The Art of Manliness - How to Survive Any Worst Case Scenario

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:10.880 when people think about survival and preparedness they tend to think of dealing with an end of the

00:00:15.560 world kind of scenario but lots of bad things can happen and are more likely to happen that

00:00:20.320 fall short of the apocalypse my guest can help you prepare for any worst case scenario whether

00:00:25.120 it's the worst thing to happen to mankind or just the worst thing to happen to you this year

00:00:28.860 his name is mike lover and he's a former green beret the founder of fieldcraft survival and the

00:00:33.660 author of prepared hey on the show mike and i first talk about the softer skills of preparedness

00:00:38.080 we discuss how to create plans using military concepts like war gaming and the pace methodology

00:00:42.820 build your tolerance to stress and develop your situational awareness so you don't freeze in a

00:00:47.600 crisis or let one catch you by surprise in the second half of our conversation we discuss the

00:00:52.600 harder skills of preparing for worst case scenarios mike outlines what capabilities every man should

00:00:57.220 develop he shares his own edc and what he recommends you carry and wear on a day-to-day basis and we

00:01:02.680 talk about how to stock your home and car for emergencies and more after the show's over check

00:01:06.880 our show notes at a1.is prepared all right mike lover welcome to the show thanks for having me so you

00:01:31.560 are the owner of survival fieldcraft it's a company that sells survival gear and also does survival

00:01:36.720 training tell us about your background how did you end up doing what you're doing today yeah so i

00:01:41.540 started fieldcraft survival in 2015 when i was a contractor for the central intelligence agency i was

00:01:48.980 overseas and had a long run in the military and as a contractor it kept me basically outside the country

00:01:56.340 and realizing for the first time after a long time two decades of just being overseas and deployed

00:02:02.100 and kind of just working for the government i kind of wanted to do something for myself

00:02:06.840 and i grew up in an entrepreneurship family and felt like i had the right skill sets at least as a

00:02:13.980 baseline to start a business so yeah i started fieldcraft survival in a shipping container in pakistan

00:02:20.200 and how has your experience in the military influenced your approach to survival

00:02:24.340 yeah that's a good question i i you know i i did a lot of different things and you know my my background

00:02:32.000 in the military i was a green beret and most people who understand what that job is they associate the

00:02:38.620 operational side or the execution side of what that job does you know direct action missions haas's

00:02:44.320 rescue but really that was one component of a very complex job and a lot of the things that benefited me

00:02:52.980 had to do with i would say like the soft skills of what we did the not so cool stuff that included

00:02:59.340 planning you know planning was really important for me to lay out detailed contingency based plans

00:03:05.340 and being not afraid to adapt on the fly in real time as things happen so it sounds like you spend a

00:03:12.980 lot of time doing like the soft sort of the mental side of survival not just the tactical gear skill

00:03:18.560 based stuff that stuff's important but that soft skill those are probably more important

00:03:22.380 yeah 100 i think i think a lot of people because the other stuff you know it markets well you know

00:03:29.780 it's it's always a cool hashtag the tactical environment but certainly that's a technical

00:03:37.580 capability versus the foundation of resilience the foundation of survival which is your ability to you

00:03:45.580 know get through difficult circumstances by adapting through adversity and those things come with time but

00:03:51.860 they also come with training and experience and so my focus did not want to be on i think the

00:03:59.500 statistical improbability of you know the everyday carry pistol instead i wanted to focus on what i think

00:04:07.080 foundationally is the most important aspect of survival which is mindset and resilience and as you build that

00:04:13.300 baseline the technical skills will come so yeah exactly that's that's where i wanted to be focused which is like

00:04:19.480 the full spectrum of preparedness instead of one technical skill set so you got a new book out called

00:04:24.940 prepared a manual for surviving worst case scenarios in which you present some of the big ideas from your

00:04:30.820 survival training and you start off the book defining what you mean by catastrophe because i think when

00:04:35.200 most people think about prepping they think in probably like grid down disaster or an end of the world

00:04:40.860 type of event but your idea of disaster catastrophe encompasses more than that so what's a catastrophe

00:04:46.320 for you yeah you know that's that's that's what most people think right they think worst case scenario

00:04:52.280 is the zombie apocalypse and there's plenty of hollywood evidence to back that but the reality is

00:04:59.340 the catastrophe in your life could just be a bad day you know it's basically how we react and respond to

00:05:06.740 stress and that stress comes in different volumes it could be low volume or low grade or high grade and

00:05:14.380 high intensity that that includes typically a short duration of time and a heavy volume of intensity

00:05:20.520 but you know that doesn't have to be the emp exploding in the atmosphere creating an electromagnetic pulse

00:05:28.320 that destroys all your communication you know your all your electronics it could be a vehicle accident

00:05:34.700 which is very probable in this country i mean two million people a year are injured from vehicle

00:05:40.980 accidents 40 000 americans die every single year in motor vehicle accidents so when you look at

00:05:46.800 statistical probability and you look at being prepared for really your worst day that's what we're

00:05:52.940 talking about it's everyday natural man-made disasters that happen to people all the time so in the

00:05:59.220 first half of the book you talk about the mindset needed for surviving a catastrophe and as we just said

00:06:04.260 this is something you like to focus on a lot when you're doing your training so you mentioned a

00:06:08.300 little bit about stress but like what happens to our minds and our bodies when we experience an

00:06:13.020 unexpected event or disaster because you spend a lot of time getting into the science of this

00:06:17.140 yeah i think that's the misnomer and misrepresentation of this idea of surviving or prepping

00:06:24.620 or this worst case scenario a lot of the things that we think we are capable of under normal

00:06:31.200 circumstances is not how it's going to work under difficult circumstances because we forget the

00:06:37.040 suppression of stress right if we if we look at it like a heavy weight that heavy weight comes on to

00:06:43.840 our back immediately and if we're not prepared for it because we haven't conditioned ourself for that

00:06:48.780 stress it overloads us and then we start losing capacity and capability so a lot of people understand

00:06:55.700 the sympathetic nervous response otherwise known as fight flight or freeze what they don't understand

00:07:01.560 is they will be in cognitive decline because the primal instinct the primal survival mechanism which is

00:07:08.080 very ancestral is depend on physical movements right this fight or flight is a mobility tactic to survive

00:07:15.840 so if it's leaning on that side of adaptation and survival it's not going to lean on cognitive processes

00:07:23.840 but we live in a more modern world where we need to lean on those modern processes like staying

00:07:29.440 cognitive making sound rational decisions under stress and so if we don't understand how that works

00:07:35.780 because we haven't trained it experienced it even just talked about it and understood it in ourselves

00:07:40.600 then when those things come on when we identify the symptoms then typically it's too late because

00:07:46.480 we've already hit the tipping point and after the tipping point is just a cascade going downhill so

00:07:51.780 just understanding the basics of it allows us to operate in it well in the book you give you've

00:07:58.540 experienced that fight or flight response firsthand when you were in the military i think you described

00:08:02.780 an attack you had and the first time it happened like you froze like you didn't think you're gonna

00:08:06.100 freeze but you did yeah that's a it's a good story it's at my proudest moment in my military career

00:08:12.960 luckily it was early on but i trained at fort bragg north carolina called camp mccall it's where green

00:08:19.080 berets train and before i was a green beret i was an infantryman i'd been to ranger school i had been

00:08:25.420 exposed to a lot of training a lot of stress and so i thought i was pretty conditioned for it and then

00:08:31.180 camp mccall made me more conditioned for it and what we were trained for was specifically the war

00:08:38.320 in triple canopy like patrolling in the jungle in this case it was pine trees in north carolina but

00:08:45.940 what i wasn't prepared for was a 107 millimeter rocket you know this this 107 millimeter rocket

00:08:52.580 sounds like a freight train it is very dangerous it has a kill radius of about 25 meters when it impacts

00:08:59.520 the earth which is massive and when that started happening in my first attack while i'm holding a

00:09:07.200 rifle that i was trained with and trained on there was no battle drill or reactions that i could utilize

00:09:14.380 in that moment to save my life and so i ran behind a vehicle i took a knee and i essentially froze and

00:09:22.120 part of that was finding cover and concealment trying to get out of harm's way but i remember having

00:09:27.900 to talk myself through the stress realizing that i was clammed up and then saying to myself hey you got

00:09:36.600 this here's some self-affirmation get out of your head you got this breathe do this and then i got back

00:09:43.100 to my feet now that only was a few seconds but it felt like a lifetime and it was profoundly something

00:09:49.900 that i didn't realize was going to be my reaction but that's how we take on stress we can't always

00:09:56.060 identify the exact elements of stress to train or condition for and sometimes the best we could do

00:10:03.280 is adapt to what we think is going to be the worst case scenario but even that's not always good enough

00:10:09.100 so yeah while you didn't train for that specific stressor you're able to take the training you did

00:10:13.880 with the other stress and apply it on the fly and i guess what you're saying so like for just a

00:10:18.340 civilian they don't know the types of stress that they're going or the disaster they're going to

00:10:22.200 encounter but what you can do to become more resilient is just train under stressful situations

00:10:27.640 so that you know how to handle the stress when you experience so like what would that look like for

00:10:31.640 a civilian how do you train to prep under stress yeah it's a good question it's it's i think it's the

00:10:37.760 most profound question in this whole idea of training and preparing it's exposure you know

00:10:43.860 and exposure takes on various forms because what we realize the science tells us about survival

00:10:49.600 is it's just not our training and our conditioned for stress that's going to benefit us in the worst

00:10:55.880 case scenario in surviving it's actually things like triggers like how do we know that a 107 millimeter

00:11:03.620 rocket is going to affect me in a certain way a sound a noise an event so if you have a trigger

00:11:10.020 that exists in you and you haven't conditioned yourself to stress because you're exposing yourself

00:11:15.460 to stress then you'll never know and then the worst case scenario it might clam you up and you know we

00:11:22.280 talk about this hyper arousal which is this fight or flight response but what's not often discussed is

00:11:27.740 the hypo arousal on the backside of that sympathetic response which is a shift back into parasympathetic

00:11:34.300 and being extremely hypo aroused where the playing possum which is an autonomic response where you're

00:11:40.440 playing dead and can't move could lead to a you know egregiously bad outcome on the backside of that

00:11:47.340 because i haven't exposed myself so what we recommend is one the exposure to stress doesn't have to be

00:11:54.620 training at camp mccall or operating in the military you know or combat operations it could be your

00:12:00.380 workout of the day because when you start to do something difficult your mind is telling your body

00:12:06.020 essentially you're going to die if you continue to do this you're going to die so what you're doing

00:12:11.740 every time you hit a wall and you push through is you're building resilience and you're becoming more

00:12:17.680 comfortable with this idea of embracing this pain and this suffering and you're doing so in silence

00:12:24.460 and you're coming up with tools and tactics in your head to get through these difficult

00:12:29.080 circumstances so exposure is not just the most difficult thing you could do it's taking yourself

00:12:35.040 to a place that's difficult in a workout of the day a long ruck march a long run when i tell guys

00:12:41.520 if your wife is into an orchestra or a symphony or ballet and you don't like that well there's a reason

00:12:47.920 you don't like it so have you ever thought about actually going and if you do go and you work

00:12:52.620 through that difficult thing like oh i don't like this and then you realize oh it's not that bad

00:12:57.220 what you're doing is building resilience because you're adapting through adversity and you know

00:13:02.300 that's that's the single cell organism all the way to the most advanced species of primate which is

00:13:08.220 us you know we all need to be exposed those stressors because that makes us better at operating

00:13:13.780 under stress another thing you do is like if there's survival skills you want to practice

00:13:17.720 practice them in uncomfortable situations so instead of trying to start a fire during the day

00:13:23.060 when you can see try to start it at night maybe make things wet like just do things that it gets

00:13:28.040 you frustrated and that'll help you work through that stuff yeah that's and that's a good point what

00:13:32.320 we realized in training especially technical training you could practice and do all the technical

00:13:37.800 skill sets but most people do those under optimal conditions so when you add stress the benefit of

00:13:45.240 adding stress which we call culmination when you add that stress you start seeing your technical skill

00:13:51.780 sets degrade and that actually is a good way to identify your weakness and your technical skill

00:13:58.160 sets and then when you identify those weaknesses you go back and hone them and then repractice them

00:14:03.680 but only when you validated them in stress so like you said like tourniquet application yeah it's real

00:14:09.900 easy to apply a tourniquet to a leg as you loop it around your ankle while you're standing except

00:14:16.140 if you're applying a tourniquet to your leg you have likely a high fracture and the most painful

00:14:21.640 experience of your life you might even be in your seat belt upside down in your vehicle in a ditch late

00:14:26.300 at night so you need to practice that as much as possible to get as close as you can to stress

00:14:32.220 all right so that's resilience in the mindset so just learn how to be comfortable with stress

00:14:36.480 and then learn how to overcome it you mentioned one of the things you learned as a green beret was the

00:14:41.180 importance of planning and being prepared what does this look like for getting ready for a catastrophe

00:14:46.140 or disaster for a civilian yeah what we tell people is the common sense approach here is you know you

00:14:52.200 can't take a five paragraph operations order format and apply it to most civilians you know that military

00:14:59.140 translation just does not translate i mean that was years of training and application in a military

00:15:06.280 career over two decades for me to get a sense of it what i tell civilians is planning starts with

00:15:12.660 course of action development and course of action development starts with a conversation with the

00:15:17.580 ones you love or the ones that you want to be integrated into your survival plan so take fire

00:15:24.080 disaster for example fires across this country kill a lot of americans and it's very unfortunate very

00:15:31.400 preventable instances most often so how many people go out and train on a range or carry the tourniquet or

00:15:39.860 first aid kit in their vehicle but they don't have a fire plan for their family so what we say is it starts

00:15:46.980 with the conversation and identifying the weakness by asking the conversation and what we call war

00:15:52.120 gaming you know that's a very military procedure but war gaming is essentially playing the devil's

00:15:58.920 advocate as you're communicating through the intent so if the objective is we need a fire plan you would

00:16:05.360 say to your spouse hey honey what would happen if we have the kids in their bedrooms and we need to get 1.00

00:16:10.660 down to the first floor because the uh upstairs bathroom is on fire well oh yeah we would grab them

00:16:17.380 and then move to the front floor but yeah what if the fire moved down the wall it is now blocking the

00:16:23.320 front door oh well maybe we'll go out the back door well what if the front and back door oh what if it's

00:16:30.640 at the base of the stairs how do we get off the second floor down to the ground oh my gosh i've never

00:16:35.720 thought about that so in that deficiency you just identified well you got contingencies because not

00:16:42.180 all fires are the same they grow they expand they evolve and now you go well how do we get down from

00:16:48.220 the second floor safely with our children do we have a rope ladder do we have an escape plan have

00:16:53.620 we rehearsed it have we done the technical training have we educated our family on how this is going to

00:16:58.760 work it simply starts with identifying deficiency and vulnerability making a list of those vulnerabilities

00:17:06.620 and then looking to make those vulnerabilities now your assets and reduce your liabilities this all

00:17:13.460 starts with basic conversation we do this in a what's called an isolation facility and sometimes

00:17:19.200 for weeks we're doing this course of action development refining the plan i would say this

00:17:25.220 could happen at your you know dining room table with your family which simple conversation besides a

00:17:31.160 fire escape plan what's another plan that a regular family could have in place a bug out plan

00:17:36.620 is insanely important you know three years ago when i started talking about bug out plans because

00:17:42.120 bug out plans are something that we plan for in war zones but often we planned in international

00:17:48.160 travel well this last two three years has shown us through both the pandemic and natural disasters

00:17:55.780 including wildfires and floods that bugging out or having a plan to displace from a bad situation to

00:18:02.620 a better is very important so right now i would tell people if if a law enforcement officer came and

00:18:08.440 knocked on your door and said you have 10 minutes you need to get your stuff and you need to get out

00:18:13.600 of here as soon as possible is the tank of gas full in your vehicle you could have a hundred thousand

00:18:19.720 dollar raptor that's really capable off-road but if you have a tenth a tank of gas then you got a

00:18:24.940 couple miles of capability do you have gear that's pre-packed to be able to displace in the worst case

00:18:30.380 scenario is that gear redistributed through your vehicle and your home so you have the concentration

00:18:36.760 of increasing capability through the capacity which is the space that you have so if i have a tourniquet

00:18:42.880 on my person in my pocket in my purse or my satchel do i have a first aid kit that's upgraded in my

00:18:50.440 vehicle do i have a aid station and antibiotics in my home so a bug out plan is a good place to start

00:18:58.220 and thinking about well honey we there's a huge wildfire threat because you live in california

00:19:04.000 if you live in you know the panhandle of florida there's a huge hurricane threat a lot of the people

00:19:09.880 who perish in worst case scenarios especially natural disasters didn't do basic planning and

00:19:16.540 they did like everybody else they bought bread and water you know six hours before the storm that's not

00:19:22.980 when we should be getting prepared in the military there's this idea of pace planning what is that and

00:19:27.720 how can civilians apply it yeah pace plan is a very easy way to apply contingencies or the backup for

00:19:35.240 the backup basic redundancy and your planning scheme you know a lot of people a lot of institutions plan

00:19:42.180 for everything to go right what we do in special operations because we know murphy's law is we plan

00:19:48.060 for everything to go wrong and what that means is let's say it's communication that's a really basic

00:19:53.740 one communication is your lifeline especially in a modern society like america where picking up that

00:19:59.920 phone and getting a call out to help even if you're going to be your own first responder is imperative for

00:20:06.380 sustained survivability because if you have the fracture in your leg and you treat that well you

00:20:11.820 need upgraded care and having that lifeline in your phone is important so in a pace plan which is the

00:20:17.200 acronym which stands for primary alternate contingency and emergency i would add a commo place plan so

00:20:24.960 primary is going to be common sense it's going to be gsm or cdma it's going to be my basic cell phone but

00:20:30.940 what happens if you're in the back country you likely are using offline maps you don't have reception if

00:20:36.940 you don't have a booster because you're on foot then that might not be your primary well your alternate

00:20:42.240 could be sat or iridium it could be satellite communication as long as you have a view of the

00:20:47.500 sky you're sound and you're good but what if you're in triple canopy what if you're in the forest and not

00:20:53.500 in the open desert well then your contingency might be rf or hf based radio communication it might be a ham

00:21:00.780 radio it might be gmrs it might basically be a walkie-talkie and then my emergency would be i have no ability

00:21:08.960 to get communications out i am resorting back to time and place basic communication and all of these

00:21:16.340 factors include training include uh service and support where i'm checking the communication

00:21:22.580 and checking and coordinating with people if your emergency plan is time and place and you haven't

00:21:28.740 communicated that to your spouse who doesn't know where to go or the time and place that it's not part

00:21:34.540 of your pace plan but if i'm going through my pace plan i write it out and i check all my equipment

00:21:39.300 and then i go to my spouse and say honey if i'm not back by 12 o'clock noon i want you to go to the

00:21:44.720 trailhead at one if i'm not there by one i want you to call the authorities because likely something is

00:21:50.060 wrong if you can't ping me on my sat phone and that's basic redundancy that could benefit you in every

00:21:55.520 facet of your life and preparedness and everything else you do because it's better to have a backup plan than

00:22:00.860 not all right so we talked about resilience we talked about planning another thing you talk about

00:22:05.260 when it comes to mindset the soft skills is situational awareness what is situational awareness

00:22:10.000 and how do you develop it yeah the simple answer there is paying attention and the problem is

00:22:14.800 situational awareness for me 20 years ago was just staying focused in the environment and most of the

00:22:21.520 time when you translated that for military or to civilian life we were good we just paid attention

00:22:27.280 because that's all we had to do now with the introduction of technology the integration and

00:22:33.100 saturation of technology most people aren't paying attention so more kids more teenagers are killed in

00:22:40.420 vehicle accidents than ever in history because they're on their cell phones while they're driving

00:22:44.840 and more accidents are frequent so when we talk about situational awareness we're just saying

00:22:50.620 deliberately pay attention to your environment when it is appropriate because you need your attention

00:22:57.080 you need that heads up display to navigate the situation as a rule of thumb for example driving with

00:23:02.720 your family you shouldn't be on your cell phone make it a habit to take your cell phone put it down

00:23:08.080 get your hands at the 10 and 2 and keep your focus on driving versus trying to multitask while you're

00:23:15.700 trying to drive with your family that will increase the probability that you'll survive we also mean

00:23:20.820 paying attention in environments where a lot of people who if I said when every time I go into a

00:23:26.180 restaurant or unknown environment I scan from left to right and look at anomalies or spikes in the

00:23:34.060 pattern people would go oh you're paranoid and then we go no I'm just paying attention now these are

00:23:40.600 these are things that I have to communicate out loud or that shut me down from being able to operate

00:23:46.320 normally in society these are just methods of focus where I'll intentionally scan from left to right

00:23:53.080 I will look at anomalies I'm not looking at hands and demeanor on every single human being I'm just

00:23:59.480 looking for things that stand out in the pattern so most of us because we're very complacent in our

00:24:05.440 environments and we're not paying attention when we hear spikes when we see them when we observe them

00:24:11.580 we begin to get very curious we pick up our cell phone we want to record it what I tell you is if you

00:24:17.820 see an anomaly there needs to be an appropriate action that needs to take place so if you have a

00:24:24.560 domestic dispute in a restaurant and that is elevating or increasing then it's not going to be

00:24:29.440 just observation and me saying to myself hey check this out look at look at this crazy stuff that's

00:24:34.480 happening it's going to be honey um let's go to a different restaurant or can we ask the host can we be

00:24:40.600 seated somewhere else away from this because if you look at worst case scenarios something that's

00:24:47.040 universal about survival and the people that survive is displacing off the x or where the bad stuff is

00:24:54.080 happening getting further away with distance time and as many obstacles as you could put between you

00:25:00.520 and that circumstance and that comes with observation first and foremost but the tactics to bear so we're

00:25:08.220 not just identifying we're not just observing but we're coming up with solutions to react and respond

00:25:13.680 lastly on that most of us default to denial a good case in point is if you're comfortable and you're

00:25:20.840 sitting upstairs with your wife and you're watching tv and you hear a noise downstairs what's our immediate

00:25:27.700 default we write it off we go oh that's the dog and your wife's like honey we don't have a dog and 0.98

00:25:34.320 you're like oh well it must be something that fell off the shelf except things just don't magically fall

00:25:39.680 off the shelf there's a cause and effect something happened so make it a habit to say oh i just heard

00:25:46.840 a noise i'm going to get up immediately to go identify what that is because more time that goes by

00:25:53.720 especially the early onset of a disaster it's going to lead to that tipping point where there's no point

00:25:59.540 of return so build the habit it's hard especially now with cell phones and distractions but it's

00:26:05.800 going to benefit you in the long run okay so situational awareness when you're in your car

00:26:09.760 pay attention in your car obviously you do that but then also when you're out and about pay attention

00:26:14.080 to what's normal in your environment and then what are anomalies and this could again this can be

00:26:18.600 tricky you have to pay attention because it could differ from place to place i think you talked about in

00:26:22.700 your book when you were i think over in iraq or afghani over there in the middle east the normal

00:26:27.340 situation was for people to be angry at you yelling at you and like that was normal the anomaly was when

00:26:33.060 everything was quiet and everyone was being friendly to you then you knew like wait something's up but i

00:26:37.260 think a lot of people they might think oh if something's friendly to me everything's fine but

00:26:40.420 it depends on the situation yeah that's a good point because there's environmental factors everywhere

00:26:46.520 you go and i frequent and travel the country um i used to travel the world and i could tell you

00:26:53.400 the way i react the way i adapted environments the way i maintain situation awareness for each

00:26:59.560 environment that i'm in differs right so what i tell people the best advice would be to lean on

00:27:05.780 intuition and intuition is just basically a primal survival mechanism to tune into the environment

00:27:12.620 and identify things that will get you killed so that is the extreme version of that but in the world

00:27:18.940 in society that we live in today where you know man-made catastrophes could be somebody getting

00:27:24.320 mugged in the middle of broad daylight at a gas station and you're in the vicinity and things go

00:27:29.540 really bad on that crisis site and you could be in harm's way because of how close you are to that

00:27:35.260 bad situation so when you're in these situations we're looking for the thing that drives our intuition to

00:27:42.020 go wait something doesn't seem right here and when you feel that like i used to tell my guys in

00:27:48.240 special operations if we're on a mission and i have a guy who's a kid from wyoming who grew up

00:27:54.040 in the country hunting in the back country of wyoming and he says hey hey mike i just i got a weird

00:28:00.400 feeling about something we stop and we take a knee we stop look listen smell we try to identify any

00:28:08.400 anomalies in their patterns ourselves but i've turned around and circumvented feelings and intuition

00:28:15.180 that have led us to good outcomes so have that feeling when you identify it have an action

00:28:21.540 to displace and and don't don't write off things as just oh yeah it must be that is a very complacent

00:28:29.520 mindset and survival and it's something that's very preventable and you know read about it on the late

00:28:34.980 night news because you go to pull in that gas station at two in the morning and you're like yeah we

00:28:39.600 probably shouldn't go to this gas station in this neighborhood at two in the morning there's one a

00:28:43.640 little bit further down or you know what i'll just get gas in the morning and if something went wrong

00:28:48.160 you'll never know about it but that's a good thing we're gonna take a quick break for your word from

00:28:52.180 our sponsors and now back to the show okay yeah so situational awareness if you notice something

00:29:03.520 then get off the x get yourself put time distance between you whatever is potentially is freaking you

00:29:09.780 out because that could potentially save you so we've talked about the mindset stuff let's move

00:29:14.440 into skills average guy what skills or survival skills do you think people should develop and

00:29:20.140 maintain in order to be prepared for most disaster situations yeah the biggest skill set which i think

00:29:26.540 is the foundation of survival and preparedness is health and wellness and physical fitness you know i get

00:29:34.400 guys who show up to my you know gunfighter pistol course which is basically just self-defense pistol

00:29:40.020 and it's one nuance of many technical skills that are required but in statistical probabilities the less

00:29:47.380 probable you know when you take a tourniquet application class that's a lot more probable but

00:29:52.780 likely not going to show up for that now the guys who show up a lot of americans over 60 percent of

00:29:59.820 americans are considered obese or overweight and when you look at that and you got the guy with

00:30:06.800 five thousand dollars with a gear and calisthenics are free we communicate that hey guys you know the

00:30:13.620 first step in preparedness here is you showing up as a foundation that is i'm not doing a block of

00:30:18.900 instruction on how to do calisthenics you need to show up fit because that needs to be the foundation

00:30:23.760 and we have the conversation because i you know a lot of men don't want to have that conversation

00:30:28.520 but when i see men that are overweight i look at them and go all right what can we do to get you in

00:30:33.200 better shape that's the foundation health and wellness which seemingly in a men's universe 0.99

00:30:40.140 especially entrepreneurs is a weakness right if you get four hours of sleep then you're grinding and

00:30:46.320 that's that's adapting and that's success it's not getting seven to ten hours of sleep a night

00:30:52.180 and taking care of your physical person is the way that you overcome and succeed so if you don't have

00:31:00.780 those things if you don't get good sleep if you don't have good habits built into your routine

00:31:05.440 including getting physically fit and eating right you're not going to be prepared to do the technical

00:31:10.840 training to become more technically proficient so you know you could shoot move communicate but if you

00:31:16.800 can't pick up your spouse and put it on your back and run a couple miles because that might be

00:31:21.120 the natural disaster response of getting away from the wildfire that we saw in paradise california

00:31:26.300 then you're not going to survive so it starts with health and wellness and physical fitness as a

00:31:32.600 start point okay beyond that what are some of the more hard skills people should develop

00:31:36.100 well i always consider security as a primary factor this country is very unique in the fact that we have

00:31:42.960 an american society that has many guns and the bad guys have guns and you know i tell people the

00:31:49.600 statistical probability of you using your edc pistol is very minimized but the actual statistics of you

00:31:56.480 using that to defend somebody else's life including your family or people in your environment are higher

00:32:02.440 because we're not talking about you being a victim we're talking about somebody else potentially being

00:32:06.880 a victim and you need to be a responsible citizen and samaritan so i would weigh security as the primary

00:32:14.340 skill set always so that's going to be self-defense the protocol but we don't just teach the technical

00:32:21.360 aspects of drawing the pistol to save the day we teach people about the psychology of making the

00:32:27.320 decision to have to use deadly force because it's a serious decision that's important other skill sets

00:32:33.940 include survival so do you have the right equipment are you trained on the right protocol can you start the

00:32:40.260 fire when you fall in the river on your epic you know man trip to alaska well fire starting in the

00:32:47.240 backcountry is going to be a primary skill set i tell people first aid falls in line with survival

00:32:53.640 because if you are like me and you do backcountry hunting and you want to live this rugged life and you

00:32:59.720 want to be in the backcountry off grid away from people getting balanced and you don't have the

00:33:05.120 equipment because you are going to be your first response then that's a bad setup you're setting

00:33:10.020 yourself up for failure so learning to apply a tourniquet learning how to stop the bleed with

00:33:15.620 the right equipment those are basic hard skills that everybody needs to learn which is security

00:33:20.760 first aid and survival as a start point and the first aid that can apply in an urban environment

00:33:26.060 too and just in your day-to-day life you might encounter someone who has a heart attack right what

00:33:29.580 do you do you know what to do when a loved one has a heart attack or if you get in that car wreck

00:33:33.000 and there's some sort of bleeding like would you know what to do to stop the bleeding yes you know we

00:33:38.000 teach at fieldcraft survival we teach basic cpr how to utilize an aed more people are dying from

00:33:44.600 cardiovascular events than ever in the history of this country most of it because of bad health

00:33:50.280 and heart disease just being the number one killer of americans but if you don't know how to use an aed

00:33:55.640 and re-kick and start somebody's heart during a cardiovascular event they're in a point of no return

00:34:01.600 they're circling the drain and it's basic skill sets that take minutes and sometimes in some

00:34:07.920 occasions hours to learn and you can sustain that training but also you could include your family

00:34:12.620 and it makes you more capable as a family unit too which is very important well yeah another thing with

00:34:18.300 these skills you just mentioned that you have to sustain them like skills they degrade if you don't

00:34:22.520 practice them so if you took a cpr class a couple years ago you should probably do that again or if you

00:34:27.880 went to a pistol class a couple years ago well you should probably be doing more than just that

00:34:32.880 yeah they're perishable they're very perishable and what i tell people is it for example if you take

00:34:38.960 a tourniquet if you carry a tourniquet every day as part of your staging or load up procedures we talk

00:34:45.740 about staging because it's important to stage your equipment out but it's more important for the

00:34:50.580 inspection that you do prior before you put it on your person put it on your physical body because it

00:34:56.540 builds confidence that you know your equipment well if you pick up your tourniquet and you just

00:35:00.720 unravel it and you kind of look at the components you might even apply it to your forearm as a

00:35:05.160 practice and then fold it up and put it inside your pocket that took you less than a minute but that

00:35:10.940 rehearsal gets you in the right mindset of doing the mental modeling and practice that are going to

00:35:16.720 make it easier for you to use that especially under stress in the worst case scenario so definitely

00:35:22.060 these are all perishable skills we tell people you know field craft survival isn't the end all be

00:35:27.120 all solution and all things preparedness go out and get training from local firefighters from local

00:35:32.160 institutions and do it often that is going to make you better as an individual and it's going to make

00:35:37.520 you better again as a family unit all right let's talk about the fun stuff and that's gear and edc

00:35:41.760 everyday carry what do you think are the essentials of an edc to be prepared for any situation

00:35:47.180 so it depends on your position in life because i would say your capacity to carry those things is

00:35:54.120 important as a understanding like i'm a father i have kids and so i want to have first aid on my

00:36:01.180 person to treat them because certainly kids are at the bottom of the barrel of people who survive

00:36:07.140 and who perish you know they're at the bottom of the barrel because they're not you know they're

00:36:11.520 not developed they don't have prefrontal cortexes that are going to rationalize and make good

00:36:16.200 decisions so we need to do that for them so mostly i carry a fanny pack inside that fanny pack i carry

00:36:22.800 a 365 xl macro which is a 17 plus one round mag gun from sig it's one inch thick so it's very streamlined

00:36:30.460 i carry it inside of a field craft fanny pack which i designed for like low viz data operations but

00:36:37.140 essentially you could fit a first aid kit on the front end of that which is a bleeding control kit

00:36:42.540 i carry a surefire cloud defensive light either or i usually carry a bench made folding pocket knife

00:36:50.000 inside my pocket in my pants more for utility than anything else but these are things that i carry but

00:36:56.000 habits that i institute into my life no matter what so the pistol is kind of fire and forget where

00:37:03.060 the pistol exists there but it's behind all the things that i use in utility so it's not exposed and

00:37:09.500 carrying it in a fanny pack allows me to not bear it on my body and it's just a lot more comfortable

00:37:15.040 to do it that way your capacity could be increased depending on what you're doing a patagonia fly

00:37:21.280 fishing bag a purse a murse a european man satchel whatever you're into that is going to help you extend

00:37:27.920 your capacity but carry the right things the baseline is edc pistol a light source a fire source and a

00:37:35.220 first aid kit you also talk about the importance of being dressed to be prepared for any situation

00:37:40.040 i think you have an example from when you were in the military you were wearing flip-flops

00:37:42.880 around camp and your guy was like no you shouldn't do that you're like why when it's like well you're

00:37:48.380 gonna find out why yeah yeah that's a good point i look at edc is not only as what you wear physically

00:37:54.700 but it's also your demeanor it's your posture but on the physical side you know in that situation

00:38:00.260 where i was wearing flip-flops where i'm like oh i'm on duty and then i'm off duty well technically

00:38:05.520 if you're living a preparedness lifestyle you're always on duty and so in that case that capacity

00:38:10.960 my job was to protect case officers overseas so there was no off duty and the place that i was at

00:38:17.080 was very remote so i had a responsibility to be prepared at all times and if things went bad which

00:38:22.940 statistically in that country they often went bad i would not be able to effectively and efficiently

00:38:29.280 operate to save people with flip-flops on so when i go out with my kids if i'm going somewhere like

00:38:36.520 the zoo where i could be a mile into the park and something bad happens and i need to pick up my kids

00:38:42.780 and move off the x then i'm not going to be wearing flip-flops so i look at it as distance and time

00:38:49.280 and my current capability so from the hat i wear to the sun classes i bear down to the shoes that i'm

00:38:55.380 going to put on i'm considering all of those factors and it again it doesn't have to be difficult

00:39:01.300 to assimilate in your life because if anything is difficult to assimilate you're not going to do it

00:39:06.380 in your routine you're gonna be like yeah that's that's cool but it's just not comfortable i'm not

00:39:10.560 going to do that i'm not telling you to be uncomfortable i'm telling you that when you weigh

00:39:15.260 certain factors like hey i'm going to Walt Disney World where you potentially will be miles

00:39:21.260 into the park away from the parking lot and that you have to get out before everybody else

00:39:27.420 you might want to consider dressing the part parking in the right place and then looking at

00:39:33.940 a plan to get you out of that worst case scenario with your family in the most effective way that

00:39:39.800 literally as long as it took me to say is probably how long it takes you to effectively consider those

00:39:45.640 things so it's just considerations from head to toe again including posture yeah i thought about

00:39:51.540 you know it's important to dress for the weather i think there's always a temptation for people

00:39:54.820 like during the winter it's cold outside you're like well i'm just driving my kid to jujitsu

00:39:58.580 i'll just wear shorts pair flip-flops i'll be fine nothing's going to happen well you can get a

00:40:03.580 wreck and you're going to be outside and it's going to be 20 degrees outside and flip-flops and

00:40:07.600 shorts that's probably not a good situation to be in so put on your pants and it happens all the

00:40:12.280 time in this country all the time yeah got any recommendations on transportation in a catastrophe

00:40:18.420 yeah for sure i mean one of the things that we talk about in mobility we call mobility you know

00:40:24.980 basically overlanding or off-roading or recreational travel but the concept for mobility is

00:40:32.200 your transportation vehicle that you use mostly every day i mean if if you're listening to me on this

00:40:38.700 podcast you are likely either in your car or in a place where your car is in the vicinity of you

00:40:45.460 so your vehicle is a logistical lifeline and in the worst case scenario it's not only a logistical

00:40:51.300 lifeline it's literally the vehicle that you're going to use to displace to get away from the bad

00:40:56.060 situation so what we say is how capable is your vehicle does it have the right ground clearance does it

00:41:02.420 have the right tires do you have a full take of gas and there's a whole bunch of things but what i would

00:41:06.740 say is the best consideration from translating edc into advancing into more capacity in your vehicle

00:41:14.260 is you just got a big rucksack you know it's the extension of your ruck if i have my ruck on my back

00:41:21.880 well i have a certain amount of capability because it's on my person it's on me but if you look at your

00:41:27.680 vehicle and the empty trunk the empty dead space you have on your floors you have a lot of space so why

00:41:34.260 not fill that void with like like you just used in the example how about shoes an extra pair of shoes

00:41:39.540 extra pair of socks and some cold weather gear because if you live in montana or like i do in

00:41:44.120 utah where you have 40 degree swings depending on the day where it could be snowing in the morning and

00:41:50.060 sunny and 75 in the afternoon well things could happen and if you have that capacity filled with

00:41:56.140 capability then your vehicle becomes an extension and it actually expands your capability and survival

00:42:02.720 uh do you recommend people take any sort of driving course or defensive driving courses

00:42:07.540 absolutely i mean i think when you look at the statistics of people dying tragically in motor

00:42:13.260 vehicle accidents a lot of it like one example the number one tragic thing that happens in motor

00:42:19.160 vehicle accidents is over correcting and then hitting a vehicle head-on so you over correct because you

00:42:24.540 react you come off the road you lose traction and then you snatch the wheel back the other direction

00:42:29.720 direction you catch traction your wheels aren't aligned and then you lawn dart either into trees

00:42:35.500 or oncoming traffic that is the number one thing that kills people in motor vehicle accidents so

00:42:40.940 that is a very easy thing to learn and team o'neill you know a commercial rally school up in new

00:42:48.280 hampshire which i've been to several times in the military but it's open to civilians as well

00:42:52.980 so you know my kids and my children they're already in utvs they're four years old and they're on utvs and

00:43:00.740 they're on different kind of power wheels because they're learning traction and i'm teaching them

00:43:05.160 how to drive for fun but that recreational adaptation of going to go to rally school is going to help you

00:43:11.660 understand traction and control which most people don't you know they get 16 years old they get the

00:43:18.060 permit they almost fail because they back into a car they know nothing about how to drive so defensive

00:43:24.060 driving and driving schools period bsr bondurant team o'neill very important skill sets to learn

00:43:31.840 especially at a young age i think if you're going if you're a man and you're taking yourself take your

00:43:36.900 spouse include it into a family trip and have them learn as well because it's very important yeah that idea 0.62

00:43:43.140 of um stocking your car so you're prepared for whatever situation i mean you talk about in the

00:43:47.700 book your car can serve as a shelter in a bug out situation so if you're trying to get to your bug

00:43:52.120 out location your car can be sort of like a mobile shelter at the same time and my dad actually

00:43:57.760 experienced this he was this was like a long this is like 30 years ago he was driving back from

00:44:02.520 albuquerque to oklahoma city he was on i-40 i think he was right outside of groom texas and there was a

00:44:08.440 blizzard and it just stopped traffic and he couldn't go anywhere but he had his

00:44:13.080 car really well stocked blankets everything and he was able to ride it out until the next day when

00:44:17.520 they had you know the plows come through but if he didn't have that stuff it probably would have

00:44:22.800 not worked out great for him yeah the vehicle is one of the most capable things that we have at our

00:44:28.320 disposal that's part of our everyday lives so we've talked about having plans for your home in the event

00:44:33.840 of a disaster catastrophe having a fire plan a bug out plan but anything we should think about you know

00:44:39.540 just the physical aspect of our home that we need to gear up on so we're ready for any situation

00:44:43.720 yeah your homestead or your house is certainly going to be your bed down location in the worst

00:44:50.300 case scenario you know most people aren't going to bug out and go to grandma's in the worst case

00:44:55.120 they're going to go home and most people's homes aren't you know homestead on five acres off grid

00:45:01.400 most people live in apartments and condominiums and suburban homes and so what i tell people is

00:45:07.640 the number one factor is most of your reliance is outsourced in institutions so your water is

00:45:16.160 connected to city plumbing your trash is taken by trash guys your security is outsourced to first

00:45:22.920 responders your health care to the hospital and the insurance company so what i would say is start

00:45:28.280 insourcing as many things as you can to not rely on supply chains when they fall apart because there's a

00:45:36.740 gas strike you know just these little nuanced things that happen if they happen in a certain

00:45:43.020 sequence they could disrupt our lives entirely we saw that during the pandemic where you know people

00:45:48.260 are fighting over toilet paper well how about you think about capacity even if you live in an

00:45:53.260 apartment complex you know people ask me all the time mike how much food how much water how much

00:45:57.760 hygiene and i said well what's your budget how much are you willing to invest in your resources

00:46:03.780 and your sustaining survivability over the long haul how much do you care about this idea of being

00:46:08.860 prepared because that's really the question i mean if you cut back on your starbucks habits or your

00:46:14.120 coffee habits every day your energy drink at the local 7-eleven then five dollars a day will be a real

00:46:20.780 sound investment in building your food and water supply so take a slop closet that you have that's you know

00:46:27.020 has a a broom take that remove it make it your preparedness closet and start stockpiling on the

00:46:33.320 things that you need in the worst case scenario start looking at insourcing and taking back these

00:46:39.900 things that you've outsourced so much and and you don't have to get crazy you don't have to grow a

00:46:44.520 garden in your apartment what i'm saying is like have you ever hunted because most of your protein in

00:46:50.180 your refrigerator you likely buy from a local grocery store but if you hunt you can fill your freezer

00:46:55.540 with good protein that could feed your family for a year and also the process of preparing and getting

00:47:02.040 ready for the hunt and then exposing your family and yourself to that is going to build resilience so

00:47:07.180 that's a good start point so it starts with the microcosm of looking at your space and then building

00:47:13.700 out and it's a constant oodle loop it never is like i'm standing on the pinnacle and the high horse of

00:47:19.220 preparedness and i'm prepped i'm prepared this is a constant work and ethic and then you also talk about the

00:47:25.100 importance of thinking intentionally about home security so putting layers in a lot of people

00:47:30.320 don't even think about home security except for locking the door but there's more you could do

00:47:33.440 yeah you know i always i'm a technical guy i'm a technical nerd it was part of my expertise in

00:47:39.600 special operations and when i look at mitigating risk i look at early warning as a number one security

00:47:46.100 protocol and home defense like a lot of people think of home defense as your shotgun in your closet

00:47:50.740 like if you got to your shotgun in your closet and you're racking it a lot of things have gone wrong

00:47:56.540 so i look at you know observation and fields of fire obstacles these basic things i learned in the

00:48:02.200 military but what you could do to start it off right is look at closed circuit television cameras i mean

00:48:07.980 technology and adapting things like vivant into your home security plan where you can have sensors you

00:48:14.120 can have cameras in certain positions where it notifies you via text if somebody's standing in your

00:48:19.360 driveway and then it turns on an early warning device that says hey you're being videotaped

00:48:24.680 those things are going to mitigate risk most certainly in your home over the last ditch worst

00:48:30.520 case scenario where you're thinking about the firearm and tool think about it all but certainly integrate

00:48:35.820 technical security into your home defense plan you also talk about the importance of developing

00:48:40.980 social connections in being prepared what role does social connections have in being prepared for a disaster

00:48:46.360 yeah the lone wolf idea briefs well i mean i i like mark walberg's depiction and shooter i was a

00:48:53.860 sniper i wanted to live that life i did for a little bit in colorado and then about a week into it i was like yeah

00:48:59.300 um this isn't fun anymore you know i don't have anybody to talk to you know it's just me and the dog

00:49:05.140 and the reality is every single major catastrophe we're talking world war ii to a hurricane in florida

00:49:13.520 the way to survive is through your social networks right the people that you're going to lean on are going to be your

00:49:20.060 neighbors and more so in our communities we don't know our neighbors we don't know the people who live above and

00:49:25.660 below us in the same apartment complex all i want you to do is build your social connections and have those

00:49:32.880 conversations hey john you know we're neighbors if something goes bad what's your capabilities versus what's mine

00:49:39.940 you know start developing assets versus liabilities and most people think they're liabilities because

00:49:46.100 they don't have a specific skill set but i promise if you're a breathing walking human being you have

00:49:52.160 assets to bear you just haven't identified them yet so maybe you're the morale booster or maybe you're

00:49:57.320 the person who's very organized who could put a list together a communication plan it's one of the reasons

00:50:03.000 we started american contingency.com is developing these social networks across the country where

00:50:09.380 people come together they're doctors lawyers blue collar people just normal human beings trying to live

00:50:14.380 their best life and they start building these things called communities back into the fabric of our

00:50:20.180 country because you're certainly going to lean on that when things go wrong well mike this has been a

00:50:25.280 great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book and your work

00:50:28.160 so prepared is available right now it's a manual for surviving worst case scenarios it's everywhere

00:50:33.620 that books are found you could probably find it at your local vendor or on amazon and we're launching

00:50:39.400 an application the same day in conjunction with this because you know prepared is like hey this is

00:50:46.080 preparedness it's not that scary we hope that you want to get education on this and so we develop an

00:50:50.900 application on fieldcraftsurvival.com is where you could find it but the idea is it's not just like all the

00:50:57.040 scary stuff it's like canning and jarring it's family preparedness it's cpr it's cpr for kids

00:51:04.040 it's basic stuff that is going to allow you to get educated virtually and then all of our stuff is

00:51:09.600 available online for free the fieldcraft survival application you can get free content the fieldcraft

00:51:14.960 survival channel on youtube and the fieldcraft survival podcast those are all free resources to see what

00:51:21.280 we're talking about when we talk about this idea of being prepared fantastic well michael lover thanks for

00:51:25.920 your time it's been a pleasure thanks for having me it was an honor my guest today was mike lover he's

00:51:31.060 the author of the book prepared it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find

00:51:35.160 more information about his work at his website fieldcraftsurvival.com also check out our show notes

00:51:39.620 at aom.is prepared where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:51:43.960 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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The Art of Manliness - June 07, 2023

How to Survive Any Worst Case Scenario

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