SHTF Leadership

by Dan F. Sullivan

www.FamilySurvivalBlueprints.com

Copyright © 2015 www.FamilySurvivalBlueprints.com ● All rights reserved

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Table of contents

Disclaimer ............................................................................................................. 3

Table of contents .................................................................................................. 4

Introduction .......................................................................................................... 5

What Should a Leader Be Like? ............................................................................ 7

He Must Have Big Goals ................................................................................... 7

He Must Have a Vision ...................................................................................... 8

He Must Have Knowledge & Experience .......................................................... 8

He Must Be Calm .............................................................................................. 9

He Must Have Emotional Intelligence .............................................................. 9

He Must Have Passion ....................................................................................10

He Must Be Optimistic ....................................................................................10

He Must Be a Team Player .............................................................................11

He Must Be Trustworthy ................................................................................11

He should be Enthusiastic ..............................................................................12

He Should Be a *Leader* ................................................................................12

What Should a Leader Do? .................................................................................14

Enable Others to Act .......................................................................................14

Get Others to Trust Each-Other .....................................................................15

He Should Listen .............................................................................................15

He Should Value Time.....................................................................................15

Putting It All Into Action .....................................................................................17

Introduction

We already know that in a post-disaster scenario, the only thing we can rely on

is uncertainty. Uncertainty about how much food we have, about whether or

not we have a safe place to lay our heads at night and uncertainty about

whether or not anyone is going to protect us.

Out of the last three, I am most afraid of the last one. Food? Not a problem.

Water and other stockpiled items? Check. But certainty that the police will

protect me from looters, thieves or even from Government men who are here

to take my stockpile? Not a chance in Hell.

Here’s the thing: when things are confusing for everyone, people need guidance.

Heck, folks need guidance even in peace time because they’re lazy and they can

hardly move out of their comfort zone to get in shape or get a job let alone to

prepare for what’s coming.

I wrote this course for one reason: 99% of people will be helpless in case of a

disaster. Sure, a lot of them will die within the first few weeks because they

won’t have any water or food. But the ones that make it are going to group into

gangs.

Truth be told, there’s always been comfort in numbers (unless we’re talking

about your core preparedness where keeping quiet is key). He needs the

company of other people in order to survive. And any group needs a leader,

otherwise it will soon perish.

An SHTF scenario is not just your chance to become a leader. It’s a mandatory

thing you must do in order to increase your chances of survival and keep your

house, your stockpile and your family safe.

Confidence, Your Biggest Ally or Your Enemy?

Overconfidence in one’s ability to defend himself in an SHTF scenario can be

lethal. If you talked to other folks about preparing, you probably got a taste of

their own overconfidence: that nothing will ever happen.

I’m a big fan of being confident even when you don’t feel like you’re in control.

The confidence that you can survive against all odds might just keep you alive

but… in some cases, being overly optimistic about yourself could also mean you

have some pretty big blind spots.

For example, some over-confident preppers think that the chances of an EMP

attack is very unlikely. However, if it does happen, all or part of the United States

is going back to the 17th century. Are you going to risk that just because you’re

confident that it will never happen?

Maybe you’ll agree with me on the point I’m trying to make, maybe you won’t

the bottom line is, overconfidence can kill you. While, as a leader, you have to

show confidence no matter what, as a human being you have to keep in mind

that things could take a turn for the worse at any time. Hope for the best,

prepare for the worst.

Ok, now that we got that of the way, let’s see just what leadership is.

A Definition of Leadership?

There is no right or wrong definition of leadership. To me, it’s all about

influencing other people to reach a common goal.

If there’s nothing in it for them, they won’t follow you. If there’s nothing in it for

you, you won’t be motivated. If you all have goals but they are not the same,

you won’t need each-other.

Needless to say, in times of chaos, your goals and theirs are the same: to survive.

It’s human nature to struggle for power and to want more. It’s human nature to

want to control others, situations and outcomes.

At the basis of your leadership skills there’s one thing and one thing only: value.

The more value you can offer to the others around you, the easier it will be to

get into a position of power. When you offer value, you are needed, you are

respected and, without you, the group quickly realizes that it will perish.

What Should a Leader Be

Like?

Without further ado, let’s see what the main traits of a leader are.

He Must Have Big Goals

Anyone can gather a bunch of people and tell them:

Ok, what we all need is to survive.

Anyone can say that, right? But not anyone can make the rest of the people

believe them. Believe that they can achieve them by trusting that particular

person. If you’re not convincing enough, they’ll soon reach the conclusion that

they’ll have a better shot if they do it themselves.

So how do you state your goals in such a way that you’ll get others to listen?

First off, you have to make them BIG. No one will care too much if all you want

to do is find food. A bigger goal is to find a food source that you can exploit and

provide you with food for months to come. Some fertile land, for instance, that

you can all harvest. Now that has a different ring to the ear, right?

As a matter of fact, in order for you to practice having big goals, I encourage you

to set a few of them for yourself right now. Are you preparing a 1 year stockpile?

Make it 3 years, or even 5.

Are you hoping to lose 5 pounds? That’s for children. Make it 10 (as long as it

make sense for your body type and your current weight).

Big goals make people want to follow you because they know they’ll never be

able to set them themselves… because they’re afraid. But when they hear you

talk about them, they become less afraid and more confident in you and your

abilities to lead them.

He Must Have a Vision

Right after you set up your goals (a.k.a. your end-result), you need to have a

vision on you want to achieve them.

A vision doesn’t mean you have to know exactly, step-by-step how to reach your

goals. In fact, if there’s one thing you can bet is that you’ll be changing your

plans very often.

See, a vision doesn’t include any definite plans. Heck, for the most part, you

won’t even know where you’re going. But you can’t let the people you lead that

you don’t.

A vision has to be something general, vague and to be based on your experience,

your knowledge and the gut feeling that tells you that you can do this. Next, you

have to find words to describe that vision just like you would with how your

vacation will be when you’ll finally get to go to that vacation spot you dreamed

about.

You can probably see it right now, in detail, even though you don’t know exactly

what you’re going to do there. All you know is that you’re going to relax and

forget about everything else.

A vision is also a dream of how the journey will be. You know how they say that

it’s all about the journey? Well, when you’re trying to stay alive, you bet you’re

a** it is. You’re surviving from one week to another, from one month to another

and you don’t have any security over tomorrow. Anything can happen so the

best way is to reframe reality such that you’re in a never-ending journey to

survive and thrive.

Now, this vision sounds a lot better than saying to your neighbors generic things

like “Don’t worry, we’re going to make it”. Which brings me to the other aspect

of leadership…

He Must Have Knowledge & Experience

You don’t have to be the best prepper out there but you have to be good at

bringing people together. Yes, knowledge is important otherwise, when you

screw things up, you’re going to lose your credibility. And once you lose your

reputation, it’s going to be very hard to get it back.

Now I’m sure you’ve read enough about prepping in order to consider yourself

better prepared than 99% of Americans. But are you practicing? If you’re not,

you risk forgetting a lot of things while your mind wants you to believe

otherwise.

Practice with your family. Practice by yourself. Do drills. Take your family to your

bug out location and spend some of your weekends there. Ask yourselves

survival questions to see who’s toughest. Practice.

He Must Be Calm

If you find yourself annoyed by little things such as traffic jams and pranks, you

need to get this handled. You have to visualize yourself responding in a cool way

to whatever sh*t life throws at you.

Becoming calm only takes two things: to visualize and to do it constant. Not once

or twice, every day! See yourself smiling confidently and reacting in a very

mature manner to day-to-day problems. Only then will you be ready to face

more daunting challenges such as SHTF drills and even the real deal.

He Must Have Emotional Intelligence

One of the reasons most people aren’t leaders is because they’re just too

rational. I’m not saying they’re right, not by a long shot, just that, a lot of times,

you have to “think emotionally”. In other words, you have to feel the person in

front of you and not limit yourself to the facts.

Sure, if everyone else was logical, the biggest leaders would be the ones with

the most reason. But people are irrational and, sometimes, downright crazy. So

if you want them to follow you, you’re gonna have to see things from their

perspectives as well, even if they’re all twisted.

Let me give you an example. Say you have a relative or a neighbor who thinks

you’re crazy for preparing. He probably laughs at you and he thinks nothing bad

is ever going to happen.

Then, Doomsday happens. He makes it but is really shaken up and doesn’t have

that much to live because he didn’t stockpile. You can throw him a bone, sure,

but then what?

Is your rational mind going to tell you to ignore him and even hide from him

when he comes looking for you? Or is the leader in you going to try and find

ways in which you can help him and he can help you?

And if you don’t need him, that’s fine too. Remember that you and your family

are the most important thing in an SHTF scenario. A true leader recognizes the

value in people and finds ways in which the can work together.

In times like these you show your emotional intelligence and figure out how to

bring people to work together under your supervision to achieve a common

goal.

He Must Have Passion

If you’re not passionate about prepping and leading people to a common goal,

there’s no shame in that. Forget about all of this and use your time to better

prepare on your own and with your family.

If you feel like leading people is not something you’re interested in, you’ll find

yourself that, when you try, you’re going to quickly lose power as the others will

start to overthink you.

He Must Be Optimistic

I don’t care if you’re being hit by one disaster after another, you have to

maintain your optimism no matter what. Because no matter how low you go,

you’re always at level zero and you can only go up from there.

People tend to get negative when a lot of bad things happen in their life.

You wanna know how to get optimistic all the time? One word: discipline. For

some reason, our brains tend to be more negative than positive.

They always focus on what we don’t have, on our defects and on the fact that

we can’t have what we want. Unless you train them, that is.

That’s right: you have to train your brain to always see the up side of every

situation and the good in people. I’m not trying to be all esoteric here; you have

to do this because it is the only way you will find connections between people

and things that you otherwise wouldn’t.

Let me explain it another way. When all you see is the empty half of the cup,

you cannot make progress.

In order to get yourself out of whatever problems you have, you have to make

connections between the things that are working. So it only makes sense that

you focus on them. Focus and don’t lose hope… no matter what!

He Must Be a Team Player

There’s one small catch to this. While it’s the right way to consider yourself one

of the team, a real leader knows inside of him that he’s the one who’s in charge.

If you were all equal, things would quickly go downhill.

A lot of leadership books and articles don’t mention this aspect because it

doesn’t seem fair but, in a true crisis, it’s not fairness you’re looking for, it’s

keeping everyone alive!

So, yes, be a team player. But if that’s all you are, then you’re definitely not the

leader of that group.

He Must Be Trustworthy

Needless to say, if they don’t trust you, they won’t follow you. In fact, if they

don’t trust you and they do follow you, they most likely have a different agenda

than yours.

Being a trustworthy guy isn’t easy because, nowadays, temptation is

everywhere. To me, it seems like every new person I meet that seems really nice

in the beginning turns out to cheat on others to get what they want. From

cheating on your boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse to doing various tricks to get

more money, most people are doing them.

In such a world, it’s hard to be a stand-up citizen. Nevertheless, I’m doing it and,

because of this, because I say “no” to so many things, people started trusting

me. You know why? Because I’m one of the few guys they can rely on. They

know I’m one of the few guys who isn’t going to screw them. they know I’ll do

whatever I say I’m going to do and that if I can’t do it, I’ll let them know as soon

as possible.

He should be Enthusiastic

Ok, it might be tough to get excited about the future when the present just

collapsed around you. You’re gonna feel more like crying than acting all happy

but it all depends on the reality.

And the reality will be that what’s done is done and that you only have the

present and the future to look up to. So why the heck wouldn’t you want to be

enthusiastic?

You’re at point zero right now and with enthusiasm and lots of work you’re going

to do a lot better. And so is everyone else around you. Maybe you’re close to

getting back electricity or getting a better source of water. Whatever they are,

the things that make us enthusiastic are all around us. You can find them right

now, you don’t have to wait for the Apocalypse to be enthusiastic.

He Should Be a *Leader*

Are you a leader or a boss? That’s a great question and, as you probably

imagined, being a leader is the answer. A boss is simply someone who’s in a

power position that likes to give orders and doesn’t really care about anyone

else. He somehow managed to get a group together and now he’s striving to

keep it together.

Bosses don’t have leadership skills and, sooner or later, the group dissolves.

They use people, they take credit for their work, they don’t give them

recognition, they always blame their employees and never blame themselves

and so on.

Whatever you do, do NOT fall into this trap (another good reason to practice

leadership before SHTF.

What Should a Leader Do?

A bad leader does nothing, a good leader does a lot. If you think leadership is

just sitting around giving orders, you are very much mistaking. One of the things

that will get you that leadership position and keep you there is the amount of

effort you put in.

Working harder and knowing more is the only way (that I know of) to get people

to accept you as their leader.

From a decision-making standpoint, there are three types of leaders, as

identified in the 1930s by a group of psychologists led by Kurt Lewin:

leaders to take decisions without consulting the team,

leaders who consult with the team

and leaders who let the team make the decisions without interfering.

Enable Others to Act

The pinnacle of leadership is to get other people to do the things they say they’re

going to do. That’s a lot harder to do than it sounds and you know it. If there’s

one thing everyone can agree is that, if we tell or ask someone to do something,

more often than not, that person doesn’t do it.

This drove me crazy for a while because I couldn’t understand why it was

happening. Then, as I grew older and wiser, I not only solved the riddle but I also

found ways to get people to do what they say they’re gonna do.

First thing’s first: why do people don’t keep their word? Is it because you’re not

“a leader”? Not really, I mean, in most cases there is no such relationship.

The fact of the matter is, they’re just not motivated to do it. People make

promises because they sound right at the moment, but then they get caught up

in something else and your thing just isn’t that important to them.

Great leaders solve this by doing a few things right such as:

being at the top of their game;

always asking, always pushing, always reminding them about this but in

a friendly manner;

giving them the power of personal example

Get Others to Trust Each-Other

This is an important yet overlooked trait of a leader. Just because you’re

trustworthy, that doesn’t mean the others will be. In a post-SHTF scenario, a

lot of things will go wrong, a lot of conflicts will arise. People will screw each-

other and if all you’re doing is mediating those conflicts, that’s not enough.

Sometimes you have to convince one person that the other is trustworthy. You

have to maintain trust in your team and even vouch for them if need be.

One of the ways we trust another person more is when a 3rd party puts in a

good word for him or her. That’s pretty much what you will have to do. And

after you do it, you’re gonna have to go to the other guy and tell him to be

more careful because you’re not happy to what he’s doing.

He Should Listen

This one is obvious but how many of us really listen when someone is talking?

In reality it’s just like they said it in the move Fight Club: most people only wait

for their turn to speak, they don’t really listen.

When you listen, you have to at least get the essential of what they’re trying to

say. And if you’re smart and you talk back to them about what they just told

you, you’ll not only get a tremendous amount of respect but they’ll actually

speak less because they’ll get that you get them.

He Should Value Time

Not just his time, but everyone else’s. One of the little known ways of getting

respect is by not making yourself available all day every day. Time is limited,

every second counts and, unless you’re having a beer or playing poker, you don’t

really have time to waste. Work is one thing, socializing is another.

Some people have trouble saying “no” to other people. I was one of them. How

did I get past it? Easy, you just do it! There’s no magic recipe. There’s no magic

sequence of words that will get people to stand back, apologize and walk away

in shame. You just tell them that you don’t have time right now and that’s that.

It doesn’t matter if they get a little upset, they will RESPECT you.

Putting It All Into Action

Theory’s good but too much of it and you’re better off not knowing some of it,

eh? In this chapter we’re going to talk about all the various ways in which you

can put everything we talked about into practice.

We can’t simulate a disaster, at least not one that involves your entire

community which, at the moment, probably thinks you’re crazy… but we can do

a lot of other things to practice your skills.

Because that’s what it all comes down to: practice. And competence.

Competence is more important than confidence because it all boils down to

what you can do and how well you can do it rather than just being below average

and coming across as a know-it-all.

Practice at Your Job

The best place you can practice leadership is in your company. It doesn’t matter

if you have a menial job, you can always volunteer to take more responsibility

than you’re paid for. People are always looking for less so they can get home

sooner to watch T.V. But not you.

The first thing I want you to do is to hunt opportunities for projects that involve.

You’re in a controlled environment with an established leadership food chain,

it’s the perfect place you try and move up the ladder. If you can’t do it here, you

may want to change job and do something you’re more passionate about but,

in general, you should be able to grow from literally any company.

You think it’s going to be tough? You bet! But this is how the leadership spirit

will be forged: in fire, working overtime and sweat.

Get To Know Your Neighbors

Since you’re going to be leading these people after a crisis, you might as well

meet them now. A lot of survivalists only go as far to suggest that you should

meet them to exchange ideas and to establish war plans for when the grid will

go down.

You’re gonna take it one step further and use these meetings as opportunities

to practice your leadership skills.

For once, you should host the meetings at your house. This way, you’ll be the

host and, to some extent, you’ll be perceived as the leader. Well, if you’re the

one who’s bringing cold beer out of the fridge, you deserve to, right?

I don’t care if you’re going to play poker, The Settlers of Catan or something else.

The important thing is to get these people under the same roof to get a feel for

how they are like and to see any potential leaders in them.

That’s right, among them there’s a good chance you will meet someone who’s

used to being in charge. And that’s fine because now you have someone to learn

from. Not many preppers even think about getting to know their neighbors, let

alone to learn something from them.

Cause that’s what a great leaders does: he learns from the best, even if that

person is only good on one aspect.

Ask for Help

I’m guilty of this: I would rather do things on my own even if it takes me forever,

than to ask for help… even if I have a friend who can do it and I wouldn’t have

to pay a dime.

I’m not asking you to ask people for help because you have to. I’m asking you to

step on your pride because one day you might starve you and your family to

death if you’re going to be stubborn. Leaving this extreme scenario aside (is it

really that extreme, despite our prepping endeavors?), you need to ask people

for help because that’s what a leader does.

The difference between a leader and a boss is that the leader doesn’t give

orders, he (or she) asks for help. Get it? You reframe your request to make

people more comfortable with the difference between the two of you.

So, let see. What are some of the things you could use some help with? Setting

up your printer? A problem with your car? Whatever it is, think of a friend who

can help you and then ask him for help. Of course, you don’t have to give him

so much work he’s gonna start asking for a paycheck; just enough to see his

reaction and whether or not he will help you.

Do Family Drills

You know how important your survival drills are but let me ask you this: before

you do them, are you actually preparing yourself from a leadership point of

view? If you’re only focused on the “how to”, when disaster strikes, you will see

for yourself that, unless you can keep the team together, they will not listen to

you. Not in the same way they do it during peacetime, at least.

If you want to guarantee that you’ll do well as a leader after Doomsday, you

have to practice it like crazy before that. Time is ticking so please, take every

concept I presented to you in this course, study it and put it into practice right

now!

Stay safe,

Founder of www.FamilySurvivalBlueprints.com and www.SurvivalSullivan.com