For 7 years, I was working undercover as

a spy. And I needed to know how to

manipulate, how to live and operate

without ever being detected, and how to

collect secrets. Okay, I've got so many

questions. Andrew Bustamante

He's a former CIA officer

who uses spy skills

to teach anyone how to master their

mind, talents, and potential in business

and everyday life.

When I left CIA, they realized that I

could use CIA skills to succeed in

business. One of the first things you

should want to learn is how do I know if

I'm being lied to? As an example, bad

liars

that is one of the biggest tells of an

unskilled liar. Next, people have four

basic core motivations. Reward,

ideology, coercion, and ego. And if you

can speak to somebody through the lens

of their ideology, you can get them to

do incredible things.

Deception versus perspective, what's

that? 90% of the people out there,

they're all trapped in their own

perception and thinking emotionally, and

emotions are very likely wrong. So, CIA

trains us to recognize and distrust our

perception. And there's two really quick

things that you can do.

Next, sad rat.

It's an acronym. And all of our

marketing, all of our human interactions

falls into the same sad rat process that

I learned at CIA. Because the human

condition is so predictable. So, sad rat

stands for

and it's the reason my company has grown

300% every year for the last 3 years.

I want to know more. Was there any

situations where you felt your life was

at risk? What do you think about what's

going on at the moment with geopolitics?

Do you think we're already engaged in a

form of World War III?

And then, why are you going to try and

leave America in 2027?

It's absolutely crazy to me that so many

of you have decided to watch our show,

um, and so many of you have decided to

subscribe to our show. We now have 5

million subscribers on YouTube, which is

a number that I just can't comprehend,

and it's a dream that I absolutely never

could have had. We started The Diary of

a CEO just over 3 years ago now, and in

my wildest expectations, we might have

had 100,000 subscribers by now. So, you

can imagine how shocked I am that so

many of you have chosen to, um, tune

into these conversations every week, um,

and spend some time with us. So, thank

you. And I made a deal with you. I made

a deal that if you subscribe to this

show, that we would continue to raise

the bar, and in 2024,

we're going to raise the bar like never

before. I've been working for the last 9

months on a surprise for all of you that

have subscribed to this show, and I'm

very excited to deliver that for you.

The production's going to change. We're

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guests, and we're going to tell even

more global stories. So, as always, if

you appreciate what we're doing here,

the simple, free favor I'll ask from you

is to hit the subscribe button. Let's

get on with the episode.

Andrew,

you're well-known for your time in the

CIA because people are so intrigued and

compelled by it.

How long were you in the CIA? I was

actually in the CIA for a comparatively

short period. I was only in for 7 years.

Uh, many people make a 30 or more year

career out of CIA. So, it was really

quite a small blip in terms of my

overall life. I wore, uh, the US

military uniform for 7 years before that

as well. So, 14 years total spent in

service to the United States. And what

is the CIA? So, the CIA is, uh, the

United States is intelligence, foreign

intelligence collection, uh, platform.

They're primary agency deemed with

collecting foreign secrets that have any

kind of impact in American national

security. So, if you think about it, uh,

there are multiple what's called

intelligence agencies in what's known as

the intelligence community or the IC.

CIA is just one of those 36-ish,

uh, community members in the IC.

However, it is the one charged with

centralizing all of the intelligence

collected, hence the Central

Intelligence Agency. So, it's the hub in

a large wheel of intelligence

collection. Is that what a spy is? Is it

the same thing as being a spy? So, I'm

going to I'll geek out with you a little

bit here because terminology is really

very important. So, uh, there are spies,

and spy is a vernacular that's used in

common, uh, conversation that doesn't

really have a definition in terms of the

intelligence or espionage profession.

You have handlers, you have assets in

terms of traditional espionage. Handlers

are officers who collect intelligence.

Assets are foreigners who provide

intelligence to the handler. So, a CIA

officer or an MI6 officer, a Mossad

officer, an MSS officer, depending on

the country, these are officers who

collect secrets. They are therefore

handlers.

And then, all the people who provide

them secrets are considered assets.

Traditionally speaking, when you talk

about a spy, some people think a spy is

an asset or a handler, either someone

who provides information or someone who

collects information. Okay. Uh, and and

the term spy is just, uh, just confusing

enough that oftentimes people will

project their own opinions on top of

that word because they don't understand

the real nuance of espionage. So, I

thought of a spy as someone that goes to

another country and collects information

secretly and then sends it back to the

country they came from. So, technically

that is an intelligence operative or an

intelligence officer,

uh, also known as an operator or in

media, an operative. Uh, sometimes it's

also called an agent, right? An

intelligence agent. Uh, these are all

kind of terms that get nebulous, but

what you are describing is a

intelligence, a trained intelligence

officer. No matter what country you're

in, whether you're in, uh,

it doesn't matter what intelligence

profession you're in either, and there

are multiple types of intelligence.

There's human intelligence, signals

intelligence, measurements intelligence.

Anybody who travels to collect secrets

on behalf of their country is an

intelligence officer. Is that what you

were?

That's what I was. You started a company

after leaving the CIA called Everyday

Spy. Correct.

For someone that's just clicked on this

podcast now,

who's trying to understand the value

that they're going to get from you by

understanding the work that you do at

Everyday Spy,

what are they going to get from this

conversation? This conversation is

designed to, for me, to be able to

explain how spy skills have a very real

value in breaking everyday barriers. And

that's the mission of my company at

Everyday Spy. We use spy education to

break barriers, social barriers,

financial barriers, educational

barriers, cultural barriers, language

barriers. If there is a barrier in life,

I've made it my mission in my company to

break that barrier using a proven,

real-world skill or technique from

espionage. And what sort of means is

that to what end? So, if I'm, you know,

the average Joe listening to this now,

when you say break barriers, what are

those barriers that I that I'm going to

be able to break in my life? So, I I

intentionally use the term breaking

barriers because we all have different

barriers. What the reality of life is

that we all come into barriers

that are similar, but we come into those

barriers at different times. For some

people, there's a barrier in income that

they're born into.

For other people, the barrier that

they're born into is that they don't

have a father. For other people, they

come into a financial barrier when

they're 18 and they have to leave home.

Some people don't ever know financial

barriers, but they do know educational

barriers because they suffer from

dyslexia or they suffer from ADHD. There

are people who have uh, barriers that

are due to anxiety. The reality is

there's really 12 or so barriers that we

will all experience in our life, but we

will experience them at different times.

For some of us, it won't happen until we

become parents. For others, it happens

as soon as we hit adulthood.

The idea is that CIA is extremely

familiar with barriers. And what they

teach us as officers going through their

training programs is not

just the details of tradecraft, but it's

really to understand that any barrier

that we as individuals face, they can

get us through.

But, we can also predict barriers other

people will run into. And if you know

somebody else's barrier, and you

understand their barrier better than

they do, when you help them through that

barrier, they will tell you secrets.

They will tell me secrets.

As part of your training to become a CIA

officer, you must have learned how to

manipulate people.

That seems to me, from what I know of

spies, pretty foundational to what it is

to be a successful spy and to get

information from someone else.

In this conversation today, are we going

to learn how,

through your training,

you were taught to

get information from people and make

them do what you wanted them to do? Yes,

and I'll I'll be very frank here. I try

to exercise something called radical

transparency.

If you want to manipulate people,

you will learn that from this

conversation. If you want to manipulate

people, I will teach you how to

manipulate people. In in just a simple

conversation, you can learn those

skills.

But, the thing to understand that's the

most important is that whether you want

to manipulate or not, others are

manipulating you

just because you don't know what they're

doing, right? The problem with being an

intelligence operator

is that to achieve the things you have

to achieve,

you sometimes have to do things that you

don't want to do. In being a business

owner, what I've discovered is that many

business owners struggle because they

feel like they have to do things they

don't want to do. They feel like they

have to be sleazy. They feel like they

have to be tricky. They feel like they

have to

mimic, you know,

shyster, bad guy business owners, right?

The flip side, if you think of a coin,

one side of that coin is manipulation,

and that is a that coin has value.

Manipulation has value.

But, the other side of the same coin

is motivation.

If you can get people to do what they

want to do,

then you have motivated them. And that

is worth just as much as getting people

to do what you want them to do, which is

manipulating them. We'll get into all of

that, but I want to understand where you

came from, because I think this is quite

pertinent to both your work as a CIA

officer, but also there's um really

interesting sort of psychological

elements to why the CIA chose you that

are deep within your childhood story.

Going right back to the beginning of

your life, what is what is the most

important context we need to

I think the most important thing to

understand from my childhood is that I

was raised by my mom.

Uh my father died. My father was killed

before I was born.

Uh he died in a violent crime in

California. I didn't know him ever, and

my mom had to start life with a newborn

son, not just as a single mom, but also

as the single mom of a man who was

killed in a crime. Um so it was my mom

and my grandmother raised me from very

young. My mom is uh a woman of color.

She's she's Latina. My father was

American Indian.

So they there was uh an element of

racial diversity in 1980 when I was born

that also kind of played a role in all

of that. And the reason that that's

important is not because of what

happened in the past, it's because from

that foundation

my mom married a Caucasian man who

became my stepdad, uh who became my

adopted father as well, and I had to

kind of learn how to come of age

or literally come of age in a household

where I didn't know my father, I had a

stepdad who was Caucasian with two

half-sisters who were Caucasian, and my

stepdad's whole goal was to just pull my

mom as far away from her roots as

possible, because he didn't want to deal

with

all the drama that comes from being part

of a Catholic Latin family. And my mom

was all for that, but nevertheless, like

that was that was the kind of

soup that I came out of. What were the

needs that were going unmet in your life

at that point?

You do not ask easy questions, man. So

uh

uh

I was not

I I did not feel loved. Growing up I did

not feel loved. My mother loved me, and

I know logically and rationally that she

loved me, but my mother was a cold

woman. She was focused on career

success, she was focused on feminism,

she was focused on

other things. I I As an adult now,

uh my sisters and I often

uh reflect on the fact that we think our

mom was the kind of woman that didn't

want to be a mom.

But it was expected of her to be a mom,

so therefore she became a mom.

So there wasn't a lot of love, there

wasn't a lot of emotional support. There

was plenty of academic support,

and it was always hard because the

academic support came, I think, as a way

of making sure that they didn't have to

provide the other support. Cuz if you

have an academically successful student

who turns 18, they can get the [ __ ] out

of the house, and you can have your life

back.

And I think that was the mission for my

mom was just academic success, academic

success. Be successful so I don't have

to take care of you, because I'm not

really good at this whole hugging loving

thing,

uh and I just want you gone. So I feel

like that was that was my mom, my dad,

and my mom I think had a marriage that

was based in a common set of objectives

more so than shared love, and uh and

they were just kind of pursuing those

objectives, and

uh and I was fortunate because from that

I was cultivated to be a

hard-working academic success, and that

led to a full ride scholarship, and that

led to, you know, success in other parts

of life, but for sure it was it was an

un- it left behind a trail of always

wondering

who who who loves me in my family? Is

love even important in a family? Does it

matter, or am I being too focused on

this whole love thing? Uh as an example,

I tell this story because it's totally

normal to me, but a lot of other people

find it surprising.

There was a day where my mom pulled me

aside. I was having an argument with my

stepdad, and I went to my mom looking

for support, and I asked her to support

me. I you know, I was like, "Do Do you

love me? Right? Do you love me, or do

you love Dad more?"

And she looked at me, and she was like,

"Of course I love your dad more than I

love you. Because you're my son,

I have to love you.

You were born to me. I must love you,

but it's a choice to love your dad. So I

have to love him more because it's a

choice."

And for me, I will never forget that

conversation. I'll never forget the look

on my mom's face. It was so simple and

so academic and so clear to her. Uh and

it's never been something I could ever

actually accept, and even now as a

husband and a father myself,

I don't understand how that was

logically sound to her. I don't know how

you could ever

actually prioritize who you love.

All of that, as you've said, has the

result resulted in your academic success

and your your focus and all those kinds

of things, but at at what cost? I mean,

it makes you kind of [ __ ] up, man. It

makes you feel like

first of all, it makes you feel like

your secrets are justified. It makes you

feel like you must have secrets

because there's nobody that you can talk

to about certain things. I I I remember

for many years you you can't take

you can't take your love life to mom and

dad. You can't tell them the girl that

you think is cute. You can't talk to

them about not getting picked to go to

the prom dance or anything like that.

You can't talk about that with them

because they don't care.

And you can't trust your your sisters,

you can't trust your mom, you can't

trust your dad. You can't trust the

people in your own house. So because you

can't trust them, and because you can't

take certain things to them, you must

keep secrets.

And since you must keep secrets, you

must be allowed to keep secrets. There

must be secrets that are totally

acceptable that they are also keeping

from you.

So I grew up in a world where secrets

were something that was very normal. And

then from that you start to learn that

if secrets are normal, then lying must

also be normal and totally acceptable.

So there's a level of sociopathy that

develops when you feel like you're on

your own. Uh and that's something that

most people out there who are loners,

who have grown up in that world, they

they learn to understand that there are

certain

elements of social behavior that are not

culturally acceptable,

but as long as you don't talk about

them, you can practice them. So that was

that's a big part of what I learned

personally was that secrets how to keep

secrets, that secrets are normal,

uh how to lie, how to lie without being

caught, and more importantly that that

there is a very real difference between

the people

the people who are raised in a world

where they trust people, they trust

others,

and because they trust others, they have

a built-in vulnerability,

a built-in deficiency of compared to the

people who are raised in a world where

they don't trust others. Because when

you're raised in a world where you don't

trust, you can always learn to trust.

But when you're raised in a world where

you trust first, it's very difficult to

train that person to know when to not

trust someone else. How do you feel

about that wiring that you have because

of that experience? I mean, it's sad.

I'm doing everything in my power to not

wire my children the same way that I was

wired.

So I do believe that there is a faulty

wiring that

But at the same time, it's been very

valuable to me. It's been very

productive and valuable in terms of

what I've been able to experience, what

I've been able to see and do,

financially, economically, relationally.

I I I benefit in value, and this is a

big challenge that I have is as much as

I sit here telling friends and like I'm

telling you secrets,

because this is what happens. We tell

people secrets when they trust you.

When I share with you the challenges of

growing up, it's important to me that I

don't sound like I'm complaining or

whining, because I had a fantastic

foundation for success after that.

But

I had to find success

in all the ways that I was trained to

define success, financially,

economically, empirically, not based on

how I feel internally.

Have you had to do a lot of work to um

counteract the

potential consequences of that wiring as

you become an adult and a father and all

of those things? It's something I think

about a lot. I think I've got my own

pretty uh [ __ ] up wiring, and I'm

scared now because I'm on the footsteps

of becoming a dad myself.

You know, I've I'm with a partner, been

with her for 4 years. We're talking

about kids right now, and I think,

"Jesus Christ, like there's a really

almost can foresee that there's a really

high possibility I'm going to [ __ ] up as

a dad because my brain is wired towards

like validation and work career success,

and I'm a bit of a workaholic, and

so have you had to do a lot of work on

that to Absolutely. So the first thing

I'll say is you will [ __ ] up as a dad.

We will all [ __ ] up as parents.

The question is how big will we [ __ ]

them up?

And I'm working very hard to make sure

that the way that I [ __ ] up my kids is

in small ways that they can fix in small

ways. But I already know like the sins

of the father pass on. So I'm just

trying to minimize what I pass on that's

negative and maximize what I pass on

that's positive. The the additional

layer that's that is unique

to myself and all uh professional

intelligence officers is that when we

are recruited into intelligence service,

specifically when CIA recruits field

operators,

it's fairly transparent. They tell you

that you were recruited because you are

a little [ __ ] up. They tell you that

you are you were recruited because of a

certain psychological profile that makes

it so that you pragmatically view things

like secrets and lies. There's a few

different terms. We call it moral

flexibility.

Depending on the situation,

there are some things that I would deem

immoral,

but to do them in a different situation

is totally acceptable.

And that's just something that I'm wired

to be that's that's been wired in me

since I was a kid, but CIA understands

how to take advantage of that, how to

use that in a way that benefits American

national security.

There's also an element of high

performance that comes from being wired

a certain way. So, there is a tie

between childhood trauma and high

performance. It's a well-known It's a

documented connection, but CIA has

learned as has MI6 and Mossad and all

the other intelligence services of the

of the world, they've learned that when

you train someone who has just the right

amount of childhood trauma high

performance, when you get your hands on

them at the right time and the right

period of their life, they can be

trained to become extremely loyal,

highly productive field operators

that that end up spending 30-plus years

in service to their nation. When did

they get their hands on you?

They recruited me when I was 27 years

old coming out of the military in 2007.

I was looking for whatever the next step

was going to be

and that was when I was approached by a

CIA recruiter. I heard that you got a

pop-up on your computer screen. Yeah,

back in the day that's that's uh

I was actually applying I was a nuclear

missile officer for the CIA or excuse

me, I was a nuclear missile officer for

the Air Force and a nuclear missile

officer in the Air Force controls

nuclear ICBMs. So, I wore the the little

ring Wait, wait, wait, wait. What's a

nuclear ICBM?

So, a nuclear ICBM is a nuclear

intercontinental ballistic missile.

So, the large missiles that carry

nuclear warheads for mutually assured

destruction nuclear war type of stuff.

So, you controlled the nuclear missiles.

I was half of who controlled them. I

wore one ring, somebody else wore a

different ring and that was that was how

a nuclear missile got launched. What

what's what does the ring do? So, the

ring is a key. On the end of it is a key

and when you get when you get a nuclear

code that comes in, the code you put it

into a old school computer system and

the two of you take your key ring and

you insert it into the the silo

operating system and then you turn in

unison and when you turn in unison it

launches a nuclear weapon. How did you

get yourself to the point in life at 27

years old where you're holding

a nuclear key round your neck?

I would love to say it was a series of

good decisions, but

but it wasn't. I just I was I did what I

was told. That's how I got there. I did

what I was told when I was in high

school and I got good grades and then my

mom told me that the best school of all

the universities that chose me, the best

school I should go to is the Air Force

Academy. So, then I accepted a full ride

scholarship to the United States Air

Force Academy where I did what I was

told and I graduated as a lieutenant and

then I followed what the Air Force told

me to do from there and they they told

me to learn how to fly and then they

told me that they needed me to work in

nuclear and space weapons instead. So,

then I went to that school and I did

well at that school and and I ended up

just kind of climbing the ladder. I I I

did what I was told and and then one day

I was

I found myself 100 ft underground

miserable.

It's It's a horrible job.

Why?

You're

So, in 2007 when I was a nuclear missile

officer, you sit in a in a launch

control capsule, an LCC,

that sits 100 ft underground and you sit

there on a 72-hour shift with one other

person, the other person who holds the

other key.

And then you are one nuclear crew of

maybe 30 different nuclear crews who are

all on deployment at the same time.

So, at any given time in one Air Force

base, there's 60-ish people underground

for 72 hours at a time and in different

missile base, there'll be a different 60

people underground and your whole job is

just to sit there and wait for a nuclear

war to break out. And obviously nuclear

war hasn't broken out and hopefully it

never will break out. So, as you sit

there

underground not seeing sunlight and as

you sit there in a in a capsule with one

other person that you very rarely ever

like,

you have a lot of time to reflect on

what am I doing? What am I doing with my

life? I'm a redundancy of a redundancy

of a scenario that we all are working

very hard to make sure never happens.

Is this

a productive life? Like am I am I making

a difference? Am I leaving a mark in

history sitting here not launching

missiles

waiting for a message to come in that I

already know isn't going to lead to

nuclear war? Like it's it it's a very

difficult and

thankless job that even right now as you

and I are having this conversation,

there are some 200 Americans sitting

underground doing that exact job and

that's just in the United States.

Every country that has nuclear weapons

is doing the same thing.

If an order had come in

that

instructed you to launch a nuclear

weapon, would you have done it?

Absolutely.

That's what you do. The other thing

that's important to understand is we're

redundancies of redundancies. So, we

don't know if an order says to launch

nuclear weapons, we just know that an

order comes in that says to insert the

keys and turn them.

And if it's a valid order that comes in,

then the machine will let us insert our

keys, we will turn our keys and then the

machine will do what the machine does.

Sometimes that order that's coming in is

saying launch nuclear missiles,

sometimes that order that's coming in is

just a drill to make sure that the two

people in the capsule turn their keys.

Oh, really? So, you never know the

difference. We're just a redundancy of a

redundancy, man.

It It seems hard to me to understand how

someone would stay in that job for a

long period of time. So, they must have

like really high attrition. They have

They have shockingly low attrition

because they do such a good job of

psychologically

identifying the right people for that

job. Were they scouting you, do you

think, from a very

early age to eventually go into the CIA?

No, I don't believe so. I think CIA is

far too practical to do anything that

requires scouting people from a young

age. I think what more realistically

happened is that they had a very simple

algorithm that they had applied to every

government website so that when people

of a certain

profile applied to a job on a government

website,

then

they'd get a flash on their screen just

like I did that said, "Hey, we

appreciate your application. We'd like

to have a different recruiter contact

you for a different opportunity." What

were you applying for on that government

website when that pop-up came up?

Yeah, I was applying for the Peace

Corps. I was trying to get into the US

Peace Corps because after spending

2 years underground uh waiting to launch

nuclear missiles, I thought that it'd be

great to get out of the Air Force and go

do the exact opposite. Kind of like if

you've ever had a really bad breakup,

you go looking for the exact opposite of

the person you just broke up with.

That's that's how I felt. And the Peace

Corps does sort of humanitarian work

around the world. Exactly right. I mean,

I was looking to teach children English

in Africa or save orphans or do

microfinance or build huts. Like I was

looking to to do something that built

the world up instead of just waiting to

tear the world down. You get this pop-up

as you're applying and it says

we another recruiter wants to speak to

you or something words to that effect.

What happens then? So, that's when being

a 27-year-old single guy kicks in

and you think to yourself there might be

something better.

So, once you think to yourself there

might be something better, it's really

easy to say, "Yes, like I'll wait." And

that's all that that's all the screen

was asking me to do is just pause my

application for 72 hours.

So,

it's easy to click yes and then you fall

out of that website and you're just on

hold for 72 hours. Either a better

opportunity is going to happen and

someone's going to call me or no one's

going to call me and I can come right

back and finish my application. But just

to say no means to miss the opportunity

and that wasn't that wasn't me. And then

within 72 hours you get a call,

presumably? Within 24 hours I got a

call. Yeah, I got a call from an

unlisted number. It just said 703

and there was a woman on the other end

of the line. She gave me a first name,

but I don't remember what her first name

was.

And she basically, you know, confirmed

who I was and confirmed that I was

applying to the Peace Corps, asked me if

I'd be open for other government

opportunities and then she said that

there might be opportunities in the

national security sector that I'd be

interested in and she'd like to send me

an airline ticket and a hotel

reservation and a rental car reservation

to come up to DC to hear more about the

job. What did you think at that point?

I thought it was a prank call. I thought

I thought that the the call wasn't real.

I thought that the call was maybe it was

some kind of gimmick or maybe it was

something else or it just didn't sound

real.

Especially not when she said she was

going to like send me a paper

airline ticket and she was going to send

me all this stuff in the mail overnight

FedEx.

But then it showed up and then when it

showed up, again, that 27-year-old

single male kicked in and I was like,

"Well, now I have a ticket.

Let's see where the ticket goes and

let's go to the reservation counter at

the rental car desk and is this a real

rental car reservation? It's a real

reservation. Is there a real hotel?" And

then you just kind of follow the

breadcrumbs. The rental car reservation

is real, the airline ticket's real, you

fly out there, you land. What happens

next? You get another phone call that

says, "Hey, did you get in safe?" And

then they tell you the address for where

you're supposed to show up the next day.

And then you go, it's a nondescript

building and you walk in and for me I

walked in, there were 10 or so other

people in the waiting room. None of us

really knew what we were there for. We

all knew that we were there for

something related to a government job.

Everybody's dressed essentially the same

way

and

you know, you find out that this

person's in finance and that lady came

from social work and whatever else it

might be and then you eventually

somebody comes out and calls you into a

room, and then you go through the first

what we call the first round of

interviews. And it's just kind of like a

a fit to see what you're interested in,

what you're not interested in, etc. And

it was at the end of that first

interview that the lady said to me that

uh I might be a good fit for the

National Clandestine Service at CIA,

which I didn't know what that was at the

time. And then she basically broke it

down, and she was just like you and I

did at the beginning of this

conversation. She was like,

"Essentially, we want you to be a a

field officer, or what you might know

from the movies as a spy."

And of course, for me, I was

I mean, my 7-year-old self was like,

"I'm going to be a what? Like, you want

me to be a spy? You want me to

like drive fancy cars and wear tuxedos

and always have a beautiful woman on my

side? Like, sign me up for that. I mean,

starving children in Africa can wait.

I want to do that." But then of course,

comes the the byline afterwards where

she's like, "You can't tell anybody that

this is what you're now applying for.

We're going to move you on to the second

phase of interviews. We need you to, you

know, go back to your hotel and go back

to Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana

and live your normal life. And if

anybody asks you why you're out here,

just tell them that you came out here

applying for a government position, and

you don't know whether or not you're

going to get it. And in the meantime,

we'll be in touch." And then they get in

touch again? And then they get in touch

again. And then you go through multiple

more rounds of interviews. So, they fly

you usually back to the DC area, and

then the interviews just get kind of

more intense. You go from a fit in

interview to a kind of like a uh a test,

like a

interview that's more of like a test

with somebody else. They ask you

scenario-based questions. They give you

puzzles. Uh they ask you some light

psychological stuff.

When you got that letter in the post

saying that you've been offered a a

role, how did you feel? Great. Yeah?

Yeah. I felt like

I had done everything right. Right? I

felt like

I mean, there was a part of me that says

that that says, and I still kind of

follow this mantra, like, "Who gets to

do this?"

So, that felt amazing. And then there

was a ton to use your word, a ton of

validation.

Of course, like, now I get it. Now I

know why I went to a college I didn't

like. Now I know why I put up with a

stepdad and listen to my mom and like, I

don't need love, and you don't need

support, and you don't need a family

that cares about you as a person. All

you need is to check the [ __ ] boxes

because this is where you get to go when

you check the boxes. And now that I've

checked all the boxes, I'm free.

Except it doesn't really work that way.

Because when you're hired because you're

you check boxes,

it just the boxes just change, but you

still have to check the boxes.

And at that point, it goes from

interview to I guess training. Correct.

During that whole interview process,

you're not allowed to tell anyone, I'm

guessing. Right. Even your family?

Nope. So, what what did you tell your

family that you've been up to during

that period? So, this is what's nice

about their recruitment process.

Remember I told you earlier that I I

accepted as a child that there are times

that you have to lie, and there are

secrets that you have to keep.

This was just a secret I had to keep and

a lie that I had to tell. So, I told my

family that I was looking at getting out

of the Air Force. I didn't really know

what I wanted to do. Maybe I'd go work

for the government. And I was going to

DC to do some government interviews. I

was never close to my family. From the

time I left for the Air Force Academy at

18,

I mean, I went home maybe once a year.

Every time I tried to go home, it was

always a

kerfuffle because my parents didn't want

to buy the airline ticket cuz it was

expensive, and I didn't have money to

buy an airline ticket, so I had to ask

them, and it was the same song and dance

every Christmas holiday, right? Like,

"I'd like to come home. I don't have any

money." "Well, we don't have any money

either. Maybe you shouldn't come home."

So, it was really easy to be 27 years

old, almost 10 years after that. I'm not

really close to my family. So,

I'd tell them as little as possible.

I had a girlfriend at the time. She was

a great girlfriend, but

she wasn't as great as being a CIA

officer was going to be. Right? I had

friends at the time, but they weren't as

cool as being a CIA officer would be,

right? So, it was really easy to just

start

just cutting off the branches of my

social tree because I was going to go do

something awesome. I didn't need anybody

else. Did the CIA tell you to disconnect

from these people at all? They told you

that you would have to eventually.

And you know, they they explain how

you're going to go into covert service.

If you're going to go into clandestine

service,

you can't take a whole Rolodex of people

with you. So, one of the things that

they asked during our psychological

evaluation was, you know, how much do

you need close relationships and close

peers, and how do you feel about

severing ties with what we sometimes

call like secondary or tertiary

relationships, friends, college friends.

Like, a primary relationship is your

spouse. A secondary relationship is all

your close friends. A tertiary

relationship is somebody who you work

with. So, like, how do you feel about

cutting off all those

not-so-important relationships? And for

me, it was

easy. Right? I was like, "Let's Let's

go. I'm going to go do something

amazing. I don't need college friends to

go do something amazing." Do you think

your appearance and ethnicity factored

into the CIA's decision to recruit you?

Absolutely. In 2007, so just to take

everybody back, 2007 was 6 years after

9/11. It was uh 3 years after the CIA

9/11 Commission or the US Government

9/11 Commission came out, which

basically said that everything CIA had

been doing up to 2001 was wrong.

They were focused in a Cold War era.

They were not focused on terrorism. They

were focused on, you know, Ivy League

Caucasian graduates as being the next

generation of CIA officer instead of

diversifying for a diversified world.

So, without a doubt, they were looking

for

different people. They were looking for

young people, colored people, you know,

LBGTQ plus, people who could connect

with the modern-day threat around the

world. And then I think on top of being

brown

and ethnic, I also came with a huge

government file cuz I had been part of

the Air Force since I was 18 years old.

So, they knew everything about my

health, everything about my mental

health, everything about my, you know,

academic, athletic performance in

college. They knew everything about me.

Uh and I think that's part of why my

onboarding process took about 9 months,

where the typical onboarding process

takes about 18 months. How do they train

you to become a CIA agent? So, a lot of

the training part is classified still,

so I can't talk about it. But uh but

there is a school that we go to. Uh

it's fairly publicly known, but I can't

acknowledge what it is and isn't. And we

go there for many months. And we

basically were were pulled out of

everyday life, and we're put into a

controlled, simulated world.

Um and inside that simulated world, they

kind of control what's happening around

us. So, uh if you can imagine almost

like going from uh being taken out of

your apartment where you live, and now

you're put into a different apartment,

but the apartment that you're put into

is part of a giant game. And somebody

else controls the all the game. So, they

control the news that's on the TV, and

they control, you know, the the cars

that are on the road, and and they

control everything except the weather,

basically, so that they can create

multiple different types of scenarios

where you exercise the skills that they

taught you, from driving to first

response, first aid response, to lying,

uh

living and working under alias

identities, all that stuff. So, you're

put into a very controlled environment

for a long period of time where they can

test all of your uh your tradecraft that

you're taught. It's very expensive. It

must be very expensive for them to train

a CIA agent. Right. That's why they

train us in batches. So, uh there's

generally a two to three batches a year

that go through different types of

training. And there's different

classifications of officers, too, right?

So, your analysts are different than

your uh technical officers, who are

different than your field officers. So,

what they'll do is they'll batch you

into, or at least what they did in 2007,

is they would batch you along with your

discipline, and then send a batch to

training. And then everybody goes

through the same lectures during the

day, just like university. And everybody

goes through a series of exercises at

different times of the day and different

times of the week. But essentially,

everybody goes through the same

curriculum. And everybody has the same

grades. And then those grades are all

measured against each other, and the

bottom performers are cut out, and the

top performers get to stay.

That curriculum,

what is involved in that curriculum? You

mentioned a few things there. Is um

learning how to kill people involved in

the curriculum? No, that is not involved

in the curriculum. Not at the basic

training level. Do they teach you that?

Uh they teach some people that, but they

don't teach everybody that. It depends

on the discipline that you're part of.

If you're a paramilitary officer, you

need to learn how to kill. And you need

to learn how to kill in different ways.

Kill quickly, kill quietly, kill with

blunt weapons, kill with bladed weapons,

or kill with bladed weapons, kill with

projectile weapons. So, kill with

explosives.

You know, disarm explosives. So, it all

depends on the the caliber or the level

of officer that you're kind of put put

into. So, paramilitary, they must learn

that. But your standard human

intelligence field collector, they need

to learn how to live and work without

being caught. So, if you kill somebody,

Mhm.

it's a big deal. You might get caught.

So, it's much easier to teach that

person how to manipulate, how to collect

secrets, how to live and operate without

ever being detected. Whereas a

paramilitary officer doesn't need to

learn all that. They taught you how to

lie. They teach you how to lie. How do

they teach someone how to lie?

It starts with a foundation of

making sure that you recruit people who

are already liars. And then once you

when you're sitting across from a liar,

you can start to understand if they're a

good liar or not very quickly. You've

probably talked to people who are bad

liars.

Talked to everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know when someone's a bad liar.

So, from that, you can identify people

who are good liars. And then when you do

find a good liar, you start to teach

them what they already naturally do that

makes them a good liar.

And then you start to teach them how to

refine that skill, and you start to

teach them how bad liars operate, and

how you can detect a bad liar, and how

you gain advantages, you know, with

lies, and and how to handle lies. As an

example, cuz I promised you skills. Bad

liars talk a lot.

Good liars talk a little.

Because the more you talk,

the more you run the risk of undermining

your own lie.

Bad liars make a lot of statements. Good

liars ask a lot of questions.

Because if you ask questions, you're not

really disclosing anything about

yourself. So, if you've ever had if you

think back and you if you if you

remember ever going to a party or ever

having a date or ever being in a social

environment where there was somebody

there that made you feel so interesting,

but you didn't know anything about them,

you were talking to a very good liar.

What about body language? Is that a

factor in lying? Absolutely. I mean,

body language is a factor in everything,

but body language is especially a factor

in lying because, again, going back to

the idea of a skilled liar versus an

unskilled liar,

a skilled liar knows how to appear like

they are telling the truth with their

words and with their body. Whereas an

unskilled liar often has a disconnect.

Uh and their body will say a different

message than what their mouth is saying.

Consider your your stereo uh

stereotypical jock, your standard

European footballer, or your American

jock. A lot of times they'll be

portrayed as like somebody like Yeah,

yeah. They sit bigger than life and all

this other stuff, right? Their

their body shows confidence and

openness. But then when they talk, they

sound like idiots, right? They I don't

know. Sure, like, you know, totally,

like, dude, that lady, like, whatever.

They are There's a disconnect.

Their voice does not demonstrate the

same confidence that their body

demonstrates. So, you know that that

person is lying.

What they're lying about is not

necessarily just the content of what

they're saying, but they recognize they

don't they

can't cognitively accept the fact that

they are in a position where they are

telling an untruth, and that untruth, at

a minimum, is

that they are not super confident and

super comfortable. They are actually

uncomfortable, and they are not feeling

confident, and that's why they're

stammering over themselves. So, when you

were lying to someone, um based on your

training, would you think a lot about

your body language?

Yes. And what would you do What would

you What would the principles of making

sure your body language wasn't letting

the cat out of the bag? I see. So, one

of the first things to do when you're

when you're trying to lie to somebody,

and again, we're we're now talking about

how to lie to somebody. You shouldn't

want to learn how to lie to somebody.

You should want to learn how to know if

somebody is lying to you. Mhm. But we

always start this way, where we want to

We're afraid to ask the real question,

which is how do I know if I'm being lied

to, cuz that shows vulnerability. But if

you want to learn how to lie to

somebody, the first thing you do is you

mimic the person. Look at you and I

right now, we are mirrored. Mhm. Are

your hands connected under the table?

Yeah. So are mine. Are your feet crossed

under your under your seat?

Yeah. So are mine. We are mirrored right

now, which means when you look at me

subconsciously, you see yourself. Mhm.

I want you to see yourself

in this exercise because if you see

yourself, your

initial instinctive response is going to

be trust. Because who do you trust in

the whole world?

You trust yourself.

So, the first step to being able to lie

effectively is to be able to mirror the

person you're lying to. If I was coming

at you like

Yeah.

You know, right away you're going to be

like, I don't know who this guy is,

right? And And similarly, if I was to be

like

Just for people that are on audio, he's

just like doing different postures and

body languages, so

that that are far away from my own.

Like putting his hands on the table,

etc. So, okay, makes sense. So, we want

to mirror first, and you mirror because

mirroring creates a foundation of trust.

Subconsciously, it creates a foundation

of trust. And then once you have that

foundation of trust, you just start kind

of pushing the envelope more and more

with the untruth or with the fabrication

that you're creating, the lie, right? Is

there anything else on the subject of

telling a lie to someone that's

believable that we we need to be aware

of in terms of skills? Yes. So, first,

the whole idea about There's There's two

important ideas that get

glorified in social media that are just

inaccurate. And the first is called eye

movements. You can't actually tell if

somebody's lying to you based on where

they place their eyes.

Because while there are certain elements

of eye movements that have biological

relevancy, there's many, many more

things about eye movements that don't

have biological relevancy, right? So,

what I mean by that is

if I ask you uh what's your oldest

memory?

You just looked to your left. Mhm. It's

natural to look to your left when you're

from a Western country because

chronologically,

timelines start on the left. Mhm.

So, when you ask somebody a question

about time and they look to the left,

up, down, or in the middle,

generally speaking, that has biological

relevancy. So, it's a low probability

that they're lying, but they still could

be lying.

When you ask somebody a question, they

look to the upper right or the lower

right or wherever they might look,

if if there's there's not necessarily

biological relevancy because they could

be looking up into the right because

down into the left it's too bright. Mhm.

And they could be looking in any number

of directions because maybe they have,

you know, a a a headache or maybe they

have something else going on. The The

ability to create some sense of

probability about why they're making the

eye movements they're making is too

difficult. So, you can't

assess someone's honesty or dishonesty

based off of eye movements, even though

you're going to hear that you can from

Instagram influencers and, you know,

Discord and and everywhere on the

internet, you're going to hear that

there's some connection that you can

make justifiably. It's not true. The

same thing is also true. So, it is also

an untruth that you can rely on

something known as microexpressions.

Microexpressions being the number of

times your eyes blink or the twitch in

your face or if you're sucking on your

lips, these ideas that get glorified

through social media as indicators of of

deceit. The truth is you don't know if

someone is lying to you until you have

had enough time with the person to

establish what's known as a baseline.

A baseline means what's normal for you.

You So,

I'll just use you as an example.

10 minutes before the cameras turned on,

you were a totally different person.

Your energy is different, you're so much

more conversational, like, you are just

You're an awesome, friendly guy

when the cameras are not on.

But you turn into an interviewer when

the cameras turn on. Totally rational,

totally logical, makes total sense.

That doesn't mean that you're lying now

and you were telling the truth then. It

means that the environment has changed,

and nobody would know that if there

wasn't a baseline. Mhm. Most people that

watch you don't ever know what you're

like outside of this baseline. So, you

have to get to know the person and then

understand the variance that's unusual

to understand if they're lying to you.

Exactly. We call it time on target. You

need time on target so that you can

understand the delta, the change,

between their baseline and whatever

pressure you're putting them under.

Was there any sort of

consistent telltale signs that someone

was lying to you in an interaction?

Like, you know what I mean? What you

know, certain, you know, nervous things

that they do change, you know, What are

those variances that you might see that

you go, this person's now lying to me?

Yeah, so with unskilled liars, it

becomes much easier cuz a lot of times

with skilled liars, with people who have

either learned how to lie through formal

training

or people who have learned how to lie

through the school of hard knocks,

when there's people who are skilled

liars, it's difficult to find generic

tells. With people who are unskilled

liars, it's much easier to find generic

tells. There are people who you've heard

of being on the hot seat. Mhm. It's a

It's a phrase we use in Western culture

pretty often. Like, when someone is

under pressure, we call them being in a

hot seat.

When you've got an unskilled liar,

they can't stop moving their body. Like,

they're just They're always

uncomfortable, and they just keep

moving, and they keep twitching, and

they keep fidgeting, and it's like

they're sitting in a hot seat.

That is one of the biggest tells of an

unskilled liar. And again, anybody who's

ever had like a a 6-year-old or an

8-year-old or a 12-year-old try to lie

to them, they know what that looks like.

They can't make eye contact, they do a

lot of

like verbal

uh

noises that aren't actual words. They

can't get comfortable, they keep moving

around, they keep shifting, shifty. Mhm.

Those are all All those words came from

real-world examples of an unskilled liar

trying to lie. But you don't need

microexpressions of the face or to know

which way their eyes are tracking in

order to pick up on that.

Going back to your training, then, what

were the some of the other most

important transferable skills that you

learned throughout that process? The

most

interesting and useful things that we

learned during training actually had to

do with the

psychological processes that people go

through, and being able to understand

the process and then predict and

identify when the process is happening.

Those are the things that really make a

huge difference. Yes, it's cool to learn

how to do a dead drop, and yes, it's

cool to learn how to detect surveillance

uh or how to drive a car through a

roadblock, right? Those are all very

interesting things, but the most useful

things are the things that you can use

all day, every day, through multiple

types of interactions. Uh and there are

a series of processes, a number of

processes that we learned that had to do

with human psychology. One of those uh

processes is understanding the idea of

core motivations. Core motivations are

Remember how we talked about

manipulation and motivation are two

sides of the same coin? When you

understand all the different options of

the currency that you're working with,

you can work with it more effectively.

So, people are generally, despite age,

race, creed, or religion, people have

four basic motivations. And we call

those four basic motivations rice. R I C

E stands for reward, ideology, coercion,

and ego. Reward is anything that you

want. Money,

free vacations, pat on the back, uh

women, alcohol. If that's something that

you want and me giving it to you gives

you what you want, then that's a reward.

People do lots of crazy things for

rewards. And these rewards change over

time. And by based on person. Okay.

Right? The second primary motivator is

ideology. Ideology is the things that

you believe in. People do crazy things

for the things they believe in. Whether

it's their religion, whether it's their

country, whether it's family, whether

it's what they believe is morally

correct. Right? So, if you can assign,

if you can speak to somebody through the

lens of their ideology, you can get them

to do incredible things.

C is coercion. Coercion is all the

negative things. Guilt, shame,

blackmail, anything that you do to force

someone to take certain action by

leaning into the negative elements of

motivation, which is also known as

manipulation, that falls under the C or

coercion. And then E, ego, is everything

that has to do with how the person views

themselves. So, often times ego gets

oversimplified into thinking that it's

just people who have a big ego, right?

Somebody like Donald Trump who has a big

ego or you name the famous actor who has

a big ego. Ego is also people who don't

have big egos. Mother Teresa had an ego.

She wanted to sacrifice for other

people. She wanted other people to see

her sacrificing for other people. That

is also ego.

So, with these four core motivations,

you have a rubric, a process to

understand why other people do what they

do. If you understand why other people

do what they do, all you have to do

is connect what they care about with

what you want them to do, and you just

increase the probability of them doing

what you want them to do.

Of these four core motivations, uh

is there an order of the strength that

they have over people? So, if you were

really trying to get someone to do

something, you'd focus on this core

motivation over that one. Yes,

absolutely. Ideology is the strongest.

Ego is the second strongest. Reward is

the third strongest, and coercion is the

weakest. This is one of the things that

movies get wrong. Movies try to make it

look like you can blackmail somebody or

hold a gun to their head and get them to

do what you want them to do.

In the real world, once you hold a gun

to someone's head, they never trust you

again.

You can never get them to do something

twice.

Whereas if you appeal to their ideology,

"Doing this is good for your country.

Doing this is good for your family.

Doing this is good for your health."

If you can appeal to someone's ideology,

they'll do what you tell them to do for

a long time because they'll trust you.

Is this really the the essence of

manipulation, then? That is the essence

of motivation and manipulation, the same

coin. You'll hear me come back to this

because one of the things that people

really struggle with outside of

intelligence is they feel like they have

to label

things as good or bad. When you have

moral flexibility,

you take away good and bad. Everything

just becomes a question of utility or

productivity. If it's if you need

someone to do something and you can

motivate them, then you should. But if

you need someone to do something and you

can't motivate them,

that's a green light to manipulate them

because you still need them to do what

you need them to do.

If you feel bad about manipulating

somebody, you are not going to do well

in the intelligence world. How might you

you said the ideology is the strongest

of the four

of core of the core motivations, how

might you go about finding out someone's

ideology in the context of business and

life? A lot of times people will

volunteer it to you. There's there's two

ways.

If you're a keen observer, people will

volunteer it to you. You've already

volunteered that you are ideologically

predisposed to fatherhood. You've

already talked about it. The reason that

you're worried about [ __ ] up your

kids that you don't even have yet

is because you're thinking about

fatherhood. So, clearly, you are

ideologically predisposed to what it

means to be a responsible father.

You want to be seen as a responsible

father. That plays into your ego as

well.

So, I'm sure when you're talking to your

partner, if you guys are already looking

at where would we go to school? Where

would we live? What kind of diapers

should we use? If you're even thinking

about that, you're thinking about it

through the lens of the ideology of

being an engaged, present, helpful,

loving father, right? So, people will

volunteer it. Your your customer base

will volunteer to you

what their ideologies are. They'll

volunteer their politics. They'll

volunteer their their pain from their

childhood. They'll volunteer their pain

from business. If you listen. If you

listen. The second way that you can get

to understand the ideology of your

customer base is through active

marketing, the right kind of marketing.

Not mass marketing, not the kind of

garbage that you see on Instagram and

and YouTube about, you know, how to make

people believe in your brand because you

use the right colors.

But actual marketing where you present a

message

and that message was crafted with an

emotion behind it,

people who respond to that intentionally

crafted message

are

showing what their motivations are

because they were clearly motivated

enough by the message to take action.

You've heard a lot of people talk about

narrative, especially in politics.

There's, you know, oh, there's the

there's the liberal narrative and

there's the Republican narrative and

there's the conservative narrative and

the church narrative and people talk a

lot about narrative.

Narrative is not the power

in influence. The power in influence

actually comes from messaging.

It takes two steps to get to a

narrative. It takes messaging first, and

then messaging builds a narrative. If

you think about messaging, messaging is

supposed to be an emotional thing. Just

a statement, just a message, just like a

text message, right?

Are you afraid of being the kind of

father that isn't present for your kids?

That creates emotion in the right

ideologically predisposed person.

There's no woman out there who's going

to be motivated by that. She might be

motivated to tell her partner about

that, but it's not going to it's not

going to resonate with her like it

resonates with me as a father of young

children.

But that's just the message.

Then, the narrative is not emotional in

nature. The narrative is logical in

nature. So, you use an emotional message

to communicate a logical narrative.

Are you afraid of being the kind of

father that wasn't that's not present

for your child?

Man, that just like that pulls at my

heartstrings.

Well, then all you have to do is sign up

for this app that reminds you every

Sunday to read your kids a story. You're

like, oh,

that makes total sense. All I need is a

reminder and I'm going to be a good dad.

And that's

messaging and narrative. The same thing

happens in politics. The same thing

happens in geopolitics. The same thing

happens the whole world over because in

the intelligence world, we understand

messaging and narrative.

We know how to use messaging and

narrative. It's how you elect a

president. It's the reason that

that Saudi Arabia went to war with Iran

over Yemen. Like it it's everybody

understands at a national security level

the idea of creating a message or a

narrative using emotional messaging. But

when it comes to business,

people don't get it yet. They they

haven't learned that lesson yet because

they've all been taught through an MBA

program or something else that you sell

toothpaste by creating more toothpaste

with brighter colors on more shelves.

Thinking about

ideology has and everything you just

said there,

has your experience over the last, I

don't know, 20, 30 years really made you

rethink and look at the world entirely

differently? Because if you were so

focused and able to detect and

understand messaging and narrative, you

must just see it everywhere you go and

everything you do. Right. So, there were

two big aha moments for me. And the

first was in the very beginning parts of

my training at CIA. I mean, when I went

through all of the CIA recruiting

process and and all of my time in the

military, I just felt like I was doing

the right thing. I just felt like I was

doing a good job. I felt like I was

special.

Right? Like, wow, I must be super

special cuz I'm getting picked for the

National Clandestine Service.

So, I felt like I was doing everything

right. And then I actually ended up

going through my training program where

they confirmed that I actually was

broken

in certain ways. I was high-performing

because I had trauma as a child.

I I lie and I steal and I have no

problem with sociopathy because

I'm not mentally healthy, right? Like,

that's basically what they confirmed.

Like, you're wired in a certain way

that's really useful, but you're

actually not neurotypical. You're not

you're not successful in the way that

you thought you were successful.

But you are still very useful. And oh,

by the way, you're even more special

because now you work for CIA. So, don't

ever stop working for CIA.

Because they know that what drives us is

our ideology, right? Our ideology and

then our ego. So, they they hook us that

way.

So, for me, that was my first big aha

moment because up until then I always

thought maybe I understood the world,

but nobody else seemed to understand it

the way I understood it. Like,

I I I could see the hypocrisy in high

school and I could see the hypocrisy in

my mom and my dad and they would do

things that were different than what

they would tell me to do.

And I don't understand how is the

customer always right, but then like

sometimes the the company wins the

lawsuit. Like it doesn't make sense. How

How

How is there a legal structure,

but criminals don't go to jail

in if there's a legal structure? Like I

remember seeing it all and thinking that

it didn't make sense, but never actually

being confident enough

to say anything about it because it was

a secret and I didn't feel comfortable

sharing that secret. CIA then taught me,

"You're what you're seeing is actually

the world as it really is. And let's

train you to show you and give you a

vocabulary to understand what you're

seeing. Let's teach you about human

psychology so you understand why it

works the way that it works. Why

everybody sees it and nobody talks about

it."

Right? So, that was my first big aha

moment. And then my second big aha

moment came when I when I left CIA

and I was unemployed for like 6 months

living in my in-laws

converted garage with a 1-year-old child

wondering how the [ __ ] I did so many

things so wrong

that I couldn't get a job even though I

was just part of the CIA.

And in that

in that time feeling like just the

world's biggest loser,

the only skill that I could lean on

was what the CIA had taught me to do.

So, then I

lied my way into a Fortune 10 company.

And all of a sudden, I wasn't a loser

anymore. And once I realized that I

could use CIA skills to succeed in

business,

that was my second big aha moment. So,

now everything I see I see through a

lens of CIA skills in a business world.

Perception versus perspective was one of

the other things that I've heard you

talk about. Um was it quite a big

I guess shift in understanding, but

something that the regular person

doesn't really

understand. Yeah, so the idea of

perception and perspective uh

I have to define them first, right?

Perception is what you believe you see.

Where you sit is how you perceive the

world around you.

Perspective is how other people see

where you're sitting. So, when I think

about us right now across the table from

each other, my perception is what I see

of you.

Your perspective is very different than

my perception, right? At a At a minimum,

I'm looking at you with a background

that's different than when you're

looking at me with a background.

So, the benefit, the advantage that CIA

gives its field officers is that it

trains us to recognize and distrust our

perception.

Because perception really only comes

from from one source, and that is your

own five senses. You are the source of

information for your perception. So, for

anybody who's ever seen like a little

pile of socks in the lower left-hand

corner and they thought it was a rat and

they jump until they realize it's socks,

that is your perception

lying to you.

Perspective means that you get data

objectively from the world around you.

So, if you're in your room and you see a

pile of black in the corner, your

perspective tells you, "This is your

room. There's never been a rat in your

room ever before. That pile in the

corner is probably something like

socks." Your perspective keeps things

objective. Perception makes things very

subjective or very emotional. So, CIA

trains us to lean into our perspective,

gain perspective, think about things

objectively, because if you lean on your

perception, you're leaning on emotions

and emotions are very likely wrong. How

How can I train myself to lean more on

my perspective? There's two really quick

things that you can do. The first is is

immediately distrust your emotions. Know

right away when you're feeling emotions.

In other words, what I'm saying is don't

trust your gut.

Which is the antithesis of what most

people tell you to do. Most people say

trust your gut. I'm telling you right

now, your gut is more often than not

lying to you because your gut is based

in emotion.

Your girlfriend's not about to dump you.

Your boyfriend isn't cheating on you.

You're not about to go bankrupt. Nobody

cares about the zit on your nose. Right?

That is most likely true.

There's a small chance that your

perception is correct, but when it comes

to gambling, are you going to bet on the

small chance or

the bigger chance? You should always You

should always gamble on the bigger

chance. The bigger chance you only

really understand through perspective.

If you have perspective on something,

then you have multiple data points on

something. So, when you feel yourself

getting emotional,

stop and let your emotion happen for a

second, right? I feel nervous. I feel

anxious. I feel doubtful.

Okay.

I probably don't have to. You probably

shouldn't. Because whoever's sitting

across the table from you, whoever's

coming into the room with you, whoever

else is on the bus with you, they are

all focused on a thousand different

things. And the things that they're

focused on most likely don't include

you. Sounds easier said than done.

Correct. Is Is that a process of

repetitions to train yourself to think

like that? It is. It It takes uh

momentum. So, what ends up having to

happen is that you need to exercise it

intentionally at first.

And what happens is as you intentionally

exercise your perspective over

perception, what will start to happen is

your You will start to see

that what you were worried about doesn't

happen.

And then once you see it not happen,

once you see your perspective

give you the correct information over

your perception,

once you see that happen once,

then it starts to gain momentum. And

then it happens again and it gains more

momentum and more momentum and more

momentum until the time comes that you

realize it's much easier. But it is.

It's a learned skill. You have to learn

to think objectively instead of

subjectively. Think rationally instead

of emotionally. And a big part of what

helps you do that is understanding that

90% of the people out there,

they're all trapped in their own

perception.

They're all trapped in thinking

emotionally. They don't even know that

there's an alternative. Just think about

this, man. The conversation we're having

right now, the people who are hearing

this conversation right now, who have

never heard that there's a difference

between perception and perspective, are

already better equipped

than all the other [ __ ] who have

never heard this conversation. They're

already one step ahead of their

competition. They're one step ahead of

their of their spouses, their partners,

their bullies. They're one step ahead of

everybody because now they can use the

words perception and perspective,

subjective and objective, emotional and

logical, and rational. They can use

these words to define how they want to

think, even if they don't think that way

yet.

That's the huge advantage to what CIA

calls the trained

and the untrained.

Trained people at least are aware that

there's an alternative option.

Untrained people aren't even aware that

there's an option.

The vast majority of people out there

are what I call bobbleheads.

They don't even know there's an option.

They're completely unaware of an

alternative solution, an alternative

process. So, they're trapped in their

perception. They're trapped in their

emotion. They're trapped in their

subjectivity. And that makes it so much

easier for people like you and me and

everyone listening right now to use

rational objective perspective to get