The "End of the World"-Scenario So Many Are "Prepping" For, Me Included, is What Folks 150 Years Ago Called "Daily Life":

For hundreds of generations our ancestors survived and thrived in balance with nature without electricity, without supermarkets, without running water, without the biggest military spending in the world.

They lived a hard life, but often also a happy and fulfilling life. They did not know the stress that we know today when we bustle about at a meaningless work, away from our family, for most of our productive lives. In many ways their lives were harder than ours, but they also had less worries, more freedom and more time for their loved ones.

Their simpler, more resilient (and some would say more meaningful) way of live was possible because they knew the skills of self-reliance. Skills that were passed down from generation to generation; from father to son and mother to daughter. Heritage life skills.

But these skills are no longer being passed down, they've been largely forgotten by 99.99% of families (in the developed world anyway). Instead we rely on centralized and fragile infrastructure and politicians to do things for us.

Of course I'm not saying we all should go back to living in caves and abandon electricity, tap water and all other modern comforts. I love my dishwasher.

I'm not saying either that we haven't learned anything useful in the past 100 years. Humanity has made great progress developing and putting to use concepts such as permaculture, whole systems design, holistic thinking, and so on. We've also invented brilliant technology such as the internet, computers, solar panels and more that, if put to good use, can help you become a freer human being.

What I am saying is this: It might not be the best idea to be dependent on the status quo and bet ones life, liberty and pursuit of happiness on these modernities. If history shows us anything, and you'll get examples of this in the three important lessons below, it's that taking things for granted is a certain recipe for failure and misery.

Global resilience expert Vinay Gupta, who categorized the six ways to die and three essential services above, has given this topic a great deal of thought. He notes:

We've made ourselves dependent on fragile infrastructure outside of our control. So much that we'll only last days without it.

A prominent think tank in the UK, Chatham House, tried to answer the question of how long the world will continue to work if a disaster (big pandemic, war, financial crisis, etc.) shuts down global transportation. Their answer:  A week.

It will only take a week (at most) before:

1. You won’t be able to buy food at the supermarket.
2. You can’t find a gas station with any fuel left.
3. The government assumes emergency powers to ration what’s left.

Our dependence is this bad, and at the same time we've forgotten the wisdom and skills that helped our ancestors get through depressions, disasters, famines, wars, droughts, and other hard times by their own accord.

But it's not too late to regain this knowledge and relearn these skills, and pass them on to a next generation. You might need it sooner than you think, be it because you lose your job or all hell breaks loose.

It all starts with this letter, and the three old lessons you'll learn below that will ensure you and your family will be well fed through good times and bad.

Call me old fashioned; I don't care...but I completely believe in what our ancestors stood for.

They all had a part in turning Western civilization and America into the most powerful civilization in the history of mankind.

Many died and suffered before a creative mind found an ingenious solution to - maybe - a century old problem. Believe it or not, our ancestors skills and deeds are all covered in blood. This is why these must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same for our children or our children's children.

Our fathers and our grandfathers were probably the last generation to practice basic things like building a root cellar or making pemmican, the last self-reliant generation. Our ancestors laid the bricks and built the world's strongest foundation...that we are about to irreversibly forget!

And we're going to pay the ultimate price for this. Because if you have a big, strong house with a weak foundation, it doesn't matter if it looks nice on the outside-the next flood will sweep it away! And that is exactly what will happen to most Americans and Europeans in the coming crisis!

Here we are, human beings in the 21st century, several lifetimes and a world away from our grandparents and their ways. Have we become better at living? I think not. I watch as we become ever more expectant that the world owes us a living. Consumerism has reached epic proportions; people feel aggrieved if they don't own the latest gadget.

The truth is we have never been more disconnected from life, from the world, from the soil, from the trees, and from our own souls.

The wealthiest nation in the world is feeding its citizens an unhealthy diet—and growing most of this food using unsustainable methods.

We have a population threatened by a crisis of diet-related chronic illness; millions of acres of damaged farmland; chemical runoff spilling into our waterways.

Over-reliance on the herbicide glyphosate (marketed by Monsanto Co. as Roundup) has spawned a burgeoning population of Roundup-resistant "superweeds" that has become a scourge for farmers in many areas of the U.S., especially the South and Midwest.

We no longer know how to live without refrigerators, without cars, or without supermarkets.

What will you do tomorrow if you simply are unable to buy things?

I sometimes even think we're kidding ourselves with our Bug Out Bags and with our three-day food rations.

Wouldn't we be better off looking at what the pioneers took with them when they traveled from Independence, Missouri all the way to Oregon City?

That was a four- to six-month journey. If your life depended on this, what Bug Out Bag would you take with you? I know I would stick with whatever the pioneer had with him. He had to travel weeks on end without much help while taking cover from some native tribes at the same time. And this is just a small, tiny example!

Guys, I don't want to see our forefathers' knowledge disappear into the darkness of time...and if you care for your family, and what America stands for...then neither should you!

Whatever you do, don't forget lesson number two:

I grew up without missing a thing. But my great-great grandfather wasn't so lucky. In 1867, when he was only 7 years old, he survived one of the most horrific famines Europe has seen, affecting northern Sweden and Finland. Spring was extremely cold and summer never came.

In the October 17, 1867 issue of London-newspaper The Times one could read about this "one place in Europe where, instead of summer sunshine and bountiful fields, instead of "the joy of harvest" the cry of children for bread, and the moans of men and women dying for want of it."

This was a place where "bread is not to be had for money, and people are living on roots and the bark of trees." Many families survived only because of the lichens they foraged in the forest and the nutritionally deficient bread they baked from fir bark ground into flour.

What you are about to hear is a real recollection that was written in a personal wall almanack during the crisis by Zakarias Wallmark:

Another even grimmer personal recollection comes from homesteader Erik Gideonsson:

Luckily for Erik his family survived, and he lived to tell the tale, thanks to an uncle who brought them a couple of reindeer steaks in the very last minute. In fact, here he is many decades later in the summer of 1937:

But many others were not as lucky. Entire families starved to death.

Things were so bad in 1867 that the folks in the Burträsk area couldn't plant the first crops until midsummer, towards the end of June, and conditions were similar in the rest of northern Sweden.

From the villages reports started coming in of suffering and starvation. The barns and larders were empty and prices of the little food that was left spiked - a barrel of rye ended up costing 50 crowns, which was the equivalent of a month's salary for a factory worker. "There is dire shortage of fodder and sheep and goats are dying everywhere." as Anders Olof Myrholm wrote in his journal.

The long winter made it impossible to get started with farming, but it also made it impossible for ships to reach the northern shores with emergency aid. The ships at that time were not powerful enough to breach even lighter ice.

The starving families were on their own.

But it got even worse. The already severe famine went from deadly to very deadly when it became clear that summer not only came late but also ended prematurely.

To Avaträsk, Lapland, the first frost came on July 18 - death as a white shroud over grain and potato fields. This first frost, grimly referred to as the "night of slit throats", reached my own birthplace a bright, early morning on September 3.

Panic spread among the farmers and in their panic they started to harvest grain that was still green and unripe. The night on September 24 frost killed all vegetation. In minus seven degrees Celcius.

No hope of summer or faith could help them now. The disaster, crop failure, could not be stopped. And it concerned everyone.

On top of this horrifying year the following year, 1868, was not much better. It was drier and resulted in drought and crop failure yet again. People starved, and animals too. Because of malnutrition and disease caused by this famine, death was a familiar part of many families.

People sought out new beginnings within the Nordic countries, but many families also chose to emigrate to North America, "the promised land" during these years. One of them was Erik Grundström, brother of my own great-great-grandfather, who was 5 years old when the famine struck. He emigrated and after a long life died in 1927 in Aitkin, Minnesota, leaving a wife and nine American children behind.

Please allow me to take a wild guess without getting mad at me... you're probably sitting in front of your computer right now with few major worries, with a half-full fridge, maybe a decent job, and at least a small backyard that you can hold on to...and that's good!

But make no mistake taking this for granted!

History has shown us many times that it can all fly away in a split of a second.

The biggest misstep that you can take now is to think that this can never happen in America or to you!

All that our ancestors who formed America lived through would be in vain without lesson number 3:

I believe in God, the Tao, Allah, Brahman, universal intelligence, or whatever you want to call it. I also believe in the power of free will! I believe that you are the only one in charge of your destiny and that you are constantly making decisions that shape the rest of your life.

It's true that we all had different starts, depending on our families and upbringing, but most of us here in the West had at least decent beginnings. We had water and food, we could go shopping from time to time, and we had a decent medical system compared with other parts of the world.

We should be more thankful for that! And we should ensure that we have something put aside for darker times. If anything goes wrong with your country don't blame the government or the president. They don't truly care about you or your family. We are the only one to blame!

I don't know if you've noticed, but nothing just falls from the sky. GOD HELPS YOU, but He does not lay it on your table. You have to work hard and do things yourself! As long as you are aware of this, your destiny rests solely on you and your willpower. You can truly change things! And you can do a lot more than you think you can!

With this idea in mind a few years ago, I wanted to do something that hasn't been done before! Something that not only would help me survive a crisis without investing a fortune in stockpiles, but something that I could do around my house on a daily basis using only methods that were tested and proven by our self-reliant forefathers for centuries.

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, but when I got older there were months when we didn't meet-not because we couldn't stand each other but because I was always too busy working...a lame excuse and a thing that I deeply regret today.

My grandfather passed on many years ago and with him a magnificent amount of survival knowledge. He had been a lumberjack his whole life and spent years sleeping out in the wilderness. I don't know if you're in a similar situation, but think about your grandfather and how many things he did or knew...things that will vanish forever into the dark abyss of ignorance.

I could not learn from my grandfather or grandmother, so I had to turn to other tomes of knowledge, old books and first hand testimonies, to find out how past generations secured shelter, food, water, and safety, and to learn the little secrets that helped them survive in spite of almost everyone else dying.

And because I deeply believed that I was the only one who could change something, my goal for the last couple of years changed from not just "learning" but "saving" our forefathers' ways, so that their knowledge can once again live on in man.

This is one of the most important things that I've done in my life. I'm proud of it, but it took me many difficult years to get here!

First, there is no person that knows all our forefathers' forgotten life skills. Let's just say that there are still a handful of people that still practice a lost skill transmitted from generation to generation even today...but not all the skills of course. I had to get in touch with a lot of different people.

Second, where do you find these people? They are no mainstream survival experts who knows all of these skills; they don't have a website or a TV show. Some of them even live in remote areas without Internet or TV cable, earning a living like the pioneers did!

Third, I wanted to do something unprecedented. You know, articles like "11 Skills Your Great-Grandparents Had That You Don't", and they start listing the skills: hunting, fishing, foraging, butchering, and so on.

Pffff...this kind of information will never help anyone. I needed something solid, exact, and to the point! Not just skills! I wanted to know things that they actually built, ate, and stored and EXACTLY how they did it.

And fourth, I'm not sitting on a gold mine! As much as I enjoyed traveling and learning these skills, I still needed to go to work.

But what I didn't realize when I started my quest is that you can't save these skills only by writing them down. If all these books and writings will be forgotten in a dusty drawer right next to my bed, it won't help anyone.

This knowledge will die together with me, and all my efforts to save our forefathers' ways would have been in vain.

This is because all my life I blindly believed in lesson 3...that "it is always up to me."

But I was wrong! In this case, it's only halfway there!

Today is your chance to be part of saving our ancestors' lost ways.

I just hope that there are more people like you and me who deeply believe that the best way to survive the next major crisis is to look back at how people did things 150 years ago.

I wanted to make this information available to every family out there without having to spend years of their lives or thousands of dollars learning by trial and error.

So I came up with this idea to edit all my manuscripts and to turn all this vanishing knowledge into one of the greatest online resources of this century:

The first step to safeguarding your life and future does not cost you a cent, and it’s this: You need to accept that you are not crazy just because you see the serious consequences from being too dependent on highly fragile infrastructure and a tiny political and financial elite.

If nearly every objective fundamental suggests that the current way of life can not last, maybe it’s time to change how we do things.

How exactly?

By learning from the way of our forefathers. They were producers, not just consumers.

We are vulnerable because of our dependence as consumers. So the way to reverse that, to be resilient and independent, is to become a producer just like your forefathers.

This strategy is nothing new. It's as old as Nature itself. Humans have been self-reliant producers for hundreds of thousands of years, providing their own food, water, energy, shelter, security, etc.

And the good news is: today it’s easier than ever to become a producer, relearn the lost skills of self-reliance and adopt the way of our ancestors. This is what Self-Reliance 365 is all about.

Even on the brink of a complete reset in the financial system and our way of life...

What is needed to rebuild the self-reliant families and communities of old? Simple and direct knowledge on how people can live a better life, if times get tough or even if they don't.

Many of us today, including myself, don’t have any parents or grandparents that could pass on this knowledge for self-reliance. My grandparents died before I was mature enough to realize the immense value of their wisdom, and my parents never inherited those life skills in the first place because with all their modern comforts and a government taking care of them they did not see any value in the old way of life.

I had to learn it all on my own, through books, mentors, and costly trial and error. But you don’t have to go through the same process.

You can implement these same self-reliance systems while avoiding the thousands of hours I’ve spent figuring this stuff out and implementing these solutions into my own life.

Because now there’s Self-Reliance 365.

With Self-Reliance 365 you’ll get easy to follow, step-by-step checklists, or “Execution Plans” as I call them, that will help you practice these life skills and build your self-reliance and personal independence one step at a time.

They’re not your average checklist, but rather checklists on steroids, all about helping you provide your family with the three essential services of shelter, supply of food and water, and safety in the same self-reliant and resilient way as your forefathers.

As I've mentioned, there is no person that knows all our forefathers' forgotten life skills. I'm no exception, and certainly no know-it-all expert on all aspects of self-reliance. Like everyone else I'm learning every day (and still make mistakes occasionally!) and still have a long way to go relearning these life skills. It's something I'm sure will take the rest of my life.

But as I relearn these lost skills I often discover valuable knowledge in forgotten books, and through interviews and witness accounts, knowledge that is proven to be the real deal. When I do, I document it and share it with you.

The goal is simple: To allow someone who isn’t an expert to follow the steps in these plans and achieve similar results as your forefathers.

There’s a reason for why doctors and fighter pilots use checklists. If you follow them step by step they simply work. Not only once but again and again and again.

Our ancestors didn't need checklists because they knew the steps like one knows how to ride a bicycle. But one who has never ridden a bicycle (or flown an airplane!) before will sure appreciate a checklist to get started.

And right now inside the members area you’ll find many complete step-by-step Execution Plans waiting for you.

So you've found a property that you're interested in buying. How do you know if it's a keeper or if it will give you trouble for the rest of your life? Here's what features to look for (and avoid) in the landscape, plus a few steps that will minimize your downside and maximize your upside, and quite possibly save you tens of thousands of dollars down the road.

A step-by-step guide about the age old practice of using firewood to stay warm through winter. This is how to do it the proper way. You'll learn:

This Execution Plan illustrates and explains for beginners some of the most thoroughly proven methods of grafting fruit and nut trees, with knowledge gained from an old (and largely forgotten) classic book on agroforestry. Use this information to plant your own food forest or orchard, and save hundreds or thousands of dollars in the process.

When you're done with this Execution Plan, you'll have a clear picture of how the five permaculture zones fit in with your property and how they affect the energy efficiency on site, and more importantly you'll know how to spot and reduce the major types of waste in homesteading and self-reliance.

If photovoltaics had existed 200 years ago, your forefathers would probably have loved it. Photovoltaics is a most elegant energy source. Light shines on a crystal and produces electricity. Its as simple as that. There are no moving parts. The fuel source (sunlight) is free, abundant and widely distributed, available to every country and person in the world.

To give you an idea of what to expect, here are some examples of upcoming Execution Plans that we can’t wait to share with members:

As a Self-Reliance 365 member you get to see everything…the good, the bad and the ugly.

And when we figure out something that works, or rediscover valuable knowledge in old books, we systemize and document it into an “Execution Plan” (i.e. a checklist or “cheat sheet) that all our members can use.

The sole goal of Self-Reliance 365 is to help you accomplish real things in real life, to put the same skills to use that your forefathers used to survive and thrive, not become yet another ebook or course gathering dust on your harddrive.

That’s why the Executions Plans you’ll find in the members area don’t contain page after page of theory. Almost none in fact. If you want theory, go read a free blog post at WaldenLabs.com.

But if you want results, starting today, then give Self-Reliance 365 a try.

True self-reliance is only possible when it’s done in balance with nature, and that means being in tune with the seasons.

Homesteaders of old were intricately connected with nature and the moon cycles and knew what to do when, from planting to cutting firewood and bringing in the harvest. Much of that knowledge has been forgotten, but the knowledge is still out there.

We’re bringing this knowledge back to life in the Self-Reliance Calendar, only available to members of Self-Reliance 365. We launched it back in November 2015, and at the start of each month you'll get a report covering the things that were done in the days of old.

In the Calculators section of Self-Reliance 365 you'll find custom Done-For-You calculators that we've developed to make your self-reliant life easier, all based on accurate, scientific formulas.

Whether you want to figure out the perfect size for a solar PV system, how many batteries you need in the battery bank, or how thick wires your PV system requires, we've got calculators for all of those, and more.

In our Water Calculators section you'll also find calculators that will help you figure out how much rainwater (in gallons or liters) you can collect annually from a certain catchment area.

No more calculating long and complex mathematic formulas by hand, our calculators does the heavy lifting for you automatically. All calculators that you'll find in the Execution Plans will also be gathered here in one place.

As a member of Self-Reliance 365 you'll have someone who is constantly hunting down and negotiating exclusive deals and discounts for you on the best products in self-reliance.

Whenever we see something we like, be it a company selling seeds, preparedness supplies, solar panels, a particular product or even an online course, you can count on us reaching out to them to try and get you a good deal.

For example, right now in the members are you'll find discounts such as:

These deals and discounts will make your Self-Reliance 365 membership quickly pay for itself even if you take advantage of just a few of the discounts - and many of these products you'll probably buy anyway!

Only Self-Reliance 365 members get access to these discounts. We prefer to keep it that way, but we won’t get angry if you share a discount with a friend (although we’d love it if you put in a good word for us when you do).

Just imagine…

If food prices triple, or even worse the supermarket shelves are emptied after a serious crisis strike…

You will be OK, because you’ll have a productive and abundant garden producing a wide variety of nutritious foods and medicinal plants.

If (or should I say when) the deteriorating power grid reaches a breaking point and people have to live with rolling blackouts, or at the least serious spikes in their energy bill...

You will be OK, since you’ll generate your own power and heat from the sun, the wind, maybe even the Earth’s own heat that’s leaking up from its molten core.

Even if another financial shock hits the world and banks start to collapse…

You will be OK, because you'll have savings invested in real physical assets that are inflation-proof and confiscation-proof, such as a productive garden.

You can do some of these things at very little cost, and the best thing with self-reliance is that every solution you’ll find in Self-Reliance 365 is one that makes sense no matter what might happen next.

If all hell breaks loose and the global economy tanks, you’ll be very glad you planted that edible garden and installed that solar PV system.

But if 5 years from now none of this happens and you’ve got all of this delicious and healthy food and cheaper, more resilient energy you’re definitely no worse off and you can call me a crazy son of a bitch!

The Execution Plan Library (our checklists, reports, and “cheat sheets…that we're building out to include literally every system and life skill we use to run our resilient homesteads…) where you’ll find the first couple of Execution Plans waiting for you:

The Self-Reliance Poster -  An 18x24 inch poster with a "roadmap" of the most important lost skills our forefathers used to survive and thrive through good times and bad. Printed on thick, durable matte Museum-quality paper.

The Self-Reliance Calendar -  Monthly to-do lists based on how the farmers of old lived in balance with nature and the seasons.

Custom Calculators -  Done-For-You calculators developed to make your self-reliant life easier.

Self-Reliance Discounts and Deals on popular products and supplies for self-reliance, homesteading and off-the-grid living.

You’d think that something that will help you produce your own nutritious food, clean water, and resilient energy would cost a lot, considering how much you spend on all of these things every year.

Just take food for example. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a family of four can get away with spending $568 per month on food, but only if they follow the bare minimum “thrifty” food plan. A more humane food plan will set you back $893.1 per month, or $10,717.20 per year.

And when it comes to energy, the average U.S. household spends over $110 per month on electricity, or $1,320+ per year (U.S. Department of Energy).

Last but not least, just think about the thousands of dollars that you pay in taxes to the government each year, where every tax dollar allows them to further increase their control over you.

You spend thousands to tens of thousands of dollars on food, energy, water, rent / mortgage, and taxes every year, all of which keep you highly dependent on the system that is crumbling before our eyes.

But let me ask you, how much do you spend every year on systems that increase your personal freedom with each passing year?

Regardless of your answer, you don’t have to pay thousands of dollars on Self-Reliance 365. In fact I wouldn’t want you to, because I want as many people as possible to join me in this movement.

I know these are hard times, and with increasingly desperate governments trying to squeeze more and more tax dollars out of each and every citizen to avoid bankruptcy, it’s bound to get even worse.

With that in mind...

That’s right…

When you join Self-Reliance 365 today you pay only $6.6 per month (billed annually at $79) and you lock in this rate for as long as you stay a member, even when inflation will force us to raise the price in the future.

But I can only guarantee this price when you join now, because I want to reward action takers and we’re planning to add new Execution Plans fast (and we will raise the price as more Execution Plans and Discounts are added to reflect the increased value).

Remember, this order is simply an opportunity for Self-Reliance 365 to sell itself to you. There is no sale - no obligation to keep it - until you have tried it out in your own home for 60 days and are satisfied. Just let us give you access to these first three Execution Plans for your examination. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you will get a prompt and full refund (excluding the non-refundable shipping and handling fee).

But remember, too, that now is the time. After the proverbial shit hits the fan, anyone can say what the outcome has been, and what exactly triggered the system failure, but hindsight of this kind is seldom very valuable.

It is the person with foresight who can plan ahead and hedge the systems now that will thrive in the future when others struggle to merely get by.

And remember, only those who join before Tuesday at midnight (11.59 PM EST) get the Self-Reliance Poster for free as a welcome gift (value $29.99), so act now!

So start your risk-free evaluation period now, and become the master of your own fate.

Click the Add to Cart button below and fill out the form on the next page, and let’s get started…

Door #1: You forget you ever read this letter and keep trusting the old system of consumption and fragile infrastructure, and just hope that the politicians and bankers that run your country manage to kick the can down the road for the remainder of your life. If you’ve seen the Matrix (a favorite movie here at Walden Labs HQ), this is the equivalent of choosing the blue pill. The story ends, you wake up tomorrow and believe whatever you want to believe.

Door #2: You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and we’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole of your forefathers goes. You learn life skills worthy to be passed down to your children, take real practical action and build your self-reliance by doing things that make sense no matter what happens, and no matter what crazy shenanigans your politicians come up with.

Remember, all Self-Reliance 365 is offering is practical and resilient solutions for self-reliance. The door is wide open, but you have to walk through it yourself.

Click the Add to Cart button now. Remember you’re protected 100% by our money back guarantee.  Test drive Self-Reliance 365 for 60 days free of obligations.

You’ll get The Execution Plan Library (all our checklists, reports and “cheat sheets” …that will cover literally every system and heritage life skill we use for self-reliance…), the 18x24 inch Self-Reliance Poster shipped worldwide, The Self-Reliance Calendar, Custom Calculators, exclusive Self-Reliance Deals & Discounts...

Plus all future Execution Plans and bonus material and discounts, for only $79 today (plus $9.95 shipping and handling for the Self-Reliance Poster).

Click the "Join Self-Reliance 365 Today" button now and get started!

To your self-reliance, Dan West Co-founder & CEO, Walden Labs P.S. You know things are screwed up. Pointing that out really isn’t necessary. The old system of centralized power and production is failing, so I hope you join me and learn how to build your own, better, food-, water- and energy-producing systems. Systems that help you live the good life, no matter what happens. Lock in your member rate of only $79 today. Click here now.