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I tell people look, it's survival. Simple. Just don't die. And that's why I'm an extreme survivalist. Cause I always take it to that measure of what am I prepared to do if the chips are so far down? Will I drink nasty water? If I can't purify it, sure I will. If that gives me three, four, maybe five days to get to some help, then I'll worry about the sickness later. And hopefully it won't be something that will destroy me the rest of my life.
Elizabeth:Hello, and welcome to"What It's Like To..." The podcast that lets you walk in someone else's shoes and live vicariously through their unique experiences. I'm your host, former journalist. Elizabeth Pearson Garr. And each episode, I'll be asking a new interviewee all the what, why, when, and wheres of how they do what they do. If they can do it, so can you. In case you've never heard of the TV show"Naked and Afraid," here's the premise. Two complete strangers, one male and one female, are put in some of the most extreme places on earth with no food, no water, no clothes, and only one survival item each as they attempt to make it on their own. My guest today, EJ Snyder, was on"Naked and Afraid" six times for 206 days. He's what's known as an extreme survivalist and adventurer. EJ also is an army combat veteran and was awarded two bronze stars and has appeared in many other TV shows and movies and has earned the nickname"Skull Crusher." EJ, we have a lot to talk about. Welcome to my podcast.
EJ:Hey, thanks for having me today. I'm really looking forward to it. I really appreciate it.
Elizabeth:Thank you. I'm excited to talk to you because you are definitely someone who is so different from me. You've had such different life experiences. So I really want to find out about you and what makes you tick?
EJ:Well I really believe I was born this way and every test I've been put through in my life prepared me to be where I'm at exactly right now, you know, God's plan is perfect and he knows what's up. So I grew up a poor kid in Jersey. I was very fascinated by the"First Blood" movie with Johnny Rambo, who was this green beret and he was a survivalist and I was like this guy isn't real, but there's got to be somebody like him. And so that really intrigued me. And so I joined the army. My intent was to go into the Special Forces. I was a really good soldier made rank really, really fast. And I got exposed to formal survival training in the army and actually became an instructor. Taught it for three years in the army, started teaching people on the outside. And I just wanted to be the best survivalist that I could be on the planet for bad days to take care of myself and my loved ones. And it propelled me down the road. I went through the army, did 25 years, I went to two different wars, the'91 Gulf war and Operation Iraqi Freedom. And I was really good at it and I loved it, but 25 years I was like, now what? So I was in Hawaii stationed and I got to dabble in acting as an outlet for some of my stuff I was dealing with from the war. And, I started actually really liking it and I was doing pretty well at it. I started applying for some reality shows that I love, like"Survivor" and some other stuff. And my name just started floating around. The Next thing I know I was doing some consulting work in the adventure world and Discovery found me and they had a TV show,"Dual Survival," they wanted me to come try out for. But they picked another guy over me. I finished in second. Well, they're like, we got this crazy new extreme survival show we think you're perfect for. You got the best skills we've seen a long time, really qualified. We think you're tough enough. We think you can handle this and if you can help us build it, we'll have a series. So I filmed the pilot episode in January 2013 with a lady named Kellie and now we have this hit TV series almost 11 years later, some 16 seasons. I think 10 or 11 XL series, which is the longer version, and for those out there that don't know, the normal"Naked and Afraid" you do 21 days man and a woman a couple items each, they've done some versions where they've added a third and sometimes a fourth. They call it a tribe episode. But normally it's 21 days and you got to make it to the end with just a few items. The longer version was more tribal. It was six men-six women broke up in little groups and eventually we joined together. You do 40 days. A few more items than you have in the 21 dayer and then they eventually expanded that to a 60 day challenge. And then they did a couple versions of where you go out by yourself, I participated in that as well. And they've done some spinoffs, a thing called"Castaways" where they maroon people on an island, and they can only use what they find on the island to make it and a couple other different versions. But the premise is pretty much: no clothes, few items, your skills, your wits and you make it, and a lot of people get wrapped up around, why naked? Well clothing is your first layer of shelter. You take away that you physically take away a layer of shelter plus a psychological layer of shelter to where you're mentally and emotionally exposed now that you're naked to the world, what do you got to hide? Right? So, very intriguing concept. I didn't like the title when they started, thought it was kind of dumb, but what do I know? So.
Elizabeth:Now you've done it enough that I'm sure you're more used to it, but initially, did it feel weird to be viewed so much? Or did that just get to be second nature?
EJ:We have more problems than to be worried about people looking at us. I kind of felt bad for them having to look at me all the time, buck naked. It just really, really didn't bother me. We have a bag that we wear, they give you a satchel. And most of the time you can cover up your bits and pieces for that. It helps the editors out. It just becomes very natural to be out there that way. That's the way, you know, ancient man and women were tens of thousands of years ago. So, when I first took my clothes off, I was just starting thinking to myself, they really are serious about this. I got to take my clothes off. Okay. And I was like, man, I wonder what my military buddies are going to be thinking. Oh, I wonder if I'm going to still have a bar stool at the VFW. Wonder what my mom's going to think. Oh, geez. And I'm like, wow, I'm out here in Africa, buck naked. All right, let's go safari. What the heck? It's my first time in Africa. Feels about right.
Elizabeth:So once that becomes a little more natural, so to speak feeling, what becomes your biggest worries, I guess, food and shelter?
EJ:For me, I don't really worry much. This is what I do in my life. This is how I'm made, so for me, it's just natural as breathing being out there. So I never have worries. I have concerns. There's always the wildlife concern, somebody getting injured, my partner, you know, us working good as a team and making sure we're taking care of each other. I don't really have a lot of fears or concerns or worries. It's old hat for me. I go to town, what environment am I in? What kind of a shelter do I need? We got that wired down, this is our base camp. Let's get fire going. Let's get some water. All right. Once we get all the tasks done, let's get some hunting tools together. Let's go get some food. There's nine pillars of survival, but those four are what they call the core four. And, every day waking up, you've got to improve them. You've got to go to the mundane tasks of gathering firewood for the night, patching the shelter, making sure you've got the water. A lot of the tasks that people don't find very glorious, but have to be done. And they're no less important than the person out there hunting.
Elizabeth:Yeah. It's, really amazing to think how far we have come from that in our regular lives now in our sort of suburban and city lives. Yeah. How we take so many things for granted, how we just go turn on a faucet and we're warm all the time and we just go to a refrigerator for food and we get in a car to drive places and we don't do any of those basic things anymore.
EJ:And the big thing with going out there, you unplug. No cell phones. There's no communications. You're pretty well isolated. We were on our 60 day challenge during the 2020 elections and completely isolated from what was going on the world. We went in towards the back end of October. So it was the end of fall then we finished out in the middle of December, got completely winterized out there. When we went in, there was Halloween decorations all out. You could see the houses and then we came out, it was all decorated for Christmas. That was a real mind blowing thing. And the sensory overload was right out the box. As soon as we got out of the swamp. We're driving, we see the Christmas decorations, next thing I know we're on the highway, that's just a lot to take in, when you've unplugged and you've really reset your body clock.
Elizabeth:It's a good note that we all should do that occasionally, do that unplugging. I mean, maybe not go for 21 days being naked and afraid, but we could at least go for a weekend and unplug and just be in nature.
EJ:Yeah, yeah.
Elizabeth:To just be a little more quiet and back to the basics is good for our minds. So I feel like what people often think about reality shows is there has to be something rigged about it. It can't be that hard. Do they really leave you out there on your own? If you're really struggling, is there a lifeline?
EJ:No. Well, it is the most real survival show out there. In my opinion, I think it's harder than the TV show"Alone." Although"Alone" is also very real. They have about 30 items that they're out there with. And yes, they're in solitude, but I've spent a total of 39 days, not all consecutively, out in"Naked and Afraid," by myself. I go out often by myself in solitude, for long periods of time. I go out for a couple of months with no issue, nobody else, and bit of gear. Sometimes I'm training without very much gear because my thing was, I always wanted to be able to go out with just a knife. As far as it being scripted or orchestrated. There's a little directing, getting people to their start points to get them into the challenge. Towards the end, if there's some like high end extraction stuff, let's say a helicopter or, a vessel. There are some insurance things there. And we don't want them getting hurt. So those kinds of things really were never an issue when they were filming me, but for some others I imagine there might have been. There's no help. There is a medical safety net in case something drastic gets hurt. One of the challenges that was on my fifth one I actually fell off a tree and speared my right testicle and had to get it treated in the field. So there are those measures in there. It is highly dangerous what we're doing. But there's no scripting, there's no helping. Some people may say, you know, it is edited. So with an edit, let's say for instance, 21 days is about 504 hours out there in the challenge. So you got that much filming going on, with the camera crew, us filming ourselves, the camp cameras. So there's a lot of footage. And there has to be some kind of a story, entertainment wise that captures the journey for what it was and don't always get it right. But for the people that go out there it is a very real experience, very real challenge and when I do the interviews, with casting for future candidates that are going out. I've been the senior survival consultant for the series since season three and that's part of my duties. I tell them you're going to get two experiences: You're going to get your experience with your partner. Nobody can take that away from you. You'll always have that the rest of your life. Then you'll have the TV experience, which is an edited version. No matter how much you try to say,"Hey, that didn't go like that." All the fans out there aren't going to believe you because they saw it on TV, it must've happened. But it is very much a real experience. And, the camera crew pretty much tries to stay hands off. But, you know, after being around those folks for 10 years, you develop some friendships and there are some conversations about, what are you going to do today? What's your plan? You know, you gotta get ready to film and stuff. So there's gotta be a little coordination. And then occasionally, you know, they'll be like, Hey, Rob, how's your wife doing, how'd she make out with that illness or whatever. But it's not like we sit down and have coffee and biscuits, you know, if you don't get the food or you don't get the water, you're not eating, you're not drinking, if your shelter's crummy, you're going to freeze, that's all there is to it. They're not going
Elizabeth:to help you out. So they're sitting in a campsite pretty nearby and they're getting food and better shelter?
EJ:Where we have our camp set up, there'll be anywhere from 800 meters to a thousand meters away. It'll be a support. A little support tent or a pop up. Where the medic, and maybe if there's a local boat guy, that's got to get people back and forth. He might be there in case there's an emergency. The crew will go back in there and they'll take their break there. If they take a break or whatever, eat their lunch there. And then they'll come back to where we're at. So they don't stay out there. They stay in the country, nearby. Some of them got to do an hour long movement to get in and out sometimes longer. If they're staying at some lodge or a river camp or something like that. In Africa the first episode they stayed in a bush camp and they had a bunch of tents and stuff like that but it was camping it wasn't like they were at a five star hotel.
Elizabeth:And is there a cameraman with you pretty much 24 hours a day in case something happens?
EJ:Yeah for the most part the camera crew's with us for the majority of the day from the time they come in to the time they leave which is usually sometime after sun up till just before sun goes down unless something big's going on that night. They may bring a night crew in to film some night things for a little bit. Not normally unless it's a really big event. They'll stay out longer but on the ones where there's 12 people out there the longer 40 day, they've got more camera crews around to help do that. At night you're primarily responsible for filming yourself and anything that happens. So you get really good at being your own camera person.
Elizabeth:I'm wondering, do you ever feel vulnerable? Like, do you start second guessing yourself? Like, maybe I don't want to do this or expose this because it's going to be seen by millions of people.
EJ:I think there's a lot of greatness and lessons to be learned not just for myself but by others about being vulnerable. I think this world's come too passive about being vulnerable and showing your vulnerabilities. I like to show that I'm pretty much a rugged man's man. I'm an alpha male. But I have no problem crying. And I wear my emotions on my sleeve and I will tear if the moment is appropriate for tearing and it's not that I'm a big cry baby. It's just certain things affect me and touch my heart, I'm gonna let it out. I'm like a pressure cooker. that's why I do a lot of yelling. You got to release that stuff into the atmosphere. Otherwise if it's inside you it's just gonna stew and get worse.
Elizabeth:Yeah. I like that. I'm all for more vulnerability too. That's part of the reason I like to do this podcast is to have these long conversations with people where people can really talk about things. Absolutely. Can you tell me a little about your nickname,"Skull Crusher?" It sounds really extreme.
EJ:Yeah, it is kind of extreme. It kind of came about, a nickname that was given to me in the military, from being in a barracks fight. Outside the ring or combat, I've not thrown many first punches. I've thrown a lot of last punches. And my mother always said, you have the right to defend yourself. We were in a barracks party and there was a particular character that was known to get a little intoxicated and he would sucker punch guys all the time. And so I was talking to one of my friends and I seen this fist come flying right by my head. Hit my friend, my friend went down I was like what the heck? I turned around and I shoved this guy that hit him to the ground. I turned around and take care of my friend. We gotta get you some stitches and next thing I know I felt some glass smash on the back of my head I still don't know if it was a beer bottle or a beer mug. I turned around was the same character. Ooh, I jumped on him and I pap pap pap and he went down I got on top of him I was hitting him and the guys pulled me off of him and I'm like, Dude, you know, that's not cool, man. Then the next morning I was walking to the formation and I can hear these guys in the back of formation. They're looking at me and they keep going, Hey, Skull Crusher. Hey, what's up Skull Crusher. Hey, I'm like, what the heck's going on? So I went down to the formation. I got in there with my platoon and I'm like, what in the heck is going on? I looked down there and it's the individual I got in this altercation with, he had all this white bandages across his nose. His eyes were kind of blackened and I guess fractured some of his cheekbones and when I would get in the ring for boxing, people would say it felt like cinder blocks were hitting them. So felt like their heads were crushing in and so that Skull Crusher nickname kind of stuck.
Elizabeth:All these years.
EJ:Yeah, and then it got more to the character of not physically crushing skulls, but metaphorically crushing some skulls as a leader and just how I handle problems and situations-- you're the crusher.
Elizabeth:Yeah. That's something we all can take. Any problem in our way. We can just crush it.
EJ:You can't give up. There's always one more thing you can do. I say that in survival situations. You just have to stay positive mindset. Stay focused. Don't think with emotion. Stay calm. Any situation in your life, you can get through it. It's amazing how a positive mindset will get you through most things.
Elizabeth:What do you think these survivalist skills are mostly good for? Is it people who are like backpackers and out in the wilderness a lot or can--
EJ:Survival skill.
Elizabeth:Just everyday people?
EJ:Yeah. I beat you to the punch. Survival skills are good for the everyday Joe or Joan is what I like to say. Because you never know when a survival situation is going to happen, who you're with, when it'll happen, where it'll happen, and what you'll have with you. So, I like to teach a lot of classes the basics of survival for the everyday Joe or Joan. I don't want you to be the next Bear Grylls or Cody Lundin or EJ Snyder. I want you to be the best you you can be. And so those skills will develop your confidence. And so that way, if you're a mom with your kids in say upstate New York and you drive off the road in a blizzard, you'll have some mental fortitude on how to handle that situation if nobody's coming for you. And I tell people all the time, survival's on you. No one's coming to save you. You better take your situation into your own hands. And, rely on yourself. And if somebody else comes, great. And I teach people how to work out a basic survival kits, how to prep their cars for winter or for hurricanes and just have a good mindset. I hate the term prepper because all people should be prepared for any situation and not be a victim. And if you get crippled by the situation. And you let fear cripple you from action, that's a bad thing. A lot of people get wrapped around survival protocols and what's in the book, what's not in the book. And I tell people, look, it's survival. If you didn't die, it worked. Simple. Just don't die. If it worked. It's a survival skill. It worked for you. And that's why I'm an extreme survivalist. Cause I always take it to that measure of what am I prepared to do if the chips are so far down? Will I drink nasty water? If I can't purify it, sure I will. If that gives me three, four, maybe five days to get to some help, then I'll worry about the sickness later. And hopefully it won't be something that will destroy me the rest of my life.
Elizabeth:Yeah, I was looking on your Instagram, you have a lot of good tips, just little snippets. Things you can do, one thing here, another thing there.
EJ:King of the one minute survival tips, hacks, and tricks.
Elizabeth:And like, one of the things was to have a trash bag with you at all times. Oh yeah. Why that?
EJ:A trash bag is a very good tool. And I always recommend people get those big 42 gallon heavy duty construction or leaf bags. And the reason I say that is I'm six foot three. It's not going to make a great sleeping bag for me, but if you're out in the wild and you have a situation where you don't have a blanket or something, you can take that trash bag, fill it with leaves or pine needles. You've got a ready made sleeping bag right there to keep you warm. You can take that same trash bag and make a roofing that will protect you from the rain. Or you can turn it into a poncho and wear it over your head and cut a hole in it and stay dry when there's a storm. You can make cordage with it with strips of plastic and you braid them together. It can capture water so you can have fresh rainwater to drink. You can make a solar still by covering a hole in the ground, with that bag and seal it up and have a little cup on the bottom, throw some vegetation in there and it'll make fresh water from you by the condensation. Trash bag will keep all your clothes in your pack nice and dry. It can also be used as a flotation device if you're in the water. So it is a multi use item. I always carry two in my pack to protect my clothes from getting wet and then I have them as a resource if I need them later.
Elizabeth:Wow. Amazing. Just one thing like that, can change someone's experience out there. I saw another one where you were using charcoal to brush your teeth.
EJ:Oh yeah, gotta keep your pearly whites ready. Health and hygiene is very important to keep you from getting sick, especially in a survival situation where you're in the field. And if you don't have toothpaste, charcoal is a very good resource item. You can brush your teeth with it. You rinse your teeth out. They'll get very white. It's kind of abrasive. I used to take little sticks and feather'em up at the end so it's a brush, but I also have used my finger. If you have an upset stomach, you can drink some of that charcoal and ingest it and it will nullify some of the bad, nasty things going on in your stomach. You can add it to a primitive water filter to help purify some of the water, get some of the bitterness taste out of the water. And if you like I have blue eyes, very sensitive to the light, I make a paste and I put the black under my eyes, like you see athletes do and it attracts the heat into that area, as opposed right into your eyes. A lot of people think it reflects it. The grease paste that the football players use, I believe does, but charcoal. It doesn't really reflect it. It attracts the heat right to that spot.
Elizabeth:Oh, how interesting. What were some things that you've experienced either on the show"Naked and Afraid" or other shows you've been on that really surprised you? Were there any incidents that you got in that you thought, wow, I haven't been in this experience before. This was really testing me.
EJ:I've had some of those come up and I embrace them because, through testing and fire comes growth. But nothing I was not prepared to handle based on my experience, my skills and my training. But what did surprise me is putting my naked butt on TV and how many millions of people across the globe I would inspire in some way to change their lives, to save lives, literally, to get off of addiction or a bad relationship situation or tackle a job problem. The messages I received I was not anticipating, not expecting at all. That did surprise me completely.
Elizabeth:And how did that translate for them? Watching you out there being a survivalist. How did they take that and say, Hey, I'm going to go to AA or something.
EJ:There's something they saw on the show that resonated with them. You never know. When you meet somebody, a stranger on the street, whatever, the words you speak to them or the actions you take with them may change their life or even save it. It's a fact. And I've had so many messages where people are contemplating suicide. And they saw me in the show and I'm going through a hard moment and I just handled it with grace and a smile and they were like, If he can handle that I can get through this thing or he went through that or one of the other survivalists may motivate somebody the same way. And they see my compassion even in the heat of moments to other people. They see me as a role model in some ways or just a good leader, a very skilled survivalist, but they see something in me that they see in themselves. I'm 58 years old and a lot of the older viewers, see me as representing our generation. And someone out there that says, Wow, age is just a number. I'm gonna go hiking now. I'm gonna go do this. I'm getting off the couch. I'm gonna go get in shape! He's out there doing this and he's hadn't had a meal to eat and he's out there doing all this physical activity. Oh, man. I got no excuse I got to get out there and get after it and it's just been really amazing.
Elizabeth:How long would you go sometimes without eating?
EJ:It's varies. I mean I've gone several days. I don't think I've ever gone longer than a week at least eat something. But I have lost a considerable amount of weight out there on these challenges. I used to be a bodybuilder. So my body thinks oh you're going back in competition. It's time to lean out and we are on a super keto diet out there. And we do eat fairly clean fairly well. But what happens is you get to your primitive survival weight is what I believe. I always pack on extra weight before I go out on the long challenge just so I can lessen the blow a little bit so I'm not so detrimented when I come back. But even still the most I lost on the 60 day challenge, I lost 90 pounds.
Elizabeth:Oh my goodness.
EJ:I regularly lose about a pound and a half to two pounds a day, on some of these challenges. I've basically lost, I think in total, I added up somewhere around 455 pounds in total. So basically like six fifth graders.
Elizabeth:Crazy. What are some of the weirdest things you've eaten to survive?
EJ:The worst thing I've ever ate was tadpole soup. We ate that in the first episode, Tanzania, Africa. Kellie made it. She thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I about threw up. I thought it was awful. Some of the best things I've ate, armadillo was surprisingly very good. I've had it before I went out, but the thing I noticed out there was we cooked it in this pot. It was kind of like a pressure cooker. And it had its own seasonings, fats and oils inside of it. And it made the most amazing stew. Gator is always a favorite and hog. But I would say the strangest and worst thing was the tadpole soup. And I've become very fond of mushrooms since I've been challenging. And now it's actually something I'm trying to get way better at because I wasn't very good at finding wild edibles. I've gotten that skill a lot better, but I became fascinated with mushrooms and, it was a shame because I figured it out in the swamps of Louisiana and I had already been on four of the challenges and there are mushrooms everywhere. And, Sarah kind of showed me how to identify these oyster mushrooms. And they're fairly easy to identify. Just seemed like I was a really good forager for oyster mushrooms. And I bring it back to the guys. They liked them. And I have these massive piles on there. You want any? I'm like, nah, I don't eat mushrooms, but you guys enjoy. It makes me happy. And I would find them all over. And eventually I ate some towards the end of the challenge. I was like, Oh my God, what have I been missing. And so I always love finding oyster mushrooms. I just love them.
Elizabeth:But you have to be careful with mushrooms. That you don't get the wrong kind.
EJ:You just need to make sure you understand there are several species out there. I'm trying to get very good at identifying different types of mushrooms because with plants, there's always a similar family all over the world of that particular fauna, and if you can figure that out and learn it and be very good at it, you can actually open up your menu list, expansively.
Elizabeth:So one thing that I think about, because I hate being cold. And so if you are out there, how do you deal with that? Once you're cold and you don't have any more covering, how do you combat the freezing temperatures?
EJ:It's always nice when you find a pelt or you get an animal, you can get the skin off of them. Cause I like a good blanket myself. But what you have to do is you have to get smart about how you do your heat with your fire and how you push the heat into your shelter. You have to have your shelter buttoned down. You have to make sure that heat is keeping you warm. There's several methods. Everyone thinks you got to do the campfire thing and what happens with the campfire is yeah, it gets you warm to a bit. It radiates out, but the heat rises and it goes up and so you're not really using that very effectively. Some people will make a firewall. We put a wall of logs between you and the fire so that that wall reflects the heat back into the shelter or onto you. And you can do that against a rock wall or whatever. But one of my favorites is to get a nice big hardwood log, and drag it in over the day fire, cause we're always boiling water. So you got your regular campfire going. drag that log in there and put the main part of it over the fire and let the coals burn like one of the sides. And then your partner's on the other side and it makes kind of a clam half shell and that thing pushes the heat under your torso so well, you actually sometimes have to put a log in front of it and act it as a little door to turn the heat down so to speak and that I found is one of the most effective ways to try to stay warm. A lot of people try to use body heat to help keep themselves warm and that will work. Or you make some kind of a makeshift blanket, either using palm fronds or reeds and weaving a blanket, either out of grasses or whatever. I've had some partners that are very good at that. And I was very thankful for it. But getting something between you and the ground also is very key. Cause your body heat will run into the ground. So if you can get some kind of a grass mat made or even make a raised bed. I particularly don't like raised beds all that well because I feel you're safer off the ground from the creepy crawlies. But there's going to be a space underneath you now that's going to capture cold air.
Elizabeth:Ah, pros and cons. And if there's rain or dampness, then you're...
EJ:My worst fear. And I said no fears but that will make you go into some PTSD pretty quick. Wet and cold is no fun to be. I really want a buttoned down shelter. I do not want to get wet in that situation because you always try to protect your core body temperature and in the cold, you want to keep yourself warm. You got to keep that protected. So that means, you got to fight against hyperthermia. You can't get wet. You get wet, you're going to get cold. One of the coldest times I've been was actually in the middle of the Amazon jungle and we had a torrential rain pour come in on us about one in the morning and we got soaked and wet no way to warm up. No shelter because we were actually moving on the river and a raft to extract out, so that really made for a bad situation. That's the closest I've been to hypothermia in my life. And then vice versa if it's a hot climate you're trying to cool your core temperature down and stay cool and you got to figure out ways to battle that.
Elizabeth:You said, like 90 percent of the people basically sit home and wouldn't know how to do any of this. And I wonder if a lot of those people would maybe look at someone like you and say, why? Why would I really need to, because everything's at home for me. Why do I need to go outside and, you know, skin a bear?
EJ:Once an apocalyptic event happens, the worst of sorts are going to come out. Everyone's going to start feeding on each other. And I'm not trying to say this to scare people. I just want you to think and prepare yourselves because the trucks are going to stop coming. The shelves are going to clear off if they've not already been looted. Now, where are you going to get your meal? What do you have at home to make sure you can sustain that till however long it takes till the government gets back up or whatever? If that day never comes back, then what are you going to do? Have you prepared in some way with skills to go off your backyard and process a deer? To be able to eat so that your family can not starve. So those are the things I try to encourage thought about. Do you have, six months worth of shelf food that are, survival foods or canned goods and, you know, you got to eat your perishables-- that stuff that's going to spoil first, then you work on the other stuff based on length of shelf life. It's been proven that survival TV, whether a person's ever been outside or not, can save your life. There was a young lady who used to watch survival shows with her dad. She was flying with her grandparents and two other adults in a small plane from Montana to Washington state and it got bad weather. They lost visibility and they crashed into the mountains. And when she came to, she started making an assessment of herself. She went and checked on everybody else and everyone else was perished. And she said, what do I do? So she put out some signals thinking that somebody might see her, but it was so socked in. She knew nobody was going to be able to see her. And so she gathered what supplies she could. And she headed down river. Water leads to people, leads to civilization. So you always go downstream. And a little water will lead to big water, and then you'll eventually find something, some form of civilization, because most civilizations build up around the water area. And she spent five days. Drinking the water from the mountain stream, which was probably okay, eating raw snails and whatever else she could kind of find in the riverbed. And, she made it out self rescued. She was a little weathered, but after five days she got to a road and a vehicle came by and picked her up. Never spent one day in the woods. Not one day.
Elizabeth:What a great story. I mean, terrible story, but what a good ending for her. And she credits it to survival TV. Wow. And it is true that so many of us, even if we're not going to go, spend weeks in the wilderness, something could happen.
EJ:Earthquake, or hurricanes. Most survival situations it's the same. Food, water, shelter, protection, communications, navigation, organization. And if it's a hurricane, you prepare the same way for a hurricane as you do a blizzard, but some of the items that go along with snow or lots of water or whatever, is what you want to keep yourself straight with. And so you prepare for one, you can prepare for them all. It's just the environment that you're going to be in that you're trying to operate in is what changes. So when you're preparing for a zombie apocalypse, not that maybe there will be one, but you check all the boxes. Do I have plenty of food? Do I have protection items? If you're not into guns, that's a whole other discussion and argument. I am all about that as part of your survival package for security and for food. Although I always tell people if you're going to hunt, try to do it with a bow or traps. Do fishing, cause that's quiet. Normally, if you have a gun and you fire it, y ou're giving away your location. If there's bad actors out there, they're going to try to come find you, take what's yours, take your food, whatever. And in a survival situation, you really don't want to create a worse problem for yourself. So you always want to think in those terms. And so, I'd rather not waste my ammunition hunting. If I can best bow hunt, or I could use those bullets, heaven forbid, I got to protect myself and my loved ones.
Elizabeth:Let's hope there's no zombie apocalypse, but......if there is, we will be prepared.
EJ:right.
Elizabeth:I'm wondering, how did you become this person who wants to do these things and knows how to do all of these things?
EJ:I ask that often of myself. When I talk to some of my old schoolmates that we graduated with. I grew up in New Jersey, they are like hey. How you doing what you do? Huh? We don't know how this. How you doing this stuff here. You know when you was a kid, you're running around, you got the mohawk. You always in trouble and I had to trace it back. My folks divorced. I was very young. My mom raised me and my kid brother, worked three jobs. And we used to spend time with my dad who was a carpenter by trade and he was a cowboy at heart. He was born in the wrong state, wrong era probably. Should have been born in Colorado in the 1800s. He loved the outdoors. He was an avid hunter and a trapper, loved fishing. So every weekend he'd take us to the woods and we'd be camping and fishing and doing all these things, hiking and canoeing. And I just loved it. It was just so much more peaceful for me. It spoke to my spirit. And then when we would come back, I'd spend the week looking for marshes and things in the woods to go play in because I felt so at peace out there and I was also getting bullied as a kid so it was kind of an escape from that world. And that was no fun either. So eventually our stepdad came in our life and as I was getting bullied he taught me how to box. I was learning wrestling in school and I was too poor to afford karate classes. I didn't like getting picked on. I wanted some confidence. So when my friends would go to karate or jujitsu or judo when they came home I'd have them teach me what they learned and it built the confidence up for me to eventually stand up for myself and stand up to several bullies because I had a pack of bullies picking on me. And then the other thing was I always got picked last for sports and I didn't like that at all. I was like man, this just stinks. But the one thing I was good at was I could run super fast. It was faster than most every kid in town that was either my age or sometimes, five or six years older than I was. So when I have a problem in my life, I think it started right back then's where I learned. You got to find a way EJ, if you can't go around the wall under it or over, you got to go through it. And so I learned every sport I could play, not to be really excellent at any one of them, but just not to get picked last. And by doing so, I really developed myself physically, from learning how to fight and sports and being outside that stuff just clicked that I eventually joined the scouts. And then, graduated from high school. I didn't have a lot of options to go to college. I didn't have any money to pay for it I didn't really have anyone mentoring me how to do it. Here I was being a carpenter with my dad. My mom asked me what I want to be when I grew up and I was like I want to be an actor and a stuntman. That's what I think I want to do. She said well, you'll starve. You'll never make it. I can't let you do that. I'm like, you're my mom. You can't tell me this!
Elizabeth:So... Support me yeah. Are there any places in the world that you would like to go and try to test your skills or places that you will not go?
EJ:I'll go anywhere on this planet that will have me to test myself and my skills. I've been most places on the planet, but I'd like to really get out there and I've never been to Australia or New Zealand and I think those two places would be really cool to see. And try to survive it.
Elizabeth:Well, EJ, thank you so much.
EJ:You're welcome. Remember you are responsible for yourself and those around you and prepare yourselves. And now's the time to prepare because when it happens, it's going to be a little too late.
Elizabeth:While I personally think we're a long way from a zombie apocalypse, I do believe we all can benefit from using EJ's survival tips, whether we live in areas that could get hit with hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, blizzards, or something else. Here are some of my takeaways from our conversation. Number one: the four pillars to survival are shelter, warmth, water, and food. Those of us who have these needs met on a daily basis should be grateful for these things that may seem basic, but aren't available to everyone. Two. There's real value in literally unplugging for a while. Better yet, unplugging outdoors in nature to reset your mind and your spirit. Three. There are great benefits to being vulnerable. You can be a so called alpha male and cry. They're not mutually exclusive. Four. We can all crush problems by having a positive mindset and staying focused and calm. And finally, number Five. Everyone needs to know basic survival skills. Not just the most adventurous among us. Any of us could get caught in bad weather or an unfortunate situation. As the old saying goes, be prepared. My thanks to EJ Snyder, a.k.a. Skull Crusher, for sharing his stories and a few of his many survival tips with me. EJ has so many free videos on his website and Instagram page, as well as books and trainings on preparedness. All of this information is in the show notes for this episode. If you like listening to interviews with adventurers, you might want to check out episode 57 with Dave Albin, a master firewalker. And episode 11, when Jeff Gottfurcht talked about summiting Mount Everest. Hey, did you know you can also now watch this podcast? We're on YouTube at whatitsliketo2023. Please subscribe to the YouTube channel or Apple podcasts or both. And please tell a few friends about us too. I'm Elizabeth Pearson Garr. Thanks for being curious about what it's like.