Chapter 2 | Beyond Fear and Gear
Six Principles for Getting Left of Bang at the Individual Level
This article is part of The CP Journal’s Individual Readiness Playbook.
Before we get into recommendations, checklists, gear, or scenarios, I want to be clear about what our approach is built on.
If you disagree with these principles, you probably won’t like what follows. That’s fine. We aren’t trying to convince anyone, but I’d rather be transparent about the assumptions that guide our approach from the beginning.
The left of bang approach is built around one idea: readiness is something you build. It isn’t something you buy, or declare, or post about. It is the result of something you can do. The difference between preparation and readiness isn’t nuanced semantics. Preparation is what you do, while readiness is what shows up when something goes wrong.
Readiness is what we’re after.
Principle #1: Build Capabilities—Not Collections
You don’t get left of bang by owning things. You get left of bang by being able to execute. What we need to be able to execute are intentionally designed and developed capabilities.
A capability is something you can do, to a defined standard, under less-than-ideal conditions.
Can your family absorb a week-long power outage without it turning into chaos?
Can you recognize when a situation is shifting towards conflict and leave early?
Can you function without your phone for a day?
Can you stabilize a problem long enough to buy time?
It doesn’t matter to me what you want to be capable of doing. That’s your call.
But preparing means you are preparing for something. And what you want to be able to do when that day comes should drive everything else. This playbook is built around your ability to evacuate and your ability to protect-in-place, which we will talk about in the next article, but until you define what you are aiming for, it is really hard to know if you’re making progress, or just being busy.
Will you buy equipment? Probably.
Write a plan? I recommend it.
Learn new skills? Almost certainly.
But none of those things equal readiness on their own.