Are You Like Noah When Convincing Others To Prep?

When you think about it, Noah was one of the first preppers. He listened to God when he told him to prepare for the end of the world. He had to put up with the rest of the people who thought he was crazy when he started to build the ark form the ground up. Not that different from you and I.

drawing of Noah sending doves to find land
drawing of Noah sending doves to find land

He had to go through the disappointment of knowing people did not see the impending dangers. Yet he did the right thing, he took his family and listened to the Lord and forgot about everyone else.

The key word here is family. He had to convince them to prepare along side of him. Because, truth be told, he might not have made it on his own (building the ark and everything).

And that’s exactly what you should do if you want to maximize your chances of survival. Fight. Fight for your loved ones, to awaken them and don’t give up on them.

I see it on prepping forums every day… people saying things like:

Well, they think I’m crazy. I’m not gonna put up with this. They can do whatever they want.

or

I gave up on them a long time ago. It’s just not worth the effort.

I’m not going to let you give up on your loved ones. That’s why I wrote this article. Just like prepping takes a little bit of time, a little bit of money, and a learning curve, convincing your family to do the right thing is a multi-step process.

Heck, everything pertaining to the human mind is.

You need to constantly remind yourself to work out if you want to lose weight.

You need years to improve if you want to become a leader at your job.

Getting your loved ones on board to prep with you is no different. It’s a delicate matter (just like politics!) and I’m going to teach you exactly how to approach this.

Tip #1: Don’t talk about extreme scenarios just yet

Warning them about a nation-wide EMP or getting them to picture how the entire U.S. will suddenly be overrun by local gangs is the quickest way to be labelled as “crazy”.

You have to ease your family into this. Talk to them about all the floods, droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, rapes, home invasions, and others small scale disasters that are already happening every day.

The more of these recent and true stories you talk with them about, the easier it will be for the to get on board by starting small. They can be convinced to help you put aside a little extra food or upgrade your home make it less likely to be burglarized.

Anchor your reasons as much as you can in reality, things already happening around us. Leave extreme scenarios for later when they’re ready to hear them.

Tip #2: Show them disasters that happened where YOU live

That will make everything much more believable and get them to say:

Jeez, this could happen to me!

There’s little point in talking about floods if you give as example one that happened 1000 miles away. You have to start digging for disasters that happened where YOU live so your loved ones can relate to them. Something tells me it won’t be long until you find some stories that will scare even you. 🙂

Tip #3: Don’t just talk, tell a story

People love stories. Noah’s story is one of them and it has inspired billions. So, instead of just pleading in front of them like a lawyer, how about you tell stories of all the disasters that have happened or could happen near your home?

Keep in mind that the success of a good story lays in two things: in how you say it and the details.

Tip #4: Allow them to “experience” survival

No, I’m not talking about leaving them defenseless in a forest to see if they can make it. Take them camping, let them feel the pleasure of lighting a fire without a match. Give them your hunting knife and let them feel it in their hands.

You see, people are motivated by only two things, desperation and inspiration. Desperation will only come when it’s too late, meaning you have to rely on inspiration to get them to open up to the idea of prepping.

Tell them how cool it is to know Navy SEAL and military tactics and to be like Rambo, able to survive no matter what.

Take them with you camping and tell them that the stuff they learn is only known by a handful of people. Let them know that most people will never survive a night in the wilderness without these skills.

Tip #5: Appeal to their emotions, not just logic

How do politicians get to the “top” (if you can call it that) and manage to stay there despite the poor job most of them are doing? Have you ever watched a speech from beginning to end?

If you have, surely you noticed how most of it appeals to the emotional side of people, not the logical one. There is little logic in what most of them are saying. The facts, the stats, the numbers, and the truth are secondary.

People are irrational. That’s a fact. They make decisions based on emotion and then justify their actions with logic, so they feel good about themselves.

So don’t feel bad about appealing to their emotional side because that’s exactly how you got into prepping. You got scared enough to take action. Not paranoid, not irrational, but concerned. And that’s exactly the state to which you have to bring them as well.

Does this mean you have to paint a nasty picture of Doomsday? As I previously said in this article, the answer’s no. The picture you have to paint has to be realistic for them but the “secret ingredient” is to add emotional words.

Think of them like salt and pepper, they give flavor and aroma as long as you don’t abuse them and only sprinkle them here and there.

Here’s a list of emotional trigger words you should incorporate in your vocabulary that will help:

agony
brutal
stock
terrified
staggering
crazy
warning signs
carnage
chilling
despair
disgust
exasperated
infuriated
weary
risky
fearful
irritation
hurt
vengeful
bleeding
damaged
disturbing
crippling
pessimism
enraged
alone
lonely
sad
scary
frightening

Think like a news anchor. They use words like these all the time to present the news, yet they’re not crossing the line in trying to make you really scared.

And that’s what you should do too, if you want your loved ones to pay attention. Scare them just enough to get them to take action without appearing to be crazy.

In fact, I encourage you to watch the news on any channel, particularly those that describe a catastrophe (which happens every day, anyway) and watch how they formulate their sentences. It’s a real eye-opener.

Final Word

If there’s one thing I want you to remember from this article above all it is that getting your loved ones to prepare takes time and it has to be done in a certain way. You need to be assertive, you need to really believe prepping is right, you need to know exactly what you’re preparing for and lead the way.

2 thoughts on “Are You Like Noah When Convincing Others To Prep?”

  1. One more thing to do is buy them appropriate clothing and items for hiking, climbing, etc. to encourage them to be with you, and undertake such activities as a family.

    If you have kids who love their tech then let them use GPS to navigate, on land or water, go geocaching as a family.

    Once you get them this hooked then you can create scenarios without their tech and get them used to things such as using maps instead of GPS, building shelters instead of using a tent, etc.

    Personally I convinced my family a few years back when we had a really unusually bad winter. Although everything appeared normal on the surface the reality was that
    1) Shops had 3 weeks of warehouse stock left
    2) Fuel reserves were low as the storage tanks which supply the fuel tankers that supply the petrol and diesel to stations hadn’t been replenished
    3) The gritting lorries were fast running out as the depots weren’t replenished

    Whilst most people weren’t aware of this I was as I’d been tipped off by friends.

    I had plenty of food, water and cooking options (Natural gas, bottled gas, wood stove) plus a generator in case the electrical supply was lost, along with plenty of fuel for it. We had

    Once temperatures rose above freezing and things got back to normal I finally revealed the reality of how bad things really were, they’ve been on board ever since

  2. One thing I’ve done, is have taste testing with veggies. Home grown VS store bought. Explain the commercial growing systems, how suspect they are, and how important some cancer causing foods are to be avoided! I’m anti nuke, and always show the reports of leaks, accident, and where/how waste is buried underground. BUT…to get my point across, I start with taste. We all chew differently! It’s a start to other topics!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *