Green Beret Teaches You How to Survive Any Situation - Mike Glover

1. 0:00 – 0:21

   Intro

   1. MGMike Glover0:00

      Imagine you're in a situation where you have a compromised femoral artery, you're bleeding out, and you're waiting for the first responder who has an average response time of 12 minutes in most areas in the country, and you bleed out in three. A $29 piece of equipment and a little bit of training that you could literally get from YouTube could save your life? Why would you not pay attention to that?

2. 0:21 – 4:07

   Mike’s Background

   1. MGMike Glover0:21

      (whoosh)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:21

      What's your background? Why should anyone listen to you about how to be prepared for anything?

   3. MGMike Glover0:27

      Yeah. I- I- I think, mostly my background is in the military and the CIA. That's what kind of I'm- I'm- I'm known for, but I don't think that's why I am the expert at preparedness. I think, kind of as a leader and as somebody who's managed a lot of people in the military, uh, I know how to connect people who are assets, subject matter experts, with people who are trying to get information to make themselves better. So, that's kinda how I came to the inclusion that, um, civilians needed preparedness in their life. So, nothing complex. I think my field of experience is very narrow, very specific, and- and its totality has a lot to do with preparedness, but not specifically. You need experts in all the fields, which I am not an expert in. I'm just a collaborator. I'm the conduit between experts and you and people.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:23

      I call it podcast smarts.

   5. MGMike Glover1:25

      Hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:25

      So, it's the ki- it's the level of knowledge that I've got on most topics. Like, I don't actually know it inside out.

   7. MGMike Glover1:31

      (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson1:31

      I know it enough to be able to have a podcast about it and to hold a conversation. But if you want to go out and do it, if you want- if you wanna go build a bridge, you can't speak to me... I can have a conversation with you-

   9. MGMike Glover1:39

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson1:39

       ... about a bridge builder I once spoke to. But, like, you need to find the man that builds the bridges and then you can speak to him about how to build a bridge. So yeah, I think, um, podcast smarts or preparedness smarts perhaps is- is a good, uh, a good way to look at it. One- one of the questions I had, I actually asked, um, Shawn Ryan this and Andy Stumpf. Why do you think it is that members of the CIA, uh, people who are working for the CIA, are seen in such a different light to people who are in the Special Forces? Especially given that there is quite a regular conveyor belt of Special Forces to CIA. Um, it just seems to me that there's a branding or a marketing problem with regards to how the operatives working in three-letter agencies are perceived by the wider public.

   11. MGMike Glover2:28

       Yeah. I think it's a lot to do with the idea of cloak and dagger and, you know, operating with certain privileges and all the things behind the curtain. You know, I- I had an idea until I started working with the CIA and I'm like, "Oh, they're j- just like me," you know? Super intelligent, highly capable human beings with endless budgets. But I- I think a lot of the perception is based in the, uh, I don't know, I- I think it's based in fantasy, it's based in Hollywood, um, it's based in books that I grew up reading on the Office of Strategic Services and the CIA. And so, I- I think that's a good thing, uh, partly for the culture. Um, but I have seen it be the bad thing in- in many instances because, you know, I've- I've rolled with case officers who thought they were Jason Bourne, and I'm like, "No, no, no, no. You're not Jason Bourne. You're capable. You're a case officer. You're intelligent. But you're not Jason Bourne. That doesn't exist." And so, I- I think that helps with recruitment. It's like kind of like the BUD/S program for the Navy. It's a genius marketing tactic. Why? Because everybody wants to be a SEAL, and then when you go in and the Navy knows 99% of everybody who comes in is gonna wash out, well then, you have the needs of the Navy. You get to fill the ranks and fill the positions that nobody else wants to do, um, with a very smart and sound marketing tactic. Um, so I think part of that is- is the reason why I wanted to be in the CIA. Um, but I think that's for a reason, specific

3. 4:07 – 7:51

   Why Mike Was Labeled as a Terrorist

   1. MGMike Glover4:07

      reason.

   2. CWChris Williamson4:08

      Speaking of Jason Bourne, you were briefly labeled as a domestic terrorist, weren't you?

   3. MGMike Glover4:14

      I was. I was, um, I was... In my organization called American Contingency was identified as a militant violent extremist organization. And they didn't say I actually was an NVE. They said I was capable as an organization, uh, as a pass-through entity of potentially, you know, recruiting and facilitating domestic terrorists who wanted to use our platform, um, as a place to hang out. And I think that's any place to hang out. I mean, certainly there are social media platforms where people do things like that. But mine was, um, personally identifying me as the potential problem because of my background, which is ironic, right? You- you're a Green Beret, you're a CIA guy, you do all the service, you do all the selfless service and sacrifice, um, thinking you're doing it for the- for the good, and then on the tail end of that, you're kind of seen as the bad guy. I- I- I think it's the- a natural storyline that, uh, uh, was bound to happen to everybody. Especially somebody coming out, you know, like Shawn Ryan and Andy Stumpf talking about their experiences from those organizations. I'm not surprised. It sucks, but I'm not surprised.

   4. CWChris Williamson5:33

      Yeah. Is it... Is it almost like the government getting concerned at someone being a little bit too independent? That's what it feels like a little bit to me. Like, "Ah, yeah. We- we- you-" You know, we want whatever it is, a well-armed, uh, populous or whatever it says in the Declaration of Independence that you guys have got. But it's like... But not that competent. Like, well-armed but incompetent or, like, not sufficiently well-sophisticated. And yeah, if you've got yourself to the stage where you guys can, you know, basically rally together a pretty competent army...... that's the sort of thing that might be seen as a threat?

   5. MGMike Glover6:12

      Yeah. I think any time you take ownership of anything, then y- you're a threat to some other institution, business, entity, because you're taking that independence and you're disaffecting somebody else's independence. So-

   6. CWChris Williamson6:29

      Ah, you would have previously been reliant on them.

   7. MGMike Glover6:31

      100%. And so, if, if the idea in a government is, um, you're not empowering the people, but you're providing them services that they're dependent on, and you're centralizing everything, when those people try to decentralize and take back their self-reliance, um, that messes the system up. I mean, it's like the idea of, like, um, going out and finding, um, natural medicinal means to make your health and wellness better. Like, if you do that, well, you're potentially in troves, uh, you know, moving an audience, moving a market, you're disaffecting big pharma, and that's not a good thing. So, if I'm working like a business, I'm looking for marketing tactics to counter and debate all the things that you're doing. I- in fact, I'll go out of my way to suppress and shut you down. So, we advocate for self-reliance, and taking back that reliance in your life that you normally outsource to institutions, um, because the efficiency and the optimization that you bought into isn't necessarily beneficial nowadays. And I, and I think that's, that's across the board. That's in security, that's in healthcare, that's in education. And so, I want people to take that back, and that's a threat to somebody out there.

   8. CWChris Williamson7:50

      Mm.

4. 7:51 – 17:38

   How Important is Preparedness?

   1. CWChris Williamson7:51

      Okay, so justify to me, a British person, right, who comes from a country that doesn't have the same types of risks, perhaps, that are over here in terms of weather, uh, in terms of firearms, in terms of the mental health of some of the, uh, homeless people that exist, there are a, a number of big differences despite the fact that we speak the same language. Why is preparedness such a huge risk? Or why is the lack of preparedness such a huge risk? Do we not have institutions that can already step in? We've got hospitals, we've got police officers, we've got supermarkets. Like, what's the case for preparedness?

   2. MGMike Glover8:35

      Yeah, it's a very interesting one. We get asked a lot o- of that kind of question, depending on the country and the place in the world, and I just did a book deal with some European countries of selling that book overseas, uh, the book I wrote, Prepared. And, and that's very interesting, but all we have to do is go back just a little bit in time to 1941, the beginning of World War II, and when we look at what was going on in the country, there were superpowers. There were countries that were accumulating power by disenfranchising and suppressing and oppressing people around them. And they were doing so, uh, behind a veil. You know, there wasn't a lot of advertisement of these things that were going on. You don't typically show your hand. And then all of a sudden, they were taking over countries. I mean, uh, the United Kingdom, British, uh, the British were being bombarded by Nazi Germany, and that didn't take a lot of moves to get to catastrophic circumstances where it was too late. In a modern society, just look back a year and some change when we thought this could never happen to anybody in modern civilization, and Ukrainian officials are handing out AK-47s and rifles to middle-aged males that were willing to fight for their country, because they didn't have the power. The government, the institution had the power, and there was an agreement sovereignty-wise that the government was gonna be able to take care of the people, but they can't when a superpower decides, "Uh, I'm just gonna go into your country and just take it over." And that would never happen, and it just happened. N- name that with the things that took place in this, um, in this world over the last few years, including the pandemic, and you realize that a lot of the bargaining, uh, the agreements, the protocols and the institutions that we established was all about efficiency, and there was, there was a, uh, un- unspoken agreement that I was gonna pay taxes, and all these institutions around me were gonna handle everything. Well, that's the case until it's not. And when it's not, as an individual, what are you able to do to take care of your family? So, at a high level, yeah, preparedness is important for communities, cultures, countries, but at a very low level, independently, there's things that you need to be able to do in not so catastrophic circumstances. We're not talking about the World War. I'm talking about the supply chain breaks. I'm talking about the natural disaster hits. Are you able at the tactical level, I would, as I would describe it in the military, are you able to take care of your own? Um, if you can't take care of your own and you have to wait for the institution to take care of you, that's a problem, because, you know, alls it takes is a couple of those things to happen and to converge, and like Malcolm Gladwell said, there will be a tipping point and it typically all rolls downhill after that. So, I think preparedness is important, um, at the very visceral, connected level with human beings day to day, and at the higher levels for countries and, you know, European Unions and collectives to think about it as well.

   3. CWChris Williamson11:53

      It's a nice, uh, reminder, I think, as much as the war in Ukraine doesn't need to, probably didn't need to happen in order to be a symbolic reminder for everybody, it is one that for people to think, "Ah, you know, 1941, London, eh. We- we're an ascended species now. We- we're beyond that. This isn't anything that we need to be concerned about." You go, "Mm..."You do. You do.

   4. MGMike Glover12:16

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson12:16

      There is- there is- there are still scenarios. I- (laughs) I tweeted something the other day, this is what Andy taught me, about, um, 76% of 18 to 24-year-olds American men would be ineligible to serve, uh, in the armed forces because of health or criminal record problems, that obesity and- and other sort of health complications. And, um, I quote-tweeted it saying, "America's fucked if there's a land invasion." And I got a bunch of responses in the replies explaining why America would be really hard to invade by land. And I was like, "That's not the lesson to take away from this issue." Like, the lesson (laughs) to take away from this issue is that you have a very unready populous. Not that, "Ah, yeah, but there's lots of water in between us and Japan. Ah, yeah, but, you know, Russia wouldn't be able to sneak around the- the top of Greenland. Ah, yeah, but, you know, there's mountains in the middle of the country." Yeah, sure. Like, that's- that's correct. But relying on structure as opposed to relying on capability seems like a weakness.

   6. MGMike Glover13:17

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, completely. And I- you know, that statistic relates to body mass index and lack of upper body strength. I mean, when... A- a benefit, a proxy benefit of freedom is convenience. The problem with convenience is sometimes it gets so convenient, you're complacent, and that complacency leads to risk, right? And it happens... It's kind of, like, the first... It's like the full circle of life, where y- you have it all until things are so good, then something's bound to break, and then you kind of reset everything full circle, and I think that's where we're at as a society. We have it so good, and w- we- we have it so good, we manufacture things that we think are bad, and that's a first world problem. It's like, the rest of the world's problems, which are very real problems that have to do with the hierarchy of needs and survival, like the lack of food, the lack of- lack of basic healthcare, um, the lack of medicine to treat disease, these things are real problems. We- we are manufacturing things, and when you look at readiness, when you look at capability, that is the lack of preparedness. I feel like with me and Andy, with me and Sean, the guys that I know, that I grew up with in the military that are kind of doing what we do, generally speaking, we're all doing the same thing. We're trying to build resilience back into the population, whether that's through education, through experiences, through podcasts, whatever it may be, it's about building resilience back in this country because we feel every single day that it's slipping away.

   7. CWChris Williamson14:50

      Everyone will immediately think, when you talk about preparedness, about guns and food. I- that was where my mind went to. Right, so what particular specific type of everyday carry weapon, with which particular site and which particular ammunitions, and how many kilos of rice do I need? That's the first place that everyone goes to. But I think you make a really good point that there are elements of mindset that people need to build as a foundation before you think about any of that stuff.

   8. MGMike Glover15:15

      Yeah, it's important, uh, and I- I knew that was gonna happen, i- and it's a stereotype I've been fighting u- uphill in a battle since the beginning of FieldCraft Survival, my company. Because, um, let's be honest, like, a prepper, the tinfoil hat guy living in a aluminum RV in the middle of Arizona, um, who's preparing for the apocalypse, um, is not a good representation of what we're talking about. And, you know, I- I talk about catastrophe, and even in the front of my book it says, "A manual for surviving worst case scenarios." But worst case isn't necessarily the zombie apocalypse. Worst case could be the accident, it could be the trauma that you experience, a- and it certainly could be scaled, it could be the worst, worst thing. But our ability kind of as a- as a species, as a- as an American citizen, to recognize what our worst day is... I mean, we see guys going into fight or flight, smashing their head on the steering wheel, um, completely losing it emotionally, because we don't have a good baseline of resilience built in our culture, and it's kind of slipping away. And what do you need to repair that? Well, you need hardship. But how much hardship do we have living in climate-controlled, um, boxes? We drive in a box that's climate-controlled. We walk ten feet through 125 degree heat index- index in Texas, and we're back into another climate-controlled box. So we are certainly going through the- the comfort crisis. Um, and I think that resilience is very important to build back in, because it's not about the EDC pistol. It's- those are statistical improbabilities. If you look at statistical probabilities, all the statistics that I see in mental health decline. I associate drug overdose with fentanyl. I mean, that's- that's 100,000 Americans, likely to be the leading cause of death in men, if not already this year on track for that. Um, when I see violence spike, murder rates spike, I think that is a- a demonstration of the lack of resilience we have in our communities and in our people, and- and that's a problem. And- and I hope the book, as positioned, reeducates people on that, um, but certainly the stereotype is something that I'm gonna continue to fight uphill.

   9. CWChris Williamson17:37

      So

5. 17:38 – 22:10

   The Biggest Risks Society Doesn’t Think About

   1. CWChris Williamson17:38

      talk to me there about the biggest risks, statistically, that people don't think about. Uh, something tells me, uh, for instance, terrorism is covered in the newspapers, it's like 25%, I think, of headline stories about threats, and yet heart disease kills 60% of people. So there is a disparity between what people expect and what reality is actually going to provide them as a risk. What are the biggest risks statistically that people aren't thinking about?

   2. MGMike Glover18:05

      Yeah, that's a very, um, interesting question because y- you're absolutely right. The national media and the headlines will kind of determine the messaging and how we're manipulated to understand the world around us. So if you're watching social media and you're seeing the world burn down, you feel that way, until you go outside and you realize that's not the specific case. But in some places, as a statistical probability, uh, for example, drug overdoses are at a record high. A- a great example is San Francisco.You know, I- I- I criticize Gavin Newsom because, uh, he seems very arrogant in the position that he is as a politician, bragging about the status of his state, California, which I was born in. I actually started Fieldcraft Survival in California and moved out when I saw it falling apart. Uh, the statistic is in May, you know, a- a month ago, 74 people died on the streets of San Francisco in one city. Yes, heavy population. But 74 people died of drug overdoses. 69 out of those 74 actually died from fentanyl specifically. I think fentanyl, uh, fentanyl overdoses are a direct, um, attack on our security. I think it's a national security threat because if you track it and trace it, it's coming from China, being shipped to Mexico and being brought in by the cartels. That is definitely a national security risk when you're looking at- at 100,000 Americans that are dying now. You take 74 just as a number and you compare it to mass killings. Mass killings, the estimates are between 85 and 95 casualties of mass killings, which is four or more deaths in a mass killing. So if you hit the na- national media headline news, you would think systemically there is a cancer of mass killings taking place all across this country. From January until now, there's been 85 total deaths in one month in one city because of drug overdoses, which I think is a mental health issue along with homelessness and all the things that are combined a recipe for disaster. There's been nearly the same number and one void of that. And so I- I look at statistics and it's very important to highlight them because it's facts. Now when we're weighing statistics compared, um, or comparing our lives and our daily routines to the world around us, what's likely gonna kill you? Well, it's not going to be the self-defense gunfight or the mass killing period. It's not even gonna be the drug overdose. It's likely to be the vehicle accident, right? 40,000 Americans die every single year in vehicle accidents. More important in this statistic is two million people are injured out of the six million accidents that takes place in vehicles across the country. But how many people are on their cell phone putting their makeup and eating a subway sandwich at the same time while driving their vehicles completely at the loss of focus? I mean, we're automating vehicles to drive for us so we could do those things. Now l- lastly, let's set aside that statistic at 40,000. You have a statistic of gun deaths in this country and it's around 60-plus thousand depending on the institution and the way they measure the stats. But 60,000 Americans per year. And you would go, "Oh, well, Mike, I told you so because 60,000 Americans die from guns." Except the missing point in the statistic is 60% of that is from suicide. So now if we weigh all the risk in the world around us, what's most likely to kill us is the lack of resilience and a breakdown of our mental health because all of that leads to, I don't know, binge eating, which is the number one cause of death in cardiovascular disease. So we have to pay attention to it all. It can be overwhelming, but it... like how I try to outline in the book is like I want people to think about probabilities, to think about things that are likely to happen to them. If you're in Florida focused on an earthquake, if you're in California focused on a- a- a-, you know, a cat five hurricane, then y- you're thinking about your environment wrong. All those factors matter and the statistics matter the most.

6. 22:10 – 31:46

   Daily Basics of Preparedness

   1. MGMike Glover22:10

   2. CWChris Williamson22:10

      You mentioned car accident there as probably one of the most common, most likely high risk scenarios that an everyday person is going to get themselves into. And this is acro- it doesn't matter which country you're in, right? I mean, uh, uh, America does have some very bad drivers in it. They're-

   3. MGMike Glover22:26

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson22:27

      The driving test is not sufficiently rigorous over here. Um, but what are the fundamentals? Let's say that a- I mean, paying attention to the road, not using your phone while you drive, not trying to put your makeup on or eat a subway sandwich whilst texting probably to get started. But what else? Let's say that it is you wake up this morning and without knowing it today is the worst day of your life on the road. What are the things that people need to be aware of, the most common errors that they make in terms of preparedness-

   5. MGMike Glover22:56

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson22:56

      ... mindset and everything else?

   7. MGMike Glover22:57

      Yeah. There's, there's two specific ones that come to mind. One is situational awareness. We have a complete loss of situational awareness in the world around us because we are immersed in our phones. I mean, a- a shocking statistic is, um, teenage girls spend anywhere from three and a half to seven hours a day on social media. And that is a scary s- statistic with, uh, I believe 53% of them claiming to be anxious, depressed, and having suicidal ideation. That's scary. So we set that aside. Situational awareness and not paying attention is killing people the most. I mean, texting, especially on your phone is going to kill you the most. So when you are paying attention because the phone is down and you create a rule, you're like, "Hey, if we're in this vehicle, we're not watching TV, we're not watching YouTube while we're driving, we're not doing distractive things, we're putting the phone down and we're focused on driving." When I used to drive in Libya, I spent nearly a- a year in Libya, fascinating country at the, the top of Africa. And if you called a- a Libyan an African, they would scold you to death because they don't think they're Africans. They- they think they're Arabs, uh, which they distinctly are. And in that culture, if you drive to an intersection, there likely is no lights and there's a right of way. It happens to be to the right, like the people to the right of you have the right of way if they arrive. Uh, it's not who arrives first, it's the people to the right. Most fascinating, if you're driving next to somebody, um, and you look over to the right and they're an inch ahead of you, then they have the right of way. So if they decide to veer into your lane, you have the obligation to slow down, stop and avoid contact. They don't have an obligation to even look in their blind spot by looking over their shoulder.And the reason that's fascinating is because there's not a lot of vehicle accidents in Libya. I mean, I would drive from the State Department, from the embassy, to my base of operations where I was running a, a counterterrorism program at the time, and it would be a 30-minute drive. I would never see an accident. Take that same thing when I was stationed at Fort Carson. When I was driving from Monument, Colorado to Fort Carson, Colorado, a same 30-minute commute. If there was inclement weather, there was any kind of change in the pattern, you would see distinctly three, four, five, ten vehicle accidents depending on the severity. The other part of that is most people die in vehicle accidents when they overcorrect because, like you said, we don't have a protocol for teaching defensive driving. We're more focused on parallel parking as a check-the-block prerequisite for driving than we are actually handling the vehicle and understanding how it works. So if you go off the right side of the road and you lose traction, the overcorrection which is a reaction that's natural to jerk the steering wheel the opposite direction, you'd think would self-correct you, except you don't have traction. You have a loss of traction. So then when you overcorrect the steering wheel and you come back on the road, immediately you gain traction which slingshots you into oncoming traffic causing head-on collisions. That's the leading cause of death and a mistake. So how do we fix that? Well, we talk about it, we understand it, we implement it in the training, and then we have people go through extra training, like defensive driving training. And that one little step i- by identifying like, "Hey, people are dying here, what should we do here?" That one little fix could save thousands of lives. But again, we've outsourced the institution to go, "They need to be responsible for it." Well, they're not going to fix it. And if we identify that, then we could fix it ourselves because we have this thing called free will. Just do it yourself. And a- a lot of these things that I talk about, they're nuances and a lot of people, they hear it and they go, "Oh, yeah, well, yeah, whatever." Well, y- it doesn't matter to you until your child, your loved one gets in that vehicle accident and you go, "It was so preventable. It was something so simple, if we just paid attention and just put a little effort, we could have avoided that mistake that led to death or injury."

   8. CWChris Williamson27:04

      What should everybody have in their car in terms of, uh, tactical preparedness?

   9. MGMike Glover27:10

      Yeah, that's an easy one for me. I, I, and I, I do derive this from my experience. Me and Sean Ryan worked together in the same office and when we were downrange together, um, which is kinda s- similar in a semi-permissive environment to America, right? You're, you're in a, a, a decent place, you know, going about your business and everything's cool until it's not. And so you have to be prepared. The first thing I would recommend is a mobile trauma kit or vehicle trauma kit, which is basically a first aid kit meant to address the things that you would experience in a vehicle. Like if you have Band-Aids and bacitracin in your vehicle, yeah, sure, but that's more likely to be used in a first aid kit on a hike. If you're in your vehicle, you likely need burn bandages 'cause if you put gauze on a burn from an accident and you treat yourself that way, not understanding how to do it, you're causing infection. You're causing issues. So I think a- all these things are important. First aid is the start point to that, especially for stopping the bleed. That's a basic tourniquet. We recommend any N.A.E.M.T certified tourniquet, TacMed Solutions, uh, SOF-T Wide, North American Rescue's CAT VII tourniquet. These are certified, tested, evaluated in combat to stop the bleed. And we tell people, like, yeah, a lot of people don't think about this and they don't want to put the effort in it. But imagine you're in a situation where you have a compromised femoral artery, you're bleeding out and you're waiting for the first responder who has an average response time of 12 minutes in most areas in the country and you bleed out in three. A $29 piece of equipment and a little bit of training that you could literally get from YouTube, from Fieldcraft Survival's YouTube channel could save your life? Why would you not pay attention to that? Lastly I would say survival and maintenance are equally as important. I mean, a 22-year-old girl died in Buffalo, New York with 17 other innocent people who got stuck in a snowstorm. She died in her vehicle six minutes from her home. She literally could see doors of houses but she called her family, FaceTimed them and said, "Hey, I'm stuck in this snowstorm. I don't know what to do." And she stayed in the vehicle. The exhaust got covered with snow, it blocked it out, the carbon monoxide went up into the vehicle and she died. It's like, what a, what a senseless death with a little bit of education. Have the tools and survival and maintenance and recovery that you're gonna need in the worst case scenario. Mylar space blanket, a wool blanket, hell, a sleeping bag in the back of the trunk. If you have the capacity, if you have the space, you might as well have the equipment and the training as well.

   10. CWChris Williamson29:45

       I remember talking to Tim Kennedy about this and he was saying he couldn't believe how many Americans don't know how to sh- drive stick. Now in the UK, that's very, very common and he used this example of saying, "Okay, so you and your kids are away on some lovely holiday up in the mountains somewhere and the car breaks down and the only vehicle that is left to drive home is one that isn't an automatic. And you've got a bunch of different families together and maybe somebody's injured and you need to go and get things and you need to bring them back and you need to get people away to the hospital and you don't know how to drive a manual car."

   11. MGMike Glover30:24

       Yeah. It, I, I think immediately about, um, you know, this, this idea of outsourcing to institutions. The reason we d- we do that is because we get back time. Right? Time is one of our greatest resources and when you get that time back, how about you reallocate it into going to Sheepdog Response, going to Fieldcraft Survival, going anywhere. Go to your local driving academy and learn to get those hard skills that are so important in this type of world. Um, I mean, uh, with that same example think about the people who can't change the tire on their vehicle. They don't know where their spare tire is at. They, they don't know where, um-... you know, they, they know the button they gotta push, they know the phone number they have to call to get AAA out to their location-

   12. CWChris Williamson31:08

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MGMike Glover31:08

       ... and they would rather wait for six hours on the side of the highway than take the 10 minutes to learn and literally change a tire on the side of the highway. And, and look, it's not a man skill. These are like people skills. Like if you don't have these basic skill sets, these hard skills and the education, man, you're setting yourself up for disaster. And that- that's what, that's what I'm like fearful of the most, which is what motivates me every single day 'cause I'm like, "People don't understand the basics." And when we start getting the affirmation or the feedback of saying, "Hey, I took that tourniquet class, it took me five minutes, and it saved my life for somebody I love's life," it's like, man, it, it's so simple. We just need to get back to basics.

7. 31:46 – 39:06

   How to Eliminate the Freeze Response

   1. MGMike Glover31:46

   2. CWChris Williamson31:46

      Thinking about mindset again as well, how can people learn to eliminate the freeze response?

   3. MGMike Glover31:52

      Yeah, it's a big one. There's two components of freeze. The first component of freeze that we, uh, typically understand is fight, flight, or freeze. It has to do with the sympathetic nervous response, which is a basic, um, mechanism of survival. It's actually the mobilization tactic for survival, right? Your central nervous system activates your physical body so you could survive the, the leopard attack, right? That's one component 'cause we freeze as an advantage of maintaining surreptitious movement to not be discovered by the predator as we are the prey, and we continue to move. The most important thing that I've discovered... Uh, I, I actually first discovered this from Amanda Ripley from her book, Unthinkable, which, man, I'd love to talk... You should, you should podcast Amanda Ripley. She's... That book's amazing. Unthinkable. And when, when you hear about the story from the Virginia Tech shooting, she talks about this mechanism of freeze that is a actual parasympathetic phase. So rest and digest, we go to fight or flight, and then it's hypoarousal, where hyperarousal is the spike in the curve. Then on the backside of it, you have hypoarousal where we're frozen solid. It's like the same things opossums do, where they pretend to feint their death. Why? Because, I mean, it's a smart tactic in the animal kingdom. Like if I'm dead or if I look like I'm dead, (laughs) I mean, an opossum actually, um, secretes a foul-smelling odor, which is gross, and I don't recommend people poop on themselves, but it's like, that's a good tactic. So in Virginia Tech, the shooter goes into a classroom after murdering multiple people in other classrooms, a total of 33 innocent lives taken that day. When he goes into the classroom, he shoots every single person in that classroom, except for this student, who put himself in a contorted position and feinted his own, uh, death. He pretended to be dead. He doesn't even know why he did that. He actually said the only thing he thought was, "If I pretend like I'm dead, I... Maybe he'll bypass me." And he did. The fascinating thing is when he tried to move, when he tried to get himself up, he couldn't feel his legs, and he actually had the thought, "Getting shot isn't that, that... isn't that, that, that bad. It doesn't hurt that bad." But he hadn't been shot. Well, one, he had disassociated the actual experience because that's what you do under, uh, intense trauma. It's recognized in sexual assault victims. Um, it's, it recognizing children who were assaulted. And he couldn't feel his legs because natural opiates were transferred into his body, some scientists believe to make the transition from life to death a little bit easier, which I find fascinating. But that mechanism of freeze exist in you. And I tell people, like, "If you train, if you educate yourself, you have all the tools. What you might not understand is, under stress, the suppression of it, you might activate a trigger." It might even be a memory that's faint in your mind or that you haven't even recalled that activates this freeze response and freezes you up where you can't move. And that isn't necessarily a good thing. At Virginia Tech, it worked out for him. But in a situation where you need your hands, you need mobility, it actually might set you up for failure. So both mechanisms of freeze are important to understand because the more you understand it, the more you could understand the symptoms as they take place, like the sweating palm, like, you know, the, the heart rate accelerating, and you can control those things before it happens.

   4. CWChris Williamson35:30

      Andy Stumpf told me about a, um... It may have been sheepdog response, or it may be one of the things that he's involved in, and they're using simunition rounds, and I think that there is a, a person being belligerent, as you are supposedly walking back to the car from a supermarket. And this person comes towards you, and you're told everybody's watching, and you're told these are the things, you need to decide if you're going to pull the trigger, when to pull the trigger. And he was like, "The number of people who are going to life, are going to prison for life for murder in that scenario is huge." That this is simunition rounds. Everybody is aware that they probably should be erring on the side of caution because they're literally being observed by people that are going to judge them for this. And as soon as a bit of pressure gets deployed, the decision-making criteria begins to fall apart. People's ability to be rational, their ability to be calm, um, it just falls out of the window. And he's like, "You're, you're going to jail. You're going to go to jail for the rest of your life for that, for that scenario." It's crazy.

   5. MGMike Glover36:38

      Yeah, that, that course is actually, uh, from my company's training called Personal Security, which is a simunition-based, uh, self-defense course. And it's fascinating. I mean, it's the most fascinating thing that I think, um, most tactical or self-defense trainers don't focus on. Like everybody wants to focus on the nuance of shooting the gun into the paper or to the steel because that dopamine you get from the gun-... exploding in your hands feels good. It's like, "Oh, that was fun." There was exhilaration. But those endorphins that were released in that experience have nothing to do with the actual events that are gonna take place suppressed under stress. And what we find, and, and Andy Stump teaches this class with me, what we find always is the people who train literally the most in the technical skill set, the specific thing, when put under stress, go high and right, which is just a, an example of them going extreme. And, and you go, "Wait, so you just killed this guy in an open parking lot, and why did you do that?" "Well, he was going after my wife." "Yeah, but he was lunging at your wife, but he didn't have a weapon. He didn't say he was gonna harm her. He said he actually wanted food or money, and you shot him in the back five times."

   6. CWChris Williamson37:58

      (laughs)

   7. MGMike Glover37:58

      This has literally happened in our course. And it's like, and these guys are like, "Yeah, but, but that's what you do, right?" It's like, no, no, no, no, no. And then you look at the students, you say, "Who here would put him in prison for the rest of his life?" And everybody raises their hand.

   8. CWChris Williamson38:11

      Yeah.

   9. MGMike Glover38:11

      There's not, there's not even a, a question. So the, the question for people is, yes, hard skills are important to train, but have you took those technical skills and exercised them in the culmination of stress? Because that's what disaster is. So you have to be able to make rapid decision-making in real time. It's why I am highly critical of guys running and gunning on flat ranges as an exercise in demonstrating their tactical capability. That's not even what it's about. That's choreographed. What's important is taking those technical skills and knowing how to discriminate friend from foe, knowing m- when to make a rational, legal, and just decision under stress in a millisecond. It's fascinating. It's one of my favorite parts of training. But it's the most important thing that we do, is culminate and inoculate civilians under stress to make them understand why it's so important. We, we do it all the time, but it's so

8. 39:06 – 49:46

   What People Misunderstand About Personal Firearms

   1. MGMike Glover39:06

      important.

   2. CWChris Williamson39:07

      What do people not understand about reasonable force, about the use of firearms, about when you can and can't deploy them appropriately?

   3. MGMike Glover39:16

      The, the biggest factor is their, their personal decision point. I mean, I, I do a scenario where I, I, I stand everybody up and we walk through a narration of a situation where somebody's entering their house. And, and you'll never believe like the extremes that we get where it's like the person walks in, and then somebody sits down, which represents them, "Hey, I shot the guy." And then the scenario continues, and the person shot the guy as he came in the door, and there's a whole bunch of people still standing, then a whole bunch of people sit down through the scenario. And at the very end, I'm like, "The, the guy has a gun pointed to your loved one's head and he's prepping the trigger, and the person still hasn't sat down." So in our culture, depending on your background, your experiences, your training, where you come from really establishes your criteria for using deadly force. So if you say to, to normal people, "When would you use deadly force?" they'll typically give you the legal jargon. "Well, I would use deadly force when my life is in jeopardy or compro-" And I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. That's from the concealed carry handbook." I'm saying, "When would you actually use deadly force?" And, and we talk through it, right? We, we war game it. We do course of action development. And that's the point, because when you start doing that with that Q&A session with a student, they realize very quickly they've never thought about it. But you're on the range on the weekend shooting the human target that represents a bad guy, but you never thought about the criteria and the decision that you morally and ethically and legally can shoot somebody. And, and that's the disparity, the breakdown in the whole chain, is like w- we're, we're, you know, we're trying to build the cart before we even thought about the horse. Like y- you need to do both simultaneously. Uh, a- and I think history now is showing us across the country that even when you think you have the right intent, moral justification, and legal justification, that there's a potential of a DA who has a skewed perspective of self-defense bringing in a jury of not your peers, 'cause they don't think like you, and then convicting you of murder. It just happened in Texas, and it's likely gonna happen, uh, to this Mr. Penny, former Marine, who winded up killing, uh, uh, accidentally killing Jordan Neely, um, this Michael Jackson impersonator.

   4. CWChris Williamson41:38

      What was the story in Texas?

   5. MGMike Glover41:40

      The story in Texas was there was a protest, and this guy was in the army. He was part time Uber driving, and he dropped off his customer in the middle of this protest, which, bad move anyway. He gets surrounded and kind of gets locked into position. He's got a pistol, and a, one of the protesters has an AK-47, walks up to the vehicle and he uses deadly force. His justification was the guy raised the gun towards him. There's video evidence that shows the, the gun aligned, but not him raising it. And, and, but there's also a post of him saying, "If that ever happened to me, if I ever got gridlocked in, I, I would, I would show these people what's up." You know, I'm paraphrasing here.

   6. CWChris Williamson42:21

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   7. MGMike Glover42:22

      But essentially, when you take all the evidence in totality, seemingly the jury is like, he wanted to get into the fight. He knew what he was doing deliberately, and he took somebody's life. But I'm like, he's in a castle doctrine state of stand your ground in Texas, which has some of the most lenient self-defense laws in the country, and he's in a vehicle, um, protecting his life seemingly against a man with an AK-47. Um, he, he said he didn't have one in the chamber. One in the chamber or not, it's like, wow, that's clear-cut case of self-defense. What, what-

   8. CWChris Williamson42:56

      He wasn't, he wasn't carrying Israeli. This doesn't, we don't need to be too concerned about that.

   9. MGMike Glover43:00

      Exactly. (laughs) So it's like clear-cut case, but not so clear-cut when he's got convicted of 25 years in prison.... which is crazy.

   10. CWChris Williamson43:09

       Yeah. Well, this is one of the things, man. Like, it, I don't really understand it. I'd love to get a legal expert on to explain this, but it seems like, over time, by the nature of precedence being set, which inevitably encroach and create holes in what are much more smooth understandings of what the law is, it seems to me, like, almost like the law of entropy, that over time, laws are inevitably going to become more and more messy, because you have more and more precedents that allow you to either be convicted or let off, based on one or another previous historical case.

   11. MGMike Glover43:49

       Yeah. The, the, the precedent that's being set now is unprecedent, right?

   12. CWChris Williamson43:54

       (laughs)

   13. MGMike Glover43:54

       I mean, the, the, the legal justification, um, for convicting some of these people who... By the way, there are a lot of states that have good Samaritan laws.

   14. CWChris Williamson44:05

       What's up.

   15. MGMike Glover44:05

       Like if you bypass somebody in need, um, you'll get convicted. But they're not leaning so heavy on prosecuting people who are bypassing other human beings, but they're heavily, politically messaging that if you get involved because y- you're a vigilante... I mean, Daniel Penny is considered a vigilante. And all the circumstances in the lead up, at least from the evidence that I've analyzed of the facts of the case, it's like, man, this guy was just trying to do good by protecting people around him. And yet, tragically, this man passed away, but this guy wasn't innocent. So, it's very complicated. But that precedent leaning forward, especially in those states, in those cities-

   16. CWChris Williamson44:44

       Mm.

   17. MGMike Glover44:44

       ... in those towns-

   18. CWChris Williamson44:45

       Mm.

   19. MGMike Glover44:45

       ... is scary because there's a breakdown in the institution, right? The breakdown is, "Well, why didn't the police get involved?" I mean, this guy was arrested 44 times, this Jordan Ely guy. It's like, "Well, why didn't they protect the people?" Well, it's so political, they don't wanna get involved because there's so much liability. So, it's like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. And so it's like, just stay at home and lock yourself behind a closed door-

   20. CWChris Williamson45:09

       Yeah.

   21. MGMike Glover45:09

       ... and you won't ever have to worry about it. But it's like, who wants to live that way?

   22. CWChris Williamson45:12

       There's an interesting, um, trend that I noticed since moving to Texas, uh, among some of the guys that are very, very competent with firearms and, um, I, I think you mentioned it before, that there are some people, and I noticed this amongst some of the guys that I've gone shooting with, and I, I'm sure that they're all very, very, uh, responsible gun owners. But there are some where I get a sense, true or not, that they almost want a kinetic, uh, incident to occur. That there's almost like a yearning for it, like a, a lean in desire for that to be a, a reason to put these skills finally to use.

   23. MGMike Glover45:55

       Yeah. I, I think that's spot on. And it's scary. I mean, but at the same time, I understand it because I understand men. You know, there's, there's a fighting spirit in all men, in most men. And, and that outlet is limited when you don't have conflict, when you don't grow up in allocating that energy in the right place. Uh, uh, it's why fighting, it's why virtue signaling, it's why military veterans like me and Andy Stump and Sean Ryan are very popular. It's because we lived that life in the global war on terror, and were able to fight and we had those experiences. But what do you do when you're a 14-year-old American boy growing up today and there's no conflict, there's no- nothing to fight for?

   24. CWChris Williamson46:41

       Yeah.

   25. MGMike Glover46:41

       And where do you divert that energy? And your persona becomes 2A. I mean, 2A is not just like a, "Yeah, I'm- I'm all about the Second Amendment." It's like, that's my identity. And so, I remember being a young staff sergeant, Green Beret, and thinking, "Man, um, I'm judged by my peers because they don't know if I have the capability of taking out a bad guy." And, and in that culture, if you never killed a bad guy, then you're really nobody until you cross that threshold. It's like, "I could trust this guy now. I know he's capable."

   26. CWChris Williamson47:11

       Mm.

   27. MGMike Glover47:11

       And you've earned-

   28. CWChris Williamson47:12

       You've earned your stripes in some regard.

   29. MGMike Glover47:14

       Yeah. You've earned your stripes and you're a warrior now that could be trusted. Well, I, I, I'm afraid that's happening a lot. And I see it, it's tragic. Kyle Rittenhouse and that whole circumstance is a prime example where people are like, "Yes." And then the comments are egregious. It's like, this is a very tragic circumstance all together for both Kyle Rittenhouse-

   30. CWChris Williamson47:32

       Ah.
9. 49:46 – 54:29

   Importance of Situational Awareness

   1. CWChris Williamson49:46

      you? Is that when you go into a restaurant, are you always sat in a table in the corner with the chair facing the wall so you've got the broadest range of view? Is that still something that's embedded in you?

   2. MGMike Glover49:54

      It is. I don't think I could ever get away from that. And, you know, I've talked to a lot of my peers growing up in the military, and we all have that mentality. And it, it's about security. It's not an inconvenience for me. It's, it's, honestly, it, it would be more of an issue if I wasn't able to do that, because I would be thinking about it otherwise. Like, uh, you know, it just happened recently, I go out with my girlfriend, we're, we're hanging out at dinner. My back is exposed, and I said, "Hey, can we just swap chairs?" And for her, it's not a big deal. She knows who I am. But that's ingrained in me-

   3. CWChris Williamson50:28

      Mm-hmm.

   4. MGMike Glover50:28

      ... a- a- as a protector and as a defender, because I want the tactical advantage. I wanna be on the offensive, always. And that helps me mitigate risk, because if I see this situation unfolding, I can get my family off the X. And, and with having children, and people around me that I love, I don't want confrontation. I mean, I think Jocko said it, uh, you know, it's like, run away. And, and run away as fast as you can, because there's no ego, and there's nothing good gonna happen in that kind of conflict in the country. Uh, it's, n- nothing good of that is gonna happen. So do your best to avoid conflict.

   5. CWChris Williamson51:04

      Let me give you this one, man. I've never told this story on the podcast before-

   6. MGMike Glover51:08

      Nope.

   7. CWChris Williamson51:08

      ... but this is a, this is about Jocko. So I have Jocko on the show around about a year ago, and I fly out to San Diego to go and see him. And, um, we sit down, and we have this really interesting conversation running for like two and a half hours. And, you know, he's the big scary man that's killed people. Like, you know, he's an intimidating dude to sit across from but it was, it was... I really enjoyed it. And one of the guys that we had as a part of the film crew was on the super tight angle. So if people go back and watch this episode with Jocko, they'll see that there's this really, really tight up, super, super tight crop. It's almost just his forehead and, and, and eyes. So there was a guy very closely watching what Jocko was doing with his eyes for two and a half hours, right?

   8. MGMike Glover51:48

      Wow.

   9. CWChris Williamson51:48

      And as he, as we finished up and w- we were packing up, he came over and he said, "Dude, do you see what... Do you see what Jocko was doing with his eyes throughout that podcast?" I was like, "No, what do you mean?" He said, "Well, when you were sitting back, and you had your hand off the desk, his eyes were looking in your face. But as soon as you leaned forward, and you put your hand on the side of your laptop, around about every five to ten seconds or so, for just a split second, his eyes would just dart down and look at where your hands were. Every ten seconds, they would dart down."

   10. MGMike Glover52:21

       (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson52:21

       And I was like, I was sat 70 centimeters away from this guy, and I didn't see it. But the dude that was looking through the camera, only looking at his eyes, was able to detect it.

   12. MGMike Glover52:35

       (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson52:35

       And that, that just really made me think, like, there are levels to situational awareness that people who have been in extended periods of active combat with really, really bad a- bad actors have got incredibly acclimatized to.

   14. MGMike Glover52:53

       Yeah, it's, it's so fascinating. I mean, w- we talked about it in depth recently, and, and (laughs) he was talking about taking his walk with his family, and down the road, and he's looking for c- you know, last covered and concealed positions, and, uh, you know, he's looking at the p- planter pots and thinking, "Hey, can I hide behind that in the middle of a gunfight?" while they're, like, walking down the sidewalk going to get ice cream.

   15. CWChris Williamson53:16

       Yeah.

   16. MGMike Glover53:16

       But, but it's, it's often a very deliberate trait that becomes so ingrained, it becomes habit. You know, I, I took a lot of behavioral dynamics courses, executive communication, a lot of these courses that taught me about, uh, deliberate observation. And now, it's a part of my pattern and routine. And what he was doing was assessing hands, because it's not called a footgun, it's a handgun, right? It's, that's where the threat comes from. But also demeanor. But hands, from somebody who's, uh, sound tactically, and has a lot of experience, they d- they don't give you the demeanor hits. There is no demeanor, right? Most operators who operate very well, you don't get demeanor hits, but their hands will be doing the deed. So hands, demeanor is the constant vigilant scroll that we're taking in the information, and I, I find myself constantly doing that, and quickly assessing it, where it can't even be recognized. And, uh, it's, it's a very cool story, because, um, you would only know it i- if you dialed it in and you could see the, the rapid eye movement-

   17. CWChris Williamson54:24

       Mm-hmm.

   18. MGMike Glover54:25

       ... and, and tracking the hands, which I think is fascinating.

   19. CWChris Williamson54:27

       Yeah, so good, man. Um,

10. 54:29 – 1:02:44

    How Demeanour Can Be Weaponised

    1. CWChris Williamson54:29

       talk to me about demeanor. I don't know, you talk about peacocking and how demeanor can both be, uh, almost a, um, an offensive or a, uh, warning tactic, where it can, uh, cause... Y- you can act in a manner that disincentivizes people from doing things. What's the, what is there to know about demeanor?

    2. MGMike Glover54:51

       Yeah, I think demeanor on the offensive and defensive side is important to understand. Fir- first of all, um, you know, w- we say, like, EDC is important. Everyday carry is important, because those are your tools. But what's more important and in your EDC than your pistol in your waistband is your posture, right? Because on, on the offensive side, your posture, your eye contact, being clear and concise with communication breeds confidence.... and when interviewed, you know, criminals when interviewed, said disorganized people were typically the most exploitable. It's the, it's the, uh ... Criminals went after that the most. And so if you're disshuffled, if you're disorganized, if you look chaotic, you look exploitable, you look weak. And so, um, in demeanor, when we're assessing demeanor, it's basic body language, but sometimes that takes, um, an understanding of how to assess people in different environments. So I-I call it spiking the pattern. You don't have to individually assess hands, demeanor, hands, demeanor, hands, demeanor. You could look across the entire spectrum of a restaurant and assess audibly, visually, is there any anomalies? Is there any spikes in the pattern? Is the person yelling in the booth in the back corner? Well, that's an anomaly. What's typical is when we identify speci- specific demeanor that we recognize as a trait that's going to de-evolve, to go bad, we kind of write it off. I mean, that's our way of being lazy. We just write it off. We say, "Oh, that's not a big deal. They're just arguing." But what if the person's poking the other person in the chest? Well, that's about to be a physical confrontation. And then what if the person's putting their hand on the back strap of a pistol in their waistband? Well, you're about to be caught in the crossfire because you have a plan to identify 'cause naturally we do. Uh, I mean, your vagus nerve is good at identifying environmental factors that control your physiological profile. It's like, hey, what are we gonna do? Activate the nervous system, but what are you gonna do post that experience? Uh, it's fascinating. I just watched on ... I- I'm, I'm big into YouTube. Um, I watch your stuff on y- on YouTube and I watch, uh, all my favorite people on YouTube and I get ... I go down rabbit holes when it comes to, like, central nervous system kind of stuff. And I found this, uh, video, um, th- these different guys do it. There's a g- a guy like Texas Bushman or something like that, and he hides in a planter, um, a- and, and I believe it's s-

    3. CWChris Williamson57:20

       Better not be near Jocko's house.

    4. MGMike Glover57:22

       Oh, he better not. (laughs)

    5. CWChris Williamson57:22

       If he hides in a planter near Jocko's house, he's fucked.

    6. MGMike Glover57:24

       (laughs) He'll get he- (laughs) he'll get headbutted.

    7. CWChris Williamson57:26

       Yeah.

    8. MGMike Glover57:27

       Um, but he acts like a plant, and he acts like a bush, and he's wearing, like, a ghillie suit, eh, with foliage. And when people walk by, he stands up and almost everybody has a reaction, and that's their vagus nerve telling their body to react. You know, they're being hyper-aroused from a very, you know, baseline rest and digest phase. When they respond, most of them respond and they start giggling and laughing 'cause they realize, oh, yeah, it's not that big of a deal. What I tell people is identify the spike in the pattern, be prepared to be flinch response, as Tony Blauer would say, but then have a plan of action with that information. You know, uh, uh, people are upstairs and they hear a noise downstairs, they don't react to it. They don't respond to it. It's like, why? Well, it's 'cause they're lazy. Like, things aren't happening creating noises as apparitions. It's like something's causing that. Get off your butt and go investigate. So when you see somebody's demeanor, think action. Like, hey, that dude didn't have good m- demeanor. Like, the way he looked at me, the way that he, uh, physically postured on me, I don't like that. And a lot of those indications in behavior, getting ahead on the offensive side will allow you to immediately respond or react on the reactive side. You know, we say, um, reaction is always slower than action. Not if you have a heads-up display and are being situationally aware. When you identify those things, have a plan of action, and you'll be ahead of it. Uh, I- I think behavior, um, I think, um, demeanor hits are very important 'cause it's just ... It's a deliberate way to assess our environment, where otherwise we'd normally just be completely oblivious to everything that's in our environment.

    9. CWChris Williamson59:09

       I suppose this offsets this lack of situational awareness that is pretty pervasive at the moment. You mentioned everybody's distracted by their phones, et cetera, et cetera, but if there's just a little bit of a cue, every so often just remember to put your head up, to look around. Got another story. So one of my friends was in a bar in Tokyo, and this is a, a long while ago now, and he told me this story. He, he ascribed it to almost, like, some astral sixth sense that he's got, but I think you would probably claim that this guy just has very, very high in-built situational awareness. And he is able, or has in the past, just noticed when something's going to go wrong. So anyway, they were sat at this bar in Japan, and you may have seen these sorts of, um, bars before. I think they're quite popular in Asia, where the, um, floor is all at one level, the table is at the height of the floor, and then the floor sinks in and you almost sit on the floor, uh-

    10. MGMike Glover1:00:05

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:00:05

        ... with your feet descending further below the floor. And th- this is this sort of cool style of, of bar that he was at in Japan. Anyways, he was there with his wife, who knows him and knows the way that he acts and knows that he has this sort of heightened situational awareness, astral realm skill, whatever it is, uh, and he's got two friends. Uh, another couple are with him. And he was sat facing the bar, this long bar. I mean, relatively busy, evening time, some venue somewhere, and he just ... Something felt off. Little spidey-sense tingle, wasn't sure what it was, and he gave it a couple of seconds and then he said to his wife, "We need to get under the table." And his wife immediately said, "Okay," but the two people that were with him, they didn't know that this guy has this particular insight and that he tends to be right more times than he's wrong. And they said, "Oh, we're not getting under the table." And he was like, "I'm telling you, when I say get under the table, we need to get under the table." Sure enough-

    12. MGMike Glover1:01:05

        Mm-hmm.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:01:05

        ... he convinces them and they get under the table a couple of seconds later. Literally five seconds after that happens, this guy pulls out an automatic, uh, rifle and fires at the bar. Nobody gets killed, but it turned out that it was some gangland, uh, dispute between two different groups of people-And this guy had sprayed the room with an automatic weapon, and then fled. And it was, it was all this big thing went on. And obviously, everyone else has got their hands in the air. Meanwhile, my friend, his wife, and the couple that they were with are literally below the ground, and they were there five seconds before.

    14. MGMike Glover1:01:41

        Wow. Yeah, I, I think that intuition is the vagus nerve taking in all the data points of information, including pressure. I think, uh, you know, it's not often talked about, but pressure, environmental pressure, uh, from human beings, which is their, their raised sense of awareness, and, you know, whether it's cortisol or adrenaline, that spike in elevation creates pressures on other people where you sense that. I mean, people around me-

    15. CWChris Williamson1:02:10

        Oh, it's like a wave moving through a crowd.

    16. MGMike Glover1:02:12

        It is. It's a wave of energy. And when you feel that, that intuition to respond and react is what saves you. I mean, it's like, uh, you know, I, I feel that pressure, I'm gonna stop right here. And then, you know, the, the brown bear bypasses you-

    17. CWChris Williamson1:02:27

        Yeah.

    18. MGMike Glover1:02:27

        ... because all that energy is in the air. And I think that's important to note, because we all have a sixth sense. We all have that intuition, and it's based on our experiences and based on our, our situational awareness.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:02:39

        I'll message Jim. I'll tell him that he should have gone and been a, a Navy SEAL or a CIA contractor.

    20. MGMike Glover1:02:43

        (laughs)

    21. CWChris Williamson1:02:43

        Um, okay,

11. 1:02:44 – 1:10:20

    How to Prepare Your Home for Incidents

    1. CWChris Williamson1:02:44

       you mentioned earlier on about that we hear a noise downstairs, et cetera. It is, you know, the, apart from, I guess, active shooters, uh, uh, and mass shooters now because of how much attention they've been given by the press, but I would say that home invasions are probably the, you know, the longstanding fundamental fear that a lot of people have. What should people be thinking about when it comes to fortifying their home, when it comes to preparing for this, and then if they do hear something or if there is some sort of an incident, moving through that scenario?

    2. MGMike Glover1:03:20

       Yeah, it's a very interesting question. I mean, I, I just taught a course this weekend in personal security, all women's, and one of the ladies asked me, um, "Hey, is it appropriate in self-defense to rack a shotgun?" And I said, "Well, what's the circumstance?" She said, "Well, if somebody comes in the house, and then I rack it, do I mitigate risk?" I said, "Certainly, you do, but if you're racking a shotgun, which is how you cycle the operation or chamber a round in a shotgun, you're using the wrong shotgun, 'cause the gun should already be loaded. There should be one in the chamber, and you should use a semiautomatic shotgun. But sure, do what you can. But if you're racking a shotgun when somebody's already in your home, you've already made several mistakes." One of the-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:04:00

       You could... Here's one, here's one solution that you could think of. You could have a shotgun that's only for racking, and then you could have a semiautomatic one (musical note) that you actually use for shooting. So, one-

    4. MGMike Glover1:04:09

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:04:09

       And it doesn't even need to have a round in, or you could just have dummy rounds in. So, you could just-

    6. MGMike Glover1:04:13

       Yeah, you could-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:04:13

       ... rack it, and that's the deterrent. And then-

    8. MGMike Glover1:04:15

       We-

    9. CWChris Williamson1:04:15

       ... you can actually pick the other one up and go downstairs.

    10. MGMike Glover1:04:17

        You could likely go on YouTube and get a racked shotgun.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:04:19

        (laughs) Yeah, why do-

    12. MGMike Glover1:04:21

        Just post it, connect it Bluetooth.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:04:21

        ... why even have the gun? Why-

    14. MGMike Glover1:04:22

        Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:04:22

        ... do you even need the gun anymore?

    16. MGMike Glover1:04:23

        Get on your phone, Bluetooth it to the speaker downstairs and just have-

    17. CWChris Williamson1:04:26

        So nice.

    18. MGMike Glover1:04:26

        ... racking shotguns

    19. NANarrator1:04:27

        (laughs)

    20. CWChris Williamson1:04:27

        Play my shotgun playlist.

    21. MGMike Glover1:04:30

        (laughs)

    22. CWChris Williamson1:04:31

        (laughs)

    23. MGMike Glover1:04:31

        Oh, you could do AKs. You could do shotguns. You could do it all.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:04:34

        Oh, my God. This g- this woman's so armed. There's an entire fucking battalion up here.

    25. MGMike Glover1:04:38

        She's got a bazooka. I just heard-

    26. CWChris Williamson1:04:40

        Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    27. MGMike Glover1:04:40

        ... a bazooka rack.

    28. CWChris Williamson1:04:41

        Yeah, yeah.

    29. MGMike Glover1:04:41

        Um, you know, I, I think a lot of people, again, think about worst case scenarios, and they think about the last moment where it's too late. You know, preemptively, what we're talking about is physical security. You know, it's like, it, it's the idea of, like, the immigration across the border wall. It's like, if there's no wall, then people porousley will pour through the open terrain. And it's like, the first rule of physical security is obstacles and gates and fences, et cetera. So, I always think, "Well, how many obstacles are between me and a potential risk?" So, if you have a door, is the door locked? Um, if you have a door and it's locked, do you have, uh, a deeply recessed bolt latch or locking system? Do you have a chain across it? Do you have a bar across it? Do you have a storm door? Do you have a cage door? All the things. I... Do you have a thorny bush at the base of the window? You know, all of these obstacles are gonna benefit you to reduce your chances of having to rack the shotgun last minute. And I think most importantly is technical security. I mean, I have my cellphone sitting next to me at all times because, uh, I'm in my studio in my basement in my house, but I have a Vivint security system that is tethered to, um, a whole bunch of infrared sensors that, when that kicks a sensor, I get an SMS text message in my home that's linked to Starlink. So, even if the power goes down, I have the ability to plug that into a battery power, um, a generator, and still have mobile security on site that tells me of the risk before the risk comes into my home. So, I, I think it's an important conversation, 'cause home defense is, is, can create a lot of paranoia and fearmongering around the idea. But the last-ditch effort in self-defense is obviously defending your life. And, you know, we've been criticized before, like, um, uh, somebody said, "Well, um, you always go down and assess the threat." And I said, "Wh- what do you mean?" Like, "Well, you will always, you should always offensively go after the threat that's in your home." I said, "Why would you do that?" Like, "Why wouldn't you do that?" Like, "I have kids, so why would I offensively try to go downstairs and find the threat that potentially could be setting up to ambush me when I could put my kids in a safe room, back against a wall a couple thresholds deep, and ambush the threat that's coming towards me?" So, we have to think about these complexities and go through them, depending on the person, their house, and the setup. Uh, it's all-important in home defense.

    30. CWChris Williamson1:07:15

        What about dogs? Do you need to call Mike Ritland? Should everyone, should everyone-
12. 1:10:20 – 1:20:29

    Mike’s Advice on Handguns in the Home

    1. MGMike Glover1:10:20

    2. CWChris Williamson1:10:20

       Mm. What's your, um, or what should people consider when they're thinking about handguns in the home or any, any kind of gun in the home? I know that ... I don't know. Th- this is preparedness, but it's the era that we hear about now, of accidental discharge, of, you know, people carrying Israeli, et cetera, et cetera. Like, what's your, what's your thoughts on this?

    3. MGMike Glover1:10:43

       Yeah. My, my thoughts have changed since I had kids. My, my, my son ... I have twins, a boy and a girl, and they're four. But very capable, as ... You know, they could pick up a firearm and they understand what it is, you know. They, they see daddy's firearms that are deliberately p- positioned throughout the house that are unloaded, because I wanna inoculate my kids to seeing them around and not being ... Like I was as a child when my father was in the military and in law enforcement, e- being enthralled by this thing that was always hidden and tucked in a drawer. And we know kids, they're always gonna find the thing that's into the drawer because curiosity.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:11:22

       Mm.

    5. MGMike Glover1:11:22

       And so, one thing to think about is having locked boxes that are capable of biometrics, keypads, uh, turn combinations, whatever it may be, where you have the gun at ready access, but it takes a locking mechanism as a barrier to protect the kids that are in your home. I also have a tactic where I separate the, the gun from the ammunition, right?

    6. CWChris Williamson1:11:49

       Mm.

    7. MGMike Glover1:11:49

       And so, if I have the ammunition and it's staged out of sight, out of sound, they don't make that connection, at least not now, as four-year-old children. But, uh, you know, I have a protocol where I'll pick up the pistol, I'll attach the magazine, and then I'll go looking for what, assessing what the problem is. I also recommend, and h- especially in home defense ... I mean, I, I think we should be looking at this across the board, that you have suppressed guns. And, you know, suppressors, unlike the Hollywood examples of silencing the pistol or the rifle, don't do that. They just reduce the decibel ranges. That would be important, because if you're conditioned for stress, if you train a lot, you certainly will not have auditory exclusion. You'll be deaf when you're in that gunfight. And we don't wear Peltors on our heads or ear protection like we do on the range. But also, you don't wanna shoot a firearm in the proximity of your children and put them in fight or flight, where they're in the fetal position and they're screaming in shock or their hands are over their ears and you can't even get them to move. So I, I think about these things as a tactical advantage. Like somebody said, "Why would you ever have a gun with a suppressor with a light in your home? That's silly. Just use a regular pistol." And I'm like, "Well, certainly, but I wanna win. You could lose, but I'm gonna win."

    8. CWChris Williamson1:13:08

       (laughs)

    9. MGMike Glover1:13:08

       (laughs) And if the difference is a suppressor on my gun with a light that gives me the tactical advantage that costs an extra few hundred dollars, why would I not do that?

    10. CWChris Williamson1:13:16

        W-

    11. MGMike Glover1:13:16

        So I'm always looking for the tactical advantage.

    12. CWChris Williamson1:13:18

        What about reducing, uh...... round carry or velocity. You know, if you're in a house, I look at some of these houses that are being built near me in Texas, y- y- y- you guys have interesting large houses over here, but they are made out of fucking wood and polystyrene. You know, I, I look at every home, I have, have a bunch of real estate in the UK, and it's like rock solid 1910, 1920s brick. Hard, heavy, cold and hot, and I, I, I don't even know. I mean, a Nerf round would probably go through most-

    13. MGMike Glover1:13:55

        (laughs)

    14. CWChris Williamson1:13:55

        ... most American homes. But I imagine this is something that you consider if you are going to get into a, you know, some kinetic altercation with somebody, what about the kids that are in the room next door? What about the people that live in the house across the street from you? What about whatever, whatever, whatever? E- e- is that something that you consider?

    15. MGMike Glover1:14:10

        Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's very important to consider and weigh. I mean, like you said, most houses have generic corkboard, which is plywood, that just, you know, it, that round at 1,300 feet per second, hollow, um, uh, limited penetration or full metal jacket, it doesn't matter. At that speed, velocity and foot-pounds of energy, it's gonna penetrate that wall, depending on proximity. And so, what I tell people is, one, the most important thing as a rule of firearm safety is know your target and what's beyond it, right? Uh, it, it's a game of angles. There are self-defense rounds that limit penetration, create vertical displacement of energy, which is very important, keeping the round intact to reduce the over-penetration that we see going through human bodies, but also obstacles, which is very important. In some cases, depending on our understanding of our environment, we would want to penetrate the obstacle. Like when I was in the military, I carried s- c- 62 grain Green Tip, which had a steel-core penetrator, because, I mean, Green Tip comes from, at least 62 grain Green Tip, comes from, um, the requirement to shoot, um, small steel pot helmets. This is Russian-era ammo. The reason we have that and we would carry it, is because if we ran into vehicles, we need something potentially to create, um, penetration in those obstacles or those vehicles. So sometimes, you wanna penetrate the obstacles, but-

    16. CWChris Williamson1:15:32

        I was gonna, would you ever be able to get some enemy assailant through a wall with something like that as well?

    17. MGMike Glover1:15:38

        Yeah. And I tell people, I tell people, think about it this way, when you train on a flat range and you're shooting paper or steel, do you train with obstacles? Typically, you don't. But how many bad guys do you know that would just stand in the open holding the gun-

    18. CWChris Williamson1:15:51

        (laughs)

    19. MGMike Glover1:15:52

        ... like this, or holding the gun like this-

    20. CWChris Williamson1:15:53

        Yeah.

    21. MGMike Glover1:15:53

        ... and wait to be shot? They're gonna naturally find and seek obstacles. They're gonna go into the bathroom and shut the door behind them. Do you have the ability to affect them? Now, standard hollow-core doors, standard plywood, uh, you're gonna be able to penetrate it no matter what. But I have a s- I have a, a h- a solid oak door as my front door. Now, if somebody was trying to get through my door, well, what weapon would I use? It, you'd have a tough time at least affecting them on the other side of that with a nine mil pistol from a distance. But if I had a 308, if I had a 556, um, that had the ability to penetrate, potentially I could affect them. All these things need to be weighed and considered, e- especially inside the home, where it's most dangerous and most likely that you're, y- y- you hear the noise, you're running to defend your children potentially, or your family potentially, and you need to be thinking about those.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:16:51

        Yeah. It's, uh, the, (sighs) lack of applicability from range to environment is something that I, I've really started to learn a lot more over the last year. You know, since not really firing a gun except beyond tourist shit in Vegas and all the rest of it that you do normally when you go on bachelor parties, to now spending a lot of time with guys that are incredibly heavily armed and incredibly proficient. Some of the guys are, whatever it is, grand wizards of the competitive shooting. There's a couple of guys here that do, um, Atomic Legion, that, uh, it's like a, a competitive shooting, um, community out here. And, um, I was with Tucker Max, who you may or may not know, the guy that owns Scribe Media-

    23. MGMike Glover1:17:34

        Mm-hmm.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:17:35

        ... big into preparedness as well. I'm sure he, he'll be a fan of yours. And, um, we were at his house, but I think I'd turned up late, or we'd maybe gone for lunch or something, so he was shooting at a time that he wasn't used to shooting at, and we were shooting with a red dot. And I was, I had lined everything up and we were just practicing, it's those hostage, um, uh, targets. So, for the people that don't know, there's like a hole in the chest, and then when you hit the hole in the chest, the target appears over the shoulder of the same body so that you move from person to over the top of person so that it teaches you to be able to move from the target to somebody that would be almost behind the target. And I'm like lining this shot up from not too far away, and he's like, "Dude, you are miles off this." He says, "Um, uh, is this gun dialed in or whatever?" And he picked it up. We didn't realize that when the sun is low and entering a red dot target, it creates two dots. It creates a second dot. And it's not as bright, but if you are in a rush and you just pulled the gun up, you would be firing and you're like 10 degrees away from where you should be.

    25. MGMike Glover1:18:43

        Mm-hmm.

    26. CWChris Williamson1:18:43

        And he realized, you know, this is a guy that's thought very, very long and hard about all of the different ways that this could happen, and this could happen, and this could happen, and even he, as somebody that has spent all of his time, had never had his red dot facing the sun at this particular time of night because we'd gone for lunch, and he thought, "Oh, fuck. Like this is another new piece of information that I wouldn't have picked up on the range if I'd always just been shooting in the same direction."

    27. MGMike Glover1:19:07

        Yeah. That's, tho- those lessons learned are so important. Uh, I mean, we use the term lights up, sights up, you know, just the, the, the small tactics we use depending on where the light is. If it's over your back, if it's on your sights, versus it's going down, y- you might have to hold completely different. I, I, I think one, one of the fatal flaws in training, period, is most people don't train low light, no light. And 60 plus percent of shootings take place at night or in low light. You know, most, mostly we have ambient light in and around us, but how many people train at night? Really nobody does that. We offer no light and low light courses, so does Sheepdog Response. Uh, good training institutions do that. But how many of us are willing to train in those conditions, but are always caring in those conditions, and, and understand the statistical probability? I, I like hearing stories like that because, you know, anybody in the tactical space that sits on a platform or a pedestal and says, "This is the end all, be all solution," is not the right person to learn from. I mean, there should always be room for adaptation and growth. Bad guys certainly adapt, certainly grow and evolve. So should you. And it's an open forum for discussion. These kinda things, like y- like you just mentioned, should be talked about, should be educated across the platform, and that's the kind of industry that we need for us all to grow together.

13. 1:20:29 – 1:20:51

    Where to Find Mike

    1. CWChris Williamson1:20:29

       Mike Glover, ladies and gentlemen. Mike, let's bring this one home. Where should people go if they want to find out more about you and the book and all the work that you do and how they can protect themselves?

    2. MGMike Glover1:20:37

       Yeah. Fieldcraftsurvival.com. Everywhere that books are found. Uh, Amazon, your local bookstore. Um, my channels mainly are on YouTube at Mike Glover Actual, on my YouTube channel, and then, uh, my Instagram is mike.a.glover.

Episode duration: 1:21:07