About | BePrepared.biz

The origin story

The idea came from a pile of real life. Eagle Scout — “Be Prepared” has been in his bones since childhood. Tornado Alley keeps his eye on the sky. Surviving a bad case of Covid-19 is what turned the idea into years of work: protect himself, family, friends, and anyone else willing to do the homework before the disaster, the accident, the tech failure, or the health scare.

The older he gets, the more unnecessary pain he sees when people he cares about are unprepared. After years and thousands of hours of research, he wanted something that:

Was simple, yet able to be updated as life (and information) changes
Served as a practical system — safe, confidential, portable
Got him organized and more in control of his “stuff”
Wasn’t in the cloud and at risk from hackers and extortionists
Stayed legible, printable, customizable, modifiable
Was reasonably priced next to the value of what you stand to lose

The goal is still the same: help people be prepared for life’s inevitable — and sometimes avoidable — crises. PCP connects the work that is usually treated separately: critical information (PIPP™), disaster readiness (DizPrep™), and legacy / end-of-life planning.

The sparks

Covid-19

John started the project during what he called “CoronaChaos.” Six weeks in bed. Friends who were fine on Monday were on a ventilator, then gone. Most of them were unprepared. Life is shorter than we pretend.

Tornado Alley

Norman, Oklahoma — National Weather Center country. He has seen tornadoes take hundreds of homes to the slab. Possessions scatter. Important papers do not come back. Then you notice the rest of the map: wildfire, earthquake, flood, hurricane.

Scouting

As an Eagle Scout, the motto stuck. Anticipate the challenge. Be ready for the scenario that would otherwise become a crisis.

Aging

Family history of Alzheimer’s. Accounts, hobbies, possessions, passwords — it is hard to keep up even with a healthy brain. How do you collect, organize, protect, and evaluate critical information, documents, and memories before you need them?

Family and friends

He has been helping 80+ year-old parents through what he calls the Winding Down™ process — be good stewards, don’t leave a mess. Then his own spouse asked him not to leave her and their three kids a bigger one. Confessed paper hoarder. The piles would not have been a kind gift.

Innovation work

Twenty-plus years speaking, training, and consulting on innovation. He wanted a secure, portable, customizable system with tools that work if you do the work.

Too much information

Hundreds of passwords. People move, change numbers, jobs, churches. Keeping a current list of who to call is a job by itself. He spent more than two years on books, workbooks, articles, videos, and interviews / surveys with 100+ people. Plenty of materials exist. Each one was missing something — or stored the wrong things in the cloud.

Help people Be Prepared for life’s crises.