Andrew Bustamante spent seven years working covertly as an officer in the Central Intelligence Agency. He explains how the CIA carries out its missions, revealing the insight into the clandestine agency without violating his secrecy oath.
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00:00My name is Andrew Bustamante, and I'm a former CIA intelligence officer.
00:03I spent seven years living and working for CIA, and this is everything I am authorized to tell you.
00:15CIA is always asking itself the question,
00:18is it worth killing foreign lives to protect American lives?
00:23And the answer is always yes.
00:24There's two types of killings that we really have to talk about here.
00:27There's intimate killing, and then there's non-intimate killing.
00:30And when I say intimate killing, I mean you look in the eyes of the person whose life you're taking.
00:34Most of CIA is equipped to enable not intimate killing,
00:39which is when you have a drone, or you have a missile, or you have a rocket of some sort,
00:43or you set some sort of sabotage that's designed to kill people.
00:46My operational history does include enabling non-intimate kinetic strikes
00:52against terrorist targets specifically.
00:54And many of us participated in the global war on terror from 2000 to 2022.
00:59There were kinetic strikes against terrorist targets all over the world,
01:04sometimes many times a week.
01:06While Obama was one of the best presidential diplomats that the United States has ever seen,
01:11he was also very heavy-handed in terms of covert action.
01:14And he was very, very decisive in his choices to use non-intimate killing
01:20as a way of going after high-priority targets in the terrorist world.
01:25What is your vision for the future?
01:29I have become almost harshly, ruthlessly pragmatic about the fact that
01:34I want America to remain the only superpower in the world.
01:39Because as soon as our superpower status slips and someone else rises to meet our challenge,
01:45we all become that much less safe and secure.
01:48The CIA, as a bureaucracy, evolves very slowly,
01:53but its mission stays crystal clear.
01:56It is there to ensure American primacy through national security
02:00and the stealing of foreign secrets.
02:02When you consider the intelligence community as a whole,
02:04there are many pieces, many players, many different agencies that are included.
02:08I think it's currently 36 or 37 different members of the intelligence community,
02:12of which CIA is only one member,
02:15along with DIA and NSA and NRO, DOD, the Army, the Air Force, the Navy.
02:21What CIA is charged with, however, is being the hub, the central intelligence agency,
02:28meaning all the other intelligence collection activities must funnel through CIA
02:34to be created, to be transformed into what we call a final product,
02:38a final analytical or final intelligence product
02:42that is then sent to the executive in the president's daily brief.
02:45In order to understand what CIA is today,
02:48you have to recognize that 9-11 was a massive turning point in how CIA operates.
02:53The pre-9-11 CIA is very different than the CIA post-9-11.
02:599-11 was a massive intelligence failure, the largest in American history,
03:03but following the 9-11 commission,
03:06findings about CIA and the requirement for CIA to have heavy oversight
03:10completely transformed the nature of the spy business
03:14for not just central intelligence, but for all of the intelligence partners in the IC.
03:18What I understand of the pre-9-11 CIA, it was the Wild West.
03:23CIA was a giant experimental laboratory first
03:27and an organization of accountability second.
03:31Since 2001, they have become an organization of accountability first,
03:36and they are much, much less experimental.
03:38Anything that your adversary was doing was fair game for you to experiment with,
03:43and it's not hard to understand why,
03:45because if your adversary finds an unfair advantage
03:49using human trafficking or drug smuggling,
03:52and that puts your national security at risk,
03:55then you have lost that game, you have lost that chess match.
03:59So if you want to keep up with your adversary,
04:01if you want to keep pace with your opponent,
04:03you have to be willing to work outside of the bounds of moral and ethics
04:07that your citizenship, that your citizenry actually has to fall within,
04:12because you're charged with protecting them from the outside threats.
04:15You're not charged with enforcing the ethics and the morality within the country's boundaries.
04:26Espionage is illegal everywhere.
04:28However, when you swear an oath as a covert intelligence officer
04:33in support of an intelligence agency,
04:35you actually fall under a very strict carve-out in American law
04:40that makes it so that you can commit espionage against foreign targets
04:44in support of national security when it is ordered by an authorized person.
04:49It is illegal for a CIA officer to pursue an American citizen
04:53without disclosing their affiliation to CIA.
04:56But FBI, Homeland Security, border security,
05:00they are actually able to pursue operations against American citizens
05:04under their authorities, which are different than CIA's.
05:07The way that the government spies on the American people
05:09isn't the way that you think it is from TV and media.
05:14The government doesn't have to dedicate really almost any resources
05:17to spying on American citizens,
05:19because American citizens basically give up all of their raw data to corporations.
05:25So all CIA or FBI or DOD really has to do
05:30is become a commercial client of a big data company,
05:35and they can get any information they need.
05:37So why would you try to break the law and listen in on an American's phone call
05:42when you could just buy their phone records from Verizon or from Sprint or from T-Mobile?
05:47We are not a police state. We are a commercial state,
05:50which means that the federal government,
05:52as long as it has a national security requirement,
05:56there will be a commercial company who rises to the occasion
06:00to meet that requirement and do it all legally.
06:04Edward Snowden's whistleblowing about the operation that NSA was running,
06:09in many ways what he was blowing the whistle on
06:12was the illegal use of legally collected data.
06:16So you have this very small, very narrow cutout
06:19that lets you commit crimes all over the world
06:22and be protected by the status that you're in
06:26as a sworn officer in an intelligence agency.
06:34My path to CIA was not traditional, but it was fairly common still.
06:39I was actually trying to get into the Peace Corps, believe it or not.
06:42I was leaving the military. I was a nuclear missile officer,
06:45wore a key around my neck that would destroy the world.
06:48And after doing that for two years, living underground,
06:51I wanted to do the exact opposite.
06:53Imagine the last time you had a bad breakup with a girlfriend or a boyfriend.
06:57You leave the one relationship, and what do you look for?
06:59Something that is the complete and polar opposite.
07:02But in the process of that online application,
07:05a red screen popped up that said,
07:07you may be qualified for other opportunities in the federal government.
07:11Will you put your application on hold for 72 hours
07:14while a recruiter reaches out to you?
07:16Because of what the Peace Corps is looking for,
07:19it's looking for people with a high risk tolerance.
07:21It's looking for people that are embracing discomfort.
07:23It's looking for people who are essentially open
07:26to the idea of trying to do the impossible,
07:29trying to make some broken part of the world whole again.
07:33And that type of person is also well-suited
07:36for undercover intelligence work.
07:38Because all the odds are against you,
07:41you have to embrace discomfort, and the risks are massive.
07:44So when you look at the two side by side,
07:47you can really see that the people who give up their lives
07:50in pursuit of an ideology are really quite the same,
07:53even though their ideology might be different.
07:55Once you work for the Peace Corps,
07:57you are forever banned from working in intelligence.
08:00And once you've worked in intelligence,
08:02you are forever banned from working in Peace Corps.
08:04It's something that the federal government does
08:06to make sure that our Peace Corps representatives,
08:08our true Peace Corps reps, are never accused of espionage overseas.
08:11So like any 27-year-old male who's single,
08:15I was always looking for the next best things.
08:1724 hours later, I got a phone call from a 703 unlisted number,
08:21and that started my whole application process for CIA.
08:28Training at CIA is better than it is in the movies.
08:32In the movies, it makes it look like everything's, you know,
08:35fancy and high-tech and cutting-edge,
08:37and it's not quite like that.
08:39It's much more austere.
08:41It's much more challenging and old-school than that.
08:44But it really is a ton of fun,
08:46and you go through all that training with other people.
08:49The specific lengths of training at CIA
08:51are also one of those topics that's still classified.
08:54The details of the farm are still classified,
08:56and the full length of the farm is also still classified.
08:59But I will tell you it's many months,
09:01and it is not many years,
09:03in order to get up to speed as a field officer.
09:05What CIA wants is people who can handle
09:07a great deal of outside stimuli
09:09with very little emotive response,
09:11which makes people who are anxiety-prone,
09:15autism-prone, or pathological liars, sociopaths,
09:20it makes them very attractive
09:22because when you have an antisocial personality disorder
09:25or when you have a diagnosable form of autism,
09:27you are already insulated against massive changes
09:30in your emotional state,
09:32which makes you more effective in training,
09:34but it also makes you more effective
09:36in the operational field.
09:38There are different ways that CIA pressure tests its trainees
09:41to measure an emotional response.
09:43One of the core things they do is they oversaturate you,
09:47what's called task saturation.
09:49They give you more tasks than you could ever possibly complete,
09:52whether that's in an hour or in a day or in a mission
09:55or in a simulation or even in a classroom.
09:57That's a very basic example, a very simple example
10:00of one of the things that can happen
10:02in the first few days of training.
10:04As training goes on, they put you through
10:06other types of more intense efforts
10:08to see what your emotional response might be,
10:10whether that's exposing you physically
10:12to very cold temperatures,
10:14whether that's sleep deprivation,
10:16whether that's simulated capture, simulated interrogation.
10:18When you sign up for CIA, many people are surprised
10:20when they find out that they have to go
10:22through some very intensive training
10:24to be able to understand how to resist torture,
10:27how to survive or sustain through torture,
10:30and how to manage captivity.
10:32Torture is a sensitive topic at CIA
10:34in many parts of the world,
10:36and it's not a surprise that it is such, right?
10:39Because the reality is that torture is inhumane.
10:42But the other reality is that torture is very much used
10:46by enemies of the United States.
10:48They prioritize the need to escape
10:50above all other priorities,
10:52even above the priority of protecting cover,
10:54protecting secrets, and anything else.
10:56When you watch a TV show or a movie
10:59and you see somebody resisting torture
11:01by just stating their Social Security number
11:03and saying that they're a soldier,
11:05that's not really how it works
11:07when you're an intelligence operative.
11:09Instead, it's a continuation of the cat-and-mouse game.
11:11You're always trying to compete
11:13with the person who has you in captivity
11:15because you need to retain enough resources
11:17to effectively escape so that you can get back
11:19with the intelligence that you've collected as a captive.
11:22And if you think about it,
11:24a captive has a great deal of information.
11:26You understand how you got captured.
11:28You understand how you're being held.
11:30You understand the rotation of guards.
11:32You understand the questioning, interrogation.
11:34So to be able to regain someone who's been captured
11:37is an incredibly valuable thing
11:39from an intelligence point of view for CIA,
11:41which is why they are more focused on that
11:43than they are on whether or not
11:45you expose parts of your secret identity
11:47or parts of your operation along the way
11:49in order to resource yourself for a proper escape.
11:59Lying is a fundamental skill when you are a field officer,
12:02but it is very much a learned skill.
12:04In the process of being recruited to CIA,
12:07you go through many different psychological batteries,
12:10personal interviews, actual tests,
12:13interviews where you talk to psychologists,
12:15you talk to seasoned officers,
12:17and throughout that time, what they're really doing
12:19is assessing your natural ability to lie
12:22and your natural ability to fabricate
12:24according to a specific storyline that they give you,
12:27which is a whole different level of lying.
12:29They're just going to sharpen that sword,
12:31refine that ability further.
12:33I always wondered if there was something wrong
12:35with how much I enjoyed lying
12:37until I met some of my peers at CIA.
12:39There's one person who became a close friend of mine at CIA.
12:42He's in full undercover, he's in a very deep-cover capacity.
12:45Fantastic guy, fantastic friend.
12:47He was such an effective liar,
12:49he could have been fabricating the entire thing.
12:52He could have convinced me that he was a good friend
12:55when, in fact, he wasn't,
12:57because he was, by all accounts, a pathological liar.
13:00He was somebody who lied
13:02simply because he got a dopamine rush,
13:05a personal satisfaction
13:07from lying to anyone and everyone around him.
13:09This individual who became someone
13:11I really do count on as a friend,
13:13it's unsettling, even now,
13:15to think that it could have all been fabricated.
13:18I could have been just one of his exercises
13:21in his pathology for lying.
13:23When you've spent enough time inside CIA,
13:25you start to see how everybody is using you.
13:28It's there to manipulate people.
13:30Somehow, when you're coming on board,
13:32when you're going through the recruitment process
13:34and the training process and you're a young officer,
13:37you believe that they're there to support you.
13:39You believe that you are outside of the manipulation.
13:42But then as you get more seasoned,
13:44as you continue on in the years,
13:46you start to see that the same,
13:48the promotion process inside,
13:50the personal development and professional development process inside,
13:53the way that some missions are given to some people
13:56and other missions are not,
13:58it's all just an example,
14:00a microcosm of the larger organization's
14:02way of executing operations.
14:04And you start to see that the senior levels of CIA
14:07are manipulating the lower levels of CIA
14:09because that is the school of thought
14:11that we were all trained in.
14:13We weren't trained in leadership development
14:15and motivation and encouragement.
14:17We were trained in manipulation and deception
14:19and fabrication.
14:21So is it a surprise that the culture within the building
14:24is just a representation of exactly the same skills
14:27that we teach every junior officer?
14:35CIA has a concept called the three lives.
14:38And it talks about the three different types of lives
14:41that all people live.
14:43There's our public life,
14:45our private life, and our secret life.
14:47The public life is the public persona
14:49that you put on every morning,
14:51every day that you step out of your house,
14:53your apartment, or your office.
14:55It's when you act like you're paying attention when you're not.
14:57It's when you laugh at your boss's jokes
14:59even though they're a jerk.
15:01It's not who you really are.
15:03It's who you are in order to forge the life
15:05that you're trying to build.
15:07Behind that public life is a private life.
15:09That private life is a life that's only known to you
15:12and your closest associates.
15:14Your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your wife,
15:16your mom, your dad.
15:18In this private life, they know that you're really very kind
15:21even though you are rude in public.
15:23They know that you are sensitive and creative
15:25even though you seem aloof in public.
15:27What most people think is that a relationship,
15:30a true meaningful relationship
15:32happens in your private life.
15:34What CIA knows is that there's a third life altogether.
15:37That third life is your secret life.
15:40In your secret life,
15:42that's the place where you keep
15:44your deepest, darkest secrets.
15:46And in order for it to be a dark secret,
15:48it usually has a very dark element to it.
15:50It's where you put your shame.
15:52It's where you put your guilt.
15:54It's where you put the questions
15:56that you can't stop asking
15:58before you fall asleep at night
16:00but you don't want to burden anyone else with.
16:02All of that is what happens in your secret life.
16:04And the cognitive reality
16:06is that everybody has a secret life.
16:09Think about that.
16:11When you let someone into that life,
16:13that is when you build
16:15a true forged relationship.
16:17Lifetime trust.
16:19Lifetime equality.
16:21Because in your entire life,
16:23you're only going to let maybe a half dozen people
16:25into your secret life.
16:27And once someone is in your secret life,
16:29they never leave.
16:30That's the power of the secret life.
16:32CIA teaches a system
16:34for how you break through
16:36a target's public life
16:38into their private life,
16:40and from their private life into their secret life.
16:42They teach us that system
16:44because in order to make a true
16:46reporting asset,
16:47someone who was a patriot
16:49for their country,
16:50who is now a traitor against
16:52their country,
16:53the only way to win a person's loyalty
16:55to the extreme is to get into their secret life
16:57and convert them from being
16:59loyal to their country to being
17:01loyal to you.
17:03The human intelligence asset recruitment
17:05process. It's a process that's
17:07acronymed SADRAT.
17:09S-A-D-R-A-T.
17:10And that process is a very
17:12well-documented process
17:14cognitively, clinically, and then also
17:16in the intelligence sector.
17:17Military Intelligence,
17:19FBI, CIA.
17:21SADRAT stands for Spot, Assess,
17:23Develop, Recruit, Handle, and Terminate.
17:25Yes, handle starts
17:27with an H, but the acronym
17:29uses the letter A. That is because it is
17:31still a federal government acronym.
17:33So that's just how the federal government
17:35spells things sometimes.
17:37But this process of SADRAT is
17:39exactly how you take an asset
17:41from stranger, S,
17:43all the way through to
17:45secret life controlled target,
17:47which is when you are handling them.
17:49And then it even includes a step
17:51where you distance yourself
17:53from that person that you control
17:55because it's either in your best interest to get
17:57away from them or it's in their best interest
17:59to get away from you. And that's where the T
18:01in terminate comes from. But the whole
18:03SADRAT model is one
18:05of those nested processes
18:07that helps to dictate
18:09how you control or develop
18:11an important relationship intentionally.
18:13When you are required
18:15not to appear as your true self,
18:17then that requires
18:19that you don some elements of costume.
18:21And there are different levels of costume that you can don,
18:23different levels of disguise.
18:25The department that oversees disguise
18:27is called a costume department.
18:29Some are very temporary,
18:31some are quite permanent,
18:33some involve body changes,
18:35gaining weight, losing weight,
18:37having tattoos erased, having tattoos added,
18:39having tattoos removed,
18:41having tattoos erased, having tattoos added.
18:43Some involve
18:45just throw away things. Fake wigs,
18:47fake mustaches, sunglasses,
18:49anything you can imagine. But the real objective
18:51operationally is just to make
18:53sure that you do not appear as
18:55your true self
18:57within a specific distance.
18:59So someone from 40 feet away
19:01has to do very little to not appear as themselves.
19:03Somebody from 4 feet away
19:05has to don quite a lot of costume
19:07in order to not look like themselves.
19:09The costume department at CIA
19:11is a room.
19:13It's a large room and it's very much like
19:15walking kind of behind set
19:17on any TV set.
19:19You go in, the people who are working there
19:21are highly creative people.
19:23They smile, they're high energy,
19:25they're not your typical expected
19:27closed door CIA officer.
19:29Imagine flamboyant
19:31homosexuals,
19:33people of all ages and colors,
19:35lots of women, lots of bright colors,
19:37lots of creative things
19:39just hanging on the wall. Because these people
19:41are charged with not only creating
19:43a costume that changes your identity,
19:45but a costume that has functional
19:47practicality as a spy.
19:49So not just a jacket
19:51that you would never wear,
19:53but a jacket that you would never wear that also has
19:55hidden pockets.
19:57And also happens to have a bulletproof vest.
19:59And also has a way of
20:01being taken off and turned inside out.
20:03These are the kind of incredibly creative
20:05people that exist, not on the top
20:07floor at Langley, but in the
20:09basements of Langley.
20:15People refer to
20:17the CIA headquarters as
20:19Langley, Virginia. And that's funny
20:21because the actual
20:23city it's in is Langley, Virginia, but
20:25at headquarters we never call it Langley.
20:27We call it headquarters.
20:29Even in our written traffic, we refer
20:31to it as headquarters or HQS.
20:33It's technically two buildings.
20:35What we call an old headquarters building and a new
20:37headquarters building. And that's the only
20:39overt, non-
20:41classified building that I'm able to
20:43disclose. There are several buildings that belong
20:45to CIA, that house CIA officers,
20:47but they're all still covert in
20:49nature and their locations are not something that I
20:51can disclose. We really are a self-contained
20:53unit, almost like a terrarium
20:55where we don't
20:57need any support from outside.
20:59We can do everything within
21:01the confines of CIA, which is exactly
21:03how CIA wants to operate because
21:05they have to be so heavily compartmentalized.
21:07CIA is a massive
21:09city on its own. It's got
21:11its own food, its own
21:13water sources, it's got its own
21:15industry inside.
21:17The land that headquarters is on is a
21:19large lot of land with a massive
21:21parking lot that wraps around it.
21:23In fact, it's the parking lot that most people complain about
21:25because it's a huge parking
21:27lot and for you just to get to your
21:29office, it's often a 15 or 20 minute walk
21:31through this winding
21:33massive parking lot just to get to your office.
21:35The size of the parking lot and the way that it's laid out
21:37is very much based on security.
21:39They don't want cars to get within a certain distance
21:41just in case one of the cars
21:43or a CIA asset is compromised.
21:45Unfortunately, it's not a
21:47totally rare occurrence
21:49for a CIA officer to be compromised
21:51to some sort of adversary or enemy.
21:53So they keep cars a certain distance from building
21:55walls in case there's a car bomb.
21:59We know there are
22:03four core levers, four core motivations
22:05that drive people to take action.
22:07Those four different motivations are
22:09reward, ideology, coercion
22:11and ego.
22:13Reward means getting what you want, whether
22:15that's money or a free cruise or a car.
22:17Anything that you get
22:19in response to doing what you were told is
22:21considered a reward. Ideology
22:23is a motivator that comes from within.
22:25So whether you're Christian or Jewish,
22:27whether you're African American
22:29and you were
22:31raised to remember
22:33your African roots or whether you're Latin American
22:35and you were raised to remember your Latin
22:37roots, all those things fall under the idea
22:39of ideology, something that drives you from
22:41within. Ego is whatever makes
22:43you the person you want the
22:45public to see.
22:47People often mistake ego with egotism
22:49or egotistical, which means
22:51that you have an inflated sense of yourself, but
22:53in fact, Mother Teresa had an ego.
22:55Gandhi had an ego.
22:57These are people who wanted
22:59to represent something publicly
23:01so they made decisions and
23:03took actions in the same vein
23:05as the public image they wanted to present.
23:07Coercion is the weakest.
23:09It's the least predictable.
23:11And coercion is when you try to force
23:13someone to do what you want them
23:15to do by using shame
23:17or guilt or some other form of
23:19overt manipulation. It's much
23:21easier and more reliable to get people to take
23:23action based on the other three.
23:25Reward, ideology, or ego.
23:27When you try to force them into something,
23:29when you try to force them to do something using
23:31coercion, you violate their trust
23:33and you make it so they know that they can
23:35never count on you or trust you ever again.
23:37It's much easier to slipstream in and
23:39manipulate someone based on their existing ideology
23:41or ego than it is to try to force
23:43them to your will using coercion.
23:45Sexpionage
23:47Sexpionage
23:49Sexpionage
23:51Sexpionage is a term that
23:53has become popular
23:55because it refers to the act
23:57of sex in operations.
23:59And that can be, it is often
24:01categorized as straight
24:03heterosexual sex, female
24:05operatives seducing male
24:07targets, but it can also be
24:09homosexual operations. It can also
24:11be group sex operations.
24:13It can be any kind of kinky operation
24:15that you think of. In real life,
24:17sexpionage is a thing and sexpionage
24:19works. What's important to understand
24:21is that sex in operations
24:23is not something that the CIA
24:25encourages or condones
24:27for its own officers.
24:29And the reason is because
24:31each CIA officer is an
24:33American citizen first, which means
24:35they are entitled to all the rights, privileges,
24:37and protections of any American citizen.
24:39So, just like you can't force
24:41someone into a sexual
24:43act against their will, you
24:45can't order
24:47someone to execute a sexual act
24:49against their will. So, CIA
24:51very much prides itself on
24:53professionalizing all of its officers to keep sex
24:55completely separate from operations.
24:57That said,
24:59foreign countries have learned that
25:01American culture and
25:03American ideology
25:05is one that
25:07is oftentimes
25:09repressed or intimidated by the
25:11concept of sex. For
25:13as powerful a country and as wealthy a country
25:15as we are, we are still very
25:17sexually repressed.
25:19So, it's a very successful
25:21operational tactic
25:23for foreign countries to use
25:25sexpionage against American targets
25:27because in a foreign country
25:29the individual does not have
25:31the same rights and protections that a
25:33U.S. citizen has. So, perhaps China
25:35would order a
25:37Chinese intelligence officer to have sex
25:39with an American target, or Russia
25:41would order it, or Belarus
25:43would order it, right? Because
25:45they have a completely different set
25:47of governing guidelines for their citizens
25:49and they know that American citizens
25:51are susceptible to love,
25:53acceptance, physical intimacy,
25:55and oftentimes we
25:57feel guilty about it because we
25:59were built on a Christian foundation.
26:07The simple fact is that
26:09the future outlook
26:11for
26:13any first world country, and the United States
26:15included, is
26:17dark. It's bleak.
26:19It's difficult. In my assessment
26:21World War III has already started.
26:23World War III has been going on for
26:25almost a full decade now.
26:27When you think about World War I
26:29and World War II, the two conflicts
26:31were totally different, even though they were only
26:33a few decades apart.
26:35And when you think about how war has evolved
26:37since World War II, to Vietnam,
26:39to Desert
26:41Shield, Desert Storm, through
26:43to even what we did in Afghanistan
26:45and Iraq,
26:47the nature of war is always
26:49evolving. Why would we think
26:51World War III would look anything like
26:53World War II, nuclear weapons and superpowers?
26:55Instead, World War III
26:57is based off of common, current
26:59military doctrine, which the most
27:01current military doctrine is the doctrine of proxy
27:03war, when you have two vested
27:05competitors who are funding
27:07proxies to fight on their behalf.
27:09What was Syria? What was
27:11Libya? What is Yemen?
27:13What is Ukraine?
27:15What is Israel?
27:17These are all countries that are being
27:19the conflict is being funded
27:21by outside aggressors, who are really
27:23trying to compete with each other.
27:25It's the Chinese and the Russians and the Indians
27:27and the British and the Americans
27:29and the Canadians, all funding conflict
27:31through these poorer
27:33third world countries. That is the definition
27:35of proxy conflict, because you can
27:37risk international power
27:39without risking your own
27:41citizenship's lives. This is the world
27:43that we live in. Your allies are not
27:45your allies because they believe in you.
27:47Your allies are your allies because you serve
27:49some sort of need that they need.
27:51It's very much a business transaction.
27:53They have a need, you have a service.
27:55And vice versa.
28:02I left CIA
28:04in 2014 for
28:06family reasons.
28:08When I say family reasons, I don't mean
28:10something went wrong with my family. I meant
28:12I had a family
28:14and I could quickly see
28:16that the life CIA wanted for me
28:18was not the life that I wanted for my family.
28:20My wife, who's also a
28:22CIA officer, she and I met
28:24at CIA. We met and lived and worked
28:26undercover. We had our first child
28:28in 2013 and by
28:30the time that child was one year old
28:32we quickly saw that we were consistently
28:34choosing work ahead of parenthood.
28:36Even though we had chosen to
28:38become parents, the thought that kept me up
28:40at night was I was constantly
28:42wrestling with do I pick my career
28:44over my child or my child over my career?
28:46And the fact that I was having that struggle
28:48at night is what cued me in
28:50to the reality that CIA
28:52didn't care about me. CIA
28:54just saw me as another resource, another
28:56number, another person to do
28:58the job. But my son
29:00would never see me that way. My
29:02children of the future would never
29:04see me as something that's replaceable.
29:06When I took that message to my supervisors
29:08at CIA and I tried to
29:10find a way that I could be
29:12a present father but also be
29:14an effective CIA officer, they
29:16didn't have any patience for that discussion.
29:18It was a very clear either or
29:20choice to them. They were not prepared
29:22for my answer and they were not prepared for the answer
29:24of the people who came after me.
29:26From 2014 to today
29:28CIA has seen a mass exodus
29:30of talent because the
29:32old ways of trying to
29:34coerce people to stay in your system
29:36isn't working for the modern day
29:38professional. Now we are
29:40choosing to use CIA as a stepping stone.
29:42People are choosing to work at CIA
29:44because they care about service for
29:46a period. But then they also care
29:48about building their own
29:50resume. They focus on building their career
29:52opportunities. They focus on building
29:54their wealth and you can't do any of those things
29:56from within the confines of Langley, Virginia.
30:04When I first left CIA in 2014
30:06I went into about a six month
30:08period of time where I was unemployed.
30:10Part of my unemployment was
30:12because leaving CIA you still remain
30:14in a cover status which means that
30:16you are still technically unable to disclose
30:18your CIA affiliation.
30:20However, all of the protections
30:22that you had where
30:24phone numbers to call and references that
30:26would say that you worked for them, those
30:28references and those protections are gone.
30:30There are even scenarios where both the husband
30:32and the wife are undercover and married
30:34where the children don't know.
30:36And a big part of that is because
30:38in that secrecy agreement that you sign
30:40there's also a disclosure where you have
30:42to say that you will ask permission from
30:44CIA before you
30:46disclose your true affiliation to your own
30:48children. That way
30:50you don't tell your six year old that you're
30:52a CIA officer and then have them go brag to all
30:54their friends. Instead, you're now
30:56legally culpable for keeping the secret
30:58from your own family. My resume
31:00had references and previous
31:02work experience that never answered the phone and never
31:04responded to emails. So I couldn't even
31:06put together a decent resume to get a job.
31:08After six months of going
31:10from a successful CIA
31:12officer to, you know, an
31:14unemployed loser dad
31:16with your wife and your kids living
31:18in your in-laws garage
31:20it was a humbling experience.
31:22After leaving CIA, I
31:24discovered how much the
31:26CIA training and the skill sets that they
31:28had given me translated into
31:30everyday life. Business life, career
31:32life, relationships, family, social life.
31:34Because what CIA really
31:36teaches at its core
31:38is psychological frameworks.
31:40Psychological
31:42mental models and systems of thinking
31:44that give you an edge,
31:46an unfair advantage over your
31:48opponent. Well, in normal
31:50everyday society where nobody else
31:52has learned these psychological frameworks
31:54or processes, if you
31:56know them and other people don't, you
31:58have an unfair advantage in every
32:00element of life. And once
32:02I made that connection myself by using
32:04my CIA skills to
32:06get promoted in a corporate job,
32:08using my CIA skills to rapidly
32:10grow a new business, using my CIA
32:12skills to find and acquire
32:14partners and financiers to grow my
32:16business. What CIA is most concerned about
32:18is the disclosing of its operational secrets,
32:20not the secrets that it
32:22uses to optimize its own officers.
32:24All I needed to do was execute
32:26just like a CIA operation
32:28against a specific target that had
32:30an opportunity that I wanted. And that's how
32:32I got into a Fortune 7 company, CVS
32:34Health, by essentially cultivating
32:36an asset out of a senior executive
32:38who gave me a job, sight unseen,
32:40that was senior enough in
32:42position that all I had to do was perform.
32:44And then once I got into the role,
32:46I used more CIA skills to rapidly
32:48learn the job, to build relationships
32:50and alliances with other people who were already there,
32:52to help other people succeed and look
32:54good to their boss, and then four years
32:56later I was promoted four times.
32:58It was a rapid
33:00experience that showed me
33:02how immediately
33:04tangible CIA skills were
33:06in the corporate setting, the business
33:08setting, and everyday life. And that's
33:10how I built my company, Everyday Spy,
33:12by teaching the skills that optimize
33:14CIA officers to work in
33:16all elements of life, in all elements
33:18of their health, all elements of how they
33:20build wealth and run a career, and all elements
33:22of their relationships and professional networking.
33:30Bleak is still honest, man.
33:32If you want to look
33:34at the world through a lens of optimism,
33:36by all means, do it.
33:38But if you want to look at a world
33:40where you will have a strategic advantage in the future,
33:42you have to see it for what it is.
33:44When I look at the future of the United States,
33:46it's important to understand two things. First,
33:48I'm looking at the future of the United States
33:50through the lens of a 43-year-old
33:52business owner and
33:54father of an 11-year-old
33:56and a 6-year-old. I have
33:58two children that aren't
34:00even of teenage years yet.
34:02And their young professional
34:04life won't really start until
34:06they're 19 to 21 years
34:08old. It's my responsibility
34:10now to think of the environment
34:12they will have when they are 20
34:14years old. They can't make that decision
34:16for themselves. So when I think
34:18about the United States nine
34:20years from now, 10 years from now,
34:22do I think the United States will be
34:24the best place for my 20-year-old
34:26son and my
34:2816-year-old daughter to find opportunity?
34:30I'm not so sure that that's
34:32the case. I'm not so sure
34:34that the United States of 10 years from now
34:36won't be more divided,
34:38less powerful,
34:40more controlling
34:42from a federal government control
34:44of citizenship state.
34:46I'm not convinced that that's going to be
34:48the best
34:50foundation for my children to have opportunities,
34:52which is why I plan to leave the
34:54United States in the next five
34:56to seven years, because I want to
34:58give them the opportunity to have
35:00success. In my estimation,
35:02the best opportunity for anybody
35:04who has a business,
35:06who has wealth, who's growing
35:08wealth, or who's growing any kind of business acumen,
35:10the best place to grow
35:12and succeed in the future is
35:14actually less likely to be the United States
35:16and more likely to be some other third
35:18nation, until the United States
35:20has the time to go through
35:22its adolescence. The countries that are on my short
35:24list of places to seek opportunity
35:26for my children, there are countries in Europe
35:28like Portugal or Spain,
35:30Italy, Croatia.
35:32There are countries in Latin America.
35:34We specifically look at Costa Rica.
35:36We've looked at Mexico.
35:38There are countries that are very
35:40wealthy countries like Switzerland or Norway.
35:42There are countries all
35:44across Africa. These countries
35:46are not perfect
35:48in and of themselves, but where they
35:50are imperfect is different than
35:52where we are going in our own
35:54imperfection, because where we are going
35:56is more towards a state
35:58of chaos and unpredictability,
36:00whereas many of these other third world
36:02countries or developing countries have
36:04very predictable systems.
36:06They may be corrupt, but they're
36:08predictably corrupt. There are many
36:10countries in the world where $10,000
36:12can get you basically anything you want,
36:14where here in the United States,
36:16$10,000 in the bank
36:18doesn't even qualify you for a home loan.
36:20How do you deal with that?
36:22How do you assess the
36:24impact of that on the future state of the family
36:26that you're trying to build?