Situational Awareness and Survival Planning Session

 In this session, we unveil the essential mindset and skills needed for survival, drawing from the  wisdom of an old Army vet. We'll share practical and actionable tips on everything from the importance of knowing where your first aid kit is, to maintaining physical fitness to boost your chances of survival, to always carrying essential items. As we navigate through these insights, you'll come to understand why situational awareness is key to maximizing your reaction time during unforeseen events. 

The session also delves into the necessity of flexibility and reassessment when plans change, and by the end of our discussion, you'll be equipped with a proactive approach to creating your own personal blueprint for survival and well-being, all while prioritizing self-care in emergencies. Stay prepared, stay active, and stay alert with the knowledge from this empowering session.

Transcript

Survival Mindset and Preparedness

Speaker 1 0:00

Power and peace to all of my good people out there. Welcome to another session with Shea. This session is the next part I'm calling get yourself right. Previous sessions were we spoke about supplies and what you need them for and if you can't get this, what you might can do with that, that type thing. And in the next session we're going to talk about, you know, those different types of plans, those scenarios, scenario based. If A or B happens, what should you do? But that's the other sessions. This particular session we're talking about the mindset, of going about getting your mind right for the things that may or may not happen.

Speaker 1 1:17

But it's good to just know in your mind what you need to start thinking about and start in your mind what you need to start thinking about and start, you know, adjusting your reality to be. The thing that I'm going to read from today is titled Survival Tips and Tricks from an Old Army Vet. Now, I'm not going to read it verbatim because, well, word for for word, because it's just like a lot of extra military terms and verbiage that I won't bore all of you with, but, um, a lot of the things that are spoken about here are very, um, important and could just be. You know survival tips and tricks, as the uh the title suggests. So if I sound like I'm jumping around a bit, please grant me grace for that, because I'm trying to spare you the military mumbo jumbo, as it were. Uh, anywho, uh, embrace reality.

Speaker 1 2:20

You could face danger at any time. Big facts Some places are much safer than others, but nowhere is completely safe. Lots of people don't really grasp this, which is understandable. If you're stuck outdoors in a blizzard or shopping in town when the zombie apocalypse strikes, it's easy to recognize the risks. But what about when you're relaxing at home? It's natural to be less prepared. Guess what a lot more people are injured in accidents at home than in blizzards. When you're outdoors, you should always know where your first aid kit is stashed in your gear, so you can get to it quickly in an emergency. Exactly the same applies at home. You probably won't have an emergency there, but if you do, you need to be ready. That's a whole true statement too. You can have as many first aid kits in your home or survival supplies, but when the shit hits the fan and you don't know where none of that shit is at. It's not. It's going to delay the process of you getting yourself together if you have to take a moment to search for shit. Trust, if we've ever been looking for something that we know we have and we can't find it in emergency situation, we're trying to alleviate those feelings by just knowing where your shit is at.

Speaker 1 3:44

When it's time to use your shit, be fit to survive. If you're out of shape, survival is going to be more difficult in any situation. You'll struggle to move fast when necessary or to keep going long enough to escape a danger in your area. Poor fitness makes you more vulnerable to infections and to the effects of the cold. If you go into a survival situation at a disadvantage, your chances of coming out on the other end instantly go way down. You don't need to put yourself through a special forces fitness program, but make an effort to keep in condition. If you need something from a neighborhood store, walk there instead of taking the car. Walk the dog yourself instead of getting the kids to do it, and if they insist on doing it, go with them. Just staying active will get you most of the way to where you need to be, and that's true too. I mean, we're all trying to be better day in and day out, but it's the the small things we know we can accomplish. To just at least get moving is a always a great victory, I think.

Speaker 1 4:56

Anyway, uh, carry the basics. There's a growing, growing trend for everyday carry or EDC bags. That's Echo, delta, charlie, edc. These are loaded with stuff that will help you get you through any day today, emergencies. If you feel like carrying one, that's great. But even if you don't, there's a bare minimum you should still. You should have with you at all times. There's a bare minimum you should still. You should have with you at all times.

Speaker 1 5:26

These are, these are some sort of cutting edge, a way to start a fire and a light source. The best way to make sure you always have them with you is to put them on your key ring, which means they need to be small, but that's easy enough to do. The cutting edge can be be a small folding knife, if that's legal where you live. Again, if that's legal where you live. But if it isn't, you can find a whole range of compact survival tools that include an edge but don't count as knives. Add a small butane lighter and a small led flashlight and the basics are covered.

Speaker 1 6:08

The more complicated your basic survival gear, the more likely it is to go wrong. Good quality, simple items might have fewer features, but you can rely on the ones that they do have working when you need them. I have a survival tool on my key ring. It is a tiny piece of bent titanium that fits over a key, but it includes a bottle opener, a cutting edge and several screwdrivers. It has no moving parts, so it will never go wrong. I have one of those too, loki Haki. The same goes for your other stuff. A simple flashlight powered by one AA cell is all you need. You can always find double A's, but you might not be able to recharge a lithium battery. Standard butane cigarette lighters are cheap and light enough that you can carry a couple of them, and they are reliable.

Speaker 1 7:06

The little things right. Be alert. This one here is so. These next couple of ones are very important to me anyway. I think the more time you have to react to a problem, the better To give yourself the maximum possible warning.

Speaker 1 7:22

Maintain your situational awareness. Pay attention to what's happening around you. If you're in a strange city, don't walk around with your AirPods plugged in. Keep your eyes and ears open If something seems to be happening near you, pay attention and make a mental note of anyone who starts to look familiar. They could be following you. They could be following you. Good situational awareness will let you avoid a lot of problems altogether so that you can start reacting to others in time to really improve your odds of surviving. So the whole situational awareness thing is such a big, big deal.

Speaker 1 8:09

I people watch when I go out, which don't judge me, but people watching is very interesting because you see how oblivious people can be to the most basic of things. People will be walking in the street and not know that the light is against them and they'll just keep walking. And, granted, you know, drivers are supposed to be aware at all times and if people are in the crosswalk they're supposed to let the people walk. But again, if you're relying on someone else to pay attention for you, you've already lost the battle right there. So basic, simple things of just being aware of your surroundings. So basic, simple things of just being aware of your surroundings, like if you see a whole crowd of people and maybe you don't understand why they're in that crowd, maybe not, maybe be more aware of what's going on or separate yourself from the situation altogether.

Speaker 1 9:13

Being aware of your situation and your surroundings is a high key gem. Know your environment. Situational awareness will keep you updated on everything, close enough to hear and see. But that gives you quite a small bubble. Expand it by getting to know the place you're in Before you travel somewhere. Do some research. Read local news, headlines and reviews by others. Make a mental note of any areas that are best avoided, but also remember places that might be useful to you. If you're staying in a hotel, find out where the nearest police station, hospital and bank are. Check their opening hours. Locate a taxi. Locate taxi rank near the hotel too. If you need to leave in a hurry, that's the best way to do it.

Speaker 1 10:05

I agree with this passage here as well. If you're going to a new place, whether it's for business or for pleasure or anything like that, it's always good to just keep a little bit of a heads up on where you're going to be at. I don't know about the whole extremes of the police station and the hospital, but if you need to know those things to give you a certain level of peace of mind, I am not going to tell you not to do that. Tell you not to do that, but get to know the areas that you're going to be staying in, whether it's for a short amount of time, middle, a long period of time, nothing, nothing is wrong with knowing where you at or the area which you're going to be in, for whatever timetable you're going to be in it. So I totally agree with that.

Speaker 1 10:51

The rules of seven P's proper planning and preparation prevents piss, poor performance. My apologies if my P's were popping there. There's a politer version that only has six P's, but I learned it in the army and soldiers are rude. Anyway, you can't plan for everything because life is unpredictable, but plan for what you can predict. What will you do if you wake up at 3 am and your bedroom is filling with smoke, or if your car gets stuck in deep snow? Are you going to stay with it or try to find shelter? Hint, stay with it. Yes, if that situation happens, please stay with the car, because people are going to go look for a car and once they find the car, they found you. But if you decide to go, walk away and do other stuff, now they got the double problems. They got to find you in a storm or wherever you're stranded from. You in a, in a storm or wherever you you're stranded from. But anywho, if you're traveling and the local news announces that el presidente has been overthrown by a military coup, what's the quickest and safest way to leave the country? Keep your plans as general as possible so they can be quickly adapted to different situations.

Speaker 1 12:09

Situations. Know where you are. This sounds obvious, but it's an easy one to forget. Wherever you are, make sure you can always put your finger on a map and say I am here In an unfamiliar city. Carry a street map and check it regularly. If you can't find your location on it, stop and work out where you are. Now, I know he said street map and I know it's 2024, but when shit hits the fan, if it needs to, or if you know what, if you don't have your phone, how will you figure out where you are in a strange city If you don't have your phone? How will you figure out where you are in a strange city if you don't have your phone? Sure, you can ask somebody in a store if you're near a store, or what if it's two, three o'clock in the morning, which? Why are you out at two and three o'clock in the morning in a strange place without your phone? But that's a whole, nother question. But these are things. So, if you need to think about where you are, think about how you can have these safeguards with you, just in case you don't have a phone or a street map Anyhow, only move when you are sure that this is the way you'll.

Speaker 1 13:26

This is the way. This is the way. This way, you'll always be able to make your way back to your hotel, to the train station or wherever else you decide you need to be. It's the same when you're hiking or hunting. You should never go into the wild without at least a map and a compass. Even if you are familiar with the area, always check the next stage of your route on the map. Note the things you should expect to be seeing and if you don't see them, stop and work out what's going on.

Speaker 1 13:59

Stay flexible. Whatever you're doing, be ready to change it at a moment's notice. That is a life gem right there. It's easy to assess a situation, decide what to do, then focus on it. It's also a mistake. You need to stay alert and regularly assess what's going on. Otherwise, you'll be concentrating so hard on dealing with one problem that another one might take you by surprise. Also, be ready to admit that something's not working.

Speaker 1 14:34

Don't keep plugging away in the hope that your 10th attempt will do better than the other nine. Stop for a moment and consider if there's another way to do it. Maybe there isn't. If not, then go right ahead and try again. But if there is, try that instead. The effort you put in your first solution doesn't matter, just as long as you come up with something that works. These basic tips are the foundation of all military survival skills. Put them into practice and you'll be halfway to getting through any crisis that may come up. Now let's look at some more specific ideas.

Speaker 1 15:21

Plan your routes. It's always a good idea to know a few alternate routes between your home and the places you visit. That helps out in a day-to-day life. Road work can block your usual route, and knowing a backup will help you get to work on time. It's an even better idea to vary your route randomly. That's a gem too. Do not always go the same way twice. Never mind, I'm not telling you what to do, but I will highly suggest that if you're going the same route every day and there's alternate routes, try to take a different route, because if there is a situation where you can't take that route that you take every day. The other route will be readily available for you. Hopefully it will, I mean, you never know but it's better to at least know a different route, just in case you need to know it. Varying routes, uh, means anyone planning to ambush you has a much harder job. Just in case you know, you should also plan the routes in advance to avoid driving into a dead end where you could be blocked and trapped. That would be annoying.

Speaker 1 16:39

Control exits. When soldiers move into an urban area, like a market square, the first thing they do is drop off a detachment to control the exit. That way, if all goes pear-shaped, which is upside down, their way out will be open. Now, you and me can't do that, but there are steps we can take to help keep escape routes open and reduce the threat of entrances. This is something I do wherever I go, if you know me. When you're in a bar or restaurant, always pick a spot where you can see the door. That way you know who's coming in and out. It sounds very basic and simple, simplistic, but it's. It's a thing.

Speaker 1 17:23

If you're sitting near the door, make sure you don't have your back to it. If you think a situation is developing, make sure it isn't between you and the only available exit. Don't get focused on the front door either. If you're're spending any length of time in one place, make sure you know where all the exits are. That is another gem. Whenever I go into a space, even if I've been in that space a thousand times I always check to find every exit and entry point in a particular room or a particular building. If it's an infrequent thing, like it's my one and only time going in that building, I'm at least at minimum going to know where the exits. One at least one extra exit is If cause, if you trying to tell you, anything can happen at any given moment. So just taking an extra two or three seconds to know exactly where an alternate exit is could be, um, that could be a great thing, depending on if something go left. So, uh, think 3d.

Speaker 1 18:31

Humans evolved on the african continent and we tend to think it in two dimensions. We're used to being at ground level and watching for threats at ground level. One of the reasons urban combat creates such horrific casualty rates is that this model breaks down badly. You might be at ground level, but threats could be watching you from an upstairs window or moving beneath your feet in tunnels and even in sewers. Be wary when walking under bridges. That should be a thing either way, but muggers have been known to drop things on victims below than to descend to rob them. That sounds very spider-man. But also be ready to use bridges under underpasses and even roofs as a way to move around potential trouble spots.

Speaker 1 19:25

If you're in a city and a riot breaks out, often your best bet is to get to an underground transit system as fast as possible and jump on a train heading for the suburbs. That I don't know. I don't live in a city like that, so I don't know if that's the best course of action thing to do. If there's something like that going on, I don't think I would want to be underground, because what happens if the underground stops working? Now you're stuck underground during a situation. I don't know, but those who live in a city might have a different perspective on that.

Speaker 1 19:58

But anyhow, don't stand out. In a world of social media and selfies. It sometimes seems like life is about attracting as much attention as possible. If your aim is survival, you might want to take a different approach If trouble breaks out, whether the shit hit the fan or there's a more localized thing going on. The last thing you want to do is attract attention. Even at the best of times, there's always a risk of being targeted by robbers, and and standing out makes that risk go way up. This all might sound like oh duh information, but I'm going to say it anyway.

Speaker 1 20:43

Don't display valuables, because that makes you a target. If you don't need to carry valuables, don't. If you do need to carry them, do it discreetly. Stay mobile. In a major emergency, public transit will be an early casualty, but is a valuable resource and a lot more routine crisis. If you've been robbed, had a minor accident or your plans have been upset in some way, public transportation can be your best way of getting home or out of a problem area, as long as you have money on your fare, of course. In a city, public transit is going to be your action plan.

Speaker 1 21:25

If your city has a prepaid card system, get a second one and load it with enough cash to cross the whole city at least twice. Then carry that card somewhere secure, but not in in your wallet. That way, if you lose your wallet, you can still get home, and I don't. I don't know if that works for everybody, but that's for me. I always keep an extra 20 in my wallet at any given moment, but money is losing its use at this point. A lot of places don't carry money anymore. Its use at this point. A lot of places don't carry money anymore. So, whatever you need to do, even if it's just a debit card with just a set amount of money on it, whatever you need to do to be able to pay for your way to get home if you need to in a situation, contain your curiosity. Sometimes the best extraction plan is to not get into a situation you need to be extracted from.

Speaker 1 22:26

Say that civil disorder is becoming part of urban life and you never know when or where it's going to break out. If you see signs of something happening lots of cop cars with their sirens going up or groups of young men converging in one direction don't head that way to see what's going on. You could get caught up in a riot and not be able to get yourself out of it and could fall victim to either the rioters or shots from cops, or shots from cops. Now, that particular situation is only for people. If you're out in a city, maybe, and you went to dinner and then you come out to dinner and there's just a whole group of people and they look mad and you don't know why they mad. Don't feed the anger. Don't just say, hey, I want to be mad with them and see what's going on. Why do that? Granted, I'm only speaking to a particular people who actually do that. If you're. If you don't do that and you know better, then we do better.

Speaker 1 23:27

But I'm just saying there are some times when curiosity gets the best of people and your intentions might be just to see what's going on. But that level of curiosity not knowing what's going on, especially the way shit pops off from zero to nothing these days that curiosity could be the one thing that makes your okay day turn very, very bad real quick. So this next one depends on exactly what your situation is and how it's set up that way. But good neighbors make good fences. Your neighbors have their own social networks and sometimes they hear things you don't. Talking to them keeps you better informed about what's going on and helping them when you can make them more likely to help you if you need it. It all depends on your personal relationship and situations with your neighbors, but I will say that if, in a dire situation outside of your family, your neighbors might be the ones that you are going to hinder or help you. But the only way you're going to know which category they fall in is if you talk to them. And if you talk to them and you have those conversations and they lead one way towards the other, then you know how to move accordingly, just in case if you need to be ready to leave a good location isn't something you want to leave if you don't have to, but sometimes you do have to Grimly hanging on to ground can end up with you being cut off or overridden. If you can't defend your location, it's usually better to get out of there with what you can carry rather than staying and losing everything. That's where your bug out bag comes in. Your bug out bag is your field gear, so make sure it's ready to just pick up and go. You might not be planning on bugging out, but other people have plans too and they can sometimes force you to change yours.

Speaker 1 25:35

Urban survival is a majority priority, is a major priority in the world today, but don't get too focused on it. If the shit hit the fan, you're going to have to leave the city at some point Resources will run out quickly, the power will go out, the water will get contaminated, then stop flowing, and all infrastructure that makes the city livable will break down in a matter of days. That's at the extremities of a situation. Grocery stores will be looted in the first hours of social breakdown. They'll be done. Then, as the reality sinks in, the food will be gone. Bulk storage facilities might last just a little bit longer, but in a week they'll be gone. And then, of course, all the the sewage systems start failing and bodies starting to appear. Disease becomes. It's going to get. It's going to get a lot to be a lot. So if you have the basics of things while you're trying to peruse yourself through that part of life, it might be prudent of you just to have a bug out back and know when it's time to be like all right, this is it, we got to go. Well, that's pretty much it for the book.

Survival Mindset and Preparation

Speaker 1 26:58

In closing I'll mention a couple of things that I think about for the mindset portion of this particular session. If we're at a situation where, mentally, we have to shift our thinking that this is now the new normal and again this is my opinion, shay's opinion only here and again, this is my opinion, shay's opinion only here. But there has to be a point in your mindset that you have to say OK, my survival and my family survival is all that matters here. And that could be in your mind when every all the adrenaline rushes and oh my God, that shit happens. It should be. How am I keeping myself safe and how am I keeping the people that I I love safe? If you're by yourself, that eases the conversation that you have to have. All you got to do is thinking about you.

Speaker 1 28:04

Now I know you're sitting there saying, shay, that's, that's kind of selfish to think about. What about the people? What about the other people? Worry about yourself first. That is why, when you know the, the air, things come down. When you, when you lose pressurization on a plane, they tell you to help yourself first and then help someone else. You can't help nobody if you don't take care of yourself first.

Speaker 1 28:28

And with these particular mindsets, with shifting of situations and if shit pops off all that other stuff, your focus will have to shift and it's OK for your mindset to change when that situation or if that situation were to happen, it's okay. We as human beings have to learn to adjust our thinking and adapt to situations accordingly. The sooner we can do that, the sooner we can all have a mindset of this is what I need to survive, this is what I need to be good. And, of course, all of these sessions is just to prep you in a sort of way, to get your mindset thinking in a certain way, to do the things that you think that you need to do for your particular situation. That's all I'm going to say.

Speaker 1 29:14

Not a fear mongering thing, not a oh, you got to hurry up and do this type of thing. None of that. None of that, whatsoever, whatsoever. This is just for anyone who hears the words that I'm saying right now that if you're in that mindset of life that you need a blueprint on how to get started, on how to do the things that get yourself right, hopefully this session and the other sessions will be a great start for you and a great place to start for you. So, with that being said, I appreciate each and every one of you that stuck with me through this session and every other session that I might have had and, again, I am not an expert in any field of survival whatsoever. I'm just giving you all information and you can do with it as you will. I'm just giving y'all information and you can do with it as you will. I hope each and every one of you have a great rest of your day and rest of your evening and I will catch you on the next session with Shay peace, thank you.