How to Prepare for a Crisis You Can’t Predict

Post #1 in a new monthly Subscriber’s Q&A series.

"You talk about how fear paralyzes you because we wait for clarity, but I think there is a lot of valid confusion about what happens next. So how do we prepare when we don’t know? Do we build out action plans for multiple scenarios? It’s so hard to imagine our world crumbling - and how does one even really make it through that?"

Image: AdobeStock

Dear friend,

The problem with a slow-rolling crisis is that it doesn’t trigger the same kind of instinctive, fight-or-flight clarity that a sudden disaster does. When there’s a fire tearing through a region or entire communities are displaced by flood, we know what to do. Even if we've never experienced anything like it before, the response is obvious: evacuate, find shelter, get to safety. That's the basic script in every emergency playbook.

But there's no playbook here. When the very structures that are supposed to protect and stabilise society are being destroyed, it creates a different kind of crisis. A crisis where the damage isn’t a singl…