EverydaySpy Podcast - China on Track to OUTPACE USA in SPACE | EverydaySpy Podcast Ep. 16

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

You know what it's like to work too hard, stay up too late, and push yourself a little too far. Burnout is not fun. But it is also predictable and preventable when you know what to look for. The signs aren't as obvious as you might think! Sit with Jihi and me as we tell you how we learned to identify and avoid burnout in the field running multi-week and multi-month operations. And while you're at it, you can learn about Jihi's super nerdy fascination with the US Space Force! Find your Spy Superpower: https://everydayspy.com/spyquiz Learn more from Andy: https://everydayspy.com/ Join the SpyTribe: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverydaySpy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayspy/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EverydaySpy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A study was done last summer in August 2022, where the DoD said by 2045, China could outpace U.S. in its space military capabilities. Can I just say how crazy that is? Yeah. In 1960 something, our space capabilities put a man on the moon. And in 1960 something, I don't think China was even, I don't think they had propane lines or ground-based telecommunications at all. They were still recovering. They were still recovering from their own revolution. Yeah. Right? They may have been burning books when we were putting a man on the moon. And somehow now we're at a place where we're very realistically at risk of falling behind them in the space race. I feel like I owe you an apology because in the last two weeks, everything about the next two quarters has to change.

I know. You can see the excitement of my face. And I feel bad because one of the things that has always been like this recurring issue in our relationship, in our marriage, is the speed of business because I never anticipated our business would grow so fast. And when we first started, it didn't grow at all. So it was like I was always working and nothing was ever coming of it, but I was always home. Yeah. And then for the last two years.

Two years about, yeah. It's just, it's growing so fast. I'm always on the go. The family is always on the go with me. And it's everything that you don't like. is all the stuff I'm always asking you to do. Yeah. So there are great problems to have, right?

Because it's all opportunity and it's all growth and we're moving forward and all of that's awesome. But for me, it's super exhausting. You know, you and I, I think we've talked about we handle stress differently. And so for you, you are in the moment on the fly. Like, it's all exciting. For me, I'm trying to plug event. into my calendar to organize and they keep changing and it makes me crazy.

A calendar, a calendar is just a visual representation of temporary things. Uh-huh. They're not supposed to be though. Just supposed to find that out there. They're supposed to be locked and loaded. Just to give you an idea of where, you know, my childhood, you know, where this came from, I think it was last year, you know, when we were in a growth phase again and things were changing. And my mom asked me, she was like, so what's your five-year plan?

I was like, I honestly don't even know what I'm doing next week. So I have no five-year plan. But I used to every year. I used to have, you know, this year I'm doing this, next year I'm doing that. I'm taking this vacation. I'm graduating from college. I'm getting this job. Like, this is my plan.

You did always have. You always had a plan. And it was always I remember when we were at the agency and we were getting really serious dating, you always knew what we were going to do for our scheduled vacation time next year, like six months from now. I remember you planning, what year did we go to Japan? 2009. I remember you planning that trip when it wasn't even 2009 yet. No, it was about a year in advance.

I was like, let's go to Japan. And I was like, we only got what, three weeks, two weeks? How much leave did we get? I think it was two weeks at the time. So for me, I'm like, I've got two weeks, which is really just 10 days. Yeah. Which as an entrepreneur now, it's mind-boggling to think that people only take 10 days off a year. Yeah, if that.

When they have two weeks. Yeah. It's mind-boggling. Because we will take, I mean, we'll take weeks off. We've taken months off of work to just go do. whatever we want to do and let the system grind. Yeah. What?

We used to, but. I think it's interesting that you say that too, though, because one of the things I loved about working at the CIA was that at 5 o'clock or 430 whenever I got off of work, I had to leave it there. Everything ended. Everything ended. You can't take your classified systems home. You can't take your documents home.

You can't do more research at home. Exactly. So I had, you know, my eight and a half hour window where I was on it. Yeah. And then maybe outside of work, I would think about things. But I couldn't, you know, there was no checking my phone for emails. There was no doing extra work because once I left the building, once I wasn't in a skiff anymore, there was no work to be done.

And so I could really go home and just relax. Yeah. And when I say we took months off. Yeah. What that really means is, yeah, like I would answer messages here and there and I would even do a webinar here and there. I was invited to do a podcast interview, right? Yeah. But I wasn't doing the clock in at nine, clock out at five with a supervisor on you and you're trying to figure out lunch and like, and you have to schedule. It's always a pain to schedule car maintenance and it's always a pain to schedule medical appointments and it's always a pain when you're afraid someone's going to call because your kids are sick at school. Our life is not that. But you are right. Even on weekends. I mean, there's really no day where I'm not doing something to move the business forward. Right. And it does. It drives you crazy.

Yeah, and I think you like it. I think you thrive on always being engaged and being involved. But for me, I, you know, I was a social worker before I joined the CIA. And I intentionally, when I was in college getting my master's degree, I intentionally chose an administrative versus a clinical track. Because I knew from experience that if I did clinical and I was seeing, you know, patients or clients on a day-to-day basis, I would take that home. And I would worry about them. And I would be thinking. about it all the time where the administrative aspect of it was easier for me to leave at the office and go home. And then when I come in, I think about, you know, the next administrative thing I have to do. So going, becoming an entrepreneur with you has been a really challenging, a really challenging shift for me because I've always protected myself from burnout. I know that for me having a certain level of control over my time and like a delineation between this is work time, this is personal time, right? This is when I'm completely focused, you know, head down in my work, but this is when I get to completely veg and think about nothing. That's been really interrupted by being an entrepreneur

because you can be pinged at any time, right? At any time you have an idea, you want to write it down or follow it up or, you know, our conversation. Because ideas are money. Yes, because ideas are money. Yeah. Ideas are opportunity. Right. If you leave work at five, you know, if you leave work at five o'clock and you're an entrepreneur.

Yeah. You're not really leaving. You're not really leaving. You're really just going into a different environment to see what ideas come up. Or you're leaving money on the table because you're completely step there. That's how it feels, right? Like if I completely step away, then who's doing the work? Yeah.

Because it's my business. Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you use the word burnout. So you use two words. I thought that were really interesting. in the last few minutes. You used burnout and then stress. Yeah. And everybody knows there's a correlation between stress and burnout.

But you're exactly right that people don't understand that stress is not the same thing as a stressor. So for you, I mean, you picked your entire career path, even in college, around the idea of knowing that if you took, if you built an intimate relationship with your career, you would take it home with you, and that would be a stressor. that would cause stress and lead to burnout. Yes. For me, if I'm not intimately connected with my career, I'm not interested in it.

Like, I want to be, I want it to come home with me. I want it to be the thing that's always kind of ruminating in the background. And that means that it's not a stressor. So it doesn't cause stress, right? The fact that it's always back there grinding, new ideas for everyday spy, new content ideas, new strategic partnerships, new operations, like, I got a call the other day from peers at FBI who are still active at FBI. That's the kind of stuff that just, it lights me up.

It's the opposite of stress. Right. But I'm still susceptible to burnout. Right. You're exactly right. But because burnout comes when your resources are overspent. Yeah. And you now are without resources to do the things that energize you or to end to do

with the things that stress you out. When you can't do anything, you suffer for. from this cognitive overload that is commonly known as burnout. Right. And so burnout is really when, you know, I think this is where we differ as well, right? So burnout comes when you feel like there's so much to do and that it will never get done. So that stress and anxiety about all my to-do list will never get done. That stress and anxiety overload your nervous system over time and you physically and mentally burn out.

but, you know, to your point where you're, like, you love the work, you're energized by it, you know, it still causes cortisol. Right. But it's different because, you know, we've taken the test where, you know, it tests like your follow-through level and things like that. And we've come to know that I have a very high follow-through level. So for me, it causes a lot of stress and anxiety when I can't complete something, when I feel like I have a project or a task that can't complete. But yours isn't that way. And I think it's because you are more conceptual than I am. So for you, your ideas float around and what gets done gets done and you don't worry about it for the next day.

So for you, at the end of the day, you're satisfied with what's been done, right? You're satisfied with the progress you made. You've been like, oh, I did all this work today and maybe stuff didn't get finished, but it's not a big deal to you. For me, at the end of the day, if I haven't finished something, I am super stressed about when am I going to do this? Yeah, I feel like, I feel like there's. an awesome spy lesson here because CIA taught us this about ourselves and it taught us this about other people as well that what we're really talking about is a biological release of hormones in your system through your brain yeah and the stress hormone is cortisol and the closure hormone

the satisfaction hormone is dopamine so it's this constant balancing act or this constant drop of cortisol drops into your system or dopamine drops into your system. When cortisol drops into your system, everything feels nasty. Your stomach, you've got the acid that builds up in your stomach and you've got the tension in your shoulders and you've got the tired feeling and you've got that, you know, you want to pull your hair out. That's the stress hormone. That's cortisol. As cortisol goes up, it drowns out and takes over those dopamine receptors so you can't even feel good, which is why like women who are planning their weddings, especially, they're, they've got got both things going on. They feel, they want to feel good. They're getting married. They've got the

perfect flowers, the perfect dress, the family's all going to be together. So they've got dopamine drops, but the receptors are being filled by the cortisol. Yeah. So they don't feel good. They just feel stressed. Yeah. Right. And I feel, I always feel bad for those brides where on their honeymoon, they realize that they barely remember their wedding because they just didn't have that. they didn't have the ability to enjoy the moment, so they enjoy it through pictures, which is what makes videographers and photographers such a worthwhile investment for so many brides. CIA taught us that what you really have to do is you have to give your body space to absorb the cortisol, to leave openings for the dopamine because the dopamine is what keeps you going.

And two of the big techniques they taught us there were breathing techniques and meditation techniques. Yeah, and I think those are important because the breathing techniques and the meditation techniques are small enough techniques that you can implement them on a day-to-day basis. Moment to moment. Right, moment to moment, which is important because a lot of people will let themselves burn out and then be like, you know what, I'm done, I'm burnt out, I'm going to take a vacation. And then on their vacation, one of two things happen. They either have, you know, like they completely just drop off the face of the world and then their immune system. them that has been overworked, you know, and they get sick and then they just lay on the couch

and it's not, you know, their dopamine levels aren't really being, you know, heightened. They're just slumped there on the couch. Or you have the people who go on the vacation and then fill their vacation with stuff to do. That is, and they're not any less stressed out than they were before when they were working. Because it's still about cortisol and dopamine. It's still about adding more cortisol. But now your cortisol is we've got to get the kids up at 6 a.m. and we've got to get them to the check-in counter at 8 a.m.

And we've got to get on this ride first and this ride second and this ride third. And what are we going to do for lunch? And we've got to pack lunch. All that cortisol hides the dopamine. Or like you were saying with the person who just sits on the couch and veg is out. Yeah. There's no cortisol, but there's also no dopamine. Right.

So the receptors just go empty. And the immune system ends up paying the penalty. Yeah. And I find that happening to myself too where, you know, I'll be like, oh, I have a week off. I'm going to do all the things for myself that I've been meaning to do, you know? And I know that what I really need to do is it take the whole week with zero planned. Because for me, it takes three full days. We've seen it on our own vacation.

I take about three full days to calm down. To come down, yeah. To come down, right? So if you can implement these practices that we're talking about, right? And we should go on to them further, obviously, you know, on a more regular basis, it'll keep you from being so overloaded when you do take that time for yourself because you should still take the time for yourself but along the way you're you know you're keeping your cortisol levels down yeah right so you're right just to it's not something i think that we can go into the details of how to

execute each of these meditation and breathing techniques but it is something that anybody can find on the internet and it's something you have a couple blogs on it yeah we've written blogs about it we've had podcast episodes in the past about it there's lots of great stuff out there but essentially at its base level The two things CIA taught us were get air and get quiet. Those two concepts are immensely valuable for this conversation, right? Get air or get quiet. Get air really just means take a few deep breaths. At a bare minimum, take a few deep breaths, right?

Deep inhales, deep exhales. But then on top of that, they've got other techniques. The box breathing technique is a great technique. they've got back pressure breathing, which is another great technique. Even techniques where you hold your breath, right, and do breath holds to further kind of like force your body to optimize the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream, even if it means building up the CO2 levels so that you purge those CO2 levels. But either way, the idea is oxygenate the blood to make the blood process through the hormones

faster, either cortisol or dopamine, but power the blood by increasing the blood. by increasing the richness of the oxygen, the VO2 in the system. That's what Get Air is all about. And what happens is people don't breathe. People breathe, but they don't breathe right. Yeah, they're not intentionally. They're not thinking about their breath. They don't realize that their breath is actually really shallow

because they're not paying attention to it. Right. There's upper breathing and lower breathing. And unfortunately, we're all taught as we become adults, upper breathing. Which is the breathing that makes your chest move. When the breathing that really benefits your body physiologically is belly breathing. Yes.

Breathing that makes your belly move. And again, there's tons of stuff online that people can find about this. We have downloadable books. We have all sorts of stuff where people can find these resources. But you're right. That breathing, that get air is so, so important. But get quiet is the one that surprised me. And I'll be honest, when I first went to CIA, I've heard everybody talk about meditation.

Yeah. Everybody talks about, you know, your chi and your whatever and your chakras and your, who knows what, right? And I was always like, that sounds like a bunch of baloney. And I've tried to do the whole meditation thing and my mind just doesn't shut down. So I always kind of ruled out meditation. And I was shocked when CIA taught us it wasn't about meditation. It was about literally quiet, which is the act of desensitizing your sensory inputs. Just go to a place where you're not inundated with visual distractions, auditory distractions, tactile distractions, smell-based distractions, taste-based distractions.

Go to a place that's quiet. And essentially, your body does the rest from there. Yeah, and I think in this day and age, that's so important because people always have their phone on them. And I don't know how often people realize that, you know, your phone is constantly distracting you with all its little pings and whatever's. So just, you know, put it on silent. I mean, my closet is my place.

It's the only quiet place in the house. It's such a weird place, my love. It is so weird to me that you go into your closet to run away. And the kids know. Could the kids do it now? Yeah. Yeah. You go to your closet to cry.

You go to your closet to hide. You go to your closet to recharge. They do the exact same thing now. It's like my little sensory deprivation chamber where, you know, I can get quiet and just let everything calm down, right? I can be in there and I do the silence first. And then once I've calmed a little bit from the silence, I do the breathing next, right?

And we're teaching the kids to do the same thing and it works. It totally works. And that's why when I say it's weird, I don't mean I disapprove of it. I mean it's like nothing I was ever taught. It's amazing to me when our six-year-old daughter does the same thing.

I mean, I'm 43 years old and I still don't go hide out in the closet. But I realize that there's so much value there. You talked about your phone, right? Let's think about all the senses that your phone is programmed to trigger in you. Yeah. Right? It vibrates. Yes.

Tactile. Yeah. It pings auditory. Yeah. And then, of course, you can look at it and it's visual. Yeah. Right? That's three out of your five senses.

Mm-hmm. So you're exactly right. If you want to get quiet, you have to. get away from the phone. Yeah. And it's just a few minutes. You can't put it on vibrate. Yeah. It still vibrates. Yeah. And I think, you know, we're not, you know, we're not saying you have to every day for 30 minutes to do meditation. You know, it's just a few minutes on a daily basis really makes such a big difference. And I think, you know, at the agency, when you're in the field, one of the reasons they teach us these techniques is because you're, when you're in the field,

as a case officer, you are making your own decisions, right? Like you don't have a lifeline to anybody else, right? You've gotten some guidance before you went out. But once you're out there, you're on your own and you have to be able to make good decisions. And it's not just case officers. It's any operator. Operational analysts, operational targeters, operational technical officers, right? Operational linguists all of us are taught that when you're in the field,

things move at the pace of the operation. Yes. So if you need a break, you can't wait for the next break in the op. You have to make the break. Yeah. And you only have a couple of minutes for that break anyways. So if you get used to these techniques, right, you're used to implementing them. You can go take that break.

Just go to the bathroom, you know? It's not about having yourself on a rigid schedule. Right. It's about understanding this is a moment where stuff is building up. Yep. Like I feel my body physiologically. it's suboptimal right now. Yeah.

So I need two minutes. Yep. And you leave everything behind and you go to your quiet place. You take your breath, just like you said, and you can feel the difference. Yeah. It doesn't take 30 minutes of meditation. It doesn't take a yogi. It doesn't take a fancy pose.

It is literally breathing in a place where your five senses are not being assaulted in some way. Right. Yep. And some of those ops can take, you know, it's not. just, you know, something is, you know, happening really fast right now. Some of those ops are, you know, days long or weeks long, right? So it's really important to make sure that, you know, you're keeping yourself from burning out because, you know, in their case or, you know, even in, you know, the case of, you know, military personnel in a war zone, like, you can't afford

to burn out, right? Like, you burning out is bad for everybody. It's bad for national security. It's bad for you personally. I mean. So as we, going back to where we started this conversation, when I saw our schedule change, because we had, I mean, it was supposed to be two quarters of like slow, steady progress. I know. And then instead it was like we had partners come in, new strategic partnerships get made and folks are like, we've got this incredible opportunity for you to grow by serving directly to businesses and for you to apply spy concepts to CEOs and C-suite officers. And we see it. and it's crystal clear and now I've got audiences, multiple audiences with multiple CEOs coming up over the next two weeks.

So as soon as we saw that kind of take off, not to mention the fact that the History Channel then came in and added season two of our Beyond Skinwalker show, they've given us the schedule for that, which is not as scary as the first schedule, but it's at the same time. Yeah. So it's like somehow I'm going to be like on a plane to go meet with CEOs and then on a plane to go do the next bit of research for Beyond Skinwalker, and then it's going to be like these footsteps, and I get to come home in between most of the time. Well, we already had plans in place.

When we already had time. So now, I just actually ordered some whiteout from Amazon for my calendar, because I'm like, I have to white out all this stuff. That's what you get for using a physical calendar. I know. I have it's like one of three calendars. Take some responsibility. See why I bought you an eraseable whiteboard calendar.

So you wouldn't need to order whiteout. I know the physical one's really for the kids, so they can know too because our son's just like I am, right? He wants to know. So we want to prepare them like, okay, dad's going to be gone for two weeks. Like, you know, let's make sure we spend time with him before we go and time with him when we come back and like this is what you can expect. And, you know, all of those stressors too. So then when we saw that shift in the schedule, one of the first things that you did was absolutely lock in this upcoming trip that we had planned for Colorado. Yes.

And you lock that in because in my experience, living and working with you, you were basically like, don't touch this, Andy. Because we need this. Yeah. If we're going to make it through this. Yeah. I was like, I see now the rest of the year has been hijacked. So this stays. Like, you can't miss this one.

Yeah. So we'll be taking a two-week trip as a family to Colorado. Yeah. I'm so excited. And part of that is because part of that is because we're looking at. moving to Colorado and taking the whole business to Colorado in 2024. And then another part of that is because I've been promising all of you a chance to live somewhere that you choose.

Because since our son was what, I mean, his entire life, all 10 years of his life, he has gone where I have told him to go. And the poor kid, I mean, he's lived in all the hottest parts of the United States, some of the hottest parts of the world. Yeah. Like he learned how to speak Arabic in the desert. in the Middle East as we've been building this business. And the kid just wants snow.

And all he wants is snow. He just wants to live in a cold place. So we're excited for this trip because it's always been a plan to scout out exactly where in Colorado, to visit some of my friends in Colorado, to revisit the Air Force Academy where I went to school, which I know you've got fonder memories of that school than I do because it's beautiful from a distance. I had a very nice tour of school. I had a miserable four years at the school. But not only that, but we realize that that's a chance for us to decompress because the two weeks leading

up to that are going to be very, very compressing. Yeah. And then coming out of that trip, we start the next big phase of growth. Yeah. And I'm super excited because that is the home of Space Force and now officially the home of space force, which I thought was really interesting when I was reading the back and, you know, I was reading about the back and forth of how it was chosen as the command center, how, you know, originally when the space force was created in like August of 2019, you know, it was in

Colorado. They already had space missions there. And, you know, the Air Force Academy is there. And so it just made sense for them to start there. But at the end of Trump's presidency, he wanted it moved, moved the headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama, which I also. Rocket City, Rocket City, USA. Total geek about Huntsville, Alabama, too.

So it was really interesting learning recently about the kind of the back and forth between, you know, should they move it, should they not? Because once Trump, you know, said the idea of let's move it to Huntsville, it triggered all these studies to be done, right? You know, what's the best city for the headquarters to actually be in? And the government accountability office actually landed on the fact that Huntsville would be the better city for it to be in. But Biden decided to keep it in Colorado because he didn't want to disrupt military readiness. Because over the next decade, the DoD has this assessment that over the next decade, we are in this race with China over space capabilities, space military capabilities. A study was done last summer in August 2022 where the DOD said by 2045,

if everything stays on the same trajectory by 2045, China could outpace U.S. in its space military capabilities. So this idea of... Can I just say how crazy that is? Yeah. How crazy is it that in 1960-something, our space capabilities put a man on the moon? And in 1960-something, I don't think China was even... I don't think they had propane lines or ground-based telecommunications at all.

I think they were still recovering from their own revolution. Yeah. Right? They may have been burning books when we were putting... a man on the moon. And somehow now we're at a place where we're very realistically at risk of falling behind them in the space race. Yes. So China already has the largest Navy in the world. There's a question whether there are capabilities in the sophistication is on par with ours, but they've already outgrown our Navy. Yeah. In terms of ships and personnel. Yes. Yeah, in terms of

size. So there's all this debate on what does that mean, right, if we were actually getting into conflict. So space is this next frontier where what does that mean? Right now the U.S. is ahead. But by 2045, what does that look like? So there's a couple of things I want to unpack here, right? So first of all, you said that you are excited for the Space Force. I love it. I love their little emblem.

If I were younger, I would have joined. I can't even find words. I can't even find words to talk to you right now. So I went, I was an Air Force officer when there was no space force. And this makes me wonder a little bit if this is what Army officers felt like when the Air Force was split from the Army because it was the Army Air Corps for a long time. Yeah. But I know when the Space Force was created, immediately my eyes rolled into the back of my head.

And I was like, come on, guys. Come on. It's ridiculous. First of all, we are part of a treaty that says we can't weaponize space. So how are we going to create a space force if we can't apply force? In space. So either way. And then when all of the freaking emblems came out and the mascots came out and the

and the uniforms came out and I was like, what is this frumpy Star Trek wannabe? Like how in the hell did somebody approve? Not just one person. It must have taken like 15 people to say yes to all of those decisions. What were they thinking? So many Star Trek fans. I'm on board. And I'm a Star Trek fan too.

I am, dude, you and I. Maybe you're not as nerdy as I. I am most definitely not as nerdy as you. But we are both Star Trek fans and I am also a U.S. military fan. So it's hard for me to see the one in the other because the one is a fictional like utopian society. And the other place is real life. But how much science fiction has turned into real life? Well, when utopia becomes one of those things, I'll have a different opinion.

All right. But right now it's more like it's Charlie's Angels digital. phone calls and, you know, walking robots and AI. None of that shit ever turned out. Good. You know what I'm saying? So all the Space Force stuff aside, you're telling me that the government accountability office, who we've had friends work there, right?

Yeah. Their job is to independently verify and hold accountable the government to making the best decisions in the interest of the American people. Right. The government accountability office said that Space Force headquarters should be moved to Huntsville, Alabama. Yeah, Huntsville scored higher. President Trump said that Space Force Command should be moved to Huntsville, Alabama. And yet somehow the current administration is not moving it there?

So the current administration and the head of Space Force Command, General James Dickinson, wanted Space Force to remain in Colorado. And the reason they're giving is military readiness because they said it will take at least until 2030 to get a new headquarters stood up in Huntsville. And all of that transition is going to interrupt military readiness during a decade when it's really important for us to not just be ready, but to be actively working against the Chinese threat in space.

is what drives me crazy because we have an entire organization answering this question, right? GAO is doing studies, research, analytics. They have multiple people on a team coming to an independent conclusion. What does the Space Force commander have? Like him and a couple of buddies who all sit around and were like, this is really going to impact military readiness. Like, how in the world does he come up with his hardened, like factual evidence to push back against an entire government organization like the GAO? GAO is bigger than a single DOD entity. Not to mention the fact that the entire life history of Space Force goes back to 2019.

Yeah. So they're four years old. Right. The government accountability office, I'm pretty sure it's older than four years old. I don't know when they were founded. Right. So I think there's a number of facts. factors here. So one is it's possible that the GAO was looking just at where would it be the most

advantageous to have it and wasn't considering the transition process and the impact that would have. Fair. Right? So it's possible that the GAO study wasn't considering that factor but the general is. So I think the second is that Alabama's already home to the Army space and missile defense. And because it makes sense to obviously be there. obviously be there. They have, Huntsville has a long history of, you know, working with missiles for the space program. So there's already something there, right? And the third factor is political.

Of course. And so Alabama has very restrictive abortion laws. And the Department of Defense has its own policy that applies to its service members. And because active duty military members don't have a choice in where they live. Right. And so when you're assigned to a base, you're on that, that base and there's a set of rules I mean that's why there's military police there's you know the JAG Corps military lawyers yep it all applies specifically to active-d military personnel and so the DOD has a policy where it will pay for its service members to go out of state for reproductive health issues to include a portion and that contradicts you know Alabama's political morals or however you want to name it and so

the Republican senator to Alabama his name is Senator Tommy Tuberville, on that issue, has already been protesting by preventing the promotion of hundreds of military personnel. And so, you know, the Senator Tuberville is basically arguing that the decision to keep Space Force in Colorado is in retaliation for, you know, his protest of the DoD in Alabama. So because this is really interesting. The question about where to put Space Force is a question that really should be based on long-term strategic benefit to the United States, knowing that space is going to be this evolving region of conflict. And yet the decision of whether it goes to Colorado or stays in Colorado, whether it goes to Alabama, has become a political question.

Right. And at the heart of that political question is this question of reprovalued. reproductive rights, which is really interesting, considering that the DOD is largely an entity that's backed by conservatives. Conservatives, by and large, want to protect the sanctity of human life. Right. And yet the DOD has a policy that makes it so that any service member anywhere can go out of state from where they're stationed in order to receive an abortion, if that's what they choose, if that's part of their reproductive health. So if they were to be stationed in Alabama,

state law prevents them from having an abortion, but because they're service members, they have the right to leave the state to get their reproductive health services satisfied. So essentially, Alabama doesn't want to be left out of the opportunity to bring a military base, which makes sense. I mean, a military base is a huge benefit to the economy.

But right now, it's a political issue because Alabama is not being chosen, according to the Biden administration, even though it was chosen by the Trump administration, administration, specifically because of its ties to conservative state law and the difference between the state laws on reproductive health and the DOD laws on reproductive health. Yeah, I mean, it's very possible that it's a combination of all things, right? You know, it could be military readiness.

It could be the political issue, right? And the DOD, you know, the military has an interest, in the same vein of military readiness, has an interest in not having unplanned pregnancies. It's true. Among their service members, right? The military is, it's in the best interest of the military to keep its single service members single and unattached and with no dependencies.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I, it is interesting and I would love to know more about, you know, what went into, I will have to see a study about military readiness, right? about what does that actually look like? Like how would it actually, the transition actually affect, you know, your ability? And maybe you know more than I do about when bases get moved and command centers get moved. Maybe you're able to speak to that better than I am about, you know, what does interrupt military readiness? Everything I've ever seen in my military and even our government career, it's all based on long-term financial dependencies, right?

Like even when you think about how CIA created two buildings, there's an original headquarters and a new headquarters, right? And they're both in the same physical location, but they're two separate buildings. And then there's outbuildings all over the place. And the same thing has happened in many different ways. I mean, hell, CIA, I think, is considering whether or not to even stay in Langley or whether to move further into Virginia. And other entities, other government organizations throughout the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area are all considering the same thing. in part because of the threat that's posed to them by being centered in one geographic location. But second, because of growth.

Because as population comes in, property gets more expensive. The cost of living adjustment for everybody who works there has to be adjusted. That costs more money when you can just move them, right? Look at Quantico in Virginia as the headquarters of FBI's training grounds. That's a much cheaper location than Langley, Virginia or McLean, Virginia or Washington, D.C., right? So there's all these challenges there, and usually it's a financial decision, which I think is what gets me so curious about this decision not to move them to Huntsville. And that's why I'm so suspicious of the political ramifications here, because you've got two

different presidents, giving their own independent opinions, and then you've got the head of Space Force, who is, of course, reporting to the current commander-in-chief, which is Biden. but then you have this independent entity called GAO, also responding, like reporting to Biden, but coming up with a completely different answer. And whether or not, it seems silly that they wouldn't bake in readiness. It seems like they would have consulted with Space Force. They would have had the experience to know that whenever you're going to do anything like that, you've got to consult.

So it's just, that's regardless, I think what's interesting to me is that we are very much at risk of the Chinese outpacing us. and we're in a what it's a rock in a hard place where we are right now. If we keep it in Colorado, we end up making Colorado a concentration of all space activity. That's fair. And we delay our move from ever happening. Because if we are ahead in 2045 or 2043 or whatever the date was, if we are ahead by then, what are we going to stop then and move headquarters? Yeah.

It's never going to happen. Yeah. So we end up falling behind. the perpetual curve, right? Always being on the backside of the wave if we don't move now. If we do move now, we run a risk of not having the ROI after the move. It just seems ridiculous to me that in the best military in the world, we can't do two things at once.

We can't maintain operational readiness and also facilitate the relocation of just one entity, Space Command Headquarters. All the other Space Command bases are still operating. It's just headquarters. but they can't work out of an outbuilding. They can't work in Colorado while everything's being built in Huntsville and then shut down on Friday one weekend

and turn everything on on Monday the next weekend. So I will admit I have a cognitive bias here. So I'm just going to admit that right now that I don't want to believe that it's a political decision because that makes me disappointed. So I will say that I lean towards like, of course it's because of readiness because I have my own bias

that I don't want to believe it's based on political. motives. I have my bias. Because I think everything you're saying is sounds right. I think everything you're saying sounds very valid. Well, thank you very much. It's always nice to be validated by your wife, especially when your wife is intelligent like you are.

Makes me feel good. I think it's also important to kind of recognize, you know, as somebody's making a counterpoint to something you believe in, and then you recognize that, like, oh, you know, I am feeling the way that I'm feeling, right? I'm making my argument because I don't want to believe otherwise, right? that's important too. Yeah, no, that's fair. And I will be the first to say that I'm carrying my own biases too,

because I've been too long inside government, too long inside DOD. And it's just, it's a slow moving ship. And those are folks that just, ooh, they don't do what's right because it's right. They do what they have to do to get to the next, like, 10-yard line. Yeah. And that's pretty much it, right?

But so I love this conversation about burnout. I love this deep dive into our geek fest. about Star Trek? Because really, we're not talking about, we're not talking about Space Force. You're not talking about Star Trek. But now, but I am curious, what is the question that we chose for today? What's the question from our Spy Tribe that we're answering today? Yeah, so I thought, you know, in kind of the line of what we were talking about today, somebody wrote in the comments and asked the question of, you know, what are some brain training? They said, what are some brain training tips for simpletons. But I think, I don't, I mean, if you're a simpleton, I'm a simpleton, right?

We're all the same. Yeah, we're all the same. So I think we can just, you know, trains like that as what are some simple brain training techniques, right? That's a way of saying. That's a way nice way of saying. So simple brain training techniques. Wow, there's actually there's quite a lot of them. So have you thought of an answer? Have you thought of something you want to touch on? No. So the first one that jumps to my mind is memory. Honestly, memory is one of the first things that jumps to my mind. Language was one of the first things that came to my mind. But I thought, oh, you know, night of everybody's interested in the language.

So I thought I'd see what you said. So I'm going to give a technique for memory. You give a technique for language. And what's fascinating is how closely tied to two of them are. So the biggest hack that CIA gave me for memory was understanding short-term memory and long-term memory. And understanding that short-term memory really is short. It's like seven to 15 seconds and that's it. Yeah.

So if you want to intentionally pull something from short-term memory, someone's name, someone's phone number, you know, some detail, if you want to intentionally remember that detail, you need to take very systematic steps to move it from short-term memory, seven to 17, seven to 15 seconds, into long-term memory. And the way that you do that is through basic repetition. Yeah. Not necessarily just verbal repetition, but even the mental activity of repeating something to yourself mentally inside that 15-second window. Yeah. So when you meet someone new and you're like, hi, I'm Andy and they say, hi, I'm Bill. Up until CIA, I always forgot people's names. Oh, yeah.

Because I was like, oh, Bill, nice to meet you. And then I never think about Bill again. I'm more interested in what Bill's talking about. Well, now I know I've got to remind myself of Bill's name. So in my head, I have to tell myself, I'm listening to Bill talk right now. This guy talking is Bill. Bill likes to eat at Carl's Jr. Bill has two daughters.

And I speak out. I try to practice saying his name. Bill, let me ask you a question, right? Bill, let me follow up. Bill, you made a really good point right there. Because every time I say his name, I'm working it into my long-term memory. So I mentioned this example probably about 45 seconds ago. And about right now, everybody listening still remembers the name.

Bill. Because it's worked its way into our long-term memory. And that was so powerful to me when CIA taught me that. Yeah. And it flows right into language learning. because I've been learning language since I was a child, right? And now we have our own children who also learn language. And when I was a child, I never thought about it.

I spoke English, Spanish, and Japanese. And then I went to school, and in school, I studied Spanish formally. And when you study a language formally, there's a lot of bookwork and grammar and maybe you practice speaking, but it's a lot of writing and reading. And so for me, language learning, official language learning in the beginning was all academic. Sure. Because it's easy for me to read. It's easy for me to write and recall.

And, you know, when I see it on the paper, that's easy. But speaking was always the hardest part for me. And speaking is arguably the most important part when you're first learning a language. And so the same concept of getting the words, getting the new vocabulary words into your memory, it all has to do with usage, right? You need to hear yourself using the words in context as much as possible. So you walk around the house talking to yourself, right? You pick one thing, learn five words a day, and, you know, learn words for things in the kitchen. And then you walk around your kitchen and just repeating it over and over again for like 15 minutes, right? Every day you build and build and build on these conversational skills. Because there's an element of muscle memory that you also have to train in. Yes. Your mouth has to get used to form. the new words because every language uses the muscles in their face differently, which is so fascinating. Which is why it is that you can read something and understand it or hear something and understand it and you just can't get the words out of your mouth because your tongue and your lips and your teeth

and your jaw are not trained yet to work together. Right. So I have, you learned Chinese early on. Yeah. But when I started trying to learn Chinese when we were at the agency, it was so difficult because the tones are so different in my ear. It wasn't quite pitched to it yet. And it takes time of listening and speaking, right? The same thing happens to me with French because there are guttural sounds and there are nasal sounds and I'm not used to making those sounds in English. And so just like you said, the practice in getting your face to make those noises over and over again. Well, we both learned Thai as well. And I remember that when we were learning Thai, I had a much easier time with it because it is also a tonal language.

Correct. And I could pull from my knowledge and my experience with Chinese. But even then, I studied Chinese academically for two and a half years. And I could draw the tones and I knew what the tones were supposed to be, but I could never recreate them naturally until I actually went to China. And after six weeks living and working and going to school in China, where you're immersed in the tonal usage, that was really when it clicked for me. And that's when I stopped being self-conscious, because that's what it really was.

For me, the term that I put on language learning, whether it's right or wrong, is self-conscious. I felt self-conscious making some sing-songy sound that I didn't know if it was right or wrong. And I didn't want to be wrong. So I would just not make the sound at all when I spoke, right? And I feel like that's what happens with so many of us is we become self-conscious. What if I say it wrong? What if my grammar's wrong? What if somebody laughs at me?

What if I use the wrong word? What if I try to say bean? And instead I say but, right? People get worried about that, so then they don't even try. And that was for sure my experience with Chinese. And having been forced to use my Chinese in China, it's why when I had to use my Thai in Thailand, I really didn't care how many times I said,

but when I asked for beans. You did get laughed at quite a lot. Quite a lot. But they are a, that's a whole culture where they basically take every negative, emotion and they portray it as laughter. So you never really know whether they're actually having fun or if they're sad or if they're mad or if they're furious because they all just laugh. And that's a very Buddhist way of handling confrontation. I think they mostly thought it was cute because you

were trying. Yeah. So I think the big, you know, the big brain tip for both of those, right, are, you know, repetition to get them in your memory. Yep. And it's not rote memorization. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about repetition. Just simple repetition to transition information from short-term memory to long-term memory, and then especially with language, to then build the muscle memory that complements the long-term memory. Right. And it's not over the course of like I spent an hour repeating something. It's small chunks throughout the day. Yep. Right? Throughout the day, throughout the week. Yep. Just make that transition and then integrate it into your index, your codex of your memory.

Absolutely. Awesome question. Nice choice. And to whoever thought they were, whoever thought they were a simpleton, that was a very awesome question. It was a great question. Yeah. They're undercutting themselves the actual term that I would use for them.

Yeah. Thank you very much for joining us again. Hope you had a great time. This was a great conversation, as always, for me, and I hope it was fun for you. Always. That's a big score. You guys know exactly what I'm talking about when your spouse says they have fun with you. And this has become kind of a really quality time for us to sit with you.

And, you know, I feel like sometimes we should be thanking you more than you're thanking us. But regardless, leave your comments, leave your thoughts, leave it all in the comments area below. We want to hear what you want to talk about. We want to hear what you enjoy. You want to hear what you want us to bring up next time. And, of course, if you have a question for us, drop it in the comments so that we can come back, scour those comments, find your questions, and then bring them back to the live conversations that we're having whenever we have them. Also, take a moment to make sure you browse through the links below. If you want to find your way to any of our resources, we were talking about meditation resources,

breathing resources, memory resources, all of that can be found in our homepage. And if you click on our spy quiz below, that's a perfect place to start to learn more about yourself and how you are built with your own innate spy skills and secret spy powers. So take a chance or take a few minutes. Click on the link below. Take your spy quiz, jump into our material, and I'm really excited to see where you go next with your training in spy skills along with us. Thanks, folks, and we'll see you next time.