EverydaySpy Podcast - CIA Hack to Win At Anything (Erase 48,000 Negative Thoughts)

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

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So you work with people, high performers, athletes, entrepreneurs. What are some of like the tenets of things that you like really use to help guide people to their own optimal performance? You know, because I've, obviously, I haven't had a lot of training, but I understand basics of psychology. And I also understand through my own experience being a competitive athlete. Like, I know when I get super hard on myself after I miss a shot or do something like that my performance goes down. So you learn like one, you know, don't ever show your opponent that

you're doing that because that gives them extra juice, right? So they're fired up and also it doesn't help your own. So you learn certain things like, all right, you can't, I can't do this. You know, I can't, like I can't allow myself to do this unless I want my performance to suffer. But for you, who's had not only experience, but also training, like where do you, where do you start in helping someone's mental architecture. So there's the marketing answer and then there's the real answer, right? I'll start with the real answer

because you'll understand the marketing answer right away. The real answer is that I start the moment that I meet them because what they say, how they say it, how they communicate, it's all data.

It's all information that helps you understand the person as they really are. The marketing answer is that we start by getting people to recognize that they aren't as bad as they think they are. Right?

And that's the true reality of all high performers. Every high performer thinks that they're a shit show. Every high performer thinks that they're fucked up. Every high performer thinks they're an asshole. Every high performer thinks that they're alone and that they would be happier if they were not a high performer. They all think these horrible things about themselves. It's just the hallmark.

of a of a high ambition person. That's why you have so much ambition because no matter how good, how successful, how accomplished you are, you're not as accomplished as you could have been. Right. Right? So it's that voice of our parents

or our professors in our head all the time. So in between those two is where the real first step happens because how someone talks to you, how they define their own problem statement, whether they prefer to email or text or phone call or video call or meet in person,

all of these are data points that help you understand the person. Are they an introvert? Are they an extrovert? Are they organized? Are they disorganized? Efficient? Are they a people person?

Are they guarded? And then it just evolves from there. But when it comes to the tenants that we try to get people to teach, one of the most important tenants that I try to get anybody to understand, is that we, whether you're a high performer

or a non-performer, we are all wired for survival mentally, behaviorally, biologically. The first most imminent issue facing us is the issue of surviving, not thriving. So when it comes to how we identify and how we prioritize our resources, we're all prioritizing our resources towards survival first, not towards thriving first.

So even if we are risk tolerance, even if we are people who like to be on the leading edge, even if you are a con man and you have the courage to try to keep pushing forward, what's haunting your thoughts is survival. It takes up so many calories. There's been multiple cognitive studies done that show how much negative thought goes through a person's head.

Do you know the number of how many negative thoughts the average person has in a day? No. 48,000 negative thoughts. Whoa. 48,000 negative thoughts in an approximately 65-ish thousand thoughts a day. And of those 48,000 negative thoughts, between 85% and 90% of them are repetitive. Repetitive in the day, repetitive day after day, repetitive hour after hour, minute after minute, right?

I'm not good enough. I need to lose weight. I'm going to forget this. This person doesn't like me. I'm a jerk. Thoughts day after day after day, after day, after day, right? Just constantly playing in our heads. That gets amplified for high performers.

Because now high performers are adding to their list of, of I don't like my beer belly and I'm never going to get a date. Yeah. It's amplified to also, I'm never going to hit that goal. Yeah. That's too ambitious. That's not realistic enough, right? I'm not spending enough time with my kids.

I'm not spending enough time with my spouse. Who knows what, right? I'm getting grayer in my beard. I'm getting grayer in my hair. The amount of negative thoughts is just incredible. Empirically, all the effort that goes into those negative thoughts is actual caloric effort. Yeah, because the brain consumes an enormous amount of energy. I think that the numbers are like 40% of all available energy is utilized by the brain.

So that means the banana you're eating is to fuel those negative thoughts. How fucked up is that, right? Yeah, for sure. So a big part of it is understanding like, hey, your survival is not at risk here. And once you show people like, hey, your survival's not imminently being threatened, right? If you are an athlete and you don't perform for multiple games, for multiple weeks, then your survival might be at risk. But if you have a bad game, if you are called in like the professional footballers, American footballers, you're called in the kids. You're called in to kick the field goal in the final minute.

Yes, you are paid to score the field goal. But if you miss it, that doesn't mean it's the end of your career. Right. Right. You miss it a few times. It's a different story. Right. So it's about getting people to take the energy that they're investing into all the negativity,

the anxiety, the fear, the worry, the self-doubt, the self-criticism. If you can take that same energy and redirect it into something positive or progressive, increasing your risk tolerance is something that we can actually. actually measure, improving your bio-optimization, your heart rate, your lung capacity, your VO2, et cetera, those are all biologics that we can actually measure. When you start to change those things, it transforms your entire outcome. It starts to make it so you're not putting your effort into survival. You're putting your effort into thriving instead. Yeah, this draws me back to that issue of faith as well, because if you know that your success

or failure in this personal avatar is relative and subject to the world and sometimes random chance, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't, sometimes you do your best and it's not good enough and et cetera. But if you actually have a relationship with God where you know like, actually I'm right with God and no matter what happens, like that's the thing that matters the most. You see a lot of people in a deeper state of peace, especially when that religion doesn't have a lot of fear imprinted where it's like, I might just be sinning right now, this thought that I might be sinning right now, this thought that I just had as this woman crossed the street. I'm a sinner now, and I got to go,

there's obviously negativity that can be associated with religion, but a lot of people of faith, they have this kind of mental resiliency that you see because it's like win or lose the game, like as long as your relationship with God is in the right place, you actually feel okay. Let me give you a case study on exactly what you're saying. Do you know what state in the United States

has the most effective, what are they called? Telemarketers. What state in the United States has the most effective telemarketers, telesales teams? No idea. Utah.

The Mormons. And they are Mormon. Now, this case study is so powerful because what is the biggest challenge for most new entrepreneurs and most business owners? Selling. Because even though they believe

in their product, even though they believe that it can deliver the outcome, they still feel slimy making the sale. CIA believes that all people are born with a spy secret superpower. For some people, that means they can win deals for others. They can spot liars. Some can even seduce lovers.

I built a free three-minute test to help reveal to you exactly what your secret hidden superpower is. All you have to do is click on the link in the description below. Take the test and start using your spy superpower to stay ahead of 99% of people. Right. Sales is not an easy skill to just be born with. The idea of having a conversation where you know that the end goal of this conversation is for them to give you money and you have to eventually ask them to give you money, that's a hard thing. And I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs, even seasoned CEOs, still feel guilty about selling. Yeah.

Right. So we always go back to this case study of the Mormons in Utah. Well, what makes them so effective? there is a tenant in the Christian faith where God gives people spiritual gifts and various spiritual gifts have different elements of of human value to them. Some spiritual gifts make you good at caring for people,

some spiritual gifts make you good at connecting with people, et cetera. But the idea is, if you have something that you believe in, something that you believe would make the better, the world a better place, something that you believe would expand the kingdom how could you not do everything in your power to get that product out to as many people as possible? And if you get the product out to those people and they buy it,

how could you possibly feel guilty about it? Sure. Because clearly it's ordained that that person should have that product, just like you have been ordained to be the person who carries forward and proselytizes that product. So that whole concept of it being spiritual in nature is what makes these telemarketing and telesales sales teams in Utah

superpowered because they don't carry any of the guilt. They don't spend any calories feeling bad about what they sell. They don't spend any calories about the person who doesn't give them a chance to sell on the phone, about the person who hangs up on them right away. Because instead, they're focused exclusively on,

well, that person wasn't ordained to have it. That person wasn't ordained to have it. That person wasn't. My job is to find the ordained person out there. And it completely transforms the name of the game for them.