EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,016 words- 0:00 – 1:52
BBQ, smokers, and cooking elk the old-school way
- JRJoe Rogan
(drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- MGMike Glover
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Salute, my friend. Cheers.
- MGMike Glover
Salute.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh, there you go. Great to meet you.
- MGMike Glover
Nice meeting you, man. Thanks for having me on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Probably not a good idea to stuff our fat faces with Terry Black's Barbecue before we come here though. (laughs)
- MGMike Glover
I should take a nap right now. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm, I'm... I gotta brick in my stomach.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah, it's awesome.
- JRJoe Rogan
Those beef ribs are insane.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God, that place is so good. That's the one thing that I... Uh, y- you know, Texas barbecue will fucking ruin you. There's only a few other places you can go where you can get barbecue of that caliber, you know.
- MGMike Glover
It's insane. All the wood they have staged for everything.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah.
- MGMike Glover
That, that's pretty amazing.
- JRJoe Rogan
I got an offset smoker for the first time, this, uh, company Cen-Tex Barbecue, they, they built me this grill. And, uh, I never... I always cooked on a Traeger, which I love, 'cause it's so convenient, y- you know.
- MGMike Glover
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You can see it on your phone, you know what the temperature is.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So... But this, I did it like the old school way, like b- burnt the logs in the off- the offset smoker, regulated it with the dampers, got the temperature up to like 250 degrees, put the steaks on, smoked the steaks till I got them to 110 internal temperature and then seared them. They have this, like a charcoal grill on the side. Oh my God, it's insane. It's the best.
- MGMike Glover
See what you've started; your carnivore diet.
- JRJoe Rogan
There it is right there, that's... So they made me this little, little charcoal grill on the side, and then the other one, if you go backwards, that's the actual grill itself. That guy did a fucking tremendous job. It's like a real work of art, it's-
- MGMike Glover
Oh, hell yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's, it's incredible, uh, like, just the craftsmanship.
- MGMike Glover
What's it called? Cen-
- JRJoe Rogan
Cen-Tex.
- MGMike Glover
Cen-Tex.
- JRJoe Rogan
Central Texas.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- 1:52 – 4:03
The Phoenix-to-Canada “bug-out” experiment and why most plans fail
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. So what's up, Mike Glover?
- MGMike Glover
What's up, man? Thanks for having me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Nice to meet you finally. I've been following your content.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah. Years.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MGMike Glover
I think I saw you talk about, um, a bug-out that I did-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MGMike Glover
... from Phoenix to Canada, and you're like this crazy prepper guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MGMike Glover
And I was like, "Yes."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you, you went in one tank of gas. Well-
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it wasn't one tank, but it was-
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
How did you do it?
- MGMike Glover
So, uh, the idea, um, from the company perspective was we need to demonstrate that bugging out, um, is not realistic in the country. Like, going from gas station to gas station would not be available, so if you bug out, you have to do it self-sustained with no support. So, the idea was like, "Hey, get a Dodge 2500 Pick-Up Truck, because the Toyota Tacoma's not gonna cut it." Um, we trimmed out everything, we put wood in the back, we, we put tanks of gas, like an extra spare tank, 75 gallons, which extends your range massively. Um, and then we did an unsustained or a, a self-sustained trip from Phoenix to the Canadian border on no stops at a gas station, no stops for anything. Uh, so we slept out of the vehicle, um, we, we just did it on one tank of gas... Essentially one tank of gas. We didn't... We had to run and prime fuel into the reserve, from the reserve tank to the main tank. But it was just like to prove like, hey man, this idea of bugging out from a bad situation to a better isn't really realistic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- MGMike Glover
And you-
- JRJoe Rogan
With one tank of gas?
- MGMike Glover
With one tank of gas. So, like, if you have a $100,000 vehicle, 'cause you're like the overland bug-out guy, and you have a quarter tank of gas, then you have a big lead weight that's just nothing. I mean, you burn to the ground.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. When y- How far can you get with a 75-gallon tank as a reserve?
- MGMike Glover
Um, a couple thousand, uh, miles, um, with your main tank, so, um, most tanks 15 to 30-plus gallons, and then a reserve tank; Titan has a reserve tank about, uh, 30 gallons, and then you can get an extended fuel tank. Like, I talk about this like it's, um, like it's innovative, like it's new. But if you live in rural Montana or rural anywhere in America, you roll with a 75-gallon tank in the back of your pick-up truck, because you'll go, you know, 500 miles before you see the next gas station.
- 4:03 – 6:06
Preparedness gets flagged as “extreme”: the social media labeling problem
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm. N- What's interesting about this is, it should be something that people should have in their mind. Like, this kind of information is n- it's n- there's nothing bad about having this kind of information, but wasn't there a thing where some parts of the government were trying to label people as potential terrorists for preparing for things going bad?
- MGMike Glover
Yeah, that's... Yeah, there's a rabbit hole there. Um, first, anything on Facebook that was seen as extreme, think fringe, unique, think unique, different, then you were potentially labeled. So originally, um, we, we teach canning and jarring at Fieldcraft Survival.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MGMike Glover
I mean, my family preparedness director, Amber, uh, focuses on families.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MGMike Glover
So we teach canning and jarring. That was first flagged by Facebook and seen as, um, extreme. And they even had a clip of it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Canning and jarring?
- MGMike Glover
Canning and jarring.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's extreme.
- MGMike Glover
That's extreme. Because if you're preparing, you're preparing for something, and if you're doing it domestically then it potentially, uh, could label you as a m- militant or a mil- militia, or a violent extremist, as I was labeled by Facebook.
- JRJoe Rogan
But what is that? That's so crazy that, like, having food, like-
- MGMike Glover
Food prep.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, what if, uh, there's a natural disaster?
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What if it has nothing to do with some sort of a thing where you're, you know, trying to run from people?
- MGMike Glover
My, my whole thing with, um, the company Fieldcraft Survival was, it's all about self-reliance and kind of cutting the umbilical cord, or at least distancing yourself from institutions. 'Cause when things fail, typically the institution breaks. It doesn't just fail, it breaks, and that causes a lot of issues. We've seen that recently with natural disasters and man-made disasters. But the education behind it is just learn how to take care of yourself long term, short term and long term. And that, according to Facebook at the time and now, is, uh, extreme.
- JRJoe Rogan
How weird.
- 6:06 – 8:59
VA disability ratings, TBI/PTSD labels, and fear of gun-rights consequences
- MGMike Glover
So weird, a weird world. Yeah. And, and somebody who came from the military, like I fit all the things. I'm a minority, I'm Asian, I'm half Korean. Um, I'm a veteran, I'm 100% service-connected disabled, so I fit all the categories-
- JRJoe Rogan
What does that mean, 100% service-connected disabled?
- MGMike Glover
So it means I'm t- ... It's called total and permanent, which I am. It means I'm 100% disabled according to the Veteran Affairs office, but also, um, total and permanent, which means you can't ... Like right now if a veteran is, let's say, 100% disabled, or 90% disabled, it's a weird system, you go in and you get your annual checkup, they could evaluate you and reduce your overall compensation and say, "You're not 90 now, you're 60." And based b-
- JRJoe Rogan
Based on?
- MGMike Glover
Based o- ... They could say, "Y- your hearing is better than it was last time." You know, you- you picked up a couple decibels, and we are going to reduce your pay and compensation and reduce your disability. So, um, in the military, if you're 100% total and permanent, it means they can't screw with you. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So how are you 100% total and permanent?
- MGMike Glover
So they do a formula, it's weird. Um, Veterans Affairs is a weird one, but, uh, when I got out of the military, they did a formula, and they interview you, they do mental, physical checks. They do all the diagnostics, hearing, all that stuff, and when they evaluate you, they say, "Okay, your- your left ear sucks, so we're gonna give you a rating," and it's like 40% or 25%. Like, I got sleep apnea. That's a percentage. When they- when they add it all together and sum it up, it could be over 100%. Mine's like 200+% when they've added everything, and then they go, "Okay then, you're 100% service-connected disabled, total and permanent," which means they can't evaluate you and reduce your compensation or y- or your stuff. So, um, me, for example, I am 100%, um, service-connected, but I'm also ... I have TBI and post-traumatic stress because of that TBI, which is kinda what I wanted. Um, a- this is a weird one, but it i- ... If you talk to a military guy, uh, y- and Andy Stumpf, um, all these guys that are- are buddies of mine, when they come out of the military, especially in special operations, they don't want to say th- they're disabled, or they have a problem-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MGMike Glover
... or they have post-traumatic stress. So, uh, l- I don't know if this is luckily, but I think it's better, TBI, because the symptoms of traumatic brain injury happen to be the same as post-traumatic stress, they could label you as having that. My concern, which is a- a concern even today, um, if they labeled me with PTSD and said, "You're 100% connected because you have PTSD, we're gonna take away your guns."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- 8:59 – 21:10
Being doubted by evaluators: combat experience vs. bureaucracy
- MGMike Glover
So the red flag laws and all that scare the hell out of me, and- and a lot of veterans. When I w- when I went into the Veteran Affairs for my evaluation, it was in Texas, in San Antonio, and I walked into, uh, the office, and there was a long hallway, and there were dudes in the c- doing construction in the hallway, and I heard a l- loud bang behind me as I entered the room. And the doctor was looking at me, and I turned around, and was like, "What was that?" and just turned around, like y- you do that to noises-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MGMike Glover
... especially bangs. And I turn back around, and she goes, "A little jumpy, are we?" And I was like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus Christ.
- MGMike Glover
... "Oh shit." Like, "Here we go." And th- they ... We did the interview, and they ask questions like, "H- have you been in combat?" "Yes." "Have you killed people?" "Yes." "Have you seen dead bodies?" "Yes." "How many dead bodies have you seen?" "Hundreds." "Well, we find that hard to believe." Like ... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
What? (laughs)
- MGMike Glover
Straight up.
- JRJoe Rogan
What, so they're- they're challenging whether or not you've ... A person who's actually been to combat, whether or not you've seen X amount of bodies-
- MGMike Glover
100%.
- JRJoe Rogan
... "I find that hard to believe."
- MGMike Glover
100%.
- JRJoe Rogan
Holy shit.
- MGMike Glover
The- the biggest-
- JRJoe Rogan
What does that feel like when someone's questioning you like that?
- MGMike Glover
D- it- it was the most disgusting. They ... I- I almost got up and walked out. That- that was the psychologist evaluation. When I got my physical eval, th- it was, um, a g- a gentleman who was a veteran. Most of the guys are veterans, they served in some capacity, so they get it, they understand, but they're used to dealing with shitheads. And- and I want to be careful because there are guys who suffer from post-traumatic stress. There's dudes who get blown up, there's dudes that go through a lot, but the reality is most people who serve in combat, co- combat, don't do so at what I would call the tip of the spear. They're not in the front lines, they're not involved in continuous combat. They might have one rotation, so most of what they see are people who have maybe gotten blown up, maybe not even been to combat. They have the f- ... You know, their- their- ... The fear of impending doom has created-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- MGMike Glover
... this trauma inside of them, and then they get ... they want disability. And, you know, I- and I'm not judging 'cause some of those guys do. I know some of those guys. But they're not used to a guy who has an e- uh, an experience in combat where they volunteered for it, they wanted it, and they did years of it. So when I talked to the guy and he physically evaluated me, he's like, um, "So, uh, move your neck," because mobility is a part of the equation, and I couldn't move my neck a certain way, and he goes, "Ah, I find that hard to believe you can't move your neck more than that." I'm like, um, "I'm- I'm injured." And he goes, "Well, let's talk about the history of wh- where you've been." And I started laying out my combat time, and he's like, "Oh, this is different." He goes, "Well, who'd you serve with?" And I was like, "I was a Green Beret," right? "Oh, okay. So how many years in combat you have?" "Four years in combat." "Oh, okay. Well, this is different." And he almost, like, shifted and a- almost apologized to me 'cause he's like, "Hey, man, I'm used to seeing garbage."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay, so they're used to people that are trying to, like, kinda scam the system a little bit so they don't have to work again.
- MGMike Glover
Yes, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but they're-
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... just to challenge you on that that way, "I find that hard to believe."
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, "I find it hard to believe you can't move your neck." Like-
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... bitch, you don't know my neck.
- MGMike Glover
I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, like, so crazy-
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... th- that they would immediately go to that.
- 21:10 – 31:54
Transition shock: losing tribe, purpose, and the pipeline to suicide risk
- JRJoe Rogan
That's such an interesting perspective for people who haven't served. The idea that you feel like you're missing out on it or... And I appreciate your honesty saying that it was fun or saying that it's easier than civilian life.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah. It's... The first thing... Like, I, I, I transitioned out of the military in, in a contract, or with the Central Intelligence Agency, and it was a smack in the face because... You know, call it a brotherhood, call it tribe, call it whatever you want. I had a great run with amazing human beings. What I noticed when I went from the military to waking up in an air mattress on a... in an apartment in, in, uh, San Antonio is civilian life sucks. There... Where do you go for connectivity for tribe? If you don't belong to a dojo, if you don't belong to a gym, um, if you don't go to a church, then you don't have that feeling of purpose-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MGMike Glover
... and that feeling of community. So, I went from a place where my family were the teammates that I served with and transitioned into civilian life where everybody's worried about their own game. They're very selfish. I mean, y-... For the first time li- likely in the history of our country, you don't know your neighbors. You don't know who's in the apartment next door to you. You're, you're escaping trying to even interact with those people and it's fucking depressing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MGMike Glover
So, so, um, I thought the military experience for me was easy. Um, and a lot of guys who come back and have to deal with bills, relationships, all the shit that civilians deal with, that's hard, and that's the difficulty. It's not necessarily a traumatic experience in one moment in time that took place that is the PTSD. It's like getting kicked in the dick every day being a civilian, um, when you didn't have to before 'cause you have everything, you know, at your fingertips. Um, that would give you PTSD if you didn't have it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Have you ever read, uh, Sebastian Junger's book, Tribe?
- MGMike Glover
Great book.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MGMike Glover
Great sum up of the experience. I wish there was more, um, context. Like, he needs to put out more on it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MGMike Glover
But, you know, he went out to Restrepo in Afghanistan and experienced that, uh, at a very high level. And then even in his own reflection, leaving that, he was like, "Man, I'm missing something." And, um, you know, societally, I think per- profoundly, likely a lot of the issues we're dealing with, um, depression, suicide, drug overdoses at a record high, are caused because of that lack of purpose, that lack of tribe. And, um, maybe in a way all the guys like myself, um, Evan Hafed, we're all trying to pick up our own tribes in our own way. I mean, that's certainly why I started my company.
- JRJoe Rogan
No. I think there's definitely something to that and there, th- there definitely seems to be this thing that happens to a lot of guys when they get out of the military. It happens to a lot of guys, uh, who do a l- uh, anything where you have a tight-knit group of people that are like-minded that are trying to do the same thing. You see it with fighters too where they retire from fighting and then they're not in a gym anymore, they're not training with guys anymore, they're not like... You know, you're, you're not traveling together all the time and, and supporting each other, and they, they lose their, themselves in a l- You know, many of them start drinking, they get into drugs, they just... They need something to try to...... either soothe themselves or give themselves some sort of a feeling. Because th- the feelings that you have when you're training and fighting, I would imagine it's even far more extreme if you're in the military and then you're overseas and you're with these people and you have this intense bond, and then all of a sudden it goes away. Now you have none, now you have no bond, and now you're doing a job that's not interesting at all. There's, uh, you're just getting paid. You're bored as fuck. You're watching TV, you're drinking beer, and you're like, "What am I doing?" Like, "What is life?"
- MGMike Glover
Yeah, there's not many jobs that translate from a military experience, period. I mean, what are you gonna be, a- a fucking cop? I mean, like, you take a-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's one of the few jobs, right?
- MGMike Glover
One of the few jobs, but, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Cop, security, yeah.
- MGMike Glover
... but you take, like, a l- take, like, a guy like, um, um, Andy Stump. I like picking on Andy. You take a guy like Andy, high-level, um, experienced operator, and he gets out, and he becomes a law enforcement officer. Wh- what would that look like? I mean, you got a guy who was, uh, you know, he was on the Jessica Lynch raid. He r- he rescued Jessica Lynch, and he did all these high-level counterterrorism operations where he's e- on the varsity team. And then he gets back home, and now he's, uh, not even JV. I mean, he's not even relevant.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's writing speeding tickets.
- MGMike Glover
He's writing speeding tickets. His whole persona... By the way, most military guys' persona, especially in the special operations community, um, we- we wear that proudly, right? You- you go... Y- your whole life is not, uh, uh... The profession is not the job. It is your life. Y- you work out two hours a day because you're a professional athlete. You pay attention to detail and planning and execution. Um, you pay attention to kit. You shoot, move, and communicate every day. On the weekends, you're- you're shooting civilian, uh, USPSA because you wanna be better as a practical shooter so you can be better as an operator. All these things matter, and that's your life. And you churn, uh, what we call the playbook, where it's you train up for combat, you go to combat, and then you have a down cycle which doesn't exist, and you do that for 20 years, two decades. And then the machine spits you out, and then what do you do? Well, you fucking die. I mean, for the most part, most of the guys that I know who aren't seeking purpose in some profound way, they fucking die. Um, they kill themselves. Andy Stump and all these guys are doing, you know, uh, the seven jump seven continents, um, for, uh, legacy expeditions. Amazing. They just did it. They did it in six days. And that kind of thing is their way of giving back and doing something profound. Uh, people think it's extreme to jump out of airplanes. Andy could... Andy, Jericho, Logan, all these dudes, Mike Cirella, they could jump out of these airplanes, um, l- like, like they brush their teeth in the morning. It... There's nothing extreme about it, but they're doing all they can to bring back purpose into their life, to give back, because I- I think that's... You know, whether- whether it's nonprofit, whether it's giving back, whether it's doing- building community, that's the closest thing that feels like it was on the teams, where you're doing something selfless, uh, in service. And, uh, guys miss that. And, you know, I've had three guys that I know killed themselves in the last 90 days-
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus.
- MGMike Glover
... that came, that come from my community of combat arms and, uh, special operations.
- JRJoe Rogan
What kind of guidance is available, if any, to guys from special operations when they wanna leave and enter into civilian life? Do they give you any sort of tools to mitigate the problems that would come up during that process?
- MGMike Glover
There are some good nonprofits, like Warrior's Heart Foundation here in Texas with Tom Spooner. Uh, they do amazing things, uh, they do amazing work, but there's nothing, uh, that I've seen that is fully integrated. Now, if you're a member of a special missions unit, a high-level player in counterterrorism, they have their nonprofits doing good work that are helping those guys out, 'cause it's smaller numbers, I would say. But if you're a Ranger, um, if you're a Green Beret, if you're a regular Army kid, you have no tools at your disposal. I mean, when I cleared the Army, I cleared the Army in a week and signed out of the military and then transitioned into the CIA, and there were no tools, no briefs, no understanding of what civilian life was gonna be. So as much as we prep our guys to go down range and put them in harm's way to kill bad guys, we should be thinking the same thing about setting them up for success and transitioning them into civilian world, or they're gonna look at themselves as the- as the bad guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MGMike Glover
And that's what they're doing. I mean, most of these guys are checking out, by the way, because they are looking at themselves as liabilities and burdens. And we are taught there's two kinds of people, liabilities and assets. And if you're a liability, you need to cut sling load. You need to get rid of the liability. Um, and if y- you could make yourself an asset, you can, but what tools do you have at your disposal? So when you get out and your wife is upset because, for the first time, you're home and you're just pissing her off, your kids don't know you, you can't get a job, uh, you don't have tools, you don't wanna bug your teammates who are doing the job right now, what- what do you have left? Well, you look at yourself as a burden, and you check out, and that's what a lot of guys are doing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus. And wh- what about, like, giving you... Uh, did- do they- they give you any counseling on how to deal with some of the more traumatic experiences of the military, how to get over it? Like, if they think you have PTSD or they think you have, like, some nightmares, night terrors, do they give you any sort of counseling on how to, how to mitigate those issues, how to calm yourself down or...
- MGMike Glover
Zero.
- JRJoe Rogan
Zero.
- MGMike Glover
When I was in. There are some good programs now being kind of run, but I would say it's mostly...Look, the- the war machine is just that. There's an incentive to go to war, and the guys who wanna go to war are gonna find ways to go to war. If you come back from war and you do a questionnaire and they say, "Do you have problems, especially mental health issues?" And you say anything, you're gonna be pulled from the team. So, you're not even gonna be sitting on the bench. You're gonna be pulled from the team. You're gonna be put in some staff job while you get counseling. Everybody's gonna ridicule you. They don't even have to say anything. You- you just know they- they are hating on you.
- 31:54 – 35:59
From CIA contracting to Fieldcraft Survival: building “modern survival”
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. So, when you got out, and how do you transition into Field Craft Survival? Like, how much time was it, like, from being in the CIA? When did you decide to start doing this?
- MGMike Glover
So, I- I- I was down range with- with the government in Pakistan, and my riding partner was a Navy SEAL, and he was the brother of, um, uh, Owens, Ryan Owens, who was killed in a hostage rescue with SEAL Team Six. Um, and we were kind of looking at our lives and assessing everything, and I was- you know, I was a babysitter for case officers. Like, it's- like, 13 Hours in Benghazi does depict the job well, and, uh, there's some accuracies there. But that ob- that obvious catastrophe is unique. That- the actual job every day is mundane, it's boring, but it's necessary. I was just fucking done, man. I was like, "Dude, I'm tired of babysitting fucking people." I was a- I was a Reserve Sergeant Major here in B-Caves. Big shout out to 19th Special Forces Group and Special Operations Detachment Africa. I was actually Tim Kennedy's boss as J3 Sergeant Major. And so I was going down range with the agency, flying back, turning around, putting on a different uniform, and deploying overseas to Africa, then coming back, putting on a different uniform, and then going back overseas. I had no life. So, I said, "I need to start something for myself," and survival was that thing. But not like Naked and Afraid survival, not like bushcraft shit. Um, when I think about survival, I think of modern survival, like what do you do, uh, to be better prepared, um, to deal with shit that's- that's statistically probable? The vehicle accident, all that shit. Um, so I started the concept in- in Pakistan, got back from that trip, and resigned everything. I said, "I'm fucking done." Hung it up, and then I remember the- the first day of going, "Holy fuck, this is me." Like, whatever I do right here right now, it's all up to me. I had $25,000 of big baller contracting money to- to go to work, and that's where I kicked it off.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, you just started from scratch, like, "Let's make this work, 'cause we have to."
- MGMike Glover
That's- that's it. I- I- I had no options at that point, 'cause I had no fucking life. I mean, my life up until that point was serving in a military or government contracting capacity and chasing the fucking rainbow. That's what I was doing.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you just realized you couldn't do that very much longer?
- MGMike Glover
I realized, like looking at teammates that were 50-plus years old who were making $50,000 a trip going back home, blowing it on- on dumb shit, buying the next Harley, the next pickup truck, getting broke, and then coming back, doing it again for decades. That's not the overall experience for most, but seeing that, I was like, "I don't want that. I want a life." I wanted a family as well.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so, how difficult was it to sort of craft this Field Craft Survival program and- and then to get it out there, to get it to the point where now it's like, it's a big thing on social media, and you've got a- a huge following and a lot of videos with a lot of views and it's very popular. But like, what was that like to try to get that launch? 'Cause you were essentially starting from zero.
- MGMike Glover
Dude, it's the hardest fucking thing in the... And like, it is- there- one, there's not a survival industry, right? If you think survival, most people think Naked- Naked and Afraid bushcraft-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MGMike Glover
... rubbing sticks and shit together in the woods. So, the idea of modern survival didn't exist. So, we knew we were pioneering kind of a new thing, and every business advice that I got was, "Uh, don't do that 'cause it's too much. It's too much shit." Also, when you look at, um, preparedness as a whole, it's got a bad stereotype. The tinfoil hat shit, right? So, I had a lot of stigmas to break, stereotypes to- to- to break through, and then I had to create a protocol. Um,
- 35:59 – 40:39
Survival psychology and the 10/80/10 model: why people live or die
- MGMike Glover
one of the first things that I did was I read a book, uh, called Survival Psychology by John Leach, which talked about the reason people live and the reason people die. And I was super interested. Limited information out there on survival psychology, by the way. Uh, John Leach described the reason people live and p- people die, and the sum up was a formula he called 10/80/10. Have you ever heard of 10/80/10?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- MGMike Glover
So, 10/80/10 is the demographic of people broken down by percentage in population of all the case studies he s- he did of catastrophes. Um, ships sinking, massive fires, all kinds of shit. And he determined that 10% of the population of most disasters survive.And the reason they survive is because they make rapid decisions, they adapt in real time, and they come from lines of work where that's necessary; the military, law enforcement, teachers. People who are cognitive, under stress, in the moment, and make the right decision. 80% of the population is broken down about 50/50. They're guys who, like, who have good intent, they make the decision, but on a second floor fire, they run to the third floor, they jump out and they fall on their fucking head. Right? They plan- they had a plan, but it just didn't work out for them. And then the bottom 10% is the bottom of the barrel where 10% of every catastrophe, people are just gonna fucking die. They're just gonna do some-... They're gonna jump off the boat when the boat's sinking, not realizing or forgetting they can't swim. And they hand out life preservers to everybody else but themselves, they jump in the water and they fucking drown. So, when I assess this, I started looking at psychology, statistical probability, and I realized I needed to create something in the preparedness world that was realistic. 'Cause a lot of guys, they talk about things in, you know, the apocalypse, the, um, the worst case scenario. What I wanted to do is, is kind of sum it up to, uh, a question I had, and this was my business kind of, uh, hypothesis: Why do special operators go out and do the most dangerous missions in the world and survive? Like, if you, if you took me and my team in 2007 under Task Force 16, we were working with JSOC. So you got 22SAS British operators, you got SEAL Team 6, you got The Unit, you got Ranger Regiment, and you got the Commanders and Extremist Force, which I was a member of. They're going out every night with good intelligence of Al-Qaeda and crushing dudes. Like, crushing dudes. Um, in that trip, we lost a couple SAS guys, so the British commander came out and gave this go to war speech. We all had our kit on and, in that moment, we thought we were gonna get like a memorial speech. Like, "Hey man, this, the, we lost these guys." It wasn't that. It was a go to war speech. It was like, "People die in combat. This shit happens. Get your kit on. Let's go out and kill everybody." And I'm like, "Holy shit." And so, we would go out every night and prosecute targets with, like, 99.9% success rate of not having casualties on target. So, the question would be, well, how can we do that? Most people think being in special operations is a dangerous job. It's actually not. So, being a cook, um, in 101st Airborne Division, and you're told to get on a .50 cal and go down a main supply route because we don't have anybody else, that's a dangerous job. But when you plan, when you cont- uh, plan for things to go wrong and contingencies, when you're fit because that's part of your culture, when you fight, that's part of your culture, when you, uh, look at the equipment, and you pay attention to all these things that matter, it's a lifestyle. So, if people want to be better prepared, I came to the understanding that it- they have to live the lifestyle. This shit can't be a, a hobby. We were talking about, like, uh, new guys getting guns before. If a new guy gets a gun and they think that gun is gonna solve their problems, if they go out and get a go bag with all the cool shit 'cause they buy it off the shelf at REI and throw it in the trunk of their car, but they haven't integrated it into their lives, trained it, used it in education, taught it to their kids, then it's a tool that's not likely gonna be utilized, so we needed to redefine that culture. We needed to create it from fucking scratch is what we did.
- 40:39 – 43:09
Comprehensive preparedness: family curriculum, homeschooling, and self-reliance skills
- JRJoe Rogan
And does that culture in- include, like, an exercise program? Does it include, like, a mindset program?
- MGMike Glover
Yeah. It's all of that. So we do, we do online training, we do in-person training, um, we offer products, we do it all. Um, for example, we just did a, uh, family preparedness program called 62 named after the, um, Homestead Act of 1862. It's a long form online course, 12 weeks long, where we teach people, um, in the academics how to can, how to jar, how to defend yourself, how to treat a wound, how to maintain situational awareness, all that shit, which is very comprehensive. We even teach people how to homeschool their kids. I mean, homeschooling your kids, um, up until recently wasn't a thing. It's increased I think 10%, uh, since 2016, uh, which-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it increased a lot during the pandemic.
- MGMike Glover
Increased a lot during the pandemic. That 10% is like $56 billion of savings to the American taxpayer. Um, and a lot of people are insourcing this, but these tools that we teach breed self-reliance where you don't have to depend on systems and institutions. You can depend on yourself, so it's all that.
- JRJoe Rogan
And what program do you use to, like, when you, when you're saying you teach how to homeschool your kids, like, what are you using as a curriculum and, like, how are you devising that?
- MGMike Glover
So Amber... So we, we have an app coming out in June, um, uh, I have a book called Prepared that launches, and we're hoping to have the app finished by June 6th, uh, which is D-Day when the book drops. When, when that drops, what we hope to have on the app is the core curriculum of academics required for, uh, in-home education. It won't translate across all the states 'cause some states are stricter on homeschooling than others. In Utah, you could teach your own curriculum as you want. Where Amber lives in Louisiana, the same thing applies. So math, science, arithmetic, a-all the basic skill sets are gonna be taught on the app, and then including...... ideas around self reliance, like how to make a fire, how to build a shelter, uh, what happens if you're wounded or you get in an accident. All those things we want to teach, similar to what, um, Tim Kennedy's doing at his school, but doing it for the online homeschool mom. Um, that, that's also preparedness education as well.
- 43:09 – 49:40
American Contingency and the ‘domestic terrorist’ label: deplatforming cascade
- JRJoe Rogan
So, how did it come up, uh, that this was being labeled by the government as potential terrorists?
- MGMike Glover
Oh, lord. Oh, man. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause when I read that, I was like, "This has got to be a mistake." Like this has got to be just a misinterpretation of what, what you guys are doing.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah. I, so, I will say this. When I thought I was being suppressed and then people were like, "Yeah, but, you know, it's just your analytics suck," or whatever, I was like, "Yeah, it's probably that." Y- you know, I was being optimistic about that. Well, when Kyle Serafin, the... Have you heard that name? He's the FBI agent who leaked the documents of Militant Violent Extremist, MVEs, that were determined by the FBI of being people and groups of interest. Um, I knew it was a reality. This just recently happened. This was probably six months ago that this got leaked. So, let's back up, like, a couple years. When I started a group called American Contingency, the idea for that group was coming from, um, the issues in Chaz. Remember Chaz? Like, that little shit community? They basically blocked off a city block in Seattle.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah.
- MGMike Glover
A rapper-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MGMike Glover
... um, did that and, and the police told the community, um... I'm sorry. The police told... The police chief told the police through an email, "We will not respond to calls in and around the area of Chaz unless it's a mass casualty event." So, there were law-abiding citizens who were getting affected by politics, you know, coming down on law enforcement officers and telling them not to do their damn job. So, when this kind of evolved, um, I said, "I'm gonna start a group called American Contingency where people can depend on each other, they can help people, he- help each other out." So, that kind of manifested itself into a group, a forum, and the FBI analyst, um, that was doing open source, open source searches on intelligence discovered the group and determined that we were extremists-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MGMike Glover
... and labeled us so. When he did that, he contacted Facebook. The FBI contacted all these social media platforms. My company account got shut down from Shopify. Shopify said, um, "You have 48 hours to get your information and you're gone." So, a multimillion dollar business, gone. No, no way to get it back, no way to contest it or fight it 'cause I don't have millions of dollars and a lawyer to fight it. 48 hours to, to offboard it and it was gone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MGMike Glover
Um, the FBI also told Facebook, Facebook banned us on all the traffic. American Contingency got banned and all the shit got shut down. Um, suppressed for years and thinking, like, "What the hell is going on?" I had an insider in Facebook who just got f- laid off during the Meta laid off. He actually, uh, four months ago, before he got laid off, h- I said, "Hey, can you look into American Contingency? A community-based group, a freaking group of good Americans helping each other in a time of crisis. Natural man, manmade disasters." I said, "Can you see if we can get our account back now that this thing's leaked and they've determined I'm not a domestic terrorist?" They called me a, a white supremacist.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MGMike Glover
They, they... There's actually an article o- on, uh, on a leftist, uh, uh... wrote, like, a 20-page article on a leftist, uh, uh, organization. It's like a .org. USA Today published it, and when the national media picked it up, it spread like wildfire and everything got deleted. When that happened, I said, "Hey, is there a way that we can maybe get our stuff back?" Because they're saying, "We acknowledge it was a mistake," um, th- these guys and this guy, Mike Glover, is not a terrorist. He looked into it and got a response from the India team, fr- from India, that was managing my account that said, "We looked into it and he is a domestic terrorist and we cannot free up this account because he's been labeled a domestic terrorist." How that got determined was likely from the FBI telling everybody, but it still exists today. I mean, it's, uh, today it still exists and I'm walking on eggshells.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, you today are listed as a domestic terrorist.
- MGMike Glover
A domestic... On Facebook, on... Which translates to Instagram, I am listed as a domestic terrorist. I have the screen grab from the, from that conversation from Team India. Ireland was managing my account when it originally got deleted. They offboarded to India, which obviously there's gonna be cultural issues there. I am still labeled a domestic terrorist group with American Contingency, and myself labeled that as well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, when they do this, do they have to point to any one specific thing that you guys are advocating? Like, how can they just say, "You're a domestic terrorist because you're telling people how to travel from Arizona to Canada on one tank of gas and how, you know, to treat wounds and how to deal with a one-on-one combat situation"? Like, how... What... Uh, don't they have to have one thing they can point to? "Well, Mike Glover said this, so this puts him in that category."
- MGMike Glover
There was some analysis done, um, from Kyle Serafin who, when he did this, he, uh, he screen grabbed some stuff, and it looks like it was just this analyst said it. He was actually rebutted by some guys that I know in the FBI, likely hostage rescue guys that I work with overseas, like good dudes. I mean, the FBI hostage rescue teams are, are great guys. But it was likely...... told and communicated through some kind of agreement between Facebook and the FBI, where they say, "Hey, here's the blacklist." And I can't prove this, but this is... Kyle thinks the same thing. "Here's the blacklist. Blacklist all these guys and all these organizations because they're potentially extremists." I mean, the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys, um, who we are not any of those, we are lumped up in the same exact list as that. And, and it said, it said, "These guys have a low history of violence." And I'm like, "What the fuck does low history of violence (laughs) mean?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) .
- MGMike Glover
Like, y- zero should be zero. It's low, but it's zero.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, God (laughs) .
- 49:40 – 1:32:48
Proof of innocence, January 6 proximity risk, and the Ruby Ridge parallel
- MGMike Glover
Um, and, and we even had proof. We had to submit proof of January 6th that we weren't involved at all. In fact, I went out and said, "Hey, as a organization, you should be concerned about taking care of your family, defending your family, taking care of your family. Stay the fuck away from, uh, Washington DC." That is literally what we put out, and still that wasn't enough to get us off the list.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's lit-... That... Pfft. You have to prove that you weren't involved-
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in January 6th. How nutty is that?
- MGMike Glover
Crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Instead of them showing, "Hey, you were involved in January 6th," you have to go out of your way to show that you weren't where something... Like, that could be the case with every fucking event that happens in the world. Prove that you weren't here, prove that you weren't there.
- MGMike Glover
Well, a lot of the guys who were getting rolled up, they did, they were doing assessments of CCTV cameras and just using facial recognition to identify dudes and just go roll 'em up. And I never thought to ever go there, 'cause I, I... The, the whole thing was fucking dumb to me. But I'm like, "Dude, if... Imagine if I showed up with, with a correlation of, um, hey, this guy's labeled a terrorist. He's on site. Fuck, I'd be the commander of terrorists." I mean, that, that's enough fidelity to get me lined out and go, "This dude's in prison."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MGMike Glover
I mean, that would've been me.
- JRJoe Rogan
With your background-
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... especially since they've already decided to label you.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's... It's just so nuts to me that you have to prove that you weren't a part of something when there's no evidence that you were. Like, that... Uh, the, the burden being on you to prove that you weren't there is so crazy.
- MGMike Glover
They, the, the guy who wrote this, it's Googleable, but if you, like, if you probably put in Mike Glover domestic terrorist, a couple articles will, will launch. They had pictures of me and a whole bunch of people in Heber City, Utah where my headquarters is at. In those pictures, we were doing community events, raising money for charity. And they were calling, um... They said, like, Green Beret teaching militia.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- MGMike Glover
All these different tactics. Dude, it was 20... It was actually impressive writing. It looked like AI wrote the shit. Like, chat, uh, that chat shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
GPT, yeah.
- MGMike Glover
GPT wrote it, because it was so well-structured that if you read it and you didn't know who the fuck I was, you'd be like, "This dude's a terrorist." And dudes were blowing me up. Like, guys were hitting me up on Twitter. They're like, "Oh, this guy's a fucking terrorist." And I'm like, "I can't believe this is happening." Like, all I want to do is... I feel like I earned it. You know, I had the 20 years of service. If you asked me that 10 years ago, I'd say, "Uh, no, I'm still earning it." I feel like I earned it. I'm an entrepreneur running a business, trying to live my best life, and I want to be left the fuck alone. And now I'm being labeled a domestic terrorist by the same organizations I worked with and for.
- JRJoe Rogan
And no advocating whatsoever about trying to overthrow the government or attacking people-
- MGMike Glover
Dude.
- JRJoe Rogan
... or taking back your rights or storming the Capitol, nothing, zero.
- MGMike Glover
Zero.
- JRJoe Rogan
All of it... I've seen your shit. All of it is about being prepared for natural disasters, for the grid going down, something happening where you have to protect yourself or your family. That's it.
- MGMike Glover
That's it. That's it.
- JRJoe Rogan
And if anybody learned anything during the pandemic, they should have learned that we have a fairly fragile civilization. If the grid goes down, if a natural disaster happens, if something goes sideways, look, with a disease that kills a very small amount of people shut the entire country down, and it wrecked the economy and fucked up a lot of people's lives, and we didn't learn from that. We didn't learn like, "Hey, you know, um, maybe we should have some food stored. Maybe we should have some contingency plan. Maybe we should have a full tank of gas always when we park our car at night so we can get out of town. Maybe we should have, you know, firearms or, you know, fishing poles, like, fucking something. Maybe we should have something." The idea that, that nobody can look at that, that people can't look at that and go, "Oh, this isn't a domestic terrorism. This is just smart. This is just being prepared for disaster. This is being pa- prepared for worst case scenario." The idea that being pa- prepared for a bad case scenario makes you a terrorist is fucking nuts. That's, that's really k-... That's really crazy.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah. It, it was a kick in the dick, for sure. I mean, I...
- JRJoe Rogan
And that it could affect your business like that and it could shut you down.
- MGMike Glover
Yeah. Whe- when they shut me down, my merchant service account, at the same time, shut us down.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you can't fight that.
Episode duration: 2:57:40
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Transcript of episode VFo9j4P5Lq0
