Jail, Lawsuits, and The Comeback After Everything Fell Apart | Mike Glover | Ep. 462
August 3, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readMike Glover built FieldCraft Survival from a cell phone video into a multi-million-dollar preparedness brand, lost it in a boardroom fight, spent 55 days in jail, and is now rebuilding. In this conversation with Andy Stumpf, Glover walks through the operating principles that carried him through the collapse—and the ones he wishes he had known sooner.
The Business Collapse Was a Tuition Payment
Glover is blunt about the FieldCraft dissolution. He was removed from the company he founded after a board vote that included Stumpf, who had to formally vote his friend out. Glover could have fought it legally, but he chose not to. "I could not fight in court and be part of the company at the same time," he says. The aftermath was brutal: a year and a half of forensic accounting to untangle financial records from a former business partner, tax penalties accumulating monthly, and the personal weight of a large headcount depending on him. Stumpf, who had an inside view, confirms there was no other choice given the circumstances. Glover frames the entire experience as expensive tuition: "I tell myself that mistakes are tuition payments, and I do mean that, but that doesn't mean they don't sting or hurt or make you question your ability as to whether or not you can continue down your path."
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What you'll learn
- 1 Timestamped Outline
- 2 (00:01) **Opening Banter & Helicopter Talk** - Host and guest riff on a recent podcast with a 160th SOAR pilot, discussing the technical details of helicopter emergencies and the Neil Roberts/Chapman controversy.
- 3 (11:10) **Business Stress & Personal Accountability** - Mike Glover opens up about the crushing weight of business ownership, partner disputes, and the forensic accounting nightmare that followed.
- 4 (16:36) **The New York Times Bestseller Campaign** - Mike breaks down how he landed on major podcasts like Rogan and Huberman, and why the "author in demand" label doesn't change his resistance to writing a second book.
- 5 (24:58) **The Untold Aviation & Base Jumping World** - The host pitches a second book concept around Mike's world-record base jumps and aviation career, which Mike resists despite having unpublished material.
- 6 (39:34) **Fieldcraft's Collapse & Mike's Incarceration** - Mike discusses how Fieldcraft dissolved, the vote to remove him from the board, and the 55 days he spent in jail.
- 7 (46:59) **Alcohol, Social Lubricant & Life Phases** - A candid conversation about drinking habits, the social pressure to drink, and why the cost-benefit ratio changes with age.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Mike Glover served 18 years in Army Special Forces, worked as a contractor for the CIA, founded Fieldcraft Survival, and wrote the national bestseller Prepared. He's been on this show before. A lot has happened since.
The legal case that consumed the last 18 months is finished. He talks about the week he spent locked up — teaching breathing drills in a holding cell full of hard dudes — what the arrest cost him, and how family and a small circle of friends carried him through. Fieldcraft dissolved. He bought the pieces back. Now he's rebuilding it from the roots.
There's also a long stretch on the bin Laden story — O'Neill, Bissonette, the recorded debrief, the point man, and litigation nobody needed. Plus Roberts Ridge, the Jessica Lynch raid, Tillman, and why drama in the special operations community has real downstream consequences.
TRT, alcohol, helicopters, faith, veteran suicide, and a tribute to a Green Beret they called Swede.
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