested strategies: Build supplier redundancy (dual sources in different regions), smart safety stock (yes, even using self-storage), multi-internet backups, and full business mapping to spot cascading failures.
You can't control global events, but you can control your preparedness. Risk can't be zeroed out, but it can be mitigated so shocks don't become fatal.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
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In the wake of escalating conflict in the Gulf, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively disrupted, tankers damaged or stranded, insurance war-risk coverage cancelled, and Brent crude surging by $7+ in a single day; small and medium businesses are facing real, immediate threats to their supply chains, costs, and operations.
As a professor in disaster and emergency management with decades of research on small business risk preparedness, I break down 8 powerful, evidence-based risk controls you can implement right now to de-risk your business against global disruptions you can't control.
From diversifying suppliers with true geographic spread and building smart safety stock buffers (balancing lean and agile logistics) to other proven strategies that mitigate cyber, operational, strategic, and reputational risks, these controls help you navigate chaos, protect your employees and their families, maintain operations, and even gain a competitive edge.
Whether you run an Etsy shop, Shopify store, dry cleaner, auto repair business, or local restaurant chain, these practical steps are grounded in real-world evidence, not opinions or hype.
Key takeaways include:
Why single-region suppliers can halt your entire operation overnight
How safety stock thinking applies to civilian businesses
Building redundancy without breaking the bank
If global events like this Gulf crisis (echoing past Red Sea and shipping shocks) are keeping you up at night, this episode gives you actionable tools to build resilience today.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
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In a world of constant political upheaval, economic shocks, supply chain chaos, and unexpected disruptions, 91% of small businesses face a major hit every single quarter (Small Business Administration data).
It's not if you'll get punched, it's when. The real question: Will you just survive, or will you seize the massive opportunities that open up in the chaos?
Welcome to this eye-opening episode of the Preparedness Labs show with Dr. Jeff Donaldson, army veteran, disaster & emergency management professor, and founder/CEO of Preparedness Labs Incorporated.
Discover the game-changing power of a Fractional Chief Risk Officer (FRCO), expert-level risk, resilience, and business continuity guidance at a fraction of the cost of a full-time CRO or high-priced consultant.
Designed specifically for small and medium businesses (especially those under $1M in revenue, representing 95% of U.S. companies), this approach wraps your operation in a protective "blanket of insulation" against threats you can't control, while positioning you to leap ahead when competitors falter.
Dr. D breaks down:
-Why certainty is an illusion in today's volatile world
-The overlapping worlds of business continuity, enterprise risk management, supply chain resilience, crisis management & more
Your 3 real choices during disruption: Hold fast, retreat to safe harbor, or confidently expand market share
How Preparedness Labs makes elite risk strategies affordable and actionable for everyday entrepreneurs
Whether you're running a family-owned shop, a six-figure startup, or a five-figure side hustle, learn how to mitigate downside risks, amplify upside opportunities, and navigate uncertainty like a pro, without draining your budget.
Ready to stop reacting and start leading through chaos? Watch now and take the first step toward unbreakable business resilience.
Subscribe for weekly insights on risk, preparedness, and thriving in uncertain times.
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DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
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In today's unpredictable economy, plagued by cyber threats, supply chain disruptions, political shocks, reputational attacks, and regulatory surprises, most entrepreneurs operate without a real safety net.
The result? One bad event can wipe out years of hard work.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. Jeff Donaldson (PhD in Disaster & Emergency Management) reveals the three essential, mostly free systems every founder-led business (especially those under $1M in revenue) needs to implement immediately to mitigate downside risk and thrive amid chaos.
You'll learn:
Financial System: How to calculate your true runway, set up smart budgeting, map overhead + marketing spend, and secure a low-dependency line of credit so you can survive 3–6 months of zero revenue without panic.
Data Security Program: The simple 3-2-1 backup rule (3 copies, 2 media types, 1 off-site/air-gapped), how to identify truly critical data, and why practicing recovery is more valuable than any expensive software.
Content Production System: Build a repeatable, aggressive-patience machine to tell the world you exist, define your avatar, choose platforms where they live, leverage AI for scale (without replacing your voice), block time daily, and test for 6 months before pivoting.
These aren't theoretical consultant decks, they're battle-tested, low-to-no-cost actions Dr. D uses in his own five-figure businesses and teaches to founder-led companies just like yours.Whether you're just starting, running a side hustle, or scaling a six-figure operation, these three systems create resilience against cyber, operational, strategic, and reputational threats.
Visit Preparedness Labs: https://preparednesslabs.ca
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DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
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Tired of endless "scale to $1M in months" gurus promising overnight success? The data tells a different story: 95% of registered businesses never reach $1 million in annual revenue, and 70% never even break six figures (SBA stats).
As a disaster and emergency management professor and founder of Preparedness Labs Incorporated, Dr. Jeff Donaldson cuts through the hype on Mastering Risk.
In this episode, discover why chasing unicorn stories sets most entrepreneurs up for failure, and how real evidence-based risk management helps everyday small business owners (yes, including those proudly running profitable five-figure operations) thrive amid chaos.
You'll learn the straightforward Steps to Risk framework:
Step 1: Ask the brutal question: "What could realistically hurt my business?" (Think people, systems, environment, not aliens or nukes.)
Step 2: Scan the 4 Spheres of Risk every business faces: Cyber, Operational (your "home game"), Strategic (regulatory/industry shifts), and Reputational (cancel culture nightmares).
Step 3: Measure what actually matters with a simple risk matrix, no fancy software needed, just a whiteboard and 30 minutes a month.
Step 4: Mitigate smartly, focus on controls you control (insurance is just one tool; cyber coverage is often too expensive for smaller ops), plus rehearsals and building a true culture of risk awareness.
Whether you're running an Etsy shop, print-on-demand store, digital courses, SaaS, or solo consulting gig, this no-BS approach helps you identify threats, reduce likelihood and impact, and jump into uncertainty with confidence, not blind optimism.
Stop reacting to headlines. Start proactively protecting your dream.
Drop a comment:
What's the #1 thing keeping YOU up at night as a business owner?
What risk topics do you want covered next?
Like, subscribe, and hit the bell for more evidence-based insights for small and medium entrepreneurs. Let's master risk together.
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DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
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Send us Fan Mail
In these unpredictable times of multipolar tensions, shifting tariffs, AI disruption, and escalating cyber threats, small and medium business owners face more chaos than ever before.
If you're an entrepreneur, solo operator, or leading an SMB team, ignoring these dangers could cost you everything—revenue, employees, and your livelihood.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. Jeff Donaldson breaks down the 5 critical risks every small business must address in 2026, and delivers practical, step-by-step, mostly free strategies to mitigate them before it's too late.
You'll learn:
Why cyber is still the #1 global business risk and the dead-simple habits (no-click links, air-gapped backups, MFA, patch discipline) that protect you without big budgets.
The real AI danger isn't job loss, it's employees unknowingly handing your sensitive data to public tools. Discover how to use AI safely and powerfully inside controlled, paid systems.
How one supplier failure can shut you down overnight and the "10-contract" redundancy model to keep operations flowing no matter what.
Navigating explosive regulatory changes (EU AI rules, tariffs, privacy laws) by building upstream relationships for early warnings and strategic advantage.
Why your personal online behaviour is now your business reputation, and the crisis communication playbook to survive public backlash.
These aren't theoretical ideas. They're battle-tested tactics from supply chain logistics, cyber defence, and real-world SMB consulting at Preparedness Labs Incorporated.
Whether you're on the fence about entrepreneurship or fighting to keep your business thriving, this episode equips you to turn uncertainty into opportunity and seize market share while others scramble.
Visit preparednesslabs.ca for your FREE entrepreneur risk download, Fractional Chief Risk Officer services, and more tools to master risk in chaotic times.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
Why politics and business do not mix:
https://youtu.be/6ZHiAnydk0I?si=_JWuFFldozS1VLy_
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
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Send us Fan Mail
In today's hyper-polarized world, politics isn't just background noise, it's a direct threat (and hidden opportunity) to your small or medium-sized business.
One wrong post, one heated opinion, and you could alienate 40%+ of your customers overnight. But what if you could navigate the chaos, protect your brand, and actually turn political turbulence into competitive advantage?
In this powerful episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. Jeff Donaldson breaks down the minefield of online and global politics for SMB owners. Drawing from real-world evidence, disaster research, and decades of experience, he shares the four essential strategies that put you ahead of your peers:
1.) Map the true power landscape & discover who really holds influence over your business (it's rarely just the mayor or prime minister).
2.) Build strategic relationships & cultivate genuine social capital with decision-makers at every level, because people win the day, not plans.
3.) Claim the high ground, stay professional, neutral, and principle-driven publicly. Why broadcasting your politics is almost always a negative ROI.
4.) Turn politics into leverage, use early warnings, linking relationships, and ethical influence to shape regulations before they hurt you.
Whether you're in Canada, the U.S., Europe, or beyond, these free, time-tested tactics help you hold market share, reduce friction, and thrive amid uncertainty, without ever compromising your personal beliefs.
If you're a solo entrepreneur, growing team leader, or fractional risk pro ready to master disruption, this episode is your roadmap.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro: Politics as a Business Minefield
02:45 – Step 1: Chart the Real Power Landscape
08:20 – Step 2: Build Strategic Relationships
14:10 – Step 3: The High-Ground Neutral Strategy
19:30 – Step 4: Turn Politics into Leverage
25:00 – Recap & Final Thoughts
Drop a comment: What's your biggest political risk right now? Like, subscribe, and hit the bell for more no-BS risk mastery for SMBs.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us Fan Mail
In a world of fractured systems, economic uncertainty, and cascading disruptions, your family's safety shouldn't depend on money, government help, or expensive gear.
In this powerful episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. Jeff Donaldson (PhD in Disaster & Emergency Management) reveals how to prepare your family for 2026: completely free, using evidence-based strategies proven in real disasters from hurricanes to mega-earthquakes.
Forget the myth that preparedness requires a budget. The data shows zero economic barrier to real resilience. Discover the Trifecta of Preparedness Plans every family needs: Shelter-in-place for up to 14 days (backed by hard stats: 94% of critical infrastructure restores in 14 days)
Smart, no-cost evacuation with predetermined destinations and grab lists
Your "when I get fired" career pivot plan for the precarious job market ahead
Learn battle-tested secrets to:
Reunite your family without phones or internet
Build unbreakable social capital in your community (the #1 predictor of post-disaster success)
Master essential skills like first aid using only free resources
Whether you're an entrepreneur, small business owner, or just a concerned parent, this episode proves one thing: if your home base is strong, everything else follows.
Preparedness isn't a stockpile — it's a lifestyle.
Download the FREE 4-page Family Preparedness Primer: https://preparednesslabs.ca/products/4-step-guide-to-beginning-your-preparedness-journey
Watch the full Roadmap to Resilience video series on our YouTube channel, no email required: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7b7or5anKA&t=114s
The only barrier to preparedness is you, it's your choice, choose wisely
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As we kick off 2026, the world feels more unpredictable than ever, political shifts, economic pressures, tariffs, cyber threats, and global chaos are hitting small businesses hard.
If you're a solo entrepreneur, side hustler, or thinking about scaling (or even launching) your independent business, ignoring these forces could be costly.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. D breaks down the four critical risks every lean business owner must address right now, risks you can actually control in a world where almost everything else is out of your hands. You'll discover:
-Why cybersecurity is no longer optional. Simple, affordable steps (password managers, patches, 2FA, off-site backups) that prevent disaster (plus why managed service providers are a game-changer for small ops)
-How inflation, tariffs, and regulatory changes (like the new EU AI rules starting June 2026) are silently squeezing margins, and the KISS principle to stay compliant without overwhelm
-The hidden danger of overload, burnout, and scaling limits — how to automate ethically with AI (saving 12–16 hours/week), keep systems dead simple, and always leave white space in your calendar
-The surprising #4: You win in collectives, why solo grinding is a myth, and how building real human relationships, joining entrepreneur networks, and leveraging social capital will exponentially boost your success
This isn't theory, it's battle-tested advice from recent expert immersions, real-world experience, and years of studying risk as a professor and entrepreneur.
Whether you're questioning "Is now the time to launch?" or ready to take your business to the next level, watch this episode to gain clarity and confidence in turbulent times.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us Fan Mail
Tired of watching economic uncertainty chip away at your financial security while you sit on the sidelines? 2026 is shaping up to be even more unpredictable, but here’s the truth: you don’t have to be a victim of it.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, I break down exactly why NOW is the best time to launch a profitable side hustle, and the proven 6-step roadmap I personally used to build Preparedness Labs into a healthy five-figure business, starting with just a few hundred dollars and zero prior experience.
You’ll discover:
• How to spot a real, burning pain people are already begging to solve (skip this and you’ll waste years)
• The “pill vs. gym” secret that makes customers choose YOUR solution over everyone else’s
• How to pick a bulletproof name and secure it everywhere – without legal headaches
• My near-free logistics setup: federal incorporation, separate bank account, BuyMeACoffee + Stripe storefront – all done in days for under $300
• Where your ideal customers actually hang out online
• The “aggressive patience” advertising system that finally gets eyes on your offer (including the Rule of 100)This isn’t theory.
This is the exact playbook that took me from zero to consistent revenue, and it works whether you’re in Canada or anywhere else (just adapt the incorporation step to your country).
If you’ve ever thought “I should start something on the side” but felt overwhelmed, this episode removes every excuse. Watch now, take notes, and start building the income stream that protects your family no matter what 2026 throws at us.
Drop a comment: What pain are YOU thinking of solving with a side hustle?
Like + subscribe for weekly no-nonsense strategies on risk, preparedness, and wealth-building.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
Links:
Corporations Canada: https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/corporations-canada/en
BuyMeACoffee: https://buymeacoffee.com
Alex Hormozi – https://www.acquisition.com
Just do it. Your future self will thank you.
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What happens to your small business when the power goes out… and stays out for days or even weeks?
Most small business owners assume it’ll only be a minor inconvenience. But prolonged grid-down events cost the U.S. alone $90–150 billion every year, and small businesses get hit the hardest. With thin financial runways and total reliance on electricity, internet, and cell networks, many simply can’t survive extended outages.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. D breaks down the realistic, no-nonsense preparedness strategy he uses for his own fully digital small-to-medium business. You’ll discover the exact 5 things you can implement right now, most at zero cost, that will keep your revenue flowing even when the grid fails.
You’ll learn:
How to identify your true minimum viable operations (hint: for most digital businesses, it’s just your phone + power)
Simple, proven backup power solutions that don’t require storing barrels of fuel
Why community agreements and pre-planned mobility beat expensive generators every time
The critical training step 99% of owners skip (and why it’s the difference between surviving and collapsing)
Real-world case studies from Hurricane Sandy, Maria, and more that show what actually works
No apocalyptic fear-mongering, no “two years of food in the basement” nonsense, just practical, actionable steps tailored for urban entrepreneurs running real small businesses in 2026.
Whether you’re a solopreneur, Etsy seller, consultant, or home-based service provider, this episode gives you the roadmap to stay operational when everyone else is shut down.
Watch now and build the resilience your business deserves. Timestamps:
0:00 – Why small businesses are most vulnerable
3:15 – The critical infrastructure cascade
7:40 – Minimum viable power profile
12:20 – Backup power solutions that actually work
18:30 – Mobility & community redundancy
23:45 – The training step you can’t skip If you found this valuable, buy me a coffee (link below) to support ad-free, no-BS risk education for entrepreneurs.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
Support the Show:
https://buymeacoffee.com/masteringrisk
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2026
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us Fan Mail
Tired of setting ambitious goals every January… only to feel stressed, overwhelmed, or like a failure by March?
In this episode, I explain why traditional goal-setting often backfires for entrepreneurs and side-hustlers and why a repeatable system is the real secret to sustainable growth.
You’ll discover:
The critical difference between goals (stressful finish lines) and systems (daily actions that compound)
Why “aggressive patience” beats instant gratification every time
My exact 3-hour daily system (Monday–Friday) that generates 400+ pieces of social content per week—with almost zero decision fatigue.
How I create 2 long-form YouTube videos weekly, turn them into 280+ shorts automatically, plus daily handheld videos, AI-generated ads, LinkedIn posts, and targeted outreach.
Tools I actually use (Opus Pro, Holo.ai, Grok + ChatGPT + Perplexity) and budget-friendly alternatives.
How this system drives consistent growth without arbitrary subscriber targets or burnout.
Whether you’re building a side hustle, selling digital courses, coaching, or running a small business, this system is designed for real people with limited time; not multi-million-dollar influencers.Stop chasing unreachable targets in 2026. Start building a calm, repeatable process that grows your reach, impact, and income over time.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Why goals create unnecessary stress
02:15 – What a “system” really means for entrepreneurs
05:40 – My mission & why growth has no finish line
09:20 – The Rule of 100 + my 400-piece weekly target
13:45 – Step-by-step YouTube & shorts strategy
20:10 – LinkedIn system for B2B reach
25:30 – Aggressive patience explained
29:00 – How to build your own systemDrop a comment: Are you team Goals or team Systems in 2026? Let’s talk!Subscribe for proven, no-BS systems to thrive in chaos.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025 / 2026.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us Fan Mail
Why do 92% of New Year’s resolutions fail? Because most people never pause long enough to ask the real question: “Am I even on the right track?”
In this raw, no-BS 2025 year-in-review video, I walk you through the exact three-step process I’ve used to rebuild my health, turn my company profitable, and protect my sanity while the world went completely insane around me.
I’ll show you:
Why I threw out resolutions years ago and replaced them with one big, unbreakable annual goal
The “pause and ponder” method that forces brutal honesty about your actions, integrity, and reactions to chaos
How to build a crystal-clear life strategy across the only five areas that actually matter (personal, professional, leisure, family, community)
The visualization technique I use on a whiteboard to erase excuses and face the truth
Why I now set goals in complete silence (and why telling people actually hurts your progress)
My realistic, no-nonsense 2026 plan that splits the year in two for maximum focus and results
This isn’t fluffy motivation. It’s a self-confessional from a 55-year-old entrepreneur, former smoker, heavy drinker, who finally got serious about getting healthy.
If you’re tired of spinning your wheels, beating yourself up, or letting external chaos derail your life, this video will give you a simple, repeatable framework to reflect, reset, and actually move forward.
Watch it all the way through, grab a notebook, and try the process yourself. I promise it will hit differently when you’re brutally honest with yourself.
Free strategy guides & more resources: https://www.preparednesslabs.ca
Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1046719
Let’s make 2026 the year you stop wishing and start winning.
Support the show
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Send us Fan Mail
In this eye-opening episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. D(Jeff) reveals the brutal truth most new entrepreneurs never hear: trust isn’t assumed, it’s earned, and without it, no one buys from you.
After losing $28,000 and failing twice, Jeff rebuilt his business into a profitable 5-figure company using just four powerful trust-building principles. These are the same steps that turn skeptical strangers into loyal customers online, even if you’re brand new on the internet.
You’ll learn:
- Why being “predictably reliable” beats flashy marketing every time
- How to show your work (and your failures) to instantly build credibility
- The simple way to borrow trust while you earn it through beta testing
- Why speaking directly to your ideal customer in their language is non-negotiable
Jeff breaks down real-world examples from his own journey, from wasting tens of thousands to finally hitting consistent revenue, and shares the evidence-based strategies that actually work in 2025’s noisy online world.
Whether you’re launching a side hustle, an Etsy store, a digital product, or just trying to get noticed on YouTube/TikTok/X, these four steps are the difference between being ignored and being trusted.
Ready to stop struggling and start building real trust that converts?
Watch the full episode now. Then head to www.preparednesslabs.ca for free tools, resources, and the exact digital products Jeff uses to run his business.
Drop a comment: What’s the biggest trust hurdle you’re facing online right now? I read every single one.
Website → www.preparednesslabs.ca
Thanks for watching — let’s build businesses people actually trust.
Support the show
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Send us Fan Mail
Are you unknowingly setting your business up for failure?
In this eye-opening episode, Dr. D reveals the Top 6 Preparedness Mistakes that most entrepreneurs make—and exactly how to fix them before disaster strikes.You’ll discover why 91% of small and medium businesses face major disruptions every single quarter (U.S. Small Business Administration stat), yet most owners are still “winging it” when crisis hits.
Here are the 6 critical mistakes covered:
No formal business continuity plan
Inadequate cybersecurity measures and training
Poor cash flow management with zero runway
Over-reliance on a single supplier or logistics source
Zero data backups or redundancy
Buying the wrong (or no) insurance
The best part? The first five fixes are completely free—they just require a little education and effort. Dr. D shares the exact strategies he uses at Preparedness Labs Incorporated (a proud five-figure business) to stay protected, including simple password rules, update habits, supplier backup systems, air-gapped data storage, and more.
Stop treating insurance as an expense, learn why it’s your ultimate investment and how to get the coverage you actually need. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, startup founder, or running a growing small business, this episode could save you from financial ruin.
Free Resource Mentioned: Download the 7-8 page Risk Management Strategy Guide at https://preparednesslabs.ca (completely free under “Free Strategy Guides”).
Don’t wait for the bad day to hit—watch now and start protecting what you’ve built. Subscribe for weekly insights on risk management, business resilience, and real-world preparedness for entrepreneurs.
Hit the bell so you never miss an episode.
Comment below: Which of these 6 mistakes are you guilty of?
Visit us: https://www.preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us Fan Mail
Is your small business ready for the chaos of 2026?
Political upheaval, economic swings, supply-chain disruptions, and natural disasters are coming and most side hustles won’t survive them. But you can.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. D shares the exact 4-step entrepreneurial survival guide that’s 100% free, requires zero fancy tools, and puts you in control, no matter what the world throws at you.
Here’s what you’ll discover:
How to bulletproof your physical, mental, and financial health (the foundation every entrepreneur ignores until it’s too late).
Why mapping your entire business structure reveals hidden “single points of failure” that could collapse everything overnight — and how to fix them.
The game-changing shift from chasing goals to building unbreakable systems that grow your revenue without burning you out.
Why “embracing the suck” and never committing 100% is the secret to seizing massive opportunities when everyone else is panicking.
This isn’t apocalyptic fear-mongering or expensive software pitches. It’s practical, evidence-based advice from a disaster management professor and real small business owner who’s been exactly where you are, grinding for five-figure revenue in a chaotic world.
2026 will punish the unprepared and reward the resilient. These four steps are what worked for us in 2025, and they’ll work for your Etsy shop, print-on-demand store, local service, or any side hustle in 2026.Don’t wait for the next disruption to force change. Watch now, take control, and position yourself to not just survive, but thrive.
Free small business risk downloads: https://www.preparednesslabs.ca
Subscribe for real-world strategies that actually work
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us Fan Mail
Is AI secretly putting your small business at risk?
You’re using ChatGPT, Grok, or Claude to save time, writing proposals, summarizing data, generating ideas and it feels like a superpower. But there’s one massive danger almost every side hustler and small business owner is completely overlooking… and it’s not coming from hackers sneaking in the back door.
It’s walking right through your front door.
Every time you or your employees upload customer lists, pricing strategies, financial reports, or proprietary processes to public AI tools, you’re handing over your most sensitive business intelligence, permanently. Those terms of service you clicked “agree” on? They often grant the AI company an unrestricted license to use your data. And if that platform gets breached (and they all do eventually), your secrets could end up public, triggering lawsuits, ruined reputation, and lost trust.
One company watched their confidential client bids leak online after an employee fed them into an AI tool. The fallout? Lawsuits and a destroyed reputation.
In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. D, disaster management professor and small business owner, reveals the unspoken AI risk threatening the 70-75% of North American businesses earning under $100K. You’ll learn:
- Why AI is the first risk that enters through the front door
- How to keep enjoying AI’s massive benefits without exposing your business
- Simple safeguards solo entrepreneurs and small teams can implement today
AI isn’t evil, but using it without boundaries can be catastrophic. Protect your side hustle, your profits, and your peace of mind.
Watch now before your next ChatGPT prompt becomes your biggest regret
Free risk management downloads for small businesses: https://www.preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us Fan Mail
Your entire business can vanish tomorrow morning
One ransomeware email, one fake invoice, one missed update and poof:
Shopify gone, Stripe locked, courses deleted, customer list encrypted.
90% of SMB face a significant disruption every quarter, some never recover.
But here is the truth:
There are near-free strategies to survive and thrive in 2026
We offer the exact five dead-simple ideas followed in our company
-Change passwords monthly, or more frequent - yes, we still need to talk about this
-Update software and hardware patches, automatically
-and more...
Zero theory
Zero expensive tools and programs
Battle tested and simple strategies to mitigate risk to near zero, for creators, e-com, side hustles, SMB and YouTube personalities
Support the show: https://buymeacoffee.com/masteringrisk
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us Fan Mail
Are you ready for what’s really coming in 2026? Most business owners aren’t—and that’s exactly why so many solopreneurs, micro-businesses, and small companies get blindsided. In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. D breaks down the global turbulence ahead and gives you a real-world framework to hedge against the threats you can’t see coming—but absolutely should.
Forget the clickbait gurus promising million-dollar success “in 30 days with AI.” The truth is more sobering—and far more empowering. With over a decade of research in risk, resilience, and preparedness, Dr. D shows you how the actual evidence points toward five major risk escalators highlighted in the 2025 World Economic Forum outlook:
✔ Inflation & the cost-of-living squeeze
✔ Extreme weather and skyrocketing disaster costs
✔ Global economic downturn
✔ Geopolitical conflicts
✔ Social polarization
But here’s the good news: you don’t need a massive budget, a consultant army, or a million-dollar runway to protect your business. You just need a strategy. Inside this episode, you’ll learn:
💡 Why inflation is quietly eroding your margins—and how to fight back
💡 What extreme weather actually means for small business supply chains
💡 The two biggest leverage points you have right now—and how to strengthen them
💡 How to build redundancy, customer awareness, and financial runway—without cash reserves
💡 The real pivot point every entrepreneur must recognize before it’s too late
Whether you’re launching your first product or managing a growing five-figure business, this episode gives you clear, actionable steps to reduce uncertainty and navigate the chaos ahead.
👉 Watch now, subscribe, and turn risk into opportunity.
👉 Explore our full ecosystem at preparednesslabs.ca for tools, courses, and resources built for real entrepreneurs—not fantasy-land business influencers.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us Fan Mail
In a world overflowing with hype, half-truths, and “million-dollar-in-90-days” promises, Mastering Risk cuts through the noise with something radical: honesty.
In this powerful episode, Dr. D takes you inside the real engine of sustainable business success—trust. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, a side-hustler, or the owner of a small but mighty business, this conversation delivers a refreshing, evidence-based look at why integrity isn’t just admirable… it’s profitable.
You’ll learn why most consumers need 11 touchpoints before they buy—and how honesty dramatically reduces that hesitation. Dr. D breaks down the traps of an oversaturated market, from deceptive tactics to manipulative ads, and shows you how authenticity becomes your strongest differentiator. He also exposes the long-term costs of exaggeration, inflated promises, and “get rich” schemes—and why they quietly destroy customer lifetime value.
He shares candid stories from his own entrepreneurial path: scaling a realistic five-figure business, navigating reputational risk, and building a loyal client base through transparency, value, and no-BS guidance. You’ll hear exactly how honesty shapes stronger customer relationships, protects your legal flank, amplifies word-of-mouth growth, and positions you as a trusted authority—not a digital carnival barker.
If you're ready for raw truth, practical insights, and a blueprint for building trust in a marketplace full of noise, this episode is your competitive advantage.
If you want steady growth, loyal customers, and a business built to last—this is the episode you cannot skip.
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us a text
Tired of gurus promising you’ll be a millionaire in 12 months? Let’s talk reality.
According to official stats, only 5% of businesses ever hit 7 figures… and 75% stay under six figures. The good news? A profitable five-figure business ($10K–$99K) is 100% achievable in 2026 — and it can add $2,000–$7,000+ per month to your family’s income without quitting your job.
In this no-BS episode, 28-year army veteran and university professor Dr. D reveals the exact 5-step framework he uses to run his own five-figure company, Preparedness Labs:
1. Solve a painful problem the easy way (the “pill vs gym” secret)
2. Go brutally niche so you stand out
3. Keep overhead stupidly low ($72/year is possible)
4. Master “aggressive patience” and consistent content
5. Accept the world as it is — and stop torching your reputation with politics online
Zero fluff. Real numbers. Real experience (including the $20K mistake he made so you don’t have to).
If you’re ready to build something sustainable in 2026 instead of chasing unicorn fantasies, hit play now and smash that Subscribe button — new evidence-based episodes drop every week to help you master risk and win.
www.preparednesslabs.ca
Business Can Cost as Little as $72 per year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKn446XWUmQ&t=6s
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us a text
What if your business was gone tomorrow – fire, flood, ransomware, or a simple power outage? 60% of SMBs that suffer a major disruption without a tested plan close forever within 12 months.
In 2025, one bad day can erase everything you’ve built.
I’m Dr. D – risk management advisor to entrepreneurs and SMB owners. In this episode I’m pulling back the curtain on the exact 5-part continuity system I use to prepare my business for when disaster hits.
You’ll walk away with:
• The 3-hour recovery rule
• The unbreakable 3-2-1-airgap backup method
• Business ready evacuation plan
• Pre-approved emergency cash or credit
• The literal “one-button failover”, replication of critical systems
Watch now – because preparation is profit.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
Support the show
https://preparednesslabs.ca/
Send us a text
Every quarter, 90% of small businesses get blindsided by a major disruption—cyberattack, supply-chain meltdown, reputational firestorm, or a strategic curveball they never saw coming.
Of those that get hit hard, 40% never reopen their doors. Another 25% limp along for a few months and then quietly fold.
That’s the brutal reality of going it alone in today’s chaotic economy. But here’s what the most resilient entrepreneurs have already figured out: you don’t have to monitor every threat, regulatory change, or emerging risk by yourself. You don’t need $12,000 consultants on retainer or endless hours prompting AI just to stay in the game.
What you need is the one thing that multiplies your time, your knowledge, and your survival odds almost instantly—other sharp, battle-tested entrepreneurs watching your back (and you watching theirs). In this episode of Mastering Risk, Dr. D reveals why social capital is the ultimate unfair advantage for solo and micro entrepreneurs right now. You’ll discover: Why lone-wolf entrepreneurs miss threats that a simple community would catch in minutes.
How fractional access to cyber, supply-chain, continuity, and strategy experts costs pennies compared to hiring them solo.
The exact community model that delivers bespoke risk intel, monthly expert Q&As, and zero extra apps or fixed meeting times—so it actually fits your crazy schedule
Real numbers on how fast a single disruption can kill a business (and how to make sure it’s never yours)
If you’re a solopreneur, side-hustler, Etsy seller, podcaster, or small business owner who’s tired of feeling one ransomware note away from disaster—this episode is your wake-up call and your lifeline.
Hit play now, then grab the free Small Business Risk Guide mentioned in the episode at preparednesslabs.ca. Don’t wait for the next crisis to prove you needed this yesterday.
Your business deserves to be antifragile. Let’s build it—together.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
Support the show
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In this no-fluff episode, Dr. D reveals the exact 4-step framework he uses to keep his fully digital small business running when the world goes sideways, whether it’s a week-long blackout, a nationwide internet outage, a cyber attack, or any other disruption to the systems we all take for granted.Most entrepreneurs blindly assume the power will stay on, the internet will work, and money will keep flowing into their accounts. The reality? Your business is only as strong as the 10 sectors of critical infrastructure you depend on every single day, and you don’t control a single one of them.Inside this episode you’ll discover:The simple “10-Legged Table” mental model that instantly shows you exactly where your business (and family) are dangerously exposed
How to quickly rate each of the 10 critical infrastructure sectors as Low, Medium, or High risk for YOUR specific operation (takes 20-30 minutes, costs $0)
Why “prevention” is a fantasy and the only thing that actually works is mitigation through intelligent replication
Real-world examples: how Dr. D keeps creating videos, uploading content, running Zoom calls, and getting paid even when the grid power, cell networks, or primary internet providers completely fail
The “prepper mindset” applied to business, why replicating the 1-2 sectors you rated as HIGH risk is the highest-ROI insurance policy you’ll ever buy
Why you must run this same exercise on your family’s dependencies (hint: losing public transit or ride-sharing apps can bankrupt some households faster than a power outage)
The data almost no one talks about: 94% of critical infrastructure failures in North America are restored within 14 days… and what smart owners do to bridge those 14 days without losing everything
If you’re a solopreneur, small-business owner, side-hustler, or even an employee who wants unbreakable job security in chaotic times, this episode gives you a proven, step-by-step playbook you can implement this weekend, for free.Stop gambling with systems you don’t control. Start building the resilience that turns crises into minor inconveniences while your competitors are panicking.Watch or listen now, then head to preparednesslabs.ca for free resources and the Mastering Risk course that takes this framework even deeper.Timestamps, free downloads, and all links in the show notes.
Don’t wait for the next blackout to wish you’d done this.
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
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If you're considering starting, or just have started an entrepreneurial adventure, listen to these ten reasons why new businesses fail.
Time tested, taken from the graves of over 1000 ventures, this list will provide in depth insight to avoid the pitfalls, leverage risk and embrace the uncertainty of being your own boss.
From no-market products, poor avatar marketing to #10 which will blow your mind, this has much of what you need to consider, to give you a fighting chance to turn positive cash flow and earn from your hustle.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
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Imagine the coming year, more economic, political and natural disasters, interfering with your business and personal plans.
From evacuation to mental health, building reflection muscle and becoming prepared to be fired tomorrow.
Are you ready, is your business insulated?
Free - no money required, just commitment, time and effort. So you have no excuse not to be ready. Will you invest the time in you and your business, to help your family thrive?
We believe you are worth it.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
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2026 will see incredible disruption. How can the solo-entrepreneur or SMB be ready?
These top 3 risks reflect what is likely to occur, from a tariff tsunami, to AI phishing / spoofing to a race to tax corporations, chasing them across the globe.
Are you ready to exploit the opportunities, are you prepared to have your reputation challenged by an AI bot pretending to be you?
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
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Is your position, field or employer ready for the coming AI onslaught?
We breakdown the stages of AI adoption rollout, across which markets are primed for penetration and what role cultural preference plays in acceptance of AI automation.
What can you do, what steps are available to you to mitigate this risk? We layout a roadmap for your to consider, to be ready as you can, for the coming tsunami.
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
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The why - because we exist in a time of increased political, economic and natural disasters, all of which are out of our control. They influence and impact our lives, yet we have such little say in their why.
Chaos loves uncertainty - that's why we created Mastering Risk, the preparedness, risk, resilience, business continuity, cyber protocol and a series of educational oppritnities.
Listen, it's free and you might just figure out the "how".
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
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Seize the Day, choose to be responsible for your outcomes and dominate this world.
We hear that all the time, but how?
Three free ways:
First, own your life - your physical, mental and financial health are all your responsibility, no one is coming to save you and it is your responsibility to pay your bills.
Second, know the rules - the political and economic overlords / owners will establish he regulations yo must follow, to build a business that is successful and brilliant. Know them inside and out, leverage the risk and rules to find success.
Third, exposure to and dependancy on CI - this modern, technologically enabled world depends on critical infrastructure to operate. Understanding how and where your business is dependant on access to CI will improve your odds of success, mitigate risk and set you up for success.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright © 2025.
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The pressure is relentless, to adopt even the most unique offerings of AI, under the symbolic - or real - threat of corporate irrelevancy. Whether presented in the form of the latest influencer YouTube video, an offering to learn AI in 28 days, or the advocacy for the firing of the entire white collar workforce, we are inundated with the threat of being at the precipice of a revolution.
As the creator of the moniker, “non-apocalyptic, evidence based risk, resilience and preparedness education”, I thought a bit of reflection was in order, to both quell the hysteria, but to highlight the real threats.
AI is considered to be the final chapter of the fourth Industrial Revolution, not in a doomsday sense, but the evolution of the Internet of Things (IOT) - i.e. connected devices, cloud storage and automated manufacturing. The brain if you will, that will run all the previous elements of the 4th revolution, which in an ideal sense provides for the continuous operation and connectivity of whatever portions of society we wish to “upload” to the cloud / AI management.
The perceived threat from AI is replacement. While the UAE government has stated that they’ll embrace AI in all public sector operations, but with the clear intention of improving services offered to citizens and guests, not to replace the workforce. However, what we see in most places is a race to automate human activities, to reduce the largest line item on most balance sheets - labour. AI is framed as not a tool to improve, but an opportunity to increase productivity - which is generally globally stalled, to maintain occupation of current market share. The easy button is through layoffs, as AI does not require holidays, sick pay, etc…
Let's Go Explore how to really leverage AI
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Creating your own business and generating income is your get to be resilient in a world of AI business and employment disruptions.
There are only three ways to earn an income. First, a profession with its rules, regulations, training standards and membership requirements. Second, is an entrepreneurial venture where you solve a problem people hav in exchange for money. If you do not choose one of those, your only other option is to exchange your skills and time for money - salaried work, by the hour, day, week, month or year.
AI's initial disruptions are likely to be squarely within the salary workforce, entrepreneurs will adapt as necessary, professions are slow to adopt new technologies and thus, the time-based employee will be quickly sidelined if their position can be completed by AI.
Set up a company now, for a nominal one time fee and $72 per year, then tell the world you exist on social media.
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Entrepreneurs are great dreamers, pouring exceptional time and resources into their dream, often without understanding the risks they chose to accept, willingly or not, when they jumped in.
Strategic, Operational, Cyber and Reputational Risk.
That's it.
Embrace, understand, mitigate and launch your dream.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
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How do we ready our entrepreneurial ventures to succeed and excel in these times of increased political, economic and natural disasters?
Understanding your risk profile across strategic, operational, cyber and reputational areas is key. Knowledge is power, learn about how to identify risk and be aware of what risks exist because of how you choose to do business.
Embrace risk, build market share and join a community of fellow entrepreneurs. Together we thrive.
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From the A1 to C3, the newspaper is drowning in chaos, disturbances and the growing call for significant change in our world. For those who never had the pleasure of reading a full newspaper over morning coffee, that’s the meat, before the comics and entertainment sections, though they might just be a better, more sane bet these days.
Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) has grown in popularity, resonating with many who are looking for an anchor term to describe today’s business environment. While it likely extends to many others arenas, it is most valuable in understanding the challenges small and medium businesses (SMB) encounter in daily operations.
Enter risk, the calculation of a future event, its probability and severity, on your current or future operations. Decisions, strategic and important, rely on the ability of entrepreneurs to understand the potential risk in the markets, find reasonable clarity in the VUCA reality, while relying on the elements of PCSC to stop gap any significant issues. Risk tolerance is personal, different in each of us and not equal across all decisions. Most entrepreneurs prefer clarity, though some excel in VUCA situations, where bold moves, aggressive decisions may lead to exceptional payoffs. Some embrace game theory and some are just unrestrained.
Risk is understood to be a perception, as previous iterations predict the future, we gain a reasonable level of confidence as to the future outcome. Never certain, but with time, education, social capital and great advisors, VUCA becomes less a problem set and more an advantage. PCSC is reasonably easy to navigate, and a preferred environment for those with large capital-intensive projects that have longer time horizons. Hence the heavy interventionist governance present in certain sectors of the economy, where a company intends to invest billions, they have a reasonable expectation of predictability. But what if PCSC becomes less available and the world moves more towards VUCA?
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Life evolves, as the world changes around us, we need to periodically verify that we remain a value added to the population. Inside My Canoehead has been on the air for over 5 years, throughout the pandemic and will continue to live on, but under a new name, similar concept, but retaining the values of integrity and keeping our mission:
Non-apocalyptic, evidence-based, risk, resilience and preparedness education.
We've completed a six month beta test, chatted with many entrepreneurs and we've developed the Mastering Risk ecosystem.
A podcast, course and community.
We'll navigate the economic, political and natural disasters together.
More on our website: preparednesslabs.ca
Stay tuned.
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When we consider financial resiliency in this modern era, we first need to accept resiliency means to you. There are no shortages of definitions of resiliency, in my humble opinion, it is the most abused term in the discipline. As a social scientist, I often lean to our natural scientist colleagues to seek clarity, for their world is far more binary and straightforward, at least in terms of definitions. I’ve quoted this one in the past, resiliency is the “ability to absorb energy and return to stasis”. Translated to social science that means you or your business’ ability to get hit, take the hit and recover to the place you were before you got hit.
Even that foray into terminology is fraught with challenges. What is “absorb”, how far can I fall, how much time do I have to “return to stasis”, what about the “new normal”? The What If Game is alive and well in the field, as with other social sciences tackling the issues of the day.
I’ve written in the past, in my books and in our free guide to preparedness, that every entity needs three plans - their trifecta of preparedness plans, to be best positioned to navigate crisis - the absorb energy portion of the definition. This article deals with the financial plan; for individuals, this is labelled “when you get fired” and for businesses, this is labelled, “when your operations are summarily ceased”.
The cause is irrelevant, your sources of income cease. Framing financial resiliency in these terms eliminates the endless debate about hazard impact, threats from political and economic decisions at all three levels of government and the overall industry. It simplifies the discussion into a single, “what if I stop getting paid scenario”, not the why. The research tells us there is sufficient commonality between hazard induced losses, economic strife and significant political decisions to steer away from attempting to create event-specific plans or strategies. One overarching, well thought out and socialized plan is enough to at least provide a fighting chance.
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Conspiracy Theorist? Crazy Trucker dude in Ottawa? Anti-Government Mafia, Antifa?
Or maybe just a normal person, living in suburbia who accepts responsibility for their outcomes, understands there is a possibility that one or more sectors of critical infrastructure main fail for an extended period and that the government is not coming to save their family.
We begin with a rant on trust and honest sources of information, then a fun discussion on who is a prepper, their goals and why your wonderful BMW driving neighbour with three kids in soccer might just be ready for a mini-apocalypse.
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Forests are an incredible creation of nature, a magical blend of species - sustainable, resilient and awe-inspiring beauty. Only humans would have the audacity to harm such a brilliant resource.
The intentional destruction of the boreal forest in Canada has been a sustained effort of governments for decades. The wildfires of 2023 and 2025 are the foreseeable result of policy failures by provincial and territorial governments.
The conversation across legacy and independent media is generally classified into two streams. First, is the expected and predicted assignment of blame to the 21st century’s convenient boogyman, climate change. Easy to fault a concept, one where no accountability is claimed, than to do the hard work on actual contributing factors. Second, are the investigations into challenges to coordinate firefighting, interagency cooperation and championing the call for greater governmental intervention.
The policy failure in this area was three fold. First, allowing the use of chemicals to hack biodiversity and damage the environment. Second, minimal investment in forest management practices to mitigate future losses due to wildfire and third, nominal building of response capability.
If the desired outcome is a sustainable and safe forestry sector, then addressing each of these contributing factors will significantly contribute to less wildfires,
Political debates aside, if a province is clearly overwhelmed and underprepared, the first indication will be a call for federal assistance, likely using language such as “unprecenteted, driest conditions in “X” decades” and other descriptors carefully chosen to seed the doubt as to responsbility. Next, will be the blame on climate change and human activities, reinforcing that the government is handcuffed in their ability to manage, as it remains the result of nefarious actors - the climate and the outdoorsy types. Last comes the clarion call for greater cooperation and a national agency, blaming coordination as a rationale for delayed response or limited asset availability.
These are the predictable cards played by a government who made the policy decision not to invest sufficient resources in wildfire management, got caught unprepared and are scrambling to find someone or something to blame. Hilarious if not sad, especially for the losses that did not have to occur.
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Etsy Store, Shopify or 1 Mil per year service business, they're all exposed to risk - cyber, reputational and operational. What strategies help in mitigating exposure to nefarious actors.
How, as a solo entrepreneur, can you protect your online store and business from harm, when you don't have a high priced consultant, nor response teams embedded in your operation.
You don't have thousands to spend on something that may never happen, so what can you do?
This is an outline of what is to come in our Fall offering of Mastering Risk, an educational program in collaboration with @thelogisticsinstitute7047 . Available later in 2025, a complete series of lessons and Risk Webinars on staying abreast of the latest risk, resilience and preparedness advice for micro, small and medium businesses.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary.
Copyright 2025 ©Preparedness Labs Incorporated
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Every anniversary deserves celebration, we have so much to be thankful for: friends, family, accomplishments and reaching goals. We should never lose the childish joy of horns, goofy hats, paper plates and cake.
Today, July 28th, marks the five year anniversary of my company, Preparedness Labs Incorporated (PLI). It was born from the realization that Canadians were abjectly unprepared for even the most minor of disruption, let alone a global pandemic. The speed at which millions became dependent on the government for cash, guidance, information, skills and future strategies was terrifying. PLI was created as a Canadian Controlled Private Corporation (CCPC), the beaver-loving equivalent to the US LLC. CCPC was chosen over a not for profit as the regulatory environment in Canada requires significant additional investment to assert a not for profit status.
Few were resolute in their preparation, pivoted to their planned strategies and for some, found new economic opportunities and grew their family wealth and health throughout the pandemic. Those people remained a focus of our research here at PLI, what did they know, skills they possessed, or access to capital that others did not. How were they able to navigate such a disruption, to emerge in a better state than before, with little to no effect on their health or wealth?
The journey began a few months earlier in April 2020, when I started a preparedness podcast, Inside My Canoehead. The name was a gift from my daughter-in-law, who settled the ongoing debate of how do I name something about my passion - backcountry paddling - when the topic is preparedness. The first episode had 4 downloads, three were family and someone in the USA. To this date that human remains a mystery, but on April 29th, 2020, they made my day - a follower. From there, it has grown to over 360 episodes, downloaded in 111+ nations, on six continents. It remains at the core of my passion for communicating advice to the population - for if all else fails, it will survive, it is now my life project.
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Pugilism was an art, the settling of disputes with honour and integrity. We didn’t kick somewhen when they fell, we asked if they had enough and if so, we helped them up, dusted them off and headed to the bar to resume our drinks. Simple life, we all understood the rules and the rationale, an almost egalitarian time.
The human animal was designed for physical combat, to strike and absorb blows, as we repeatedly return to the physics definition of resilience - absorb shock, return to stasis. Resilience is our ability to navigate that which we do not control and return to whatever normalcy becomes, simple really - though, there are as many resilience definitions in the social sciences as there are fields, hilarious if not sad.
We’ve spoke about the need to accept responsibility for our outcomes as the primary step in adopting preparedness, on the road to a more resilient life. That entails assessing and addressing any personal shortfalls in our physical, mental and financial health. All three are within our control, require no financial investment to improve and are the important for successful outcomes. Sociological and psychological research asserts that physically fit individuals with low stress and healthy finances are better suited leaders in stressful events, whether that be internal to the family or a natural disaster. All 100% within our control, the choice to accept shortcomings and begin the process to fix those is our decision.
This is not a call to arms, but the realization that in our world there are nefarious actors, those who wish to either use physical force to access our resources, harm us or to use perceived strength as intimidation. Whether or not we believe this is appropriate in a modern society, those on the extremes believe it to be a viable choice. They will use violence or the threat of bodily harm to achieve aims. The probability that you will personally be the target of a threat is not significant, but not zero. As we see more and more economic issues, we see more acts of violence and disorder, countering accepted norms of behaviour, that may lead to you experiencing a rapid onset violent act.
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We’re comfortable, enjoy being coddled and taken care of, whether that is by family or the government. We exist in a period of time with access to the entire knowledge of the species in the palm of our hand, yet we choose to remain stuck in place. Feel free to disagree, maybe you’re the outlier, but statistically speaking, you prefer to be in stasis of certainty and low risk.
Anthropologically we’re designed to solve problems, to overcome challenges. For hundreds of thousands of years, we survived, working together to meet the basic needs. Until the Industrial Revolution, there were two classes, the nobles (by title, business wealth, land ownership, etc.) and peasants (daily survival). The middle class was an invention of industrialists to create comfort and reasonable certainty, in exchange for indentured servitude of the hourly wage.
While that has morphed over multiple generations, the truth remains that as a species, we’re now less resilient than our peasant ancestors, dependent on a benevolent government to protect, serve and when necessary, rescue us. The discarding of adventure is a recent anomaly, probably in the later 20th century, where the sense of wonder and exploration was finally, at the collective level, pounded out of us. Be comfortable and when disruption hits, the government will take care of the nasty stuff and coddle us with monetary tokens and rules to keep society safe.
You would think this diatribe to be an opening to a dystopian novel, but this is today, in 2025. As a species, we grow with new experiences, new relationships, jumping with two feet into the puddle of opportunity. We’re designed for adventure, to see what is over the next hill. We learn about things through problem solving, when we travel to visit other cultures, we learn perspectives and values. All this cannot happen in your box of comfort, in your living room watching videos about the world.
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A bit cheeky, yes. The point is that many roads lead to resilience, I’ve written a five part series on Substack about this, drawing a clear route to creating a more resilient and less susceptible life. However, many recent tragedies, like the flooding in Texas, reminds us of the fragility of life, how quickly it can all change and what really does matter.
Modern day minimalism has many founders, historically its origins are in an artistic movement from New York in the 1960s, or from philosophical teachings in early Japan and the Roman Empire. Prior to the industrial revolution, humanity held onto useful things, devices and accoutrements that lead to the production or sustainment of shelter, food and water. Literal survival. Frivolous items, luxury items in economic speak, were only found in the Lords of the feudal style systems.
Simplicity has many modern flavours, from voluntary simplicity - akin to shedding life of commitments, possessions and all that doesn’t support a narrow path, to calendar management strategies by Greg McKeweon in his book, Essentialism. It is the intentional design of a life that pursues that which brings joy and essentials - shelter, food, and water. A modern version of returning to the reality of pre-modernism life for the 99% who did not live in castles.
I return to these ideas when I reflect on my life’s adventures. With 28 years in the Army, I’ve lost count of the exercises, where for weeks I would live out of a backpack and be fine. Well, cold wet and hungry, but there is a weird romantic ideology of carrying everything you’ll need on your back. Several international deployments in different climates and under less permissive environments provides a similar story - the idea that when we break life down to its most basic requirements, not much is necessary.
When I consider that I had to physically carry everything I needed, choice becomes a necessity. An 80 pound rucksack sounds cool and makes you look like a warrior and beast, then you turn fifty and can barely climb stairs. Intelligence taught us that you police your gear ruthlessly, to only possess what is absolutely essential to support your ability to complete the task ahead, and nothing else. So if that was successful in the Army across the world, why wouldn’t it be for life?
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As many bemoan the chaos of this decade, Dr. Steven Pinker reminds us that this is, by a significant margin, the safest and most productive age of the human species. The calamities we face are minor irritants in comparison to those surmounted by our fore fathers; we have difficulty overcoming a few degrees of warmth, let alone a host of real and impactful calamities that used to kill millions.
As individuals, we possess the human instincts and physiology to live in nature, with nothing but what it provides, and thrive. However, eons ahead and with all the technological advances, as a species we express little in drive or personal constitution, continuously seek external assistance and bewilderingly, cannot thrive with the accoutrements of the 21st century.
We see it in the literature on disasters and emergency management, this existential threat from nature, requiring behemoth levels of governmental intervention in individual lives to stave off the apocalypse.
Where we’ve lost the narrative is at the individual level, the human animal, designed by nature to thrive in the environment. Our species is different, from the sociological viewpoint, we are the only animal that knows it is here and that life is finite. What we have done with that is the subject of a generational research body of knowledge, from behavioural economics, to psychology, sociology, anthropology - all of which are the feeding social sciences that established the paradigm of disaster and emergency management.
Resilience is often the word used, but arguable one of the most abused terms in the discipline. No less that dozens of factually or theoretically different constructions of this terms exist in the published literature. This is not a new problem, this is a reasonably common standard in social sciences, where terms are bent to help frame an idea the researcher wishes to advance, or to correlate to their findings. Amusing to some, somewhat a challenge to those of us who lecture in the field - whose definition is correct and if there is a correct one, why are we not calling out the others?
In natural sciences, they are far more rigid in the use of terminology, hence my inclination to lean towards their definition of resilience, “the ability of an elastic material (such as rubber or animal tissue) to absorb energy (such as from a blow) and release that energy as it springs back to its original shape”. (physics 101). Some of the social science definitions trace, at least reasonably, to this concept. If we accept that frame, how does this relate to the natural human animal?
I’ve written at length about what is within the power of us to actually do, using the stoic philosophical lens that argues everything falls into one of two buckets - things we can control and that which we cannot. Now, depending on societal positions or locations, there is some ability to influence what we cannot control, but that is often limited to single events or policies. In reality, all that you or I can do is change what we can control. In simple terms, that is what we say and do. Full stop. That’s it, we can change what we say - to ourselves, in-person or online. Further, we have agency and can conduct physical actions - voter, fight, run, work, build, etc.
So if all that we can do is what is within our control, how do we leverage that to achieve resilience, which by definition will enable us to absorb energy (exogenous shock from events we cannot control), to spring back to our original shape? Often the events are rapid onset or no-notice, we are flung into a chaotic situation without the time to prepare - akin to going to war with the ar
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How long can you survive if the power fails? A few hours, days, weeks, months?
Are you self reliant or self sufficient, maybe a combination of both? We outline the strategies for navigating an extended power loss, speak to the types of prepared individuals and the difference between the concepts of self reliance and self sufficiency.
Sit back, grab your favourite beverage - We believe you and your family are worth it.
https://preparednesslabs.ca
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1046719
DISCLOSURE
Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success.
Copyright © 2025.
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You'll only be successful when you choose to try.
A life strategy is the operationalization of choosing to improve your fitness, mental health, financial condition, personal relationships, professional life, community relations and overall, your role on this planet.
Full stop, no one is coming to help. It is not someone else's responsibility to pay your bills or create an easy road for your future. So if you want it, you need to get after it.
The choice is yours, choose wisely
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Business Continuity is disaster preparedness for business, often misunderstood and ignored by SMB. Most businesses dont survive one year after a disaster, and many are utterly unprepared for a significant event.
Look how many needed immediate intervention from govnement to survive even the first few months of the pandemic.
Learn about strategic, cyber, operations and reputational risk.
Whether you own a business, have an Etsy store or are someone's employee, knowing what to do when the bad day happens is just as important for businesses as it is for your family.
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Chaos and disorder are what we normally correlate with an evacuation. Wildfire on the doorstep, screaming family members, driving from the scene through fire and haze. Let's not forget the hours long bumper to bumper traffic going somewhere, for who knows how long.
Uncertainty reigns.
But it is a choice, executing a well rehearsed and understood evacuation plan means order in chaos, calm, low stress and little anxiety. This is how you do that, step by step. The choice is yours, choose wisely.
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I’ve written at length about the need to incorporate all sectors of society in disaster response and recovery operations. For each significant event, there are four unique and often uncoordinated responses: the not for profit (NFP) industry ramping up services for their clients, the private sector enacting continuity operations and extending support to their network, the residents helping each other and finally, the formal public sector incident response and management operations. One is not in command and control, each have stakeholders and they are working diligently to mitigate the harm and return to pre-event operations with the shortest delay.
There are a myriad of publications in academia and grey literature that speak to the need for coordination, formal training on how to execute a whole of community effort, but little cooperation across the government to population power divide. This is why my profound reaction when my students presented the following idea, an economic recovery task force (ERTF).
An ERTF is not a recovery mechanism at heart, it is a permanent round table where the sectors of society contemplate, coordinate and cooperate on how the economic engine of a city would respond to an event, recover and return to normalcy. This is an effort that brings together the private sector, NFP and municipal government to map out what recovery would look like, specific, focussed - with the intent to create an environment where business resumed at the earliest opportunity. We know that economic activity provides income, allows society to return to normalcy and the loss of access to normal resources is an impediment for residents. If a strategy existed that demonstrated the preparedness of the economic engine for disasters, then confidence rises, investment gains traction and a sense of security and prosperity is maintained.
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According to Global Velocity, in the USA there are 59 million workers in the freelance or gig economy, earning over 500 million, with an estimated 50% of American workers completing at least one external independent contracting assignment this year. While grounded in the transportation industry, the emergence of consultants, IT, AI curators and a host of independent contractors in professional industries - trades, healthcare expanding, there is a significant shift underway in the global workforce.
Most entrepreneurs, 70% in recent surveys, do so by choice, not socio-economic need, mainly grounded in a desire to reap the full rewards of their work, to set their own work-life balance and to carve an independent piece from the global pie. In essence, the model of working for a company, generating wealth for the stock holders is now a short term learning evolution, vice a formative career. Individuals are entering the corporate workforce to learn the industry and quickly departing on collective or independent ventures, leading to a host of online offerings that once were the purview of corporations. This is the emerging economic model.
You can hire an MBA graduate, equivalent to western schools, for $10 per hour from India, or a marketing expert with a masters degree from Thailand for $15 a day. Why would you hire a recent graduate from Harvard or Yale on a full time salary with expensive benefits when you can outsource a specific niche requirement to an expert with equivalent skills for a fraction of the cost? Additional risk, potentially, but is that risk equivalent to the savings of contract work?
These chaotic times, the levels of uncertainty in the markets and fears of recessions, are pushing the workforce to embrace responsibility for their outcomes. While there remains calls for action to counter this movement to the gig economy, often in posts from individuals who are following a 1999 idea of sending in resumes and expecting to land interviews, eventually they understand that the system is not failing them, they’re just pursuing a strategy for a different economy. While in some industries there remains growth in salaried employment, that is becoming an exception outside public sector positions. In some western locations, precarious work is the fastest growing part of the economy.
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Resilience is intentional and requires commitment. We often pursue ideas and strategies that are one and done. I’ll put in the effort, achieve the standard and we’re all good, nothing else to do. Being ready for the unknown, embracing uncertainty and navigating the unexpected is a skill set, one that requires regular maintenance and sharpening. Resilience is likely one of the most influential skills you can adopt, it encompasses your ability to maintain order in chaos, to lead those for whom you’re responsible, to thrive when others are flailing in the dark.
We’ve outlined your four steps to resilience over the course of this series, on this written medium, as well as on the audio versions on the podcast, Inside My Canoehead, and finally on a video feed on our YouTube channel. Free, because equipping society with the skills to be more resilient in the face of current and future harm is a public good.
To expand on resilience, to move skills to the collective, requires additional effort. There are four research based strategies to build your resilience through embracing the world around you, and taking a deeper dive into some of the concepts introduced over the past four steps.
The roadmap to resilience doesn’t have an end, it is a pathway you choose to follow, one that mirrors your life. So embrace the opportunities offered, dive into the deep end and believe in yourself, for there is a myriad of opportunities for health, wealth and happiness in the chaos, throughout these uncertain times. The choice is yours, choose wisely.
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Anthropological and sociological research has reasonably defined the spheres of influence in your world, a concept design, sometimes referred to as spatial. In simplest terms, it is a division of interests, those that motivate us and classify arenas in which we operate. While never homogenous, the literature reasonably agrees that political, economic, cultural, familial and natural describe the portions of a human existence in this cosmos. Everything that happens does so within one of these spheres, often occupying one or more, but we can trace events to origins within these five.
We posit that everything in this world is a function of someone else’s actions within one or more of the spheres, and to echo step two, your decision is how you choose to respond. You, nor I, can make someone say, believe or act upon something, but we have absolute control over both the reaction and the surveillance. In military parlance, reconnaissance is the function of trying to ascertain the intent of someone before they undertake a decision, so as to counter that before they begin or to ready for the coming events. Risk analysis is reconnaissance for your life, simply put, understanding the things that may happen, by examining the world around you, enables you to create an accurate assessment of the threat profile where you operate - for you, the family, community, business and your social networks.
Zero risk is illogical and not possible, the probability of many events occurring rapidly approaches nil, but never reaches it. The goal of a risk assessment is to first identify all that could occur, classify it and select those that present the highest threat. Create a plan to counter and you’ll have situated the estimate as the military would say, doing what is possible within a world of chaotic uncertainty. There is no perfect solution, risks will be misidentified, classified incorrectly, leading to unintended outcomes. The intent is to mitigate, to limit the extent to which you and those for whom you’re responsible are exposed to uncomfortable stress and potential harm.
As each individual, family, community or business will have differentiating considerations, this guide is created as a series of signposts, some will be bright and important to you, others will be dim and distant. Examining each of the five spheres of influence and asking the simple question, “what threats exist in this arena that if realized could cause harm to my interests”, then “when that is realized, does it create low, moderate or extreme levels of risk?”.
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Further research grounds that even with a series of hazards, in some areas communities face a host of differentiating risks, there are limitations to the choices at hand. When drilled to the simplest form, humans have only two distinct choices, shelter in place or evacuate. Irrespective of the hazard or impact, the resulting decision for communities is what to do, limited to a binary choice. Our research has led to the conclusion that if we educate the public on what they can do, not why they may have to do something, then we have a greater probability of behavioural adoption, meaning that residents are ready to conduct both, with the catalyst being accurate and timely information from a trusted source.
As such, Preparedness Labs Incorporated, developed the trifecta of preparedness plans, to include shelter in place and evacuation - as well as the one additional event frequently highlighted in our research as impactful and the source of worry - loss of income. Hence, the three plans are presented, based upon research, as the strategies necessary to build resilience, to adopt the preparedness measures required to be capable of decision making and executing a bespoke plan to shelter in place, evacuate or mitigate income loss.
Shelter in Place. Colloquially referred to as bugging-in, the concept is simple. You plan to provide for your family throughout an emergency without requiring external assistance from government. Specifically, our research concludes that this means providing for the animalistic (we are animals in the environment) requirements (food, water, shelter, health, safety & security), for all those for whom you are responsible (family is often multi-generational and multi-location) for a timeline you feel comfortable, relying only on social connections and community for support.
Evacuation. Rare, with some literature referring to it as the most dangerous situation for a family, in relation to the immediate and ongoing potential disruption to normal lives. Research into successful evacuation outcomes informs that families who did evacuate under a prepared plan to a pre-established family or friend’s residence had lower degrees of anxiety or stress and significantly reduced financial burden. This was due to a limited need to expend additional funds for shelter and per diem, as well as the calm and comfort of private accommodation. There was no correlation with successful insurance claims and short term accommodations, other than an increased access to Wifi or cell coverage, privacy and supporting IT systems to conduct the claim process.
Loss of Income. Everyone leaves their current employment, you either die, quit, are fired or retire. Most hope that they will separate on their terms, at a time of their choosing, though history and the current economic climate might dictate otherwise. Survey responses in the USA have shown that immediate loss of income is rated equally to a total loss of a home, in impact to mental, financial and family health. We consider a loss of the primary source of revenue for a family to be equally impactful as an evacuation and loss. Evidence shows that individuals who possess a pivot strategy, a process to quickly replace the lost income with an alternate employment stream are more likely to be successful. Data from the recent pandemic demonstrates that a number of individuals were able to replace their lost income, during an emergency, due to a pre-existing plan. Whether that be the same profession in a new industry, commoditizing a skill set, or beginning a new career in a field with existing demand, a strategy to
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Seldom do people make decisions in isolation, they seek information, knowledge and opinion of trusted sources to inform what their options. We’re learning that counter to the neo-classical economic thought, humans make decisions on emotion and later use logic to justify it. We used to believe that decisions were made at the margins, incremental and always with our own best interest at heart. We are wildly difficult to predict.
The roadmap’s part one informed that society functions on the back of 10 sectors of critical infrastructure (CI), that emergency management (EM) as a public function intends to support society during disruptions and that a preparedness gap exists between hazard induced needs and the government’s capacity / capability. Embracing these ideas is key to moving along the pathway to resilience, followed in this part by the acceptance of responsibility for outcomes and ourselves. We posit that once responsibility has been adopted and improvement is underway, we can consider the types of preparedness we choose to adopt.
First, as argued by the stoics and modern philosophers, there is little we actually control, but that is precisely enough. We have absolute control over two areas, what we say and do. Everything else that occurs in the world is a function of what others say and do, over which we have nominal influence, but management of how we choose to respond. This frame is the key to successful preparedness, we’re not trying to change the world, bring in new policies or governance systems, the goal is to become more prepared to navigate that which we do not control, through controlling what we can.
Personal responsibility for your outcomes means you acknowledge that whether or not external assistance may exist, it is ultimately you who are responsible for how your life proceeds. Win or lose, it is your fault. This is not an argument for isolationism, far from it as we will address in parts 4 and 5, but that you first must accept that if you are to lead through chaos, you must first accept the leadership role. If you choose to not assume command and control of your life, then you are a dependent of someone else - family, community or the government. You will be counting on an external force to provide for your basic needs when calamity strikes, and if they fail to do so, you will suffer. The choice is binary, looking at the incredible person in the mirror, are you willing to lead your life, by accepting responsibility for your outcomes? If the answer is yes, listen to this episode.
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Our intent in this five part series is to demystify the idea of resilience, to ground it in the philosophy of preparedness and to provide the operationalization of research. Everything that follows is based upon defendable data sources, evidence to support a recommended pathway, to ensure that you receive only what we “know” to be helpful. A caveat first - science is imperfect. It received a bloody nose during the pandemic, rightfully so. Science is the expression of knowledge as we understand it today, based upon the research - results of experimentation, leveraging our best mathematical models to provide reasonable certainty. Science is never settled, those who make such statements are not scientists, but advocates. What we understand about the physical world (natural sciences) and the human species (social sciences) remains changing, as it should, as we test new hypothesis, challenging paradigmatic norms.
This series is our recipe to seize control of your life, to insulate your family / business against the effects of events you cannot control and to the greatest extent possible, reach your goals. No system is foolproof, nor can they plan for all contingencies. We’ve examined thirty years of data, conducted our own research to create this roadmap. We are imperfect as well, but we believe providing you non-apocalyptic evidence-based preparedness education, in the form of a roadmap to resilience, is a noble cause. We will provide these five steps in this format, with an accompanied audio episode on our podcast, Inside My Canoehead, as well as a visual representation on our YouTube channel.
This is our company’s, Preparedness Labs Incorporated, offering to the world, free of charge. We simply ask you to share and invest your time and effort. No money is required on the road to resilience, there are no economic barriers to preparedness, they are simply creations of the state.
Our goal for this roadmap is that you’ll learn to navigate shocks that cause the loss of access to one or more sectors of CI, within your own resources. Disasters are dealt with through step 3 - your trifecta of preparedness plans. Until then, we concentrate on you accepting this as the frame for society, that emergencies occur when you need to navigate loss of access to CI, and that this will look different for every human, family, community and neighbourhood. There is no one size fits all, your circumstances are sufficiently unique that within a small group of individuals, the needs will vary greatly, as will the mitigation strategies.
Framing resilience as a personal skill, a capability born from understanding the world around us, how it function and fails, as well as they public systems designed to assist, sets the condition for step two, responsibility for the world around us.
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Framing our situation is important, because the lens we choose to use when examining the world around us influences what we see, the actions we believe are helpful and the outcomes we seek. Ask an academic about the choice of theoretical frameworks and you’ll need copious amounts of caffeine to survive the lecture. Prominent, exceptionally important, yet rarely discussed.
Leaders make decisions, they examine the information or data, seek guidance or advice, but in the end are tasked with committing their organizations to a path. That pathway, when grounded in strategy thinking has a higher degree of resilience, because the leader is managing issues, not finding solutions.
Solutions are the endgame for problems that are 100% within the control of management. Personnel, resources, processes, policies and procedures are designed to address known problems, to offer solutions to end the harm. Solution seekers require authority and control, which is why they can only be successful when looking inward. To look to the environment, over which we have exceptionally little influence, requires a different lens, that of managing issues vice finding solutions.
When we consider the myriad of problems, existential for some, the aim is not to invest finite resources in trying to solve a problem within another organization, but leading our teams through the issue presented by the external problem. Issue management is the concept of leveraging the resources over which we have control, to find the least disruptive and most helpful pathway for our team.
I cannot control the decision of the US Federal government to change the funding allocations related to FEMA. That is a problem in another organization over which I have little influence. The intelligent response is to understand how I navigate the issue presented by the change in funding models. This reaction is rare, when we examine the proliferation of articles and posts on LinkedIn, almost to an exception, they are demanding an outcome they cannot control, bemoaning the change - but few offer ideas on mitigating loss, other than simply demanding someone else provides the resources. Change is here, it really is inconsequential whether you agree or not, but as a leader in your organization, how will you leverage your assets to manage the issue?
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We have seen a notable and systemic shift in the role of individualism in Canada, the emergence of a default assumption that the correct and appropriate response to a collective issue is government intervention. That may be in the form of access to financial resources, programatic offerings or a new set of policy interventions in society.
This set the stage for the pandemic, the arrival of the virus in Canada in November 2019 and the declaration of a pandemic in March 2020, which led many governments to enact a series of interventions in our free society, with the intent of mitigating the spread of the virus. We all remember the catch phrases, “two weeks to flatten the curve”, “six feet of separation” and others. The majority of the population were caught off guard, did not see a pandemic with the associated restrictive covenants as part of 2020, simply did not have a strategy to counter a significant exogenous shock.
The rapid and immediate call for government intervention into rescuing the population, principally replacing lost income, led me to ponder a simple, but powerful question: why were people choosing to live a life so close to the line that they would need government money to cover their bills within a few months of losing their income?
The podcast, Inside My Canoehead, was my response to that question, to explore why the population at large was so unprepared for a shock, why the government intervention was necessary and what were the drivers behind a society that was so ill positioned to navigate such an event. The government had been issuing preparedness messaging for decades, financial gurus have been arguing for emergency funds for rainy days and health practitioners were advocating for caring for our mental health. The solutions were there, but the population simply chose not to listen.
It has been a pleasure to provide non-apocalyptic, evidence-based preparedness education for free, that is our mission at Preparedness Labs Incorporated, to be Canada’s source for rational and research based strategies to navigate exogenous shocks. So I raise a glass to all that made the past five years possible - my incredible wife, kids, confidants, Tina in Germany and a list of believers that convinced me to continue the message, to climb upon the soapbox in the public square and be unapologetically me. So I did and here I am.
Pro Patria.
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First, a sincere thank you for the support over the past half decade, we've been a stalwart voice in the pandemic, offering evidence-based strategies to protect your family from the personal and economic harm. Our Season 13 was grounded in providing that guidance and speaking to a number of key notable figures.
Season 14 begins with the 5th year anniversary episode, followed by the offering of our premiere and now free, 4 step 8-hour roadmap to resilience. The only evidence-based preparedness education designed to support you and your family on the journey to living your life, protected from exogenous shocks.
Our commitment to you is this audio version, a written substack and a YouTube channel designed to offer free, non-apocalyptic evidence-based preparedness education.
So consume via the medium you prefer, we believe your family is worth it.
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This month I had the honour of visiting northern Ontario, while devoid of mountains and lighthouses, it has a unique beauty, a draw that mesmerizes the mind. A combination of the boreal forest and the Canadian Shield, the landscape is an endless assortment of 1000s of lakes, rivers, small towns and a connectedness to both the people and the land. A sense of place, whether here by chance or choice, everyone belonged, this was their space, which they opened with smiles and a flurry of stories for us city folk.
Officially, I was there to speak, but my mission was to learn, to understand the challenges, obstacles, barriers and limitations of conducting preparedness, response and recovery operations in rural Canada. While I understood the principles, as a researcher there is nothing that replaces or replicates qualitative projects. The opportunity to listen to those who execute the function you’re interested in, who despite the intentional policy restrictions, continue to move ideas forward.
The first lesson understood was that the policy analysts who craft governance documents in capital cities demonstrate a significant lack of understanding as to the conditions present outside their bubble. The practitioners in rural Ontario are cognizant of the requirements and regulations, often quoting them verbatim, but they follow that with a litany of shortfalls in the legislation. Whether that be tasks assigned without resources provided, staffing minimums that exceed capacity in rural governance and reporting relationships that are counterproductive and illogical.
Let’s be blunt, I heard these challenges from provincial employees within Emergency Management Ontario and the Ministry of Natural Resources, not simply from the general public. These are the public servants tasked with executing responsibilities in rural areas under a regulatory framework and administrative systems that are not fit for purpose. The brilliance of this, lost on those buried in paperwork in Toronto, is that they have the solution, they know the amendments required and organizational re-structuring that will lead to better post event outcomes - but they lament the repetitious cycle of report, offer guidance and be ignored.
This is not my ego landing in a new city, professing to possess the solutions to their problems, the omnipotent professor and entrepreneur. No, the three days were a continuous feed of incredible ideas, all grassroots, that would evaluate the game, improve the deliverability of emergency management services to the public. Other than my presentation and a few side conversations where I bounced my ideas off practitioners - and often quickly understood my ignorance - this was a mission in listening, watching and understanding the experience of those in the north. Separate and distinct from the urban centres, these communities were resolute and steadfast.
Brilliant people doing amazing things with scant resources.
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Tariffs, elections, wars and a host of other calamities lead many into learned helplessness, the idea that there is little within your control to protect against and ameliorate the effects of disasters.
That is incorrect, you have the power of community, the strength embedded in the social capital - human relationships - across the business, public and private sectors of your community. All the necessary resources to manage through and recovery from a disaster exist where you live, they simply need to be coordinated.
This is that process, the overview of how to create a resilient community. Someone simply needs to be the champion - is that you?
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Mike Tyson was correct, we all have a plan, but few are ready for a right cross. Welcome to 2025, if you're not persuaded by now that this decade is disruptive and volatile, I'm not sure what would help. The foundation of preparedness is that it is up to you to strategize your life and then plan for the uncertain but likely chaotic event that is just around the corner.
We all need to have a trifecta of preparedness plans, insulated with insurance and a broad understanding of the political, economic, natural and cultural external influences that will continue to throw speed bumps and storms in our path.
Canada is headed to the polls. Irrespective of your political stripe, you need to be ready to live under a majority government from a party you disagree with, to understand their policies and plan. In a democracy you get a say, not the final say.
You must be ready and be ahead of the curve, are you?
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These are challenging times, we are facing an ever-increasing frequency of dramatic alternations to the international order, which have downstream influences on our lives. There seems little we control and therefore are doomed to be victims.
A counter to that is to understand that we do have options, there is a methodology to find certainty and lower anxiety in these chaotic times. In this episode, we discuss the ideas of first understanding that there is little in your control and that we must accept decisions that are beyond our control.
We do that by first determining what it is that keeps us up at night, what events if they occur would be impactful. We then find solutions to these outcomes, usually in alternate sources of income, different locations where we may live and ideas that reduce the potential impact of an external decision. When you have a strategy to mitigate the effects of government policy imposed on you and your business, you have less stress. With less anxiety you can focus on your dreams, your goals.
I often refer to the analogy of a simple question: "why do you swing your legs out of bed in the morning, what is your goal or purpose?". Every successful person has a plan, a roadmap they're following to reach a goal that is important to them, irrespective of the actions of others. That's the key, you build a robust preparedness strategy to allow you to pursue your goals. So when a populist international leader imposes sanctions or tariffs on your industry causing a direct impact on your income, you're ready. You have a plan, a strategy, and that allows you to chase your dreams and sleep soundly at night.
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We exist in a dependant culture, one where we collectively expect and believe there is an entitlement to public sector support in times of disaster. We fund governments through taxation and the social contract dictates that services are afforded to the public in support of continued societal operations. There is much debate over the current state of public sector disaster organizations, with many voices calling for fundamental changes, myself included.
The public sector is limited to the resources provided through taxation, which in many localities is marginal at best. If EM is responsible for the allocation of scarce resources and it only has authority over the limited capital available within the local system, then accessing the greater community capital as potential resources in an emergency would be ideal. The challenge has been the how and often it has materialized in requests for services while in-event, based upon lists of names and companies that might - and I mean might - be verified annually. Relationships, built on trust, are the foundation for social capital and facilitate the subsequent flow of other capitals in times of peace and chaos. Establishing positive meaningful connections with the wider community is necessary to facilitate access to their capital. This cannot be done after the event occurs.
The resources to ameliorate suffering and loss, to rebuild society at all but the extreme financial capital levels are likely resident in the affected region. To leverage this is to engage, to build formal relationships with the served community, to understand the resources embedded in the networks, to build trust with the possessors of capital - so that when the balloon goes up, a coordinated response operation occurs, with all four sectors assisting. The public sector has a mandated responsibility for EM, but it cannot be successful without the cooperation - not compliance - of the all societal sectors: private enterprise, not for profit organizations and the residents.
So no, we don’t need new organizations, we need local engagement and partnerships, to build community.
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There are no shortage of diatribes online about the state of global leadership, whether your guy is making the necessary realignments long called for but never enacted, or someone left the baboon door open at the zoo, and apologies to the baboons, this is a chaotic time for the global order. While expected in the 2020s, this is even more abrupt than some of the great thinkers imagined. Whether you’re examining this situation through the lens of a family, community, nation, corporation, not for profit or an entrepreneur, this is impacting how you intent to run your life, all aspects.
A wonderful time to remind ourselves of the stoic philosophy on dichotomy of control. The idea that everything falls within one of two categories, things that are within your influence to change and that which is not. What we’re experiencing online is the expected and justified expression of emotions, ideas, thoughts and beliefs. I encourage everyone to be expressive, it’s cathartic, and to a large minority, very fun. So plow on, enjoy, scream, decry unjust decisions. However, to be successful in the next 8 years, you’ll need to separate the two arenas.
Protesting actions you deem to be against your values is fine, arguing for something different is a right, where it becomes a disorder is when it drives your decisions, when you allow the decisions and actions of others to determine your state of mind. The solution is found in the creation of a risk mitigated life, one where you understand the world in which you live, embrace all it has to offer and to operate within the rules imposed. Bold decisions and being risk adverse are not mutually exclusive. You can choose to design a life that is insulated to the greatest extent possible, from political and economic decisions that are beyond your control, that permits - even encourages you, to seize the day, to jump into the chaos and abyss. Those who see opportunity in the chaos and decide to embrace the uncertainty with an innovative strategy will be case studies in 2032 on how to win when others are angry and profoundly emotionally befuddled.
The question for you is how you choose to embrace the world as it is presented. You are responsible for your outcomes, success in these chaotic times is within your grasp, should you choose to move beyond the emotional uncomfortableness and embrace chaos.
Good luck.
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If we accept that the 2020s is our turn at the expected global organizational shift, then we might benefit from considering what we would like to see emerge. While we as individuals have little effect on national outcomes and international order, we can foster support for those who may be in unique positions. At each cycle in history, notable figures emerged, individuals with a position, a place from which to pontificate on the possible. To offer to the generational shift a view on what the world could be, what the opportunities are and the necessary sacrifices to see them materialize. A vision, a call to action, a national mission to undertake, to build the society we see as desirable and within the constraints of the international environment.
We have not seen leadership, the decisive call to action from a charismatic figure in many decades. We have voted for and received successive governments who argued for incrementalism, often a version of aggressive incrementalism, but policy frameworks that would make a neo-classical economists smile. Across the political spectrum, from left to right and from top to bottom - yes, politics is a 4 quadrant entity, not a linear model, we’ve found voices that move the society in a direction we support, slightly, with moderate changes. Often announced with bellicose authority, quintessential catch phrases and a host of marketing slogans, but since the Bretton Woods agreement, even through the end of the Cold War and the short experiment with globalization, the voices were bold, the changes much less impactful.
This extends to not just the international order, but national, sub-national and municipal governments, to agencies and departments. Ministries of the Crown or Secretaries in Republics have all had a change to enact meaningful, structural change to create a different society. While each iteration intends to create a more prosperous civilization, they do so within their own ideology and as we regularly change the flavour of our governments, we often see a two steps forward, one step back, not really in any coordinated direction result. As my uncle would say, a discombobulation. That has been the totality of our outcomes in the past generational block, an incremental disorganized advancement towards a destination we have yet to codify, done so with the loudest of celebrations.
Can we do better? Have a listen
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I’ve written at length over the past few months about the political and economic crises that looms over the world, the jaxapositioning of nations to find their place in the new world order and the likely impacts on populations. This polycrisis is longitudinal, will continue until 2032 and has many more hands to play, which makes it that much more difficult to predict the next moves or to adjust your personal strategy. While there are unknown disruptions around the corner and some will be novel, some will be repetitious, the foundational truth remains, we are in control of very little and that is perfect. Cue the role of preparedness.
That plan, created for any unit of measure, is the secret weapon for 2025. We need to, without question, understand that each of us are exposed to some common influences but that at the smaller units of measure, the discrepancies increase. Few family risk profiles will look the same, necessitating a different strategy, but all existing in the same world. This is the role of community, to foster these discussions, to support everyone on their journey to finding a roadmap to success. We’re all on different lanes of the same highway, together we can win the day, periodically supporting those who need assistance. Each unit of measure needs a strategy, to navigate the current and future series of exogenous shocks from all five of the spheres of influence - political, economic, cultural, natural and familial.
The exercise is one of time and effort, consideration and thinking. It is free, requires no commitment of financial resources, but the time to consider risks, codifying severity, assessing those that need amelioration and in doing so, create that roadmap to adopting preparedness, to be ready for come what may.
This is the preparedness message for 2025, to accept the environment you’re in, to understand it and the influence it has upon your family and write a strategy to navigate disruptions that are beyond your control, as a community, together.
Ask yourself, can you identify the unacceptable risks to which your family is exposed to? If the response is yes, can you articulate the strategy your family is using to mitigate?
If you cannot, you’re not ready for 2025, and it’s already here.
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Comfort feels great, easy and simple. But as the old adage proves, success and opportunity are found outside your comfort zone. For several decades Canada has chosen to be complacent, comfortable and dormant. We’ve lost our way, from a nation of builders, adventures, explores and innovators, to a couch potato collection of dependasaurus and whiners. We wanted a better world, we chastised those who did things we disagreed with, but then returned to our comfortable couches in our rent stabilized apartment. The landlord just jacked the rent.
There are a number of brilliant position papers published at Build Canada, a collection of proud Canadians who believe that we are at a pivotal moment in our history, one of opportunity, the potential to return to greatness. I invite every Canadian to read them, consider the options and contribute to the conversation
I believe that if we support independent journalism, accept personal responsibility for our outcomes, build our communities and learn to discuss the hard issues that we will begin the transformation to a resilient society, dependant on each other. I challenge Canadians to attend community events, raise the flag on your home, meet the neighbours, get healthy and have those hard conversations on where you see this nation moving. Ideas create societies, they are fostered collectively, so get together in your little slice of this nation, build up those around you, take care of yourself and together we will do what is within our control to create a resilient society.
This is indeed a pivotal time for our great nation. We can stand up and fight to build a resilient and independent nation, or we can lose what little we have left. We did this to ourselves, by being complacent. Whatever the outcome, it will be our fault, so choose wisely.
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Governments are a finicky thing, often maligned, never understood and staffed by a host of individuals who the population generally views as unproductive and inefficient. These views are present whether you are a libertarian or socialist, we the omnipotent citizens believe there is substantial and unchallenged waste and pork barrelling throughout our governance systems. Cue DOGE.
There are necessary things in life that we cannot produce or acquire ourselves, a set of collective needs that are the foundation for governments. Roles like national defence, international relations, trade, currency, criminal and civil courts, protection of the environment, etc. We create a social contract with the government: you do the things we want done but are unable to do as individuals, and through taxation we will provide you the resources to execute. A simple agreement.
There are three grounding principles in public sector governance. First is that the government works for the people. Second it exists at the pleasure of the people and third is that it is subject to the oversight of the people. Generalities yes, but unwavering rules that form the social contract.
I argue that DOGE’s gift is the groundwork for a future delivery method to rebuild institutional trust, to demonstrate to the population that their hard earned dollars are being judiciously managed and allocated to appropriate systems that further the wellbeing of society. Imagine if DOGE was mainstream, that an independent auditor could access every system in the government, release all payment information and contracts on a recurring basis to the population. Millions of Americans would have unrestricted access to a database of expenditures, to conduct their own evaluation on the appropriateness of expenditures, in concert with - not replacing - the Ombudsmen and Auditors General.
So bemoan the process by which DOGE is operating, the personalities involved, their potential to gain from access to the information and any other reasons you can foster to fight this initiative.
DOGE is brilliant, it is a version of government accountability we’ve all been waiting for. We want to trust and verify. The government needs to create a system that supports the increase in public trust and confidence, and that begins with transparency.
Tell us what you’re doing and if I have questions, I’ll ask. Novel, but revolutionary.
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We often bemoan the loss of the Boomer's dream, single family income that pays for a home, vacations and earns a nice retirement pension to enjoy time with grandchildren. Those were wonderful times, but that was only possible with an economic system that supported that life. That ship sailed, those economic models do not exist yet many still try to correlate life in 2025 with the Boomer dream.
We live in the GIG economy, where side hustles and regularly moving between salaried positions at a host of companies is the norm. Consistency is not existent and those who succeed embrace the reality they're in, not the one they want.
The rise of personal responsibility for retirement, in that it is your duty to fund your golden years, not the government's. If you are in your 20s or 30s and you are not fusing a retirement plan, then you are failing your future self.
We discuss work-life balance, that idea that somehow we're supposed to separate these ideas into two distinct parts, as if they are not part of the same pie. In this world, the one here in 2025, you have the ability to do what you love, to swing you legs out of the bed in the morning earning an income with a smile. If you are not doing that, have a look in the mirror and ask why you made that choice. Tough for some to swallow.
The economic model of 2025 has brilliant possibilities for everyone, stop looking at your grandparents age and lamenting, understand the world in which you live and thrive.
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What can you do to insulate you and your family from the effects of tariff decisions by foreign governments? The intent of this episode is to outline why the US government is making this decision, the rationale for nations to adopt organic production regimes and how these economic pivots affect your life.
We all are exposed to risk, based upon the employment we choose, the location where we live and the lifestyles we adopt. There is no zero risk endeavour, hence understanding your risk exposure to external events, evaluating your personal comfort with those risks and then choosing to create a risk / resilience / preparedness plan for your family is highly recommended.
What is your plan when you get fired, is your business exposed to the steel or aluminum industry - are you living in a wildfire zone or on a floodplain? Information is power, knowing your risks allows you to mitigate where you can and accept the potential outcomes from the realization of those risks.
Planning is key, but without a clear comprehension of your personal risk, you may write the greatest conclusion to the wrong story.
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Communities are only as strong as their connections, our sense of belonging and place is what ties us geographically and to membership in wider organizations. In our cities and towns populations exist that draw a disproportionate amount of resources in an emergency, but are omitted from planning considerations. Often, the emergency management team simply is unaware of the agencies that represent the interests of the disabled, a barrier to establishing foundational relationships.
This interview is a distinct honour, to speak with someone who is deviating significant efforts to raising the awareness of the needs of the disabled, but also reminding society of the assets and skills embedded in a population that despite challenges, is an essential element for community success.
The disabled population is but one set of voices that needs to be at the emergency management table, to join in the community conversation on what events look like, how they should be managed and how everyone contributes to better post event outcomes.
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Bluster, ideological idiocy and a host of other hot air producing commentary is drowning our social media and semi-professional forums. Like all issues, everyone is now a trade expert, understands international treaties, exceptions and can provide a detailed rationale for this and the next iteration of team A or B. Whether we launch a war on trade, resources, ideology, cultural appropriation, food or obesity, the Internet is ready with millions of instant experts.
Let’s be clear, no one cares about your opinion, my thoughts on person A or B, or what we believe is the motive behind decisions. At times like this, everyone wants a piece of the pie, their five minutes of fame quoting some obscure voice in an effort to demonstrate their prowess. Funny, lame and ultimately useless, this is the state of the discourse online.
The question that few pontificate on is what does this mean for the individual families in the western world and what strategies are available to mitigate the effects and to construct a roadmap to success in this new environment.
The first and always most important aspect of change is being OK with uncertainty. Most of us prefer predictable times, where we can count on an income, costs are kept within reasonable inflationary ranges and stability in the overall system is high. That is not now, so the choice is ours. We can bemoan the instability, the uncertainty, you’re free to blame whom you choose, but in the end, the world is rapidly undergoing a transformation. The choice you have is to complain about the previous iteration, act like a petulant toddler protesting something you cannot control - or you can choose to understand the environment in which you exist, whether you agree with it or not.
A roadmap to success is found in knowledge of the circumstances under which you exist. We simplify this to three areas, income, expenses and you. At the risk of unnecessary repetition, I’ll offer once again, this has nothing to do whether you agree with what is happening, whose side you’re on and what your preferred outcome is. No, this is setting up you and your family to thrive within the current climate, storms, discourse, ridiculousness included.
Is there a strategy, absolutely!
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Rinse and repeat, repacked or polished, increased volume or new influencers - all methodologies leveraged by the public sector in attempts to convince the population that their preparedness communications are accurate, helpful and should be adopted.
I’ve spent over a decade examining this very specific phenomenon, what I refer to as “public sector resident-facing preparedness communications”. I’ve conducted and published studies on the message, medium, target audience and a host of variables related to the effort.
I am certain that Preparedness Week / Month this May will have some form of the message that has been summarily ignored by the public:
Have a plan, be informed, build a kit.
In the Canadian context, many provincial or territorial governments will wait to see what Public Safety Canada deems to be this year’s persuasive twist and repeat. Lower tier local governments are conducting EM off the side of their desk, so the innovation, modernization, disruption or otherwise paradigm challenging ideas are off the table.
If we examine the body of knowledge, from indigenous teaching spanning thousands of years to the most recent data, we see a set of correlated variables. The challenge is to separate what we wish to see from the reality. If we examine the available data on populations that experienced significant events, we can then search for individual samples where certain groups were more successful, or in simple terms, had better post event outcomes.
The literature is heterogeneous, which I will assert is a positive, not a problem. Disagreement and inconsistency leads to further examination, often the rationale for additional, nuanced inquiry into the phenomenon. This is not settled science, in fact if anyone uses that term they simply do not understand science. Researchers in each niche are operating within a web of variables, data and opinion. The challenge will always be to seek knowledge and evidence-based recommendations, not what amounts to norm-reinforcing cheerleading.
My research led to the identification of specific variables correlated with better post event outcomes: sense of belonging measured via social capital, personal responsibility for self and community, institutional trust and a subjective view on government communications.
Is there a better strategy, absolutely
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There are a few sources to lead us to a conclusion, the first being our legislation. As this is local to national, and to some degree multilateral and multinational, we codify our intent in laws that are geographically bounded. The state EM legislation governs the roles and responsibilities of the field in that state, with no influence or authority over the neighbouring states. In practice, the majority of regional statues in states are similar, with generally common overarching ideas. The specifics, found in the regulatory framework and administrative procedures vary, as do the authorities, often reflective of the local culture and ideology.
The second is in the communications, the public sector resident-facing official messaging, which assigns responsibilities to the population and ideally outlines the intended actions of the public sector. These have a high degree of commonality, remaining vague, generalist and unchanged in decades. The preparedness messages occur with a regular frequency, advising the population on hazards and providing advice, the effort is concentrated in persuading the residents to adopt behavoirs the public sector believe will be helpful in times of crisis. Further, there crisis communications, the alerts, immediately preceding an event or in-event messages are all local, ideally culturally appropriate and timely.
The third is the population’s belief. It is the expectations harboured by the residents, what they believe should happen leading up to, during and after an event. This is the collection of ideas related to direct and indirect support as well as delivery of services directly to the population. The notable portion of this is the face to face, the belief that the public sector will be there, to varying degrees, in person, in the time of need. These beliefs are influenced by culture, sense of place, responsibility and confidence or trust in public sector institutions. This varies across regions and nations.
Research links institutional trust to meeting expectations of the served public. That requires both parties to agree to a reasonable standard of care in policy, communicate expectations in regular messaging and then deliver upon what was agreed. Negotiation and discourse are something that used to be standard, but is often overseen by those who believe they are omnipotent in their role to protect.
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Whenever the deliverable from a public sector agency fails to meet expectations, there are two general causes. First, is the most likely, that the expectation of the target audience was outsized or inconsistent with the actual legislated and funded mission. We see this in ad hoc interviews and formal press conferences, where a resident or mayor states they thought the response would be X, but it was Y. It is often simply an unrealistic and uninformed expectation as to the capabilities and capacity of public sector EM that leads the call for change. The second, less likely rationale is that there was a failing within the system, that while it was established and funded to execute a mission, they failed to meet the expected standards. These are harder to identify and longer to investigate, as one quality of public sector agency leadership is that it is uncomfortable with dirty laundry being publicized.
FEMA was constructed with the best on intentions, undergoing multiple changes over its near 50 year reign as the global leader in EM bureaucracy. The level of education courses, application or management systems and governance structures is indeed, awe inspiring. Many often joke that it would be a challenge to make it more complex, not impossible, but difficult.
It is an easy target to simple say a massive beast of administration failed. Intellectually grounded discussions demand a more precise discussion. One to evaluate is whether FEMA, as currently constructed, funded and governed, is the best known methodology and structure - is it “fit for purpose”. There are no shortage of experts, academics, practitioners and interested parties that believe they know there is a better way. I intentionally avoid the use of that word, “better”. It connotes that the current methodological approach is flawed. I prefer “different”, to pose the question to informed parties, if you designed a government agency to delivery X to Y population with Z budget, how would you do that?I argue that debating the viable options alongside the current construct is the only roadmap to answering the question whether it is fit for purpose. At this juncture in FEMA within the current political and disaster climate, I know of no greater, more profound time to confirm that we have it right, or that there are adjustments.
Do we have the leadership to consider options for trimming the tree and those for clear cutting the forest? Time will tell.
The answer very well may be we have the most logical system now, but without a comparative analysis, that statement is unsubstantiated.
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Humans are tribal, we are a species that thrives in the collective, where individual skills are amplified by the resources and assistance of others. Throughout our known history, we’ve been organized into different groups for specific purposes, whether that be family, relational, cultural or fulfilling our basic needs. Classically presented as the Dunbar number, named after a notable British anthropology professor, humans have Neo-cortexes that support a loose acquaintance level of 150 persons and smaller intimate groups of 12-15.
These statistics are reflected in military & business organizational systems, the rifle company normally will not exceed 150 personnel and start-ups are often seen as losing culture, vibe and purpose when they exceed Dunbar’s number. This research is recent, first published in 1992 and continues to inform our understanding of the need for community, to belong, a sense of place. I’ve written at length about the value of social capital, our propensity and opportunity to create bonds, and its importance to the safety and future of communities under duress.
The body of research in disaster and emergency management (DEM) is reasonably homogenous in that it posits human connections, the value placed on our sense of belonging is one of, if not the key variable, in determining the quality of our post event outcomes. Whether we pontificate on how neanderthals managed earthquakes, or we examine the last 300 years of data on human tribal response to significant exogenous shock, I will argue that the value of community is unquestioned, but under-utilized.
We transformed from a duty to contribute to and build our tribe to entitlement to draw from it. A slow, deliberate, methodical change in our culture that now has a nation of what is colloquial referred to as a collection of individual dependasaurus.
This extends to how we have changed our political demands, we seek politicians and governments that provide for us, give us benefits so that we can do what we desire, vice the tribal sense of contributing to and building the local community. We no longer focus on our duty to fellow citizens and our Dunbar numbered tribe, but our orientation is on what is our benefit, what are we entitled to and how can we systematically increase the reach of the benevolent government.
Now, every bump in the night leads to a call for more government intervention, for a program to alleviate the issue, when the solution is found within a short walk of your house.
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“The global order is under revision”, likely the most understated quote from a series of interviews surrounding the inauguration of the latest US President. The events of the past 48 hours and the weeks to come will to the best of every pundit’s ability, be tied to the new leader of the free world, whether you’re a supporter or detractor.
The reality is that, as I’ve written before, this decade is the expected global re-organization. A phenomenon that has occurred every 70-80 years since the age of sail in the 1400s. Clearly delineated by Ray Dalio in the seminal work, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order, these events were going to occur in this period irrespective of who was at the helm. The direction and actors may shuffle with a different conductor, but not the process. In simple terms, as a generation perishes and their memory on why the world exists “as is” expires, nations jockey for position, influence and roles on the globe.
All of this is outside our influence, as individuals we are entitled to our views, opinions and beliefs, but those are inconsequential to the global order. Many will choose to “lose it” with an election result, or be “befuddled and unglued” with a politician’s policy initiatives, but again, in the grand scheme, this is and always will be beyond our personal control. Yet many will create stress, amplify anxiety and burden themselves and their families with undo harm as they perceive great peril and injustice.
Preparedness is intent, your choice to decide that you wish to do what you can against what you cannot control. I cannot chose the next US President, but as a resident of Canada that decision is impactful in my life. My responsibility is then not to become a keyboard warrior on the evils of one ideology versus another, but to understand how that decision by the US electorate may affect how I have chosen to live my life. This is accomplished through examining what scholars refer to as the spheres of influence or panes of life: political, economic, cultural, ideological, natural and familial. How will this event potentially impact my personal roadmap in life? A series of questions related to the likely - not hyped or ideologically driven paranoia, but what policy decisions by this politician will impact my life. The key is not the ones you disagree with, the bellicose statements, but the actual policy itself. Who cares what a politician says, what they do is what matters.
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The point is vacations matter, to disconnect and repair. The mind and body are finite tools for life, they are our mot important resource, the key to our success and the reason we’ll exit. I’ve learned that when I say I’m gone, to be gone. So this year, I pre-recorded all the podcast episodes for Inside My Canoehead, wrote a few Substack articles and prepared notes for my return. Those notes are what led to this article, today is the return day.
Reflections are important. What did I learn on vacation - did I disconnect, respect my personal boundaries and was I all-in, present with the family, or was I thinking about the business, clients and goals for 2025. This year, I’ll score my vacation a 8.5/10.
Vacations matter to prepare the mind for the logic vs insanity dance that is our discourse. To fight ideology and idiocy requires preparation and a keen eye, successful keyboard warriors respond cleverly, not in narcissistic spam.
I did lean slightly into the fires in California, the New Year’s Day attacks and other important events. That’s the reason for the less than perfect vacation score. I’ve done much worse and I’ve said countless times before, success or failure is my fault. On balance I met my expectations, but I will do better the next time.
I will pen some ideas about where we go from here, but for now, I’ll encourage everyone to be on vacation when you’re away.
The world and your professional life will be fine without you, because one day you will be gone and someone will carry on, so smell the roses.
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We traditionally think of preparedness as a function of natural disasters, where we ready for storms and events that may cut off the critical infrastructure for days. When we think about economic preparedness, it is often the gateway conversation to understanding that the phenomenon extends to political, economic, cultural / ideological and familial crisis as well.
Your family's primary income is exceptionally important to their ongoing health, it should be protected to the greatest extent possible. Hence, we discuss the ideas of creating a plan for when your income suddenly goes to zero, how you'll replicate that income, the timeframe to resume earning and the necessary emergency funds. Further, we talk about the need to understand the environment in which your company operates, is there an exogenous force that may cause your employer to close, reduce shifts or otherwise make changes to your level of income. We finish with a conversation about entrepreneurship, the challenges with that and concerns about preparedness that are essential to those building wealth. We know you cannot become wealthy by accepting a salary, only through business. Are you ready to venture into the unknown? I would only do so with a robust economic preparedness plan, that's what we offer...
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Doomsday Preppers was a series on TV, the reality is that much of what was on that program was scripted for show, those individuals were not that crazy. However, much of the modern impression of preppers is grounded in the idea that they are disconnected from reality, they hate government, love guns, want chaos and basically want to see the world burn.
The truth is that preppers are simply individuals who believe that there is a likelihood of a pause in the provision of critical infrastructure (CI) that will last longer than 14 days, but that society will eventually recover and return to normal. Hence, their preparedness measures differ from what is normally recommended as they adopt processed that allow them to replicate the sectors of CI for an extended period.
Not the stockpiling of basements, but the skills and tools necessary to provide for what is no longer available from society.
In this episode, we talk about how to become a prepper, the concerns, processes and idea - including how to build a group and find an offsite location for temporary evacuation of urban / suburban areas.
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Whether or not we like it, we all age. We might be caring for a loved one, an extended family member, or we are co-located in high density housing with seniors. There are real issues as we age, from physical mobility, cognitive decline, climactic control, evacuation, cyber crime and overall health.
Preparedness is individual specific, hence there are concerns related to your trifecta of preparedness plans if you are a senior, your ability to maintain positive control of your life, the choice of accommodation that assists in mitigating your restrictions and a host of other considerations.
If you are in your golden years or are caring for someone who is, this is worth listening to, to spark some ideas, to begin the conversation about protecting those you love from harm, as they age.
Preparedness is future proofing and good decisions now will facilitate a good life tomorrow.
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Welcome to the new year, a time when we regularly burden ourselves with unrealistic expectations, near impossible goals and set ourselves up for failure. A totally expected and avoidable situation.
Maybe there is another way, a different methodology to review the past year, to consider what occurred, how it went, what you might have done differently and do so with kindness.
Starting a new year beating yourself up over past decisions that are always goofy in the rearview mirror is not a recipe for success. Be kind, forgiving. It is what it is, you are where you are, so where would you like to go?
I offer my strategy, the one that enables me to set new goals across life's six areas of physical, mental and financial health, as well as relationships, professional life and leisure activities. A visual exercise to imagine a good life, then map the steps to achieve it.
A novel view on success for 2025 - not ghost or monk mode, no 75 hard or strict carnivore diet; but a reasonably achievable roadmap to a happier, more joyful life.
Not a bad outcome. Welcome to 2025.
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Our holiday series continues with a discussion on thriving, a definition and exact process to follow. The current government communications message of have a kit, make a plan and be informed is grounded in a 30+ year old Cold War mentality of within 72 hours you'd either be saved by the government or there is no government.
In today's modern, technologically enabled society, the goal of preparedness is to wrap your hopes and dreams in a blanket of protection. To enable you to carry on living your life as you choose, irrespective of the external events. While others are falling down, confused, stressed and directionless, you're executing a well understood plan, with little to nominal disruptions in your life.
The old moniker hols true, a lone wolf dies, while a pack survives. Accepting personal responsibility means understanding that you need a tribe, not of other peppers, but of those close by. Your neighbours, community, faith groups and other groups of people benefit from trusted relationships.
Humans survived for millennia because we relied on each other, leveraged our personal skill sets and supported the group, that remains true today. To thrive, you need to change the unit of measure from one to many, to build a community of preparedness with your neighbours. Instead of the government trying to build 100 different prepared families on a street, the evidence says you need one prepared community.
You cannot purchase your way to preparedness, there is no economic barrier to adopting preparedness.
Preparedness is a lifestyle, not a stockpile.
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Over these holidays, it is always a blessing to reflect on the year, what was and was not successful, take stock of life, be grateful and thank someone for helping us along the way.
This series is designed to entertain over the holidays, to lighten the load of political and economic harm, to provide some time to ponder your preparedness journey.
In preparedness we often take this time to reflect on first principles, to return from a detailed analysis of something foundational, and bring the conversation back to simple terms.
This episode reflects on personal responsibility, the grounding argument for preparedness. You are not a victim, oppressed, held back or otherwise not responsible for your outcomes. We all fail, as we should, so that we can learn and do better. The average millionaire goes bankrupt a few times before they earn 7 figures. Think about where you live, for whom you're responsible, the local hazards, access and dependancy on critical infrastructure and how you intend to shelter in place.
Basic, but worthy of your time.
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Post pandemic, we reflect on the state of our healthcare systems, public health and preparedness education. Are they ready for the next plague and what are those efforts that would contribute to a set of better post event outcomes.
There are consistent calls for additional "investments or strategic incentives", AKA more taxes on the population, to build the robust capacity required to better manage the next calamity.
The issue is that in all these fields, we are addressing the symptom, not the issue.
We need to say the quiet part out loud, the population is sick and unhealthy.
If we invest in preparedness education - not the crap provided today, and we create a physically and mentally healthy society, the demands on the healthcare system collapse - leading to the surge capacity required for significant events. No new money, beds or staff required.
We don't do that, we just call for more magical government money to treat the symptoms, funding a death spiral of the system.
We can do far better, with no additional funding.
But that's not the answer people want to hear, for it requires us to personally accept responsibility for our physical, mental and financial health.
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It is often stated that we are the most connected, yet loneliest generation. We hold in our hands a device that has access to the entire knowledge base of our species, the ability to call anyone on the planet and to send and receive information across all mediums. Yet we don’t know our neighbours, we are increasingly less tied to our communities and our sense of identity is less linked to place. It is the time of the individual, when the world needs the community.
Across the literature in multiple social sciences, there is a reasonably regularly occurring thread of the importance of human relationships, the value found only at in-person situations. We know there are physiological responses to the presence of another human, ones that do not present in online interactions. We are biologically wired to be together, in each other’s presence. We’re a tribal species who like the wolf, may be capable of survival as an individual, but to thrive requires a team.
The champion. Every community requires someone to step up and start, to initiate the first enabling environment, to announce the activation context and to organize the initial in-person gathering. Whether that is the local EM representative, a concerned voice in the chamber of commerce or a not for profit volunteer who sees an increasing demand for their services. I have seen a few examples in my research in Canada, a number of communities that have created a non-governing, non-decision making space where response is discussed. Often best described with the question: “What does it look like when X happens in our community, how will it affect you, your operations and what do you think we can do about it?”. A place for all four sectors of society to discuss the real impacts of certain events and as a team, consider what they could do, realize existing resources and coordinate assistance.
In the words of a stalwart in the field, Damon Coppola, “In a resilient community, EM is the redundancy”, not the primary response vehicle - that’s the community.
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Who and what is a preparedness guy? Nat Sellers is a passionate emergency manager with his own podcast, diligently plowing away at the bureaucracy and the barriers to building a resilient community. His efforts and ideas will keep you glued to the speaker, this is likely the first of many conversations.
Our goal is to provide a broad swath of opinions, ones that support and those which challenge the status quo. We need to consider disruptive ideas, those that might - but not necessarily, find innovative ways to deliver emergency management services at higher degrees of efficiency, while remaining effective. A tall order.
Nat Sellers is one of those voices, ideas galore and a great deal of fun to chat with, you'll enjoy this wide array of topics within the genre and some important nuggets for your preparedness journey.
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It is not that the population sees preparedness as unnecessary, but when associated as a cost element for a family, most are choosing to maintain more realtime budgetary requirements. Preparedness is future proofing, supper is today. If we correlate a cost to preparedness, we create an offramp, the easy button to choose not to adopt a prepared life as it is outside our current economic conditions.
The State creates the economic barrier in preparedness and then reinforces it as a selection on surveys. Offer a respondent the opportunity to indicate that something is important but unachievable due to economic conditions beyond their control, and they will do so in a statistically significant way. Simple logic and psychology. The individual feels better about themselves by assigning the blame for not adopting preparedness to the economy, not too different from the response to climate change arguments - I would do what I perceive as the right thing, but it costs money I don’t have access to, so I will hold the beliefs, feel good about myself and carry on.
Preparedness for disasters is a niche and interesting gateway to the overall phenomenon, a way to ground individuals in a new worldview, a reflective exercise expressed in the words of the stoics. Being ready to navigate events from the five areas of influence is an exercise in education, strategy and human relationships - not money.
Significant barriers to adopting preparedness exist, but access to financial resources is not one of those. It is unfortunate that one of the obstacles to overcome is the government.
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Public sector governance contains a relative scant level of review, not in the form of annual budgetary allocations, but in colloquial terms, a “fit for purpose” analysis. I’ve written before on the outsized level of bureaucracy, which at the origin, was likely created in times of need, to benefit the public. We’re often quite good at ameliorating sudden onset issues with programatic interventions, what we’re far less successful at is sunsetting those initiatives. Track records demonstrate that they take on a life of their own, having personally spent well over a decade at the strategic level of national governance, I can attest to the internal force of expansionist interest. Often these initially helpful and necessary programs or agencies are morphed and adapted by what the public servants refer to as scope creep. By expanding the inclusivity of a program, the responsibilities assigned to it, it grows. It is far easier for governance to add a new category or scheme to an existing program, than to begin the regulatory and administrative changes to establish a new, specifically orientated agency.
Over time, agencies grow past the initial mandate to become an octopus of entanglement, where the tentacles of the organization are now present in a diverse range of public sector arenas, that it becomes necessary and to some degree sufficient for overall public sector governance.
The answer may be a scalpel or chainsaw, or a combination of both. The answer might be to substantially rewrite the primary legislation for EM at the national level, redistribute responsibilities or remove requirements altogether. Everything should be on the table, to ensure the best possible service levels for the resources allocated.
We don’t know until we try - and we’re not trying
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Ongoing discourse in the international media is largely focussed on the incoming US administration. Not simply for their choices for key positions, but to ascertain the intent behind the bluster, what is the goal of reorienting the economics and relationships of the world’s superpower. Again, for the folks in the back, this is about knowledge, not opinion. The goal is to be part of the group who draw the correct conclusions and understands the specific roadmap of the new hegemonic leadership, thus embracing it to succeed.
My argument is that this is an exercise in national preparedness.
The role of a federal government in any nation is to look outwards and hold onto internal unity. The role of public policy is to be the instrument that leads to that outcome, to design legislative statues with guiding regulations, supported by focussed administrative procedures that deliver on one of the two. To use a sports analogy, every nation has a home and away game. At home, where their records are normally more positive, the regime must settle internal quibbles and public demonstrations of angst with the administration, in democracies through ensuring the sub-national governments are capable of meeting the needs of residents and national programs are functioning at least above par. On the road, there are no fans, only opponents, where the record is usually less favourable, but there are key matchups in regional divisions that need to be dominated, or at least, neutral.
Whether you’re a fan of Peter Zeihan, Ray Dalio, Ian Bremmer, Yuval Harari or other notable thinkers, there is a consistent thread throughout their writings. A nation must be capable of delivering for their citizens, providing for their needs and protection. There are many theories on how to accomplish this, but in simple modern terms, it is the provision of food, energy, resources and a functioning economy in which residents can participate, thrive, survive and see a future.
The provision of those elements is national preparedness.
A government must ensure that its citizen’s eat, so they either grow the totality of nutrients required to sustain the population, or they negotiate trade deals to allow the import of food. Further, a nation living in the 21st century requires a reliable source of power, generated organically within its borders or traded with nations. Finally, core resources, like steel and its byproducts, technological inputs like semiconductors and the litany of supporting parts are essential to a nation’s prosperity. Governments across the ideological spectrum negotiate trade deals to facilitate the ongoing provision of these three key elements: food, energy and resources. Together, they facilitate the functioning economy. These inputs allow a nation to create commerce, lives for their citizens and prosperity - as well as keeping a politician in power.
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In this modern, technologically enabled age, we often see explicit examples of bloated public sector bureaucracy’s inability to provide a service, deliver on a promise or otherwise operate at expectations. We’ve become accustomed to packaged excuses, a series of well honed announcements about limitations, regulatory requirements, procedural hurdles, governance considerations and a bibliography worth of doublespeak.
We’re left to wonder whether anything is reasonably possible to achieve through our established framework of systems, the origins of which likely had altruistic purposes. When we first decided that there was a need for government intervention or oversight, we restricted the creation of new offices to fairly focussed responsibilities. Then the good idea fairy visits, the expansion of things to be considered, the possibility of extending current programming to a slightly broader audience, to adapt to changing situations leads us down a preverbal superhighway to expansion. Long before taking a breath to reflect, we’ve created a monstrous behemoth, a leviathan of consumption to address what was at one point, a reasonable consideration.
The question is whether, at this point in history, with the taxpayer broke and the borrowing heydays behind us, should we look at a version of “gutting” the public service? Is there a rational argument for a significant reduction in “nice to haves” and concentrate on what is mandated?
Within EM, bureaucracy is preventing rapid, agile and resource intelligent preparedness, response and recovery operations. The calls for additional resources are because the beast is hungry, it wants to feed, to grow, to oversee more and more. If we were to expand resources in EM, there would likely be a bureaucratic addition, governance and additional regulatory frameworks to oversee the expansion.
More resources ≠ more capabilities, just more governance.
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There are a range of preparedness specific goals and missions. From those who ascribe to cataclysmic societal outcomes requiring a considerable investment of resources, or those who simply seek a slightly more favourable insurance coverage, we are executing in the preparedness space. Your purchase of coverage against hazards in the form of disability, life, automobile, tenant, fire, and contents insurance are all preparedness measures. The budget allocation of an emergency fund of several months expenses and continuing your education while employed are both notable preparedness actions. The former protects against immediate pain and the later prepares you to pivot to an alternate line of employment.
Preparedness is not a mystical activity for doomsday, but an active ongoing consideration for everyone.
An approach I champion is to frame your preparedness strategy as the insurance plan for your goals and dreams. If you clearly articulate what it is you’d like to achieve, in specifics, that facilitates the strategic roadmap. This is the plan you create to get from here to your goal. while simplistic in nature, many fester at this point, they can express what they desire, but the pathway to reach it is unclear. By creating a plan to achieve your strategy, to reach your goal, you’ve delineated what must be protected.
Then all that remains is a series of questions on what might derail this idea and what must I do to mitigate against that event’s ability to alter my plan to reach my goal. Those actions derived from these questions in your preparedness strategy. Go forth and get your piece of the pie, wrapped in a blanket of preparedness insulation.
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The war in Ukraine fosters many an opinion, individuals who rally for the world consensus against invasion of sovereign states, those who seek to disrupt global order and those who seek to economically gain from continued conflict. The Ukrainian question is one where everyone wants to be right, to be on the winning side, the righteous, the benevolent.
The challenge with Ukraine is that everyone is right, if you look through the perspective of the waring parties, you understand why all sides fight: the Russians, Ukrainians, NATO, North Korea and the numerous unnamed belligerents who comprise the estimated dozens of nations with soldiers in the field. With an economic lens, you most certainly understand the value of a destroyed Ukraine to the reconstruction companies that made an almost unmeasurable fortune in the war on terror, or to the munitions companies whose latest technologies are employed on a modern real life proving ground. The Ukraine war is fuelling the goals and dreams of a vast swath of political and economic interests, which makes it incredibly hard to stop. Too many powerful interests have stakes in the continuation of this conflict to see it coming to a close, without a dramatic event.
In general, we understand preparedness to be the totality of physical and cognitive efforts to ready oneself, household, community, nation - etc., to navigate exogenous shock with the least disruption possible. These shocks are categorized into five main arenas, though in some cases the catalyst will be a combination of these origins: natural, economic, political, cultural and familial. To understand the implications of the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine on our lives, especially far removed from the conflict zone, we consider the five origins and frame a series of questions related to the effects on how we live our lives.
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The argument is this: I believe that within a decade or so, the losses from disasters will be so expense that irrespective of the damage, there will no longer be any government assistance for those who are uninsured. Residents will simply have to go bankrupt and walk away. Were need a solution to stop that outcome.
We cannot order insurance companies to make policies cheaper, they’d go bankrupt. We cannot order residents to pay premiums they cannot afford, they’d go bankrupt. We cannot order the government to pay for disaster losses, they’re going bankrupt.
Insurance is best viewed as an investment, not an expense. We protect that which we deem valuable, from ourselves through medical, our loved ones through life, our cars through automobile, our stupidity through personal umbrellas and our domiciles and contents through house insurance. Hence, it is an investment to hedge against exogenous shocks that are largely outside our control, to cover the recovery costs post event. A simple idea that suffers from two main problems - personal responsibility and coverage from the taxpayer.
These are tough conversations we're not having, how do we as a society navigate this reality?
Why are we assuming the government will always be able to fund this expense?
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Research from across the discipline over the past twenty years has argued that the most influential and correlated variable to better post event outcomes is the sense of community and belonging. Whether found in hundred year old disasters in Japan, recent hurricanes in the USA, floods in Europe, earthquakes in Asia - all point to one singular variable that is an indicator of a household’s likelihood of recovering from a disaster and made whole. In a previous article, I wrote about the strategies to build a resilient community, one where it is not individual household fending for themselves - the translation of public sector preparedness communications, but an intertwined web of networks and social connections that move as a whole. A force greater than the hazard and far out sizing government, community is the centre of gravity for successful preparedness operations.
We’re in the slow burn phase of a paradigmatic shift in the preparedness sub-field of EM, the evidence is present, the experiments continue to confirm community as the most influential variable, but change has yet to come. As Khun writes, this often takes considerable periods of time, where stalwarts hold onto previous ideas and theories, often due to sunk cost fallacy, educational structures in the discipline and organizational norms that reinforce the existing framework. We need to continue to champion the idea that the unit of measure in preparedness is not the human or household, but the community. Embracing what the science informs is more difficult than simple acceptance, as it challenges that which has framed and governed our efforts for generations. The world has changed, innovation is present at our doorsteps, but many continue to hold onto a comfort, the known, the accepted, the simple path.
It begins with changing the unit of measure to community and embracing technologies, being innovative and understanding that the government, community organizations, the corporate sector and households are equal partners in success. One is not superior to the others, collectively the four sectors of society are greater than the sum of the parts.
We’re almost there…
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We live in a technologically enabled society, where residents look to online sources for information, guidance and education. The emergency management space has been lacking investment into this field, with few notable participants challenging the paradigm of traditional communication methods.
Hazadapt represents a breakthrough, an intelligent design that presents a series of Hazards and strategies to navigate, with a separate "Prep Check" to evaluate your readiness for such an event. The data is evidence-based, drawn from specific, tested and trusted sources.
This has the potential to become a standard bearer in the industry, Ginny is a brilliant human, passionate about her mission to prepare the nation for future calamities and unfortunate life events.
A distinct honour and pleasure to interview.
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We've seen many recent calamities that called for a shelter in place plan, with the plethora of YouTube channels and information on sheltering, we offer evidence-based strategies to enable a successful event.
Researchers examine populations that experience disasters and seek the individual pockets of households that had better post event outcomes, suffered less and navigated the event with less disruption. We then seek to understand those variables that influenced those better results and translate those variables into preparedness education. Evidence, not opinion or belief.
We cover family considerations, communications in a crisis, your animalistic requirements of food, water, shelter, health, safety and security as well as incorporating your dependency on and exposure to sectors of critical infrastructure.
Non-apocalyptic evidence-based preparedness education, free of charge.
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The global economic picture continues to be volatile, unpredictable and profoundly influenced by political, cultural and natural events. In the modern technologically enable society, we have three choices for a career.
We can choose a profession, those with standards, formal education and fully regulated - military, medical, legal, engineering, construction trades, et.
We can choose a salary position, where we exchange our services for renumeration, contributing to the weather building of others.
We can choose entrepreneurial endeavours, where we exchange current effort for future benefits, as the sole responsible contributor to success or failure.
The modern entrepreneur includes everyone that has a bold and innovative idea to solve a pain in society, to overcome a barrier or obstacle to provide a dream outcome to the population - via minimal investment by the client.
Be that a side hustle, a 100% personal time commitment or a combination of both, within all our industries there are opportunities to build real wealth, only availing through being an entrepreneur and accepting full and absolute responsibility for your outcomes. Exactly the same commitment required to adopt a prepared life.
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The US is a superpower, its influence over global economic, political and cultural conflicts is profound. Your preparedness plan requires you to understand the environment in which you operate, to insulate you, your family and your economic interests against political carnage.
Whether you are on the left tor right, and let's be clear - no one cares, the direction the US government takes will impact us all to different degrees. Hence, at this time you need to understand your exposure to political, economic and cultural regulations and rules that may change when the ballots are counted.
Further, you have an opportunity in the modern knowledge economy to exploit the election, to examine your niche to understand how a new government will influence your sector and make those preparations now. In March 2025 there will be significant alterations of the US economic and political outlook, irrespective of who wins.
It is your responsibility to understand how a change in government will affect your life, not whether you agree with it.
It is irrelevant what you want to happen, preparedness calls for you to be ready to navigate what will or is likely to occur, that is emotionless and rational.
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Many are lamenting the old world, where a family could earn a living wage with one parent at home with the kids, buy a house, have vacations and retire after 40 years with a company. That dream is dead and likely your future if you are pursuing that.
The American dream has transformed over the decades from the Boomer life to the world of the Millennial, Gens Z and A. Their American Dream is grounded in the freedom of the gig economy, the Internet and access to a global clientele.
Preparedness protects your dream, wraps your life in a blanket of insulation to limit the harm from exogenous shocks. If you're trying to achieve a dream that dies decades ago, you're adding risk to your life.
No one cares whether we agree on the new economy, or whether we think it is just or right. No one cares and the world will blow by you in monetary gain and expansion as you complain about not achieving what the Boomers and Gen X had, however, if you pivot to the new American Dream and adjust your preparedness to that, well, you're golden.
To be successful you must adapt to your environment, to the economic circumstances that drive the world you're in, not the one you prefer or want.
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A profound thank you, for all the subscribers, listeners and supporters who held fast throughout this journey, I am humbled and proud. Our future is bright, with a plethora of episodes to come.
Thank you my friends, I am humbled and empowered by your vote of confidence.
My argument is that our modern technologically enabled society is robust and fit for purpose, until one of the support systems fails, or many in a cascading crisis. At that time, EM will insert their resources into the gap to mitigate harm and societal value loss, but there will remain a portion of that gap that cannot be ameliorated through government intervention. That portion of the loss falls to preparedness in the community, the role of individuals and collectives to provide for their own response operations to address loss, harm, suffering and chaos. This is the framework for the educational system created by Preparedness Labs Incorporatedand communicated for free to the globe on our podcast, Inside My Canoehead.
If we concur that the portion of the loss not addressed by EM falls to the community, and we accept that there has been a generational loss in the skills and knowledge necessary to address the un-mitigated loss, then we agree that preparedness education is required. We cannot expect humanity to re-gain these skill sets without prompting or the conversation about the real limitations of EM. Even with the vast array of preparedness educational gurus, corporations and public sector initiatives over the last seven decades, we are continually becoming less prepared.
This is why the podcast exists, to light the fire, to fuel the initiative and to be an unrelenting force for change, the argumentative cousin at Thanksgiving who will simply not accept another annual institutional campaign of failed strategies.
We don’t tell the population the truth, evasion by omission.
Our preparedness education regime is on rinse and repeat, with no one listening.
We will wage the just and righteous fight.
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Being wrong, disproved or otherwise having our ideas challenged is uncomfortable. We prefer to exist in a world where we are surrounded by those who hold similar views, creating an echo chamber, missing some valued positions in society.
This is based in psychology, we believe in ourselves, we hold a place in an imagined hierarchy, we want to be seen as a positive force in the world. We want to speak to ideas and have everyone nod, we do not wish to have those ideas opening challenged and debated, or are we generally accepting of the idea that we may in fact be wrong, or at least have cracks in our argumentative foundation.
This belief in the need to be right, to be correct stymies our discourse, we listen to win, to defeat what others say, versus listen to understand why they believe what they do.
We do not consider or accept the possibility that our positions, some held for a significant period of time are false. We've lost the ability to fend for ourselves, to argue and lose. Maybe you and I are wrong, maybe our belief is incorrect - those statements are rarely held. We discuss.
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Preparedness goals frame why you're adopting preparedness, what you're working towards and how you view the world of preparedness. We discuss a series of important questions that frame your understanding of the overall concept, how you view the purpose of preparedness and who you involve. These are important reflections, each answer is unique to you and not incorrect. We all have considerably different worldviews, talents, beliefs and levels of self confidence. All of that will influence how you choose to adopt preparedness.
In this episode we consider the following questions:
How do you define preparedness?
What are you preparing for?
How do you define success?
Is preparedness an individual or collective idea?
What are your location options?
A deep dive into the considerations for your preparedness goals.
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There are many publications claiming to understand why people choose not to become prepared, in order to provide guidance on the necessary amendments to influence campaigns, to improve the adoption of preparedness behavoirs by the general population. These are notable and important efforts, many of which are grounded in advancing certain models. This presents a difficulty for researchers, first because there is an assumption that the current model of what a prepared individual is accurate. By assuming that the model is correct and that it is the population that is choosing not to adopt through some influential variable, many of the studies fail to consider that it might be the message, that the population does not agree that those ideas will lead to preparedness. Further, it is possible that the population doesn't consider preparedness to be important enough to consider behavioural adaptation.
On the surface, there are three distinct reasons for preparedness remaining elusive. First, is that we do not understand what preparedness looks like. Throughout our examination of behavoirs, communications, programatic interventions and policy formulation, we have not come to a reasonable agreement as to what it is that we are advising the population to become. While I have an evidence-based idea, many others do so as well, what we lack is the forum to debate and challenge the framing of preparedness. In science, it is important to understand what it is that we're studying before we experiment. Second, is the limited frame currently placed on preparedness, that of a disaster or emergency situation. We communicate the phenomenon as something correlated to crisis and chaos, but not consider a whole of life approach. The issue is that when ideas are framed in bad outcome events, there is a lower probability that the population will consider participation or behavioural adaptation. The field needs to consider that preparedness might be something different than only related to disasters, but a culture, a worldview grounded in responsibility. If we can find the forum to debate a broader view, there might be light to illuminate a way forward. Third is the methodology to engage the population. This extends outside the emergency management discipline, to literature on human behaviour, organizational thought and the related fields of anthropology, sociology and psychology. Those fields have decades if not centuries of literature on the reasons why humans first listen to a voice, consider the information offered and to subsequently change behaviour.
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What we have all seen in the southeastern USA over the past week has been heart wrenching, whether here in Canada where I could do little more that financially support the NGO conducting operations, to the individuals charging into the chaos to provide relief and rescue those in peril. Evidence is clear that humans do not panic, they rally to the cause, step up to the occasion and do not turn to crime. Acts of violence and theft dramatically fall in disaster zones, though any instance of opportunistic theft is labelled as looting and broadcast across all channels as a representative behaviour of the local population. Abhorrent.
Misinformation is the intentional spreading of information one believes to be true but is in fact false, while disinformation is the international spreading of information the individual knows to be false, but does so anyway. Disasters include a breakdown of communication, where normal and stable networks are disrupted, sources of facts are interrupted and a void of available information seeds conspiracy theory. Dependable sources of accurate information are difficult to find and follow, this is a significant problem we are watching in the aftermath of hurricane Helene.
Institutional trust in the government has been on a steady decline, amplified in the pandemic and has shown little indication that statistical trends are returning to a growing public confidence in the government. FEMA is a federal government entity and therefore is subject to a mandate from the Stafford Act as well as other regulatory and policy frameworks. I have written extensively about the importance of building trust with the served population in times of peace and calm, building relationships with the affected population in advance of any disaster, so that when the event occurs, FEMA is seen as a trusted and valued addition to the response.
If EM is trying to establish themselves as a trusted source after the crisis begins, little success is likely. That requires dedicated pre-event population engagement over time, with all sectors of society acting together. We call it the community response council, the gathering for all parties in the area to discuss how they expect a response operation to be conducted, to establish priorities and to discuss who can do what for whom. Cooperation, coordination - not command and control. The secret sauce is just that, create the council in your area, be the champion and bring together all sectors of society. Leverage what has happened in Helene as an example of why a successful response operation requires a whole of community effort. When the trust is established it won't matter what mis and disinformation is present, residents will turn to their trusted sources for guidance. That is how you win, not by authority or title, but through engagement across society.
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Season 11 was a breakthrough season for the podcast, rapidly expanding our audience, which sets season 12 up for great success.
There are a number of tag lines, monikers, colloquialisms and catch phrases that permeate every discipline. They roll off the tongue without effort, others in the field smile and it becomes a language of its own. Newcomers adopt the practice, often without understanding the roadmap or the rationale for the sayings. The meaning ebbs and flows, eventually being morphed into some new concept, often by the ever-present policy entrepreneur.
At its foundation, the collective modern human system includes four principle spheres: public (government), civil (population), not for profit (community) and private (corporations). Each are inter-dependent to some degree and all are necessary to sustain the human ecosystem. When considering any policy endeavour, good administration requires the inclusion of all spheres. The inter-connectedness means that whatever legislative, regulatory or administrative modification is considered will have an impact, to different degrees, across the spheres. An inclusive society requires the involvement of everyone, not just the ones you like or support.
Hurricane Helene provided a stark example of nature's power. We cannot prevent a disaster, we cannot stop a flood, but what we can do is reduce our exposure to the effects of an event through preparedness planning. The sights and sounds from Appalachia are tough, but the serve as a great stage for you to reflect, are you ready?
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On the eve of Canada's largest gathering of the emergency preparedness and climate adaptation voices, we are in a unique position to create some epic advances in society's readiness.
From considerations on a national disaster response force, to leveraging the power of the private sector and bringing together the skills already embedded in society, we have a chance to do someone important.
We have a growing awareness of the impact of a changing climate, increased costs of disasters, the coming global conflicts that will erode the military's ability to respond to events in Canada as well as the exposure to loss of critical infrastructure.
With awareness increased, will we choose to adopt a culture of preparedness, build resilient communities and see collective success, or will we continue with out culture of dependancy on government intervention to address societal challenges.
Time will tell.
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While the world is not going to collapse, the 2020s will continue to be quite spicy, with exogenous shocks happing across political, cultural, economic and familial spheres.
The stoics are famous for encouraging you to consider what is within your influence, the ideas and actions that you can do to improve your life, while accepting that others are beyond your control. You cannot influence the unemployment rate, but you can make personal financial preparations to navigate labour disruptions.
Your superpower is investing time and money into your physical, mental and financial health. You can do so without spending any money, the choice to adopt a prepared life through taking care of yourself is doesn't not require an investment beyond time and effort.
The choice is yours, to accept that no one is coming to help, but that you can improve your life surrounded by like minded people. Your ability to navigate a disaster is directly correlated to your health - physical, mental and financial.
I discuss how I turned my life around and the strategies I employed, how I grabbed control and began the long process of righting a sinking ship.
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We live in a modern, technologically enabled society. The leaps in life-improving scientific achievements in the last few decades alone is substantial. From the advent of general AI access for the public, to autonomous systems, we are indeed in the 4th industrial revolution. Robotics, human-machine interfaces and a host of emerging technologies are poised to revolutionize how we create, repair and dispose of products.
Our societies, urbanizing more each day, are possible through the provision of critical infrastructure (CI), often considered the legs that hold up the a city's foundation. In Canada, there are 10 sectors, 16 in the USA and in some locations, CI is referred to as lifelines. However codified, CI is the operationalization of the technological advances across our communities, enabling a mind-boggling plethora of opportunities that a decade ago would have seemed impossible. On the cusp of the 4th Industrial Revolution, society is evolving at record pace, and that is both unnerving and brilliant.
Grounding preparedness planning in loss of access to CI is designed to enable individuals, corporations and organizations to create bespoke preparedness plans that reflect unique operations across this technologically enabled modern society. When completed across the personal and professional frames, a responsible individual will have considered a minimum of 160 questions related to their dependancy on and exposure to elements and sectors of CI. The results of these questions provide a frame for the preparedness plan that is unique to the author. The intent is to mirror the value of disaster impact reduction (DIR), whose premise is that it matters not why access to a sector of CI is lost, but that we have constructed a plan to mitigate. Differing from disaster risk reduction (DRR), which is focussed on hazard reduction to mitigate potential future impact.
Close on the heals of the paradigmatic alterations in preparedness communications to the public, adoption of CI grounded strategies across all four spheres of society will lead to a better prepared and resilience community.
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Resilience is the 21st century emergency management (EM) buzzword, every initiative is grounded in the theory, flavoured for the desired outcomes, but linked to the overall concept of a capability and capacity to navigate through and emerge from an exogenous shock leveraging only internal resources. A generalist definition, but one that retains all the elements of a series of theoretical and practical language models. Simply put, can what we designate as a tribe make it through our risk profile without needing external assistance?
Community resilience has been the focus of a decade of research, both personally by our staff and as a corporation. We've endeavoured to both challenge the paradigm and to develop the operationalization of the theoretical concepts. As an academic, I am a fan of peer reviewed articles, but left to their own, they offer little for the community of practice. Necessarily vague, academic articles provide insight into variable association and what this means for generally accepted principles and where future studies should move the goalposts. Excellent and necessary. However, what EM requires at the local level, as all disasters are local, are the 14 specific ordered steps necessary to create community resilience from zero to hero. That specificity is not present in journals, nor should it be, but that remains the focus of our efforts, to deliver the exacting process a municipal EM agency can execute.
We argue that community resilience is a by-product of a number of increased capabilities and capacities. By increasing the preparedness of a community, you increase resilience. By expanding and deepening social capital in a community, you increase resilience. By strengthening the cross-sphere (civil, private, public NGO) coordination & cooperation, you increase resilience. Our position remains that resilience is built through the identification of variables correlated in academic literature and then executing practical initiatives to increase their presence and strength. Each of these lines of resilience influences will require locally influenced approaches, but remain grounded in identical principles.
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Many of us have reflected after a significant unforeseen event, when we've done what we could in the moment, with the resources at hand, and wondered what we might have done to be better prepared for such an event. Whether it be an economic, political, natural, cultural or familial disaster, emergency or manifestly uncomfortable moment, we're often left with reflective thoughts. How do we invest in better post event outcomes, to do what is reasonable to influence the quality and time required to restore life back to a state of personal normalcy?
We know preparedness is the totality of cognitive thoughts and physical efforts undertaken in times of peace and calm that facilitate the navigation of rapid onset exogenous shocks. We're written at length on methodologies about how to incorporate preparedness into your strategic plan, to create the conditions for rapid reaction and limitation of harm. But, how are these related to the post-response recovery?
Recovery is a longitudinal, difficult and emotionally taxing experience. Creating robust preparedness plans influence the quality of recovery and expedites the return to normalcy. You cannot prevent a disaster, but you can mitigate against the impact before it occurs and have a strategy to navigate it, and that begins with preparedness. There are a myriad of variables to include in your preparedness plan, from housing and income, to education, relationships, professional. Each family has a unique set of needs, leading to different inclusions in preparedness strategies.
When calamity strikes your family, you're better off launching a well rehearsed and understood plan, versus being awe-struck and relying on external support for your next steps. This is not a question of financial investment beyond insurance, this is a question of the dedication of time and effort to ensure your family is set for the least disruptive recovery possible. Your investment in times of peace and calm, to strategize as to how you intend to navigate loss will directly influence your recovery timeline. You can recover with less disruption and in a shorter time period through preparedness.
Zero hurt is not an option, reducing it is within your ability, the choice is yours.
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To quote Brock Long, a former head of FEMA, "a culture of preparedness in society" is one of the necessary legs of a chair that supports our modern and technologically enabled society. We've written and argued at length that our society is enabled and supported by the 10 sectors of critical infrastructure (CI), Director Long's commentary speaks to the human supportive elements of a successful community, namely: a strong local government, robust private sector infrastructure, and federal assets available, through the sub-national governments, for use in an emergency.
Since the transformation of civil defence into the modern emergency management (EM), we've seen a growth in the public sector role in preparedness. Our fore-fathers were independent, responsible for the totality of their lives - from building their own homes, growing food, earning an income and taking care of the family throughout calamities. As the urban density increased, the need emerged for more robust services for the residents, over time the modern EM was born and adopted the responsibility to serve and protect. That role was gladly offloaded by the population, along with a host of other supportive functions, from food production and distribution, to power, water, sewer and essentially all the modern day 10 sectors of CI.
What we have done is create a utopia of daily living, without which we will collapse in short order. To bring back the culture of preparedness requires significant cognitive investment, one that is longitudinal and in grounded in honesty. We need to first amend the public sector resident-facing preparedness communication to reflect the responsibility of the individual to assume care for and delivery of services to their family in times of significant disruption. To outline the reality of a loss of cascading CI due to cyber, natural or human induced circumstances. We need to bring back the idea that prolonged lapses in our wonderful technologically enabled world are likely and that it is not the government's role to provide for you in the interim. This must be supported by education, through models similar to the German THW or the American CERT programs, to build cable communities that are collectively able to support their members without government intervention.
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Today, we've lost the art of intellectual debate, in the pursuit of convincing others they are wrong. In the words of Neil DeGrasse-Tyson, we used to accept that everyone could have a different opinion or view, we were never concerned with pointing out their shortcomings or proving ourselves right and them wrong, we simply existed knowing that others had opposing views and that was both perfectly normal and acceptable. Today, if you're not in my camp, there must be something wrong with you - cue the emergence of labels.
The question for experts, practitioners, academics and researchers in the EM field to consider is are you OK with being challenged and having your ideas debated, in a classical forum. The Monk Debates in Canada provide an insight into the beauty of intellectual combat, the battle of ideas, all in an effort to better understand a phenomenon, to improve the human condition. If someone disagrees with your thesis, they're not the enemy, they're not in need of an education, they don't lack experience and yes - they very well may have a point that cracks the foundation of your ideas. This is the brilliance of science.
Do we have the fortitude to return to classical debates and allow critics to exist once more?
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Your local emergency management office is under an unmanageable regulatory burden.
In Canada, this is becoming more prevalent. Within EM, governments in Western and Central Canada have appointed political staffers to key positions within EM to drive an agenda for change.
The first iteration is when the key municipal leadership is of a different political stripe than the premier. This has flowed into new regulatory frameworks downloading significant responsibilities on an unfunded municipal entity in order to ensure that the future liabilities remain outside the political halls of the provincial government. Further, political appointees have been placed in senior roles above the directors influencing the allocation of budgets and steering the EM initiatives towards isolating the Minister from blame or responsibility. The end result of these two principal activities, is to deliver results for the government, to separate responsibilities for future mitigation, preparedness and response operations, leaving little hope that municipal governments will be capable of managing significant disruptions. Opening the door for the sub-national government to be seen as at the level of government intervening in the crisis and saving the day. These appointees do not arrive with EM education, leading to additional rifts within the senior EM-trained positions, who are attempting to move EM modernization through bureaucracy.
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The world is a complex place, any number of interwoven dependent events occur daily, many with little impact on the human experience, some with devastating effects. Hazards exist and are realized largely, but not completely, due to events beyond the control of humanity. We do not cause hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, storm surges and floods. We do contribute to the number of wildfires annually and we undoubtedly are responsible for human caused events, like industrial accidents. Where the intersection of a natural hazard and humanity does lead to loss is the decisions we make, by placing expensive things in precarious locations, a natural event like an earthquake will take down a building not build to withstand the event.
However, there is an argument for mitigation, to lessen the impact of realized natural hazards on our ecosystem. The word mitigation is represents a spectrum of options, a reduction in exposure to and loss from an event beyond our control. A number of possible investments lead to varying degrees of increased mitigation and lower potential losses. We cannot move humanity away from natural hazards, but we can understand their likely impacts and then choose options to lessen the loss and future economic burden.
One significant barrier remains the public perception that disasters are preventable, that pathways exist to stop an event from occurring. The challenge with the world prevention is that it is a binary expression - to prevent or not, you cannot partially prevent something, when that occurs you are mitigating, not preventing. While this seems a novel point not worthy of a blog to argue, when something is preventable, society seeks blame and assigns responsibility. When events occur that lead to losses and event death, most of the inquiry is to understand why it happened, who is responsible and how to prevent it from happening in the future. We cannot stop any number of natural hazards from being realized, nor can we stop them from leading to economic losses and death. We can however mitigate the loss so that less economic harm is caused, making recovery less expensive for the collective society and reduce the number of casualties. But zero is never an option, we are not moving humanity to "higher ground", hence prevention in emergency management is mitigation.
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At its foundation, the collective modern human system includes four principle spheres: public (government), civil (population), not for profit (community) and private (corporations). Each are inter-dependent to some degree and all are necessary to sustain the human ecosystem. When considering any policy endeavour, good administration requires the inclusion of all spheres. The inter-connectedness means that whatever legislative, regulatory or administrative modification is considered will have an impact, to different degrees, across the spheres. An inclusive society requires the involvement of everyone, not just the ones you like or support.
Whole of society (WOS) is an important concept within EM, grounded in the notion of limitations on the capability and capacity of the public sector. We know that resources are limited in EM, that trends across the OECD are downward for public sector expenditures and that any future "investment" in EM will likely be token, singular and temporary. The WOS idea was drafted by many theorists from the 1980s onward, realizing that the resources necessary for a successful EM program resided not only within the public sector, but across society, in all spheres. The concept was initially delivered through the NFP and civil spheres as coordination with organizations like the Red Cross, Salvation Army, faith sector and residential groups. This provided a foundation for WOS, that led the delivery through to the early 2000s, where the expansive impacts of disasters exceeded the combined efforts of the civil, public and NFP spheres.
This is an ideological discussion, a decision to be inclusive of all members of society. The gap in resources of all types present in the EM system can be mitigated or completely addressed by embracing the involvement of the corporate sector. I've often said the most important relationship of a local emergency manager is the one with the head of the chamber of commerce. The entire needs assessment of EM could be met, but is there the will to break through the obstacle?
Time will tell.
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Jasper was devastating for those who lost everything, either homes, business, income or all of the above. We hope they'll recover, knowing the next two years will be difficult and challenging at the best of times.
For everyone else, do we choose to take this opportunity to learn, to reflect on the losses in Jasper and how our families would fair, would you be ready, have a plan?
We discuss risk profiles for natural hazards, industrial sites and the global 4 - economic, political, cultural and ideological threats. Understanding your environment is key, investing in mitigation through insurance is our #1 risk transfer mechanism.
In the end, this is a time to reflect as to whether you and your family are ready for a total loss of your home and / or your income. If the answer is anything other than an enthusiastic yes, you've got work to do. You owe it to those for whom you're responsible.
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There is a limit, irrespective of the evens occurring, where the state capacity is breached and no assistance is possible. That occurs at a different point for various services, but all have their capacity limit. The state is hesitant to delineate this point, communicate it to the residents and advise them as to when they'll be without services.
Preparedness is the totality of cognitive efforts and physical activities undertaken in times of peace and calm in order to be capable of successfully navigating exogenous shocks without external assistance.
In modern democracies, a social contract exists between the government and the population. There are a number of tasks or services that cannot be completed by the individual, hence the collective transfer that responsibility to an elected body, supported by a public service, in exchange for funding - taxation. A simple idea, which over the decades has expanded to cover a number of services that the population could do, but has chosen to transfer that responsibility to the government.
The social contract does ask for the service to be sufficient. It needs to meet the requirements of the population and its modernization and growth is the responsibility of the government, when necessary supported by additional taxation. This is the basic relationship between the governed and the politician. The reality is that this is executed by a public service, not the politician, but they are in theory the guardians sent to oversee the social contract's successful and amenable execution.
We chat about capacity limits and what happens when they're breached and the population is without government assistance, irrespective of the circumstances.
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Whether you work at the unskilled level near minimum wage, are within the gig economy on endless contracts, or you are skilled an demanding remote work, you are in a position to have negative impacts on your income in the coming year. Whether or note a formal recession is declared, there will be some significant imbalances in the workplace, choices that impact your income and that requires a plan. A preparedness plan for "when you get fired". Not that you expect to, or worry about - but that you understand circumstances beyond you control lead to an immediate and unforeseen loss of your principal income. The challenge is knowing what to do, and one of those is understanding the labour market and the current influences within your sector of work. This is not an option, to be successful, you must learn how to interpret the indicators in the labour market.
The economy often emits mixed signals, information points to a trend, but outcomes mirror something different. At times, significant changes are sectorial and not occurring in the wider system. For all but the most astute followers, it seems to be a bit of a confusing set of unrelated events. What is clear though, is that some turns in the economic system do impact you, they are potentially harmful and need to be understood.
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The fiscal cliff or abyss is not that far off, measured in years to a decade depending on your source, or political lens. Most economists, save those who support modern money theory (MMT), understand that perpetual deficit financing does have a life cycle, an end point where the interest on the debt will exceed the ability of the government to raise additional funds to cover it. We're approaching that in many OECD nations, where debt to revenue models, provide an uncomfortable picture. Debt to GDT ratio measures the output of a nation in total, that remains steady at an average of 121%. What is more concerning is the ratio of debt expenses to revenue.
Historically, whether enshrined in legislation or by moral code, governments have stepped in when there have been uninsured losses due to situations beyond the control of residents. Flooding, earthquakes, etc, where insurance was unavailable or prohibitively expensive, some relief is offered from governments to cover portions of the loss. Those figures are growing as well, within the context of the fiscal cliff, these are unsustainable. Timelines are up for debate, but a general consensus is within a decade, if governments continue deficit financing at the current rate, there will be a situation where a fiscal calamity is a certainly. The exponential growth in disaster losses will not slow and as available funds for governments to leverage are reduced, there is a point where support cheques to disaster victims becomes impossible.
A disaster, where no insurance was available, and irrespective of the legislative framework or the wishes of constituents, the government simply will not cover losses. Families and corporations will declare bankruptcy, walk away from everything and begin again.
In the United States, the uninsured losses in EM will reflect the uninsured losses in the medical system.
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For decades, 1990-2020, we enjoyed a period of globalism, an opportunity for individuals and nations to pursue whatever strategy best suited the times and the vision of their citizens. In reality, this was the closing period of globalism, a phenomenon made possible by the Cold War and protected by the vast military industrial complex of the US. The dividend to the western allied global community was unfettered access to open shipping, economic possibilities and in the case of China, exceptional expansion opportunity. Globalization was always the anomaly, the outlier condition that could only exist because of a very few number of criteria, and those perished at the end of the Cold War.
Preparedness is often seen through the lens as what we do to navigate disasters. If you were to assess the phenomenon of preparedness through the lens of public sector resident facing preparedness communications, this would indeed reinforce that concept. We need to be prepared to survive for 72 hours until the situation is fixed by the government and we can return to normalcy. Preparedness is sold as a form of victimhood and dependancy. When we limit the value of ideas to a certain frame, then we hold a definition true. That is preparedness, so grab your kit and flashlight and go be a good astute and responsible victim until rescued.
Preparedness is a lifestyle, grounded in personal responsibility, attitude, relationships and strategic thinking. It begins with a determination not to be a responsible victim, but become someone who is capable of navigating that which the world induces, whether that be a natural hazard being realized - the dreaded phrase, "natural disaster", conflict, economic downturn, political turmoil, cultural differences and ideological campaigns. The current decade is disruptive, for very well understood reasons, and will continue to do so.
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Recovery is the poor cousin of emergency management, the ignored friend at the party. They own no lights and sirens, begin to speak when the cameras are gone and are provided with little to offer the stricken public. Those dependant on government assistance to navigate significant disruptions will be prescribed a long and painful experience, loaded with bureaucracy and less than expected benefits. I do not wish that on anyone.
We can do better, we choose not to.
A well constructed family preparedness plan would see the navigation of the recovery process without any notable interaction with the government. They may be of assistance, but not a necessary element of successful recovery from significant loss.
When calamity strikes, there are several lines of defence, similar to a delaying action in the army, the intent is to have multiple strategies to employ, to counter the effects of your opponent. The affected population needs to be made whole. In negotiation and insurance terminology, that means resorted to pre event status, to reconstruct what was lost, figuratively and physically, to reflect a zero visible impact. That is the goal of recovery, the road to that place is a minefield, not necessarily so, but one nonetheless.
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Jasper is but the latest example of the destruction caused by the intersection of a range of human decisions. We build in nature's backyard when fires are an essential part of the ecosystem. We hack the biodiversity of forests to achieve higher yields of profitable species, defeating nature's defence systems agains disease, rot and regulating healthy ecosystems. We choose not to employ known mitigation measures including significant firebreaks, building code regulations, active fuel management near the wild-urban interface and maintain insufficient resources to protect societal value.
These are all human decisions, concisions ones, often made in isolation but collectively, they create an environment where societies lose exceptional value.
We choose not to act, so we lose everything.
We know that the leadership doesn't exist to make the policy changes necessary to mitigate against human decisions, so why not try something new.
If we continue with the status quo, the tally of Jaspers will continue to increase.
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Welcome to election chaos, another day in the interesting and if not amusing world of politics, watching the characters cleverly bend themselves and their message to remain relevant. Whether we're speaking of the change in US Presidential candidates, or the crevices in the European experiment, this week has been very popcorn worthy.
We don't vote for preparedness, so the incentive for politicians to alter the expenditures in government is absent, leaving those responsible in the public sector and in corporations to find strategies that lead to better outcomes. This is a shared reality across the four spheres of society - public, corporate, not for profit and civil society. This requires a shared understanding of the roles each party plays in mitigation and preparedness, To embrace that for each crisis or event, there are four distinct response operations, one for each sector.
Four responses, no one superior, but each recovering their constituent parts of society. So let's gather together, more than just words and show, to begin the cooperation across society, to build resilience together.
Whole of community.
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The failure of Microsoft Windows IT based systems as a result of a third part software update from Cloudstrike serves as a telling tale of preparedness. Who has been affected, to what degree and how is their recovery planning rolling out?
Preparedness is the set of cognitive decisions and physical actions undertaken in times of peace that facilitate navigating chaos.
We live in a modern, technologically enabled inter-connected society, facilitated by the provision of critical infrastructure. This normally occurs below our radar with scant consideration, until it is no longer available. Your preparedness is correlated with your exposure to and dependancy on the sectors of critical infrastructure. Adapt, learn and strategize.
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To define a prepper we need a set of measurable variables, ones that should be grounded in evidence, or at the least be attributable to a known theoretical framework. The later is our pathway to the definition. Our research has led us away from personal and subjective announcements to an evolving framework. We begin with the fact that we live in a technologically enabled, interconnected modern society, where over time, at the macro level residents have traded responsibility for the provision of services to an external agency for renumeration. We have decided not to be responsible to build our own houses, we ask a contractor to do so and then we provide payment. In the past, our ancestors all build their own houses and rebuilt them after disasters.
Join us for a great discussion on the importance of definitions, providing criteria for membership and how to codify different elements of society.
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Traditional preparedness encompasses navigating incidents related to natural events, be that storms, earthquakes, floods or other natural hazards. This is the initial 20% of preparedness, once we consider economic, political, cultural and familial events, we discuss the next 80%.
Economic pressures include high inflation, interest rates, rents, unemployment and a host of influences that are beyond your control, but have an impact on how you choose to live your life.
How do you include economic preparedness into your family plan?
What are the considerations? What is a pivot plan?
When you're fired tomorrow, how do you intend to earn your next cheque?
Preparedness is grounded in personal responsibility, it is not the government's role to pay your bills when you get fired or retire, that's your job.
So how do we do that?
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Season ten was our focus on practical preparedness, translating ideas, theories and concepts to physical and cognitive actions that will enable you to rock an credible life, while insulated from exogenous shock.
From community preparedness, to designing a simple life, to navigating political chaos, preparedness creates the conditions for you and your family to pursue your dreams, despite the chaotic world around you. Whether that be economic shock, elections, natural disasters, familial struggles - personal responsibility is the foundation.
Season ten was the most popular, narrowly exceeding season eight in download totals.
Season eleven will be epic, stay tuned.
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In times of struggle and strife, humans turn to trusted sources for information and ideas that help them make informed decisions. Trust is earned, not anointed and is built through providing value and truthful communications. We know that trust in government is a plurality and trending down. The pandemic created a divide in the public, many of whom look for the hidden intent and plan behind government instructions, vice taking them as educated and trusted advice.
Emergency management needs to build trust with the population, in advance of events, they simply cannot assume that residents will listen simply because of a position, title or agency.
A trusting population will adhere to advice and seek out counsel from the appropriate agencies in times of crisis.
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We see evacuations on the news, miles of traffic jams headed no where, lauded as successful movement of people from a danger zone. No, there is so much more that can be done to manage the route, command traffic and move groups at speed through the route to the destination.
You have the ability to plan, to consider the options for evacuation and create a plan for your family that avoids being part of a traffic jam. A lemming enroute to somewhere better or executing a strategy to create peace and calm for your family.
The choice is yours.
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Preparedness is the totality of physical and cognitive initiatives that permit the navigation of exogenous shocks.Many have a narrow view of preparedness, the limited ideas of shelter in place, have a plan, be informed and have a kit. This episode discusses the idea that the current understanding of preparedness represents 20% of the concept. The next 80% of preparedness encompasses a whole of life perspective, the adoption of strategic thinking and planning, the value of community, mobility, opportunity and the realization that preparedness is the insulation that wraps and enables short to long term goals in personal, relationship and professional spheres.
Adopting a prepared life is grounded in having a shelter in place plan, but limiting your preparedness to kits, plans and information constrains your ability to rock an incredible life and chase your dreams.
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Preparedness extends far beyond kits, plans and information, the focus of government communications. The remaining 80% of adopting a prepared life is found beyond that spectrum, where strategic thinking aids in understanding the environment in which you operate, the risk and hazard profiles and provides roadmaps to mitigation.
Cyber exposure is no different, with our entire society reliant on connection to the Internet, your ability to acquire any good or service is dependant on a point of sale system, even if you choose to use cash. Cyber protection is often restricted to advice not to open email attachments, visit questionable websites, back up data and change passwords. The strategic elements of cyber security begin when you apply the same strategic thinking to the cyber environment in which you choose to operate and depend upon. Cyber is far more than a simple password protection - it requires an investment of time, effort and at times, money.
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Preparedness plans are the logical start point of beginning the journey to accept responsibility for your outcomes and protect you and your family from exogenous shocks. Throughout the process, there will likely be times when you lack a capability or equipment to exectute a task you determined was critical for your family's plan.
Natural Disaster Survival Products subscribes to the same philosophy of non-apocalyptic preparedness for rational people. Janet R is a brilliant entrepreneur, who began the company after experiencing significant events in her community.
A trusted voice and source for quality equipment within the often loud and outlandish space that is preparedness.
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Fun discussion into a culturally structured socially acceptable practice - how do you introduce yourself to someone? Is it context specific, different in the club versus the workplace, at the sports field or with your friends at a venue?
Do you introduce yourself as a title, defining your success and accomplishments with a certain level of the organization? Are your a Director, or are you involved with a project, both can be true, but one announces your authority. Is it out of fear of how you'll be seen, is it the anthropological struggle for Alpha positions in the human species?
If you were afforded the latitude, how would you introduce yourself at an event?
Hi, I'm Jeff the backcountry paddler.
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Simple right, everyone knows that. So why, after decades of preparedness communications do so many families remain in difficult situations and not ready to navigate crisis? The question is how do we define preparedness?
Our response is three elements: personal responsibility, attitude and strategic thinking, which collectively translate to you accepting that the world is largely chaotic, beyond your control - polycrisis, climate, economic / political / familial conflict and decisions that are counter to your sense of what is right.
What are your dreams, what would you like to do while you're capable - live a simple minimal life, become an author, run for president, start a business, become fit, complete that degree? Your dreams are yours, not for external consumption.
Protect them, work to prevent the exogenous shocks from influencing you living the life you want, that roadmap is preparedness.
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SOE are enacted to provide the government to expedite normal processes to address the needs of a rapid onset event. However, there is a political side show of politicians racing to the stage in their crested jackets to look in command, to demonstrate prowess under duress, to look like they're in control.
The reality is that all of this is not required, the powers can be embedded in policy, accessible by the appropriate minister when required and procedures established for the rapid access to funding and resources.
In essence, the SOE rules can be enacted in regular legislation.
But if we removed SOE, then we would miss the show.
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There is a persistent ideological frame in emergency management that it lies within the public and NGO sectors, leaving significant assets outside response. We chat with Kris about the role of contracted firefighting in the wildland urban interface fires of 2023 and the capabilities within the private sector to meet the expanding needs of the public sector.
An interesting discussion reflecting on the employment of a "whole of society" strategy in addressing the increasing effects of wildfires in Canada's forests, as well as the greater picture of embracing the private sector within emergency management, likely the best surge labour and equipment capacity in the nation.
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There are four responses to every emergency event - public sector (1st responders), your family, the community neighbours and the corporate world. Largely uncoordinated, these will each occur to some degree whenever a disruption occurs.
With an average ratio of 5500-1 for traditional first responders to residents, it is difficult to rely upon being served immediately after a significant event. The likelihood of rescue by the state is slim in major events, probably delayed by hours if not days.
The community rescues itself, provides first aid, food, water, shelter to the affected population, the intent of this episode is to discuss the creation of the environment that fosters the cooperation necessary to build community resilience.
Through champions, training opporunties and the establishment of formal organizations like CERT or THW, communities can position themselves to be better prepared to navigate exogenous shock.
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The role of preparedness is to wrap your life in a blanket of insulation, to mitigate against exogenous shocks, to allow you to continue to rock an incredible life and pursue your dreams. This episode is about the rationale for choosing your life, to do what you want for an income, to pick your leisure activities and to be incredibly happy. It is a choice to get up everyday to do what brings your purpose and excitement, though the transition to that can be difficult and requires considerable planning.
Given the choice, would you rather be working, playing and living in your ideal fashion, or something chosen by others?
You life choices will be made, you might as well be the author.
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Do you need to go without food for a few days to understand hunger?
Not drink for a day to feel extreme thirst?
Not change clothes for a week to see whether merino wool will eventually stink?
Probably not.
So do you need to turn off the power at home to practice a power outage drill?
Evacuate the home on short notice to see whether it will work?
Welcome to the concept of Table Top Exercises.
TTX are a cornerstone of efficient planning in the military and emergency services, recently adopted in the business continuity environment
They excel when key individuals walk through a scenario, discussing what they would do, who they would employ and the timelines. There may be injects into the TTX to complicate the situation, however the value is having the key folks in the same location. Social capital, relationships and understanding the priority of other importance public agencies and corporate divisions.
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Preparedness week is upon us, with a plethora of offerings from the government. Digest these, embrace the ideas they espouse - to inform your plan. There are two strategies to preparedness, be a professional victim or to create an independent plan.
Public sector resident facing preparedness communications ask you to be ready for 72 hours, have a plan for the family and to listen for further instructions - dependant on the government.
An individual preparedness plan is grounded in the idea that you'll continue to navigate the shock without requiring government intervention, through the analysis of exposure to and dependancy on the sectors of critical infrastructure.
The choice is yours, to ensure the continued normal operations despite the event, or to be a victim and wait for further guidance. The choice is yours, choose wisely.
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Becoming a veteran is a cultural shock, entering a society that is not hierarchal, structured and with your life planned is confusing at best and disturbing. When your career ends, and everyone's will, you need to figure out what is your next iteration, the new you, what you will do and accomplish. Humans are driven by activity, we strive to learn, to do new things and activities which bring us pleasure.
This is my story, how I decided what I wanted to to accomplish upon retirement from the military, how I set about executing the tasks, how I turned dreams into a roadmap of calendar appointments and lessons learned.
Change is hard, still is - hopefully this provides some guidance.
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if you consider preparedness to be about disasters and readying to response to shocks, you're at the 20% point. Preparedness is about a lifestyle, adopting a lens through which you intent to protect your family, economic viability, health - physical / mental / financial, corporate sustainability and political independence. amongst others.
We discuss the open door plan, the point at which your preparedness planning moves beyond the scope of disasters into a whole of life ideology - the loss of income. That is as impactful for a family as a house burning down, it moves the discussion from bug out bags to economic insurance plans, managing mental health in today's toxic life, building a future plan, a roadmap for familial success.
Building a strategy, designing your life begins withe first accepting responsibility for your outcomes, then creating the structure to chase your dreams, all while wrapped in a blanket of preparedness.
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EM has an ideological frame that it belongs in the public service or the not for profit field. There is a barrier to permitting the corporate world to enter the field, a fear of embracing the profit motive. Let's be clear, there is profit in the NGO / nonprofit world, in salaries, benefits and full cost pricing.
To be an entrepreneur, you need to become and expert in a niche, not a generalist. The discipline is rife with individuals who consult across the EM spectrum, from mitigation through the pillars to recovery. The EM field is similar to healthcare, in that is the sum of a number of roles, not one position. Healthcare needs doctors, nurses, Xray, EMS, laboratory staff etc - they are all part of the field but cannot execute the functions of others. EM is similar, an expert in preparedness can comment on response, but it is time prohibitive to be an expert in both.
Success is in the niche - carve out your space. The strategy works for any field.
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The world is chaotic, fraught with danger and loss. Either political, economic, warfare, cultural or other forces of disagreement, there is no shortage of rage, frustration, sorrow and loss in today's headlines - how do you navigate this?
There are different perspectives - micro, meso and macro. Each level having a different focus, representing different areas of your life, from family squabbles, to national government regulatory impositions on the free market.
Each of these introduce risk; your challenge is to identify all the risk, categorize it in a logical format and the set to address those risks that considering your personal risk profile are unacceptable and need immediate intervention.
It's your life, you designed it an the future is constructed from risks you accept. So find your pathway to rock an incredible life and chase your dreams.
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Exhausted, overwhelmed, the world is overpressure, despite your best efforts, you dont see yourself getting ahead. Tired of all the motivation, discipline, morning routines etcetera that fester on the Internet?
This is my story, of what I did when I hot that wall, the exhausted point. How I looked myself in the mirror, decided to change and then set about a slow, rather very slow at times, methodological process to fix me, before I fired my job.
Are you living the life you want, are you swinging your legs out of bed in the morning and looking forward to the opportunities?
Most are not, they're exhausted at the pace and stress of modern life.
Listen, this is my story. Hopefully it resonates.
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Journalism in its purest form is a key to a free and democratic society, though you'd be hard pressed to find that in any nation today. With governments desperately funding traditional media in hopes of saving them, it reminds us all of protectionist cities saving the taxi industry abasing Uber / Lyft irrespective of the resident's wishes. With the challenge of finding trusted sources, where do you look to seek facts when events occur?
X is the best platform for trusted sources, not the platform itself, but the ability to create a bespoke list of sources YOU trust, in one place, separate from the nightmare that exists in the "for you" column.
Find trusted sources, that is your responsibility, make a preparedness plan, be ready to navigate shocks.
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The stoics nailed control, there is but one binary choice, you are wither in control of something, or you are not. Paraphrased, it means you are in control of very little and that is precisely enough. Political ideology has much of the world fired up, creating breaks in the fabric of society, causing many people to lose connections and generally has many groups fighting consistently online.
Why do you allow the words and expressions of others, especially in political affairs, cause you emotional distress? An important question upon which to reflect.
There are exogenous shocks in political, governments react certain ways, assume positions which you disagree with, enact new regulations you deem inappropriate and in some extreme cases, become rogue activist administrations - especially in the final months of tenure.
Your insulation against this is to assume neutrality online, understand your personal and corporate exposure to threat and use that data to construct a preparedness plan for you and your business. Limiting your exposure to the downstream effects of political decisions is the single greatest step you can take.
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The world is chaotic, crazy even. The exogenous shocks are numerous, impactful and all beyond our control. So how do normal families, living normal lives in reasonably modern nations navigate these times? We do so with mitigation, the long term systemic changes to our lives that insulate us from external effects. We add preparedness, the pre-event decisions we make to be ready to navigate exogenous shocks. These intentional decisions create resilience as a by product, allowing us to absorb and if necessary, respond and recovery from an event.
We discuss funnels, the flow of events from global to local, and offer a series of questions to determine whether this is something of concern. The answers to those provide the information to build mitigation and preparedness. A simple recipe.
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Welcome to episode 251 and season 1o intro, where we discuss the upcoming seasonal focus on interviews with practitioners, discussion of news and impacts on individual preparedness and scenarios related to exogenous shocks.
Whether it is a bridge collapse in the USA, war in Gaza or famine in Africa, preparedness sets us up for a greater probability of a positive outcome. Never a guarantee, but as the stoics famously say, paraphrased, is: "there is very little within our control and that is precisely enough".
Events over the last few weeks have amplified the value of adopting prepared life, assuming responsibility for your outcomes and beginning the mastery of your physical, financial and mental health. Those are within your control. Set yourself up for future success. Preparedness, it's free - only costs time and effort.
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Thank you, this has been a journey, I am privileged to be in your lives and deeply thankful for your patronage over the years. This milestone episode is about the journey, how we got here, the reasons to start the podcast and the parent company, as well as the ideas championed on the episodes.
Our goal here is to be your source of accurate, evidence based information for preparedness, to provide the educational strategy to create your roadmap to adopting a prepared life, to accepting responsibility for your outcomes, to wrap your family in a blanket of preparedness.
To rock an incredible life, despite the challenges of the world.
You are in control of exceptionally little, and that is precisely enough.
Thank you for being on this journey with me, it has been an honour.
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You want to chase your dreams, to rock an incredible life, to be all that you want - but the world continues to throw exogenous shocks at you, to seemingly be working to counter your best efforts, to limit your successes. The reality is that you are in control of very little and that is precisely all you need.
The 2020s are a chaotic decade for very real and expected reasons and is likely to be this way to 2030-2032. This is a cyclical human experience dating back to the 1400s, humanity is jockeying for position to settle the relationships for the next generation. There are natural, political, economic and family disasters that will influence your life, the choice you have is to either ride the wave or carve a path of your choosing, chasing your dreams and rocking an incredible life. We believe you can in this chaotic world, it just takes a few mindset alterations and assuming personal responsibility.
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The chaotic world extends locally, there are nefarious individuals in the world, who would take an opportunity to relieve you of your possessions and wealth. While we wished that was not the case, it is incumbent upon us to learn how to mitigate the effects of others, to enact that which is within our control.
As the stocks say, very little is within our control and that is precisely enough.
Within the animalistic requirements of safety and security, your considerations include firefighting, insurance, information sources, security systems, situational awareness and unarmed combat. These are areas where you cannot control the behaviours of others, but you can influence their decisions and become prepared to navigate these situations when they occur.
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Very little is within your control, that's precisely all you need.
The stoics understood that by championing your own physical, mental and financial health, you were independent of the world and could navigate whatever exogenous shock sent your way. You cannot assume responsibility for family and friends if you are in need yourself and you most certainly cannot assume a leadership role within your community if you are not in personal robust form.
Invest in you, assess and take command of your physical, mental and financial health, make a strategic plan for the coming year and become a robust warrior ready to carry your family through the next event - economic, political, spiritual, conflict or disaster.
Take care of yourself first, then you family and community. Any other order is a recipe for failure.
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No one is coming to help, whether you're a fan of classical novels from the 1900s like Dale Carnegie or Stephen Covey, or modern motivational series from then likes of David Goggins, Mark Manson, Mel Robbins or others. Simply put, in the positive world, the actual one you live in, it is your responsibility to ensure that you, as a human, are best prepared to navigate future exogenous shocks.
Adopting a victim mentality is common in today's society, individuals who believe they are oppressed or prevented from becoming what they desire serves as an excuse not to work, a rationale to not invest in themselves - well, because what's the point.
None of us know what the next event will be, but we do know it is not the government's responsibility to rescue you, pay your bills or feed / water and house you.
So invest in yourself, that which is within your control, prepare your human shell and mind for the future and you'll not be a liability to your future self.
Those whom you love and for whom you're responsible are counting on you.
We think you and your family are worth it.
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We live in a modern, technologically enabled society that requires the ownership of physical goods to operate. The reasons we choose to acquire goods are generally within four categories - the item exists for a defined purpose (golf clubs), just in case (fire extinguisher), sentimental (Dad's picture) or we were persuaded by a version of the modern day influencer (latest gadget, fashion trends).
In preparedness there is a plethora of sources advocating for you to acquire a series of kits, bug out bags, evacuation kits, emergency kits, car kits, etc.. all with a view to separate you from your money or to reinforce the author's personal beliefs.
We recommend that any item you choose to acquire within the genre of preparedness is the result of an identified gap in the family preparedness plan you created, for your family, to meet your own expectations of readiness.
Evidence means that there is a historical record of an activity contributing to a prescribed outcome, correlation or causation.
Make sure that what you buy has a purpose, the possession is based upon evidence and not opinion.
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Preparedness planning is free, only an investment of time and energy. Beginning with personal responsibility, defining family, building a shelter in place strategy and creating the trifecta of preparedness plans.
The Internet is saturated with YouTube and online personalities that present a list of things to stockpile - the top 10 for the new prepper, or the 15 things that will be unavailable after the collapse or my favourite, the 5 things for barter in SHTF.
We believe in evidence based planning and that the best source of determining whether you need to acquire a piece of equipment is to first conduct the planning evolution above and you will likely find a gap, where you need to be able to execute a task but lack a piece of equipment.
Determining a need based upon your family's requirements is a far more judicious use of your time and resources than believing an opinion online.
What we recommend is evidence based, grounded in research. If you determine there is a need to purchase an item, then you'll acquire the exact item you need to support your family within your plan.
Invest in planning time, we believe your family is worth it, for when the bad day comes, you'd rather follow a plan you created than a list of items an influencer recommended.
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We know they're are a number of influential variables when emergencies occur. We know that a well understood and rehearsed preparedness plan will permit your family to execute their roles without needing instructions, that confusion cell calls or texts in the middle of chaos ar not required. Your family will be doing, while others are thinking. However, there are times when communication will be required, when you'll need to change the plan - then you'll need to know: text one word instructions, not calls; have both your shelter in place and evacuation plan well understood.
If the cell networks fail, have a robust contingency idea. That may require alternate communications - a HAM or CB radio, satellite communications through Starlink or Garmin. Remember, those are not the norm, but for those whose circumstances require an additional system.
Plan, think through. The time invested in a well understood preparedness plan will inform any issues that may require additional investment. If there is an economic barrier, then you can consider alternative ideas to collectively mitigating the threat through community groups, lobbying donations and a host of other methodologies.
Preparedness communications is free, it only requires an investment of time and energy.
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EDC, Bug out bags, get home bags - we've heard it all. What are the practical considerations for preparedness when we are away from our home, when accessing our shelter in place plan is not immediate. We being with a review of the first half of the ten weeks of practical preparedness, reviewing the trifecta of preparedness plans and the involvement of critical infrastructure.
We then examine considerations for local, inter-state and international travel. How will you provide for the animalistic requirements of those for whom you're responsible in locations other than your home. How will you get home if your planned means of travel is no longer available?
Logical discussion on the thought process for your travel - go, rock an incredible life, but invest in the time and effort to ensure that you are going to be able to adapt to disruptions away from home. No money required.
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Your risk profile informs your life, it influences the decisions you make and the outcomes from those choices. Whether you're risk adverse and skeptical of society or you're an all-in individual who rolls with the punches, risk informs.
We discuss how risk tolerance informs you preparedness timeline, your shelter in place plan and preparedness mobility. It is a root cause of your current physical, mental and financial health - whether you believe you are ready for chaos, whether you're happy skydiving or you drive in the slow lane with two hands gripping the wheel.
Finally, risk informs your strategic plan. The single greatest leverage you have over society around you is strategic planning. Everyone is generally navigating chaos, trying to find the easiest or best pathway, while those with a strategic plan is following their process that translates dreams to reality.
Risk informs everything - understand it and you're ahead of the world, literarily.
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Risk is everywhere, there is no methodology that permits risk to be lowered to zero. No personal, no business or lifestyle choices come risk free. So how to we understand the risks we face in this chaotic decade?
How do we build a profile that informs our choices and aids in identifying the the risks we're exposed to? First, understanding that risk is individual and a function of personal choice, comfort with uncertainty, self confidence, self-efficacy and personal bias. In the end, the very same set of circumstances will create a wide range of risks for a groups pf individuals - from catastrophic to nominal, all from the same event.
Building a personal risk register is the function of understanding what risks exist from both your choices and the exogenous world - to inform your next steps.
Understand risk before you make changes, that's how you win the day.
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Preparedness is the totality of efforts undertaken in times of peace and calm that increase your readiness and ability to navigate through exogenous shocks. The intent is to have better post events, that is to have a far less impact from the disruption and to resume normal operations at the earliest opportunity. Your goal is to be prepared so that when something occurs beyond your control there is little to no impact on you chasing your dreams.
Leveraging the exercise of understanding your exposure to and dependancy on critical infrastructure allows you to build a self-reflecting personal risk profile, designed by you considering your self efficacy, confidence and tolerance for uncertainty. Ten families in the same neighbourhood will have vastly different risk profiles to the same loss of access to critical infrastructure.
In addition, there are four responses to every event. The community driven help your neighbour and care for each other - based upon 1000s of years of experience, the nonprofit response to continue supportive operations to the vulnerable sectors, the private sector to resume operations as rapid as possible and provide immediate sector specific assistance to the community response and the traditional public sector. Understand these, use them in your planning to either support the execution of your plan or to understand how they might interfere with how you execute your responsibilties.
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We live in a technologically enabled modern and connected society. We wake daily assuming a host of services and systems will function, from the power grid to the sewage system, from the cell network to the healthcare facilities. We assume away a host of risks that exist - to build a personal preparedness plan you need to understand the risks to which you are exposed to, assess those and determine whether changes are necessary to address unacceptable risks.
Our research and evidence based methodology is to utilize critical infrastructure as the frame for our exposure. To understand that our society is enabled through the operation of the 10 sectors of CI, each constructed of a number of elements. By reflecting on your exposure to and dependancy to CI, you begin to understand the importance to preparedness. You accept a host of risks by voluntarily living in the location you do, in the type of housing, your employment and your lifestyle.
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Our relationships are the key to preparedness, it's a lifestyle not a stockpile. We build our social connections based upon norms of reciprocity - that people will do good for you, if you've done it for them, as well as trust - you'll do what you say. Those are the foundation of social capital, which is the potential resources that exist within your network of relationships.
In preparedness, we think of the need to be self-sufficient, but we rarely consider the community as a the appropriate unit of measure. The reality is that when significant disruptions occur, think the pandemic, it is the people around you, those you know and care about, that will be the key to success. To thrive in the face of adversity, not survive.
Leverage those and you're golden. Networking is preparedness.
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We know disasters, natural and man made. We've seen their impacts, but there is another catastrophic event that is often overlooked and ignored in preparedness discussions - loosing your income. It doesn't matter why, whether it be another pandemic, a fire at the business, an owner's decision to retire, or you were simply not part of the restructuring plan. What do you intend to do when you're fired, how will you earn an income to meet your necessary commitments? That's your responsibility to pay your own bills when you get fired.
We discuss creating a pivot plan, to your next employment, determining the time to be up and running, a safety timeline and leveraging that to decide on the amount of money required for an emergency fund. What will that be? What will you do? What training is required?
Many in the pandemic simply sat around waiting for normalcy to return, some jumped at the opportunity to launch their pivot plan and were incredibly successful. Whatever you intend to do, it's your responsibility to pay your way, so lay it out and be ready, everyone leaves their current employment sometime.
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Evacuation is the most dangerous event in preparedness for a family, the most impactful and life changing. Have a plan - a well rehearsed plan that you and your family understand. Evacuations are mandatory or voluntary, immediate or slow burn and they happen at the most inconvenient of times. The only practical advice is to have an evacuation plan as part of your trifecta of preparedness plans.
If the kids are at school, what does the school board plan to do with them in an evacuation? Normally, there are only sufficient school buses for 50% of the kids - how are the rest leaving the area? Where will they be taken? Where is your family to meet and move to the planned destination?
Trying to communicate after the event is triggered is a challenge, networks will be overloaded.
A plan means no need to text family members, in the chaos of the event, everyone knows their responsibility and they are executing a well understood plan - while everyone else is madly texting family and friends to find out.
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The totality of scenarios that may affect a family are on a spectrum, from the most likely, power loss, to the most dangerous, evacuation. We have all watched the panic evacuations from wildfires online, seen the interviews with families that have lost everything - this is terrifying for anyone.
Hence, a well understood evacuation plan is one of the trifecta of preparedness plans required for a family / community in a modern, technologically enabled society. This episode provides 5 practical and absolutely free tips to ready you and your family for the possibility that you may be forced to evacuate against your will.
Whether your evacuation and rebuilding is successful or not is up to you. It's your responsibility, no one is coming to rescue you.
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This first week of practical preparedness comes to a close with a discussion of a power loss scenario and the cascading impacts on families and society. Considerations from access to cell and internet, to point of sale systems, transportation, fuel, potable water in high density housing and a host of other impacts. Your employment may pause and in these times of increased inflation with many families living at the edge of their resources, a loss of a week's income may be catastrophic.
Preparedness is where the response fight is won.
Adopting a prepared life allows you to strategize, plan and create the conditions for you to continue to rock an incredible life when there is a disruption in access to utilities or other sectors of critical infrastructure.
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Power is the most important sector of critical infrastructure, the one that supports all the others and facilitates our modern integrated and technologically enabled society. Without it, we have significant disruption in our lives, so what can you do?
These 5 practical tips, based upon understanding your minimum power profile, are the foundation of developing a plan that includes assessment of your self confidence, comfort with uncertainly and your attitude.
Learn to not be a professional victim, but to thrive in power loss, to continue to execute an incredible life and meet all your needs without access to the power grid. That's how you win the day.
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Happy New Year.
Welcome to season 9, where we bring the theory and ideas from the first 8 seasons and translate those into a practical, 10 week presentation of actual and reasonable executable tasks for you to build a household emergency preparedness plan. We've spent the last 3 seasons championing the idea of personal responsibility, that you and you alone are responsible for your outcomes. It is you that must be ready to navigate exogenous shocks, it is not the government's responsibility to rescue you, to fund you, those are your tasks.
This season is about taking the strategic plan you developed in season 8 and building the layer of insulation provided by preparedness, so that you can rock an incredible life, you can chase the dreams, pursue the goals, irrespective of inflation, conflict, political and economic struggles.
Dichotomy of control - focus on what you are responsible for, insulate from the rest and execute your plan. Bam.
That's it - this season is the "how". We're glad you're here, we think you're worth it.
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Every year comes to a close, some with great memories and some with significant challenges. If we wish to grow and learn, we need to reflect on the year that was, warts and all, embrace decisions made, opportunities turned away and in essence, review to our best ability our annual performance.
If you did not have a personal strategic plan, then you're left with a bit of a dancing routine, trying to remember what happened, the events, what you wanted to achieve and how frustrated / excited you were throughout.
We encourage, recommend, champion a personal strategic plan for 2024 - we have a number of episodes on how to construct one, where you'll review where you are and where you want to be in your physical / mental and financial health, important relationships and professional life.
That frames your year, your plan. So get after it - no one is coming to help, it is your responsibility to succeed in life and your best strategy is to do so with a plan.
We're doing that in Season 9, the practical applications of preparedness. Follow us.
Thank you for the dedicated listeners, we reached 49 nations with over 43 hours of content. You are worth the effort, we sincerely thank you for spending time with us.
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Rocking 2024 requires no money, only an investment of time.
Economic barriers are a myth.
This is the time where the social media feeds are deluged with ideas and recipes for everyone to become their greatest self in 2024. Happens every year, non stop. However, each one of these are not based upon you, your dreams, or your definition of success. Our recipe is for you to determine your 2024 goals within the areas you control - physical, mental and financial health + relationships and your professional life. All within your control, all your personal responsibility. Strategize, ask yourself what your world looks like in each of these areas in December 2024.
Build a preparedness plan as the foundation for this strategy, your insulation agains the flurry of exogenous shocks coming our way.
Finally, accept the world for what it is, you control such a tiny fraction of it, so stop wrapping yourself up in drama and life's troubles.
Rock 2024, it is free, no money required.
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We're going there, the quintessential preparedness foundation, the ubiquitous bug out bag that is the gold standard of idiocy in the prepper space. The kits are constructed principally for mental health, to provide a sense of security, the idea that you've taken steps to ready yourself and your family to navigate disruptions.
But you haven't.
Preparedness is about ensuring better post event outcomes & there is no evidence to support a correlation, let alone causation, between the construction and maintenance of an emergency kit / bug out bag and better outcomes.
There are some specific activities that may require the carrying of capabilities that don't exist at your destination, that is intelligent planning. If you're travelling more than a day's walk from your home, then you are responsible for the provision of animalistic requirements for you and those for whom you're responsible. Conduct that analysis and if there are shortfalls in availability at your destination, then you might need to consider carrying a piece of equipment.
For travel, that might simply be a whistle, flashlight and a water filter. Remember, these kits are cool, tactical even - but you have to carry it, potentially a long way. Think, plan and then execute - you likely need very little.
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Leave the World Behind is a popular new film on Netflix, depicting the failure of modern society, the collapse of communication and the struggle of seven humans to navigate a situation. We discuss the film through the lens of each character representing an element of US society, and the greater western world, and how each of those choose to react to the world, the challenges presented. Further, we discuss the city vs rural ideas, the scenario itself, the use of fear and racism in US discourse.
The film is slow at times, but does clearly present the idea that you can take down a modern society by removing access to information and then feeding existing fears, facilitating the destruction of a nation by creating the space for civil war.
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Community is your sense of belonging, of place; it's spatial, not bounded by geography, but crossing municipal boundaries. It may be based upon a faith group, service organization, extended family or your physical neighbourhood. Knowing that preparedness is the totality of attitudes and actions that empower you to navigate exogenous shocks, connecting you to the space in which you live is the best, free thing you can do.
It's the evidence, not what you believe, but what we know, from studying over 100 years of significant events, leads to better outcomes. What did the people do differently that enabled them to have a better post event outcomes than someone else that experienced the same conditions. The answer - their sense of place, connectedness and the power of community. Not stockpiles, money or equipment. That's the evidence.
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Preparedness is a foundation, a lens through which you examine the world. The future is unknown, though 2024 will be a challenging year with economic, conflict, political and humanitarian strife. These are difficult things to navigate, the shocks are impactful and significant. They are also beyond your control.
In this episode we examine what is likely to occur in 2024, why your family preparedness plan is so important and how to set your year up for success. By strategically mapping the year through the lens of physical, mental, financial health, as well as relationships and professional growth - you make yourself better prepared, better positioned to counter the impacts of shocks that are very much beyond you control.
Control what you can, take care of that incredible person in the mirror and rock an incredible life. That is preparedness.
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Thriving vs surviving - our goal is to encourage you to thrive, to provide advice that will encourage you to create a preparedness plan that facilitates thriving in an emergency, vice surviving. Thriving is achieved when you are capable of conducting your full suit of normal activities despite the incident, your personal and professional life remains unaffected by the event and you are capable of continuing to rock an incredible life.
The current suite of professional preparedness communications trains everyone to be a victim, to survive through an event. Statistically, if you are not grievously physically harmed as a result of the event, you will survive.
In this episode we discuss the two main weather related threats - thermoregulation of core body temperature and caloric / hydration deficit. As well, we discuss war gaming strategies for navigating known hazards where you live.
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Stress is worrying about the future, something that has yet to happen, likely will not and in any event, is probably beyond your control. In fact, we as individuals control a scant amount of events that we're expose to, an incredibly tiny fraction of what is going to happen is within your control, yet most of people choose to worry, stress and fret. Do you live in the positive world - embracing life as it is, where it is for what it is? Or do you live in the normative world, complaining about how the world is not like you want it, or how it should be, or what you think should happen?
Preparedness is understanding that you are responsible for your outcomes, that you need to embrace emotional intelligence and stop worrying about a myriad of possibilities and live in the positive world. Preparedness is free, there are no economic barriers to preparedness, yet some believe there is, which is often identified as a barrier. You have the choice to sit down, grab a pen and craft a strategic plan for the next five years. You can have fantastic physical, mental and financial health, you can live in a low stress world - it simply is a decision for you to make and then act.
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Leadership is the art of persuasion and influence, to encourage and motivate employees and colleagues from compliance to commitment. Our episode on becoming the CEO of your life was the foundation of leadership, this episode discusses the how - how do we "do" leadership. Strategic thinking is the skill, the competency to look forward, to see the world for what it is, not what we would like it to be, see past our bias and therefore make informed analytic decisions in both our personal and professional lives.
Preparedness has a critical role in professional leadership, understanding the variables that influence how you intend to execute your five year and ten year plans, wrapping that with your personal preparedness shelter in place and trifecta of scenario plans, leads to you having the skill, the competency to make important decisions when exogenous shocks happen - be ready, something this way comes, position yourself for success through adopting preparedness in your strategic thinking and leadership.
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Whether you're new to preparedness or you consider yourself a prepper, we should periodically reflect on our why, what is it that we're doing and the reasons for the efforts, a first principles review. That means returning to the foundation of the idea, that preparedness is about accepting responsibility for your outcomes, that it is about insulating you and your family from exogenous shocks that are beyond your control and thinking through potential scenarios. Preparedness is about understanding your exposure to and dependency on critical infrastructure, and how to mitigate the impacts of periodic loss of access.
Preparedness is free, it simply costs your most valuable resource, time.
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In a rut? Cannot see the forest for the trees? Buried under pressure? Imagine a roadmap to a place you want to be, a five year plan to extricate you from your now to a place you design, along a pathway you create, with goalposts you set. This is the application of corporate strategic thinking to your life, to preparedness. The education strategy designed by Preparedness Labs Incorporated is grounded in the latest research, following the principals of corporate CEO style thinking. Designing the life you want is up to you, your pathway from where you are to where you want to be is up to you. You're not oppressed, a victim, barred or otherwise prevented from achieving your future self. Preparedness is the strategic thinking pathway for the individual, a methodology to reach the vision you set.
Become the CEO of your life, accept responsibility and make the decisions.
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Every Day Carry. What do I carry and why? What is the thesis behind my decision to carry a wallet, phone, flashlight and pocket knife? That's the entire system I have, supported by the decision to always wear climate appropriate clothing and consider whether I am equipped to walk home from wherever I'm going or anywhere enroute. A simple concept, born from experience.
Preparedness plans are grounded on your shelter in place strategy. When you're not at home, then consider how long will take you to walk home and then equip yourself for that journey.
Don't fall into the idea of societal collapse, horrible zombies or the need to bushcraft in a city. Walking home is basic - clothing, water and some calories. Bam. Done.
Life need not be complicated, hence the same strategy when travelling away from home via vehicle or plane. Think your route home and what you need.
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We are bombarded by communications, either through legacy or social media that we are on the precipice of calamity, that the global order is teetering on collapse and was such, it intentionally induces fear - the most powerful of emotions. In the early months of the pandemic, the population feared the virus, until we understood the vitality, death rate and transmission. Once a target of fear sees a pathway through the problem, the power of fear is deflated. Hoarding is a reaction to scarcity, the idea that there is not enough for everyone and that the potential cessation of production of something we deem essential for our survival is imminent. If we believe that item X is about to disappear, we will buy as much as we can so that we defeat the fear of living without, when repeated on many important items, we hoard.
In preparedness we see this on YouTube, Reddit and other social media where the charlatans are telling everyone to stock up now on something that they believe will be removed from the marketplace. Using fear to induce purchasing based upon scarcity. Evil.
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Napoleon is famously quoted as stating that an army marches on its stomach. Cooks are important, we wouldn't be here if we didn't have at least one. For preparedness, we view food as a system, with several stages: acquire, store, prepared and dispose. Non-perishable food is good for a few hours, but on day four of no power and you try to hand out granola bars, you'll have mutiny. Hence, the need to have an alternate heating capability as part of your shelter in place plan, be that a BBQ, camping stove, solar oven, fire pit or for the bougie amongst us, a lithium battery over 2K watts and a portable induction burner. Whatever your situation is, you'll need one.
The second half we tackle diet - obesity and the links to chemical ingredients in ultra high processed foods. The idea that a human should consume food, single ingredient nature produced material is not new, but research shows that chemicals in packaged foods are interfering with our ability to identify when we're full and to some degree, these chemicals can induce addiction.
Research demonstrates its not just eat less and move more. A prepared individual needs to eat, so eat well - thrive, don't just survive.
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Back on air after a short break, we discuss the powerful stress imposed by war, hate, racism, inflation, economic loss and a myriad of other exogenous shocks. Sometimes we need to return to basics, to first principles and re-invent ourselves. No one is coming to help you, it is up to the incredible person in the mirror.
My recent trip to Banff was not only a conference, but a time to pause, to reflect and recharge. I use a simple philosophy, the three rules for life: Pay your own way, Follow the Rules and Leave the World a Better Place.
What we each need is to take care of ourselves through positive mental, physical and financial health. With our animalistic requirements met, we build a resilient life through adopting a prepared life. Wrapping ourselves in a blanket of preparedness.
We rock an incredible life through waking up everyday, swinging our legs out of bed, thrilled for the opportunities of the day, to chase our dreams. Simple, yet too often ignored.
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The term prepper means something significantly different to individuals in the preparedness field. We provide a definition based upon research and a logical linkage to the sectors of critical infrastructure and the replication of one or more sectors or integral elements for the medium to long term. We discuss the differentiation in the prepper planning for the most likely and lost dangerous scenarios, as well as their considerations for financial income loss.
Preparedness Labs Incorporated is sponsoring the Disaster Forum in Banff AB, we'll be back on the air 30 October with a report about the conference and the Rockies.
Remember, you are responsible for your outcomes.
Our video course is live, see the link below.
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The world is chaotic, crazy and seemingly coming undone. You feel helpless, under significant pressure from natural, financial and conflict hazards. How are you supposed to win or at least survive under these circumstances? Preparedness.
Having a preparedness plan, grounded in a shelter-in-place strategy, with the trifecta of plans will set you up to best navigate the disruptive 2020s. The stoic philosophers speak to the need to differentiate between that which we can control and that which we cannot. We need to prepare to fill the gaps created by events beyond our control and use that as a support mechanism, allowing us to chase our dreams and roc an incredible life.
You and your family are worth it.
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You've accepted personal responsibility, identified those for whom you'd be responsible along with their personal needs, created a shelter in place plan for 14 days to provide the six animalistic requirements for those individuals and now you want to know what to plan for.
Scenarios are numerous and if you consider every possibility, there will be dozens. Research tells us that emergencies fall on a spectrum, from the most likely to the most dangerous. We believe that if you plan for the extremes, you plan of all other events.
The trifecta of plans incorporates three plans - the most likely event, the most dangerous event and loss of income. Losing your family's principal income source can be as impactful as losing the house to a fire or flood.
Preparedness is about being ready to navigate significant disruptions from exogenous shocks that are beyond your control - it is not limited to natural events like storms, hurricanes, earthquakes and floods.
Create a trifecta of plans, then you'll be ready for the vast majority of potential events.
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Marcus Aurelius is quoted as, "you always own the option of having no opinion" and "things are not asking to be judged by you". You are responsible for your mental health and the amount of stress and anxiety in your world. You can control the stimuli and remove those to the greatest extent possible, as well as offering no opinion on any cultural, ideological, political or religious event or commentary.
As well, you are not obliged or required to offer anyone an explanation as to why you have no opinion. This is a critical skill to acquire, the ability to look at an issue or belief and choose to walk away and not have an opinion. The art of walking away is critical for our mental health. It is a privilege for people, organizations and activities to be in your life - those that on balance bring you joy and happiness stay. The remainder, you walk away.
The world is on fire and will only get worse, you have the right to not have an opinion. Stay focussed on your goals, your priority.
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Preparedness is a lifestyle, a way of navigating life, through the lens of adopting a prepared life, being ready to manage chaos, find solutions and bounce back better and faster, all while wrapped in a blanket of preparedness. Stockpiles are not a strategy, it's a commercial journey, exchanging money for protection. This leads to a false sense of security and may facilitate poor decisions in a crisis. Our education system at IMCH is research based, it's a self help journey not too different from the major authors, but grounded in the theory of assuming responsibility for your outcomes and being ready proactive about your future.
We are all chasing dreams or at least trying to reduce the chaos and struggles of life.
Why not do so on a roadmap to success that enables you to mitigate the affects of future events?
It's a Lifestyle, not a Stockpile.
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Much maligned and misused, the word priority does not have a plural. This is a principal rule in preparedness, that you cannot have multiple priorities, you have many tasks that you're undertaking, but there can only ever be one priority - you may shift it upon review, but that is your main effort, the thing that will take resources away from all your other plans and activities. It is reviewed as part of your monthly preparedness plan review, but you never have more than one.
Personal health is #1 in preparedness. You're required to provide the animalistic requirements for you and those for whom you're responsible - food, water, shelter, health, safety and security - and take care of your personal health. You are required to generate an income to provide those. Full stop. Everything else is voluntary.
We discuss goal setting and the IMCH 3 column method, having a plan for each of the nine elements of personal health and the six elements of animalistic requirements.
Of those 15 plans, each with a three column metric, one is your priority.
Brilliance.
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Stress, necessary for life and an important element in the human animal's response systems. However, high degrees of or sustained stress is harmful and can lead to coping measures that are themselves causing harm. Life can be tough, stress can be debilitating for some - so how do you deal with this?
You are in control of what you do and how you act. You have no control over the external stimuli you're provided - people, places, events. Determining whether you'll become angry, sad or otherwise initially is autonomous in your system, five seconds later it's all up to you. Assuming command of your life takes time.
We discuss how to map out your causes of stress, address the ones you can and how to manage the ones you cannot. Firing toxic humans is a great skill, remaining in organizations that bring you anxiety is optional. Map your stress, eliminate what you can and then draw your ideal life. Map to that, it takes time, but if you're on a journey to happiness on a roadmap you created, the effect of external stimuli is minimal.
Take care of yourself.
This episode is here because someone lost their struggle with stress. I hope this helps you on your pathway to happiness.
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The first step in preparedness is accepting responsibility for your outcomes. For some that may be difficult, they don't have the belief they can learn, they may be in a culture with well defined roles or they may not be supported by those around them.
Building self confidence through the adoption of skills is free. In preparedness we champion first building you through physical, mental and financial health, then learning skill sets to navigate exogenous shocks and finally, if necessary, to acquire equipment to fill a well defined gap in your family preparedness plan.
In this episode we use the six animalistic requirements to cover the range of skills that will build your self confidence, are free and will improve your preparedness.
Build you, make yourself exceptionally capable of leading you and your family through shocks. You and your family are worth it.
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Order into chaos, assuming a leadership role for you, your family and the community. When exogenous shocks happen and tough times surface, are you capable of assuming a leadership role for your family, to execute the tasks within your family preparedness plan? Your children are learning, how you react, how you choose to respond to tough situations teaches them what is acceptable in life. Tough times are a stage play and you are the main actor. Kids watch, learn and repeat. In leadership roles at work, your subordinates and peers will need someone to take the role of leader, to make tough and challenging decisions. Is that you? Do you have emotional control not to lose it, or are you the one who has a meltdown and puts on a show?
Be the leader, execute the preparedness plan and place order into chaos. Your family is counting on you.
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On Sept 14-16 I rode out Hurricane Lee with family in Nova Scotia. While the hurricane became a tropical storm upon arrival, the lessons from being ready and what communications were issued is important. We discuss what it was like, the damage to a few trees, the need to understand your preparedness support equipment in advance and the vague and generalist nature of public sector resident facing preparedness communications.
Remember, you're one wind storm from losing access to the Internet and cell networks. What is your plan when you cannot communicate with anyone? This hurricane serves as a learning opportunity, what went well and what can we improve upon. For those not near a hurricane, what would our world look like when we lose our power, utilities, communication networks? How do we intend to shelter in place?
Important questions.
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Hurricane season is well underway, that means time for some specific planning for those living on the eastern seaboard of North America. Hurricanes begin in the warm waters of the South Atlantic and are influenced by a number of weather phenomenons that steer them towards a destination, determine the strength of the storm and velocity. The predictability allows for deliberate planning, considering the threats to your home, gathering information from trusted sources and informing the decision to evacuate or shelter in place. Knowing that decision, considering the family members for whom you'll be responsible and their animalistic requirements will lead to the development of your family preparedness plan. Sheltering in place should be planned for 14 days without access to critical infrastructure such as utilities, transportation, communications and a host of other public and private sector services.
If you're having difficulty managing after 72 hours without power, that's a lack of planning, not a lack of effort from emergency services. Assume responsibility for your outcomes, make a plan and lead your family through the disruption back to normalcy.
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Ever wonder how the military is organized rot respond to an emergency, or who controls the deployment? What can they do and how do they execute a task? This conversation breaks down the organization, command and control, explanation of Notice To Move (NTM), how provinces request assistance and the infamous DART for international aid.
The CAF is the force of last resort, there is no one else to aid if they are unsuccessful. The military is not designed as a domestic emergency capability, every task erodes their ability to execute their combat mission - deterrence, dropping bombs and shooting guns.
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Sorry, but contrary to YouTube Preppers and click bait journalism, the world is not coming to an end. We are facing clarion calls for the coming disruptions from the Ukraine War, Rise of China, Climate Change and Economic Collapse. None of these will result in armageddon or Revelations, but the world is undergoing the 80 year cyclical re-organization of humanity. Every 70-80 years since the 1400s, the world has undergone a chaotic decade as nations jockeyed for influence and relationships. What emerges in the 2030s will be the structure of the next 70+ years.
Understanding that the world is not about to collapse will relieve some anxiety, but how do you prepare for the impacts of this global reorganization? Through understanding the economic influences, your choice of location to live and investing in your physical, mental and financial health, you best position yourself for success.
These shocks are beyond your control, but the effect they have on your ability to live your life is a choice - mitigate through preparedness and learn to rock an incredible life.
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Evacuations are the most dangerous emergency event a family can experience, having a plan that is well built and understood by all family members is critical. We outline the steps to create a plan in detail, what to consider and a myriad of details.
You are responsible to evacuate yourself and those for whom you're responsible. It is not the government's job to do so, their capacity is exceptionally limited. Relying on the public sector for this in times of threat is not a plan.
Having a destination confirmed first, in a place of peace where you can begin the reconstruction of your life is critical. The Motel 6 or a public shelter are not ideal destinations.
Take the time to construct a plan, to be ready to execute when others are trying to figure out what to do. Mandatory evacuations create parking lots - go early, go prepared.
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Canada's second largest and most densely population territory is having a record wildfire year. We discuss the demographics, layout, political and economic factors that govern life and inform emergency management. The evacuations serve as an example for us to use in our own planning, to consider routes, responsibility to self-sustain throughout the travel period and the difficulty of living in remote locations. Your evacuation plan should be robust, discussed with everyone and rehearsed. When everyone knows what to do, what to grab, how you're going to travel and the destination, that provides a great degree of confidence in chaos.
The key to a successful evacuation - leave early, don't wait for the mandatory order, you'll be socked in on a road full of those who waited to be ordered. Go early, go prepared.
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It's here, the launch of our most impactful and robust season for IMCH. We are going live on Instagram, giving away copies of our book, long form videos on YouTube and podcast episodes entered on 3 themes:
Disaster event assessments: What went right, wrong and lessons for everyone;
Planning scenarios: How to navigate situation X, whether it be natural, economic or political; and
Interviews with Key Voices: People in the fight in emergencies, entrepreneurs and those impacted by loss, compelling and powerful conversations
A book giveaway awaits you in the episode, as well as profound thoughts on preparedness and its role in your life.
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This 199th episode, the last of the summer bonus series, is a description of my preparedness journey and my current plan. From how I become a preparedness guy, to my shelter in place plan, my days of supply, mobility, bug out locations and my personal plans for the trifecta of pain - utility failure, evacuation and income loss.
I discuss why I have chosen these plans, and what I am currently working on for the future in relation to my personal preparedness, my family plan and to support my community.
A heart felt thanks for being part of this journey since April 28th, 2020. I appreciate everyone, I am truly humbled.
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Preparedness is a framework to facilitate and support you rocking an incredible life. It is not meant to be all consuming and to fuel paranoia. Preparedness, through planning for the trifecta of strife - utility loss, evacuation and loss of income, enables you chasing your dreams.
Minimalism is not about a number of items, but having your life in control, doing what you want and having only those physical things that are necessary to support your employment, leisure and family activities. Everything else goes.
Protect access to your calendar like it is a bank vault. Few people or organizations should be allowed into your schedule, a fast no and a slow yes.
Simplification is about breaking down your journey through life into single steps that are easily codified and explained. Becoming financially free and independent seems complicated, but really it's just a series of single, simple steps.
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Rocking an incredible life, it's all about chasing your dreams, doing what you love in peace and calm. Preparedness permits this, it facilitates this - but what are you supposed to do, what is your calling?
The three rules are simple: pay your own way, be a good person and make society better.
Really that simple, you shouldn't be a burden to your society, you should follow the rules and advocate for change when necessary and leave the world a better place than you found it.
Adopting a prepared life allows you to pursue your dreams, contingencies are there to catch you when you fall, so society doesn't have to. You rise and carry on, being kind and contributing to others - whether you're a minimum wage employee, a professional climbing the ladder or you are an entrepreneur. Follow these rules and you're golden.
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The most likely emergency we will face in a modern and connected technologically enabled world is the loss of power. That brings a host of issues that challenge how we conduct our normal lives, as such, having a specific grid down power loss preparedness plan is a necessity.
This 5 step plan sets you and your family up for success, ensures that you have the minimum power necessary, that you can provide for those you love and that you can source all the information required.
Evidence based, non apocalyptic guidance.
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Where do you find accurate and trusted voices in times of disaster or emergency? This is a question to be answered in times of peace and calm. Finding these sources and having them readily accessible removes anxiety and stress when the world goes pear shaped and you're wondering what just happened. From your local EM website, to Twitter, Facebook, radio and most importantly - your social capital, we discuss how to find these sources, curate the feeds and set you and your family up for success.
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Water is nature's most powerful force, it is unmatched in destruction and loss of habitat. With the recent floods in Canada and across the world, we discuss the four main thoughts around flood preparedness. First, local knowledge, find everything, flood maps, historical records, etc. Second, examine your ingress and egress routes to your shelter in place location. Third, your evacuation plan, one of the 4 necessary scenarios for preparedness, must include the potential for loss of access to routes and services due to high water levels. Finally and most important, insurance.
Nothing is more important than intimately knowing your insurance policy, exactly what are your personal responsibilities and what are your benefits.
You must be the master of your coverage, it is the single greatest risk transfer tool available.
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Another fun summer bonus episode, talking about the ten most recommended items you should have included in your sheltering in place plan. These are drawn from both professional and anecdotal evidence, based upon our animalistic requirements framework from our education system in our first book.
Most will be familiar, some new, but an interesting way to reflect on whether you are ready to navigate life's disruptions.
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Some summer fun, the ten truths of emergencies drawn out from research into the gap between reality / experience and public sector resident-facing emergency preparedness communication. Take some time to reflect on whether the next flood will truly be a surprise, will the public sector element of critical infrastructure you rely upon really be available and can the government sufficiently respond to disasters?
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Season 7 was dedicated to returning to first principles, reviewing the core concepts of preparedness in theory - discussion over what it means and how to consider the options when developing a plan. Season 8 will be more detailed deep dives, specific examples with less theory and linked to a YouTube video. This is what you the listeners have been requesting, this is what we will provide.
Why are you in this preparedness game? Want to be less exposed to the matrix, more independent, understand your risk exposure - or to provide for your family at all costs?
Understanding your why is key, a foundational idea.
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Ai is disruptive, here and only going to be more impactful in our lives. This episode we cover a general synopsis of AI, what it is and how it is being used today. We further discuss the impacts on ur personal, economic and general lives. AI has great potential to answer questions that are beyond the throughput of human scientists, but it comes with the potential to be used for nefarious purposes.
In preparedness, we want to be ready to navigate disruptions in our lives, so that we may continue to pursue our dreams. AI will be a source of significant disruption in many industries, it is our responsibility to understand both our exposure to and the potential impact of AI on how we live and how we earn an income.
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If you were to search for preparedness online, or on YouTube, you'd think society was on the verge of collapse. The apocalyptic chatter is incredible, those who want to sell you something, who believe that fear is the best motivator are making mint. In this episode, we look at the three main arguments - US dollar failure as reserve currency, expansion to a European total war and financial system collapse due to personal and government debt and explain why they are not going to bring down the world.
Using supply chain re-organization as a visual as to what the world is actually doing, we demonstrate that regionalization is underway and nations are simply jockeying for space and leverage.
We finish with what this all means for your preparedness plan and how to reflect on your risk exposure and mitigation
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Preparedness has some skill sets, most of which are not immediately apparent. We normally consider preparedness skills as first aid, bushcraft, cooking without utilities. They are necessary and important, but what about your ability to operate in times of chaos, your negotiations skills, de-escalation demeanour, physical fitness, firefighting, situational awareness. There are many skills related to preparedness and in advance of an incredible and chaotic summer, it's time to consider whether these need a review or upgrade.
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Summer, the happy season, also contains some specific hazards that need to be considered. We discuss how to brainstorm what may happen where you live this summer by considering what has happened and what you are exposed to. With that list, from natural, industrial, economic, political and conflict risks, we compare those to your preparedness plan. Is it sufficient to navigate that event? If not, how to you address the shortfall, how to find solutions to a new preparedness gap in your planning.
Simple, free and worth a short investment of your time.
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The world, whether at the national, sub-national or community level is divided along ideological and political lines. We live in a world of massive information flow and limited discourse. The value of ideas from individuals are framed in relation to their political , cultural and religious ideology. Great thoughts and opinions are lost to the ether when we ignore commentary because the person belongs to a certain political party, champions a topic or is a member of a faith group.
Division permeates our institutions, governance and the global world order - we've lost the ability to create community.
This is an argument for the grass roots building of a community, not one that is confirmation bias - people who agree with your views, but a group of individuals with diverse political, ideological and cultural origins.
Create the space to hear all sides, make friends with the opposition - because they are not the opponent, they're your fellow citizens.
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Fear is the most powerful of human emotions, utilized by institutions, governments and salesmen over decades to persuade the population, either to follow guidance or to justify actions.
Why is this so powerful, how can we counter the use of fear? Should we trust institutions and not politicians? Fear is managed though evidence, seeking supporting information for claims, understanding that in the fullness of time there will be an accounting of causes, but for the immediacy, what do I know, what do I not know and where do I find the information to fill the knowledge gap.
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When disruptions happen, it is difficult to communicate, to reach loved ones, to see if they're OK. Having a communications plan as part of your family preparedness plan is essential. On this episode we talk about your preparedness plan, how to plan inclusively, when chaos reigns, hot to talk in times of chaos and where to find information from your local government.
Calm, clear and concise communication, to activate an understood and simple family preparedness plan will pay huge dividends in an emergency.
Who is getting kids from school?
How will I get home from work if I cannot use public transportation?
A million questions, one plan.
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Politics is influential, powerful, impactful and 100% our fault. If you live in a democracy, you authorize an elected government to manage affairs for a period of time - so what is the intersection with preparedness?
How does both the government's authority to act and your trust influence your personal preparedness plan? How does government action in crisis affect your ideas, are you a libertarian or authoritarian? what role should the government have in a crisis? What should they be able to do?
Community is our best asset, evidence shows a staring sense of place, ties to out location and our community's relationship with the local government are the variables that most influence positive recovery. Get involved, steer the mitigation, response and recovery plans of your local government, irrespective of your ideology.
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The Last House Standing, a documentary by Move the World Films was written, produced and directed by George Seigal. A compelling film presenting the catastrophic losses from natural hazards, the personal interviews of loss and a foundational argument for personal responsibility. The film outlines the faults in the recovery phases, from builders to code, legislators to federal agencies.
Your house is the single greatest investment in your life, yet so little attention is focussed on the risks assumed by selecting a residence and the true intentions of the insurance industry.
If you've ever considered purchasing a home, this is a must watch.
www.thelasthousestanding.org
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Where do you fall on the preparedness spectrum? Are you aimlessly wandering through life, blissfully unaware of the elements of critical infrastructure and how modern day society is supported? Or are you ready for societal collapse and providing for all your animalistic requirements time immemorial?
Understanding the delineation of these labels is important to view where you are and where you would like to be, the odds you're facing and why we recommend what we do.
Evidence based classification, not opinion.
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Yoou've taken the time, invested in creating a preparedness plan for you and your family. Does it remain relevant, has anything changed, if there a new hazard in my area? Preparedness should not be a burden, something that occupies a great deal of time, it is meant to facilitate an incredible life, not be the focus of your life. Hence, a regular review of the plan and reflecting on the world around you is appropriate. We recommend once a month, scheduled via your organizational system - calendar, to do list - whatever. It will take 30 minutes and that's it, back to your regular 100 mile an hour life.
We take you through the host's own preparedness plan, step by step, as an example. Real world stuff.
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Little warning, dry conditions left families transitioning from Sunday brunch to evacuating their homes under intense smoke pressure. My hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia and the surrounding communities are experiencing wildfires. While not unknown, it is the first one of the year, causing chaos and loss - predictable, something that all can plan for, but impactful nonetheless.
We discuss the most recent research, building codes, poor transportation design of neighbourhoods and finish with a four point advice on how to plan for evacuation. Have destination, go at first threat, bring what matters and completely, without exception, know your insurance coverage and timelines. Benign informed is your best weapon.
Make the plan, ensure all family members understand their role. Preparedness is free, planning is free and when needed, it's priceless.
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Little warning, dry conditions left families transitioning from Sunday brunch to evacuating their homes under intense smoke pressure. My hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia and the surrounding communities are experiencing wildfires. While not unknown, it is the first one of the year, causing chaos and loss - predictable, something that all can plan for, but impactful nonetheless.
We discuss the most recent research, building codes, poor transportation design of neighbourhoods and finish with a four point advice on how to plan for evacuation. Have destination, go at first threat, bring what matters and completely, without exception, know your insurance coverage and timelines. Benign informed is your best weapon.
Make the plan, ensure all family members understand their role. Preparedness is free, planning is free and when needed, it's priceless.
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Inflation, pandemics, firing, cuts and a myriad of external shocks occur in our lives. Adopting a prepared life means you accept responsibility for your financial outcomes and you begin the process of adopting healthy finances and lowering your stress and anxiety about money.
We discuss the steps - accept responsibility, ensure you run out of month before you run out of money, determine emergency fund requirements, determine retirement nest egg needs and adding income to increase your financial health.
Simple, basic and effective strategy that I used to right my ship, to begin the long but important journey to financial health.
Luxuries vs necessities, your animalistic requirements - it's all in here.
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Obviously not the first idea in preparedness, but organization and simplification of your day places order into chaos and sets the condition for adopting habits that lead to a better life. Today we talk about the importance of setting a routine, at work and in preparedness. Having command of your day, through you and your boss understanding what you're working on - to your preparedness plan and revisiting your goals and priority in pursuit of a prepared life. You have an individual goal for your physical, mental and financial health as well as your animalistic requirements for sheltering in place. One of these is the priority and you have a simple plan to achieve each. Build a routine to support each of these goals and you've set the conditions for success. The power of routine is incredible, harness it and you'll be unstoppable.
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The big question, how long to prepare for? End of the world, 3 days, 2 weeks? In this episode we break down the logic behind this decision, based upon how our modern world is structured, facilitated by 10 sectors of critical infrastructure and how to estimate your risk. Your exposure and dependancy will inform your decision to determine a timeline for sleeting in place and providing you and those for whom your responsible their animalistic requirements of food, shelter, water, health, safety and security.
If you're responsible for your outcomes, then you need to know how long you're on your own.
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When chaos reigns, your mental health, your control of emotions will be critical to your ability to make sound decisions. If you begin disruptions from a place of peace and calm, you'll be more capable to navigate the crisis and ensure a positive outcome. You must first accept that your emotions and mental health are your responsibility and become determined to improve your mental state.
This is not clinical advice, but a discussion about the steps I took to address my failing mental health and set myself on the road to recovery. In summary, I freed my calendar of all non-life supporting commitments, removes places, activities and experiences that induced stress and finally, fired toxic humans from my life.
Protect your peace and happiness as you would defend your children.
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Wildfire season has begun in North America, train derailments in the USA and a myriad of other reasons why you might have to evacuate. This episode we lay out the five steps to creating a preparedness plan for evacuation: Know your risks & have a single plan, know your destination, know your routes by memory, everyone knows their responsibilities, and know what to take. Following these steps will provide you a guide to developing a single family evacuation plan. Do this in times of peace and calm, not when the world goes pear shaped.
Planning is free, takes not much time, but the effort is priceless when the chips are down.
You and your family are worth the investment of time.
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Humans are animals in the environment, not on top. We have certain physical requirements that nature haas designed us to achieve, nature has provided the nourishment for us and like all other animals, we require sufficient sleep to conduct repair and recovery - essentially preventative maintenance.
When chaos hits, the levels of uncertainty, lack of sleep, nutritional interruptions and general anxiety will tax your physical health. That is why it is the first thing we recommend addressing in adopting a prepared life.
Simple: exercise for function, eat food that nature provides and get at least 6 hours of sleep.
Physical, like your mental and financial health is a continuous improvement system, once you begin the journey to better health, you can then and only then, consider supplies, skills and more traditional preparedness ideas.
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Evacuate in 5 min, go west and oh, your home is likely to burn down. Are you and your family ready for this notice, are you ready to respond, execute your evacuation plans and does everyone know exactly what they are supposed to do?
Preparedness is your ability to navigate significant disruptions that are beyond your control, you weren't responsible for something happening, but you are most certainly responsible for how you choose to respond.
Whether it is a Cyber incident, ID compromise, injury at work, job loss or any number of possibilities, it is your job to make a family preparedness plan.
It's free, only a time investment and I think you and your family are worth it.
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The theoretical underpinning of preparedness is planning. That means you have a strategy to navigate significant disruptions in your life. We begin preparedness planning with the shelter in place concept, which means that everyone returns to home when bad things happen, to congregate, pause and think. Your home is your safe place, where your children feel safe, where they are comfortable, where you know your community and lastly - it is where everything you own sits. All your possessions to some degree are preparedness supplies that support one of your animalistic requirements - shelter, food, water, health, safety and security. So why not start the response at a place where everything you need is, where your loved ones feel safe and you are at peace - to the greatest extent possible in times of chaos and mayhem.
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The most important question in emergency preparedness is "Who is responsible for my outcomes?" To adopt a prepared life you must first answer "me", and then begin the journey to adopting preparedness. This begins with first addressing your physical, mental and financial health. Without these, the supplies, skills and scenario planning for disasters is moot.
You want to begin managing a disaster from a point of good health, peace and calm with more money than month. Basic, simple and it doesn't cost anything. Preparedness is free, always will be, there are no economic barriers to adopting a prepared life. Full stop.
This is discussed in detail in our first book, Preparedness Simplified Book One: The Beginning, available from the links at Inside My Canoehead.
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We're back for our 7th season, with episodes on EM professionals, scenarios, deep dive into critical infrastructure and other important individual emergency preparedness topics. Our first book is out, with a video course to follow and as always, the free information sources across our social media feeds.
The mission at IMCH is to provide the most suitable, evidence-based information to residents of urban and suburban environments, to facilitate the adoption of a prepared life, where preparedness acts as an insulation blanket, allowing you to rock an incredible life.
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All good things must come to an end, here at IMCH we are wrapping up the 6th season, re-jigging, re-vamping and renovating our way to Season 7. Thank you for your continued support, your best wished and your most targeted comments.
This episode is a review of what we accomplished so far in 2023, what we intended to do, why we're talking about certain issues and finally, what we intend to challenge in Season 7.
Our first book launches this month, part 1 of a 5 book series on preparedness. Stay tuned for much more and an incredible thank you for almost 3 years of listening.
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What you face, the threats and hazards are directly correlated to your location. Whether you face imminent invasion by a neighbouring army, a fall in government, the election of a fascist regime or economic politics that will lead to collapse - these are all known problems. You have the choice to move to a part of the world where there is less conflict, you can choose to remain and fight for change or you can choose to remain and quietly adapt, increasing your wealth and leverage - quiet advancement. But ask yourself, are you ready to navigate what is likely to occur? That's your responsibility my friends, so assess, make a location decision and embrace your circumstances.
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We speak often about rocking an incredible life, about making sure that everyday when you rise, you swing your legs out of bed and cannot wait to get after it. If that is you, well done. If not, why not? Nothing happens overnight, but if you want to lead such a wondrous life, why not start chasing it in a planned and intelligent manner? You want a secure, safe career with scary and benefits? Sure. You want to be an entrepreneur? Sure, go chase that dream. You're responsible for your own animalistic requirements, as long as you can pay your bills, there is nothing to stop you. Nothing but you and bad advice, so chase those dreams, this is a chaotic decade, why not be at the cutting edge?
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Yes, money, A medium of exchange, fractional banking, bonds, RRSP, RESP, retirement, emergency funds. As a prepared individual it is your responsibility to pay your expenses and earn sufficient income. You must have a plan to pivot when you're fired, because while you might die in your job, you're more than likely to leave it at some point. We chat about having more month than money, your fruit salad of options for savings, your pivot when fired plan and many different simple ratios for budgeting.
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There has been a considerable amount of violence on public transit systems in North America. We need out public transit, it is a core element of a successful and vibrant city. Over 85% of Canadians live in urban and suburban areas, transit contributes to our productivity and is absolutely essential to our success. We chat about maintaining situational awareness, understanding the environment around you, mitigating risk as much as possible and in the rare times, know how to physically protect yourself. Let us work hard to improve public transit, make it safer, but in the meantime, make sure you adopt preparedness to protect you.
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OK, we're going to talk about the traditional definition of preparedness, the supplies and equipment. However, you need a preparedness plan first, you want the equipment in your possession to support your plan, to allow you to execute your intent. The kits are not the plan, they are the tool to enhance the skills and knowledge you have. Family, their needs, sheltering in place, timeline and a detailed review of your animalistic requirements define this episode.
Your equipment needs are likely far less than you think.
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Preparedness is an attitude, a theoretical lens through which we evaluate and engage with the world - a state of mind. It is never and cannot be measured in supplies, kit pr equipment. Difficult to measure, similar to social capital, in that we measure the outcomes of strong social capital to determine whether it is present or not.
Hardship befalls us all - illness, anguish, economic and dramatic losses. These are beyond our control to prevent, it is only our ability to navigate these with poise and presence that wins the day.
Embracing preparedness as the totality of efforts to be ready, weak dressed and of determined mind to navigate life's disruptions.
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You will leave your house or bunker at some time, maybe even take a vacation, so what are the considerations for travel - local, regional and into a foreign country? Today we discuss dressing for the weather, considering what you will do when your normal mode of travel is no longer available to you, having situational awareness on your destination and just simply understanding your options to get back home when how you got there is not available. Many travellers are being left on the beach by airlines and abandoned. Do you want to be whining about how you've been wronged and how no one is helping, or do you pivot to get you and your family home irrespective of the airline's intent? Having a plan permits you to think clearly and accurately in times of chaos.
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A break from preparedness to discuss an important idea in society. In Canada and across the developed world, there are ongoing discussions about censorship and control of material that is posted on social media. In Canada, an upcoming law C-11 provides for the Public Service to be a decision maker in what is appropriate content for the Internet and social media companies. This episode is about definitions, what is free speech, who determines a fact, how that is done and what are our options for have an adjudicator in the modern public square. Your comments are most welcome.
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So you want to become a survivalist, someone who thinks that society will collapse and the critical infrastructure will not restart. These are individuals who hoist aboard the full and complete responsibility of providing all their requirements time immemorial. They have two options - stationary and mobile. The stationary ones are those who live in rural areas, have acreage, grow food, hunt, fish and truly live off grid. The mobile survivalist has the skills and equipment to live off grid when necessary, if society collapses. Similar to the Alone show, but the ability to move with the food source. It's all about your animalistic requirements
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Inflation, supply chain disruptions and growing conflict are all affecting our ability to acquire nutrients necessary to rock and incredible life. In the face of uncertainty, we need to take control of access to a sustainable and local food supply, through adopting to eating local foods - often referred to as the 100 mile diet, learn to cook from basic ingredients and through that, we insulate ourselves from exogenous shock. California could have a drought, Florida a flash freeze and those would be totally irrelevant to our food quality and availability. Brilliant and simple.
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This week we talk about the different types of preparedness individuals, the spectrum and where you might fall. We chat about how to become a prepper and what that means in practical sense. How do we differentiate the lives of a prepper from a prepared individual, what are they preparing for and are they all nutcases?
Not sure what a prepper is, sit back and enjoy the discussion.
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Returning to the traditional subjects of preparedness, this week we chat about the needs for sheltering in place with your family, until the government restores critical infrastructure. That is the primary role of the government, is to get society's systems up and running after a failure, your responsibility is to take care of yourself and those for whom you are responsible. It's not complicated, we discuss food, water, shelter, health, safety and security. So grab your favourite beverage as we go back to basics and talk about sheltering in place.
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A deep subject, but this matters to so many and the importance of where we are and why we're here is critical. A short chat about the influence on your preparedness at the end, but this conflict was coming like a freight train for 17 years and no one cared. The Ukrainians are doing the killing and dying, while the cowards in NATO are waking a killing from their military industrial complexes. No one is calling for peace, no one. Just calls for "all-in" for Ukraine and the Russians have lost about 10% of what they deem to be acceptable. This is just the beginning.
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Why does the government conduct preparedness communications, what is the desired end state and why do they choose certain mediums. Today we discuss why the government sends you messages, the hard truth behind it, the reason why you need to be prepared, what information you need to know from the government and why building trust is the most important.
Twitter or Facebook?
Preference?
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A simplistic, evidence-based three step process to adopting preparedness in your life. About your ability to navigate significant disruptions, so sit back, grab a beverage as we discuss how to become prepared.
From accepting responsibility for your outcomes, to accepting where you are in life without assigning blame, to determining where you want to be, to move from here to there. This is your preparedness journey, one with milestones and celebratory moments everywhere.
It's your life, accept responsibility, take charge and adopt a prepared life.
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It's your responsibility to pay your bills, not society or the government. The reality is though, that most folks are in some form of financial crunch due to inflation, job insecurity or otherwise in a precarious situation. This episode is about creating a vision for your life, being honest where you currently are and then making a plan for bridging the gap. Whether it's a 4 or 14 year strategy, make one, live your life and create the financial resiliency that will enable you to live the life you want.
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The earthquake in Syria and Turkey is restating for those involved, catastrophic and life altering. Something we never wish to happen, but at times beyond our control. There are many lessons for preparedness from what we have seen, from the reality that political stability matters in international response, to planning, the nature of chaos, limited and exhausted state capacity, community, evacuation and financial implications.
Six lessons for you to hoist aboard for your preparedness planning
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Huge thanks to all my supporters, this has been wonderful journey in providing preparedness information to the world, downloaded in 44 nations across the world. IMCH was born to place order into chaos, in a world facing a pandemic and economic ruin. So, with 2023 looking like 2020s was just a warm up, how do you prepare to navigate what the world will throw at you?
From economic recession, global conflict, demographic collapse, end go globalization and a myriad of other unknown influences, we centre the discussion on geography, resources, energy and inputs to provide a frame through which to understand the threats you face and to construct your preparedness plan accordingly.
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Every once in a while, we need to pause and check in on how we're doing, to see what is going on. Find some time, carve out some time and sit back with a whiteboard, paper or your thoughts and consider you. Be honest about your current physical, mental and financial health - reality, no BS. Figure out where you want to be, ID the gap, make a strategy - realistic of course - to start the journey to where you want to be. No different than your preparedness plan, it's a journey, one that you must design.
No one is coming to grant you a less stressful and anxious life. That's your job.
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Power underpins our society, we all have had experiences where the hydro goes out for a few hours, maybe a day. Inconvenient, frustrating, but we get over it and carry on with our modern, connected lives. Few of us consider the importance of utilities in supporting all the sectors of Critical Infrastructure that support our society - transportation, financial, water, food, security, government, etc...
What does your world look like when the power fails and doesn't come back on for a week? Are you prepared when you cannot access any stores, banks, fuel, public services, medical, pharmacy or cell / Internet?
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How does something become a policy, how do we seem to tackle important issues over a decade, but some dramatic changes are implemented overnight? This discussion on public policy frames the governance system of emergency management in Canada, it is well done and a model to be emulated. A bit of a nerd out, but fun nonetheless.
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Whenever an incident occurs, there are two responses: the community and the public sector. Throughout developed nations these are rarely integrated or coordinated. In this episode we discuss what actually happens when the shiny hits the fizzy, methodologies for integration and how what success looks like: the municipal emergency management acting as a facilitator to the community - not a dictatorial educator.
Let's integrate our plans, become partners in saving lives and have the public sector plans reflect the priority of the community.
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This is an exceptional opportunity to interview Perron Goodyear, a consultant in emergency management. He brings well over a decade of service experience, a graduate education and a sincere focus on society's most vulnerable to the podcast. He is a stalwart voice in Canada, well-connected and respected.
We discuss his journey to emergency management, the goal of his consultancy, obstacles in the profession and important skills for the seasoned and new emergency manager.
www.gemconsult.ca
Pro Patria
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What is preparedness, why should you be interested and why now? This intro into the coming season 6 provides the foundational argument as to why preparedness is necessary and valued in the 2020s. This is the most chaotic decade since the 1940s and therefore the best time to consider adopting a prepared life. We discuss the definition, the coming state of chaos, your actions and focus in understanding preparedness, resilience, self-reliance and self-sufficiency and how to adopt strategies to succeed where others falter.
Pro Patria
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Types of episodes, what we believe, goals of Inside My Canoed and rocking an incredible life. These are the cornerstones of this season, with great interviews with practitioners and experts in the field, scenario and event specific ideas and discussions about challenges of life and how preparedness enables you to chase your dreams, wrapped in a blanket of preparedness.
Season 6 will be epic.
Pro Patria
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A quick review of this year's events, episodes, accomplishments and an assortment of interesting notes from the year. What was your most profound moment? Did you think you would have made it to this day? What does 2023 hold for you?
An episodic review, podcast growth discussions, Ukraine and my personal accomplishments.
2023 is going to be epic. Rock your incredible life while wrapped in a blanket of preparedness...
Pro Patria
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What's your plan for 2023, increase your education, start a business, a side hustle or some other venture to expand your influence and reach in the world? Or are you wishing to remain in your current environment and expand your preparedness life as you navigate 2023. The year will be disruptive, challenging and your outcomes are yet to be determined, but within your control.
Focus on education, your business idea, prepare you and your life for 2023. Life is an adventure, be passionate , pursue your ideas, give back to society and rock an incredible life.
Pro Patria
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After 2022, you are likely feeling somewhat beat down and defeated, so this episode is about crafting optimism for 2023 and a roadmap to developing an outlook and goals for the new year. I am your guinea pig, here is my plan for 2023 from a personal perspective, with the entrepreneurial episode coming later. How I set goals, choose a priority, establish a daily schedule, motivation vs discipline, sharpen my saw and the benefits of minimalism and essentialism.
Enjoy
Pro Patria
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Remember when you wore that cape as a child, you believed you were a superhero with amazing powers to change the world and do whatever you wanted? That's what a blanket of preparedness can do for us. Today is a quick chat about that life, accepting that you are in control of what you can control and that we need our communities to be successful. Why do you swing your legs out of bed in the morning?
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Turmoil is everywhere, politics is on fire, governments around the world are doing crazy things, this is a difficult and stressful time. So what can we do? We can insulate ourselves with a prepared life, from the decisions governments make, keep our house in order, participate in debate without causing mental injury and ensuring that government decisions do not affect our ability to provide for our families and to chase our dreams.
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This week we discuss the real world loss of @bucketlisthomestead's YouTube channel. It was stolen from the owner, videos deleted and blocked her access. She had two-factor authentication on, using her cell phone, and it did not work. Someone was able to access her account, block the 2 factor, prevent the notification of a new login from a different source message and then change all her settings and delete a year's worth of work.
Today, we discuss how to conduct your online audit, looking for single points of failure and how to construct your presence to be the best protected you can.
Lynn was a guest on S3E15, a long time friend and a human with a heart of gold.
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How do we go about understanding the world around us? The scientific method is highly regarded as the most appropriate method to answer important questions of our time, including the ongoing research efforts into emergency preparedness. Today I discuss the process followed in research, using my own as an example. A lighthearted look at evidence, facts, questions. Defining the problem to understanding what a fact is. Fun for research nerds.
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Coffee fuels our lives, it's our go-to drink for wakey wakey, when we need to hyper focus and just to provide some warmth. Our preparedness and coffee investments have a relationship in time, resources, effort, learning and confidence.
Do you seek the instant coffee solution to preparedness, the pre-packaged kit? You're going to have a bitter aroma and horrible after taste.
Do you seek the consistency of a Keurig pod coffee preparedness plan, pre-made, form filling and ready to go - just follow instructions? You're going to have an acceptable but far less than ideal outcome, settling for something that is vague and likely a bad family fit.
Pour over style - your preparedness is a living thing, learning, trials, failure, lessons, detail towards everything.
Listen and enjoy!
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We love them, hate them and mostly misunderstand why they exist. We chat about how to first determine why the bag is necessary, exactly what task it will fulfill, understanding the influences of weather, ground and geography play on the design and use - finally filling it to meet its intended purpose.
Short and to the point
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Periodic reviews of our preparedness plans are important to ensure that we are ready for what we intend to be ready for - identify where we fall short and address skill fade etc.
Logistics is the art of life cycle management - from decision to acquire to disposal and every activity in-between. As such, we need to consider our animalistic requirements, evacuation, administration and our current situation through this frame.
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By popular demand, here are my thoughts on a nuclear detonation. Fist we discuss what they are, the types and their use on the battlefield. Then what to do if you're in an area of a detonation, how to prepare to be in a detonation area and what to do after the bomb goes off. As well, what to do and what are the likely outcomes of a detonation in another country going to be on your life at home.
Not a comfortable topic, but one which is necessary. Your comments are most welcome.
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This winter will suck, the inflationary pressures will persist, interest rates will rise, a corresponding fall in business investment will lead to high unemployment = recession, probably through all of 2023. War is expanding across the globe and supply chains continue to re-organize from global to regional.
Your strategy needs to focus on how you maintain financial independence throughout, by knowing your plan if you get fired, what is your pivot industry and preparing for that eventuality. Further, the need to simplify and localize your supply chain, buy products that are not exposed to international or regional risk and insulate your family from the coming process shocks. Finally, understand that foreign goods will come with a substantial conflict premium.
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This week we chat about preparedness for disaster impact and the need to create social binds, seek education and build a robust community that will be able to manage the disaster and improve outcomes.
No One Is Coming To Help
That is the reality, so what can you do, what does an evacuation plan entail, how long are you going to be without government assistance and why strong social bonds leads communities to far better outcomes.
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Fiona and Ian, names that will be retired in the book, causing significant damage and loss of life across the Caribbean and Eastern coast of North America. If you live in one of these areas that can be struck by a hurricane, here is some preparedness advice. First, your finances - what is your employer's plan if your place of work is no longer available post hurricane. This is your source of income and will affect everything. If you might lose your employment, what is your plan to earn an income elsewhere?
How do you intend to cook without power? Purify water? 911 will simply not be available for up to a week or more. What is your plan to address the situations you may normally call 911 for?
Evacuation - where are you going...
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This week's conversation brings back a guest to discussion how people consume preparedness information, where they seek commentary and what are the preferred mediums. Everyone's life is unique, challenges are not common to everyone and what we face daily may be considerably different. Hence, with the confused and flooded social media preparedness space, how does someone carve out a rational place to pursue information and to meet their needs.
We know downloadable PDF prescriptions are inappropriate for preparedness, everyone needs to develop their own plan based upon their unique family and geolocation requirements.
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We all have goals in life and our preparedness journey is no different, but how should you approach preparedness goals? Is there something different that should be considered, measurement, timeline?
We discuss how to define your goal for your blanket of preparedness, one for each quadrant - mental health, physical health, financial independence and animalistic requirements. Then we discuss a methodology to reach each goal, test and evaluate and then to choose the main effort or your priority. Goals are not equal, one takes precedence, you need to decide and place that above all others.
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We chat about preparedness, rocking an incredible life and chasing your dreams on this podcast. This episode is about the things you can do to become a high value human, independent and in charge of your future. The blanket of preparedness has four quadrants, when you are rocking all four, what can you do to situate yourself to gain the most from this world. Surround yourself with others who have similar values and goals, like the old adage, if you're the smartest in the room, you're in the wrong room.
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The world is in chaos - inflation, conflict and general malaise. In these times and regularly you should reassess your preparedness plan, assess your priority and either accept that you are on the right course, or you need to amend the plan. It's your plan, your mission to reach the expressed end state - what the world looks like when you're done. Remember - the word priority cannot be pluralized. You have a number of goals, but only one priority. Maybe you need to amend your goals and then re-assign one as the priority, but never have multiple priorities.
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We travel, for leisure, work and for general errands around our town. We take long car trips to neighbouring cities and locations. We periodically travel via trains and planes to far off destinations to run around in speedos and bikinis. We need to take preparedness with us, so how do we do that?
This episode outlines the big picture ideas that frame travel preparedness, how to maintain communication wherever you go, what information you need to gather before departing and how to be prepared for a car accident - the most likely local disruptive event if you drive in a city.
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The world is on fire, the news is chaotic and across social media platforms and information feeds on preparedness, there is nothing but APOCOTALK. How do you navigate this, how do you create a sense of preparedness without panic, fear and anxiety?
Ask yourself, what does preparedness provide, remembering that it facilitates your life, allows you to chase your dreams and to conquer your goals. Preparedness is a blanket, with four quadrents that support your process of: plan, prepare and prosper.
So, plan your animalistic requirements, financial independence, mental and physical health - execute the plan to reach the goals that fit your lifestyle and family and then go rock that incredible life.
Chase your dreams, all while wrapped in a blanket of preparedness...
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Defining individual responsibility is more than just go do everything, it is about a plan, strategy to meet your core requirements in life, with back-ups to navigate disruptions so that you can rock an incredible life.
We discuss the four elements of a blanket of preparedness, your animalistic needs, financial independence, physical and mental health. If you have these sorted, with supporting strategies and plans, then you are equipped to take on any challenge in the world, to rock this world and to lead an incredible adventure filled life...
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Preparedness is about taking the steps to be ready to navigate disruptions, while continuing to rock an incredible life in the urban and suburban world. It is about accepting responsibility for your outcomes, understanding your basic needs and then seeking knowledge about how to set yourself up for success
Finance - Dave Ramsey, Tony Robbins and Paul Jarvis
Attitude - Ryan Holiday and your religion
Knowledge about the World - Micheal Shellenberger, Peter Zeihan, John Rawls and Rober Putnam
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The Lamb lifestyle is for the wealthy right? No, its for those who wish to take responsibility for their outcomes, refuse to be victims and want to be responsible for their preparedness and create multiple lines of income. A quick look into how starting a business is really cheap and easy, simple and the only route to owning - or having the financial ability to own a Lamborghini.
This is a look into my story, why I'm going the entrepreneur route as a second effort post the Army.
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We live in collective societies where the random application of violence on each other is regulated through the collective morals expressed in our laws. But man is an animal in the ecosystem and violence is kept at bay by the distribution of resources. Our morals keep society reasonably free of violence because we can eat, find shelter and carry on with our lives.
We discuss animalistic security, fighting as a skill set to protect yourself, state violence and the application of force by police against citizens and a standing Army.
Violence is real, needed and a skill you must have.
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The last in our series on information sources, this is a discussion on the value of independent media in understanding the world around you, updating your world and local situational awareness and learning about quality local journalism that may be flying under your radar. Where is the source statistical information that is without bias? How do I look at the indicators for my industry, where do I go to know why there is a labour shortage? A brief look at the independent journalist in both the US and Canada - go to substack. That's where you're likely to find them...
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Universal Health Care in Canada is in crisis, if not failed already. This is significant for preparedness as you probably believe or expect a healthcare system to be ready to receive patients in a major event, or when you or your family is in crisis. This is not the case, so to understand what is the issue we break down the healthcare system into 3 primary areas: primary care, public health and acute care. We discuss your personal responsibility to become fit and healthy, to mitigate any requirement to see a physician, with the key element to success being the provision of sufficient family doctors to ensure that everyone has one and appointments are sufficiently long to discuss multiple issues and readily available. The second element is to have public health and education on healthy lifestyles with inspections keeping public areas safe. Acute, the last portion takes care of itself - we are closing hospital beds not because a shortage of staff, but because the population doesn't need them....
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Welcome to season five of the podcast, where we will dive into you living through the difficult 2020s while chasing your dreams and living an incredible life, wrapped in a blanked of preparedness. The principle of simplification supports this endeavour, reminding you that all the issues in life are simple to solve - difficult yes, but simple. When we position issues in the dichotomy of control - in that you either control the outcome or you do not. If you not not, you smile, accept the outcome whatever it is and move on - Amor Fati. If you can control the outcome then you simplify the issue to a set of basic questions, answer them, make a decision and move on and don't dwell on the counter-factual. This is going to be an incredible season, stay tuned.
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Where do you go to find the most accurate and up to date information in a crisis? What mediums do you choose, do you have alternate, processes that do not require power? This week's discussion is all about the crisis information process, finding your trusted sources, having multiple mediums upon which to draw the information - the Internet can go away, we saw this in Canada.
When a crisis is inbound, what information do you need: what is the threat, what is the probability and what are the outcomes? Then layer on the extent of your scenario planning and you have a recipe for preparedness.
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Twitter is the modern incarnation of the city square, where people gather to exchange ideas, seek information, draw conclusions and confirm opinions. Except the civil discourse of the past is rare. This week we discuss the value of Twitter for preparedness, the ability to spew without accountability, the fights - both useless and intelligent exchange of ideas and how Twitter can be leveraged as the greatest source of immediate information in the world. A few examples of my personal fights - one with a communist on taxing millionaires to fund healthcare and one with a public health doctor on vaccine mandates. Twitter can educate and broaden horizons, or it can be a source of stress and ager - the choice is yours.
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This episode was recorded during an 18 hour loss of the Internet in Canada, which affected close to 45% of the population. A quick look at what a world without internet might be, what considerations are available for your family and how we move forward. What's your plan for the loss of the Internet. 18 hours is fine, chatted with humans in person and advanced through my reading list - but what if it is 30 days long?
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Globalism is dying and will be replaced by a new organizational governance by 2030. This decade will be messy and difficult for us all. Humanity, about every 80-90 years re-constructs the global order, the systems by which we operate, integrate, coordinate and fight. We look at Trade, war, pandemics, government control and culture as frameworks for this struggle. The world that emerges in 2030 will have a different economic, political and military alliance structure, in which some nations will be winners, some will be losers and some will no longer exist. Understanding this will help frame your preparedness decisions, for if you know how your nation will emerge, to the greatest extent possible, you are well positioned to make good preparedness choices. After all, it is up to you.
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You've got a passion, a cause that drives your inner soul, gets you riled up and is the basis of a number of your conversations online and in groups. You have a message for the world, but how to get them to hear it? Or you have a passion for physical creation - woodworking, crochet, knitting, painting, models- whatever and you want to see if you could sell one to the world. Why not? What is stopping you, and in terms of preparedness, you can create one of those important lines of income to cushion disruptions in your principle salary.
Why, What and How...
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None of us get out of this life alive, no matter who we are or the assets we have. So what is your plan for when you die? Today we chat about the considerations of your physical assets, financial, investments and distribution of goods when you expire. The planning for this is like the rest of preparedness, it's free. Invest the time to determine what your death looks like, write a will, understand you jurisdiction's laws about distribution of assets and financial charges on your estate. Ask the questions, then take the necessary actions to ensure your family is well prepared for when you die. Because you will.
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The intro to a new series, with weekly episodes on Mondays, on the changing world order and how this influences your preparedness decisions. How does conflict in Ukraine affect your plan, or devaluation of currency in the US, or the re-organization of the global supply chain? These are important major events that will have impacts on your life, so this episode talks about two major thinkers, Ray Dalio and Peter Zeihan and their ideas for how we got here and where we are going. Each week we will present an episode on a major event, deep dive and discuss the impacts on your preparedness plan. We will draw the connection between major issues and your home. Invest the time, I think you're worth it...
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Inflation is hitting everything, the Internet is on fire with calls to stock up on everything and you're looking at a very tiny bank balance, if not overdraft. So what do you do, well its time to consider that preparedness is indeed possible on a zero budget and that socio-economic barriers to preparedness are not barriers or obstacles, but considerations in developing a plan that works for you. This conversation is about the no poop ways to realize that you probably already have most if not all of what you need to be prepared, you just have to adopt the attitude and plan.
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Every once in a while we need to pause and take stock of the world, the issues and how they affect me and my family. There are the things that are beyond our control to individually influence, but they have an impact on how I live my life. I cannot stop war, but war affects my access to products. I cannot cease inflation, but it affects the amount of products I can acquire with my disposable income.
This week we talk about your superpower, your preparedness. Your ability to understand what the affects of the issues are in your world, what your options are to mitigate the effects and to choose a course of action. This is free and when involving your community through the power of social capital, you can create community mitigation for food shortages, energy shortfalls and to prepare for the coming winter, which in some parts of the world will be challenging.
You may not be able to stop what is happening, but you have the power to influence the effects and prepare your family to be safe and secure. Invest, I think you're worth it...
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This week we return to preparedness through the lens of adventurism. The idea that we as humans need to experience new places and new people to grow, to become better humans and contribute to a greater society. I am back from an epic back country 7 day canoe trip in northern Saskatchewan, where I met 8 new people and has an amazing adventure. We discussed my research, I was challenged on ideas and I am a better researcher in the field because I spent time with the practitioners and academics who train them. Preparedness enables this, by wrapping a blanket of preparedness around ourselves, we are free to pursue these adventures, knowing that our normal lives are safe and that if trouble hits, and it usually does, we can return to our normal lives. Preparedness is the facilitator of an amazing life.
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Welcome to one of the most contentious episodes on emergency preparedness, challenging the holy grail of 72 hr kits. Yes there are times where some form of kits are necessary, for specific and well defined circumstances. They are simple, easy to assemble and absolutely free. There is nothing you need in your kit that you do not already own. But if you were to peruse Amazon, that would seem like an alternate universe.
So let's ask:
-do you need a kit - for what exact threat?
-who are you responsible for with this kit?
-where exactly are you going?
-what to include?
It's simple, free and easy. Just grab a beverage and listen.
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No one wakes up and thinks today is the day I get fired, or that today my boss will shut down the company. But these shocks happen daily and the pandemic proved that even the most basic of service industries are exposed to closure and ultimately failure. So, being a self-reliant individual, you need a plan for when you get fired. Not if, but when. We discuss the idea behind having multiple lines of income and the rationale behind having a preparedness plan for income. We finish off with a five step program to developing your plan, your financial cushion. What will you do when you get fired? Having a specific, defined and rehearsed plan to pivot to a new occupation will provide the blanket of insurance required to be bold in your work, knowing that if it all goes down, you have a strategy to bounce back. You're worth the investment.
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People often find it difficult to wrap their heads around preparedness - what could happen to me and my family? If they immediately turn to the most dangerous possibility, well it becomes too overwhelming and then the population simply avoids the conversation and carries on with their lives. If the immediate thought is a minor inconvenience, one through which they have navigated many time, well what's the point - they did it before they can do it again. Hence, professionals often use scenario planning for preparedness. Taking locals through actual situations which they could face in their lives, realistic and just enough severity to breach the apathy, but not enough to cause avoidance. It's and art and this week, we will present scenario planning for your consideration. There are the expected natural hazards - earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etc. But there are also the human political induced. Food shortages as a result of sanctions, conflict disrupting supply chains, the ending of globalization and your choice to be dependant on International goods / foods.
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We know that Critical Infrastructure sectors are the foundation of our modern interconnected society. So what does it look like when things begin to not work as intended. Today we chat about the 5 Levels of failure in CI and what that looks like for you. How do we address the loss of CI, which is completely out of our control, but has a a significant effect on our lives. We discuss disruptions, significant disruptions, sectoral failure, multi-sectoral failure and full spectrum collapse. These each will have varying degrees of impact on you, as all of our lives are different, our family compositions are different and we are indeed a diverse group. So what doe your world look like when the power is out for 30 days, what is your plan for that? What is your plan when you no longer have access to the financial system for weeks? What do you do when the grocery stores are no longer accessible? These are the important preparedness questions that are critical to your planning - and thinking about them is free.
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This week marks Emergency Preparedness Week, where public agencies offer ideas and suggestions to help you build a more prepared life. However, they are unfortunately built on strategies that are decades old and have failed to move the yardsticks on preparedness behaviour adoption.
Our societies are wonderful constructions of inter-connected systems that we all take for granted and rarely consider. We no longer shelter, feed or water ourselves - we have handed that responsibility over to the state and corporations, having to acquire those through leveraging our Labour for wages. We wake every morning assuming the water will be potable, the power will turn on and the grocery store will have food. We don't consider when one of those fails, especially not for extended periods of time.
Critical Infrastructure should be the foundation of your preparedness plan. so listen in, follow as we being the process of developing that with you. A plan designed by you, for you with likely very little if anything to purchase. Preparedness is free my friends.
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Two years in and 100 episodes down, thanks to all the contributors, supporters and those who think this message matters. We chat about the "why" this podcast was created, the mess of the current preparedness landscape and the reasons why I think this channel is positioned to help. Plans for the future about the ebook, video course, consultancy and episodic continuation of the brand. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Buy Me A Coffee for daily preparedness tips. We will be publishing reels and TikTok videos in June, with the YouTube content focussing on preparations for outdoor adventure until July-August when we begin a series of detailed preparedness discussions.
Thank you for being here, it means a great deal.
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Planning is an art, where intuitive, inquisitive, creative thought provoking and charismatic people excel. We plan everything, mostly without considering the process we follow. This week we talk about deliberate planning to answer an important question in our lives. Whether it is to buy a new house, to move to a new town, to choose a cooking method for food without utilities or whether to storm the adjacent town for resources, the processes have similar structural components. This chat is about the formal process, how we should consider it, follow it and think about it.
Once you learn to understand the process, become comfortable with it, you can address a life full of unanswered questions., and become that expert in planning preparedness for your family and community.
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As we gather information to inform our preparedness planning, we look at the government's response capacity. Best done as a per capita ratio of fire, EMS, police to population served. The research is ongoing to understand what is the correct level, but knowing that there is an ambulance on duty for each 50K citizens informs you of the likelihood of receiving EMS support in a significant disruption. There are wonderful people in the EM world, but this is about the positive frame of not what they would like to be able to do, but what they are actually staffed and resourced to accomplish.
Information is power, gathering the full spectrum of information on the plans of your municipality will provide the details as to what they intend to do when it hits the fan, what are their priorities and how do they intend to allocate resources. This is all free and available information that provides you a reasonably clear picture as to the ability of the government to come to your rescue.
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Your government sends out information with regards to emergency management, the standardized message: have a plan, be informed and make a kit. That is messaging, not communicating. If the government wants to be a trusted sources when the world goes pear shaped, they need to establish a relationship with citizens. Become informed of the wishes and desires of the community - what are their priorities, what are their desires for efforts in response - where does the community want the reception centers located?
Communication is key. You need to find the municipal emergency plan, understand it, heighten shortfalls and engage the govt on changes. You need to understand the community groups and networks with resources in your area and communicate with them. Become an engaged citizen, voice concerns and hopefully the government will address your concerns.
Governments are not trusted sources in an emergency because they are the government, they need to establish that relationship in advance. That requires communication.
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Preparedness is trying to or has taken a seat at your table. That small set of ideas that reside in your life, so why is it there? We explore the reasons why by examining your theoretical lens on the world, the frame through which you examine the world around you, understand events and make decisions. You need to self reflect on who you are and how you view this world in order to understand why you are interested in preparedness. This self reflection is exceptionally important when we consider the timeline, people and effects you which to support in your preparedness plan.
Does fear drive you - fear of losing one or more of your animalistic needs? Are you housing or food insecure, or do you have significant income insecurity. These are real and may be the underlying drive to build some form of resilience.
Or maybe its hope. You're an optimist.
Or maybe its political and we all know where that can go
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Welcome to season 4 of IMCH, where we will be focussing more on conversations with people, building your skills sets for disruptions and becoming a more informative and interactive show.
Today is about the human networks, your social capital. The value of people around you, their skills and personal resources that you get access to by meeting your neighbour. The most important piece in emergency preparedness is other humans. More so than food, water or medicine, they are the key to human survival and building relationships is the best initial start point for building a more reliant lifestyle.
Access to their networks presents a huge opportunity for gaining knowledge and resources without expending a single penny.
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With all the preparations and craziness in the world today, we often forget that there is a limited time here and we should be rocking an incredible life, full of the experiences and people that bring us joy. So this week we talk about the foundation of developing these preparedness plans, which is a great life that is worthy of protection.
Why are we doing this preparedness journey thing?
How do minimalism and simplicity encourage a great life?
Finances, relationships, employment and activities. Four simple areas that if we sort them out, life is incredible. It is that simple.
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Emergency preparedness communications are normative - they tell a story of the intent of professionals to help, all the wonderful things they have done to be ready to assist, but almost all of the communications lack positivism - they don't tell the reality of municipal emergency management. The limitations, the extent to which they can provide services to the community and they fail to publicly identify the point at which they are no longer available to assist and therefore citizens are on their own. That point is critical, it formulates the start point of individual emergency preparedness plans - where do we need to be, to take care of all out animalistic needs while the municipal government is elsewhere, doing more important things than reducing me.
There are limitations, extents to which the government capacity is exceeded and therefore unavailable to the public. I think that's critical to know, and we are not being told.
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There are a spectrum of people involved in preparedness, from the blissfully unaware to the dire hard survivalist. Who are they and where do you fit on the spectrum? What does that mean for your outlook on life? When we think about kits, EDC and a myriad of bug out bags, why do we always think its necessary to have a kit?
In this week's episode we explore the different scenarios where you might need to have something with you, from just running around town, to car trips, vacation and evacuations from your home.
Here at IMCH we believe your home is your castle, we view that as your best option in almost all situations, but what about when you must go? Planning is the key, where are you going and what is there. Never leave it to the government to advise on where to go....
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Preparedness costs are everywhere, the Internet and experts are telling you to buy kits, build stockpiles and a myriad of other advice, all designed to get a piece of your disposable income. Preparedness is free, at the most basic and simplistic animalistic requirements, there is no requirement to outlay funds. Period. There are no socio-economic barriers to adopting an individual emergency preparedness mindset and take the necessary steps to insulate you and your family from disruptions in society's normal operations.
Animalistic Requirements - shelter, food, water, health & security: Free
Complex Critical Infrastructure Resilience - potentially a need to acquire a good / service
Beware the charlatan selling you kits...
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OPSEC, should everyone know that you are into preparedness and therefore probably have some Gucci kit in the basement and tons of food when the shizzy hits the fizzy? The reality is that most don't care and those that do likely don't live that close to you. So in reality it is not a huge issue, but one that cannot be ignored.
Do you advertise? Do you tell everyone? Think and adopt the grey man identity. Your house, truck, habits, pattern of life and everything you do should speak to the fact that you are a normal person in society and not a threat or of any interest whatsoever. Thats how you navigate daily life. But what about family who might come, or close friends from work? Plan, you need to consider what you are going to do when this happens and then make the necessary preparations. What if you want to spread the message at work, or find like minded people? Listen, we have some great ideas.
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These are turbulent times, no one needs to remind you. If you're a business owner, public manager or anyone who has a legal responsibility for humans at work, you need to consider investing in their preparedness. In the business continuity community, there is a professional certification to help organizations and companies to build plans to navigate disruptions and to survive through adversity. However, very few of those invest in people.
Compare the amount of money your company invests in protecting servers versus the amount in protecting employees. I don't think you'll like the answer.
So why? Why do companies not invest in their employee's individual emergency preparedness, similar to their comprehensive plans to deal with disruption, cyber attacks, et al? Imagine, in today's competitive workplace, that your company paid for first aid training, fire fighting training, provided access to expert courses on preparedness and paid the employees to take them?
If you're an employer, its the great resignation and this may be just another way to keep the valuable employees you have and to protect you business operations. When the bad day comes, why do you believe that your employees will leave their families and come to work to enact that very expensive business continuity plan? Evidence shows that people will remain at home at least until their families are safe and secure. You are not their main concern and neither is your business. So invest in shortening that timeframe as much as possible.
Sign up for the newsletters, get the info, be prepared....
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This week we return to the basics, water. Seems easy - bottle and store, but life makes this far more complex. What to do when your potable water sources is contaminated and the options for purifying. We chat about the types of contamination, reasons they occur and how you can mitigate that through the options for purification and storage. Simplicity. Lets not over complicate the issue, but how much water do you need for your family? How do I store it and how do I purify the replacement water. Where do I get the replacement water when my storage levels run low? How do I carry it, its heavy? There are many considerations for the world, grab a glass of potable water and join in the conversation.
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This week's episode is for a friend, someone who is working in Western Ukraine to alleviate suffering and provide assistance to the IDP and refugees. She is doing so in a confused and fluid environment. In this episode I offer ways to identify information and fuse together a picture of what is actually happening on the ground. How to determine where the enemy is and where the conflict zones might be. More important though, is the planning phases conducted prior to departure to ensure that all eventualities are considered and everyone knows what they are doing no matter what occurs. Planning is your best defence against an unpredictable foe and therefore you should spend considerable efforts, detailed analysis and continue until everyone knows exactly what they are to do in each situation.
For you my friend, good luck and God speed.
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This one feels different, this may actually affect me and potentially at a level I never thought possible. How do we understand the world events and the impact on our lives? We conduct the preparedness planning evolution of considering what we would do when the most impactful event occurs. That event is defined by you, for your family, what would be the worst case scenario, the event that would devastate and forever change family operations? Plan for it, grab a coffee and a piece of paper. Walk through that event, how would you want to be able to react, how would you see the events unfolding and then devise your plan, for your family. The thoughtful time is the essential element, you see yourself successful, able to overcome the issue, which in turn calms your psyche. If you need some specific piece of equipment to make this happen, then invest, but it likely will not be more than a few items. Preparedness is never about equipment, its about planning and self efficacy and becoming self reliant. You do that with a plan, then get on with an awesome life.
This week has been the most consequential since 1993. Globalization has been dying since 1998, but this is the final nail in the coffin. The peace dividend has expired, security is now being provided by the world re-arming. What we thought was the orientation of human civilization has now been altered. This week we discuss the mental health and reality of these changes, the effect on supply chains and your life. What does this look like in your grand sphere of influence. How do you wrap your mind and preparedness around the impacts and this abrupt and fundamental re-focus of humanity. We begin with a history lesson on Bretton Woods in 1944, how the world came to be, Putin's education and why he is executing his mission, what this means for global security. How do you prepare to exist in this new world, how you engage in preparedness for the most terrifying possibilities created by man. Listen, think and send you comments in. My thoughts are with the people of Ukraine.
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War is hell, this is for the listeners in areas of the world who far the imminent threat of open conflict, who live under the risk of conflict and for those wondering what would be the considerations for war. We begin with a reminder that this of all times. is about you accepting responsibility for your outcomes. Your state will be orientated around saving the nation and the critical infrastructure will be leveraged for the war effort, not for your use. Loss of access to line so fcimmunication (roads, bridges, rail, waterways) for travel is the first. Then power and water may no longer be available. Evacuation is a real possibility, but difficult as the lines of communication may not be yours to use.
We pray for peace but prepare for war, your nation will not come to your aid at the micro level, it is trying to protect its existence at the macro level, so your family's needs are largely irrelevant in the scheme of operations. You'll be on your own, with your community to run, hide or fight.
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This week we chat about personal fitness, it's free and simple. No gym memberships, expensive equipment or anything else required. Just your discipline. We discuss the best prescription ever offered: take 30 days, walk 30 minutes outside, eat food - that's anything with a single ingredient when your hungry. Drink just water. After 30 days, you will be rested, revitalized and in control - self reliance personified. In these chaotic times, we need to have a physical body that is capable of taking us through the challenges. We think that this requires gym memberships, expensive equipment. It takes patience to see through the time required and discipline to do the activities. But the simple start point is absolutely free. Thats the real price of preparedness, time. This journey to be better capable and more responsible for our outcomes is free, zero money - just attitude. So grab your coat, it is -28 deg C here in Ottawa, lets go for a walk!
Food, we love BBQ, smokers, pizza and all that wonderful garden bounty. Venison on the grill and fresh berries in the hand. Food is one of the most chatted about preparedness topics on the Internet and in Podcast land. So why now? A conversation about your risk exposure to the industrialized food supply chain, your risk tolerance and some interesting mitigation measures. How do you ensure that your food supply is maintained in a significant disruption? How much food should you have at home to meet your requirements? What amount makes you comfortable? These are all real and important questions. Don't forget the fuel to cook your food when the grid is down and your go-to evacuation food and you're set. So grab a beverage and lets make your food supply GTG.
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My contribution to the ongoing issue in my city of Ottawa. This is not a go truckers or smash truckers podcast episode. The truckers are used as a context to understand why our discourse is so much in need of assistance. We approach these situations as "we need to win", out narrative is just and right. We lost the ability, fuelled by identity politics and the corporate media to have a debate on issues - the idea of living in the messy middle of democracy. We don't collaborate, negotiate - we intimidate: with our protests and our police. Many who call for the use of force don't truly understand what that means. Clearing the protest is just not some arrests and tow trucks. It is the application of force against citizens, which some will oppose leading to physical violence between police and citizens. I truly don't think many understand what will descend on Ottawa if a trucker is killed in police operations. Nothing in the nation's capital is prepared for that level of intervention by the population. So lets learn to chat, to have a double double and debate - lets see the other side for what they are - Canadians who hold different opinions on events, they're our neighbours, friends and colleagues.
What is the threat that keeps you up at night? What are you afraid of, or do you look forward to an apocolypse to reset the world? We dive into the idea that we all are preparing for something, a threat that we believe is the most likely to affect us, or we are hoping for a significant event to punish some element or portion of society. We discuss the individual nature of preparedness to frame the discussion, then dive into local hazards, zombies, nuclear conflict, armed invasion, local civil fight, blackout or something else that preoccupies your mind.
What's your apocalypse ?
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This week we tackle the never ending debate on how much time should I be preparing to be on my own for? Society will recommend 72 hours, but most in the community know that for significant disasters, that is woefully inadequate. So how long? This episode tackles the rationale behind that decision and walks a pathway for you to follow to answer that question for yourself, considering your circumstances, hazards, risk tolerance, risk perception, self efficacy and what you perceive to be your need to evacuate. I always recommend starting with 14 days, based upon thousands of pages of literature and government reports, in all developed and developing nations with international response, every community was reached by some form of response agency within 14 days of the event onset. That should not be your end point, but statistically, that serves as a start point, from where you can move that goalpost as you see fit. I emphasize that emergency preparedness is essentially nominal cost. There are no economic barriers to being prepared. Cognitive, yes, but economic, no. So sit back and enjoy, comments welcome
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One of the animalistic requirements for survival and thriving is security. That includes the positive control of your thoughts and emotions as well as your physical environment. This episode talks about severance, situational awareness and all the steps you can take to become a more hard target. This is not about walls, turrets and active shooting zones, but things that are achievable in a free and democratic society. You have a responsibility for your own outcomes and that includes when all else fails, your ability to physically respond to a threat. Most of that can be achieved through deterrence, whereby those who are looking to do harm look past you for far easier targets. Securing your home, car and self are important elements of preparedness. Often left out of public messaging and when discussed online, the most frequent response is the employment of firearms. Unless in the hands of an exceptionally skilled individual is a recipe for disaster. So listen in, comment and join the conversation.
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It's controversial. No getting around it. To what extent should the government's control over my ability to make a decision be limited? Vaccine Mandates? Vaccine enforcement? This is an important discussion that includes the pandemic but is more general, to what extent should the government have the authority to enact regulations that limit my freedoms? Libertarian, good citizen, compliant sheep? How do you define yourself in relation to the government? I discuss how laws are enacted and fought in Canada, bring the discussion to the true definition of mandatory, talk about collective moral imperatives and who defines them and enforces them, followed by a discussion on whether it is right to assign penalties to individuals who are making a legal decision. If it is legally permissible in the nation to not accept a vaccine, why is it legal to assign a penalty for that decision? It is a conversation that needs to happen, that we have to muster the courage to begin.
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This episode we are back to the individual emergency preparedness theme, examining your dependancy on the grid - not just power, but food supply chains and health care. How do you navigate life when the power is cut for a couple of days in the dead of winter? Is it society's responsibility to keep you family warm and fed, or yours? How will you maintain you household systems when all of your utilities are cut off? These are important questions that need to be addressed and its free. The introspection and the awesome individual in the mirror is all you need to devise a plan and be prepared to mitigate the disruptions of a modern world. The food supply chain is having challenges and there are shortages, but your exposure to the global supply chain for food is your resposnvilbity. Why have you decided to draw food from across the continent or world? That decision exposes you and your family to risk that is optional. I draw food locally, other than some wonderful treats from afar, there is absolutely nothing I need that I cannot access within 100 Km of my house. Choices and your preparedness level and your ability to manage disruption is a choice you make, whether you are aware or not.
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The final, other than open debates, episode in the series takes the identified issues in emergency management, with the actors within the space and carves out a roadmap for the field in Canada. One that does not require additional governance, or new ministries, but leveraging what we have already established and offers a pathway towards greater disaster risk reduction. Specific discussion on mitigation, preparedness messaging, surge capacity, coordination and DFAA funding are included in the analysis. So lets solve the actual problems, without creating a monster that will successfully eat hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars without saving a life. Thats what a Canadian FEMA would do.
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Today we are faced with a stark choice - there are friends, colleagues and neighbours who have made the legal, at least for now, choice to not accept a vaccination or who have opposing views on government control of our lives. This is not about the right or wrong or vaccinations or mandates. This is about maintaining the fabric of our society, which is the relationships that include those with whom we disagree, have different medical opinions and those with whom we have pre-covid relationships. Our society has the potential to degrade into an us and them - a victim mentality driven & responsibility assigning orientation that assumes the pandemic and the consequences are driven by someone else's actions and therefore I am oppressed and not responsible. That is a very dangerous place and establishes potential permanent gaps in our society, ones that we may not be able to bridge in the future. In Canada, an estimated 1.2 million voting age adults have chosen not to accept a vaccine. Do we really want to label them as contributing too our problems and pariahs to society? That doesn't end well, ever.
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The first episode in this series defined the problem, the second offered some institutional perspective and potential solutions. This week's contribution is the discussion of the actors within the space or phenomenon of emergency management. It is important to consider that there are more than the emergency managers involved in these discussions, but that they are the executors of the outcomes. So I posit that there are four main actors within the space: emergency managers, academics, experts and policy makers. Each has an important role, orientation and perspective - lens, or theoretical viewpoint from which they participate in and contribute to the advancement of the phenomenon. Hence, I discuss each, offer their value and discuss their collaboration - or lack there of, in the current context. This is critical because as the follow on episode will outline a specific and defendable solution to the defined problems, we must agree and discuss what the roles for each actors are within the space and how they will be employed, leveraged and eventually contribute to the goal: improving society.
jeff@preparednesslabs.ca
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It has been quite a year, with the pandemic, the great resignation and the supply chain crisis. Throughout this year, we as individuals have made choices - are we a victim, do things happen to us, is it the government's responsibility to pay my rent when I cannot. Or, we choose self reliance, where we prepare for all that could happen and we make sound choices based upon our own capabilities and goals. This year exposed a great deal about ourselves. It was also a year of incredible opportunities to pursue that dream, to make that leap of faith in ourselves. We are capable of so much more than we do, so why not leap? What does your 2022 have in store for you and your family. What are your goals? Time to not make resolutions, but think about achievable goals for 2022 - get out your scratch pad or your whiteboard and draw the life you want for next year. Then make it happen. Simple and achievable. Happy New Year, sincere thanks for your loyalty and together we will make 2022 the year of pivoting to self reliance and the life we want.
Preparedness over the holidays shouldn't be your primary focus. Enjoy, consume, eat and all those things that everyone tells you is not good for you - but what if? Think about the simple animalistic considerations - shelter, food, water. If you're staying in your country, no real worries as long as you are prepared to walk home from wherever you are. If you are travelling to another country in this pandemic, and I completely understand why, then make sure you are prepared to deal with a positive PCR test for COVID in a foreign nation. How do you survive when you cannot stay on the resort and are forced into the local community. What are the rules - what are the expectations from the local and national government - how do you get healthcare. Take the time to consider these and then go have a fantastic vacation. Enjoy the holidays, we have all earned it!
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After much response and discourse, Part 2 to this series discusses what are the main issues within Canadian emergency management and potential solutions that are achievable within the current framework. Only in rare cases is additional funding required, for the majority it is to come to agreement on what the actual issues are and then look for internal and available solutions. At the marco level, they are public peer review of necessary mitigation measures, which are then funded / not funded by the Federal Govt within the existing funding models for national infrastructure. Second, flood, wildfire and evacuation mapping is abysmal in this nation and it is the only issue that actually requires additional funding - do this, information forms the foundation of further decision making. Improved coordination and the discussion on how to construct the necessary surge human resource capability within the nation. Finally, utilizing existing regulatory systems to mandate build back better as law in order to ensure that all measures are taken, or damaged property becomes park land. Your comments are most welcome.
jeff@preparednesslabs.ca
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Fantastic guest this week to talk about her journey into preparedness, a real world example of the ups and downs of becoming more self reliant. Lynn is the talent behind Bucketlisthomestead, a Youtube Channel and on other social media. She provides a unique and wholesome view into the balance of life with a family, health and living through a pandemic on a small acreage, carving out an awesome life for her family. It is through the honestly, sincerity and stories of people like Lynn that we understand preparedness is a life long journey where you are never really there, but we try our best to be able to thrive, not just survive. Have a listen, visit Lynn's channel and subscribe to help out an incredible soul.
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With the current context of floods in BC, fires across the west, drought in the fields and potential hurricanes in the east, Canadians are being fed the notion that there is a lack of something in the emergency management field - in other words, we could be doing far better to help our citizens, mitigate hazards and overall preparedness and response. The default for some academics et al are to call for a US style FEMA to be established in Canada to direct, manage and help mitigate the coming effects of climate change and the increased frequency of disasters.
My bias is clear, there is no current or former issue that has been successfully addressed by the creation of a new public agency, employing thousands of public servants and consuming huge swaths of the public purse.
But before we provide a remedy, we need to properly define the problem. In this episode, I cover governance - who is responsible for what in Canada, the structure of the current Federal system with regards to emergency management. Then I outline within each of the four pillars of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery what are the shortfalls and offer some thoughts on how to address them.
The next episode will take this ground work and present two solutions: Morphing Emergency Preparedness at the Federal Level to a FEMA style agency and addressing the issues within the current structure - join me for that awesome second part.
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Every scholar, amateur and in-betweens have published lists of the coming year's threats and what is likely to happen. Crystal balls abound. This episode touches on the threats from a micro perspective, what is uncertainty and how will political and economic woes of the coming year affect your family life. We explore inflation, elections, restoring and supply chains to understand what the individual may face in the coming year. We close the episode with a clear lesson on how to understand your family's exposure to the risk, how to mitigate that risk through multiple lines of operations (income, food sources, etc..) and then, the most important suggestion - expand your community. There is nothing more important in the individual emergency preparedness space than building a strong social network with individuals and groups that may afford resources: economic, financial, human and most important - support.
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Canada like other nations has a multi-leave governance system for emergency management, with many players and voices. There are good framework agreements between the federal, provincial and territorial governments on access to assistance as well as clearly defined responsibilities for funding arrangements for disaster relief. Within provinces, the organizational framework differs, with various regional offices and in some areas, regional EOC to manage situations.
This week's episode flies at 10000 feet looking at the multi-level governance within the emergency management system, who does what for whom and their general responsibilities. We finish with a rant on who should be sending emergency preparedness information to citizens and why, when everyone tries to speak to residents, it simply confuses everyone and all messaging is lost.
This is the primer episode for next week's episode on how to construct an emergency management organization from the ground up, instead of from the top down. People in communities matter and it is time that emergency management listens.
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This week is about the very important and uncomfortable topic of going poo in an emergency. Wherever you are and whatever is happening, humans will continue to eject waste into the environment and you need a plan on how to do that. What is you plan when you no longer have access to a toilet? How do you flush your toilet when there is no water in the house? Do you have soap to clean yourself and ensure you stop the spread of communicable diseases? Probably now for the pandemic, but what about when the water supply is no longer available? We discuss simple toilets, expensive options, burying in the backyard and other alternatives. The point is - you need a plan to poo without the modern toilet. Whats your plan?
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Headed to the backcountry? Thinking of snowmobiling this winter, or hiking to your favourite destination for a night out? AdventureSmart BC provides life saving information to those who enjoy the outdoors, in order to ensure that everyone makes it home safe and has an incredible adventure. In this conversation we discuss SAR, the mission of AdventureSmart BC, the preparedness messaging challenges and a host of wonderful content.
Sandra is a passionate individual who brings both personal expertise and corporate skills to the mission of ensuring that adventuring is done in the safest manner possible. Accidents do happen, so when they do, how can you prepare to be equipped to manage through the indigent and engage SAR? Excellent advice for all levels of backcountry expertise, don't make the mistake of believing that your decades of experience protects you from uncertainty. Plan every trip, prepare for eventualities and then chase the incredible opportunities that exist in the outdoors.
Please visit adventuresmart.ca to download checklists and information designed to facilitate an awesome and safe adventure.
Current real time events in BC and across the world require some reflection on our own individual emergency preparedness levels. Have you completed the plan? Remember, the first and most important question is to remind yourself that you are responsible for your own outcomes and the government is not coming to rescue you. The first stage of disaster planning is to ensure you are "answering the right question" or "properly defining the problem". Make sure your efforts are geared towards the actual issue / problem. Second, do you have the necessary plan to address the basic animalistic requirements, for the planning horizon chosen by you, based upon your situation and responsibilities? Have you considered the significant hazards in your area and included those on the DIR plan based on CI? Finally, have you secured your primary, secondary and tertiary evacuation locations? All of these and almost all preparedness requirements are free, nothing need be procured. Think, think through the problem. If equipment is needed, then make sure it is chosen because your plan requires it, not because some loud voice on YouTube or elsewhere told you it was one of the top 10 to stock up! Get ready, winter is coming.
People struggle, around us in society are the obviously vulnerable: those we often refer to as poor, the socio-economically challenged or those with obvious physical limitations and mobility issues. Under that are those in society that struggle with mental illness, those we on the surface look like they are doing OK, but are exhausted just trying to keep that image up. With such a diverse and challenged portions of society, where is our messaging? Are we reaching those or are we not. How do we reach these groups within society as emergency management professionals? My research journey has opened my eyes to the network of service agencies that provide assistance to the vulnerable, often living hand to mouth themselves. These represent networks - access those networks and lets get the messaging to those who arguably may need it the most.
But most important, open your eyes to those in your society that are struggling, they are not lazy, bad or otherwise drains on the economic coffers. They were someone's son and daughter full of hopes and dreams. So how do we help? We do so by accessing their support networks to persuade.
Knowledge is power, in Ontario every municipality is required to have an emergency plan, outlining what they will do in the event of a disaster and what they recommend for you to do. It is a good place to start in your preparedness journey, but more importantly it is a great place to understand the players in the city, what their intentions are and what their priorities will be when the &^%$ hits the fan. Knowing what your city will do is good to incorporate into your own plan, for both knowledge and to ensure that you are not planning something that will be in conflict with the municipality.
In this episode, I walk through the City of Ottawa's website on emergency preparedness, provide some commentary and add suggestions as to how you can frame this information in your own deliberations. Very important, build a community and work together.
The series Blunt Public Policy is designed to be uncomfortable, to challenge the issues of the day, present shortfalls and assign blame as well as to present solutions that will actually work. Different from the normal preparedness episodes, these discussions inform the world around us which in turn makes us better citizens, more informed humans and therefore more prepared to weather the disruptions of the future.
Canada will lose the fight against COVID because we are employing a strategy of not trying to lose, instead of trying to win. We botched the entire planning of this event, we employ a singular strategy that vaccines alone will lead us to the promised land. Vaccines work, they reduce spread, reduce infections, prevent death and are a key enabler to success. However, there will always be a portion of the population that chooses not to participate, which is their protected right. Vilifying these people - who in 2019 were our friends and colleagues, will lead to populism and permeant fissures in society that will last a generation.
The abject failure to permanently expand the public health care system to manage influenza, COVID-19 and the full unrestricted normal operations is the principle reason the health care system will collapse - COVID is here to stay, it will be part of our society and therefore part of our health care system for time immemorial. Not a single level of government is making this investment, which is a clear and deliberate attack on the very system they purport to support.
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Everyone has an opinion, punditry or reference that counters your thoughts on issues - and most are more than willing to jump up into your life to make sure you are aware of how they feel. Climate change, COVID and Supply Chain disruptions are examples of topical issues that have a direct influence on your daily life. Your politicians, no matter whether you support them or not, have and will continue to make decisions that alter your behaviour, affect your wallet and may significantly change how you earn a living. How do we cut through the ridiculous volumes of "educated" opinions and determine how these issues affect my daily operations - aka, my life. We discuss how to think through the actual changes made, such as increased prices on necessary goods, how disruptions in supply chains will affect your animalistic needs vs your wants and how COVID policy will alter your ability to earn a living.
Cut through the noise and id necessary, amend your preparedness plan. Logic and simple - so why is everyone trying to prove how smart they are?
This week's conversation is asking the real questions about preparedness messaging, where to reach people and what they are looking to find out. Sharon is an enthusiast who is interested in learning about preparedness, passing on the message and growing the community. She has some great ideas on reaching those like her, what they are looking for and how governments can amend the message and delivery to create audiences amongst the population. So much great stuff to discuss, Sharon is the future of the movement: smart, articulate and interested in becoming more self reliant and accepts responsibility or her outcomes.
Having a young family presents challenges - diapers, car seats and a myriad of considerations that not everyone has thought about. Sit back, grab a beverage and enjoy our conversation.
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Humans need each other. We congregate in groups, we socialize and anthropological research shows that we have done so since time immemorial. Hence, it is arguably the most important step in emergency preparedness to create, strengthen and grow your community - those group of people you can count on when the chips are down. Who do you call at 3 AM? Who is coming to help you jump your car in the driveway and who will come and bang on your door when they see smoke? Dig you out of a building collapse, provide a warm place to stay in an emergency, provide resources to help with your problems, access to professionals, tools and all the other theoretical and physical possessions that exist. Hence, those who choose to not take a vaccine are your neighbours, friends, colleagues - they are not the cause of the pandemic, its continued damage - they are free citizens in a nation that allows for free thought and self determination. It is not up to you to educate them on their shortcomings, but to accept they have made a decision based upon their interests and move on. We will eventually get to a point where we accept COVID is part of our human existence, forever, and therefore when we return to complete normalcy - do you want to have created those exclusionary barrier with your community? No one wins.
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This week we discuss the elements of planning, specifically for scenarios that you might face. I focus more on the planning steps and elements than any one scenario, as there are a multitude of potential hazards that may be realized. How do we integrate a specific scenario into my overall preparedness plan? What could possibly go wrong and cause a disruption? We walk through how top plan, figure out what you are exposed to, ask yourself how this will influence my normal operations and finally, what steps do I need to take to prepare for that? Are you looking at the simple and basic animalistic requirements? (food, water, shelter, first aid and security). Or are you wishing to conduct a detailed analysis for this specific scenario based upon the critical infrastructure that supports modern society? The possibilities are endless but you are responsible for your outcomes, so how can you not consider scenario planning?
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Season 3 commences with a great discussion on emergency preparedness with one of Canada's foremost experts, Ian Foss. From a background of search and rescue, followed by service in government agencies, with a Masters from Royal Roads - Ian discusses why preparedness is necessary; challenges to get the message across and solutions for communication experts across different level of government. Trusted sources is the key takeaway - in that we will always trust a message when it comes from someone within our own "circle of trust". That circle is different for everyone and understanding those networks is critical for the emergency preparedness communications gurus of the 21st century.
Planning, kits, evacuation, hazards, social capital, teenagers and a myriad of other elements are discussed. Join the conversation and let's get prepared.
Lets dive right into the most controversial issue at play - the IPCC report and the world's reaction to the science, the fires all around us and those few who remain with their heads in the sand. I offer my points on what the problem is, why humans are responsible, what are our options and how we get there. I am tired of the toilet-level quality of the discourse on this species level problem. So, what to do? We need vision - a leader with a simple clear no more than two page policy that leads to a fossil fuel free future. Simple. Clear. Dates and deliverables, not flowery speeches. I am not in favour of carbon taxes, GHG emission level targets or following the treaty standards. The science is clear - science being the facts my friends, with the balance of probabilities in favour of human induced accelerated climate change. Our climate has changed and will continue to change for billions of years - it is the measured exponential increase in the rate of change that is at debate. My solution, a Canadian solution is offered. Chime in, have your say - it is your planet after all. Cheers
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This world has endless possibilities, the pandemic has exposed opportunities everywhere - so how do you design the perfect life - CMPP: career, money, passions and people ! We examine how to look at this from scratch, assess opportunity, then include the ever-present minimalism and the intended purpose for physical goods in your life. Finally, we round it out to this podcast's main message - preparedness and set you up for success. Its a formula that works, proven by the worlds greatest thinkers - do something with your life that excites you, makes you swing your legs out of bed in the morning to tackle the day. Manage money on the 50/30/20 rule, have passions for your hobbies and giving back to society and surround yourself by like minded driven people.
Minimalism - things exist to support your life, that's it. Own only what is necessary to facilitate your life, discard the rest.
Maybe you'll need to fire friends and family, but you only have one life. Go get it.
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A brief discussion on what preparedness means to me, some talk about confusing definitions and the ideas behind becoming a prepared individual. We chat about self-sufficiency, self-reliance, disasters, emergencies and a myriad of other situations. Your income is most important, you need multiple lines of income and a plan, a solid plan, when you walk into work tomorrow and your boss says you're fired. Plan B needs to be ready to go, with that you define your emergency fund requirements and you pivot to your pre-determined occupation. Do not rely on a magical cheque from the government to pay your bills when you're unemployed - that's your responsibility, if you choose to adopt a prepared mindset.
Where do you get your food?
Join the conversation, discuss with friends - What does preparedness mean to you?
No significant nerding out occurs. I promise.
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Everyone loves a list. If you're looking for the quick and dirty 10 steps to becoming a prepared individual, then here you go.
Simple - totally uncomplicated and easy to accomplish. That must be the goal, otherwise barriers become reasons for off-ramping and not being prepared for coming disruptions.
Brilliant - based upon the recommendations and education of the finest minds in the genre, along with academic investigations and real world experience. Wrap that up and you have simple brilliance, trust us.
Cheap - preparedness is not expensive. Not at all, those who peddle expensive equipment, years of food supply and other "necessities" are simply in it for the business, make money in capitalism and off we go. So no, your money stays in your pocket while you become prepared.
The world is in chaos, panic seems around the corner and if you were to believe the main stream media and the preppier channel - societal breakdown is imminent. We are exposed to a flurry of complex problems that cause strife in society, challenging to address and difficult to solve, involving significant public resources and the cooperation of multi levels of government. Those statements alone should make you furious. Complex problems are a necessity, a raison d'être for the public service, for if our problems were simple with clear solutions, then the empires of levels, positions, committees and liaison agencies would not be required - except they are simple problems. This week we talk about different types of problems, how to demystify preparedness into a set of simple choices - not complex and not difficult. We discuss evacuations and how they are in fact simple issues with very simple solutions, they just require you to take a few minutes to consider your options and make a plan - before you are forced to consider your options. So sit back, listen and join the conversation here and over at my website: www.preparednesslabs.ca Leave a comment and lets stamp out the building of empires to address complex societal issues....
The apocotalk will not stop on social media and has now carried into the mainstream media in the form of dire warnings about climate change, pandemic variants, hyperinflation, end of globalization and many others. So what is a prepared individual living in suburbia suppose to do? Nothing. Thats the point of preparedness and adopting a prepared life. You have established a preparedness plan for you and your family, based upon the principle of disaster impact reduction and subsequently have considered your exposure to and dependance on the 10 sectors of critical infrastructure. Now is the point, while periodically returning to your plan to ensure your assumptions remain correct and that nothing has changed in your family, that you go live an awesome life. Do not lose sleep over aggregate price levels, or the end of globalized economic relations - you'll be fine, the soccer league will continue. If you have prepared, then you are not scared. You are ready to not only survive, but strive. So sit back, grab a beverage and listen to our conversation on theses threats and why a prepared individual can simply sit back and watch - worry only about that which is in your control my friends.
As the developed world emerges from the pandemic restrictions, there is a movement afoot to adopt many of the "temporary" programs invoked during COVID-19 to help citizens manage the crisis, as permanent fixtures. Not necessarily the benefits related legislation, but the framework legislative authority, government management and the new tools adopted in order to best serve the public. This is a primary example of governments not removing additional authors granted in times of distress - think of the Patriot Act after 9/11, the ongoing structural and expansionary deficits in all governments and the new laws on governing Internet content and online monitoring. As a preparedness community, we understand that we are responsible for our outcomes and our individual responsibility is far more reliable than government action. Hence, we tip the scales in our favour by trusting our agency - that individual freedom to do what we want, pursue the goals we wish and reach our dreams - all within the structure of a society organized with a government responsible for making rules and adjudicating those through the judiciary. Period. Join us for a discussion on where the limits of government should be and where we trust our individual agency to succeed.
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Far too many preppier channels are profiting on fear mongering, raising stress in the population and therefore causing far more harm than any of their preparations would solve. They simply are attempting to provide information and shows that will raise revenue, subscribers, Ad revenue and otherwise improve their bottom line. Now profiting of your skills is the very essence of capitalism and is not the issue, utilizing your strengths to play on fear in an effort to capitalize on that fear through improved financial positions is wrong. So, how do you understand what their "lens" is? What are they NOT saying, where are they to gain, who are the players and understanding their individual bias is necessary to truly wrap your head around the logic behind the last two weeks of Chicken Little on YouTube. Finishing off with a chat on the ways to express yourself without having to fall into the Twitter, Instagram and Facebook trap of thumb wars - its all yelling out there now and very little constructive thought. Just my thoughts !
A slight change of focus, but necessary as there is too much hype in the preparedness community about inflation and the terror it will bring. This is reality, a bit of a boring but necessary explanation of what inflation is, how it is created and how the government acts to lower inflation. No politics, just facts on how this happens. Then a short but important reflection on how this will affect your preparedness plans, how this will influence your ability to pivot when disruption occurs and what this means. So, lets sit back, listen and hopefully I can de-mystify how money works and offer a few suggestions on how you might mitigate these issues. As always, your feedback is always welcome. Please continue to support this podcast by spreading the word. Inflation is coming, at 3-5% maximum for no more than one year, but this will have an impact on those who are living at the margins - who barely make the money stretch to meet the minimum bills every month. So if you or your loved ones are in that precarious place, have a listen. Remember, you are responsible for your outcomes.
Too many "experts" are selling the notion that the global and North American supply chains are at risk of collapse and therefore a pending catastrophe for food and necessities. This pandemic has caused disruptions in corporate supply chains, as have recent geo-political issues across the globe. In this episode, we explain why food supply chains and other necessities will NOT collapse, there is no food-apocalypse coming and attempt to dial down the noise created for profit and praise. North America is a net exporter of food, to the tune of a factor of 1.6, meaning that in times of existential crisis, there remains enough food in NA to feed all the population. Hence, there is a near zero chance that there will be starvation in Mexico, Canada and the US - contrary to what you have been peddled across social media. I offer a short discussion on supply chains, talk about toilet paper and energy, all to ensure that you can take a deep breath and realize that you will have food to eat, TP for the bathroom and other necessities. No panic required - sorry to those fear paddlers on YouTube, you got this one wrong.
72 hrs, 60 days, one year? How much or how far should your preparedness supplies reach out? When do you have enough and how do I determine what is the correct set of parameters for my family? This week we consider the most important question after you decide to become responsible for your outcomes - how long should I be self-sufficient for? This is about building your self reliance. We cover: government messaging, who are you responsible for, where are they located, do you trust the government and do you define yourself as a follower or do you think for yourself?
Then we discuss self confidence, personal risk tolerance and planning for the most likely and the most dangerous hazards. The world is a difficult place, you may be comfortable in your current location, but remember this is a connected world and a shooting war in the South China Sea will lead to significant impacts on your life - so consider preparedness in its complete form, relevant to all aspects of your life.
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This week is emergency preparedness week in Canada, the one week a year where the government attempts to focus your attention on their ideals and suggestions about preparedness. This week's episode takes a non-sheep approach to the tag line - be prepared for anything. This is a poor choice of wording and while it may be build on a foundation of encouraging citizens to consider the hazards that are in their area and begin to prepare for those situations, it is more than likely going to turn off more radios than on. To be prepared for anything is to consider everything - that alone is a key message that throughout academic works, books and expert advice is an absolute no-no. Focussing citizens on achievable goals, working towards a more resilient community - those are the outcomes governments should be working towards. It is popular today for the government to be announcing decisions that are grounded in the best science, advocate for by the experts in the field. However, they systematically ignore the very same advice for preparedness, avoiding the evidence and encouraging behaviours that do not improve outcomes. Have a listen, comment and enjoy!
Thanks to all the folks who listen, comment and suggest. I appreciate all of you, from every corner of the world who listen and participate in this journey. I tell the story of IMCH, the origins, name, why the subject matter and how to start a podcast. Thanks everyone, one year down, many more to come.
This episode is about thinking how preparedness and travel come together. As the world will eventually emerge from this pandemic and restore some basic travel, maybe even total global excursions, how do we embrace that possibility while remaining prepared. If you have 60 days of supply in your house, you cannot take that on an airplane - so what are the best moves for you to consider to ensure an incredible vacation and personal security. How do you pack the car for a road trip in these times? How much should go into your car? Should we all travel with out go / bug out bags. We don't want preparedness to keep us at home - in that we are afraid to leave our preps and travel, that creates a burden and places you in preparedness prison. A place where you become so paranoid about the world, that you actively choose to never spend a night away from your home, in order to ensure that you always have access to your well stocked bunker. Get out there, live....
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A fun episode, for all those living at 100 MPH who don't have time to consider our 12 step plan and still wish to just buy some stuff to be better prepared. We discuss what are the simplistic realistic things for home, car and evacuation. Simple, but necessary in a modern developed and connected world. No bug out bags here, no saws, canned food, axes, shelters, sleeping bags et al, nope - just what you need to manage through the minor chaos of life - and still win that Twitter or Instagram fight with hours of battery life to spare. So grab a beverage and listen.
All commentary is appreciated, drop us a note at jeff@preparednesslabs.ca - good bad or otherwise, we want to hear it all !!!
Continuing our discussion on emergency preparedness, this week we offer some thoughts on those disruptions the are not fixed after the first 72 hours. The utilities do not come back on, or whatever element of critical infrastructure that has failed. What is your plan for after that government recommended 72 hour kit is expired? Have you a community plan, do you know your neighbours enough to put together a collective response? Do you have strong social bonds with others upon which you can rely when the chips are down? How long have you decided to be prepared for? 21, 45, 60 days? While everyone wants to be prepared for everything, the reality is that there needs to be a timeframe around what you do - food, water, energy and equipment for how long? The best recommendation is at least 21 days, for if society has failed to restart after 21 days, there might be some more significant issues to consider. Finally, what happens after your planning horizon has expired - if you plan for 60 days, what is your intent on day 61? Food for thought, join in on the discussion.
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A quick reminder that preparedness is cheap, simple and easy for everyone to embrace. When we consider the basic animalistic requirements of the human species and the fact that they are readily available everywhere in the developed world, then we cannot use the financial excuse as a barrier to becoming prepared. It is a question of your own self-reliance, how much of your needs do you wish someone else to be responsible for and what percentage will you deliver? That is a basic question to ask, reflecting on the simple survival priorities and you have a solution. An old bag by the front door with some photocopies of documents and you have the evacuation kit that you hope you never have to use. Or simply look around you, you have everything you need for survival, just make sure you know where it is and you have sufficient amounts to meet your family needs. Take some time to be informed of what your fellow humans are facing around the world, there is hunger and strife that need not happen.
Collapse is a popular topic in today's preparedness media, many foretelling of the end of the current financial system, the Great Reset or some other apocatalk. The reality is that every single civilization in history has terminated and to some degree, because of the decisions they made. Through an examination of historical evidence, modern theories we discuss collapse and how our current society is awfully close to that precipice now - maybe we go over, maybe we don't. But one cannot deny that the world is a complex, interconnected world that is harvesting resources from the earth at an unsustainable rate. We eventually will kill this planet, maybe not for hundreds of years, but without societal change, the future is not bright. So what can you do? Maybe not solve global issues, but this is but one more reason to become more self reliant, self sufficient and far less reliant on the government o provide for your welfare. Huge credit to the BBC for the majority of materiel, including many quotes. Find their articles here: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse. Take the time to understand normal accident theory and how we live in a tightly coupled world.
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In this episode I put together the micro plans from the 10 individual sectors of critical infrastructure and present my personal individual emergency preparedness plan for my family. By navigating our dependancy on the CI that keep society running, we are poised to mitigate specific and identifiable areas where we would have a shortfall and determine the appropriate measure to mitigate. This is how you develop a plan for your family, built for your family alone and implement. This will not look like your neighbours and the acquisition list you construct will not mirror what FEMA or Public Safety Canada recommend you have on hand. Join us for the discussion on the CI dependancy, plan management and how to go on and live an awesome life knowing that you have developed a detailed plan to provide all the insulation you require.
This week we conclude the examination of individual sectors of critical infrastructure with food and water. These are often considered at the beginning of preparedness, as other than thermoregulation of core body temperature, they are the two principle elements of survival. They represent your ability to continue to function and therefore require far more consideration than just canned food and water bottles. We examine sewage, disposal of human waste, hygiene and other important elements often left out of normalized preparedness discussions. Take the time for your family, invest in a detailed analysis of these sectors of CI and prepare your micro-plan for each. You don't want ti just survive, you want to thrive in an emergency. Make sure your food is what you love to eat and puts smiles on everyone's face. Beans and rice will drive people mad.
This week we forgo a repetition of each individual step for each consideration within a CI, hence we cover 6 CI sectors in one episode. By now you know how to plan, conduct the analysis, ask the "so what" questions and develop the micro plan for each CI. If not, go listen to the previous 2 episodes where it is painstakingly detailed. At first glance, many will consider these CI as straightforward and not worth much consideration. However, if fuel is not available and you do everything with your car - how does your world look now? What if you rely on public transport and there is none - how do you get where you need to go? What if you cannot get a medication refilled, or talk to a doctor? What if your small business cannot receive critical inputs for your product due to shipping disruptions? What if there is no Internet or cell data - or both? How does your life look now - I believe exceptionally complicated. Join us for a great chat on these important supportive sectors of a modern society
This week we continue the development of your individual emergency preparedness program through the analysis of dependancy on critical infrastructure (CI). Finance and the financial services industry are subject to infrequent outages that may cause significant disruption in your life dependant on your reliance on the immediacy of access to money, or simply bad timing. When the point of sale fails at the grocery store and you just rung up $200 in groceries, can you pull out that cash to cover them - or will you have to walk away? Insurance is the modern form of risk transfer - do you have enough and the correct coverages? Do you understand lawyer speak?
Your income. Families with a single source of income are facing considerable risk - COVID-19 has shown us that in a very short period of time, your principle line of income is gone. Do you have others? Side hustles, part time jobs? Other family members? Even small lines of income can cover food, electricity etc in times of need. Remember, it is your responsibility to fund the requirements of your life and those for whom you are responsible, not the government's. If you lost your job today. how long would it take you to pivot to another field and resume income earning? Have you covered that period with savings, or are you relying on the generosity of taxpayers? Your risk tolerance drives these choices.
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This episode outlines the process for evaluating and developing a plan based upon your reliance and dependancy on the sectors of critical infrastructure. We examine energy and utilities to look in detail at hydro, natural gas, fuel oil, propane and containerized gas. Looking at each one of these elements of the energy sector, we ask the important question: "what does my world look like without hydro / gas". That will be very different for many people, with each family's dependancy on energy being different. Further, we talk about how to plan for this loss by categorizing everything supported by hydro into one of 3 groups: critical, essential and nice to have. We build a power profile to meet critical needs, then look at the options available to provide that power: solar, wind, fuel generator and battery bank.
Planning leads to a conclusion of either a specific task to complete, a specific acquisition or nothing to see here....
A review of each of the CI will provide a plan to meet the requirements of that CI, by aggregating these, you have developed a detailed plan for your family, created based upon your needs and family's plan. We will never tell you to purchase something off the shelf.
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Step one launches our series on how to become a prepared individual. We focus first on your acceptance of personal responsibility for your outcomes and not adopting a victim mentality. Does the world happen to you and you blame everything or everyone else for the current state of your life, or is that a result of decisions you made before the event - including the decision not to make a decision, aka. avoidance.
Then we pose the question as to why you want to be prepared. Maybe it was the feeling form March 2020 with the initial lockdowns that made you uncomfortable, uncertain, nervous or s cared. The idea of adopting a prepared life is to no longer be subject to uncertainty, but be ready to deal with those things which you cannot control, pivot, reorientate and implement the detailed plan you have ready. Thats the final preparation piece - understanding that planning is necessary and requires detailed assessment of the loss of one of the 10 elements of critical infrastructure and what that means for your family.
Take the time, listen, work. You and your family are worth it.
www.preparednesslabs.ca
Instagram: @insidemycanoehead
Twitter: @insidecanoehead
You Tube: Inside My Canoehead
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The social media space is full of well intentioned corporations, groups, individuals, experts, professionals, preppers and survivalists who produce a plethora of content on what you need to do NOW to be prepared for the coming storm. However, the likelihood of their catastrophic scenarios being realized is nominal, with the vast majority of citizens simply wishing to continue their normal lives, in urban or suburban environments, raising their families with a blanket of protection.
Our case at IMCH is that you should develop the plan based upon the principles of DIR, by examining your dependance on the 10 elements of critical infrastructure, with micro tasks from each collectively forming your "task" or "to do list".
Downloadable and immediate .pdf or demands to immediately stock up on food and water are grounded in hysteria and not in logic. Follow us to develop a logical plan for your family that will weather disruptions to your normal like - because there will be more, many more to come.
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Welcome to season 2 of IMCH ! After a 45 day break to recharge and ramp up for season 2, we are going to focus on the 12 steps of emergency preparedness - yes, a detox of sorts. The plan is for 30 minute episodes with subject matter experts on the individual pillars of critical infrastructure that keep our society going.
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72 Hr kits are useless and there is zero empirical evidence to demonstrate that at anytime, in any known disruption or disaster, a human or family of humans had a better outcome due to the possession of this equipment. They are peddled as an easy excuse to justify that municipalities and other governments are addressing preparedness. Whereas the literature, the nerdy stuff from academics, shows that human relations - social capital and those people who surround us are a far more reliable and valuable resource than a flashlight. Governments need to be taking the resources dedicated to the 72 hr kit message and translate those into individual training on first aid, water purification, building evacuation and evaluation and many similar skills taught in CERT. Fund the creation of community groups and resilient organizations to leverage the human capital - the people will bounce back better. Seriously, we have that junk in our house already as part of normal life in a developed society. We don't need pandering from government, we need assistance in building true resilience through human capital and social engagement. That is how to develop a prepared society - not with a Gucci kit of Amazon.
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Conspiracy theories are everywhere, seemingly based on incredibly shallow interpretation of events and assigning weak causation. We do not know whether there is necessary or sufficient grounds for these to be true unless we investigate and evaluate available information. Theory tells us that conspiracy theories fill the void of information, where there is no counter-proof or valid explanation, there must be some nefarious work underway. As long as governments continue to laugh off and disregard conspiracy theories, they will continue to grow and erode trust in government institutions and the very foundation of our society - free and fair elections of governments.
We discuss the Bildeburg Group, the "Great Reset" and try to explain why the "deep state" continues to exist as the great boogeyman of society.
Drop your comments at:
www.preparednesslabs.ca
jeff@preparednesslabs.ca
Twitter: @insidecanoehead
Instagram: insidemycanoehead
COVID-19 communications have been fragmented, disjointed and often supported by questionable evidence. Governments have been using the pandemic to explore expansion of powers, specifically under public health orders, to immediately influence public behaviour. To some extent this is warranted, but government's have never given up these powers easily when the emergency passes. Will western governments cede these powers back to society post pandemic, or "for the good of society" these powers will remain in place until we come out the other end and "build back better".
I offer an explanation as to why the government's communication strategies have been a failure, recommendations on how to succeed and to regain trust of the public.
Conspiracy theories evolve from unaddressed communication gaps - the government allows them to fester and dismisses all theories as they emerge. To dismiss is to fuel, that is basic communications 101. Hence, we have growing evidence of a lack of trust in government communications. Lets get at it....and don't call me right wing because I disagree...
This week we take a lighthearted, but serious look at the world on fire. How do we, as prepared individuals, deal with the chaotic and crazy events filling our newscast? What about the US elections, COVID-19, Social Media censorship - generally those around us who hold seemingly ridiculous beliefs. Are you a libertarian - don't like being told what to do? Listen to my thoughts on what the tenets of libertarianism are and why you have a responsibility not to cause harm to others.
A bit of fun, but a serious tone as well. Stay in control of your emotions, you are responsible for whether you lose your &^%$ over the events and any emotional fallout. Don't blame others, check your preparedness level, grab a beverage and a smoke - and watch it burn
This is the first episode in our new series called "A Prepared Life". It is all about taking the preparedness community out of the fear bunker and towards an incredible and amazing life.
We live in a chaotic and disrupted world - full of expectations, norms, cultures and family rules that govern how we conduct our lives. The number one question for preparedness is: Who is responsible for your outcomes?. The answer is you, so why are you not living the most amazing life, pursuing your dreams and path - which likely tangent from family expectations and norms. Avoid falling into the "keeping up with the Jones" in the preparedness community - comparing your preps with others, YouTube channels or other podcasts. Once you do that you are doomed. Make a plan for you and just for you, execute it and then go live the incredible life you want knowing you are wrapped in a blanket of preparedness. Don't build a bunker, preparing for a future significant event and allowing that to govern your life. The only thing at the end of that road is significant mental illness and suffering.
Be unapologetically you - understand that people's decision to like or not like you is up to them and is out of your control. Frankly, you shouldn't care what others think of your life choices - not your parents, family or friends. Be you, charge into life. Get a t it!
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Mental health is not often seen as a critical element to your preparedness agenda. However, when we examine the human animal and our interactions, we understand that mental health is the foundation for a prepared life. Without mastering our emotions, understanding what we can and cannot control we are doomed to expend energy reacting to and making poor decision about things which we cannot control. It is not about being a mindless and emotionless robot, it is about understanding that you are truly in control of your emotions and therefore you are not blaming the outside world for your predicament. Other people cannot make you angry or sad - it is your judgement on an external event which labels the thing good or bad and therefore assigns emotions.
You are in control of how you react - don't be a victim and blame everything on the world around you.
www.preparednesslabs.ca
@insidecanoehead
IN: insidemycanoehead
Throughout this podcast we have outlined the necessary steps to become prepared. Today's episode brings us to the far end of the preparedness spectrum to discuss what it takes to adopt a survivalist's viewpoint on the world - the skills and focus required to prepared for a society altering event. Survivalists are far more educated and knowledgeable than most give them credit for. They are masters of human emotions, they are not influenced by your commentary or opinions, they study organizational behaviour and how the human animal relates to nature and other animals. They adopt an exceptional level of skills so that they require few tools. So have a listen, drop your commentary at:
www.preparednesslabs.ca
jeff@preparednesslabs.ca
Twitter: @insidecanoehead
Instagram: insidemycanoehead
You Tube: Preparedness Labs Incorporated
Thanks again ! Stay safe
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This week's episode discusses the history of pandemics as part of the human experience. We examine the early emergence of public health agencies, pandemic preparedness as part of statecraft and the divergence of authoritarian and democratic responses to illness. What is the role of institutions and a free press in holding politicians to account for their response - and do we have a free press in the traditional sense? If corporate influence is the decision maker in what stories are published, then how does that relate to the information provided to the public in response to a pandemic. Are we seeing an erosion of public trust - should governments pick winners and losers?
Finally, how does this communication breakdown, or confusion relate to your responsibility to prepare for the future and be ready to deal with the present danger of COVID-19.
This concluding episode provides an overview and summary of the all the episodes on emergency preparedness and allows the listener to hit the main points and seek the detailed episodes on specificities topics for more detailed analysis. We cover the main question, 5 elements of survival, your plan, simplicity, best case scenario, worst case scenario and a reminder on the benefits and follies of a bug out bag. This is meant to round out this series and be the launching point to discuss more in-depth scenarios and situations, now that the listener is well versed in preparedness. In the coming episodes we will discuss the integration of politics into emergency preparedness, the challenges of true survival and the weird and wild contingencies that may come to fruition. Enjoy and get ready for whatever 2020 and onward sends our way!!!
This week's episode is a look into moving from a prepared individual, which is the goal and focus of this podcast, to a prepper. We present definitions of preppers and survivalists, contrast the two, while outlining what separated preppers from the remainder of society. We discuss skills management, consistent stockpiling and the need for community. Prepping is about having agency, being in control and knowing that you are responsible for your outcomes as well as navigating significant incidents that may occur in your area. Prepping is not what most people think, join us as we walk along the preparedness spectrum from the general public to the survivalist ready for anarchy.
In the second part of this episode, we discuss the foundations for individual emergency preparedness and consider two scenarios. First, the most likely, COVID-19 restrictions until 2022. Based upon science and the logistics of developing, distributing and immunizing hundreds of millions of people, the current restrictions related to the pandemic will be tightened and be part of our lives until 2022. Hence, everything you do will be exponentially harder and longer. Further, we look at the most dangerous - forced evacuation and all the complexities and challenges of leaving your home and all its security on short notice. Like all parts of individual emergency preparedness, this requires planning, forethought and the dedication to be the person responsible for your outcomes. So join us for an honest look at what this winter has in store and why if you plan now, it will be far less disruptive and help you not just survive, but thrive !
www.preparednesslabs.ca
Twitter: @insidecanoehead
Instagram: insidemycanoehead
Join us to continue the conversation, you and your family's future is worth the time...
In this first part of a two part episode, we discuss the upcoming winter as one with exceptional challenges to our normal lives. The US election, climate change related storms, the normal influenza and COVD-19. There is a great potential for disruption in the Labour markets, as well as the delivery of CI to society. No tin foil hats here, just a methodology to analyze what might happen, war game the possibilities and strengthen your network with your community. We all need to take greater care of each other, so pay attention to the world around you but never forget the essential and foundational question: "Who is responsible for your outcomes?".
This week's episode is timely and topical, a logical and factual driven conversation about evacuations and how they may become a reality for you. We cover what evacuations are, how to conduct a threat analysis for your area, choose routes, destinations, equipment that is reasonably necessary and above all - reduce stress. This is not a case for an INCH bag, or living on the edge with bags packed by the front door, but an intelligent non-tin foil hat discussion on how you and your family can be better prepared if you are required to leave your residence on short notice. How will you communicate with your family, where will you go? Join us for some of the answers
In this week's episode, we explore what it would look like if the critical infrastructure you rely upon went away. Beginning with the loss of power, cascading to others such as water, sewer, gas and transportation (fuel); how would cities react? What would your life look like and how does this affect your preparedness plans. This is a logical non-tin foil hat discussion based upon evidence from experience across the world. Join us as this series kicks off looking at how big picture almost apocalyptic scenarios really play out.
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In today's episode we explore what safety and security means for those interested in individual emergency preparedness. We discuss the reality of what really happens to crime levels in emergencies, what a threat profile might look like for you and what does academic examination of disaster / emergency settings reveal. What is your plan for making your home a hard target to dissuade opportunistic criminals? Do you have first aid training? Finally, what do you intend to do when someone kicks down your front door and demands everything you have? Highly unlikely, but potentially life changing.
This episode is dedicated to determining what your threat profile is for your residence and family, your evacuation plans and determining the equipment necessary to facilitate the execution of the plan you developed. Simply buying what you see on YouTube will lead to failure or extreme difficulty, as evacuations are always under high stress environments, where without a strong foundation of planning and practice - it will be like chickens let out of the pen. We discuss the logical and science backed process to determine the purpose for your BOB, what specific tasks you need it to support and therefore what simple and flexible equipment is necessary. Join us to develop a BOB that looks nothing like what you see on TV - which means it will work.
This week's episode is about having fun with some of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories that are out there today - about societal control, grand "reset plans", the anti-vac movement and many others that seem outrageous, but seem to have traction online. As well, we discuss some strategies as to how to investigate the source materiel, how to be wary of the phrase, "peer-reviewed" and to take modern journalism with a grain of salt. Sit back, enjoy, you'll laugh and probably snicker at some of the ideas raised. Before you ask, I am not a government agent !!
The final episode of the series on adopting a simple existence and life is entered on you as a human being in this wide wonderful and chaotic world. We discuss attitude, emotional control, basic life skills, learning to say NO to people you love, goal setting and learning to forgive yourself. To lead a self-reliant and more sufficient lifestyle we must understand and accept that our emotional and physical health are our responsibility and within our control. Invest in yourself, prepare yourself to engage with the world and deigns the greatest life possible. I finish with a rant, go do what you want and don't allow any faith or family expectation and rules to determine your success. A great life is up to you.
The second part of the simplification series focusses on the physical possessions in your world. This is not a minimalism episode, but the concept of linking your possessions to your commitments in your calendar. Time is the most precious item you have, it is irreplaceable and cannot be purchased. In the first episode of this series you designed a calendar full of only what you want, that brings you joy and is necessary for maintaining basic life needs. Now, we link all of your possessions as facilitators for those commitments, hence you have the tools / equipment to execute the things you want to do, and the freedom to expunge the remaining items. There will always be some things held onto for just in case, especially emergency preparedness items, but the remainder will leave and create peace and calm. Make the call, design your life and live your dreams.
This week's episode is the first in a three part series on simplification. The intent is to remain within the framework of individual emergency preparedness and our continued journey towards a more self-reliant and resilient lifestyle. We tackle the foundation principle of time, being the only commodity that you cannot purchase more of, or get back once it has been spent. How to we bring order into chaotic schedules? How to pick what stays and how to jettison commitments from our schedule - even if they are family. Join us for a 20 minute discussion on the need for calm and order in our time commitments, in order to facilitate time for what really matters.
In this episode, I outline the accident that shortened my planned adventure, how my self reliance principles aided in my self extrication, as well as a gear review. Most importantly, I discuss the value of constantly using and evaluating your preparedness equipment, in order to ensure that when the chips are down, you are confident in what you have and your ability to use it. We need to fail, and fail often in order to understand our limitations and find growth through the acquisition of new skills.
This long awaited discussion centres on building individual resiliency into your sources of income, adopting measures of simplification and creating a life that can pivot and adjust in the face of unexpected disruption. How do we add additional lines of income, create agility in those sources of income through digitization. Throughout the episode the emphasis is on the individual to make the necessary plans and enact appropriate decisions to ensure that reliance on government for handouts is minimized and ideally rendered necessary.
In this final episode of the series on individual emergency preparedness, we discuss how to maintain the standard chosen in your analysis through remaining engaged with the world and analyzing facts. Further, we look at weather and how it effects your plans, activities and how the Internet provides YouTube, Blogs and Webpages full of distractions and pitfalls to avoid. A quick discussion on bug in / bug out vs. get home bags and the most important aspect - building and strengthening your social capital.
In this 4th episode in the series, we outline a deliberate planning tool, based upon the main sectors of critical infrastructure and a planning horizon you choose, that enables you to develop an individual emergency preparedness plan for yourself and those for whom you are responsible. This plan is devised by you, including all your own family's considerations and is an adoption of the principles found in formal military planning tools.
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This third episode of the series covers the limitations of municipal governments, their priorities and why you are likely to be on your own for at least the first 72 hrs following a significant incident. Linking concepts from the first two episodes, we orientate you to preparing to thrive, vice survive in times of disruption and difficulty
The second episode of this series outlines the reasons why people are not prepared by discussing demographics and vulnerable communities from a research perspective. Following in the genre of individual responsibility, the episode dives into the concepts of individual and community resiliency with evidence to support the premise that strong self confidence and social ties correlates to far better outcomes in disasters.
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In this first episode of a 5 episode series, we discuss individual emergency preparedness as a mindset, a philosophy and a mens through which you examine events to determine how they may affect you and your way of life. A short discussion on the organization of the Canadian Federal Government's emergency legislative framework. This episode orientates the listener to thinking about individual emergency preparedness as far more than a stash of supplies, but a permanent mindset: Who is responsible for your outcomes?
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