I have been able to convince a number of other people to prep, yet I see posts on prepper forums about folks having bad experiences when trying to convince family, friends, and coworkers to prep. They wind up breaking OPSEC, only to find the idea of prepping rejected, or even ridiculed. I believe the problem is purely a matter of poor communication and coming off as, . . . well, Paranoid. If you start off talking about an EMP, when the person you are trying to convince has never heard of an EMP, failure is likely.
The Problem of OPSEC
Even mentioning prepping risks violating OPSEC. The worst result is to try to convince someone to prep and they not only refuse, but tell others, who then show up on your doorstep when a disaster occurs. Clearly, you’d be better off not discussing the matter at all. On the other hand, if you want others to prep, you can’t let OPSEC totally stop you. The answer is to be selective in who you talk to, and what you tell them.
Start with someone who listens to you. That means, not your teenage kids. 😊 However, a person who respects your opinion on other matters, is likely to at least hear you out, and hopefully respect your request to keep the discussion confidential. A person who doesn’t listen to you on other matters, isn’t going to be receptive on a topic they don’t believe in. If your family is “difficult”, skip them and try out a friend who is more receptive generally. Don’t have anyone like that in your life? You have a broader problem. ☹
You also need to assess individual by individual what they’ll be receptive to. I know a young woman in the medical field. My sense is she would not be receptive to the idea of prepping. I gave her a very extensive first aid kit and told her to put it in the back of her car in case she ever found herself at the scene of a car accident. She is now that much more prepared than she was before, and she may save someone’s life someday with the contents of that kit. I’ve never mentioned prepping to her.
What you share initially is simply prepping for realistic, short term scenarios. I generally have a water bottle and a few food bars with me when I commute into New York. Nobody from NYC is going to show up at my house in NJ for a couple food bars. I don’t share what’s in the house. I do share how handy those few items are when trying to “Escape From New York”.
If you go further with someone who won’t prepare for short term scenarios, you wreck your own OPSEC. If a person won’t prep for short term disasters, they certainly won’t prep for long term disasters. Move on to a better candidate.
Pick Credible Disasters
Being right and being credible are two different things. You may believe you are right, but are you credible? We all have some type of disaster that convinced us to prep. For many it is an EMP. For others, it is economic collapse. For still others it may be Pandemic, or Nuclear War. Typically, the things that cause us to prep, are really rare, and really scary. If your first conversation is about some strange event (at least strange to them) that hasn’t ever occurred in your area, the person’s first reaction is not going to be what you’re looking for, plus the steps to prepare may seem so overwhelming the person just shuts down.
What you want to do is take smaller, more realistic, disaster scenarios to start the conversation. Recently, we have had some terrible hurricanes. A conversation about having a BOB and being ready to evacuate if a hurricane is predicted, seems like a much more realistic scenario to discuss than nuclear war. How about just a power outage? Is your house habitable if the power goes out for a week? We lost utility power for 8 days due to hurricane Sandy. That is certainly a credible scenario. You’re not going to get a “That’ll never happen.” response if it has already happened. Puerto Rico will have power problems for months due to recent hurricanes.
Next Steps
Now comes the tough part. You’ve made your point. The person you’re trying to convince is either going to prepare for short-term disasters with a BOB, some food, water, etc. or not. If it is “not”, move on. Try someone else. Do not push the topic if they just are not buying into the idea. Most of the people you approach will not turn into preppers.
Not everyone is going to be moved to action. There is no shortage of unprepared people. If they do prep for short-term disasters, then congratulate your family member, friend, or colleague, and suggest adding just a bit more food, a bit more water, supplies for a few more people, or whatever you think will resonate with your successful new prepper. Perhaps you want to offer a trip to a range?
Types of success
Success can come in a variety of forms. Not everyone is going to be a full-bore prepper, even out of those where you have initial success. My immediate family is my wife and daughters. They have listened to me and know I believe in prepping. They also view it as my job. 😊 Guys take care of the cars. Women cook the meals. Guys prep to keep the family safe. It’s very sexist on their part, but I’m not trying to solve sexism. I’m trying to get them to prep. They haven’t laughed at me, or otherwise rejected the notion. It’s just my job in their minds. I gave each of them BOBs and they do keep them in their cars. I’ll take that level of success with them.
I’ve tried to convince a few young adults to prep. They have put together BOBs, read some books on the subject, but don’t have the funds to do as much as one might hope. I expect they will take it further when they are out of school, moved out of tiny apartments, and generally gotten a bit further with their finances. For now, I’ll consider that success.
At work, I’ve had occasional discussions of what to do in various disasters. There are lots of folks who weren’t in the work force when the WTC disaster occurred 16 years ago, but most of them know I walked out of the World Trade Center. Carrying a bag with food, water, etc. seems a small step after having a discussion after a high-rise fire drill, but it is really another small success.
One evening recently, I found myself at a party of people I didn’t know, but with all the recent hurricanes the subject of Sandy came up. One woman mentioned she had installed a natural gas generator after Hurricane Sandy. She was quite pleased with her purchase, even though she has never had an outage since. I let her talk to all the others about this subject, then I mentioned that I had purchased a generator before Hurricane Sandy and how nice it had been to have it during the time the power was out. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the folks listening to the conversation didn’t purchase a generator in the next year. “Prepping” was never mentioned.
We all know it takes time, money and storage to prep. If you get someone to take the first step, you’ve got your win. Taking it further is their challenge.
What to Expect
Only about 3% of the population preps at all. Most people aren’t going to change radically just on your say so. Expect most people to listen politely, and then ignore you. Some who agree with you, may not be at a stage of life where they can do more than a small amount. If you get any sort of push back or ridicule, you have pushed too hard. If you can expand the universe of preppers by just a few people, even to the limited degree I have described above, you’ve succeeded. You may go through 100 people before you find the one that will take the message to heart, but with each one you have potentially saved a life.
The “crazy” prepper stigma is tough to deal with. In today’s newspaper, there’s an editorial by Jonah Goldberg, in which he recounts the conflict within the conservative movement (in the 50s) over the radical-right John Birch Society. (Famous for seeing Commies in every shadow) “Normal” conservatives fretted over being identified (in any way) with the “crazy” fringe, since the Liberals were all too eager to lump the rational conservatives in the same basket as the crazies.
Similarly, rational preppers are all too easily tarred with the Doomsday Prepper brush. Of course, the liberal producers of the show sought out the craziest preppers they could find. They’re more entertaining than someone who rotates canned goods through a deep pantry.
What can be handy, is if someone has made SOME prep (like a generator), it can be a stepping stone to relate to. “Having some extra food and water stored is kind of like having a generator. I mean, if the power is out, who wants to go out in all that to get stuff?”
“All that stuff” could be just about anything. Better, to not get real specific on Yellowstone volcanos or nuclear war.
— Mic
Great comment! One of the points I have tried to make from time to time is that being partially prepped is much better than not being prepped at all. If someone has a 3 day bag, he is better off than someone who has done nothing. My goal in convincing people is to get them to start.
I hold opsec really tight (probably too tight, to be honest). I don’t have much family, so that’s not a concern.
I do talk about “what if’s” with my friends, but most of them just want to rant about how they hate liberals or Trump or whatever, it’s like that’s all that matters to them.
Perhaps it is?
All I know is if the SHTF you can’t eat hate, but you can eat stored preps.
I appreciate what you’re saying. Being selective on who to talk to is critical to success.
My family knows I prep. And they don’t give me a hard time about it. But very few of them do anything about it. I got one sister into prepping by giving her a huge box from Emergency Essentials with 6 cans of different things for emergencies, in the guise of hurricane preparedness, since we often get them. She got one box for Christmas and one for her birthday. I didn’t care if that’s what she wanted or not. It made me feel good. But she started asking about how to use the foods, how long they would last, etc. and I kept up the dialogue. Now she is an avid prepper, buying food like the world is going to end tomorrow, and I am so proud of the things she has done and read. She actually sends me an article every now and then asking if I had heard this or that. She filled up the aqua pod in her bathtub before our last hurricane and was so glad I had bought it for her. My daughter, who works in government, actually believes the US can stop every kind of missile anyone wants to shoot at us. And that we will never have war or an EMP because of that. I can’t change her mind. When she asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I sent her a picture of a surgical kit and the web site. When I opened my gift, it was several pairs of earrings, a new purse, some lotion, and some expensive candies from a candy shop. God bless her sweet heart. I just said thank you and hugged her neck. So I buy for her family too. On the other hand, when I told my son I wanted a tactical vest to carry all my stuff and hang a holster on if I had to walk home from someplace far away, he got me the most awesome one for Christmas. I feel good that I have sown seeds and a few of them have sprouted. Even the grandchildren help me prep. One day I was putting things in the storage shed with the granddaughters helping, and one asked why I had Windex and Pine Sol in my boxes. Her sister replied vehemently, “Susie, we aren’t going to live in a dirty house just because it’s the Apocalypse.” I cracked up laughing. All of my grandchildren can build a fire in several different ways, they can all shoot guns, half of them carry knives outside of school, none are afraid of blood, or snakes, or lizards, or spiders, and they know not to sit in the chair facing the door in a restaurant because that is where I am going to be sitting. They all know how to watch for anyone carrying a weapon and they know if I say HIT THE DIRT, there is a shooter and they are to go flat. They know not to reach into my purse for anything because I will have a handgun in there. I might not be able to get ALL of their parents on board, but I have the next generation on board. I feel good about that.
That’s great! I am very pleased to hear from another prepper who is succeeding at getting family and friends on board.
I like Grandma Cassie’s idea of asking for certain types of gifts. That might be enough to start a conversation.
I’ve tried it but if someone dosent prep and sees no reason to all the arguments in the world wont make them, so you get labelled paranoid and you’ve destroyed your opsec into the bargain, so I don’t do it anymore.
You’re exactly the type of prepper I wrote this for. You’re not trying to argue, but to sell an idea. If they don’t buy, you need to look for another prospect. If you don’t succeed, just move on to somebody else, before you harm your OPSEC. If you have even a 1% success rate, then you’re doing okay.
Sharing the gospel is the same as prepping not everyone will accept the message (parable of the sower) only this prep will be for eternity.My family and I have enjoyed camping for a long time,hence prepping was inevitable buying a little here and there over the years was not hard on the wallet.Camping eventually led to backpacking and it has now become generational (grand kids).They know I prep and accept what I am doing and know where to go in an emergency.I’ve asked for prepping items for gifts and have received same we laugh about it,but it’s me.I don’t have a problem telling people about Jesus and where I stand but I’m selective about who I tell about prepping (opsec) to most people I’m Clark Kent and prefer to keep it that way.