3 Rules to Life

all right welcome back to the studios of inside my canoe i hope you are all continuing to joy an incredible summer you're rocking an incredible life and whether it's raining or snowing wherever you may be in this world i hope it is everything that you want so today we're going to talk about simplification of life there really are three rules to rocking an incredible life and we're here to talk about it so sit back grab yourself your favorite beverage let's get at it a great guitar riff no better way to start off your day i hope you're enjoying this tail end of the long weekend here in canada you don't have that down in the states but guess what it's our long weekend up here we call it civic day natal day that depends wherever you are so today we want to talk about the three rules of life simplification of life we talk about in preparedness about how when you adopt a prepared life you take the necessary steps as we outline you follow the process you adopt a prepared life you wrap yourself in a blanket of preparedness it's all not only to just make you feel safe in the sense of against exogenous shocks but it's meant to be the catalyst to facilitate you chasing your dreams and rocking an incredible life and everything out there seems to be so complicated so complex so intertwined so interrelated it seems somewhat overwhelming so i've read a lot of self-help books over the days i've read some religious texts and i've read a bunch of other material and i've put together the three rules of life that apply to you and what rocking an incredible life really means what does that mean in practical sense so i use the tagline all the time so that's what we're going to do today and the first part of it is simply to pay your way and it means you should not work towards or become an unnecessary burden to the rest of society around you and that basically means you need to first of all earn an income you can do anything you can rock an incredible life on minimum wage contribute wonderfully to the society around you and be an awesome human being you can also do that as a corporate lawyer making 400 plus thousand dollars a year or as an entrepreneur making three to four million dollars a year the point being is it is your responsibility to earn an income to cover your basics now here inside my new head we call that your animalistic requirements your food water shelter health safety and security that is your responsibility to provide for you and the ones for whom you're responsible it's pretty simple you get in a free and democratic society you get to choose from a myriad of things that you could do skill sets are freely available to learn on youtube so there's absolutely nothing stopping you from changing your career to something that makes more money or something that brings more happiness and joy to your life right so the only thing stopping you from moving up that food ladder of money is you and the idea of paying your own way is that you cover your costs family work leisure travel whatever it is you want to do you learn to live within your means and learning to live within your means and this is something that dave ramsey and many other people talk about is it's actually learning to live below your means so basically you should live and require no more than roughly 80 percent of your income right if your income was cut from 180 you should be perfectly fine and it has no impact so you know some people talk about a whole bunch of different strategies for that i mean i put this in a very simple context right you have to run out of month before you run out of money and there's only two things that happen in a personal financial plan that's expenditures and revenue so you either need to earn more income or you need to cut expenses and you need to keep cutting until you run out of month before you run out of money and then have a preparedness plan and this is what preparedness plans do they wrap you in that blanket of preparedness because to pay your own way you also have to as part of your preparedness plan we talk about this in the book and i did a podcast episode on financial preparedness is there will be periods of time in your life that you're unemployed for any number of reasons whether it's a medical injury whether it means you're laid off and you're transitioning to another workplace that is your responsibility to cover the income necessary during that period whether that's an emergency fund or if you work in a country that has a government program whatever it may be it's your job to cover those costs right it's not society's job to pay your bills for you now here in canada for example we've got a great problem a program called employment insurance and it's funded by the users so that's not putting yourself a burden on society i pay into or i did when i was working in the military for 28 years i paid into employment insurance so that if i got fired or i was laid off from my job i would have a transitional income available to me to as i move from one to another now it's only gonna be 55 of the income but because i'm a prepared individual that was sufficient for the short period of time when i transitioned from one income to the next stream so that's not being dependent anybody it's a program you pay into that's what it's there for but paying your own way this is your idea and your number one rule of life is that you as you go through life you are not a burden to the collective society in which you're a member so the second role is to be a good person it's really that simple but what does that mean it means following the rules in the society for which you've chosen to live so if you're listening to this podcast and you live in a reasonably democratic country and you're of the age of majority let's call it 18 or 21 whatever it may be you can voluntarily start the paperwork to leave the society that you have citizenship in right you can migrate following the rules or you can choose to break the rules and become an illegal migrant but you can move so what it means is your society collectively has put together a set of rules about how they want people to conduct themselves in the society right so in canada it's called the criminal code there are a whole bunch of other statutory regulations at the provincial level about transportation speed anyhow there's a set of rules you know what those rules are and it is up to you to follow the rules that's what a good person does if you don't agree with the rules you need to be the advocate for change and there's a lot of great people out there in the protest movement and i support it vigorously i love good healthy protest movements i think they're wonderful whether you're a honk honker in ottawa or you're fighting for women's rights or you're fighting for the independent judiciary you're fighting for bank reform whatever it may be you advocate for change within the rules of society and if those rules you feel are too harsh on you or too difficult to navigate then it is your responsibility because you can no longer be a good person to then leave that society and go to a society that has a set of rules for which you believe you can follow and be kind to others it costs nothing to be nice being a jerk is being an idiot right being pumping up your chest and pounding on your chest to try to intimidate somebody else or this guy a meme on tiktok who's punching the window a buddy's car like really bud traffic road rage when you get that amped up when you get when you will and it's used to happen to me a lot so i'm speaking from first person advice when road rage happens and you get fired up about other people's driving it's not other people's driving that's firing you up it's that you are in a heightened state of anxiety and anger and that is something you need to address and we talk about it in the mental health preparedness episode that we did it's in the book it's one of the first three things that you do to adopt a prepared life is to take on mental health to make your life less stressful less anxious to you know to get rid of toxic people create time in your calendar for yourself these are essence to bring your anxiety level down be kind to others you have no idea what other people are going through you have no idea the challenges that they face they may just be smiling on a subway and they're on their way to verify the remains of a family member like you have no idea what people's lives are so just be kind don't be a jerk right now that doesn't mean you say yes to people i one of the greatest phrases that i heard was from matthew mcconaughey and he said hollywood got to understand very quickly that he was a really fast no and a really slow yes so if you ask me a question and you need an answer right away your answer is no doesn't matter what it is i mean unless you're a very immediate family member and i'm trying to save a life something short anything other than that if you need an answer for me right away the answer is going to be no because i consider things before i say yes i've learned now and i never used to do this that i say no to 90 of people who request me to things and that includes several business opportunities right it's not my gig it's not my stick right i'm not working with companies that i don't believe in their messaging i'm not working with people who hold views that i just find abhorrent right so i am a very rapid if you need an answer right away the answer is no unequivocally i don't care who you are if you need if you want to give me time to consider something absolutely i'll consider it and i'm more than likely to say yes if it fits in what we're doing but that's just being a good and kind person so your second rule for life is just be a good person and the last one is make your society better and we just basically this goes back to something that i hammer away in my inside my canoe head stuff that i do in the back country is leave no trace right you're not here to leave a trace you're not here to leave a legacy you're not here to build up this masterful set of works that people will be talking about you for decades in reality other than those people's lives you impacted and this is all that matters this is all that matters you don't have a u-haul behind a hearse and there's no bank account behind a hearse right let's be frank leave no trace the world is better off not knowing that you were here other than the people that mattered contribute to something that matters to you find a cause that matters to you something near and dear to your heart that you are going to help other people this is what i do here inside my canoe head this is why the tips that we put out on instagram and across social media that's why i put these podcast episodes once a week during the summer but normally twice a week during regular seasonal episodes is free of charge and it always will be free because this is my benefit this is my cause that i found that matters to me to get preparedness information out to the general public free of charge there's there is a no cost barrier to accessing all of my episodes to accessing all of the information i put out all the links are at my triple w inside my canoe head dot ca all the free stuff is there sure there's some paid stuff if you want to go down that road but my responsibility to my citizen here is to give back i give back to my society by making this information freely available and it always will be we're almost over 190 episodes approaching our 200th episode we've been at it for two and a half years uh three and a half years sorry and this is going to go on for a decade or longer as long as i'm here inside my canoe head will be a free podcast about emergency preparedness i just give back i give back in other ways i give back to veterans charities i help out in uh in veterans and mental health areas something that's very near and dear to my house my heart i've lost more friends uh to losing their fight against post-traumatic stress disorder than i did in the hands of the taliban that matters to me so i don't other than i just did it i generally don't say anything about that i just do it because that matters to me so your job leave the world a better place than you found it it's really that simple just make society better so as we hand our society off to our children for their generation to take up the mantle we're leaving it in a better condition than we received it and it's not that people before us did anything wrong it's that we keep learning and we keep doing better so as society progresses we are better off so think about that your three rules for life wrapped up in your blanket of preparedness you go out you rock an incredible life and you do these three things you pay your own way you don't become a burden to other people you are a good person you follow the rules in which the society you choose to live and if you can no longer follow rules then it is your responsibility to migrate out of the society into one to where you can follow the rules and the last way is to make society better make the place a better place than you found it contribute and be better now how difficult can that be it's not it simply means that if you want to do what i'm doing and being an entrepreneur right you're trying to build something you believe there's a problem in society that you think you have a solution and that you can help people out and why you're doing it that's how you choose to earn an income i did an episode called preparedness and the lamborghini lifestyle it didn't do all that well but i mean that happens periodically when you put it out there but it was about talking about how preparedness can facilitate right you've got three ways to earn an income three ways as i see it in society to pay your own way you can become an entrepreneur you can earn a salary from somebody uh or you can earn a salary and become an independent professional right so i can work for and i did i worked for a company for 28 years i was a member of the military for 28 years i worked for somebody else they decided everything including where i lived and where my family moved and then when i retired i earned a nice small but important little pension uh from the government and now i've become an entrepreneur right so you've got three ways to earn an income you can choose which way the idea of paying your own way is just that you understand that it's not somebody else's responsibility to pay your rent for you or buy your food for you so whatever choices you make when you live below your means when exogenous shocks like a pandemic hit they don't knock you completely off your pedestal and we talk about that in both the book and in three of episodes that i did on mental health physical health and financial health because when we look at preparedness right this episode is about the three big rules and simplification of life if you just follow these three rules that's how you rock an incredible life but how you adopt a prepared life starts off with this rule of three as well and that is your mental health your physical health and your financial health before you do anything else before you buy a jackery battery powered or you get a bug out bag or anything like that you have got to sort out you because you are your most important asset whether you're following the three rules of life whether you're rocking an incredible life whether you're working as an employee whether you're a father a mother a cousin a nephew it doesn't matter what role you fill you and only you have to sort out you and that means you have to get yourself in physical health no you don't have to be a bodybuilder but you are responsible for your physical health you are responsible for your mental health if you're living in a state of exceptional levels of anxiety stress you have to fix that now professional health is wonderful and it assists you but in the end it has to be you that makes that change that sits and looks that incredible person in the mirror and saying i can't keep doing this i have to figure out a way to live a less stressful advice and life and we give three pieces of advice on there that i've gleaned from both life experience and reading a plethora of information and research on mental health i took a course on mental health and society as part of my phd and one of the things that came out of it was when you assume responsibility you look at three things first is your calendar right you talk about your calendar you say to yourself um where's my space right you basically plan out your calendar what time am i committed to doing what things what do i do right where is it and then why isn't there any space in the calendar so you start carving out and what i did in this plan is i canceled all of my community commitments other than the one that enabled this podcast to go and my work with veterans other than that everything else carved out love community organizations that time is more valuable for me i then made a list of all the things that brought me stress and anxiety and this was the funny part right seriously you kind of got to laugh at it a bit it's a serious subject we gotta laugh at it i listed all of the things events and people that cause me stress right the whole world and it's a fun exercise to go through you kind of probably have to do this on your own but i used a whiteboard so i could erase it so there'd be no memory of it but i literally made that list right and then i looked at the things that were causing me stress were these voluntary if they were they disappeared i looked at the places that caused me stress could i avoid going to those places yeah okay they're gone uh and then the fun part which is the third evolution of mental health preparedness is looking at the toxic people firing friends firing family members even immediate family members firing them is perfectly okay and healthy that these individual are toxic narcissists and so i went through that process now you do the same thing with with your physical health you talk you look at your diet your exercise and the amount of sleep you get and then when you look at your financial preparedness you're looking at you've got to run out of month before you run out of money i don't care what it is you just got to keep cutting um my first apartment was four guys in a bachelor pad okay so if you're living with more than that kudos to you but if you're living on your own and you can't make your ends meet you're trying to get a bunch of roommates in there for you to help pay the bills i did it and then as my income rose i worked my way out of four guys to a room um to two guys to each room to living with my wife to carry on life from that point but you have to get yourself you have to take care of your own retirement that is your responsibility it's not society's responsibility to pay your bills when you're in your 70s and 80s that's yours and you have to be able to cover what i talked about earlier in the paying your own way segment is what is your responsibility what is your plan when you get fired because everybody leaves their job one way or another if you die that's a different story but you're either going to be quit fired or you're going to retire from your position so what's your plan when that happens right and that's what i talk about people if you want to look at the one of the four plans that are in our book preparing to simplify that's available triple w inside my from amazon and all your favorite sellers one of the four elements that's in there or the four scenarios that's in there is when you're fired like you need to have a plan right now it's in here in canada it's a holiday monday right so if you're listening to this on the holiday monday or any other holiday or at night before you go to work if you walk into work tomorrow you could get fired remember the pandemic you might remember that thing back in march of 2020 right wonderful people doing great work at healthy companies were fired on the spot very very few of them had a pivot plan and knew exactly what they were going to pivot to do in replace of that work that had now gone away right how many people do you know just sat at home hoping and waiting for everything to rectify to go back to their career how many people waited for that to happen right that's not a preparedness plan unless you have the money set aside to do that and how many people had the money set aside to do that so that's the idea behind simplifying your life following the three rules paying your own way being a good person and making society better it's not hard to do and when you take the effort to adopt a prepared life wrap yourself in a blanket of preparedness and then you get to go rock an incredible life following these three general rules you can decide to be a millionaire entrepreneur you can decide to be a minimum wage employee and have an incredible life or you can decide to work your way up through a professional career and climb the ladder climb ranks whatever it is that you decide to do these three rules should frame who you are and how you approach the world these are elements of preparedness it may not seem like it but these are the foundations of adopting a prepared life so thank you very much for joining us this week on inside my canoe head keep your commentary coming i know everything slowed down a bit uh the newsletters are not going out and they're not going to go out again until the following week uh we are taking a hiatus here all of the people and i would just shout out to all of the people here at preparedness labs incorporated who support inside my canoe head who are working really hard in the background that none of you ever hear about or see we greatly appreciate what you do i appreciate everything they do to support me just a shout out to everybody on the preparedness team take care have yourself an incredible awesome summer take risks take the leap do the things that you want to do a bucket list should be something you don't wait to make until you get some bad news from your doctor go out have it enjoy yourself live large but whatever you do wrap it in a blanket of preparedness take care stay safe and have an awesome week