Well, hey there, Gen Xers, Matt Marshall here again. Checking. For today's show, I wanted to share with you some thoughts I had after a great conversation with my oldest son, Josh. He works as an audio production specialist in a major city in the area, and has some unique approaches to prepping. I just don't think about very often. But before I get to the show, I just wanted to remind you all to comment, like, and subscribe where you can, wherever you get your podcast, and on your favorite social media app. Without the support, we're just talking into a mic and we'd rather like to know that we're making a difference. My oldest son and I have fairly regular breakfast together. And by the way, for those of you who have adult children, do everything you can to spend a little bit of quality time with them one on one. It's such a great experience to see them growing into the person they were designed to be. Well, he's in his twenties and I love to hear how his life is changing as he's learning more and more and we take these opportunities to share. Ideas on each other's projects and work experiences. Well, we got to talking about preparedness and this channel, Gen X talking on being prepared, and he helped me understand some concepts of preparedness from his perspective. This particular breakfast, we started talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and I think most people have at least heard. Most certainly, uh, if you've been into college recently, as he had, and most have a general idea of the hierarchy. At the bottom of the hierarchy are the basic needs or phys physiological needs, food, water, sleep, sex, excretion. The next level is safety, security, order stability. These two levels are the most important to the physical survival of the person. Once individuals have basic nutrition, shelter safety, they can start to attempt to accomplish more. The next levels tend to focus on the psychological needs. The third level, for instance, love and belonging, whether it be family and friends, or intimacy with another, as well as a sense of connection or c. The fourth level is referred to as the esteem level, the need to be competent and recognized, such as, uh, status or level of success. Additionally, it includes the cognitive level where individuals intellectually stimulate themselves and explore, and the aesthetic level, which is the need for harmony and order and beauty, which leads us to the top of what's often visualized as the pyramid. The need for self-actualization. This occurs when individuals reach a state of harmony and understanding because they're engaged in achieving their full potential. They may look at this in terms of, uh, feelings such as self confidence or by accomplishing a set goal. Now I generally try to think of prepping priorities from the perspective of the survival rule of threes. Can't live more than three minutes without. Three hours in a hostile environment without shelter, three days without good drinking water, or three weeks without food, and some take it even a bit further, three months without human contact. To me, this has always been a very simple way of defining a priority of things to secure in a s h TF type of scenario. But if you look at prepping from the perspective of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, some things just glare right back at you, and some things I found to be a bit more. Hidden. As I stated above the first two levels, the lowest levels are most important for the physical survival of the person, and I feel the vast majority of people in the prepping communities primarily focus on these two levels and they, they either forget about it completely or reduce the importance of those higher levels of needs. I would say. Probably. Okay. In many short term events, you see it on the Survival series all the time. The person on the show is basically surviving, but not really thriving. Certainly there are some exceptions looking at you, Rock House and Musk Ox killing Roland from alone, season seven. This brings up an important distinction of how this theory of needs is taught by many people. Often they refer to these as levels of achievement, and they will try to explain them as, you must achieve one level before you can get to the next level, or before you can focus on the next level as if it's an order of or a progression. First of all, Maslow never intended for this to be the case. Starting off with the first publication of his theory in 1943, he described the human needs as being relatively fluid with many needs being present in the person simultaneously. And second. If it were more of an order of progression, then a person would be in a regular state of being brought down levels because at any time the body's response is, I'm hungry, or I'm thirsty, or I just got robbed. We are brought back down to the bottom rungs and perhaps that feeling that we need to try to fight our way back up.. Well, an interesting observation here is this could also make it incredibly difficult to ever excel in life or achieve those higher levels. A as if one is always having to focus on the lower needs. Where is my next meal coming from? Or do I have clean drinking water? Unfortunately, this is true for many around the world, and right here in our own United. As I was doing my research for this episode, I, I came across what I feel is a very important point. Maslow wrote that there are certain conditions that must be fulfilled for the basic needs to be satisfied. For example, freedom of speech, freedom to express oneself, and freedom to seek new information. Are all a few of these prerequisites, any blockage of these freedoms could prevent the satisfaction of the basic needs. I find this is so amazing that even in the United States Constitution, very similar freedoms are expressed. And required by law First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or of the right, for the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Pretty incredible. How tuned in the founders were to the real needs of the American population then and in the future. It's mind blowing really. Well, the last thing I wanted to talk about is how as the song goes, times they are a change in, When I was growing up, the Army had a series of TV ads they showed, and you may remember some of them be all that you can be in the army. Find your future in the army. Get an edge on life in the army. Well, this underlying concept of becoming all that a person can be in the commercial seems to actually come from Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The process of self-actualization played a critical role in theory. He defined this tendency as the full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities, and so on. In other words, people are constantly in the process of striving to reach their full potential. Self-actualization is not an end point or a destination. It is an ongoing process in which people continue to stretch themselves and achieve new heights of wellbeing, creativity, and fulfill. Maslow believed that self-actualizing people possess a number of key characteristics like self-acceptance, spontaneity, independence, and the ability to have peak experiences. So what's that beyond the routine of needs fulfillment. Maslow envisioned moments of extraordinary experience known as. Peak experiences, which are profound moments of love or understanding happiness and rapture, during which a, a person feels more whole and alive and self-sufficient, and yet part of the world more aware of truth and justice and harmony and goodness. Self actualizing people are more likely to have these peak experiences. As I stated in prepping, we typically tend to focus on the lower end of this hierarchy, those related to the physical survival. But in today's world, and especially in cities, most have that provided to them either via their themselves or some sort of government subsidy. When's the last time in a city you've been actually starving? And I'm not talking about, Oh, I missed my breakfast because my alarm clock didn't go off. So where should we go for lunch? Starving. I'm talking about real covered spare, not knowing where my next meal is coming from starving or, or when's the last time you were actually concerned about your drinking water? And try to set aside these big media frenzies around the Flint, Michigan or the Jackson, Mississippi Fiascos. But think of your own environment and if or when you've really been concerned about water not being available. And last think about security walking down the street or in a parking lot, getting to your car, or that car breaking down on the side of the road. Some would argue these are reasons to focus on prepping on those more basic levels, but consider additional prepping from the perspective of the higher levels of needs. Build a community love and. Esteem, respect, status recognition, strength and freedom. Self-actualization, be all that you can be. I mean, how can you be confident? How can you help others like family or friends if you're in a situation where you have no idea where your next meal is coming from? I wanna end this episode with a little bit of application. My son and I talked. Now he has a job that demands his presence right in the heart of a large city, taking public transit daily, large meeting rooms with a lot of technical responsibility. So his preparation really means he has to envision what the customers might need well ahead of time, and be ready to respond with the right tools and equipment for SU successful event. He explained a concept of how in each work environment, it's like a village and there are goals the village people have in mind. Maybe protecting themselves from an aggressor village or building something together within the town. His team would be considered something like mercenaries or other outsiders coming in to support that village in its efforts. So there's a challenge to ensure the outsiders can speak the same language, or at least have some form of translation going on. To apply this concept, consider in your work or daily life how you might recognize situations in which you can't understand others or they can't understand you. Doesn't have to be an actual language difference, but. Could be in your profession, just something technical. Maybe a person with a background in electronic security with a lot of security equipment, computers, network type, ex scenarios may have certain layers of vocabulary. Perhaps a next door neighbor mechanic might not grasp, and it goes the other way too. The mechanic may be able to speak a completely different language inside of a car or a truck than this electronics person. So that security person could make an effort hopefully without sounding condescending to use broader concepts in order to share experiences. It was also great to hear my son's approach to prepping when living in or near a large city and how preparedness changes for him. He recommends providing clues on how people can prepare within their own work and commuting environments. Allow experienced training or education to inform us on what we could expect in certain situations and prepare a pack. He refers to them as more of a situational pack for these purposes. He quickly used an example of crash carts for the medical world, so we used this concept. To build our own version of a bag out or go bag for these just in case scenarios. I think most people with a proper mentality, they do this automatically, but it bears some repeating in keeping yourself organized and prepared in the work environment. Not really from a perspective of survival, food, water, shelter, but from preparing you to perform your your daily tasks at work. In my son's world, he starts with a backpack with a vast majority of tools and equipment experience tells him he may need during the day's event. In order to make it a success in my world. We have a couple of trade shows that we do each year where we pack a toolkit in the shipping containers going to the show. So we are prepared for the vast majority of scenarios. Experience tells us we'll encounter during setup or tear down for the show's booth. Now, one final area of application, Har Harkins. Back to Maslow's Thoughts on peak experie. High points in life when the individual is in harmony with himself or herself and his or her surroundings. In Maslow's view, self-actualized people can have many peak experiences throughout a day or a week while others. Have those experiences less frequently. Now, as a side note, he, he even believed that the psychedelic drugs like L S D and psilocybin can produce peak experiences in the right people under the right circumstances. I do not necessarily condone going that far, but speaking personally, I've had experiences in my life when I've been pushing myself to my physical limits and obtained what I can only explain. Euphoric experiences riding my B Road bike near the end of a half day of riding and it, I should be exhausted, but a song comes on and I just get this feeling of excitement, a burst of energy I didn't have before. Big old smile on my face, and I swear the P folks passing me and coming the opposite direction and seeing that smile on my face. Probably think I'm on. Another pretty common experience is while I'm hiking the Appalachian Trail and I've been going, uh, for a day in the rain with a 40 pound pack on my back legs tired, my back chirping and grumpy, and, and I'm coming up on this mountaintop scene where the sun opens up. Or a section of what's lovingly referred to as the green tunnel, where the trees are covering the trail, missed blocking much of my view, and I'm jumping from rock to rock, feeling like billbo in this grand adventure. Well, this must be why we have vacations. This must be why we're commanded to enjoy our day of rest, so that we're afforded the opportunities to not focus on those lower levels of. To be allowed time and opportunity to experience the higher levels. I would invite you if you don't already partake, to consider trying, biking, hiking, boating, competing in a triathlon or a marathon, or, heck, it doesn't even have to be a physical thing. Try going to a famous musical or a. Wake up early and catch a sunrise or hang out where, where you can see a beautiful sunset. Sit next to a crackling fire on a cool evening. All of these are just ways that a person can set aside the lower levels of need and allow themselves the time and the opportunity for experiencing something. Than just the mundane. We'd love to hear of your peak experiences and maybe even share some of those with others so that they might get ideas as well. Hit us up on just about any social media platform at Gen X talking with no G at the end. Thanks for listening. Until next time, this is Monk signing off. Better be.