Transcription
How can the average person, like, take that as far as, like, you know, condensing time so that they can accomplish, like, a lot in a short amount of time?
Yeah, it's funny. The I was just having this conversation recently with somebody who's an author, and it's not that the CIA teaches us to be hyper-efficient. In fact, it teaches us kind of the opposite because hyper-efficiency means that you're more focused on the process than the outcome. Instead, what the CIA teaches us is it teaches us to balance hyperfocus and something called hyperawareness. So, two extremes on a spectrum. On one extreme, you are hyperaware, which means you are very cognizant of what's happening around you. And on the other end, you're hyperfocused, which means you're so focused on the thing that you're doing that you're utterly blind to what's happening around you. You can really start to see how completely different these things are.
Now, what's fascinating is that when you learn how to balance these two, which doesn't mean you do both at the same time. It means you do one or the other. You are either hyperfocused or you are hyperaware. When you learn how to do the two, what you find is that activities that are hyperfocused build up your energy reserves. So, for people who love to read, when they read for hours on end, they put the book down and they're energized. For people who love to play music, for people who love to cook, for people who love to hang out with their best friend, you can do it for hours. Hyperfocused. And when you're done, you have energy to last days.
Hyperawareness is incredibly energy-draining. So, when you're sitting at work pretending like you want to be there, hoping that nobody identifies that you're sleeping at your desk, you just get more and more tired because that hyperawareness, that worry about what's happening around you all the time. "What's what's that lady thinking? What's that person doing? Is the camera catching me? What time is it?" That hyperawareness becomes a very exhausting experience. The CIA teaches us you have to do hyperawareness activity. So the only way that you're going to fuel yourself for the hyperawareness is by doing hyperfocused activity.
Also, to answer your question, for our book *Shadow Cell*, that entire operation that we document in the book took place over the course of approximately two years. We got an incredible amount of work done in two years because of exactly what we're talking about now, Doug. We were hyperaware when we were in a hostile foreign country, and it was exhausting. And then we were hyperfocused when we were preparing to go into that country and run our operations. And by bouncing back and forth between hyperawareness and hyperfocus, we always maximized our energy reserves, maximized our focus, maximized our success so that when we got into the country to do the hard work, we had the most results.
So how can, like, the average person, like, put that into practice in their day-to-day life?
Let me give you a really funny, simple example, right? Um, one of the best ways to be hyperfocused is when you're watching a movie or when you're binging your favorite TV show, which, let's be honest, most people do that naturally. Most people go back to their home, go back to their apartment on the weekends or after work. They lock the front door. They make themselves, whatever, a cup of tea or or they crack open a beer, and they'll watch three or four of their favorite shows. They'll watch four hours, six hours, two hours of television. What they don't realize, though, is that that period of time is building up their energy. It's why they get up kind of antsy. It's why they're like, "Oh, like I wonder if anybody wants to go out. I I I have energy to watch another movie." Right? That hyperfocus is building up your energy.
The problem is that in everyday life, people don't direct that energy into something that is, uh, ex that is energy-draining that is also productive, right? Being hyperaware because you're self-conscious at work, that's not a good way to use the energy that you saved from watching Netflix the night before. Instead, you should use that hyperawareness to start looking for a new job. Start building a new business. Actually write the book you've been talking about writing for the last three years, right? Do something that is exhausting because it builds up your your your it drains the energy that you've built up from your hyperfocus. If you don't like going to the gym, go to the gym because going to the gym is going to make you very aware of how weak your muscles are and how easily you get fatigued. And then go back home and watch another couple of movies and build your energy back up again, and then go back to the gym again. And if you can go through this process, you're gonna have incredible results. But instead, people just they're cons they're using the energy they save to just make it through a miserable day. There's no future for the person who does that.
Would you say it's the main reason people don't succeed in life and they limit themselves?
100%. That is the reason that there are so few success stories in life. Traveling around the world with the agency and meeting people from all over the all over the the world, meeting adversaries and allies alike, it's it becomes very clear that there is a type of person who succeeds and there is a type of person who doesn't succeed. And the type of person who succeeds is not smart, they're not handsome, they're not dedicated, they're not blessed, they didn't come from money. That's not the stereotype. The stereotype is that the hyper-successful person is the person who is always trying to build something that they care about, and they it may take them 10 years to build it. It may take them 10 weeks to build it, but they're always trying to build something. The who's never trying to build anything is the person who's destined to fail and be as and be a repetitive failure forever. And they don't even realize that they're the cause of their own turmoil. So whether you're talking about an impoverished Indian, or whether you're talking about somebody who comes from the wrong family name in Brazil, or whether you're talking about some, you know, middle Americana, you know, typical middle-aged man, in all cases, they're focused on the wrong thing. They're not focused on trying to build. They're focused on trying to survive. They're focused on trying to skate by. They're focused on trying to be to go without creating any waves, and that's not the kind of person who finds success.
We've talked about a lot of different, like, skills that you've, like, learned and acquired at the CIA that you know have helped you, you know, achieve what you've achieved. What do you think's been the most, like, valuable skill that you've taken from the CIA and and have applied to what you're doing now?
Absolutely. The most valuable skill that the CIA gave me was the ability to to look at a situation through the other person's perspective. When you're sitting at a dinner table with your spouse or with a girlfriend or a boyfriend, it's really easy to see the whole scenario from your point of view. You look down and you see the food that you're eating. You know how your stomach feels. You know how your clothes feel on your body. You know if you think the restaurant is hot or cold. Do you know if you think the the background sound is too much or just right? So at the CIA, we call all of that your perception. Your perception of the reality that you're in is based on your five senses. The real power comes from being able to put yourself in the shoes of the other person and practice perspective. Gaining perspective over the entire situation by looking at it through their lens. "Okay, I'm in a button-down long-sleeve shirt, but my date is in a dress that's got thin straps. I wonder if she's cold. If she is cold, is that why she's ordering hot tea instead of, you know, a glass of wine? And if she's ordering tea, is that, you know, could that be a sign that she's also tired and she needs the caffeine?" You start to gain perspective by asking questions you otherwise would never have asked. The CIA believes that all people are born with a spy secret superpower. For some people, that means they can win deals. For others, they can spot liars. Some can even seduce lovers. I built a free three-minute test to help reveal to you exactly what your secret hidden superpower is. All you have to do is click on the link in the description below, take the test, and start using your spy superpower to stay ahead of 99% of people.
Another kind of humiliatingly embarrassing story, Doug. When I was in the Air Force, I I've always loved women. Always loved women. Always loved going on dates. Always loved the the challenge of trying to, like, meet a girl, get her number, woo a girl, and impress a girl. It's a stupid thing, but it's something that's always been me. I remember that I was always so confused when I was in the military because I would get all these first dates. I would get all these phone numbers. I would have a bunch of first dates, and then they would never talk to me again. I would never have a second date. I would call, I would text, but I would never win a second date. So, for some reason, I thought the dates were going so well, but the feedback that I was clearly getting is that the girl did not think the dates were going so well. It wasn't until the CIA taught me this idea of perception and perspective that I could sit back and realize, "Oh, it's because I'm going on these dates and all I care about is me. All I care about is my meal, my level of comfort. I'm picking the restaurants. I'm picking the music in the car. I'm probably talking about myself more than I'm asking questions about her, right?" And of course, it makes sense that since I'm not showing that I care at all about her point of view, I'm not winning her trust or her attention. Now, that applies to all of us every day with our kids, with our co-workers, with our bosses, with our clients. We live in a world of our own perception when we need to live in a world of perspective if we intend to succeed.
Speaking of, um, perception, you know, I think, you know, we've talked about, like, a lot of these, like, little adversities and how people can tackle them in their lives, but one of the big things is, like, what happens when, like, stuff completely goes wrong and the country, like, shuts down? I know there's a lot of, like, unrest right now and people are kind of panicking. People kind of are on the edge of their seats a little bit. Um, I know you kind of have talked about having plans to leave the US. Like, what's your overall thoughts on the situation? What can the average person do to protect themselves if, like, stuff does completely go wrong?
You know, and I don't want to be alarmist by any means, right? My my choice to leave the country is just as much personal as it is provocation, right? Yes, I think that the United States is headed for a very difficult decade or so in its future. I think financially and fiscally we're headed for a challenge. I think when it comes to our geopolitical influence and our geopolitical, um, leverage, we are heading for some very dark days. I think that we have shown the world that we don't really care about democracy and we don't really care about equality and we don't really care about all the things that we've been trying to espouse since the end of World War II. I think we've really started to show the world, like, "Hey, we only just care about ourselves. We care about our economy. We care about our security. We care about our people. And all of you other people can kind of go to hell." I don't think there's anything wrong with the direction the United States is going. I just think that the direction that we're going in is going to make life more difficult before it makes life better again. So when I choose to leave the country, it's because I want my children to grow up in a place where they have ample opportunity. In the United States for the next 10 to 15 years, we're not going to have ample opportunity. We're going to be dealing with an an an environment where foreigners are less pro-American, where the dollar has less value, where our goods are less easy to access, where foreign goods are more expensive, like where jobs are less. We're facing difficult times where universities no longer freely have research grants, where politics bleeds into everything from business to to education. That's what we're facing. As we decide if that's going to be permanent or just temporary, I want my children to be somewhere else. And when you are an American citizen living abroad, you have incredible opportunities that you don't have when you're an American citizen living inside the United States. So that's why I want to move. That's why I want to leave the country. I want to give my children the most possible opportunity possible. And that's not going to happen if we live inside the continental United States.
There's a lot of people that will say, like, there's more opportunity than ever with technology and, like, the use of the phones and stuff. Like, what, what, what are their blind spots that they're missing that you're seeing for the next decade or so?
That technology does not exist within borders. Technology is border ambivalent. You can go anywhere and have all of those opportunities. So why would you choose to limit your success and limit your opportunities to just what is digitally available to you? You can literally relocate yourself for just the summer. When your kids are out of school, you can relocate yourself to Mexico, and you have the opportunity to learn a second language, one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. You have the opportunity to give your children fluency in me in in Spanish just by going to Mexico for a summer. You're never going to get that off of an app that comes up on your phone, right? So that's just one simple example. Let's not even think about what happens when you start investing your US dollars in European fiscal markets. So, as the American stock market goes up and down with changes in politics, the European stock market is much more stable. So, if you're 70 years old and you're trying to make sure that your fixed income lasts, you probably don't want to be putting it into volatile stocks in the US market. You want to be putting into something more stable. That there's all sorts of opportunities that people aren't considering if they limit themselves to only thinking about technology. Technology is what we call at the CIA an enabler. It enables you to do other things. In and of itself, it is not a solution. It doesn't solve problems by itself. It's helps make the solution of certain problems faster, easier, and more efficient. But at the end of the day, all it does is enable. It doesn't solve the problem on its own.
You used to hear, like, people say, "Well, you should have, like, like, three months worth of, like, food or something if, like, the world were to come crashing down." Like, if you were to give the audience, like, a toolkit that they could just have a baseline fundamental thing that they're ready if something dramatic were to happen, what would it be?
Yeah, it's a great question. And so I will say, boldface, to anybody out there that if you're going to try to hunker in place during a disaster, you're a fool. And for all the people out there who are trying to teach people how to hunker down in place in the event of an emergency, you are also a fool. Doesn't matter how much food or how many bullets or how much water you've stored. It doesn't matter how much canned goods you have in your basement. If the worst actually happens, your surplus is going to be the thing that makes you a target of everybody else around you. The most powerful toolkit that you can have in the event of a real emergency is mobility. You want to be able to move. We have a concept at the CIA and throughout all of elite, uh, elite services, military and otherwise, where we say you have to get off the X. You have to get off the X. Movement is your friend. So why would you have 200 lbs of tuna in your basement? You could have 10 lbs of tuna in a backpack, and you could literally move, and nobody would ever know where your tuna supply is. So you would be able to stay under the radar. You would not be identified. You would not be targeted. You could move further and faster than anybody else who's trying to shelter in place.
So for the tool, the toolkit that the CIA gave us is really simple. You always want to have laced shoes. Always. It sounds silly, but laced shoes make it so that rocks and glass and stones and hot, like, hot, whatever, hot, uh, metal don't get into your foot in the immediacy of an of a disaster. You always want to have a raincoat. Again, it sounds silly, but a raincoat is what keeps the clothes that you're wearing preserved. It keeps them dry. It also keeps the wind off you. It also keeps you insulated against the cold. You always want to have cash and some sort of credit card. So, you want to have two options of how you actually carry out a transaction because in a true disaster, cash is going to become king. But before you spend your cash, you're going to want to ride the credit wave as long as you can. You always want to have some sort of ID, preferably an ID that lets you cross international borders. So, if you don't have a passport right now, get a passport so that if if disaster strikes in the United States, you're literally a plane flight or a border crossing away from Canada or Mexico where the disaster will hopefully be less. If you have a passport, a credit card, cash, laced shoes, and, uh, a raincoat, you've got everything you need to survive any disaster better than the person who tries to hide in their basement and shoot all the strangers who come knocking at the door.
Portugal became, like, this place that everybody wanted to move to a few years ago. And I've had people, yeah. Um, I've had friends that lived there and then kind of came back. But, like, where are some places that you've had your eye on that have more opportunity than the US?
Well, I mean, there's a lot of places that have different opportunities. I want to make sure that I I highlight that. It's not necessarily quantifiable more or less. For me, as a father with two kids that are my kids' ages, that's the lens I look through to quantify what's more or less. But on my short list of places that I look at for my family, I look at Costa Rica. I look at Croatia. I look at Portugal and Spain. Just like so many other people, I always look at Switzerland. I look at New Zealand. I look at Australia, and I look at Singapore. I look at all of those countries as as countries that are very viable options to rebuild a very stable life in a pro-American environment.