Taking Action and Redefining Identity

When people think of spies doing espionage overseas, wearing disguises and all these kinds of things, it does make you think they must be exceptionally good at dealing with fear because A lot of people would be too nervous or too anxious or whatever to not like crack under that kind of pressure you're meeting the guy that has the nuclear codes for Iran or whatever U and you've been working for nine months to meet this person. You know, you've got to have a good handle on your own anxiety and your own fear Do the CIA target people that A good at that or do they train that or is it both? It's both. It's a great question. It's both CIA wants people that carry a certain level of anxiety Because when you carry anxiety, you're naturally paranoid, which means you have heightened observational skills Most people who suffer from anxiety feel like they're inadequate in some way. In reality, they are hyper adequate They are more than adequate Anxiety is a superpower through the eyes of the CIA I would take somebody with anxiety Your summer weekends fill up fast, but Crocs has your back. Road trips, beach days, last minute getaways, whatever's on the agenda, swing by your local store and find your new goat too Try it, style it, make it yours. becausecause the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest croc store today Any day over somebody without anxiety because anxiety keeps you alive Anxiety keeps you sharp. Anxiety keeps you learning, it keeps you attentive Good thing But to your second point, you are also trained You are trained to understand how fear works and like to oversimplify it. Your brain has two hemispheres, right? A left brain and a right brain Your left brain is your logical brain, your right brain is your emotional brain Because you have two different hemispheres and they operate on two different bases, right? One is based in logic, one is based in emotions, they actually operate and they process at different speeds Your logical brain processes much slower than your emotional brain which is why it takes you an instant before you're scared but it takes you maybe Minutes, hours, weeks before you're convinced So what ends up happening is fear in an untrained person, going back to our conversation about trained versus untrained. in an untrained person Fear is an emotion that's processed by the emotional brain very quickly So then they react instinctively to their fear That's where a lot of people who suffer from anxiety get held back When you can train someone to understand that The same thing that makes them emotionally scared also being processed by their logical brain Your brain is actually going through the process of determining how scared you really need to be If you can just slow down the emotional brain and train the rational brain to work a little bit faster Your whole relationship with fear completely changes How do they train you to slow down your emotional brain so that you don't react? That's a big part of the reason why you have a controlled training environment that lasts for multiple months becausecause what they do is they inoculate you. It's called stress inoculation. They inoculate you with scenarios designed specifically to trigger your emotional response evenven though you have been trained to not trust your emotional response They inoculate you so that over and over again, you have to go through the process of I feel fear I have to not accept it. I fear I feel doubt. I have to reject it. I feel like I'm being watched. I have to reject it. I have to give my rational brain a chance to catch up so that I can get objective facts about the scenario And there are some people who don't do it well. There are some people who never inoculate themselves against fear So then they end up getting cut from the farm For the average jir that' listening to this now or Jenny, the average Jenny. as's listening to this now. and they live a life that's held them back because of their fear You know, they don't take the risk, they don't raaise their hand to do the presentation. They don't lean into uncertainty Based on your training in the CIA, what would you suggest that they should do to get over that fear? So they need to inoculate themselves as well. Inocul Inoculate means Inoculate means expose yourself in controlled ways to fear, very similar to the way you inoculate against COVID or you inoculate against the flu, right? You expose yourself to a strain that's weakened so that your body can gain some sort of familiarity with it. You do the same thing with fear. So if you're afraid to give that presentation You're not ever going to change the fact that you're afraid to give a presentation you will be able to change something that you're less afraid of So if you're afraid of going to the gym If you're afraid of eating at a certain restaurant down the street. if you're afraid of stepping out of your front door. If you're afraid of asking your friend their opinion about whether or not you're overweight Find something small where you are less afraid of this than you are of this other thing and inoculate yourself with this Like lean into the small fears, the fears that you already know are kind of irrational and simple And if you can overcome those, will happen is you will start to gain momentum The thing that you do to inoculate yourself is to know up frront, you know you're going to have an emotional reaction. You already know it. It's the thing that you're afraid of. You can predict that. So you already know. I'm going to ask my buddy, Steve if he thinks that I'm overweight I'm terrified to ask him. He's either going to say yes or no. or he's going to take some cop out answer and As me what I think But I already know that it's going to feel uncomfortable H's my buddy, it's low risk. Let's see how it hat. Let's see what it goes, right? So you go and you ask the question, you put yourself in the face of fear You're still going to have the hard palpitations, the cold sweats, your emotional brain iss going to take off, and all your physiology is going to like let loose Then Steve is going to tell you his answer. And it's over. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, that wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. And then when you do the same thing with your friend Jenny and the same thing with your friend Bruce and the same thing with your friend Robert By the time Robert tells you his answer, your body iss not reacting the same way as it did when he talked to Steve. smallall inoculations. are training your emotional brain to slow down and training your rational brain to speed up So then you move on to the next M scary thing without going to the scariest of things. You know, I was thinking about that as you were talking and I was thinking, gosh I think a lot of people know that. I think they know that the way to get better at speaking on stage is to go and speak on stage, but they're still held back by You know, God, if I do that, I'm going to mess up and then people are going to think I'm this, that and the other and then I'll never X, y Z. Right. So you can say that to someone, but getting them to take that first step seems to be the impossibility, like And here's where Here's where the former CIA officer and me comes out Because if you're too afraid to do that, good I don't want you to do it. becausecause you being unable to do it gives me the advantage The person who's listening to this who says to themselves, I'm scared, but I'll do it anyways That's the person who deserves the opportunity to change their life. The person who's listening to this that says, I'm too scared to do that Good I need you to stay exactly where you are because In our world, the flat out truth is, Our world needs cogs Our world needs people who are trapped in the consumer cycle We need those people because the people who are trapped in that consumer cycle, the people who are prrisoners to their fear are the people who Run the economy It's the people who are willing to break that cycle capitalize on the fears that you can't overcome. Those are the people who actually provide you the service that you need because you can't do it by yourself So I want to encourage the people who are willing to take the scary step And I also want to discourage the people who already know that they're too afraid We need both. You met your wife. Well you were an undercover CIA operative? Yeah. 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 ninety nine percent of people. I'm still to this day very thankful that see poor judge of character. In twenty fourteen, you leave the CIA. Age thirty four years old. You both resign together? We both resign together. Why It was mostly my idea. My wife had a stellar career We had a one year old child at the time. And we were at a point in our career coming off of very successful operations together right before that where we were both kind of middle management And that middle management lifestyle meant that we're spending twelve to sixteen hours a day on the job, just like most people. But the difference is when you're spending sixteen hours a day on the job It means that you're in a skiff. somewhere You're you can't take your work home, you can't work from home. So you're literally absent from the house So trying to coordinate two sixteen hour schedules along with a one year old when neither of us signed up to be that kind of parent We both wanted to be the kind of parent that was present for our children And instead, we're giving our child to some daycare center and paying extra oververage fees to have that daycare center keep the baby for twelve hours a day ' it's a sucky situation. So for family reasons M so than for career reasons, we both decided, hey, let's Double down on family And let's see if we can't start all over Are you going to leave America in twenty thirty? I'm going to try and leave America in twenty twenty seven I read that somemhere. Why are you going to try and leave America in twenty twenty seven So I think the United States is going through a very difficult time right now, and I think most people understand that. We are a young country, no matter how much we think that we are the best in the world We are actually going through the early part of our adolescence as a nation And you can see it playing out every day in the headlines, you can see it in our in our role ine geopolitical events You can see that we are We're suffering in terms of trying to identify ourselves. We don't know, do we want to be a real democracy? Do we want to be kind of a partial democracy? Do we want to treat everybody as equal? Do we not want to treat everybody as equal? We're struggling in the same way that you and I did through middle school My children meanan the world to me And what I want to do is give them a life where they have the choice. to do anything they want to do Unfortunately, I don't believe our country for the next five to ten years is going to be the kind of country that allows children of today to choose and be whatever they want to be. I think our country has some growing up of its own to do before we really offer people equal access to opportunities So for me I was My eleven year old son When I turned fifteen or sixteen years old And I start to really care about something I would like to be in a place where I can explore that thing I don't think that's going to be in the United States. I think that's going to be in Europe. I think that's going to be in the Middle East. I think that's going to be in Latin America. where he will have all the advantages of the world outside of the United States. What do you think about what's going on at the moment with geopolitics? as it relates to like China and the U S A bit of a power struggle going on and there has been, but a lot of people forecast that China is eventually going to overtake or maybe it reallyready has, the U.S. as the sort of global economic force U Are you preparing for that? Do you think it's going to happen I think that there's There's Two realistic outcomes and there's one less realistic outcome The most realistic outcome is that the United States and China continue to compete and reach parity equality with each other That's the most realistic outcome Maybe the United States remains ten percent bigger Maybe China gets two percent bigger economically They approach parity, they approach equality I don't want to live. in the United States When loses so much status that another country reaches economic parity Think about that for a second The world is accustomed to one superpower Once there are two superpowers Everything changes There's two massive languages, and you're going to have to choose which language you speak. There's two currencies, which currency are you going to save your money in? There's competing priorities, there's competing politics, there's equally massive, sophisticated militaries When you are in one of those two countries at the moment that they reach parity You are in the most dangerous position. Because the number one target for China will be the United States. the number one target for the United States will be China Right now There's not parity, there's not equality. So the United States has to worry about everybody And China doesn't really have to worry about many people at all But as that equality gets closer and closer, there's more and more threat. Think about it in business terms. When you're the industry leader in your business, Google. You don't have to worry about much. You have to worry about all the little guys, but nobody's really a direct threat But as soon as somebody else rises to meet you, you have to worry about it The leader used to be Yahoo Yahoo had to see what it's like to lose gain parity with Google only to then be eclipsed Right? So most probable outcome we reach parity secondecond most probable outcome. is that China does supersede us small amounts, right? five percent GDP, ten percent GDP. And the United States has to regain its momentum to try to gain back the edge. So now you have this cycle back and forth Right, where for five years, China is the leading GDP. For five years, the United States is the leading GDP And you have this waffling back and forth, which makes you even less secure than if you were in direct parody that's a scary place to be as well. You still have to lose all the influence to get there. And when you're there You never know how long it's going last Hey, it's Kelly Roland. 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Ask your doctor about EBGlS and visit eBGlS dot com or call one eight hundred Lily RX or One eight hundred, five four five, five, nine, seven nine Do you think we're already engaged in a form of World or three Yeah, absolutely. I think World War I is already happening. I think World War II is not what people think going to be. I think people were afraid that World War II was somehow going to look like another World War II. Instead, World War II is a war of proxy nations It's a war it's a war where smaller third worldld countries are competing against each other They're being funded by larger countries that are actually in conflict with one another Hey, it's Ran Renold from MitMobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited preremium wireless for fifteen dollars a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made fifteen dollars bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile dot com slash sww Upront payment of forty five dollars for months ninety dollars for six months one hundred ninetyll for twelth plan reired fifteen dollars for month equalent to taxes extra. Initial plan term only greater thanty gigabytes slow netork busy T term. Ukraine and Russ US is funding Ukraine, Russia' obviously taking care of itself The real conflict in Ukraine isn't about Ukraine. It's about the West versus Russia. S sameame thing is going to happen with Taiwan and China. When the time comes that China makes its biggest move on Taiwan. It's already made to small moves on Taiwan When it makes its largest move on Taiwan, it's going to become a question of China versus the West and whoever supports Taiwan So going back to where we started then The average Joe The average je is listening to this conversation now what they really want is to make their life better in whatever subjective measure that they consider better to be. They want to start that business, they want to launch that project. They want to get outside of this sort of emotional prison that they live in where their life is dominated by perception, what they think, their own sort of confines of their identity. What is the sort of closing argument and closing advice you give to that average Jah liberate themselves so that they can pursue whatever they want to pursue So the The most important thing is to take action That is the most even if it's the wrong action If you take the wrong step, if you take the first step in the wrong direction The difference between you and the person who doesn't take a step at all is the world. You have to take the first step. you have to take some kind of action Just by taking action, you show that you're not trapped by fear You show that you're willing to challenge your own perception of the world and try to gain some perspective It doesn't matter what that action is. I don't care whether you read a book, whether you buy a program, whether you whether you sell your first prototype take some kind of action because Nine out of every ten people are not going to take any action. You already have an advantage just by trying So few people understand that. They think there's some kind of advantage in waiting There isn't. The longer you wait, all you're really doing is giving the other nine people a chance to be the first one to take a step If you take the first step, you beat the competition right out of the gates. And you know this as well as I do evenven if your first three or four steps are fumbles trips and you fall in your face, by the time you stand up, you're four steps away from the rest of the competition And you've learned a lot in those first four steps So my suggestion is Take action. takeake action using the skills that we talked about today. Take action using the skills that you've talked about on some other podcasts. Just take action. Identity. We talked about how the CIA kind of rewrite your identity a little bit so that you know it gives you some sort of cover. But one of the things that stops us taking action is our own identity What have you come to learn and what do you think now about the role of identity, how it gets in our way and how we can liberate ourselves from it The worst person to determine who you are is oftentimes you because You see it all. you live in your own secret life The rest of the world sees your public life, even if your public life is accidental The world sees you differently than you see yourself. So When you look at yourself, it's like looking through a magnifying glass. you see every war, you see every every crevice, you see everything wrong because you have the magnifying glass. The rest of the world, not only do they not have a magnifying glass, but they're standing ten feet away from you So They see something very different than what you see So a lot of times whatever you think about yourself is actually inaccurate when you apply it against the test of perspective becausecause what other people see and what other people think of you You are usually very wrong from what they think We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for Now the question that's been left for you in the diary of O CEO is Verry Very interesting What is something you used to strongly believe that you have fundamentally changed your mind on I used to believe that B. could be equal And fundamentally now I know. will never be equal because equality is not really the thing that we're after. what we're secretly after that we don't want to admit to is we're always after being betteret having more being in a better position than everyone else So we will constantly strive to take advantage of secrets, to take advantage of opportunities, to find an edge that we do not share with other people publicly, we will say that we wish there was more equality and that we want there to be more equality when Secretly, we don't. I used to be one of those people that wanted everything to be equal And now I am one of those people who is very happy in a world thingsings are not equal. because I see through the noise I understand What we want isn't what we actually say. So these politicians that are saying mayaybe on the left that are saying, you know, we want e ququality, we want everyone to be equal. You think they're bullshitting? Absolutely. That's not what they want. What do they want What they want is more of the current status quo. which is to have conflict the opposite side. And what they also want on top of that is to be in a position where the masses trust politician to be in control over more aspects of the population's life