The Prepared Mindset Podcast

Ken Decker is a former 3/75 Ranger, and the current head of Long Range Training for Core Vision Training. As a subject expert, Kenny was one of the guest instructors at a charity event I attended a couple years ago and I've been working to get him on for a conversation ever since. Sitting down together this week, we took the opportunity to of course talk about scoped carbines, but also about some...

Dogs are fantastic. They are a strong and spirited companion, and a total force multiplier in the field, whether that's Law Enforcement or Military applications. To dive into this, I finally am able to sit down with my friend Tommy Marchitto and ask many of the questions I've had about working with dogs in tactical applications. Tommy is a Law Enforcement veteran of 13 years, spending a large port...

John Ketteman served 11 years in the U.S. Army were he had the opportunity to train alongside many talented men and women, and attend the legendary Q course. From his experiences in the military, he's become an outstanding professional shooter, as well as educator, sharing his lessons learned in both the tactical and competitive realms. We dive into the overlapping concepts that exist between thes...

January has flown by and brought with it some record setting weather, as well as a few unfortunate events in Minnesota. In this episode of The Sunday SITREP, we examine the rising tensions between ICE and protestors, and talk about two fatal incidents which could possibly have been avoided, but may possibly have been justified as well. With so much internet speculation and media input on both, it'...

The sports, hunting, and outdoor trade show, better known as SHOT show, takes place every year in Las Vegas, and for the first time, The Prepared Mindset was able to attend. This is something that I've been working towards and very much anticipating, as many do, for a long time, and was every bit the learning and networking opportunity that I had hoped it would be. Lexy and I sit down and recap th...

For years, the phrase "Modern Minuteman" has been latched on to by those of us in the preparedness community as a way to self identify, and to a extent, justify our efforts. While it's a nifty idea and catchy label, I personally think that it's become one of the more detrimental ideologies in todays community. There's a certain amount of personal awareness, and accountability that is required when...

As a follow up from our previous discussion with Irish from Almost Covert, in this week's episode I sit down with the "other half" of the founders of A/C, the man called Bully. With a conventional background, one outside of military and law enforcement, this isn't exactly the kind of individual you would expect to find coordinating counter trafficking operations and devoting his life to helping sa...

With SHOT show just over a week away, it's only fitting that we have a discussion around the unique animal, which is the city of Las Vegas. More specifically, how the various impressive properties up and down the strip approach security, manage risk, and protect guests. I sit down with Gabe this week, who has had a relatively short but impressive career working in Vegas in multiple capacities, to...

The official first episode AND first SITREP of the 2026 calendar year! While I initially didn't think there would be a whole lot to talk about when planning this a couple weeks ago, there's been a few developments as of late that really worked themselves up the list. As always, these discussions are the monthly opportunity to talk about current events both in the United States, as well as abroad,...

The end of 2025 is here! Hard to believe as it may be, this is the last episode/discussion of the calendar, as we get ready to turn over, and dive head first into 2026. This past year been one of intense growth for me personally, and certainly for Prepared Mindset. The changes that came about this year in many cases were extremely challenging but in some ways very rewarding too. As with the other...

If you've been searching for information on breaching - how it's done, why one tool is used over another, considerations and constraints - this is the one guys. This week, I sit down with Steve, of Core Vision Training and dive into the topic and skillset of breaching. Steve is former Army, and currently active on what I would consider a pretty high volume SWAT team. Throughout our discussion we h...

Go Take a Class! While you can certain do a lot of self study in today's day and age, with the access to articles and videos we have, instructor led courses are still the best source of information and learning available. While they alone won't magically make you better, getting the hands-on opportunity is invaluable in your personal journey of preparedness. Unfortunately, this concept is still on...

Not having a personal background in military or law enforcement, I wasn't sure I would ever actually have the chance to teach in the 2A space. Sure, I have a lot of years under my belt as an educator, teaching music and marching band, but is that really relevant in the context of shooting, self defense, tactics, etc.? Well, I finally had a opportunity presented to me to give it a go, and I spend t...

We roll through Thanksgiving, officially into the last month of the Calendar, and lots of strong economic indicators as things politically heat up across the country. In this installment of the Sunday SITREP, I talk about some crucial current events, talking about tensions across the country as religious protests increase and the friction heats up between protestors and residents in key cities acr...

Fresh off Black Friday weekend, I sit down with Kevin Holland of Custom Night Vision to catch up and talk about night vision, lasers, comedy, and more. It's always interseting to me when I get to chat with industry experts, some of the surprising stories and details their able to share. Being that devices like NODs are so prohibitively expensive for many folks, my assumption would be that when peo...

Almost Cover is a social media presence that many of us may know, and many more of us may relate with. They started as a page, or rather a pseudo "art project" sharing good photos and funny video clips. Rather quickly however, this team of former veterans has turned into something else entirely, changing the world in ways that I think few realize. In this episode, I sit with Irish, one of the team...

I finally have the opportunity to sit down with Rick of SSV Concepts, catch up, and have a great discussion. Just as the title says, we get into dogs as a low tech early warning system and the realities of dealing with them, combatting drug operations and how the landscape has changed, and general dumb ideas, that may not be so dumb. We spent time talking about utilizing data and personal outputs...

Breaching has long been one of the most valuable skillsets in our community. To defeat our enemy, to eliminate the threat, we must be able to access that threat, access the hold of our enemy. While there's been so many advancements in breaching technology, the core concepts always remain. In this episode, I sit down with Chris Kuras of Good Dude Concepts to talk about breaching work as a part of a...

While we call this all a community, with the social media platforms, the training events, the video content, the knowledge transfer, and everything in between, we really love to argue amongst ourselves on what's right and what's wrong. Some of these debates have been repeated thousands of times over, with different folks each claiming to have "the right answer" and feeling emboldened and empowered...

We're approaching the one month mark, and the U.S. government remains in shutdown. As we come upon the Novermber 4th election day, many wonder if we'll see a resolution. Additionally, news has broken of a suspected terror attack here in Michigan, planned to take place on Halloween. As always, the Sunday SITREP is the opportunity for me to share my thoughts and insights on current events, and provi...

Garrett is back, and this time, we're deep diving into the Carbine platform and everything that goes with it. From competition to practical shooting, we found a way to touch on a whole heck of a lot in this discussion. There's so much detail and nuance when talking about performance shooting, from optic height to grips, to muzzle devices and more. We found opportunities to talk about almost all of...

Brandon Wombough is a former Marine, and currently the armorer at T-Rex Arms. Following up our discussion last month in the wake of the Kirk assassination, I wanted to take the opportunity to sit down with Brandon for a conversation. We touched on many different topics including personal accountability and prioritization of efforts, to how you can test yourself and your own capability, and talking...

While many of us are still reeling from the tragic death of Charlie Kirk, many more of us have responded to the tragedy with righteous action. It's often unfortunate that we must see evil to know its existence, and adjust our preparation. Being reactive, rather than proactive is never preferable. Perhaps one of the most affected populations in this turbulent time, are faith based institutions and...

Fresh off of our group training trip to Ben Franklin Range in Pennsylvania, I sit down with Blake Flannery of Orion Training Group and Maneuver Training Solutions, to talk about the work we did in the shoot house. Additionally, we dig into some of the concepts, as well as context, to structure clearance work and CQB in general. There's so much information and opinion floating around within the tra...

Unfortunately, as the time has gone on over the past few years, it seems the world around us has only gotten more violent. While we at one point all wanted to believe it was a question, a discussion of right versus left, this religion versus that religion, it's becoming more and more obviously that the lines that are being drawn, aren't as clear and convenient as we would like them to be. In this...