From Zero to “Hi” in 140 Seconds…
I’m Julie Martin and this is me in 140 seconds.
20 years ago I was living in Chicago, working a 9-5 job for a global human resources consulting firm. Although I grew up a country girl on a farm in Southern Ontario’s Mennonite country, I’d been living in major cities and downtown cores since finishing college. I’d been an actor, a singer, a freelance writer, animal trainer and waitress. I’d sold cell phones, wine labels, high-end cutlery, Disney toys and advertising space. I’d worked in restaurants, zoos, retail and corporate. I now I had a great job, a great loft in the South Loop, great friends and the kind of life most people dream of having.
And I was burnt out, bored, run down and miserable.
For the past 20 years I’ve been learning, practicing and perfecting the skills of our ancient ancestors and teaching them to thousands of students from around the world. Since co-founding Practical Primitive with Eddie Starnater in 2007 I’ve shared these skills across the U.S. and Canada. I’ve written books, run seminars, picked up hundreds of thousands of views on my YouTube channel, and become known for being able to break down any skill into the bit-sized pieces that allow everyone to be successful.
In 2020 the world stopped and so did we. When the post-Covid “new normal” returned Eddie was ready to retire. I took over as sole owner and realized that during those 2+ years of Covid-chaos a whole lot more had changed than most people realized. The global order had shifted, supply chains were broken, De-globalization was happening much faster than expected and nothing was going back to “the old normal” ever again.
Then I was driving along a back road up in cottage country, got hit by a GMC Jimmy that had burst into flames, and my whole life changed.
Incredibly, I was physically unharmed after the accident, but my whole attitude toward living shifted in the instant I thought I was going to die.
I left the glittering city and ideal corporate life behind me and returned to the woods, the water and the earth I’d loved in my childhood.
Since 2022 I’ve dedicated myself and my company to helping you get ready for the changes we’ll all be facing in the new post-abundant world. Focused on Food, Medicine and Preparedness, this new Practical Primitive is here to guide you to meeting the coming challenges with strength, confidence and independence.
This isn’t about zombies, bunkers, food hoarding and “prepping”.
It’s about building knowledge, skills, awareness and community so we’ll ALL be better off as we work toward creating our own abundance and walk the Preparedness Path together!
Founded in 2007 by Julie Martin and Eddie Starnater, Practical Primitive began with a mission of providing accessible, affordable and attainable learning in all aspects of primitive skills, wilderness survival, traditional living and self-reliance.
That mission continues to this day.
The Preparedness Path
Ever since Covid broke apart the already strung-out and fragile supply chains, it has become more and more obvious that the world is spinning, faster and faster, into a new paradigm. There is no going “back to normal”. The world we knew Pre-Covid is gone and it’s not coming back. The idea of the “new normal” has taken hold and become, generally, accepted.
What is less accepted, less understood, is what this “new normal” will actually be. What this new world is going to look like. How everything is changing and how it is all going to continue to change. For the past two years I’ve gently and kindly worked to ease people into the reality of what we will all be facing in the coming decade. I’ve pussyfooted around the subject, both because I hate the idea of possibly causing fear (we NEVER deal in fear, just facts) and also, admittedly, because if I start talking about all this straight out it means I’ve accepted it as the “most likely” of all possible futures.
But the truth is, it is. The most likely. And the truth is that this most likely of all the possible futures is not great. For anyone. Which is a little scary. But by keeping quiet about it, by not speaking plainly to you, I am doing you a great disservice. Because we need to get ready! We need to prepare!
There are things we all need to learn and things we all need to start doing NOW in order to get ourselves in the best possible position to face the less than great future that is coming toward us faster and faster with each passing day. By pretending, by postponing, by not respecting you enough to tell you exactly what I believe to be true and then providing you with the skills, the plans, the principles that will best help you to meet the most definitely huge challenges of the coming most probable future, I would be doing you very wrong.
Over the next 10 years our world is going to change. Drastically. We have exited the time of more. We have entered the early stages of a de-globalized and post-abundant world.
Change may come fast, it may come slow, it may come in fits and starts, ups and downs, forwards and backs. But it… is… coming…
The key to getting through any time of change with as little personal disruption as possible is to get yourself ready BEFORE the change actually happens.
The time to buy seeds is not when the store shelves are empty.
If you’re like most of the people I talk to you KNOW there are things going wrong in the world. You KNOW things are changing, and not for the better. You KNOW you need to do… something… but you don’t know what. Or where to start. Or how to choose what to focus on. It all seems too scary, or too confusing, or causes too much anxiety and stress and you just can’t bring yourself to think about it anymore so you turn off the news and turn your head away and decide to hope for the best.
Trust me… that is not a good plan.
Fear comes from the unknown. When we turn and face something directly, when we look our fear in the face we realize that maybe the horns aren’t so huge and the monster isn’t so scary. When we stop imagining the massively giant complete worst-case scenario for the entire world and instead start looking at how we can create positive changes in our own lives that will prepare us, one small piece at a time, for the parts of the chaos that will most likely affect us the most directly, then we leave fear behind and focus on what is in front of us. And that is a how we get through any type of emergency situation; we move forward with a solid plan that we’ve prepared in advance.
That’s where The Preparedness Path comes in.
Knowledge is Power and the more we know, the more skills we develop, the more we see the world for exactly how it is and not how it used to be or how we wish it still was, the better off we will be and the easier we will weather the transition.
Food… Medicine… Preparedness
These are the subjects that should be your primary focus as we get ready to best face the future changing world. So we can come to meet it, instead of getting rolled over by it. That is our goal for you, our purpose, our Vision; to help you meet the challenges of the post-abundant world with strength, confidence and independence. We hope that’s your goal too!
Master Skills — Single skill courses and free resources geared to those looking for a skill or project that can be completed in hours or days.
Masterclass — Live online in-depth instruction on a single subject over the course of 6-8 weeks, for those ready to go deeper and push their skills to new heights.
Mastermind — For those looking for a community of like-minded people to share with and learn from over a longer commitment of six to twelve months.
Project Mastery — Our monthly skills membership perfect for those seeking projects and instruction on a variety of subjects.
It’s a changing world and we must be at the forefront of that change in order to get through it. We’ve been watching, learning, reading, tracking these changes for over a decade and now they are upon us. Covid sped everything up and what we thought was still a ten years or more away, is here. Now.
So let’s get ready with Food… Medicine… Preparedness.
We don’t need to be scared. We don’t need bunkers or hoarded food or a life filled with fear.
A strong knowledge base, a strong Community and a strong supply web will take you a very long way. So join me as we walk together down The Preparedness Path.
Because…
Things that Never Happen, Happen All the Time.
