James Walton, it's been a while. Thank you for joining me again in the trenches. Thanks so much for having me, Jeremy. I appreciate it's been a while. Congrats on the family expansion, man. How beautiful is that? Well, it's part of prepping. Prepping the next generation for sure, no doubt about it. James. Yeah, it's a great adventure. I've chatted to you a few times over the last few years and sure, and I love chatting to you because we cover.
We cover something really important and nobody talks about it enough, I think. And that's prepping. That's prepping. Yeah, I agree with you. I it's in passing at best anymore, you know, it's it's sort of like a build an emergency kit and get prepared. Things are looking a little crazy out there.
But yeah, not a lot of people go in depth on it and not a lot of people go in depth on it outside of like pre made sort of YouTube style content, you know, like it's not a lot of free flow and kind of shows like yours where you bring a prepper on and really have a conversation with them about the topic. You're right, it is. I don't know if people assume they could just figure it out on their own or what. But you're right, there is a. There is a lack.
I have a feeling it has to do with the sort of instant culture that we live in, where everything is done for you. Could be, could very well be the case, you know. Do you think we're pulling out of that or do you think we're digging deeper into that? I don't know, man. I don't know but. But yeah. But that's why I'm chatting too with you, so that we can bring it back, we can bring it back to the front. Hey, it's essential. It's essential. I've told you before about the 100 year amnesia.
You know, we've largely lost the bulkhead of what skills and understanding of the planet we had in 100 years thanks to food and tin cans and TV dinners and, you know, that kind of stuff, medicine in bottles. We just forgot it all in, in the span of a hundred, 150 years Max. And now there are legions of people out there clawing it back. And I think that's a good start, you know? Yeah. So James, for my UK column Audience that doesn't know who you are, let's just quickly cover that.
Yeah, sure. Real quick. What's important about me, I think is that I, I'm not pre prior military. I'm not I don't have any cool credentials. I was a chef before becoming a prepper and freelance writer in the in the genre, you know what I mean? And since of purchase the Prepper broadcasting network and we built that into a 15 host podcast network, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube everywhere.
And you know, now we do almost everything there is that can be done through the network regarding prepping, homesteading, survival. I mean, you know, herbal medicine, foraging, blacksmithing, even some health and Wellness and fitness stuff wrapped up in there. And I've just over the years learned alongside my audience and, and we built the Prepper Broadcasting network into what it is, you know, and it's, it's been a blast, man. It really has. What is prepping?
Well, it depends on, you know, where you grow up.
I talked to some people who who grow up in the backwoods in Mississippi, and they think that prepping is a funny word for how they grew up. You know, and, and it's, it's just what it is for me. The I'll give you like the esoteric prepping is a way for men in particular to access a bunch of lost skills without having to explain it or call it a hobby or, you know, things like that, like splitting wood, shooting a, a recurve bow and arrow, blacksmithing.
Those are things that I never would have done ever in my life. But because I became a prepper, all of a sudden I felt like, oh, I should learn these skills. You know what I mean? Because we're getting prepared for the unknown. For the average person, though, I think it is just about being ready for what happens in life. You know what, the things that will undoubtedly happen in your own life, it will be a job loss or COVID 2020, you know what I mean?
Life is full of bumps and ups and downs and it's you know, it is a it is a suffering affair from time to time and be and when you're prepared, it's you just can I give you one more because there is one more that is modern, the modern day. I figured this out just this year. It is also anti anxiety. It's an anti anxiety medication
for the times. I don't think it's always been that way, but what I look at nowadays is prepping, homesteading, that this crowd of people, they have much less anxiety built in because we're all feasting on the headlines and the headlines are terrible. And if you have no way of dealing with that, then anxiety is going to go through the roof. You're going to go absolutely insane.
Iran and Israel and World War Three and you know what I mean, All the stuff that's going on. But prepping I think really has become sort of a an anti anxiety drug, a real 1, you know, one that works. I was going to ask you why prepping is important and I think you have already now touched on that, that it, it deals with, I, I guess personally speaking anxiety, but I mean on a more practical level, why does it matter? Well, I mean, you know, you can look at it from a number of angles.
I think. I think it's an essential because I think we've overshot the I think we've overshot the the human path, you know what I mean? I think we're doing, we've gone a little too far with technology. We've gone a little too far with comfort and convenience, prepping and homesteading. And those things pull you back self sufficiency. They pull you back so that you, you know, you're, you're more of a human than what you were, you know, in my opinion.
But like we're, we're cybernetic damn near nowadays. So I think for on a personal level that that that's very important. Practically speaking, though, you, you know, you're going to live a healthier lifestyle. If you're growing your own food, if you're cooking your own food, you're going to live a healthier lifestyle. I think it's one of the I really like over the past couple months germ have been like, is prepping health and Wellness? Like is it a health and Wellness thing now?
You know, it really feels that way lately. And you know, beyond that from the financial side of things, you know, you look at the cost of food and, and when you're a prepper, you put food up from maybe a year ago, maybe two years ago, things like that. And, and you know, you, you put money into assets like land and like silver and maybe even gold. And it's a different way to manage money and things like that. So it, it can touch every aspect
of your lifestyle. You know, and you talk about building your, your children up. Your children grow up in in a household full of preppers and the self reliant mentality, you know, they grow up with chickens and gardens and guns and that kind of stuff. And you know, you're just creating a different generation of kids compared to like me who grew up in the 90s in a suburb and wasn't exposed to anything like that. So there's a myriad of benefits, man. You know, really turning it into
a lifestyle is the key though. You know, it's not just buy the bag, buy the food and forget about it. You got to live it. So when we talking about prepping, what are we actually then talking about? So I mean, if you want to get into like the beam counting of it, you know it at the fundamental level, you want to have food, water, medical security, backup power, definitely backup power. Now that's going up the ranks over the last few years, right? You want to have at least 6
buckets, 7 buckets. Emergency communications is another great one that you have plans and backup plans for right on hand. More than the average person. What we learned through the last probably 10 or 20 years is that when disasters happen, people stay home. So a good place to start is fortify your home, have enough food in place, have enough water in place so that you can stick around for a while until things blow over.
I think while the bug out is really cool and really an interesting topic, I think most people tend to bug in and stay home when when disaster strikes. And prepping is what gives you the ability to do that because you have excess right resources. And on top of the resource level, there's also the skills, right? So really it is a culmination of sort of resources and skills on top of what have what the average person sort of carries in their pocket day to day.
Give me some examples. Sure, you want resources or you want skills. Well, start with start with skills. OK. Yeah. So one of the most basic, and I think one that a lot of people had kind of dialled in a little more in years past is like how to deal with the first aid, You know, like, like basic, fundamental first aid is something that most people aren't trained on. I think sort of like the loss of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in America. We don't really kind of put an
end to that. We don't say Boy and Girl Scouts anymore. It's them scouts. Oh, the them scouts? Is that what it is? I don't know. We left a long time ago, but we were in it for a little. While. They wouldn't let us. They them scouts. That they them scouts, we would, we weren't allowed to show up without a mask on. So we quit. We got we got tired of that number.
But yeah. So, so skills that like first aid skills like, you know, one of the most interesting ones and fundamental ones is knowing what is out in the wild, you know what I mean? In terms of like the trees, the plants, the things that have been medicine for a very, very, very long time, thousands of years over multiple continents across the world, Like everybody treated things with plants, with trees, with roots. And that those are skills that
we just forgotten. And those are skills that you can, you know, over time with the help of books, with the help of courses, you can relearn those things. At the end of the day, you're just really fundamentally relearning, foraging tonnes of food out in the wild. I don't know, you know, not every country has access to the wild places the way that we do in America.
But your front yard is my front yard every year has dandelion, which the leaves of dandelion edible, the rooter edible, violets that grow, curly duck that grows. It's just stuff like right out the window that most people mow or, or weed whip, you know what I mean? And we've forgotten that their food. So, you know, those kinds of skills are, are good examples. You know, you can get into the tactical, the sort of shooting and, and martial arts and self defence and fighting.
The home security skill set I think is a really important one. You know, people basically tie their entire home security into like a lock on the door handle and maybe a lock on their window, you know, so you can, you can develop a better understanding of how to secure your property. It's a, it's a pretty big list, you know what I mean? There are, there are aspects of prepping the touch on almost anything that fortifies your life fundamentally makes it
better and makes you healthier. You know, as far as I can tell anyway, The, the, what's really been lost in the prepping community lately is the doom of it all. The, the mainstream media has kind of taken over the Doom, whereas we used to use the Doom as a platform to sort of propel
our ideas. Now it seems like, like I said, it seems more like we're pushing a lifestyle on people anymore, you know, and that lifestyle is the things that you learn in the house and you know, outside the house, the raising of chickens, the raising of things like I spent the last 3-4 months raising quail before they were all eaten by a fox. But that was a new, new thing for me, new food source, you know what I mean? And.
Yeah, it's just like. It's a tributary with, I'm sorry, it's a river with many tributaries, man. Like you can go down all kinds of different routes with prepping and learn and and always be welcome and always be learning. And it's yeah, it's been a great life because. But I'll tell you that much. But it sounds like you're only talking about living in the countryside. I mean, what about the millions and millions of people that live in the city centre?
Well, I live in the suburbs actually. I live in a suburb. I live on less than an acre of land. I had that. Well, our host Jordan was living in South Carolina in Myrtle Beach. She had chickens and she was living in a condominium, you know what I mean? I have a guy who lives on the mountainside, right? And he has a tremendous homestead. Dave Jones, the NBC guy, he's, he'd be a great guest on the
show too. But he lives on multiple acres, farms, all kinds of different animals, gardens, everything he does germ is on 1 1/2 to 2 acres of land. So there is a misnomer that you need a large plot of land to do things like we have apple trees, fig trees, raspberries, paw paw trees. I don't know if you know what those are gardens, you know, perennial plants that grow in the front and the backyard. And we're in the suburbs.
You know, I, I really think that now, if you're in the city centre like you're talking about, it's going to be a harder lift. But I really do think that the massive Americans are capable of doing, and probably people in cities all over the world are, are capable of doing a lot more than they do. And they use the idea of, well, I'm not on 10 acres, so I can't do any of the cool stuff as kind of an excuse, you know what I mean? One day I'll get that big plot of land and I'll do all those
cool things. I don't plan on getting a big plot of land. You know, we're we're. We can do plenty with what we have. But I mean, I think the idea of prepping is not necessarily to have, you know, 100% knowledge of everything. I mean, it's it's it's. Oh no, it's. An it's an ongoing journey. It's a lifestyle for sure. Yeah, it's definitely a lifestyle. But, you know, in the early days.
And I think that's kind of what you're asking about in the early days of prepping when you're just getting started. You are shoring up before you get into all the fancy, you really are shoring up food, water, home security, first aid knowledge and also skill sets. You know what I mean? You're you're covering what I call the base level of preparedness. First you got to do those things. First you want to be prepared
for. Whatever kind of weather events, natural disasters that hit your area on a regular basis, that's a great place to start. You know what I mean to say? We get hit by hurricanes. Whatever it is, I want to be prepared for that. This is what I need. Backup power, Gas generator, gasoline. Whatever it is because everybody's circumstance is a little different, but at the beginning you really are establishing your position and then you know, deciding how well. Prepared you want to be?
Do I want to have? A week's worth of food, a week's worth of water. You know, you talk to me, I say a lot more than that. You need a lot more than that. Three to six months is probably where you want to be, you know, looking at the world nowadays. But all that takes time. It takes tremendous time to have the things that I have and do the things that I do because that's what it is, you know?
But if you're just getting started, you can choose that timeline that you want to be safe and fortified in your home, at home, one week, two weeks, one month, whatever it is. And you build on that with, like I said, food, water, the ability to keep the lights on, charge devices, maybe some sort of emergency communications. And you'll be better prepared than most people around you, you know, just by taking action on
those few things. And if you want to get excited about it, start off with your daily carry. Oh, the EDC, the old EDC. Yeah, that's. Is that still popular? That was a big thing, the EDC, for a long time. I still enjoy it. Yeah. I mean, oh, it is fun, no doubt about it. I mean, it is a it's a good thing. It's a good thing. Mine's expanded over the years. My EDC includes like my entire fishing outfit now. What?
It does like I have a backpack. I always carry a backpack because I like to have like running shoes on and shorts because when the summer hits man I just I love running and working out in the hot weather. And So what I always carry a bag because you can't always holster A firearm effectively in certain kinds of shorts, you know what I mean?
So I've put it in the backpack. And then over the years, I just realised that fishing is just always happening in life, you know, And it's one of those things that just because we all do it in my house. That I just carry a fishing backpack and it's not that big. It's also kind of a grey Manny type thing, right? I don't have a tactical backpack on where people are like what's up with that guy?
It's a cast king backpack and you know it has fishing gear in it and also has, you know, spare magazines, tourniquet, you know, sewing kit, some what else do I have in that thing? Prepper later, like a recharge power bank in there. Those kinds of things you can carry bore in a backpack. You know what? I mean, spare knife, those kinds of things, so. I always carry a knife on me. Always. Yeah, why not? It's good to have a blade. It stinks when you don't have
one and you need it, you know? It's actually, it's actually incredible how often you end up using a knife. Yeah. I'll tell you what I don't carry as much is a flashlight. Yeah. Yeah, but you don't need to if you have a cell phone. That's a good point. That's a good point. I think I probably should carry a headlamp. They are valuable. I'd rather nowadays, like there was a time when you had to have a cool tactical flashlight, you
know what I mean? Like you had to have like an O Lite S1R flashlight when you were in the EDC crowd. I've got 1. Do you? I mean, I have one too. They're great. But now at this stage in my life, having done the things that I've done, you know, I take AI, take an Energizer headlamp over anything, you know what I mean? Because then both my hands are free. I can aim it, you know what I'm looking at. I'm actually lighting up and not forfeiting a hand.
I don't have to find a magnetic thing to stick it to if I want to free up my other hand. The headlamp is just far superior. But it's not cool, you know what I mean? It's nowhere near as cool as like a tactical aircraft grade aluminium flashlight. But I mean, it's not just about what you carry, it's also knowing how to use this stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, that's 99% of people's problem nowadays over here.
I have AI have a backpack that just came in for review and it's full of stuff, you know what I mean? And and I go through these backpacks from time to time that you can buy pre made. And you know, the biggest struggle when you buy a pre made backpack is not even choosing which one to buy, though if you want a recommendation, Lt survivals, they're the best of the best and the most affordable. It's it's actually using what's inside the bag, you know what I mean?
And learning how to use what's inside the bag. And this is really tough for people who, particularly if you're not a camper slash hiker, it's not a lot of opportunity for you to do it. You know, there's not a lot opportunity for you to get out there with a survival bag on your back, walk it somewhere, open it up, pull out the emergency radio, pull out the whatever you're going to cook on right, the jet, jet boy or whatever it is in there it. So you got to build that into into your life.
You got to build those things into your life for sure. But in terms of EDC, the biggest thing in the States is I know there's a bunch of people running around with the firearms they never shoot, maybe I've never shot, you know what I mean, as part of their EDC. You got to go to the range. You got to go to the range. You got to also put yourself in
in, you know, serious position. You have to understand, probably the most fundamental for anybody who's carrying a firearm and thinks they're going to use it is, you know, know your target and what's beyond it. You know, Oh my God, there's a bad guy. Let me shoot him. Oh, wait, there's a little girl behind him, you know, and I missed because I'm not that good a shot, right? That's that doesn't happen here, surprisingly.
But if things get kinetic in a lot of different places, it will happen, you know, because you have to be intentional about it. You learn it here when you go to get like a hunting licence, you learn that mentality because you could shoot somebody in the face who's wearing camo across the field if you're not careful. But yeah, same thing with medical, you know, you pack a
bunch of medical. I I got real scared because it was, it was becoming increasingly popular to carry an entire individual first aid kit with all kinds of medical gear in it. And one of the things that was packed into these was decompression needle that you would stab somebody in the lung with should their lung have been
punctured and filled with blood. And one of my worst fears was like, I get into some kind of situation and then some doofus with a knife fact doesn't know how to use it, come start stabbing me with the decompression needle in the heart or something. You know what I mean? You know, trying to do good. So, yeah, to your point, got to put some reps in cooking is the dark horse skill, though. It really is Like I didn't know that when I got into this thing.
The carryover skills from being a chef, you know, like just like put knowing how to butcher stuff huge knowing, you know, how to separate ball joints from sockets. You know what I mean? In in animals a big deal. Well, you hunt, you know, and. Yeah, but I mean, I don't, I don't know that stuff. Oh, you don't butcher your stuff, you send it off. Yeah, I, I mean, it's fun. I don't, I don't like to get, I don't like to get into the animal too. Much like I'm not a fan either,
to be honest with you. I don't really like killing very much, but I do it when it's got to be done, you know? I just want to point out just on that, since you mentioned hunting, yes, I do hunt and people think you hate animals if you do that. I actually think it's a far better way to to get meat or you go hunting than than than via slaughterhouse. You know, and also just because you're shooting an animal doesn't mean you hate the
animal. You you're trying your very best to be as precise and efficient as possible. Yeah, it's no fun. You know, like, I've butchered a lot of things, killed a lot of animals that not even hunting, like harvesting pigs, you know, I mean, that kind of stuff at, you know, different places with different hosts from PBN. And it always sucks for me. I never feel good, you know what
I mean? Like, I'll never like feel really good about it. I always kind of carry guilt about killing stuff and I think that's good. I would hate it if I lost that, you know what I mean? I would hate it if I could just kill something and be like, you know, I feel like once that goes away you lose something. But yeah, with the cost of food and everything nowadays and the and the quality of food, like cooking is a thing, you know, cooking is a literally a life saving thing.
I think if you were to rely on eating out exclusively and pre made foods exclusively, like you probably lose a decade off your life. I bet. I bet a study could show the difference pretty easily between people who ate home cooked meals for most of their life compared to people who ate pre made prefab frozen fast food,
whatever meals. Health has to be radically different, you know, rat, just from the sheer amount of additives and things that go into you from a lifetime of that, you know, so. You mentioned survival earlier. I had the great pleasure of interviewing guy by the name of Cody Lundeen. Have you heard? Oh yeah, I loved Cody Lundeen when he was on with Dual. Survival. Very, very few people who are at
his level. Oh, Cody, Yeah, he's all the way in. I remember watching an episode with my wife and they were on a mountain and covered in snow and, and my man had socks on and that's it. Normally he's barefoot, but for this episode he went way out, put a pair of socks on. I was blown away. So. Yeah, I mean he, he turned it into a, a, an art. Yeah, yeah. It's, I mean it, you know, in many ways it is. It all comes down to like the the amount of time in a day, you
know what I mean? Like you, the only way you can be a Cody Lundin is if it pays the bills and you're in the woods all the time, you know, and most of us don't have that privilege. So you got to figure out where you want to spend your attribute points. You know, life is definitely like a video game, right? You get a certain amount of time and attribute points and got to figure out where to spend them, you know, And that's, that's one of the biggest challenges for well, really for everyone.
But when you're in the prepping world, it's a huge challenge for sure. The whole thing though, is that I mean the term prepper. It's strange to me because it kind of sets you apart where the whole point of prepping is just to be prepared for eventualities in your daily life. Oh yeah, It's a divisive word. It's divisive in the community. There are people who are 100% preppers who are like, don't call me a prepper. I don't like that word.
You know, it's definitely it. It is a word that has power. There's no doubt about it. It's a weird one because if you just came out and said that you did the things that a prepper does but didn't use the P word, people would be like, oh, that sounds like a pretty cool life. But the moment you say I'm a prepper, A doomsday prepper, then it's like, this guy's crazy. And now we look at everybody else in the world who's not a prepper and we go, these people
are crazy. Can you imagine living on a planet like this at a time like this and not having extra food and what? It seems insane to me, you know what I mean? Not carrying a gun, not knowing how to defend yourself in a world like the one we live in, not being situationally aware. I mean, situational awareness is probably, if you could, if you could figure out a way, and maybe I should, to train the world on situational awareness like you'd be a billionaire because it's a skill you don't
need a gun for. But. The peripheral vision. Peripheral is a part of it, but yes, situational awareness is the concept that we've all lost because of our cell phones, which is just understanding what's going on around you at all times and what threat level you're experiencing, you know, and it's an important skill that almost no one like takes advantage of anymore because we're all like this, you know what I mean? We're walking through the world like this distracted, so it's a
big one though. You said water cooking, fitness huge. Yeah, another do you? Say food, water, medical. Medical. Yeah, I just before even before. Well, basic medical, right? You don't have no medicine and no way to stop bleeding in your house. But I'll tell you the one that I think it should be way up there, probably right under food and
water is backup power. You know, we are a power hungry society and our and our greatest survival tool of all, whether you want to admit it or not, is that you know what I mean? That thing does so much for you in terms of dealing with a real deal emergency, right? Should the cell signal be gone and all that? That's a different story. But in most cases you want to figure out what's going on, what's the weather like? When's it going to end? Where's the threat? You know, call people that you
care about. All that's going to be done on your cell phone. So at the very least, you know, backup power should be something that you have on hand to some degree. And that could be as cheap and as simple as like I always recommend a laptop power bank. You can buy like power banks that are like a, you know, like a stick and they don't really do really well. They barely charge your cell phone. But if you buy a laptop power bank, they're about like this
size. You could charge your phone multiple times on it or charge your phone, your wife's phone. You know, if you can't, if you can't get anything else, can't afford anything else and you just need some concept, the backup power, that's probably the cheapest way to go with the most effect. We've got a great book here. Let's see if I can get this to show on the camera. To the art of war. Big Book. John Seymour, The New Complete Book of Self Sufficiency. Oh man, that's very cool, that is.
I think that is. That is a whopper, wow. And you got to build it, you know what I mean? And the only way you build it is through hard, struggly type things, you know, And, and that's why I think the fitness is, is such an unparalleled thing when it comes to prepping because they're meditation. Meditation is a lot harder than you think. That's one of those things where you can really build a sort of an unbreakable mindset. I challenge. Any Marcus? Go ahead, Marcus Aurelius. Oh, for sure.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a that's a tough one, sitting still quietly without your phone. You know what I mean? That stuff. But really, physically demanding workouts is, to me, the best way to build your willpower to build that mindset. About that, yeah, just for a moment, just for a moment. I know this is not going to interest a lot of. Let's I've got a. Great example because I, just yesterday I, I posted a, our prep, we have a prepper fit and health section on our website, pbnfamily.com.
And I posted a, a heavy kettlebell workout routine for our members over there. And that was a, that is the 90 LB Bigfoot kettlebell from on it.com. I don't even know if they sell it anymore. Actually, I got it years ago, but it's so sweet. It's, it's a kettlebell with Bigfoot. The head is, you know, Bigfoot and there's, you know, there's not a lot you can do with a 90 LB kettlebell unless you're a
real animal. And so I wanted to put together a workout that could show you, you know, deadlift, swings, squats, overhead presses with 90 lbs. You can do that if you're strong. And yeah, it's those things that are demand. This is why I like to work out in the heat like I talked about earlier, because the heat adds another, another desire to quit.
And that's really all it is right at the end of the day, that that what you're talking about in survival mindset is just recognising when your body's like, I want to quit and then push them past that. It happens easy with workouts. It happens. Really. You get to it real easy when you're working out in the heat. Your body's like, we need to quit, it's too hot, bad things are going to happen if you don't quit. And then you just push through, push through.
And you know, you hear it. Everybody hears that little voice, you know. I really do enjoy pushing some weights. Of course, since the birth of our of our little boy, it's been very, very difficult, but it's getting a little bit easy now. I'll tell you what, But I'll tell you one thing that really helps when your boy gets old enough. My kids started doing this out
of nowhere. I don't think my wife likes it very much, but it's so motivational that I can't stop them from doing it. They call me fat all the time. My wife. Does that like dad like dad's fat right joke? Like, dude, like joking because I'm not fat at all, but just like hearing it on a regular basis, you get a whole nother gear out when you're running or working out. And James, yeah, go ahead. When you're, when you're, when your wife tells you you're fat,
that that cuts. Oh, I'm sure it does, but there might be something to it. Jerm, you might be living too good. Yeah, but I mean, look, you know, just on, on that. I mean, this doesn't interest many people, but I really do enjoy, you know, weight training, more specifically barbell training. And I've got my own setup in my in my garage. So I'm I'm a member of at the gym and I have my own setup in the. Garage.
I'm trying to I'm trying to decide which which I prefer, but I think I'm going to go back to my. I'd say keep both my advice go ahead. Well I was going to say I I find going to the gym more motivational. My advice to people, especially when they're just starting to work out, is to build a programme with as many options as possible. Like you should have as many options as possible. I have probably 10 different things I could do to work out,
you know what I mean? And I think that's vital because I think you wake up some days and you're like, I don't want to bench press today. That seems boring. You know, I'd much rather swing kettle bells or go for a run or do yoga or play VR boxing. Dude, the VR boxing is off the charts right now. It's unbelievable. You'll lose all. Kinds of weight. You start doing that, you might have a heart attack. You put something over your eyes. Oh, it's tremendous. It's a game called Thrill of the
Fight, too. Look it up. It's crazy. They have online multiplayer now, Jeremy, you can fight little kids from across the world, knock them out. It's fun. No, it is a hell of a workout, though, to be honest. I work out a lot and it is a hell of a workout, really.
But having those options gives you the ability to say, I don't really want to work out today, but maybe I do want to go like hike in the woods or something like that, you know, So put it all on the table and it makes working out easier. Something that we do fairly often is, I want to say camping, but sometimes more often than not, it's glamping. So. I got you. But the the point is, is that we'll try and get out, you know,
into nature. Yeah, I went out one on a like a freezing cold January a few years back by myself and just set up camp. I didn't even wind up sleeping there, but I set up camp all day, put the tent up. I had the camping stove. I don't know if you ever use one of those in the winter. They're fun. And it was probably around like 8-6 or eight hours into the whole thing where I was just like, I felt like free of everything, you know what I mean?
Like, I guess it was enough time away from the phone and the electronics and the Wi-Fi burning into your brain that it was just like, Oh my God, I've levelled up. So down here we have what's known as the Kalahari Desert. Yeah, that's a big, it's a big stretch of of of desert in the southern part of Africa. Huge. It stretches across countries. You. Can't be Kalahari desert. We, yes, we did about two years ago. That's how scary. Well, it's, I mean, it depends. It's huge.
So you, you, you go to like a game park. Oh, like. A campaign and you camp in the game park, which is what exactly what we did. And I'll tell you what, it's beautiful, just that sun, the, the heat, you know, driving, driving through the sand, seeing animals, you know, really appreciating nature, you know, at its most extreme. And then of course, we have stuff in the vehicle. But you know, I, I took, I took Flint along just to how? To play around I liked.
Yeah, just to play around. It's so much fun starting a fire with leaves and twigs and Flint and. Yeah, you. I mean, it's a. Good way to practise. That's that's how it works. You know, you don't just learn because you need to know the skill, right? You always revert to your lowest level of training. That's what they say, and that's practical in the. Pressing world, but it's a funny
twist. It's a funny twist, this one camper, he saw me doing this and I was struggling a little bit with this Flint and not with the Flint, but but with the with the leaves getting a going And he came, he walked all the way across and he said, listen, I can see that you're struggling. Can I can I help you with some matches? I said no, no, no, I've got matches. You're. Missing the point, Bella.
The whole point of prepping James is simply self sufficiency and not relying on the government and other people. Yeah, yeah. It's really not a that radical an idea. It's basically how people have survived for a long time. It's a little more isolated than like tribal living, I guess was probably back then. But it really is about that. And and because at the end of the day, Jeremy, I don't know what your experience has been, but my experience has been to rely on those institutions.
You usually get let down. Sometimes you're even worse off, you know what I mean? Look at people who got shoved into the Superdome in New Orleans during Katrina. They relied on the government to set up a place, a safe place for them. That place was filled with rapes and robberies and the whole 9. It was worse off than if they'd been left to their own devices. So I really do think it is it, you know, you're always going to look out for yourself and your
family better than anybody else. There's no government official that's going to say, I wonder how Jeremy's doing. Let's go check his family out and give them everything they need, You know what I mean? So it comes down to you, you know, at the end of the day. If somebody is, you know, a complete urban dweller and they're listening to this conversation, James, and they're thinking, all right, I'm
inspired, where do I start? First thing I would do is give someone a phone call outside of the city. Establish that first place that you're going to go if the worst case scenario happens in your city so that you know the red lights are blinking. If you're if you're into prepping, chances are you might even have a little bit of a head start, but you can get out of that city if need be.
That's probably the best place to start first because it's actionable, it's free, and it's usually like a phone call away. You're calling an aunt, an uncle, a friend, a parent, whatever, and just saying, hey, things get bad, I'm coming, I'll bring XY and Z and me. Maybe you can work with them to store a little extra stuff at their house too, so that they're ready to take you in when you show up, you know, but. That's sort of like the poor man's bug out location.
And it's it's what everybody in the city needs because you don't want to be trapped in the city, you know, And then from there, you know, you establish what, what's that route look like? So what, how am I getting it out of this city? What kind of gear might I need? What kind of backpack should I
put together? What should I wear so I don't look like, you know, you don't want to kick the door out and look like some kind of tactical madman with a Kevlar helmet on or you're going to draw a lot of attention, right? You want to look like you look like everybody else in your city and just Mosey on out of there to safety.
So those two things I think are critical before you start, before you start planning how you're going to grow food on your rooftop, your quails in your closet, you know what I mean? But you can stockpile food and water in an apartment, in a studio, you know, you can put 1020 cases of water in the corner of even a small studio and have a lot of water, particularly for 1-2 people
should water problems occur. You know, here in the city where I live, we've had two instances where the water has been shut off for days at a time or had to be boiled this year alone. Real legitimate issues with the water. And that's a problem most people can solve and get through. But just medium prepping, you know, minor preps. The thing the thing though, is that people will worry that the water will go stale or the food will go off. Well, you got to rotate your food.
Your water is going to be fine. You know, if you need water, you're not going to be like, this is not Perrier, you know what I mean? You're going to be like, oh, we got bottled water. We're good. Because remember, if you have older water, you can use that for washing. You know what I mean? You can use that for hygiene, whatever and drink the newest stuff. But with food, you got to rotate your inventory just like anybody else, anywhere else.
You know, you store extra food and you store the food that you eat, right? You don't say we're going to store a bunch of black beans because that's what the preppers store. I never eat them, but we're going to store them. You know, you store what you eat so that you're rotating the stock anyway and that that way you're never really stuck with too much food that's too old. You know, that's sort of like inventory management 101 just on a civilian or, or you know, citizen scale.
What about something like meat? You have a deep freeze or something? You know, we just went through a survival exercise where we ate survival food three days a week and nothing four days a week. And one of the big what? Nothing that we couldn't forge or hunt or kill or fish. And one of the things that I found out is everybody needs more protein and everybody needs more shelf stable protein, myself included. And I have chickens that produce eggs and that kind of stuff Outback.
But a freezer's OK. You know, when the power goes out though, you're on a very short window and and then maybe you have hundreds of dollars worth of meat that you're going to lose. There are really good companies out there, Caveman Foods, Keystone Foods that produce decent, way better than your average canned meat. There are companies out there. There's a company out there called Prepper Beef that produces freeze dried steaks diced so you can get strip steak diced up, precooked, freeze
dried. The other the thing that I'm going to do is put protein powder on the shelf. A lot more of it, a lot more of it because I supplemented with that protein powder through our survival hell month and it made a world of difference. I mean, it really did make a world of difference. And in a, in a, in a bad situation, you're going to want a protein source that's quick and easy, something like that stirred in the water drink and you got 360 calories and 30 grammes of protein, something
like that. So that's what I would do if I were in a, especially if I were in a place where I had limited space, I would say put the protein powder or some kind of high protein snack on the shelf for that implicit reason, rather than, rather than have to depend on a freezer, especially if you're in a city, because you're on the grid, you're likely not going to have backup power. So when the power goes out, it's, you know, cook it all, fall at all, the salt at all,
something like that. But that's why camping also does help because even if you're just having a bit of fun, you still learn about some of those things. Definitely. I mean when we when we went away recently, we took a portable fridge that's powered off solar panels, which we took with also. Oh cool. Yeah, that's nice. That's a good little thing to play with. That's gear that you need practise with. I'm sure you got to figure out where to set the panels to recharge it properly.
Yeah, we had a tough time because we had too many trees in the one location. Yeah, see, those are the things you want to learn. My friend Dave Jones, he's a host of PBN. He always says, and I think this is essential prepping advice, You never want to have too many firsts, you know, in any operation. You never want it when it all counts. You never want to be doing everything for the first time.
It's first time I'm using this knife, first time I'm using these solar panels, first time I'm using this gun, first time, you know what I mean? This tent, the whole thing. So to your point, that's what camping does. Eliminates a lot of those firsts for you. You haven't mentioned this but self defence. I mean, not everybody can carry a gun or even a knife for that matter, but you need to be able to defend yourself.
Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, like it really is one of those back to the attribute points kind of thing. You know, it, it really comes down to what you're going to put your time and effort into because self defence is a big question. You know, one of the cool things that that, that are around everywhere now are MMA gyms. And I think, I think learning basic jujitsu and basic Muay Thai are probably the quickest ways to learning how to defend yourself, you know what I mean?
But it you got to put a year in before you really know what you're doing, you know what I mean? You're going to have to spar people to know that what you know, what you think you know actually works, you know, and then you got to upkeep it. You know, I went to an MMA gym for like a year and then hung a heavy bag Outback. And you know, you can keep up with it.
You can keep sharp, You can, you know, one of the things that people don't, one of the things that people take for granted all the time is we have weak typewriter fingers and fists. You know what I mean? Like you whack somebody in the head with your fist and break it into societal collapse or even
in a long term disaster. Now you got a broken hand on top of all your other problems, you know, so hitting a punching bag, doing those kinds of things, it'll strengthen your hands and toughen your body up. I think that's important too. But yeah, yeah, it's all about time. And you know what you want to prioritise. I think everybody should know how to fight though.
Think if everybody knew how to fight, it would be a much cooler place to exist in because people wouldn't be so ready to fight, you know, all the time they. 'D also be less crime. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think people would say now that doesn't look like too easy a target, you know, it's always the easy targets.
So, but it takes time. Everything takes time really to people who are new and who are just getting started, like don't discount doing things today and then from there it's 1 foot in front of the other and do something every day. You know, something easy. Efficiency, James. Self sufficiency. Yeah, well, you know what it comes down to Germ, is self discipline really. You know, it's one thing to want to be prepared. It's one thing to want to have these skills or these weapons or
these. But at the end of the day, you're only going to get prepared if you have the discipline to get up every day and do the things that you need to do, you know, and that that's outside of work, that's outside of family that. So you got to do all that. And then you got to have the discipline to say, I could play Call of Duty right now, but I'm gonna go hit the punching bag for 20 minutes and, you know, get my cardio up, toughen my
knuckles up, that kind of thing. That that's my life, man. That's what it takes. It takes that kind of discipline. Not that I don't do my fair share of video gaming, virtual reality, boxing, but you know, you got to have that discipline piece for sure. But there's also, there's also a sense of manliness. You know, you were talking at the beginning of the conversation about this being connected to men. Oh, yeah. Women can also be prepped, obviously. Oh, for sure.
Well, who? I mean, they bring a lot of things to the table, especially usually on the cooking side, you know what I mean? And on the foraging side and on the healing side, they, they have an intuition built into them that we don't have, you know what I mean? And it goes a long way. And then of course, you know, the whole, the whole motherhood thing is really handled by the women, you know what I mean? In terms of like the midwives
and those kinds of things. Like that's the way people gave birth all the time and long before it was customary to wind up at a hospital, you know what I mean? To to give birth, it was midwives and neighbours and people in the group that came over and helped with the labour and all that kind of stuff. And wet nurses feeding other people's babies. Like, yeah, that's like I said
there. It's just those old skills that re are resurfacing and people are going, yeah, maybe better than maybe it's weird, but maybe better than corn corn syrup based baby formula, you know what I mean? I went through a phase a couple years ago, James, when I was trying to carry as much stuff on me on a daily basis, but with but without it's showing. Yeah, you had one of those, one of those jackets with like 50 pockets. Did you ever see those things? I forget what they were called.
There was a jacket going around with all those pockets. You look ridiculous in it though. Definitely, definitely. There was a time where I used to carry a full size Flint and steel on my key chain.
My brother in law used to laugh at me about it and looking back now, I laugh at me about it. But sometimes when you in the early days of prepping germ, you get scared, you get petrified because there's a certain amount of information that you're taking in on a daily basis when you're prepping too, which is what am I prepping for? Oh, bio warfare. Well, what's that look like? How bad can that go? An economic collapse? OK, what's that look like?
How bad can that be? So some of it does come from a place of fear. I mean, there's always some of it that comes from a place of fear, you know? And sometimes that's great motivation too, but it makes you do silly. Stuff backfires it, but it also backfires sometimes like I, I've been, you know, at the airport, we have forgotten that I've got like some sharp objects or knife or whatever only and then they, you know, you can't go through the. Escape that.
Oh yeah, that's the worst. Well, I bought AI bought a bucket of red wheat, hard red wheat when I was really nervous. Early days of prepping 5 gallon bucket full of hard red wheat. Now remember, I'm chef trained college, great restaurants in Philadelphia. I worked in them. Maybe the one ingredient in the world I didn't know what to do anything with was hard red wheat.
I didn't have a grinder and I bought a whole bucket of it just because I read enough prepping blogs at the time and I was scared enough that I said, oh, I guess I need to buy that against all rationale, you know, So yeah, you could get trapped. You could definitely make some terrible decisions like carrying 40 knives on your person. I was actually just chatting this morning to the local gun store. You've obviously got a hunting rifle. Yeah, 30 out six. Yep. OK. I was about to ask you.
OK, All right. So I'm guessing that's where this is going to go. So I've got a three O 8. Nice. But there's but there's a big rivalry between 30 O six and three O 8. Yeah, I mean, I just bought it because it was huge and I wanted to. I wanted to. When I bought it, I bought it as a new hunter and I said let me get a nice big round so that when I hit a deer with it, it's dead. You know, I don't from shock or I have no clue. It's not very long, I don't
know. Oh no, mine, mine's got a slightly shorter barrel so I can put a silence on. Oh OK, yeah mine is not a tactical looking weapon. It is a scoped hunting rifle for sure, you know. No, mine too. OK. So CZ. I got you. Mine is a savage, Pretty low budget, 30 out six. I bought it probably 10 years ago now, you know, but it does it. It gets the job done, I mean. Some. Yeah, my brother in law got
angry. He said no, you must get a thirty O 6. No, I don't really have much of that in me. I know guys who fight over their AR fifteens versus their AK-40 Sevens and that kind of stuff. But I'm pretty simplistic with guns. Sure, you know what I mean? I've shot both and I must tell you I prefer the AK47. Yeah, I don't know. It's just, it's just more gangster. Yeah, I mean, aesthetically it is villain.
It's a villainous weapon for sure, but I don't know, I feel like an AR15, you barely even feel it. It's just, it's a cool weapon because it's just, it's like shooting a 22 rifle almost, you know? An AR15 is a great gun, however James the fact that they make them now in pink. You can't get a pink Kalashnikov. I'm sure you can. I mean, so, I mean, there's a name that's going around now for the pink ARS. What do they call it? They call it a Barbie doll gun. Oh, the Barbie AR OK.
And you can take it apart, you see, like a Barbie doll. Then you can put it. You can put different parts on it well. There's a lot of prima donnas in the gun community, I can tell you that much, so it's probably a pretty apartment name. OK James, this coming for a landing, how can I follow your work? I mean, the best thing to do, you could just plug in Prepper Broadcasting Network into any search engine on your phone, any podcasts provider, any social network.
Well, I think we're pretty much everywhere now, You know what I mean? You, you'd look up the Prepper Broadcasting Network. You'll find podcasts, video podcasts, that kind of stuff. Our our landing site is prepperbroadcasting.com. Oh, it's as easy as that. That's it. I thought you were going to. All right. Well, on that note, James Walton, thank you for joining me in the trenches. Always a pleasure, man. Talk to you soon.