Preparedness - Optimism for 2023

all right welcome to season five of inside my canoe head this canadian podcast it's all about the integration of leading an incredible awesome life individual responsibility individual emergency preparedness and how do we navigate life's incredible wild disruptions that we see among us sit back grab a beverage and enjoy the episodes all right welcome back to ottawa studios of inside i appreciate you joining us as we near the end of 2022 a year most people would say let's not do this again so this week's episode we're going to talk about my optimism for 2023 as an individual trying to live a prepared life so sit back grab yourself a beverage let's get at it so welcome back and a huge thank you for your patience as we get near the end of this year the episodes are less frequent i'm wrapping up a whole bunch of things as i'm sure a lot of you are in your lives and we're getting ready to launch 2023 in a big way in a new plan for inside my canoe head and its parent company preparedness labs incorporated that's going to come on a separate episode i'm going to leave the business model the how-to and whys and all that stuff to a later episode in 2022 today i just want to talk about being jacked for 2023 and i know in today's world it's awfully hard to sit down look around what's going on and be incredibly thankful for the wonderful opportunities that we had this year the incredible people that we met and what could be in store for us and great possibilities for 2023 i try to stick with my reflection on stoicism and stoicism teaches us at the most basic everything in life is a dichotomy of control you have a choice there are two everything falls into two categories one things that i can control and two things that i can't control and the things that i can't control are run by this phrase called amor fati which means i simply just joyfully accept the outcomes of things i can't control now that doesn't mean i'm happy about it joyfully accepting doesn't mean i'm wrapped in happiness when other people fail or people get into car accidents it means that i don't allow those things to cause undue harm or influence on me and cause emotional reactions i basically understand that there are a few things in life that i can control and those are the things that i'm going to worry about and it's very like mark uh mason's book on uh the subtle art of not giving a bleep right he says you have so many s left to give why would you give some of them up on things you can't control you save them for what things really really matter so i'm not one to make a whole bunch of annual commitments every year at the end of the year you know everybody plans to get fit we're gonna lose weight we're gonna do all these wonderful things and then by the end of january you're sitting in your fat pants wrapped in a blanket eating a bowl of chips waiting for the next year to come around to give it another shot no i try to look at it through the phrase of a goal what is my goal knowing clearly that i'm going to fail multiple times on my route to achieving this goal but i express the goal i write the goal down and i speak the goal on podcasts and i speak it on my social media feeds and i put it out there so the world sees what i'm trying to do so how do i set goals this is not how you should do it this is just what i do i am trying to live a prepared life i'm not a prepper per se i'm trying to live a prepared life that means i am working to wrap myself in my blanket of preparedness so that i may continue to rock an incredible life and chase my dreams now the blanket of preparedness has four quadrants four sectors of your prepared life that allow you to execute an incredible awesome existence one is my mental health one is my physical health one is my financial independence and the last one is my animalistic requirements that are made up of six individual things like food water shelter safety security and health right so those are four quadrants so i make one goal for each quadrant very simple you can follow the kiss principle you can follow the um what's that other one that has a smart goal so you can have smart goals you know goals that are s-m-a-r-t whatever the acronym is you know what i mean however you want to express it i have one goal for each quadrant so i write it down right so my physical one is i want to weigh on or about 180 pounds i want to be able to do 50 push-ups without stopping i want to be able to do 10 pull-ups without kipping and i want to be able to hold a plank for five minutes that's a very specific measurable and goal orientated physical standard right i want to weigh about that much because it's just good for my health based upon my body type and height not because it's any specific goal written in a book somewhere and the other ones are just measurable fitness goals that's my goal okay that's my fitness goal and so i have each one of those for my four quadrants related to living a prepared life so i have a fitness goal i have a mental health goal i have a financial independence goal and i have an animalistic requirements goal so each one of those are clearly written down in front of me i say them out loud and i repeat them regularly the one key success that i have found with goal setting is the word priority is not pluralized you cannot have priorities it's not plural you can only have one priority right in the military parlance we used to call this the main effort the operations order given to a battle group has a whole bunch of tasks in it sometimes dozens and dozens of individual tasks given to you know 15 or 20 different combatant commanders that are on the ground and support commanders only one is named the main effort that tells everybody that's in that order that every single activity you're doing is secondary to this primary one and if that primary one needs resources they get them and we will take those resources from you and you will still be expected to execute your task right main effort priority so at any one time until that goal is achieved i have one priority right one single of those quadrant is a priority and for me in 2023 that is my physical health because i a couple years ago i talked over the 58 group uh life starts to happen things start to pop up i've gone through the whole cardiology thing i've had a pretty rip-roaring experience with this flu and covid and rsv going around and you start to realize that everything else to me now this but to me everything that happens around me is facilitated by my physical health if i'm not in the greatest physical health that i could be then my mental health will suffer my ability to be financially independent will suffer and my ability to meet my animalistic requirements and move those beyond to a greater date or a greater capability or capacity are going to be lessened so for 2023 my priority is my physical health full stop it will take precedent over everything else that i do in my life right because remember this is not when you live a prepared life you do not make a choice between preparedness and earning a living right you know that work-life balance that doesn't exist when you live a prepared life we don't worry about that doing executing the past necessary to live a prepared life allow you to pursue your dreams and rock an incredible life right one facilitates the other it's not a balance between time and effort spent on one versus time and effort spent on another i'll get into that much more detail when we go into the work episode that's coming so knowing that that's how i set a goal so how do i set my schedule i get a lot of questions about especially since i retired from military in my late 40s and went on to another career how do you change that how do you do that so 2023 i've gone through probably seven or eight iterations of a planning schedule now there's a whole bunch of people that have great youtube videos and i'm gonna get my own out in 2023 on how to plan and how to set up a daily schedule uh everybody's gonna be slightly different but i think the main tenets are principled and worth repeating number one is discipline versus motivation motivation is fleeting it can come and go it can leave it can be great it can be bad discipline is the art of doing something when you do not want to do it when your alarm goes off at 0 5 30 in the morning and you gotta get downstairs have that first cup of coffee put on your sports gear and head out for a 45 minute walk with a weighted vest in pouring rain or freezing weather discipline is going when you have no interest whatsoever you don't want to go you feel like crap but you go anyhow motivation comes and goes discipline is what matters so you need to have discipline so in your in my schedule what works for me and this goes right back to what the military taught me over 20 odd years is eat the toad first right get the hard work done first do the things that are uncomfortable first and then the rest of your day will feel more free so i have a schedule where the first probably five hours of wakey wakey time is fixed and it's the same monday to saturday no breaks no changes whatsoever i get up at 5 30 i have a cup of coffee and this is 2023 i don't do it right now i'm enjoying a little bit of time right now after completing my phd and i'm eating some fatty foods but this is 2023 and it's starting in a couple of weeks so we'll be fine but the schedule is exactly that you get up at 5 30 you have your coffee i do my pt i come back i have my you know my poop shower shave my other coffee and then i get at work and i complete the daily tasks for my business that are set up for 2023 again what i'll talk about in the next coming video and then i have a priority task right one priority one project again priority is not plural in my work i have a daily set of repetitive tasks that repeat six days a week i take sunday off because everybody needs a day of rest and embrace your family and loved ones but i grind it out six days a week i have one priority i'm working on and the rest of that day is on that priority right that priority in uh and i'll just say it now uh in 2023 is finishing my book i've got a book where i've promised an incredible uh wonderful uh very patient editor um it's about 65 done now it has to be polished and run through a couple of editorial runs uh the whole point is i want to get that done and off to the printing press by the end of february so when i've done my daily repetitive tasks that are necessary so my fitness uh etc etc off i go okay not a problem uh the rest of the day is working on that book um but what franklin covey has said and i took a franklin covey course back in the year oh let me say it was 1998 and i was working at a recruiting center and i got this opportunity to go on a day-long course about a franklin covey uh work schedule and it stuck with me since then and there was an article uh that my boss my old uh oc used to send around called sharpening the saw and it's the old attitude here if i was given eight hours to cut down as many trees as i could i would spend the first four hours sharpening my saw so that the last four hours were as productive as possible uh with the sharpest saw possible uh there's something in every day for you right so what are you doing every day for you as a human being you got the repetitive task down um you've got your one work priority like your actual work you're doing your thing but what are you doing for you for me it's reading i have an insatiable appetite for learning right so i completed a phd in my 50s uh it's why i've signed up um to do some statistics classes in the new year because there's a certain part of statistics i don't know very well and i have to learn better i have this non-stop lifelong desire to learn as much as i can so i read i read every day i read different books i read books about thinking um right now i'm reading a book at the end of the world is just the beginning by peter zion it's about how the 2020s are reorganizing the world order uh right after that i have apocalypse never by michael schellenberger uh i've read a bit of that but i'm gonna go back and finish that book it's just about how the climate crisis is in fact not a climate crisis it's where humans adapting versus fighting the climate um anyhow that's the idea of doing something for you and you know some people are painters some people are drawers like my son is an incredible drawer and artist and he's always always no matter what pull he has in life he's always sitting at a desk and he's drawing and we can never buy him enough books to draw in and he's a wonderful hand drawer and that's his passion and that's what he does so he makes time for that in his day unconscionably he makes time for that in every single day so you think about 2020 you know you've got an idea of your set your goals you understand that you only can control what you can you've got an idea of what your schedule is going to look like uh you're making sure you're taking care of yourself but i'm gonna return to something in 2023 that i think is really neat so many years ago i wrote i wrote i read a book called the hundred thing challenged by dave bruno and it was my introduction to minimalism and the idea behind dave bruno's book was he just wanted to see for a short period short measurable period of time whether he could live with a hundred or less personal possessions not the ones he shared with his family in the house or the cooking utensils and things like that or anything that he shared with his spouse like a bed or anything like that it was or towels or anything communal was off but just him as an individual carrying on and making no other changes in his life could he live with a hundred possessions or less for a period of time and then what would that experience be like so he did that and i recommend this book to everyone to read uh and it just reminds you of the idea of minimalism which was expanded on in greg mckeon's book essentialism which is another must read if you're looking for must reads and the idea behind essentialism is it's kind of like what mark mason said in his book subtle art of not giving a f is we do we should only be doing what is essential to us what we find the greatest joy and happiness in and brings the greatest pleasure to our lives so you do only what matters and nothing else and one of the great quotes from greg in his book is and this was actually echoed by matthew mcconaughey the actor when he said if you want a quick answer from me it's always going to be no if you need an answer right now me committing to something my answer will be no i'm a very very quick no and a very long yes so in other words the way greg expands on in this book is is that if i look at an offer to do something in front of me and it's not an overwhelming like 90 feeling of what an amazing opportunity this is to do and i can't wait to do it i don't add it and i say no to my family when they need something sometimes and i say no to friends and i say no to all kinds of business opportunities i have very very little time available in my life and i guard it jealously and the idea being is that you're filling your life with with just as essential for you to reach your personal goals so a lot of people talk about minimalism as and dave bruno talked about the hundred thing challenge as this number right and i did that for a while i tracked the number of personal possessions i had and it went through that whole iterism and now for me it's matured to a when i look around every possession i have has a purpose right i have a series of set of personal activities that i undertake right inside my canoe head name comes from my daughter-in-law but it is from my passion for the outdoors i have a portage sign tattooed on my arm i love backcountry paddling right and so i've done that i've done that pretty much for 40 plus years so i have a lot of equipment but all of it is useful and it's equipment that i continue to use on a regular basis when i'm in the backcountry so it's useful um i love to hunt so i have quite and i love to trap shoot on the range so i have a number of a sufficient number of appropriate firearms and ammunition to execute that task so i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to hunt for a while i love to love to golf i mean i'm a you know an 88 to a 94 golfer right but i love to golf if i could golf seven days a week i would right so i have a basic set of golf clubs and i have a nice push cart so i can save on power carts uh so i have the necessary equipment to golf and if you start to look at what you have you start to understand that everything around you should facilitate the life you are pursuing remember because you designed your life remember this for 2023 when you're reflecting on what this year might have for you instead of promising yourself you're going to lose 30 pounds which goals aren't bad i've talked about that but think about everything around you and everything in your life serves a purpose and how do you intend to intentionally live your life in 2023 i'm finally going to buy a golf membership and i intend to golf three or four times a week i intend to do backcountry canoe trips several smaller ones i've got a new boat that i've got to test out i've got a massive yukon river trip that was planned for 2023 it's now been pushed to 2024 because my new boat i just don't have a sufficient enough experience at working with that boat to go on a 21 day backcountry unassisted canoe trip so the yukon river has been pushed to 2024 but i need a bunch of everything that i'm planning the intentionality of how i go about leading my life is literally ignoring the world right if you can read through everything that i've said today i have not once mentioned the chaotic pear-shaped warmongering covid infected nauseating bs that the world exists right now i haven't mentioned it once because i'm going after to live my life within a prepared life and i'm chasing my dreams and i'm going to do what i want irrespective of what is happening in the rest of the world now don't get me wrong i completely understand and i pay very close attention to what's going on in the world but i very much don't let that influence how i'm going to execute my life i just have a plan plans change they amend and you know what the last thing that i'll say is remember this failure is all the road to success the road to success is paved with failure and you're going to fail several times you're going to promise not to eat junk food and then you're going to eat junk food and then you're going to put the junk food away and say i'll never do it again and you'll have a good and then you'll fall off the wagon right failure exists to teach you a lesson something i learned in entrepreneurship 2023 i'm launching the third iteration of my business and the third iteration and methodology behind my social media the first two failed right here i am i've got a podcast it's doing reasonably well i've hit download in 45 countries but i've got a grand total of 30 subscribers on youtube and they're dropping every day right i've got my instagram to a thousand and i haven't been able to butt it much up over a thousand so there's a lot i've tried different methodologies i've tried some tiktoks i've tried different things and they failed right so here we are again sat back reworked launching a new strategy this is what entrepreneurship is like this is what life is like you're going to launch a plan and it's going to fail and you learn from that failure and you carry on the problem is is you a lot what a lot of people do is they fail and shut her down right no you'll learn from it you have patience as the infamous gary v says you know that's why people fail in this game of trying to build an online identity and become a quote-unquote influencer whatever you want to call it but build an online social media brand that they can translate into some type of financial independence people give up because they don't have the patience if you want to start a social media brand and i'm going to talk about this in next week's episode on the business you're waiting five years unless you luckily get viral blah blah blah you're going to wait five years do you have the patience to work at it every day three four hours a day every day seven days a week 365 for five years and maybe you'll be successful that's the patience that people don't have that's the failure that happens along the way and people give up i throw everything in i did everything for four months i didn't i didn't boom i didn't it's a bust i'm gonna go on and do something else and that's why the majority of people fail if you look at people like canadian prepper right he is the leading preparedness uh voice on youtube right now uh he's got about 850 000 subscribers but he's been at it for 10 years he's been at it for a decade to get there right everybody looks at him and says i'm going to start a preparedness channel or i'm going to start a channel in my area of expertise and i'm going to get to 850 yeah talk to me in 10 years are you really thinking 10 years so this is part of failure you have to understand it happens you have to embrace it learn from it and go from there so thank you very much for taking the time to listen to us this week on inside my canoehead um thanks for all the continued suggestions drop me a line at jeff at preparedness labs.ca go over to visit the websites triple w inside my canoehead.ca and triple w preparedness labs.ca both of those over the next couple of weeks are going through some iterations and changes as we set them up and prepare them for the january 2023 launch of the new business plan so with that uh continue to listen uh embrace your family embrace the people you love because that's really in the end that's all that really matters enjoy the holiday season irrespective of whatever spirituality you follow um remember we're all in this together social capital matters take care of each other and we'll talk to you soon stay safe you