Prepared: A Manual for Surviving Worst-Case Scenarios

“In catastrophe, you can derive the same kinds of benefits from sufficient preparedness that we get from them in combat. When you remove the tactical military layer from preparedness and strip it down to its foundational elements, it becomes clear as day that an integrated sense of preparedness can help any person out there prevent, survive, and overcome any kind of disaster they might face.”

The mental principles that allow civilians to survive in disaster scenarios are drawn from the principles and skills taught in the military. The book suggests that developing these skills is just as helpful in everyday living as it is in the military. This highlights the heightened sense of everyday jeopardy that Glover presents to the reader and the heroization of military culture as an intrinsic part of survivalism. Glover’s military background is useful here, as it gives him personal authority within the survivalist movement.

“Catastrophe is an equal opportunist. It doesn’t care about your personal wealth or social status, your religious convictions, or how nice of a person you are.”

This quote emphasizes the random nature of crisis and disaster scenarios. Anyone, regardless of their skillset, preparation, wealth, status, or community life, can fall prey to unexpected disaster. People prepared for crisis and aware of the possibility are better suited for survival than anyone else, regardless of their other skills or traits. This passage also highlights how Glover encourages the reader to relate with low-occurrence incidents and consider the risk to themselves as potentially high.

“Often, there is a disconnect or delay between the instinct and the action, between the unconscious reaction and the conscious response. Building resilience is about bridging that disconnect and shrinking that delay as much as possible so that you will be able to act.”

This passage shows how Glover draws on the scientific theory behind military training procedures to strengthen his authority. Everyone experiencing a crisis, regardless of their level of training, deals with a delay in the conscious response to danger as compared to the autonomic nervous system’s response to danger. Glover recommends mental resilience practice to reduce that delay to mere seconds to optimize survival odds.

“Performance increases, or gets better, with increased physiological or mental arousal (i.e. stress) but only to a point.”

Here, Glover references the Yerkes-Dodson law, which states that optimal response to stress hits a plateau at a certain level of stress and plummets at any increase in stress after that. A certain amount of stimulation or stress benefits survivors, while anything greater impedes their performance. Mental resiliency is recommended as a way to self-manage stress.

“It is impossible for a person to fully inoculate themselves against freezing up. What you can do, with experience, is shorten periods of paralysis to mere moments.”

This quote, using Glover’s characteristic brevity and second-person familiarity, points out that “freezing up” during stressful times is an unavoidable side effect of possessing a human brain. The challenge involves overcoming the freeze response, not eliminating it entirely. This passage is an example of Glover’s personable style that builds rapport with the reader.

“The number one characteristic common to all survivors of catastrophe is adaptability.”

This quote highlights Glover’s emphasis on adaptability: the ability to quickly change directions mentally and employ new strategies. Adaptability is the key to mental resilience, preparation, and decision-making. All these survival skills require the ability to rapidly change strategies to correspond to the specific crisis at hand. Because adaptability is an abstract and flexible concept, it is a useful aspect to Glover in selling his brand and product: It is not exhaustive and requires potentially infinite advice or training.

“It is impossible to be prepared for anything and everything, but it’s very possible to be prepared for everything that has any real chance of happening based on where you live, what you do for work, and how you live your life.”

This quote uses Glover’s characteristic straightforward style to cut through the overwhelming amount of detail surrounding effective disaster preparation. Although it is impossible to prepare for every single eventuality, it is absolutely possible to prepare for the most likely eventualities for an individual’s location, lifestyle, and unique challenges. However, this requires honesty and self-awareness regarding one’s own strengths and weaknesses as an individual and within one’s own family/community unit.

“Being able to systematically scan our immediate surroundings and then extend our observation outward beyond our normal field of vision doesn’t just give us the maximum amount of information to make a good decision, it gives us the time and distance necessary to execute on that decision successfully.”

This quote shows how Glover uses the second person to lend a sense of immediacy to the instructions given. This quote indicates the dual purpose of the “5s and 25s” technique of habitually scanning the immediate area and then the surrounding area. Seeing threats at hand can allow an individual to engage quickly, and seeing threats on the horizon allows an individual time to develop an effective strategy.

“It sounds absurd that when faced with a grievous threat to your safety you might deny its existence. Except, almost everyone does it.”

This quote points out the ubiquity of the psychological coping mechanism of denial. Although human brains can desperately try to minimize an imminent risk as a way of maintaining peace of mind, this strategy always backfires in the end. It is important to keep a clear head and not ignore threats as they surface simply because acknowledging them would be inconvenient or frightening.

“Your instincts aren’t some weird set of gut impulses that exist separately from your mind. They’re simply another way to describe what you intuitively know are the best decisions in life-threatening situations. They’re telling you that you already know how to survive.”

This passage used colloquial, casual language as a counterbalance to the facts about neurological processing in order to make that information accessible and relatable to the general reader. Glover argues that the human brain is capable of processing particular aspects of its environment at lightning speeds. Although gut instinct should not always be taken at face value, in a survival situation, the immediate certainty of the gut is key to successful survival.

“Decision-making is an essential skill for preparedness. This includes making decisions quickly, making them correctly, making adjustments when they are wrong, making sure you know what you will do before you ever need to do it, and making peace with yourself when you have to make the most difficult decision of them all.”

This quote lays out the myriad aspects of decision-making. Although correct decision-making requires parsing an intimidating number of details, experience and the correct mindset set an individual up for the best results.

“The main goal of EDC (everyday carry) is to increase your capacity, which subsequently increases your capability, for self-defense and survival.”

This quote marks the transition of the narrative of Prepared from mental and internal preparation to physical aspects of preparation. As Glover states, all the planning, resilience, and good decision-making in the world cannot make up for a lack of supplies. Therefore, EDC, or everyday carry, becomes a vital part of survival.

“There are situations in self-defense where escape is not the only consideration: in some scenarios you also need detection.”

This quote points out that while most crisis scenarios involve escaping from danger, it can sometimes be equally as important to become very visible to potential rescuers. This points out the important truth that the best chance for survival can be help from outside sources like a community.

“I want you to have, and train with, the things you will need to survive on your own for up to three days exposed to the elements—in the broadest sense of that term—with nothing but what is on your person.”

This quote, referring to the survival goal of “72-hour survival,” discusses the main goal of EDC to ensure survival for up to three days with only items the individual wears or carries. This level of crisis self-reliance exemplifies the Prepared approach to surviving disaster.

“EDC considerations are dominated by the things you choose to carry every day for the purpose of self-defense and survival, but EDC is not fully defined by those things. It extends beyond what you can carry to what you carry it in, what you wear, and how you carry yourself.”

This quote points out that EDC does not just refer to supplies carried in a backpack or a purse. The backpack or purse themselves should also have survival benefits built into them. Clothing, shoes, bags, and even the attitude with which one carries themselves can be a part of everyday carry.

“Survival breaks down very simply: shelter, warmth, water, food, communications.”

This quote uses the characteristic brisk tone of Glover’s writing to detail the basics of surviving a crisis situation. In a disaster in which other humans are not available to help, the ability to create warmth, water, food, and communication for oneself is crucial.

“There’s a weird tension in survival and preparedness between being able to escape and wanting to be found.”

The colloquial tone of this quote illustrates the accessibility of Glover’s survival principles. Additionally, this quote points out that while some survival situations require escaping from a human attacker or attackers and staying undetected by them, other situations require detection by the larger community to be rescued.

“Civilization has a way of finding you, and eventually you’re going to need the trappings of civilization to sustain life.”

This quote points out that civilization is the result of humankind existing in a place for any period. A human alone or in a small family unit existing in a remote location is also a reflection of civilization. The “trappings” of society, while sometimes leading to dependence and vulnerability, are required to thrive.

“Outfitting your homestead is critical to get right. It’s where you live. It’s where you raise your kids. It’s your shelter. It’s your security. It’s where your survival is sustained and where your preparation could be the difference between thriving and just getting by…or not.”

The homestead is a vital part of survival, and this quote illustrates the different aspects of a successful homestead. While mobility is a major concern in most survival situations, the homestead is the place to which individuals can escape and so should be fortified, supplied, and defended.

“The goal of a prepared homestead is not to survive the end of days: it’s to thrive every day without having to rely on infrastructure systems you don’t control to deliver any or all of the services that sustain life.”

This quote uses the straightforward tone characteristic of Glover’s writing to show the vulnerabilities of relying on infrastructure in a disaster. Infrastructure can easily break down, leaving unprepared citizens vulnerable. A good homestead can mitigate the worst aspects of infrastructure failure.

“Preparedness and physical resilience aren’t just about being able to pack wounds, or suture lacerations, or set broken bones. They’re also about the ability to stay healthy and get clean, to live some semblance of a regular existence while the world is going to shit around you.”

This quote uses second-person point of view to drive home the immediacy and urgency of the advice given. The homestead is not simply an aid station or a supply depot: It creates a space in which humanity is affirmed and self-care can be accomplished.

“Here is the blunt truth: none of the stuff we’ve talked about in this chapter will work nearly as well as it could if you don’t have a community behind you.”

This quote showcases a fundamental aspect of survival: that a healthy community of well-supported people specializing in different skillsets is the best unit for survival by far. There is a reason that human tribes and societies developed in the beginning of our species, and that is because humans together have a much better chance at surviving than even the most powerful and skilled human alone.

“It’s your community that’s going to protect you. It’s your neighbors who are going to help you out. It’s your local merchants, farmers, mechanics, doctors and nurses who are going to make sure you and your family don’t starve or freeze or suffer or die when you find yourself in a bad spot.”

This quote continues the theme of the importance of community in a survival situation. A group of people collaborating creates a much healthier community than fearful people trying to survive each other. Because of this, the individual prepper is encouraged to maintain the health of their own community in order to keep themselves and their loved ones alive, healthy, and happy.