Christmas 2019 — My Favorite Things

For a few years, Glenn Beck used to have a Christmas episode called “My Favorite Things” where he told his audience about what he was giving his friends and loved ones for Christmas.

I’m fortunate to have half a dozen of my products recommended on his radio and TV shows…not as ads, but as gift recommendations.

I took a picture of my TV screen one year when he was showing off Urban Survival Cards, which you can get on Amazon >HERE<

So, I’m going to do something similar this year.

I’ve got a combination of gift ideas that we have, use, and love as well as some of our training that’s available on Amazon and can ship overnight in most areas.

(There are lots of pictures on this page.  If you have Javascript turned off or an over-active ad-blocker, you won’t be able to see the images of the products from Amazon or the current prices…I’m adding blue html links to all of the products, but I would strongly suggest turning on JavaScript to improve your overall browsing experience.)

I want to start off with my new favorite hearing protection.

I’ve got about $2,000 of hearing protection options…in-ear, muffs, custom molded, etc.  The best attenuation I’ve found is from Howard Leight…but their just too big for a lot of what I do.

The in-ear options have been good for an hour or so, but then become torturous.

And my current favorite is the Peltor Sport Tactical 500:

They connect by bluetooth to my phone & computer and I wear them on planes, when my wife is vacuuming or my kids are rough-housing and they’re pretty awesome.

Next is something I’m not excited about…

I had chronic ear infections as a kid, tubes in both eardrums, and a ruptured eardrum.

This year, my tinnitus and hearing loss got to the place where I knew I needed to take action.

So, I took a 2-pronged approach.

On one hand, I began wearing a “hearable.”  It’s NOT a hearing aid and doesn’t require a prescription, but it does a lot of the same things that a hearing aid does.  It’s called the BeHear Now

It made an immediate and dramatic difference in my ability to communicate with my family, it lowered my overall stress level, and was pretty awesome.  It’s also bluetooth compatible.

You’ll notice 2 things about it…1, it’s bigger than a hearing aid.  2.  It’s ridiculously cheaper than a hearing aid.  With hearing aids, smaller=more expensive.  I’ve swapped with friends who have several-thousand dollar hearing aids and neither I nor they were able to tell much of a difference.  If you’re like me and have too much pride to get hearing aids yet, I encourage you to check this out.

The 2nd prong of my approach was to attack the problem from a neurological perspective.  This was frustratingly slow, but I was able to notice a big improvement in both tinnitus and my ability to hear conversations from voices that used to be “problem voices.”  This is a work in progress and I hope to be able to share what worked for me at some point in the future.  Stay tuned for that.

Next is something that I’ve used for pain, injury recovery, and workout enhancement.

On the pain front, I’ve used it to go from being in so much pain I couldn’t stand to–10 minutes later–being able to stand and walk 2 miles pain free.  They just added a dedicated TENS mode that you may be familiar with.

For injury recovery, everyone in our family has used it this last year…both of my boys for mat-toe from jiu-jitsu and both my wife and I from minor sprains.

For workout enhancement, it can help train your brain to more accurately fully relax and fully flex your muscles over time…think of it as more speed and power with the same number of muscle fibers.

And, they just added a “long haul” mode to improve leg circulation on long flights.

It’s called PowerDot and it is something that you may want to have delivered to you this week…even if you’re on vacation.

On the fiction front, I want to recommend the Fox Walker series of books by an author named, Indy Quillen.  I LOVE these books and my 12 year old son does too.  The lead character is a Native American tracker and there’s a lot of accurate tracking and primitive skills info in the books.

One thing of note…in this first book, which was released in 2016, there’s a little bit of inaccurate verbiage about “assault rifles.”  I contacted Indy about this and she replied back quickly.  Her stance on firearms has changed since 2016 and she’s trying to figure out how to edit that single paragraph…but it’s amazingly difficult once a book has been published with a publisher.  In short, I recommend all 3 of the Fox Walker books that she’s written.

Let’s get political for a second 🙂

Do you know who was writing (accurately) about Russian meddling in US elections 5 (FIVE!!!!) years ago?

Chris Graham.

If you want to more fully and accurately understand the “breaking” news that’s coming out about Russian and Ukrainian meddling, you really need to check out his book, Election:  Dezinformatsiya and The Great Game

I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend some of the best firearms training tools available on Amazon…

First, of course, is Dry Fire Training Cards:

Next, is Chris Graham’s 30-10 Pistol:

One of the best books on training new shooters (regardless of whether you’re a full time instructor, friend, or family member working with a new shooter) is fellow brain-based firearms training instructor, Dusty Solomon’s Mentoring Shooters…if you look on the back cover, you’ll even see my endorsement of the book 🙂

If you prefer DVDs, we’ve got Larry Yatch’s Concealed Carry Master’s Course:

Do you have other “must have” gift ideas?  Gifts that have made a big impact on your life or that you just REALLY liked that people can still get overnighted for Christmas?

If so, please share by commenting below.

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