CIA Training: Experiential Learning Insights

CIA trains through a method called Just in Time learning also known as experiential training or experiential learning so they'll teach you a concept uh academically you'll learn a concept slideshow or classroom or whatever else and then you'll go out and you'll practice that Concept in a in a scenario so in a with an actor with a role play oh okay you're not just going to a a coffee shop and doing it and then once you have shown that you understand the concept in a roleplay you're in the real world doing it and that's how you cement a skill before you come how how much are these actors [ __ ] with you in these like how tricky are they making things do they even know oh yeah the actors blind in it they're they're not they're not actors like you're thinking of actors they're role players meaning they are CIA officers who have already been through the the ringer and now they're helping the Train the next generation is this at the farm so correct the farm is our training academy uh and there are multiple schools that we have the farm is the most famous but that's where we go through that's the most practical real world example of our full experiential learning Cy could you give us could you give example of one of these exercises sure so there's a one of my favorite exercises is a free cup of coffee exercise so you have to get a free cup of coffee H but there's certain stipulations you can't ask for a free cup of coffee you can't trade somebody for a free cup of coffee so but you have to get a free cup of coffee can you be a woman many of them are born that way yes so unfair there's okay go on so so what you have to do is they they will teach you like here's how you create reciprocity and here's how you create interest and here's how you create value for somebody in excess of what a cup of coffee costs and then here's how you put yourself in a position with somebody where they connect on their own through some kind of uh what was the movie with Leonard DiCaprio Inception yeah the the essentially the real world version of inception what's it called neurolinguistic programming or something like some people call it but you're basically planting an idea you're priming an idea so here's how you prime someone for an idea they are like I just had a great conversation with you I want to buy you a cup of coffee oh what a fascinating way to break down human behavior if I want a free cup of coffee I give him value emotionally that is worth more than a free cuple coffee or intellectually you give me value in the way that I care most about value and then leave a gap where they can fill it now now the cup of coffee you're getting from a stranger not from the person at the coffee shop MH correct okay oh I was I thought you have to charm the Barista you can if you if you don't if you find yourself selected a coffee shop where you don't have other people in line okay being in line with somebody is a benefit because you got what we call Time On Target but when you go up to a barista how long is a barista used to dealing with a customer 12 seconds how are you going to create value in 12 seconds wow how big is the farm is it like westw world where it's just like hundreds of people like just living in a scen essentially it's a base the farm is a giant retired military base instructors live there students live there uh contract Personnel stay there for long Ms like it's a self-contained place and they have total control over your entire student experience there which is how you can go through this kind of train that coffee shop is an actual coffee shop like outside outside like in the movie The recruit like you have to go and get a get someone from the bar and get them out what's the uh okay have you ever had like a really awkward exchange when you're trying to practice something that you learned yes we would call it in comedy bombing have you bombed bomb okay tell me about a bomb I've bombed a lot of okay tell me well hopefully real yeah you can't say that no no but yeah so I mean uh I've bombed at in in the real world like with this coffee example it took me six attempts before I got a free cup of coffee and and all what happens the first attempt what do you so I think the first time I went there I tried to talk to a barista okay and I tried to just show up and be like hey I've got this thing and I went looking for like a wallet like oh I don't know where my wallet is and she was like well I can't give you any Cofe oh you tried to guil her yeah I was just trying to be like oh out the ni it's not very effective it's not part of the training I hadn't internalized the concept yet right so then I went another time and I was like with a with a dude and trying to talk to a dude about stuff that I I was not connecting with what he cared about I was telling him about how cool I am okay how'd you open up to him what was the first line this is this is this is awesome like what what cup of coffee are you going to get I don't remember the details right but it was basically something along the line like hey what are you going to get he's like oh I was going to get an Americano and I was like oh The Latte is the best uh you started talking about you yeah you were more interesting than interested why yeah yeah why do you yeah why do you want an Americano what is it doesn't it doesn't matter what matters is that the concept was a fail because what I'm saying is if you asked him why he likes Americano you're tapping into what he's feeling you seem like the kind of guy that has lattes and be like oh what does that mean like you're giving him something correct yeah so what what you learn from bombing yeah is you learn how other people actually think and how they engage with the communication that you're sharing you guys know this more than anybody right because when you start to engage with somebody about what they're interested in mhm now all a sudden they don't see you as a threat or an outsider they see you as like a friend you make me feel good about me cuz you're asking me questions about me I like you yes right you I trust you because you're saying things about me that that I also believe and that's how you get to a place where after 6 minutes in line and you get up to the front of the line they're like can I buy you a cup of coffee do do you remember the moment that you were asked absolutely okay what what happened how did you do that so it was a it was a much older lady it was like a lady her 50 you son of a bch son of a [ __ ] okay good and we we had been in line you just whipped it out you're like you've seen one of these lately like Mo okay go go go so much it was a much older lady and we were in line it became very clear to me that she liked to talk but nobody would talk to her so then I just kind of sat there and let her talk and everything that she brought up her grandkids her kids her cats her job I just asked a follow-up question I was like oh that's interesting that's I mean how did your kids feel about when you retired from accounting or how did your you know how do you take care of three cats do you feed them canned food or do you feed them food that you make for them themselves and it was just this natural conversation natural from her point of view where I was just being nice to her and learning about her gave her a conversation which she doesn't get because most people don't want to listen to a 55y old woman talk y right and then by the time we got to the actual checkout at the register she was going to pay with a credit card anyways so she was just like can put his coffeee on mine that's amazing now and and the hardest part yeah is all you want to do is [ __ ] celebrate and get the hell out of the coffee shop and go back and be like here's my free cup of coffee you got to say no no no no please don't do it oh wa you say oh that was very nice of you and then you sit down and you have another two or three minutes of coffee with her because you've got to find an exit that is noral where now now now now okay you you get this success you get this positive reward right like you said you won't to just run back to the office and be like yo I did it is there is that ever met with a sense of guilt as I potentially manipulated another human being this so I I love that you're asking this question I love that you're asking this question because to get to the place where you're going through that level of training you've already been psychologically assessed in a realm of uh antisocial behavior that makes it so that you know and the people who are training you you know that you're not really wired to feel gift so about manipulating others my followup to that is this before you came here I was ready to ask you a bunch of I don't want to even call them hard questions but I had less empathy for you now that we've spoken a bit and I like you I have a little bit more empathy so I'm like do I really want to ask him a question that he might get in trouble for answering by the CIA and I'm starting to feel these Sensations and I know the thing that would make me feel that guilt is also the thing that I'm curious about but you've Charmed me I guess or maybe I enjoy talking to you or arguing with you about Europeans being stupid which is what we both agree ultimately but uh I guess what what what I'm saying is if that would be horrible for the CI I would be because I'd feel too bad i' get operative yeah horrible operative he just said it right bad field you also can't keep a secret ever so yeah I'm not good at that so I mean there's a couple of things there right so or I'm already part of the CI I'm tricking all of you and that's even better disinformation so so the thing to keep in mind here is that is that uh there's an element of predictable Behavior that's wired into us cognitively from childhood right so especially people who have had experiences with significant trauma as children also have a higher likelihood of developing antisocial disorders or antisocial uh conditions as adults because as as children we tried to fit in and we were rejected so now as adults we're like [ __ ] TR to fit in but maybe I should still try to fit in because it's just easier if people think I fit in right so there's there's an element of that do you feel that way about yourself oh yeah absolutely well for me I'm nice because I'm like you're incredible at socializing it's all but it's all you think it's manufactured it's all kind of learned no it's it's real but the difference is what happens on the back end if you will right like having a conversation like you were saying you'd feel guilty asking me questions I wouldn't feel guilty asking you questions cuz I've been conditioned through my childhood trauma to be kind of safe of feeling like I'm going to ask you a question it's your your responsibility if you answer or not I was literally talking to my wife about this the other day cuz my wife is also a former CIA so we have some very dark conversations and uh and the question was if if you were crossing a street and you were crossing a street at a time when you needed to cross the street to get away from some creepy dude who was standing at the street corner but when you cross the street you made another car swerve because you crossed when it wasn't a crosswalk and that car crashed right so you just saved yourself from creepy dude who's standing at the edge of the sidewalk but that car crashed do you feel bad yeah I mean my answer is no I don't feel bad supposed to do like I don't feel bad because I I self-preserving off the X the dude that crashed wasn't driving responsibly or else he wouldn't have crashed and it wasn't your intention and it wasn't my intention you know what is crazy coincidence maybe not uh I grew up in Dallas born and raised the spot where JFK is killed you know how it's marked on the road yeah it's an X an x on the road yeah there's an x on the road so off the X really makes me think you guys killed JFK they let their sign and but are now you're you've studied people enough to know that like this guilt response is quite normal right right in a socially conditioned person and you're saying you just feel none of it I don't feel none of it I just it's it doesn't hold me back all right so you feel it but it doesn't stop you gotcha whereas like a sociopath for example might not feel it at all oh so you're in a really advantageous situation because you could act on that feeling if you think it's the socially responsible thing to do but if you need to get where you need to go you won't I act on the feeling when it is a a personal benefit and that's the difference between a true sociopath which is remember how we're talking about antisocial disorders a true sociopath is actually clinically called uh anti social disorder antisocial personality disorder aspd okay so that's a clinical thing just like a psychopath is a clinical thing on the antisocial personality disorder Spectrum whereas where what I'm talking about is useful elements of of sociopathy yeah but still able to fit into a larger society Yeah my cousin's psychiatrist he always distinguishes between sociopath and having sociopathic tendencies and he's like there's a lot of really successful people who have sociopathic tendencies a true sociopath would make a bad agent correct because a true sociopath empathy connect follow question somewhat Rel get the coffee yeah somewhat related everybody mental health is huge in every job on in the CIA are they're like no you're not doing no [ __ ] therapy we're not paying for anything I don't want you to work on this part of you or is there very specific therapy how does that work it's an abundance of therapy options because of exactly that reason so to your point about how some very high performing people have sociopathic tendenc what else do very high performing people have incred substance abuse sex right pathological lying they got to find the right operative wow this is a fascinating case study you need to find someone [ __ ] up enough where they don't feel the guilt so they can go out there and do things that do induce guilt on the average person but not so [ __ ] up that they're going to be doing cocaine [ __ ] girls nonstop to get over the guilt to get over the guilt or to cope with these feelings that you have I mean that is a small window and still have some level of remorse cu the true sociopath again not a good Asian you need you go to therapy can you see a regular therapist or has to be another CIA yes yeah it's a CIA therapist and then if you have a if you have conditions that are too significant or too severe for a for a staff psychologist then they have a group of cleared psychologists do they test prospects on their vices yes oh great question how do they do it they well there's two parts first there's a psychological battery that they put you through like an actual psychological exam and then from that they're able to uh assess what we see in the movies or TV shows where like they're asking you difficult questions and it's it's it's not the answer but how you react that's a part of it can you give us an example of do you remember anything you were asked yeah yeah yeah so well I don't remember the questions in the in the in the actual exam right but I remember there are questions in the exam where they're they're giving you questions and they're giving you answers and there's no good answer like there's no safe answer right like uh have you ever I remember this one have you ever participated in sexual deviancy like yeah that's a subjective experience yes or no yeah and I'm in like the last stages of applying for the CIA is this the question that's going to get me kicked out this pressure starts to build up so what did I answer yep right better to say yes than to say no and then they find out you're and they find out that I'm lying so I'm just going to say yes and hope for the best right now I was also able to say no to ever using any kind of controlled substance because I have never and still to this day even though I dream of the day that I get to used some kind of controlled substance right so there are certain places where I get to answer yes and no throughout that whole exam and then after the exam I had an in-person interview with a psychologist who was going through the exam results and that psychologist was like can you please share with me your sexual deviancy and I imagine that part is even more important than what you actually put on the paper I don't know because I'm not I I never got the insight into how they recruited us exactly but now you're sitting here face to face with somebody and the one question that spiked you during the exam they're asking you to your face and again you're like I'm not much closer to being a CIA officer so then you're like well I've always wanted to do this and I did this and I've tried this and I've tried that and they're like and then at the end for me the dude was like none of that's deviancy yeah I like oh sweet so like two girls at once and sex parties and what none of that's deviancy he's like no and I was like School how can you trust the intentions of the psychologist you have to trust that the intentions of the psychologist are to get enough people through the pipeline that they don't look like they're too harsh or too easy in their exam now I'm talking about when you're already hired you're part of the CIA and you are seeking mental help I would imagine that the CIA is looking out for its interests corre so how and you can only speak to their therapists how can you fully open up to somebody if you know that you're being assessed so you've got this is such a powerful question man because this is the Crux of why I left CIA I left CIA when when I was 34 years old I'm 43 now you're 40 now right when you're in your mid-30s whatever you're doing you're all in yeah you're all in yep if you've got producers producing you if you got supervisors supervising you if you've got whatever you're you're like everybody's in this together when they're all actually in it for self-preservation so as a mid-30 year-old it took the birth of my first child before I was like I asked myself that exact question it's like oh [ __ ] why do I think that this person's out for my best interest when they're just out for their own career and and I started to see that the process we were trained to get a foreigner to betray their country to give us secrets that same process was our professional development process 100% but you knew this at an early age I know well I knew this at 34 only because of the birth of my son but you knew it before I mean you're assessing people all the time right but you're assessing people through a state of conditioning where you've been brainwashed to believe the best of the best of the best right wow you believe their propaganda correct you you didn't see it at all there was no signs of it where you were like I'm a little skeptical the signs are in hindsight right cuz if you can you give me a sign sign yeah when you're in it you're in it so a sign of a sign is like uh when you're in it for example when you're in it people are always promising you the next best assignment right the carrot the carrot constant carrots right we need you to go here we need you to go there oh that dried up with that dried up and you're the person and you're always going you're like I'm going to take it there were a lot of intelligent Nazis that thought they were the good guys you know I mean not to compare it but like there are good people that are doing things that are outside of what you could say are their interest or objectively true because they bought I used to be law enforcement and there were times where it's just like ah this is just chain of command this is just the way things are and it wasn't until you're outside of it where he like yeah that's a little [ __ ] up so if you have people that are extremely motivated by reward you can just throw a carrot in front of them and they won't ask questions about anything else if they're extremely if they're driven by reward yes however ever what if if there's four core motivations I'm sure that's kind of what you're referencing right now that CIA teaches us what is it the reward ideology coercion and ego right we call it rice reward ideology coercion and ego four main reasons we all do anything yeah reward is a strong one but it's not the strongest ideology yeah so what you do is you recruit these people who are borderline sociopaths who have incredible amount of loyalty and then you tell them America has to be the safest here to keep the Homeland safe you're the future of our country your children your parents everyone's going to be safer because of your humble service is that how Isis same same same it's slightly different what what Isis ideology what Isis does is they use something called the radicalization ladder because they're trying to create radicals yeah what CIA is doing practicals H right a little bit different but but yeah and careerists careerists don't end their career by strapping a bomb to their chest but that's how it radical is what is your greatest motivation you think uh for so for me my greatest motivation is ideological but my ideology changed when you had that baby didn't it it everything change you know this man it just happened to you too yep everything changes when you have that baby that makes sense so now your ideology is I'm a family man I'm a father before that my ideology was always prot America safe yeah now it's keep my baby safe it is and is it a liability to let operatives to let operatives have f amilies that this becomes a big part of the challenge in any CIA officer's midcareer when you start having children or when your children are in that age where they're the magic age like you're not in the magic age you're still in like the puddle of of Blood and Guts I'm here I'm here smile give me anything yeah yeah yeah but once like once you start tickling your baby and they it's over oh [ __ ] it's over you're corruptible yeah yeah yeah once that happens when you said that Jesus empath big empath but once that happens everything really does change and then you start to see I have to protect this baby and then you also ask yourself oh [ __ ] the stuff I do if somebody really wants to [ __ ] with me they're gonna [ __ ] with this oh [ __ ] and then it just kids and then it just gets worse and worse and that's that's a big part of what contributes to people in their midcareer making different choices in their mid career why they stop competing to be at the top of the food chain and they're starting to be happy with being middle managers because middle managers get forgotten get overlooked I can stay home most of the time I'm never going to be like in The Cutting Edge of stuff okay does the CIA once they find out that you're about to have a family or even before that maybe when you get married they know what's coming next do they start adding protecting your children to the ideology of what you're doing at work so as an effort to maintain right I wouldn't say they manipulate it that way what ends up happening is you got culturally your supervisor is older than you right physically they're older than you and they're a supervisor which means they've been there longer so they've already made the um compromises to stay in their career so then that person starts to feed their compromises on to you the person who chooses family over career has already left never so they're not even there so there's nobody to even look towards so everybody within the institution hey this is what it is this is what you do how did you see through same thing when you were in law enforcement right management status quo this is the way it is just don't ruffle F so it's very important that those people in those positions are enjoying their life because if they're not you're looking at what your life is going to be and you're going I got to get the [ __ ] out out of here well it's it's not important that they are enjoying their life as much as it's important that they are doubling down on the ideology that keeps them there or they're committed in other words if they're starting to fray in their commitment everything else trickles down oo that's scary the number one thing that you're looking for in any kind government service is the idea of service before self anybody watching this anybody listening to this who's military law enforcement first responder government we all agree like it's it's indoctrinated into you from the day one service comes before yourself and what makes somebody what does the character buildup or personality trait buildup to have service before self it's just a matter of commitment like you said it's the it's understanding that your discomfort and your opinions and your uh anything that makes you unhappy is less important than servicing the mission but is there a trauma that you go through that would induce this personality type is there something that happens in your life where you can predict this sort of yes so when we go back to that whole idea of childhood trauma what the the outcome of childhood trauma is that you need an invisible authority to approve of you and as long as and the challenge for us all is growing up in that world you never know who that invisible Authority is so you're always seeking it it's like I got to get good grades somebody say it's good all right I got to do good on I got Go on stage and yeah I got to do good that when when you get into a government job and you have that same conditioning the difference now is you know exactly what you have to do to do a good job to get that authority to approve of you all you have to do is say yes to the next mission there's no guessing anymore whereas most of the time we're like how do I get my mom's approval how do I get my dad's approval how do I get so it's a pretty easy setup a package it's a nice package that you realize over time the federal government has learned how to do this well intentionally or accidentally because they've always been vested in making sure they the government itself survives

CIA trains through a method called Just in Time learning also known as experiential training or experiential learning so they'll teach you a concept uh academically you'll learn a concept slideshow or classroom or whatever else and then you'll go out and you'll practice that Concept in a in a scenario so in a with an actor with a role play oh okay you're not just going to a a coffee shop and doing it and then once you have shown that you understand the concept in a roleplay you're in the real world doing it and that's how you cement a skill before you come how how much are these actors [ __ ] with you in these like how tricky are they making things do they even know oh yeah the actors blind in it they're they're not they're not actors like you're thinking of actors they're role players meaning they are CIA officers who have already been through the the ringer and now they're helping the Train the next generation is this at the farm so correct the farm is our training academy uh and there are multiple schools that we have the farm is the most famous but that's where we go through that's the most practical real world example of our full experiential learning Cy could you give us could you give example of one of these exercises sure so there's a one of my favorite exercises is a free cup of coffee exercise so you have to get a free cup of coffee H but there's certain stipulations you can't ask for a free cup of coffee you can't trade somebody for a free cup of coffee so but you have to get a free cup of coffee can you be a woman many of them are born that way yes so unfair there's okay go on so so what you have to do is they they will teach you like here's how you create reciprocity and here's how you create interest and here's how you create value for somebody in excess of what a cup of coffee costs and then here's how you put yourself in a position with somebody where they connect on their own through some kind of uh what was the movie with Leonard DiCaprio Inception yeah the the essentially the real world version of inception what's it called neurolinguistic programming or something like some people call it but you're basically planting an idea you're priming an idea so here's how you prime someone for an idea they are like I just had a great conversation with you I want to buy you a cup of coffee oh what a fascinating way to break down human behavior if I want a free cup of coffee I give him value emotionally that is worth more than a free cuple coffee or intellectually you give me value in the way that I care most about value and then leave a gap where they can fill it now now the cup of coffee you're getting from a stranger not from the person at the coffee shop MH correct okay oh I was I thought you have to charm the Barista you can if you if you don't if you find yourself selected a coffee shop where you don't have other people in line okay being in line with somebody is a benefit because you got what we call Time On Target but when you go up to a barista how long is a barista used to dealing with a customer 12 seconds how are you going to create value in 12 seconds wow how big is the farm is it like westw world where it's just like hundreds of people like just living in a scen essentially it's a base the farm is a giant retired military base instructors live there students live there uh contract Personnel stay there for long Ms like it's a self-contained place and they have total control over your entire student experience there which is how you can go through this kind of train that coffee shop is an actual coffee shop like outside outside like in the movie The recruit like you have to go and get a get someone from the bar and get them out what's the uh okay have you ever had like a really awkward exchange when you're trying to practice something that you learned yes we would call it in comedy bombing have you bombed bomb okay tell me about a bomb I've bombed a lot of okay tell me well hopefully real yeah you can't say that no no but yeah so I mean uh I've bombed at in in the real world like with this coffee example it took me six attempts before I got a free cup of coffee and and all what happens the first attempt what do you so I think the first time I went there I tried to talk to a barista okay and I tried to just show up and be like hey I've got this thing and I went looking for like a wallet like oh I don't know where my wallet is and she was like well I can't give you any Cofe oh you tried to guil her yeah I was just trying to be like oh out the ni it's not very effective it's not part of the training I hadn't internalized the concept yet right so then I went another time and I was like with a with a dude and trying to talk to a dude about stuff that I I was not connecting with what he cared about I was telling him about how cool I am okay how'd you open up to him what was the first line this is this is this is awesome like what what cup of coffee are you going to get I don't remember the details right but it was basically something along the line like hey what are you going to get he's like oh I was going to get an Americano and I was like oh The Latte is the best uh you started talking about you yeah you were more interesting than interested why yeah yeah why do you yeah why do you want an Americano what is it doesn't it doesn't matter what matters is that the concept was a fail because what I'm saying is if you asked him why he likes Americano you're tapping into what he's feeling you seem like the kind of guy that has lattes and be like oh what does that mean like you're giving him something correct yeah so what what you learn from bombing yeah is you learn how other people actually think and how they engage with the communication that you're sharing you guys know this more than anybody right because when you start to engage with somebody about what they're interested in mhm now all a sudden they don't see you as a threat or an outsider they see you as like a friend you make me feel good about me cuz you're asking me questions about me I like you yes right you I trust you because you're saying things about me that that I also believe and that's how you get to a place where after 6 minutes in line and you get up to the front of the line they're like can I buy you a cup of coffee do do you remember the moment that you were asked absolutely okay what what happened how did you do that so it was a it was a much older lady it was like a lady her 50 you son of a bch son of a [ __ ] okay good and we we had been in line you just whipped it out you're like you've seen one of these lately like Mo okay go go go so much it was a much older lady and we were in line it became very clear to me that she liked to talk but nobody would talk to her so then I just kind of sat there and let her talk and everything that she brought up her grandkids her kids her cats her job I just asked a follow-up question I was like oh that's interesting that's I mean how did your kids feel about when you retired from accounting or how did your you know how do you take care of three cats do you feed them canned food or do you feed them food that you make for them themselves and it was just this natural conversation natural from her point of view where I was just being nice to her and learning about her gave her a conversation which she doesn't get because most people don't want to listen to a 55y old woman talk y right and then by the time we got to the actual checkout at the register she was going to pay with a credit card anyways so she was just like can put his coffeee on mine that's amazing now and and the hardest part yeah is all you want to do is [ __ ] celebrate and get the hell out of the coffee shop and go back and be like here's my free cup of coffee you got to say no no no no please don't do it oh wa you say oh that was very nice of you and then you sit down and you have another two or three minutes of coffee with her because you've got to find an exit that is noral where now now now now okay you you get this success you get this positive reward right like you said you won't to just run back to the office and be like yo I did it is there is that ever met with a sense of guilt as I potentially manipulated another human being this so I I love that you're asking this question I love that you're asking this question because to get to the place where you're going through that level of training you've already been psychologically assessed in a realm of uh antisocial behavior that makes it so that you know and the people who are training you you know that you're not really wired to feel gift so about manipulating others my followup to that is this before you came here I was ready to ask you a bunch of I don't want to even call them hard questions but I had less empathy for you now that we've spoken a bit and I like you I have a little bit more empathy so I'm like do I really want to ask him a question that he might get in trouble for answering by the CIA and I'm starting to feel these Sensations and I know the thing that would make me feel that guilt is also the thing that I'm curious about but you've Charmed me I guess or maybe I enjoy talking to you or arguing with you about Europeans being stupid which is what we both agree ultimately but uh I guess what what what I'm saying is if that would be horrible for the CI I would be because I'd feel too bad i' get operative yeah horrible operative he just said it right bad field you also can't keep a secret ever so yeah I'm not good at that so I mean there's a couple of things there right so or I'm already part of the CI I'm tricking all of you and that's even better disinformation so so the thing to keep in mind here is that is that uh there's an element of predictable Behavior that's wired into us cognitively from childhood right so especially people who have had experiences with significant trauma as children also have a higher likelihood of developing antisocial disorders or antisocial uh conditions as adults because as as children we tried to fit in and we were rejected so now as adults we're like [ __ ] TR to fit in but maybe I should still try to fit in because it's just easier if people think I fit in right so there's there's an element of that do you feel that way about yourself oh yeah absolutely well for me I'm nice because I'm like you're incredible at socializing it's all but it's all you think it's manufactured it's all kind of learned no it's it's real but the difference is what happens on the back end if you will right like having a conversation like you were saying you'd feel guilty asking me questions I wouldn't feel guilty asking you questions cuz I've been conditioned through my childhood trauma to be kind of safe of feeling like I'm going to ask you a question it's your your responsibility if you answer or not I was literally talking to my wife about this the other day cuz my wife is also a former CIA so we have some very dark conversations and uh and the question was if if you were crossing a street and you were crossing a street at a time when you needed to cross the street to get away from some creepy dude who was standing at the street corner but when you cross the street you made another car swerve because you crossed when it wasn't a crosswalk and that car crashed right so you just saved yourself from creepy dude who's standing at the edge of the sidewalk but that car crashed do you feel bad yeah I mean my answer is no I don't feel bad supposed to do like I don't feel bad because I I self-preserving off the X the dude that crashed wasn't driving responsibly or else he wouldn't have crashed and it wasn't your intention and it wasn't my intention you know what is crazy coincidence maybe not uh I grew up in Dallas born and raised the spot where JFK is killed you know how it's marked on the road yeah it's an X an x on the road yeah there's an x on the road so off the X really makes me think you guys killed JFK they let their sign and but are now you're you've studied people enough to know that like this guilt response is quite normal right right in a socially conditioned person and you're saying you just feel none of it I don't feel none of it I just it's it doesn't hold me back all right so you feel it but it doesn't stop you gotcha whereas like a sociopath for example might not feel it at all oh so you're in a really advantageous situation because you could act on that feeling if you think it's the socially responsible thing to do but if you need to get where you need to go you won't I act on the feeling when it is a a personal benefit and that's the difference between a true sociopath which is remember how we're talking about antisocial disorders a true sociopath is actually clinically called uh anti social disorder antisocial personality disorder aspd okay so that's a clinical thing just like a psychopath is a clinical thing on the antisocial personality disorder Spectrum whereas where what I'm talking about is useful elements of of sociopathy yeah but still able to fit into a larger society Yeah my cousin's psychiatrist he always distinguishes between sociopath and having sociopathic tendencies and he's like there's a lot of really successful people who have sociopathic tendencies a true sociopath would make a bad agent correct because a true sociopath empathy connect follow question somewhat Rel get the coffee yeah somewhat related everybody mental health is huge in every job on in the CIA are they're like no you're not doing no [ __ ] therapy we're not paying for anything I don't want you to work on this part of you or is there very specific therapy how does that work it's an abundance of therapy options because of exactly that reason so to your point about how some very high performing people have sociopathic tendenc what else do very high performing people have incred substance abuse sex right pathological lying they got to find the right operative wow this is a fascinating case study you need to find someone [ __ ] up enough where they don't feel the guilt so they can go out there and do things that do induce guilt on the average person but not so [ __ ] up that they're going to be doing cocaine [ __ ] girls nonstop to get over the guilt to get over the guilt or to cope with these feelings that you have I mean that is a small window and still have some level of remorse cu the true sociopath again not a good Asian you need you go to therapy can you see a regular therapist or has to be another CIA yes yeah it's a CIA therapist and then if you have a if you have conditions that are too significant or too severe for a for a staff psychologist then they have a group of cleared psychologists do they test prospects on their vices yes oh great question how do they do it they well there's two parts first there's a psychological battery that they put you through like an actual psychological exam and then from that they're able to uh assess what we see in the movies or TV shows where like they're asking you difficult questions and it's it's it's not the answer but how you react that's a part of it can you give us an example of do you remember anything you were asked yeah yeah yeah so well I don't remember the questions in the in the in the actual exam right but I remember there are questions in the exam where they're they're giving you questions and they're giving you answers and there's no good answer like there's no safe answer right like uh have you ever I remember this one have you ever participated in sexual deviancy like yeah that's a subjective experience yes or no yeah and I'm in like the last stages of applying for the CIA is this the question that's going to get me kicked out this pressure starts to build up so what did I answer yep right better to say yes than to say no and then they find out you're and they find out that I'm lying so I'm just going to say yes and hope for the best right now I was also able to say no to ever using any kind of controlled substance because I have never and still to this day even though I dream of the day that I get to used some kind of controlled substance right so there are certain places where I get to answer yes and no throughout that whole exam and then after the exam I had an in-person interview with a psychologist who was going through the exam results and that psychologist was like can you please share with me your sexual deviancy and I imagine that part is even more important than what you actually put on the paper I don't know because I'm not I I never got the insight into how they recruited us exactly but now you're sitting here face to face with somebody and the one question that spiked you during the exam they're asking you to your face and again you're like I'm not much closer to being a CIA officer so then you're like well I've always wanted to do this and I did this and I've tried this and I've tried that and they're like and then at the end for me the dude was like none of that's deviancy yeah I like oh sweet so like two girls at once and sex parties and what none of that's deviancy he's like no and I was like School how can you trust the intentions of the psychologist you have to trust that the intentions of the psychologist are to get enough people through the pipeline that they don't look like they're too harsh or too easy in their exam now I'm talking about when you're already hired you're part of the CIA and you are seeking mental help I would imagine that the CIA is looking out for its interests corre so how and you can only speak to their therapists how can you fully open up to somebody if you know that you're being assessed so you've got this is such a powerful question man because this is the Crux of why I left CIA I left CIA when when I was 34 years old I'm 43 now you're 40 now right when you're in your mid-30s whatever you're doing you're all in yeah you're all in yep if you've got producers producing you if you got supervisors supervising you if you've got whatever you're you're like everybody's in this together when they're all actually in it for self-preservation so as a mid-30 year-old it took the birth of my first child before I was like I asked myself that exact question it's like oh [ __ ] why do I think that this person's out for my best interest when they're just out for their own career and and I started to see that the process we were trained to get a foreigner to betray their country to give us secrets that same process was our professional development process 100% but you knew this at an early age I know well I knew this at 34 only because of the birth of my son but you knew it before I mean you're assessing people all the time right but you're assessing people through a state of conditioning where you've been brainwashed to believe the best of the best of the best right wow you believe their propaganda correct you you didn't see it at all there was no signs of it where you were like I'm a little skeptical the signs are in hindsight right cuz if you can you give me a sign sign yeah when you're in it you're in it so a sign of a sign is like uh when you're in it for example when you're in it people are always promising you the next best assignment right the carrot the carrot constant carrots right we need you to go here we need you to go there oh that dried up with that dried up and you're the person and you're always going you're like I'm going to take it there were a lot of intelligent Nazis that thought they were the good guys you know I mean not to compare it but like there are good people that are doing things that are outside of what you could say are their interest or objectively true because they bought I used to be law enforcement and there were times where it's just like ah this is just chain of command this is just the way things are and it wasn't until you're outside of it where he like yeah that's a little [ __ ] up so if you have people that are extremely motivated by reward you can just throw a carrot in front of them and they won't ask questions about anything else if they're extremely if they're driven by reward yes however ever what if if there's four core motivations I'm sure that's kind of what you're referencing right now that CIA teaches us what is it the reward ideology coercion and ego right we call it rice reward ideology coercion and ego four main reasons we all do anything yeah reward is a strong one but it's not the strongest ideology yeah so what you do is you recruit these people who are borderline sociopaths who have incredible amount of loyalty and then you tell them America has to be the safest here to keep the Homeland safe you're the future of our country your children your parents everyone's going to be safer because of your humble service is that how Isis same same same it's slightly different what what Isis ideology what Isis does is they use something called the radicalization ladder because they're trying to create radicals yeah what CIA is doing practicals H right a little bit different but but yeah and careerists careerists don't end their career by strapping a bomb to their chest but that's how it radical is what is your greatest motivation you think uh for so for me my greatest motivation is ideological but my ideology changed when you had that baby didn't it it everything change you know this man it just happened to you too yep everything changes when you have that baby that makes sense so now your ideology is I'm a family man I'm a father before that my ideology was always prot America safe yeah now it's keep my baby safe it is and is it a liability to let operatives to let operatives have f amilies that this becomes a big part of the challenge in any CIA officer's midcareer when you start having children or when your children are in that age where they're the magic age like you're not in the magic age you're still in like the puddle of of Blood and Guts I'm here I'm here smile give me anything yeah yeah yeah but once like once you start tickling your baby and they it's over oh [ __ ] it's over you're corruptible yeah yeah yeah once that happens when you said that Jesus empath big empath but once that happens everything really does change and then you start to see I have to protect this baby and then you also ask yourself oh [ __ ] the stuff I do if somebody really wants to [ __ ] with me they're gonna [ __ ] with this oh [ __ ] and then it just kids and then it just gets worse and worse and that's that's a big part of what contributes to people in their midcareer making different choices in their mid career why they stop competing to be at the top of the food chain and they're starting to be happy with being middle managers because middle managers get forgotten get overlooked I can stay home most of the time I'm never going to be like in The Cutting Edge of stuff okay does the CIA once they find out that you're about to have a family or even before that maybe when you get married they know what's coming next do they start adding protecting your children to the ideology of what you're doing at work so as an effort to maintain right I wouldn't say they manipulate it that way what ends up happening is you got culturally your supervisor is older than you right physically they're older than you and they're a supervisor which means they've been there longer so they've already made the um compromises to stay in their career so then that person starts to feed their compromises on to you the person who chooses family over career has already left never so they're not even there so there's nobody to even look towards so everybody within the institution hey this is what it is this is what you do how did you see through same thing when you were in law enforcement right management status quo this is the way it is just don't ruffle F so it's very important that those people in those positions are enjoying their life because if they're not you're looking at what your life is going to be and you're going I got to get the [ __ ] out out of here well it's it's not important that they are enjoying their life as much as it's important that they are doubling down on the ideology that keeps them there or they're committed in other words if they're starting to fray in their commitment everything else trickles down oo that's scary the number one thing that you're looking for in any kind government service is the idea of service before self anybody watching this anybody listening to this who's military law enforcement first responder government we all agree like it's it's indoctrinated into you from the day one service comes before yourself and what makes somebody what does the character buildup or personality trait buildup to have service before self it's just a matter of commitment like you said it's the it's understanding that your discomfort and your opinions and your uh anything that makes you unhappy is less important than servicing the mission but is there a trauma that you go through that would induce this personality type is there something that happens in your life where you can predict this sort of yes so when we go back to that whole idea of childhood trauma what the the outcome of childhood trauma is that you need an invisible authority to approve of you and as long as and the challenge for us all is growing up in that world you never know who that invisible Authority is so you're always seeking it it's like I got to get good grades somebody say it's good all right I got to do good on I got Go on stage and yeah I got to do good that when when you get into a government job and you have that same conditioning the difference now is you know exactly what you have to do to do a good job to get that authority to approve of you all you have to do is say yes to the next mission there's no guessing anymore whereas most of the time we're like how do I get my mom's approval how do I get my dad's approval how do I get so it's a pretty easy setup a package it's a nice package that you realize over time the federal government has learned how to do this well intentionally or accidentally because they've always been vested in making sure they the government itself survives

Transcript for:CIA Training: Experiential Learning Insights

Transcript for:
CIA Training: Experiential Learning Insights