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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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Send us a text 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 kn…
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Send us a text 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 …
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Send us a text 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, st…
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Send us a text 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…
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Send us a text 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 familie…
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Send us a text 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 witho…
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Send us a text 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 wor…
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Send us a text 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 gov…
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Send us a text 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…
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Send us a text 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 exp…
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Send us a text 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 r…
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Send us a text 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. …
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Send us a text 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…
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Send us a text 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 tha…
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Send us a text 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 ra…
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Send us a text 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…
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Send us a text 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 publi…
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Send us a text 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 eva…
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Send us a text 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 th…
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Send us a text 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 …
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Send us a text 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. Nat…
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Send us a text 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 le…
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Send us a text 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 transl…
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Send us a text 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 th…
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Send us a text 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 nee…
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Send us a text 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 …
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Send us a text 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…
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Send us a text 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 i…
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Send us a text 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 h…
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Send us a text 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 s…
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Send us a text 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 ot…
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Send us a text 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…
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Send us a text 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, r…
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Send us a text 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 cha…
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Send us a text 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 w…
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Send us a text 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 a…
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Send us a text 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,…
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Send us a text 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 grea…
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Send us a text 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 ac…
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Send us a text 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…
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Send us a text 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…
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Send us a text 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 a…
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Send us a text 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 hu…
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Send us a text 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 versio…
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Send us a text 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 fo…
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Send us a text 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 ar…
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Send us a text 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 …
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Send us a text 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 pr…
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Send us a text 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, understa…
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Send us a text 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 pr…
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