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Prepared: A Manual for Surviving Worst-Case Scenarios
A former Green Beret's indispensable course in preparedness, teaching the keys to building a resilient and fearless life
Most people think that being prepared for catastrophe means stocking up on MREs and building a bunker in their backyard, but this approach leaves you vulnerable in the real world of car accidents, natural disasters, grid failures, and global pandemics. Prepared overturns today's paranoid survival wisdom and teaches the foundational skills of preparedness that will not only help you build situational awareness and achieve greater mobility but that will also help you build resilient mental habits.
After 20 years in the US Army, Special Forces, and as a government contractor for the CIA, Mike Glover has trained thousands of men, women, and families in the art and science of survival. In this book, he shows you how to:
• Harness your brain chemistry to eliminate the freeze response and increase your stress tolerance during a crisis
• Fortify your home by learning how to use and store essential foods, water, supplies, first aid, and ammunition in your everyday life
• Equip your vehicle with sufficient first aid, so you can respond to injuries even before an ambulance arrives-dramatically increasing your chance of survival in an accident
Drawing on Glover's most dire experiences in combat and in the real world, this book shows you how almost no disaster is more powerful than someone who is truly prepared. For Glover, surviving catastrophe is not about fearing crisis, but creating more resilient habits so that you can be ready for whatever comes your way.
Most people think that being prepared for catastrophe means stocking up on MREs and building a bunker in their backyard, but this approach leaves you vulnerable in the real world of car accidents, natural disasters, grid failures, and global pandemics. Prepared overturns today's paranoid survival wisdom and teaches the foundational skills of preparedness that will not only help you build situational awareness and achieve greater mobility but that will also help you build resilient mental habits.
After 20 years in the US Army, Special Forces, and as a government contractor for the CIA, Mike Glover has trained thousands of men, women, and families in the art and science of survival. In this book, he shows you how to:
• Harness your brain chemistry to eliminate the freeze response and increase your stress tolerance during a crisis
• Fortify your home by learning how to use and store essential foods, water, supplies, first aid, and ammunition in your everyday life
• Equip your vehicle with sufficient first aid, so you can respond to injuries even before an ambulance arrives-dramatically increasing your chance of survival in an accident
Drawing on Glover's most dire experiences in combat and in the real world, this book shows you how almost no disaster is more powerful than someone who is truly prepared. For Glover, surviving catastrophe is not about fearing crisis, but creating more resilient habits so that you can be ready for whatever comes your way.
Readers Top Reviews
Milos Kovacevic
I watched Mike on couple of podcasts in the past and really liked his stories so I gave a shot to the book and wasn’t disappointed. It is a short read, without fluff, with nicely layered out topics. Some great advice and examples on how to behave and act in tough situations, his recommendations on what to carry on yourself, how to prepare your car for “bug out” situations, how to protect your home… The book is full of great, usable advice for everyone, from total noobs like me to I guess more experienced people on this topic. Highly recommended read!
TristanMilos Kova
While the book does not go step by step like many other survival books and list specific survival directions, i.e. “This is how to suture a wound… This is how to approach CQB… This is how to can vegetables…” That is not where the value of the book lies. The value of this book is that it teaches you how to think in survival scenarios. It teaches you how to plan for emergencies and ensure backup plans are in place even for your backup plans. It teaches you how to scan the environment and identify threats and gives you much to think about in terms of your preparedness. I listened to the entire audiobook while waiting on the physical copy to be delivered and was surprised to find that Mike actually narrates the entire book. I definitely like that the physical copy has bullet pointed lists, etc. that makes it easier to take notes. All in all a great book and one of my favorites this year.
Joey Crypto Trist
I just received my book today June 6, 2023. I am going to start reading it tonight but I already know this book is going to be amazing. I am 33 yrs old and I’ve been following Mike Glover for a very long time. I take Tactical Training, Preparedness & my 2nd Amendment Rights to heart. I have taken many of the Tactics & Skills Mike has shown us “For Free” over the years and applied them to my daily training. I hope to one day, attend a FieldCraft Survival training event. I will complete a full review of this book once i finish it. To be honest it’s probably going to take a week because working full-time and being a single father of a 3 year old takes up a lot of time. Thank you Mike!
SJoey Crypto Tris
Where do I start. Got this book for my family as well-one of those reads that you don’t put down. The effects of this book and authors’ stories and teachings will stay with us-it’s revived and refined our thinking about being prepared. And no, folks, no “tin foil hat” stuff. He revives and restates what true preparedness means through his writing and experiences and practices. It’s practical yet engaging-the perfect marriage of the author tying in his intelligence and expertise while presenting it to the reader of any knowledge level so it’s easy to understand. Digestible. Leaves you with confidence and a huge step in the right direction. Amongst the chaos in the world, this book feels like a mental deep breath. Bottom line…this author, this book-legit. I have become a fan because of how uniquely genuine he is toward helping people and how humble he is. Salt of the earth. The way he incorporates riveting and relevant stories in this book, and ties it into practical knowledge and application-while also writing it smoothly and not clunky-it’s a special one. Glover will always be a legend, and I’m thrilled he created a book. I was lost before, and because of him I have rediscovered my drive and capability for passions, accountability to challenge myself, build resilience, and ultimately-finally live the life I always dreamt of-with my family, on a quiet homestead learning things together, raising amazing humans and waking up everyday believing in something. Can’t wait for more books of his. Thank you Mr. Glover.
Kristopher K Lovs
Mike does a great job of laying out a foundation for being prepared and resilient in the case of a catastrophic event. Whether that is a car accident, home invasion, hurricane, tornado, or zombie apocalypse. Maybe not the zombie part. But, what is taught in this book is a great guide for figuring out how to be PREPARED when the worst day of your life occurs. He doesn’t tell you what brand of knife to buy, or what gun is the best concealed carry EDC. But, gives you the information and questions to ask to cater to your lifestyle that can guide you to making those decisions. Whether that is how to respond if you go into a sympathetic nervous system response, or how to create and train your PACE plan. What to do in a catastrophe, and how to have the situational awareness to possibly avoid it, or to get off the X, or how to respond, these are just some of the baseline guidance explained. Overall, we need to be cognoscente of dangers in our life, environment, and situations, know how to respond, and most importantly live and train for those. Buy the book, go to the fieldcraft survival website, find them on YOUTUBE, watch the videos, and train. It may not be something you ever use, but knowledge is power, and training is fun. I bought the book, bought the audible version, and have been sharing the book amongst my coworkers, and trying to build a community of assets. Be an asset to your community, your family, and yourself! Stay vigilant!
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1: The Resilient Mindset
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. Catastrophe doesn't operate or execute on timelines and constraints. It doesn't have an objective or a goal outside of turning your life into complete and utter chaos. The question here is, are you prepared? Are you ready to be confronted-head-on-by the worst day of your life?
In preparedness, it is often said, mindset is everything. You hear that phrase a lot from those who have built a business around the idea of "improving your mindset." What I've often found is that the so-called experts don't have any tangible advice for improving mindset. Like, how do I actually make my mindset better, and what is mindset in the first place? Let's start off by answering those basic questions.
Many people walk through life either numb or vibrating from self-induced anxiety. They have lots of everyday worries that have fried their brains and maxed their capacity to cope with life's curveballs. This has become the new baseline in modern society. We have grown accustomed to lives full of low-grade stress that cause us to overreact emotionally. This means we underrespond cognitively and fail to source solutions that lead to improved outcomes. This ultimately leads to disastrous results when we are confronted with compressed timelines and high-grade stress, otherwise known as catastrophe. Essentially, we have redefined our baseline coping mechanisms and are less resilient as a society.
When I talk about having the right mindset, what I'm referring to is resilience-having the ability to withstand the initial shock when catastrophe strikes, and then having the wherewithal to respond in a timely and constructive manner. A resilient mindset is everything, because your ability to withstand an acutely traumatic event and respond to it may very well mean the difference between life and death.
It doesn't get more conclusive than that.
Of course, it's not so simple as knowing what to say or what to do and then wishing resilience into existence. To develop resilience requires training and exposure. It requires an understanding of stress and how both the mind and body respond to it. And to understand that, you first and foremost require a solid grasp on your very own mental machinery.
The Nervous System
The brain is the command center of the body. Nearly every action the body takes, whether it's voluntary (like walking and talking) or involuntary (like breathing and blinking), is initiated in the brain. The signal runs down the spinal cord, which together with the brain make up the central nervous system, then out through the nerves that make up the peripheral nervous system, which trigger the movement of muscles and the function of organs.
Voluntary movements are guided by the somatic system, which is made up of sensory and motor neurons. Sensory neurons take in information from our interaction with the world around us-touch, taste, sight, sound, smell-and relay it to the brain. Motor neurons go the other direction, sending information or instructions down through the spinal cord and into our muscle tissue, creating movement. You can think of it as a loop or a circuit-like arteries and veins. One sends blood from the heart to the body, the other sends blood from the body back to the heart.
Let's say you're walking down a city street. Your motor neurons tell your leg muscles to fire, your ankle to flex, and your foot to roll heel to toe, making a step. Your sensor neurons take in information about the unevenness of the sidewalk under your feet, the sound of the ambulance siren around the corner, the sight of the traffic light about to turn yellow, and the person coming from the other direction, headed right into your path. The brain processes this data in an instant and sends a set of commands to motor neurons that slow your pace and angle your hips. Your knees and feet follow by sidestepping a couple paces to the right to avoid the oncoming pedestrian.
The purpose of this little ninth-grade biology lesson is only to point out that, whether you realize it or not, you have conscious control of all the movements where the somatic system is activated. That is not the case with the autonomic system, which is the other half of our peripheral nervous system that controls involuntary movements: functions like heart rate, digestion, respiration, perspiration, and pupil dilation. This is important to note because this is the part of the nervous system that lights up like a Christmas tree under stress and in catastrophe.
Like th...
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. Catastrophe doesn't operate or execute on timelines and constraints. It doesn't have an objective or a goal outside of turning your life into complete and utter chaos. The question here is, are you prepared? Are you ready to be confronted-head-on-by the worst day of your life?
In preparedness, it is often said, mindset is everything. You hear that phrase a lot from those who have built a business around the idea of "improving your mindset." What I've often found is that the so-called experts don't have any tangible advice for improving mindset. Like, how do I actually make my mindset better, and what is mindset in the first place? Let's start off by answering those basic questions.
Many people walk through life either numb or vibrating from self-induced anxiety. They have lots of everyday worries that have fried their brains and maxed their capacity to cope with life's curveballs. This has become the new baseline in modern society. We have grown accustomed to lives full of low-grade stress that cause us to overreact emotionally. This means we underrespond cognitively and fail to source solutions that lead to improved outcomes. This ultimately leads to disastrous results when we are confronted with compressed timelines and high-grade stress, otherwise known as catastrophe. Essentially, we have redefined our baseline coping mechanisms and are less resilient as a society.
When I talk about having the right mindset, what I'm referring to is resilience-having the ability to withstand the initial shock when catastrophe strikes, and then having the wherewithal to respond in a timely and constructive manner. A resilient mindset is everything, because your ability to withstand an acutely traumatic event and respond to it may very well mean the difference between life and death.
It doesn't get more conclusive than that.
Of course, it's not so simple as knowing what to say or what to do and then wishing resilience into existence. To develop resilience requires training and exposure. It requires an understanding of stress and how both the mind and body respond to it. And to understand that, you first and foremost require a solid grasp on your very own mental machinery.
The Nervous System
The brain is the command center of the body. Nearly every action the body takes, whether it's voluntary (like walking and talking) or involuntary (like breathing and blinking), is initiated in the brain. The signal runs down the spinal cord, which together with the brain make up the central nervous system, then out through the nerves that make up the peripheral nervous system, which trigger the movement of muscles and the function of organs.
Voluntary movements are guided by the somatic system, which is made up of sensory and motor neurons. Sensory neurons take in information from our interaction with the world around us-touch, taste, sight, sound, smell-and relay it to the brain. Motor neurons go the other direction, sending information or instructions down through the spinal cord and into our muscle tissue, creating movement. You can think of it as a loop or a circuit-like arteries and veins. One sends blood from the heart to the body, the other sends blood from the body back to the heart.
Let's say you're walking down a city street. Your motor neurons tell your leg muscles to fire, your ankle to flex, and your foot to roll heel to toe, making a step. Your sensor neurons take in information about the unevenness of the sidewalk under your feet, the sound of the ambulance siren around the corner, the sight of the traffic light about to turn yellow, and the person coming from the other direction, headed right into your path. The brain processes this data in an instant and sends a set of commands to motor neurons that slow your pace and angle your hips. Your knees and feet follow by sidestepping a couple paces to the right to avoid the oncoming pedestrian.
The purpose of this little ninth-grade biology lesson is only to point out that, whether you realize it or not, you have conscious control of all the movements where the somatic system is activated. That is not the case with the autonomic system, which is the other half of our peripheral nervous system that controls involuntary movements: functions like heart rate, digestion, respiration, perspiration, and pupil dilation. This is important to note because this is the part of the nervous system that lights up like a Christmas tree under stress and in catastrophe.
Like th...
