10 Skills More Valuable Than Stockpiling More Gear

10 Skills More Valuable Than Stockpiling More Gear

One of the biggest misconceptions in preparedness is that the person with the most gear wins. Gear has its place, but when an emergency happens, knowledge, training, and practical preparedness skills can be far more valuable than another gadget sitting on a shelf.

In this episode of The Prepping Academy Podcast, Forrest Garvin shares 10 preparedness skills that may be more valuable than buying more survival gear.

We cover learning how to learn, emergency communications using HAM radio, GMRS and other methods, first aid, water procurement and purification, cooking without electricity, gardening and food production, mechanical and repair skills, situational awareness, building strong relationships, and making good decisions under pressure.

You'll also learn why simply owning survival equipment isn't enough. A $30 radio you know how to use can be more valuable than a $500 radio still sitting in the box. Emergency food isn't much help if you've never practiced cooking without electricity. And the middle of a disaster is the worst possible time to learn how your equipment works.

Preparedness isn't about owning everything. It's about becoming more capable, adaptable, and self-reliant.

Gear wears out. Batteries die. Technology changes. Skills stay with you.

The best prepper isn't the one with the most gear. It's the one who knows how to use what they have.

Tags: preparedness skills, survival skills, prepping skills, prepper skills, emergency preparedness, preparedness, prepping, preppers, prepper, survival, survival training, survival gear, preparedness gear, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, emergency communications, HAM radio, ham radio preparedness, GMRS, FRS radio, satellite communicator, first aid, emergency first aid, CPR, bleeding control, water purification, water filtration, emergency water, water storage, cooking without electricity, off-grid cooking, emergency cooking, food storage, gardening, food production, survival gardening, mechanical skills, repair skills, situational awareness, decision making, emergency decision making, community preparedness, preparedness community, survival community, emergency planning, disaster preparedness, disaster survival, practical preparedness, preparedness training, The Prepping Academy, The Prepping Academy Podcast, Forrest Garvin, PrepperNet

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Announcer 0:54

Survive, thrive, stay alive. It's time to get prepared with the Prepping Academy podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Hey, welcome to the Prepping Academy. I am your host, Forrest Garvin. Thank you for joining me. What a great podcast we have for you today. It's gonna be a good one. Hope you're ready. So hope you guys um are checking out our website, preppingacademy.com. You can see all our old pods. We've done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of podcasts. We've had literally over four million downloads. We are like Joe Rogan, but not at all. We're not. We we do our best, we'll say that. So today's podcast is on ten skills more valuable than stockpiling gear. So ten skills more valuable than stockpiling more gear. Okay. Now I'm not saying that stop buying gear, but that's not the only thing in preparedness. Buying is fun, getting new equipment, new things, new gadgets, new flashlights, new radios, new firearms. Oh, that's fun. Trust me, we all know how fun that is. But I'm telling you, I've been doing this for 25 years since Y2K. Gear is important, skills are priceless. If someone took everything you have, all your equipment, they took it all, threw it away. What do you know? What can you recreate? What skills do you have to save your life? So I think this came from the fireside books. I'm not sure. The guy said, The more you have in your brain, the less you need on your back. So the more skills you have, the less gear you really need. Today I want to share with you 10 skills that I believe are more valuable than buying one more piece of gear. These things are important, these skills. And some of them you're gonna go, eh, come on. Like the first one, you're gonna go, that's but I think it's important. I do, and you got to think about it and just don't throw it in the garbage, okay? Skill number one is learning how to learn. Meaning you gotta be open-minded, you gotta be ready, you gotta have a desire. And then once you get the knowledge in your head, you need to practice it and practice it and practice it, then it becomes a skill. So you gotta you gotta know how to do this, how to get the desire. You gotta have the why as well. Well, I need this because you know I could use this. So, so putting all that together in the learning, I think is very important. Nobody knows everything. Well, okay, not yet. No one knows everything. Prepared people are lifelong students, they know how to research. Man, I I mean I research like crazy different stuff. I'm researching a lot of things on mesh mesh core right now, just researching and learning and watching videos because I have a desire to know a little bit more than just having it work. Gotta ask good questions. You gotta be able to, you know, you gotta have a little common sense here. Then you gotta know how to practice. How do I practice? What's some things I can practice with mesh core or building a fire? A good one for fire is I remember a friend taught a fire class. You're like, well, everyone knows how to start a fire. Well, maybe. So what he does, he starts, he has a cooler full of wood that's been soaking in water. And that's what you're using to start a fire. And then all of a sudden you're gonna go, crud. Okay, okay, that's different. And that's how you literally start to build a fire with him. Technology changes, equipment changes. Okay. I remember when I bought my first water filter, it was a catadyne water filter, cost me two $329. And now you can buy a soyer water filter that is better, lighter, faster, better for $19. It's insane how equipment has changed. Threats change too. We didn't have cyber cyber threats, you know, 25 years ago. Well, we may have, but not they weren't our pirate grid wasn't on them at the time. So you need to be able to learn, retain the knowledge, practice uh the the skill, so it becomes permanent ingrained like riding a bike, and then you need to, once you have these skills, you'll you'll learn how to adapt. That takes some, I mean that that just is really common sense. You can't really teach that, but you know, maybe to come to you. I I'm lucky because fifth grade was a tough three years, and when people say, Hey, where'd you graduate? They always make fun of me because I tell them my eighth grade year. Just kidding. But uh I went to college, I graduated, but I was like, Yeah, I graduated from Harris Middle School, yeah. And they look at me like, What? Actually, the sad thing is most people believe it. They're like, Oh, okay, you didn't they didn't even go to high school. No, but I did. So that's skill number one is learning how to learn and do it properly. Take notes, go over it, build it as a skill. Two is communications. Gotta have communication skills. Very few people have communication skills. You need to learn how to use a ham radio. At least learn how to use it. You cannot pick up. I you take the you take the smartest five people you know an engineer, doctor, nurse, business guy, count you, whoever you think the five smartest people that you know, you give them a bail fang ham radio. I promise you, they will never contact someone, nor will they ever listen to someone else talk. Because they just they won't figure it out. I trust me, we know this. That's why you gotta have some training. GMRS radios, ham radios, frs, the little you know, family-friendly ones that you can buy in Walmart, or I was gonna say Kmart, then I'm like, okay, I am that old, but I shouldn't say that. Walmart, on Amazon, Bass Pro Shop, the little radios that anyone can buy. But you need to learn, oh, and a new thing is coming now, it's called Mesh Core, where you can text message people when the grid goes down. And and and it, I mean, you got to have a device to be able to do it. Your phone connects to it, but literally it's spreading your. I mean, in England, it's everywhere. Like everyone has the ability to do that, and it's encrypted as well. And it's not the government pushing it, it's not, it's it's amateurs like us that is pushing that. So get a $30 radio off of Amazon, a Bale Fang radio, UV5R, but you then you got to learn how to program it, you got to learn how to use it, but you gotta have also maybe get some a shortwave radio so you can listen in to people around the world when they talk. You can dial it in, listen to people from England, Germany. Well, don't want to listen to people to Germany because you won't be able to understand them, but there are many countries out there that speak English, okay? And listen to see what's going on if your radio stations are not working around you. So, communication, sending and receiving is an absolute skill. It doesn't come easy. Even using a shortwave radio is difficult and hard, and some information, basic information you need to know. Number three is first aid skills. Oh my gosh, this I I think every human being in America, so in I think it's Switzerland where everybody has to know. Yeah, Switzerland, everybody has to be a part of the military, do do some basic training through the military, get a gun. Like these are skills that everyone should have. You know, they should stop watching My Little Pony and learn some skills, okay? But little basic first aid skills. There it's that that is, and then using common sense. Oh, I don't have a tourniquet, he's gonna bleed out and die. Oh, wait, I saw McGyver take a string or a belt. See, that's the information you need to go through now and the skills and how to do that. You can get trauma kits, you can get first aid kits, you can take CPR, control the bleed. There was a whole program people were teaching. I think it's still free around there, around the United States. You can get free training and all this, literally free training. How to treat burns, learn how to use splints, take a dang tree branch and create a splint or something. How to take care of wounds, learn what honey does with wounds. It's pretty cool stuff there. Understand common medic medications, okay. Ibuprofen. Oh, what medications are you on? You're on some high blood pressure, okay. What are some things that we can use to control your blood pressure? What are some natural herbs? This is, I mean, this is knowledge that can save your life and your kids' lives and your husband or spouse's life. Well, okay, you do want to save them during this time, okay? I know what you were thinking. No, I'm kidding. But yeah, you want to save neighbors, people that are important to you, even neighbors that can be important because they do have skills you might need. So you need to first, so don't wait and don't put it off on someone else. And just because there's a nurse in your family, don't put all the weight on her or him. What if they get taken out or they can't make it to your place? Then you're screwed. You, everyone, need to learn these skills. I'm telling you, don't put it on someone else. Water procurement. Most people focus on buying bottled water, which is fine. Buy it, buy all you can. That's fine. But if eventually you're gonna run out. How to collect it. I okay. The pond is a mile away from me. How are you gonna go get it and bring it back? Water's heavy. Okay, how you gonna filter it? Filter it, okay. Filter getting bad particles out of it. How are you gonna purify it? Oh gosh, they're different. Filtering and purifying? How are you gonna store it? Water is the a main resource you and your family need, and you cannot live without it for very long. You will die. Knowing how to safely obtain clean water is one of the most valuable skills you can have. That is number four, water procurement. Knowing how to boil it, how to purify it, how to filter it. That's a class. I teach that in my Carolina preparedness classes. We teach different ways to do that too. And it's fun. It is fun. But once you get the skill and you do it a few times, you think through it, I mean, it's not like something you have to practice weekly or monthly. It really isn't. That skill is like riding a bike. I mean, I know I know how to purify water. The next one is cooking without electricity. The oven, the stove no longer works. What do you do? How do you cook up an open fire? Is it different? Oh, yeah, it's different. How do you cook on propane? Well, I know how to do a grill. Well, do you know how to do a grill when you're cooking fried eggs in a pan on the grill? And because they burn, they it gets hotter, them eggs better be flipped quickly. I mean, it's different. Sure, you may go, well, I'll learn it as it goes. Yeah, okay, how much food have you wasted? So, so there's charcoal, propane, propane, wood, solar. Have you ever heard of a mysolar oven.com? Use your solar oven to cook. You can anything you cook in the oven, you can cook in my solar oven. They're on sale. Go to prepperfines.com, you'll see a link there. Use the sun, it works. You can purify water that way too. Pretty awesome. And people don't smell your food and they don't see the smoke that you're causing to make this fire or whatever. And so the my solar oven is the perfect preparedness appliance, we'll call it. Okay. How do you prepare meals? So, because when you when you're doing freeze-dried food, there's ways that freeze-dried food will just suck if you do it wrong. I'm just saying, if it doesn't sit long enough or it sits too long, all this thing. So practice cooking without electricity. That is skill number five. Every retreat or survival group needs a grandma. I'm just saying, you need a grandma. Well, we don't have any, we don't have any butter. Oh, that's okay. I can make some. What? That's some real conversations will happen one day. But owning emergency food is a part of the equation, but learning how to cook it. Oh, yeah. So if you're eating crap, your your morale is gonna be crap. So have good food, learn how to cook it. Skill number six is gardening and food production. I personally I was gonna put this lower down, to be honest with you. I was. I was gonna put this on like number nine. Not that these are in order, but to me, this is a lot less important to me than these people live and die by the food they can produce. And I'm not a big fan of that. And let me share why. Well, I've interviewed several people, Selko being one of them. He said that there were no gardens in Bosnia because people walked through them and picked things before they were even ripe. No one could grow food in Bosnia. No one grew food during the grid down in Bosnia. No one. The Bosnia War, three years. No one grew food because people would see it and go over and eat it or destroy it. So don't think you're gonna protect your little garden when the the power goes down and people are scavenging for food. That's gonna get you killed. That's my opinion only, and it's a happy day. But I think I'm right on that. So, but gardening and food, yummy, when when the die-off happens and you're ready to regrow, I know that sounds crazy, but you can garden. Go pick, you know, you know, how to how to kill the bug, get rid of the bugs. What plants get rid of some of the bugs? You know, when is you know, create a garden. I mean, that's that's the skill you need anyway, growing food. Everybody should grow some food. The problem is with my current house, is it's all in the forest. Literally, I'm in the forest, which is kind of crazy. But there's the only sunlight that hits my entire acreage is by my mailbox. And when I put my solar oven out there, people look at me really weird. Well, people, there's only three other houses on my road, but they're like, What are you doing? Talking to Mars again. I'm like, no, we you know there we all know there's no one on Mars. This is on Venus, and they're like, What? Wait, wait. So, but yeah, learning how to garden in food production, how to make food. I have rabbits, that's a food production, how to raise rabbits. What am I gonna feed them? I know how to grow alfalfa sprouts, I know how I mean I can do that like literally in like five days. They're eating good stuff. So, food, it could be chickens, could be eggs, these are skills. You could literally learn everything you need to know about rabbit and chicken production in a week. Take a class, read some, watch some videos, make it a make it an goal. This week I'm gonna learn everything I can about chickens and production and eggs. And start learning. The next one is mechanical skills. This takes a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of practice. Can you change a tire? Can you repair a generator? I repaired my generator the other day. Apparently, I didn't get all the gas out and it gummed up, so I had to take the carburetor out, squirt it, do a little paper clip during the hole, clean that hole where the gas drops down through there, you know, all this kind of stuff. Had to do all that. I watched the YouTube video and now I'm a genius at that one task with my generator. Maybe not your generator, but I can do that. I could do that blindfolded because I struggled through it and I learned how to do it. How to sharpen tools, knives, replace batteries. You'd be amazed, people like, well, this doesn't work anymore. And there's probably a battery in there. Well, where is it? Yeah, that's when you throw it upside their head. But no, you then you maintain equipment. Okay, you know, generators, you got to put some oil in there. You gotta, you know, you gotta put grease and oil where they need to go, okay. Every repair you can do yourself saves you money today and increases your self-reliance tomorrow. So don't don't become one that just always counts on someone else. Come one, become a master learner at master mechanics. Did you see what I did there? Everything, every repair is a skill and it reduces your dependency on someone else. That's skill number seven, mechanical skills. Number eight, situational awareness. This would be one of my top ones. This is at any time you need to be ready. You need to see what's going on, see, pay attention, notice what's happening around you. I do this. Okay, I'm gonna compliment myself a little bit. I'm a master at this because I've been doing it so long, and I bet a lot of you guys are too. You're a master at little things going on. You go, okay, wait, there's something going on over there. Or wait, maybe I don't feel so good in this area. Let's go across the street, family. I just feel safer over there because there's some storefronts. And a lot of us have been practicing this for a long time. So we can improve. Don't think we've got it down. I mean, even like watching the weather, observing people, identifying exits. Come on now, come on. I know you're with me on this. You know, exit routes in a restaurant, unusual behavior. Always trust your instincts. Instincts never lie. They could be wrong, but they never lie. Many emergencies can be avoided simply by someone noticing something before everyone else does. So something going crazy. You see it, okay. I know there was a lady, I bless her heart, she was murdered in New York. But if a lady starts throwing knives around and just, you know, hand them and waving them, I'm gonna get out of dodge. I mean, that's that's the thing like, okay, I don't need to stand around here and watch this. You might have the mindset of, oh, I maybe be able to protect someone, okay, that's fine. But your wife shouldn't stand there and going, well, she's got nice. Is she gonna cook? No, she's deranged. And she killed that lady and stabbed another guy. And we're like, okay, okay, someone needs to take her out. Okay. You if you knock someone on the ground, they will always drop the knives. I mean, 99.9%. If you trip them, toss them through, bump them, get them on the ground, they're gonna drop what they're holding most of the time. So, I mean, that's a skill maybe you know you could use. But anyway, so situation awareness. And there is the Code system. I think it's white, yellow, green, black. I don't even know. And this guy's name starts with a C. Look it up. It's a code system in a triangle of your awareness level. I teach this in another class. I teach teenagers before they go off to college on how to protect themselves. It's not a self-defense. It's like how it's a more of a self-awareness. Teach them how to use like mace and how to things just to protect, especially young girls who are walking on campus or whatever, how to not get kidnapped is kind of what it is. That is skill number eight, situation awareness. Skill number nine. And oh wait, situation awareness can be taught to your kids, to your spouse. Everyone needs this. Good things teaching on this is sometimes movies, and you go, okay, and you pause and guys, do y'all see just what happened? If y'all saw that in a restaurant, does that make you think any? Oh, yeah, that's kind of yeah. What would you what should you do? Should you tell me or or your mom? Yeah, we probably should tell if we see something like that. Okay, and discuss that. Number nine, building relationships. I am very good at building relationships. I don't know why. Matter of fact, I take all these Meyer Briggs discs, all these different tests, and one of them is says that I'm a I'm a people person. I don't even like people, but I I you know, I I there's a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. And listening and building a relationship with someone is comes easy for for me. Maybe not you. It doesn't with a lot of people I know. But learning how to build trust, develop friendships, you know, help your neighbor out. I I'll see my neighbor doing something. I'll go, hey, you need some help with that? Oh, yeah, I'm just trying to get this off the truck. Yep. You know, volunteer, attend local events, get involved in your church, and you'll all of a sudden you'll build some relationship and you'll be a volunteer. There you go. Communities depend on people helping each other. So, and have a a be a dependable friend for a few people, and then maybe they'll be a dependable friend to you as well. That's skill number nine. And make it a skill, write it down, and then write steps on how to build relationships. If you just say I'm gonna be a better friend, that is that's a good way to be a loser. If you want to fail, you fail to plan. So plan to succeed, meaning you have to do steps. Saying it in your mind is not planning. Say it in your mind is is nothing. That's laziness. Write it down. I need to become a better friend, I need to help people, I need to ask questions, I need to talk more about them than myself. That kind of thing. Number 10. And the final skill. Kind of the yeah, the final skill. Being able to make decisions under pressure, and you're like, well, gosh, that's I mean, so the military train people to do this. A lot of organizations will would they're never really under stress. So that's why when you go to like gun events, they'll put you under pressure. Do some push-ups. Now you're gonna make a decision of who is the good guy and who's the bad guy. You can train your mind to make good decisions under pressure. I feel like I've I think the military helped me a lot. I also believe that participating in college sports, I actually I don't want to tell you guys that. I played a pro sport for a period of time in my life. I know. Don't guess it. It's it's it's a great, I mean, it's a great sport, trust me. But but nothing what you think, probably. But in disasters, they create all these different pressures. But in games, you know, we had to plan, we had to make decisions, we had to make a last shot, we had to do I shoot the ball, do I throw the ball? What did the coach want me to do? All these things. And I think sports helped me a lot, and then the military kind of sealed the deal. And then over time, people have told me I don't freak out during disasters. I don't freak out. I'm very calm, cool, and collective. At least I have been in the past. I could change maybe. And I don't know if I I think that's a skill that I've I've acquired over time. But I gather information, I kind of like look to see what's going on, and then when it's time to react, I react. But you know, don't let your emotions get involved. Very few times, I mean, I can control my emotions when there's danger. If I walk into a room and a child has cancer, I can't control my emotions. I can't. But if there's danger involved and people could be hurt, I I I want me around because I think I do a pretty good job. I mean, I've been told in the past that that, like, how did you stay calm? How did you know to do that? So that's good judgment. That is also just preparing and putting myself in positions like sports teams and military and going to training, like I used to go to one called Recondo outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina, they put you under stress and you had to make medical decisions, gun decisions, all kinds of decisions, and that kind of stuff just helps over time. So practice beats purchasing, knowledge beats the backpack. Here's something you want you to think about. If you give two people the exact same equipment, one spent years practicing, the other one has never used it, which one do you think will perform better? The answer is obvious. The one that has practice with the equipment. That's why I encourage people to actually use their gear, cook with it, buy that solar oven, cook with it, camp with it, train with it, test it, break it, fix it. The time to learn is now before the emergency actually happens. And I encourage you guys, let's do this together. Okay? That's why we have Prepranet. If you don't have someone on your street or your town you can do this with, that's why PrepperNet. We have tens of thousands of people on our website. We have our own um social media site that is not Facebook, it's somewhere else. So, my final thoughts. What are my final thoughts? Get prepared, get some skills, write all these skills down, and then put together an action plan. And just think if you do that simple thing, you're like, well, that's kind of child. If you do that simple thing, how much better you'll be at these skills after a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. I'm not telling you to stop buying equipment because equipment's good and it's it's it's fun and it makes life easy. So, you know, gear has its place. So don't stop buying, because again, who wants to stop the fun in this? But before you buy some gadgets, maybe ask yourself a question. Would it be beneficial for me to learn the skill? Should I buy it and learn this, you know, how to use it, and then learn the skill of how to do the same thing without the device? Over years, gears were I mean, gear wears out, batteries die, technology changes, but skills never die. You know what? Someone canning or smoking meat 200 years ago is still the same. Or 100 years ago, it's still the same. May have gotten a little better, but you know, but curing meat, smoking meat, it's kind of the same. So no one can take away your skills, your experience. Invest in yourself. Imagine becoming a killing me, I mean, a preparedness machine. It's a little joke there. A preparedness machine. Because at the end of the day, the most invaluable tool you'll have is your brain and the skills you have. Knowledge and skills can take you a long way. Hey guys, the this is Forrest. This has been the Prepping Academy. I hope you enjoyed this. There'll be some links in the description. Please follow, share, give me a five-star like. It helps the algorithm, helps more people find this information, and just maybe one day it could save someone's life, help someone, and you could be the person that could actually, you know, send them this way and they can get some skills, and they may go, man, you turned me on this podcast. That guy's an idiot, but you know, I learned a lot of good things. I'm just kidding. I'm not an idiot. I I keep telling myself that every day. Okay, guys, God bless you guys. Thank you for listening. Join us next week. We come in, I think every Tuesday's when we post this. And check out the website, preppingacademy.com. Send us a comment, leave a comment, give us five five stars, seven if they'll allow you. Okay. Anyway, God bless. Y'all have a good day.

Announcer 33:39

Thanks for listening to the Prepping Academy Podcast. Preppers United at www.preppingacademy.com.