Inside My Canoehead
265 episodes - English - Latest episode: 1 day ago -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.
Homepage Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Preparedness - Beyond Disasters
April 26, 2024 14:00 - 36 minutes - 24.8 MBif 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 others. We discuss the open door plan, the point at which your preparedness planning moves beyond the scope of disasters into a whole of life ideology - the loss ...
Entrepreneurship in Emergency Management
April 22, 2024 16:00 - 28 minutes - 19.7 MBEM 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, you need to become and expert in a niche, not a generalist. The discipline is rife with individuals who consult across the EM spectrum, from mitigation throug...
Crazy Tough World - How to Understand Your Risk
April 16, 2024 13:00 - 35 minutes - 24.7 MBThe 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, representing different areas of your life, from family squabbles, to national government regulatory impositions on the free market. Each of these introduce risk; ...
The Hard Choice to Change - My Story
April 12, 2024 18:00 - 45 minutes - 31.6 MBExhausted, 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 change and then set about a slow, rather very slow at times, methodological process to fix me, before I fired my job. Are you living the life you want, are you swin...
Journalism is Struggling, How to find Trusted Information
April 09, 2024 17:00 - 31 minutes - 21.9 MBJournalism 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 wishes. With the challenge of finding trusted sources, where do you look to seek facts when events occur? X is the best platform for trusted sources, not the plat...
Don't Let Political Turmoil Affect Your Life
April 05, 2024 19:00 - 33 minutes - 23.1 MBThe 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 and generally has many groups fighting consistently online. Why do you allow the words and expressions of others, especially in political affairs, cause you emoti...
Word Salad - Mitigation, Preparedness and Resilience
April 02, 2024 12:00 - 36 minutes - 24.7 MBThe 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, the pre-event decisions we make to be ready to navigate exogenous shocks. These intentional decisions create resilience as a by product, allowing us to absorb a...
Season 10 Intro and Reflections
March 26, 2024 13:00 - 29 minutes - 20 MBWelcome 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 greater probability of a positive outcome. Never a guarantee, but as the stoics famously say, paraphrased, is: "there is very little within our control and that is p...
The Story of Inside My Canoehead - Episode #250
March 18, 2024 16:00 - 41 minutes - 28.4 MBThank 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 accurate, evidence based information for preparedness, to provide the educational strategy to create your roadmap to adopting a prepared life, to accepting respons...
Becoming Prepared - Navigating the Chaotic 2020s
March 14, 2024 13:00 - 37 minutes - 26.1 MBYou 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 decade for very real and expected reasons and is likely to be this way to 2030-2032. This is a cyclical human experience dating back to the 1400s, humanity is j...
Safety & Security - When to Fight
March 11, 2024 15:00 - 35 minutes - 24.5 MBThe 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 little is within our control and that is precisely enough. Within the animalistic requirements of safety and security, your considerations include firefighting...
You Are the Most Important Asset in Emergencies - Invest in You
March 07, 2024 14:00 - 40 minutes - 27.6 MBVery 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 and you most certainly cannot assume a leadership role within your community if you are not in personal robust form. Invest in you, assess and take command of yo...
Don't Be A Liability to Your Future Self
March 04, 2024 15:00 - 28 minutes - 19.5 MBNo 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 human, are best prepared to navigate future exogenous shocks. Adopting a victim mentality is common in today's society, individuals who believe they are oppressed ...
Why You Own Stuff - Preparedness & Possessions
March 01, 2024 11:00 - 36 minutes - 25.2 MBWe 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 version of the modern day influencer (latest gadget, fashion trends). In preparedness there is a plethora of sources advocating for you to acquire a series of kits, b...
Kit, Equipment & Preparedness
February 26, 2024 15:00 - 36 minutes - 24.8 MBPreparedness 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 for the new prepper, or the 15 things that will be unavailable after the collapse or my favourite, the 5 things for barter in SHTF. We believe in evidence based p...
Communications on the Move
February 23, 2024 13:00 - 26 minutes - 18.5 MBWe 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 are thinking. However, there are times when communication will be required, when you'll need to change the plan - then you'll need to know: text one word instructi...
Mobile Preparedness - On the Move
February 19, 2024 15:00 - 34 minutes - 24 MBEDC, 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 the involvement of critical infrastructure. We then examine considerations for local, inter-state and international travel. How will you provide for the animalis...
Risk Tolerance and Your Life
February 15, 2024 14:00 - 31 minutes - 21.9 MBYour 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 preparedness mobility. It is a root cause of your current physical, mental and financial health - whether you believe you are ready for chaos, whether you're happ...
Your Personal Risk Profile - Navigating Chaos
February 12, 2024 15:00 - 30 minutes - 21 MBRisk 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, understanding that risk is individual and a function of personal choice, comfort with uncertainty, self confidence, self-efficacy and personal bias. In the end, the ver...
Better Post Event Outcomes
February 08, 2024 14:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MBPreparedness 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 prepared so that when something occurs beyond your control there is little to no impact on you chasing your dreams. Leveraging the exercise of understanding your ...
Preparedness and Critical Infrastructure
February 05, 2024 14:00 - 28 minutes - 19.9 MBWe live in a technologically enabled modern and connected society. We wake daily assuming a host of services and systems will function, from the power grid to the sewage system, from the cell network to the healthcare facilities. We assume away a host of risks that exist - to build a personal preparedness plan you need to understand the risks to which you are exposed to, assess those and determine whether changes are necessary to address unacceptable risks. Our research and evidence based me...
Networking for Preparedness
February 02, 2024 16:00 - 24 minutes - 16.8 MBOur relationships are the key to preparedness, it's a lifestyle not a stockpile. We build our social connections based upon norms of reciprocity - that people will do good for you, if you've done it for them, as well as trust - you'll do what you say. Those are the foundation of social capital, which is the potential resources that exist within your network of relationships. In preparedness, we think of the need to be self-sufficient, but we rarely consider the community as a the appropriat...
Financial - The Overlooked Key to Preparedness Planning
January 29, 2024 17:00 - 28 minutes - 19.5 MBWe know disasters, natural and man made. We've seen their impacts, but there is another catastrophic event that is often overlooked and ignored in preparedness discussions - loosing your income. It doesn't matter why, whether it be another pandemic, a fire at the business, an owner's decision to retire, or you were simply not part of the restructuring plan. What do you intend to do when you're fired, how will you earn an income to meet your necessary commitments? That's your responsibility t...
Evacuate Now! - Scenario Planning
January 26, 2024 14:00 - 31 minutes - 21.4 MBEvacuation is the most dangerous event in preparedness for a family, the most impactful and life changing. Have a plan - a well rehearsed plan that you and your family understand. Evacuations are mandatory or voluntary, immediate or slow burn and they happen at the most inconvenient of times. The only practical advice is to have an evacuation plan as part of your trifecta of preparedness plans. If the kids are at school, what does the school board plan to do with them in an evacuation? Norma...
Most Dangerous - Evacuation - 5 Practical Tips
January 22, 2024 15:00 - 34 minutes - 23.7 MBThe totality of scenarios that may affect a family are on a spectrum, from the most likely, power loss, to the most dangerous, evacuation. We have all watched the panic evacuations from wildfires online, seen the interviews with families that have lost everything - this is terrifying for anyone. Hence, a well understood evacuation plan is one of the trifecta of preparedness plans required for a family / community in a modern, technologically enabled society. This episode provides 5 practical...
Power Loss - The Scenario and Impacts
January 19, 2024 14:00 - 29 minutes - 20.2 MBThis first week of practical preparedness comes to a close with a discussion of a power loss scenario and the cascading impacts on families and society. Considerations from access to cell and internet, to point of sale systems, transportation, fuel, potable water in high density housing and a host of other impacts. Your employment may pause and in these times of increased inflation with many families living at the edge of their resources, a loss of a week's income may be catastrophic. Prepa...
Power Loss - 5 Practical Evidence Based Tips
January 15, 2024 15:00 - 31 minutes - 21.8 MBPower is the most important sector of critical infrastructure, the one that supports all the others and facilitates our modern integrated and technologically enabled society. Without it, we have significant disruption in our lives, so what can you do? These 5 practical tips, based upon understanding your minimum power profile, are the foundation of developing a plan that includes assessment of your self confidence, comfort with uncertainly and your attitude. Learn to not be a professional ...
Season 9 Intro - Practical Preparedness
January 04, 2024 14:00 - 21 minutes - 14.6 MBHappy New Year. Welcome to season 9, where we bring the theory and ideas from the first 8 seasons and translate those into a practical, 10 week presentation of actual and reasonable executable tasks for you to build a household emergency preparedness plan. We've spent the last 3 seasons championing the idea of personal responsibility, that you and you alone are responsible for your outcomes. It is you that must be ready to navigate exogenous shocks, it is not the government's responsibility ...
2023 in Review - Preparedness & Life
December 28, 2023 19:00 - 25 minutes - 17.6 MBEvery year comes to a close, some with great memories and some with significant challenges. If we wish to grow and learn, we need to reflect on the year that was, warts and all, embrace decisions made, opportunities turned away and in essence, review to our best ability our annual performance. If you did not have a personal strategic plan, then you're left with a bit of a dancing routine, trying to remember what happened, the events, what you wanted to achieve and how frustrated / excited y...
Rock 2024 - A Free Strategy
December 21, 2023 21:00 - 30 minutes - 20.8 MBRocking 2024 requires no money, only an investment of time. Economic barriers are a myth. This is the time where the social media feeds are deluged with ideas and recipes for everyone to become their greatest self in 2024. Happens every year, non stop. However, each one of these are not based upon you, your dreams, or your definition of success. Our recipe is for you to determine your 2024 goals within the areas you control - physical, mental and financial health + relationships and your pr...
How to Build a Go / Bug Out / Get Home Bag & Why
December 18, 2023 15:00 - 34 minutes - 23.5 MBWe're going there, the quintessential preparedness foundation, the ubiquitous bug out bag that is the gold standard of idiocy in the prepper space. The kits are constructed principally for mental health, to provide a sense of security, the idea that you've taken steps to ready yourself and your family to navigate disruptions. But you haven't. Preparedness is about ensuring better post event outcomes & there is no evidence to support a correlation, let alone causation, between the constructio...
Leave the World Behind - My Thoughts
December 15, 2023 14:00 - 37 minutes - 25.9 MBLeave the World Behind is a popular new film on Netflix, depicting the failure of modern society, the collapse of communication and the struggle of seven humans to navigate a situation. We discuss the film through the lens of each character representing an element of US society, and the greater western world, and how each of those choose to react to the world, the challenges presented. Further, we discuss the city vs rural ideas, the scenario itself, the use of fear and racism in US discours...
Preparedness and Community - Your Secret Weapon
December 11, 2023 14:00 - 27 minutes - 18.7 MBCommunity is your sense of belonging, of place; it's spatial, not bounded by geography, but crossing municipal boundaries. It may be based upon a faith group, service organization, extended family or your physical neighbourhood. Knowing that preparedness is the totality of attitudes and actions that empower you to navigate exogenous shocks, connecting you to the space in which you live is the best, free thing you can do. It's the evidence, not what you believe, but what we know, from studyi...
Your 2024 Recipe for Success
December 08, 2023 14:00 - 33 minutes - 22.9 MBPreparedness is a foundation, a lens through which you examine the world. The future is unknown, though 2024 will be a challenging year with economic, conflict, political and humanitarian strife. These are difficult things to navigate, the shocks are impactful and significant. They are also beyond your control. In this episode we examine what is likely to occur in 2024, why your family preparedness plan is so important and how to set your year up for success. By strategically mapping the y...
Survival Minimums - Weather & Risk Specific
December 04, 2023 15:00 - 28 minutes - 19.6 MBThriving vs surviving - our goal is to encourage you to thrive, to provide advice that will encourage you to create a preparedness plan that facilitates thriving in an emergency, vice surviving. Thriving is achieved when you are capable of conducting your full suit of normal activities despite the incident, your personal and professional life remains unaffected by the event and you are capable of continuing to rock an incredible life. The current suite of professional preparedness communica...
Be Prepared and Live Stress Free
December 01, 2023 13:00 - 28 minutes - 19.5 MBStress is worrying about the future, something that has yet to happen, likely will not and in any event, is probably beyond your control. In fact, we as individuals control a scant amount of events that we're expose to, an incredibly tiny fraction of what is going to happen is within your control, yet most of people choose to worry, stress and fret. Do you live in the positive world - embracing life as it is, where it is for what it is? Or do you live in the normative world, complaining abou...
Leadership and Preparedness
November 27, 2023 15:00 - 28 minutes - 19.5 MBLeadership is the art of persuasion and influence, to encourage and motivate employees and colleagues from compliance to commitment. Our episode on becoming the CEO of your life was the foundation of leadership, this episode discusses the how - how do we "do" leadership. Strategic thinking is the skill, the competency to look forward, to see the world for what it is, not what we would like it to be, see past our bias and therefore make informed analytic decisions in both our personal and pro...
Preparedness - What is It and Why? A First Principles Review
November 17, 2023 14:00 - 30 minutes - 20.8 MBWhether you're new to preparedness or you consider yourself a prepper, we should periodically reflect on our why, what is it that we're doing and the reasons for the efforts, a first principles review. That means returning to the foundation of the idea, that preparedness is about accepting responsibility for your outcomes, that it is about insulating you and your family from exogenous shocks that are beyond your control and thinking through potential scenarios. Preparedness is about understa...
Preparedness is Strategic Thinking - Become the CEO of Your Life
November 14, 2023 14:00 - 34 minutes - 23.4 MBIn a rut? Cannot see the forest for the trees? Buried under pressure? Imagine a roadmap to a place you want to be, a five year plan to extricate you from your now to a place you design, along a pathway you create, with goalposts you set. This is the application of corporate strategic thinking to your life, to preparedness. The education strategy designed by Preparedness Labs Incorporated is grounded in the latest research, following the principals of corporate CEO style thinking. Designing t...
EDC and Preparedness
November 10, 2023 14:00 - 31 minutes - 21.8 MBEvery Day Carry. What do I carry and why? What is the thesis behind my decision to carry a wallet, phone, flashlight and pocket knife? That's the entire system I have, supported by the decision to always wear climate appropriate clothing and consider whether I am equipped to walk home from wherever I'm going or anywhere enroute. A simple concept, born from experience. Preparedness plans are grounded on your shelter in place strategy. When you're not at home, then consider how long will take...
Hoarding in Preparedness
November 06, 2023 13:00 - 28 minutes - 19.4 MBWe are bombarded by communications, either through legacy or social media that we are on the precipice of calamity, that the global order is teetering on collapse and was such, it intentionally induces fear - the most powerful of emotions. In the early months of the pandemic, the population feared the virus, until we understood the vitality, death rate and transmission. Once a target of fear sees a pathway through the problem, the power of fear is deflated. Hoarding is a reaction to scarcity...
Food - A System for Preparedness
November 02, 2023 13:00 - 28 minutes - 19.6 MBNapoleon is famously quoted as stating that an army marches on its stomach. Cooks are important, we wouldn't be here if we didn't have at least one. For preparedness, we view food as a system, with several stages: acquire, store, prepared and dispose. Non-perishable food is good for a few hours, but on day four of no power and you try to hand out granola bars, you'll have mutiny. Hence, the need to have an alternate heating capability as part of your shelter in place plan, be that a BBQ, cam...
Overwhelmed and Stressed - Go to the Mountains
October 30, 2023 13:00 - 31 minutes - 21.9 MBBack on air after a short break, we discuss the powerful stress imposed by war, hate, racism, inflation, economic loss and a myriad of other exogenous shocks. Sometimes we need to return to basics, to first principles and re-invent ourselves. No one is coming to help you, it is up to the incredible person in the mirror. My recent trip to Banff was not only a conference, but a time to pause, to reflect and recharge. I use a simple philosophy, the three rules for life: Pay your own way, Follow...
Transitioning to a Prepper
October 20, 2023 16:00 - 24 minutes - 16.6 MBThe term prepper means something significantly different to individuals in the preparedness field. We provide a definition based upon research and a logical linkage to the sectors of critical infrastructure and the replication of one or more sectors or integral elements for the medium to long term. We discuss the differentiation in the prepper planning for the most likely and lost dangerous scenarios, as well as their considerations for financial income loss. Preparedness Labs Incorporated i...
Chaos - Natural, Financial and Conflict Hazards - How to Navigate
October 17, 2023 13:00 - 36 minutes - 25 MBThe world is chaotic, crazy and seemingly coming undone. You feel helpless, under significant pressure from natural, financial and conflict hazards. How are you supposed to win or at least survive under these circumstances? Preparedness. Having a preparedness plan, grounded in a shelter-in-place strategy, with the trifecta of plans will set you up to best navigate the disruptive 2020s. The stoic philosophers speak to the need to differentiate between that which we can control and that which...
The Trifecta of Preparedness Plans
October 13, 2023 14:00 - 41 minutes - 28.4 MBYou've accepted personal responsibility, identified those for whom you'd be responsible along with their personal needs, created a shelter in place plan for 14 days to provide the six animalistic requirements for those individuals and now you want to know what to plan for. Scenarios are numerous and if you consider every possibility, there will be dozens. Research tells us that emergencies fall on a spectrum, from the most likely to the most dangerous. We believe that if you plan for the ext...
You Have the Right Not to Have an Opinion
October 09, 2023 14:00 - 26 minutes - 18.2 MBMarcus Aurelius is quoted as, "you always own the option of having no opinion" and "things are not asking to be judged by you". You are responsible for your mental health and the amount of stress and anxiety in your world. You can control the stimuli and remove those to the greatest extent possible, as well as offering no opinion on any cultural, ideological, political or religious event or commentary. As well, you are not obliged or required to offer anyone an explanation as to why you hav...
Preparedness - It's a Lifestyle, not a Stockpile
October 05, 2023 13:00 - 27 minutes - 18.9 MBPreparedness is a lifestyle, a way of navigating life, through the lens of adopting a prepared life, being ready to manage chaos, find solutions and bounce back better and faster, all while wrapped in a blanket of preparedness. Stockpiles are not a strategy, it's a commercial journey, exchanging money for protection. This leads to a false sense of security and may facilitate poor decisions in a crisis. Our education system at IMCH is research based, it's a self help journey not too different...
Priority & Preparedness
October 02, 2023 13:00 - 30 minutes - 20.9 MBMuch maligned and misused, the word priority does not have a plural. This is a principal rule in preparedness, that you cannot have multiple priorities, you have many tasks that you're undertaking, but there can only ever be one priority - you may shift it upon review, but that is your main effort, the thing that will take resources away from all your other plans and activities. It is reviewed as part of your monthly preparedness plan review, but you never have more than one. Personal health...
Overwhelming Stress
September 28, 2023 13:00 - 38 minutes - 26.3 MBStress, necessary for life and an important element in the human animal's response systems. However, high degrees of or sustained stress is harmful and can lead to coping measures that are themselves causing harm. Life can be tough, stress can be debilitating for some - so how do you deal with this? You are in control of what you do and how you act. You have no control over the external stimuli you're provided - people, places, events. Determining whether you'll become angry, sad or otherwis...