The Mind4Survival Podcast

  How knowledgeable are you about financial awareness? If you’re like most people, you could probably learn a thing or two, right? Well, this episode is going to take care of some of your financial awareness knowledge gaps. And helping fill in those financial awareness gaps for this week’s episode, is Todd Sepulveda, from ThePrepperWebsite.com…

Woo-hoo! Summer is almost about here, and so is the need for summer preparedness!  I‘m sure most of you are over winter, but how many of you have thought about preparing for the summer? Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), after spending over a decade in the Middle East, I know a thing or two about heat and prepping for the summer. Summer Preparedness Starts BEFORE It Gets Hot So, with summer almost upon us, now is the time to start working on your summer preparedness. Think about what you expect this summer to look like in terms of both survival and fun. Depending on where you live, there will be some differences. Some of you might live in hurricane or tornado country and will need to prep for storms. Others might live in the desert and need to prepare for extreme heat. Everyone should consider how to handle a power outage when it's hot outside.  Remember the derecho that took out the power for millions of people living in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest for days during a record-setting heatwave in 2012?  As well, it's important to know how to handle dehydration and other heat illnesses as well, particularly if you're going to be spending a lot of time outside. While we’re on the topic of summer preparedness, I think a little summer-related trivia is in order.  “What is the hottest temperature, on record, in the world?” If you want to know the answer to that, you’ll have to listen to this episode and find out. Now, let's get started with some summer preparedness ideas that will keep your family safe, having fun, and learning skills all at the same time. Get Friends and Family Involved in Summer Preparedness Get your family and friends involved in preparedness activities like the following. You'll be teaching them skills without them even realizing it. Camping Hiking Fishing Gardening Canning Working on your house, cars, etc. Visit local farmers' markets and other places to find fresh, discounted produce. This is also a great time to get them thinking about summertime weather events, etc. Discuss what you'd do if the power went out on a hot day. Talk about the summer environmental threats in your area. Keep it light and conversational if these friends aren't exactly preppers and you're still in the "convincing" stage. Get Some Exercise Summer is a great time to get outdoors and get moving. Take the family for walks. Go hiking. Work in the yard. Go swimming Take advantage of the weather to have fun, get loose, get in shape, and improve your health and fitness. Learn Something Learning something together with your family and friends can be an awesome and productive way to spend time together. Take a class together, such as first aid, CPR, orienteering (compass and map reading), foraging, and other wilderness skills. Check out your local extension office and see if they offer any courses in gardening or food preservation. Visit local historic sites like pioneer villages. Many of them have people in costume doing things like cooking, blacksmithing, book-making, and laundry, the old-fashioned way. These role-players are generally delighted to answer questions about their crafts and skills. Make it fun so that your loved ones will want to continue going on these outings. Create or Review Your Preparedness Plans Create, review, and tune up your preparedness plans. Preparedness plans become outdated as life changes. Ask yourself these questions about your circumstances. Are all of the considerations you have in your plans still the same? What about the number of family members and others who are in your plan? Are the routes and bug-out locations the same?

Hi there Mind4Survival survivors, thanks for checking out this week's episode about self defense legal information with Suzanne Sherman. Many of us talk about defending ourselves with firearms. However, do you know the laws involved and what the repercussions may be? If you’re like me, we don’t know enough when it comes to self defense legal information.  …

When it comes to female preparedness, men, have you ever wondered how the ladies of our prepping community view things? And ladies, have you ever wondered if other women preppers see prepping the same way as you do? Well, if either one of those questions applies to you, then this is the episode to answer…

Disasters can happen to anyone, anywhere. These tips for disaster preparedness can help people save their own lives. By taking the time to review and analyze your situation before a crisis occurs, you'll find yourself better able to overcome emergencies.  1) Perform a Personal Risk Assessment A personal risk assessment will help you identify the major disasters and emergencies that you should prepare for. After all, if you live in Miami, preparing for a blizzard may not be a very good use of resources. However, preparing for a hurricane is probably an excellent use of your resources. Similarly, if you live in California, you’ll probably want to focus on earthquakes and wildfires rather than tornados. It’s important to remember also to consider situations that many people don’t typically prepare for, such as an EMP or another often overlooked possibility. Red Cross Disasters Page If you’d like to check out other possible scenarios to make sure you’ve done a thorough job with your risk assessment, you can go to the Red Cross website. There, you’ll find a long list of potential disaster scenarios along with disaster preparedness tips to help you prepare for each possible scenario. It’s well worth the time to check it out. Normalcy Bias Now, I doubt any of you Mind4Survival Survivors have this issue, but we never know. However, if you are someone who believes your area won’t be affected by disasters, you’re sadly mistaken. If you’ve ever said, "That could never happen to me," you may be suffering from normalcy bias. If you believe a disaster or other emergency won’t ever impact you, you’re probably wrong, very wrong. 2) Prepare for Bugging In Regardless of the situation, when disaster strikes, you only have two choices. You can bug in or bug out. Bugging in means you’re going to stay in your home and attempt to ride out the situation, whatever it is. The primary key to think about when making your decision is that you may be stuck once you choose to shelter in place. Think of the people stranded by floods. If they were slow in getting out, they often couldn’t get out. If you decide that bugging in is an option as you make your disaster response plans, you’ll want to make sure you are prepared. After all, if the situation is dire enough to consider leaving your home, it’s probably so tricky that you may be stuck on your own for a while. So again, you’ll want to make sure you follow these disaster preparedness tips for a shelter-in-place scenario. Some reasons to consider bugging in are: Disabilities: If you or a loved one has a disability that makes bugging out very difficult. The fact of the matter is that not all of us can quickly pack up and leave our homes. Due to life circumstances, some of us may be forced to stay at home and ride out a disaster. Prior Preparation: You have prepared ahead of time for a bugging-in scenario. This means you’ve stocked up on food, fuel, and water. You should consider alternate means of communication. Since cell phones and hard-lined phones may be down, having another means of communication to receive updates on the situation and to let people know how you’re doing will be significant. Additionally, as we saw in Hurricane Katrina and other disasters, evil people try to capitalize on the situation to do bad things. So, you’ll want to be ready to defend yourself. Fortunately, not all the people you’ll meet in a bug-in scenario are dangerous. Some may be stuck in a bad spot just like you, and you may want to be prepared to help others. Yes, that’s a controversial subject within the prepping community. Ultimately, it’s a personal decision each of us needs to make. Reliable Transportation: If you don’t have a reliable means of transportation, bugging out could put you in a worse position than bugging in. Think about it. Would you rather be in your home during a disaster,

Absolute anarchy is something that all preppers think about and try to plan for. However, how do you know if you're planning right? Well, that's easy. You speak with someone who has lived in a state of absolute anarchy. In this case, our special anarchy expert is Vietnam Green Beret, Johnny Jacks. Lastly… Never forget, you’re just…

In this episode on Absolute Anarchy with Johnny Jacks: Assumptions Two Die-Offs Maximizing Your Chances of Survival The chances of our society melting down into absolute anarchy are slim to none. However, a little over fifty years ago, many would say landing on the moon is impossible. In reality, given time and effort, many things…

Everyday situational awareness should be your constant state of being, but how do you focus with constant distractions? Challenges to situational awareness lurk around every corner. They pose a problem to all of our safety, security, and our very survival. Fortunately for all of us, many of the challenges to everyday situational awareness can be minimized and possibly overcome completely. However, to do so, you first need to understand what the problems are, and that’s what this episode is all about. Confirmation Bias Confirmation bias is our tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that supports our pre-existing beliefs and assumptions. An example of confirmation bias is the gun control debate. People on both sides of the debate seek out information, news stories, etc., that support and paint their position in a positive light. At the same time, they seek out information that discredits the other side's positions and portrays them in a negative light. In the end, even if both sides read the same story, they are both likely to interpret the story in ways that support their position and beliefs. Overcoming Confirmation Bias Unfortunately, all of us have confirmation bias, even those who believe they’re open-minded. Luckily, we do have the ability to minimize its impact on us. However, while it’s challenging to overcome confirmation bias, we can limit its effect upon us. The first step is to recognize that it exists. Then attempt to look at issues through other people’s eyes. While you may disagree with them, you may learn to understand their position. Then, as a result of that learning process, you may end up expanding your thought process broadly enough to benefit you and your everyday situational awareness in a way that affects your decision-making abilities. Here’s an excellent article to learn more about confirmation bias. Hyper-Focus Hyper-focus occurs when we focus only on one specific thing. In so doing, it becomes difficult to switch our focus to another situation or task. An example of task hyper-focus happens when a person is treating an injured patient and focuses on a specific injury. While the person is focused on the one injury, they overlook a more serious but less apparent injury. For example, a medic could be focusing on a fractured limb because it looks awful and not paying attention to something more serious, like life-threatening internal bleeding. Often, even after a person treats the first injury they are focused on, they’ll neglect to search for other problems. This can also happen in different situations that are non-medical. Overcoming Hyper-Focus It’s important to remind yourself from time to time to take in the entire situation. Make sure you mentally step back and honestly observe what is happening in case you missed something before. Hyper-focus can relate to all sorts of things, like worrying about one specific threat while another lurks right behind you. Hyper-focusing on only one particular aspect of a problem causes your everyday situational awareness to suffer. The Dunning-Kruger Effect The Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE) is a person’s belief that he or she is more capable than they are in physical and mental ability, i.e., overconfidence. This overconfidence can cause someone to miss or ignore warning signs about potential trouble or try to resolve a situation believing he or she is capable but aren’t. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a theory that establishes a relationship between a person’s knowledge, experience, and training about a topic or situation and their confidence in dealing with that topic or situation. People with no knowledge of a subject usually have no faith in their ability to deal with that topic. However, some people with only a small amount of experience or even incorrect information often have the highest am...

  Your prepper mentality will do more to keep you safe than all the gear, food, and weapons in the world. This episode features former CIA Clandestine Services Case Officer, Doug Patteson, of IngloriousAmateurs.com. Doug brings a wealth of knowledge and experience into play as he helps you improve your everyday prepper mentality to become more safe, secure, and prepared. Focus on the Prepper Mentality Basics The prepper mentality basics apply whether you’re an expert with tons of experience, or a new person just figuring out preparedness. Experts, such as professional athletes, etc., regularly work on the basics to improve their high-level efforts. Improving yourself requires focus, dedication, and realism. It just doesn’t happen on its own. People must first determine what risks they are facing by doing a personal risk, threat, and vulnerability assessment. That can be as simple as asking yourself what you are doing, what are you protecting, what are you protecting it with and what are you protecting it from. Target-Proofing You can’t make yourself target-proof. Target-proofing is making yourself invulnerable, which isn’t 100% possible. What you can do is make yourself a less desirable target. This is achieved by making yourself a harder, more difficult target. Criminals are, by their nature, lazy. Rather than work and do the usual grind, they choose to prey upon others. When preying on others, they want to get the easiest bang for their buck. Therefore, if by your actions, you present a more difficult target they are likely to avoid you and opt for an easier mark. Situational Awareness Is Essential to Your Prepper Mentality To make yourself a more difficult target, you can focus on your situational awareness. This starts with your prepper mentality and its focus on awareness. You should assess what possible threats are within your immediate environment. Start by asking yourself how you could handle each of those threats. Determine the areas in which you’re less secure and more secure. Think about what you can do to strengthen yourself and your situation. Ask Others for Their Opinions When working to determine your vulnerabilities, engage others. Ask your friends, your spouse, or join social networking groups and find out what others think. Asking for others to weigh in helps develop your plan into a better course of action. Ask them what makes you seem like a good target for a criminal and do what you can to minimize that. Don't forget to find out what you're doing right, too! It’s necessary to be deliberate in how you face the day when working to maximize your prepper mentality. You should make a conscious effort to approach each day with a fresh mindset. Going about your day on autopilot and not paying attention is a recipe for trouble. Take Deliberate Action to Increase Your Prepper Mentality Taking deliberate action in your daily life consists of a few steps. The first step is recognizing that we live in a hostile world. Secondly, you need to understand that all of us have the potential to be the target of a predator. Third, affirm to yourself that you don’t want to be a target, so you have to recognize steps one and two, and approach your day differently as a result. Finally, evaluate how you want to approach the day differently, so you reduce the likelihood of a threat affecting you. Take these steps when entering new settings and situations. Get Over the Fear of Offending People One of the most significant mindset challenges that impact your safety is overcoming the fear of offending others. If something inside of you is telling you that you’re in a lousy situation, listen to it. Your intuition, instinct, etc., is usually right. However, many people are afraid that if they listen to their intuition and act accordingly, they’ll offend someone.

Here's a secret that nobody tells you when you're getting started prepping. Feeling overwhelmed is totally normal for new preppers. If that's where you're at right now, you need to know that you are not alone in how you feel. Many people, especially when they first begin to focus on their preparedness, feel as if they are emotionally drowning. After all, it's a lot to take in, and it's completely normal to feel like you're in over your head, especially if they start out reading horror stories about events like EMPs, tsunamis, and the Cascadian Fault. When people begin the transition from a non-prepper mindset to a prepper mindset, they can be overcome by the feeling that danger is around every corner. The problem is that before opening their eyes to preparedness, people often have normalcy bias. Either that or they've just never thought about the dangers of the world. Then, once their eyes are open and they begin to prepare, they become aware of all the potential tragedies waiting for them. It's at this point that the overwhelm often sets in.  Go Slow When Getting Started Prepping Fortunately, the odds of most of the tragic events ever happening is minimal. Therefore, the urgency to become prepared may not be quite as urgent as it initially seems. One way to overcome the feeling of urgency is to take a measured and logical approach to your preparedness. This article contains 5 steps to help guide and reassure you that you're on the right track and probably doing better than you realize.  While we're on that point, it's important to know that more often than not, people are more prepared than they know. Heck, many times, people who are new to prepping are not as new to it as they think. In reality, they have a subconscious that has caused them to prepare without them knowing they are doing it. That is why, when they move to the first tip in the five tips for beginning preppers, inventorying and organizing their supplies and resources, they are often surprised about how far ahead of the preparedness game they are.  Regardless of where you are in that equation, though, it's good to understand that you are on the right track by just taking that initial leap forward and making the conscious decision to prepare. Heck, you are probably more than on the right track. The fact is that by just admitting you need to prepare, you are light years ahead of most other people who never accept they should take the time to improve their readiness.  1) Inventory and Organize Your Supplies and Resources A great way to establish a solid prepping foundation is to inventory and organize what you already have. This foundation will help you overcome one of the most significant prepping challenges: a shortage of time. The majority of preparedness frustration centers around a lack of time and money. Therefore, it's essential to establish an accurate inventory so that later, as you work on your preparedness, you know what you have and where. This will go a long way to helping you be more efficient with your time.  Knowing what you have on hand can also save you money. Far too often, preppers make the mistake of purchasing, acquiring, etc., gear, supplies, and other items they already have. By completing a thorough inventory, preppers will find that they save more money than those who don't act purposefully when preparing.  2) Perform a Personal Risk Assessment Perhaps the best way to determine what you need to prepare for is by conducting an individual risk assessment. Realistically establishing what your most significant threats are, provides you with the opportunity to manage those first. Those who are just getting started prepping should focus their initial efforts on the most likely things. When you prioritize your risks, you are setting yourself up for success should an event occur. Those who fail to prioritize may find themselves addressing problems that do...

Preparedness savings should be an essential aspect of everyone’s life. However, where real preppers are involved, preparedness savings is critical. Without a mind towards savings and stretching dollars, preppers can end up in a preparedness bind. That preparedness savings bind is one where a person knows they need to prepare, but doesn’t have the finances…

Unfortunately, active shooter-related events are a part of our modern world and are on the rise in the United States.  The media and politicians place salacious focus on firearms. But, they rarely, if ever, mention preparing for an active shooter event so that people know what to do if they are caught up in this nightmare scenario. Preparing for an Active Shooter Event Makes Sense All one has to do is read the FBI report on active shootings to understand they can happen anywhere at any time. This increase in active shootings makes it more critical than ever to understand what to do during an active shooter emergency. Not only should you learn this, but as a tragic series of school shooting shows over the past few years, your children should learn it as well. As a former Army Ranger, firefighter-paramedic, high threat security specialist, and international security director, I’ve spent years training on and dealing with scenarios much like the Florida school shooting and other similar incidents. In addition to my background, I’ve spent decades working alongside Delta Force Operators, Green Berets, Navy SEALS, SWAT team members, and others. Together, with the lessons learned from these great people and my own first-hand, real-world experience, I’m going to provide you with some solid advice on how to react to an active shooter situation. This advice is a starting point for you and your loved ones to increase your chances of survival should you ever be in an active shooter situation. These Events Usually Happen FAST. Before we get going, it’s essential to understand a couple of things. First, the odds of your direct involvement in an active shooter incident are extremely low. Regardless, preparing for an active shooter event is very important. Secondly, many active shooter concepts are applicable across the situational lines of various active shooter incidents. Whether it is a Florida school shooting or a Las Vegas concert shooting, many of the concepts are the same. To start with, you should understand that active shooter incidents happen fast. In fact, according to FBI statistics, approximately 36-percent of active shootings are over in less than two minutes, with the majority lasting less than five minutes. So, what does this mean to you? Unfortunately, it means that once an active shooting starts, you’re probably on your own. That also means you won’t have much time to think your way to safety. Identify the Problem and Take Action The first step is to identify the problem. That means understanding what is happening in the world around you. In the military and law enforcement, this is known as situational awarenesss. If you’d like to learn more about situational awareness, you can read up on it in our blog post here. Once you become aware of the problem, in this case, an active shooting, your next step is to take action. Taking action means just that, T-A-K-I-N-G  A-C-T-I-O-N! In other words, don’t just stand there, do something. Far too often, when people are confronted with a very stressful situation, they freeze. This often happens because of normalcy bias. Normalcy bias is the thought that a tragic event won’t happen to us. In short, normalcy bias is our brain trying to convince us that everything is alright. Well, in this case, it isn’t, so we need to act. Another reason that people freeze is purely physiological. It's called "tonic immobility." Daisy Luther writes: Many people freeze in a disaster situation.  The ability to break this paralysis is paramount to your survival. "Freezing" is called "tonic immobility" in behavioral science and it is a biological impulse.  A study exploring the "freeze response" to stressors, describes the reaction... ...In the context of this particular study, the freeze response could be related to an overload of stimuli because of the demands of creating your plan.

Moving safety and security is such a pain! Think about it. When you're either moving or helping someone move, you're probably tired, sore and under stress. The last thing you want to think about is moving safety and security.  Unfortunately, it's that exact time when you should consider moving safety and security the most. After…

As discussed in time management part 1, time management is one of our biggest frustrations with readiness and prepping. Unfortunately, many of us suffer from too much to do and not enough time to do it in. However, while we suffer from lack of time, we have people like Ryan Mitchell of TheTinyLife.com to give…

Time and time management is one of our biggest frustrations as preppers. Almost all of us suffer from a heavy dose of not enough hours in the day. While all of our great technology makes things easier, it also causes us to be busier. Think about it. Most of us have a smartphone rooted in our hand throughout the day. When the phone isn't in our hand, we're in front of the computer or watching television. All of that time takes away from what we should be doing, becoming better prepared. Sadly, we're not the first to suffer from this. However, unlike some others, we have a distinct advantage in overcoming our time constraints. That distinct advantage is Ryan Mitchell of TheTinyLife.com. Ryan, as you will hear in the podcast episode, or when reading the free downloadable transcripts below, is a self-made person. Ryan has overcome adversity and struggles to now be independent and free. He's accomplished this through implementing the tactics and strategies discussed in the episode, which includes time management. At first, time can be difficult to manage, Fortunately, all it takes is time, dedication and situational awareness. What, situational awareness!? Yes,  by paying attention to how we use the time we have, we'll be better able to fine-tune our use to where we should be. As we do, our available time will open and when it does, we'll be better off because of our effort. Lastly... Never forget, you’re just one prep away. If you have any other thoughts or questions about prepper time management, please leave a comment below. Stay safe, secure and prepared, Thanks for Listening to This Episode! To carry on the discussion and ask questions: Leave a note in the comments below. Share Mind4Survival on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Leave a voice message by clicking on the "Record a Voice Message" tab over on the right side of your screen. To help out Mind4Survival: Subscribe on iTunes or through your preferred podcasting app. Leave an honest rating or review on iTunes. They help and make a difference. Like my Facebook page.