EverydaySpy Podcast - CIA Survival Guide: What Every Man Needs to Do When Violence Starts

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Is there anything that you could distill, you know, that's like, all right, these are the basic principles. If of the four responses, fight is the response that is necessary or the best response or the instinctual response that you have. So it's so interesting what you're bringing up because I understand, and I understand that most people in society probably view it as like, you know, if you're the protector of the house, if you're the, if you're the masculine energy, if you're the man, then you want to put yourself between the threat and whatever you're trying to protect. The actual defensive tactics terminology for that, it's a psychological label that we use. There's three types of instincts.

There's a maternal instinct, and that's generally seen as the instinct to protect your loved ones by putting yourself between the threat and your loved ones. That's a maternal instinct. Then there's an individual instinct. the individual instinct is your instinct to keep yourself safe, whether you have loved ones or not. It's when in the movies, in the comedy movies, when somebody jumps behind their wife, right?

That's your individual instinct. It's trying to keep yourself alive. And then there's something called a paternal instinct. The paternal instinct is not an instinct to stand in front of the threat and protect your loved ones or protect yourself. The paternal instinct is actually to attack the threat. It's the natural instinct that we have to recognize that the threat is not just going to go away, that the best way to combat the threat is with

force to actually attack the threat because that will not only keep your loved ones safe, but it will keep other loved ones safe as well. And when people are born with a paternal instinct, they don't even really think about keeping themselves safe. Or they naturally understand that attacking the threat is how they're going to keep themselves safe. Because if we run right now, If we escape out the back door What's to keep the threat From coming to the back door and still trying to shoot us? What's to keep the threat from chasing us? If we get in our car and drive away

What's to keep the threat from getting in a car and chasing us That paternal instinct understands We have to neutralize the threat When CIA and DOD Did military studies Combat of Studies to see which of these Instincts was better Paternal instinct won out significantly

almost four to one, where when the threat was actively attacked by an individual with a paternal instinct, whether that's a grenade that gets thrown on the ground and somebody throws themselves on the grenade or runs towards a grenade, picks it up and throws it back, or whether it has to do with an actual home invasion when somebody comes into a home and they try to attack the family, they try to steal. And some member of the family, not always the father, sometimes the son, sometimes the daughter, sometimes the dog. When somebody attacks the threat, they neutralize the threat and they not only protect the rest of the family, but they protect the whole neighborhood, right? That paternal instinct is a very powerful instinct. And it's what CIA tries to encourage us all

to develop first. So to go back to that home invasion, if somebody breaks into your home, it doesn't really matter who's sitting on which side of the bed. When somebody wakes up, the question becomes, do we gain, do we increase our distance to increase our time? Or is the threat so close to us that what we need to actually do to increase our distance is to attack the threat because attacking the threat will increase our time, our comparative distance to come up with a response. It's at that point that we start to engage with our hand-to-hand skills, with our defensive tactics. And what CIA teaches is the number one tool for self-defense is something that we call biomechanical advantage. It has nothing to do with strength. It has nothing to do with build.

It doesn't even have to do with whether you've got experience in jiu-jitsu or the martial arts. Biomechanical advantage is the simple act of understanding that the human body is a mechanical creation. Arms only go one way, necks only go one way, and if you put pressure on a joint in the opposite direction, it creates pain, it creates tension, it creates a limitation of movement. So when we are taught how to defend ourselves, we're taught through a lens of biomechanical advantage. It's as a, if I'm to continue kind of with my ramble, the simplest example I can think of is when somebody grabs your hair. Every woman with long hair, one of the secret fears that we don't ever admit, women and men alike, one of the secret fears that we never admit is what if somebody grabs my hair? What if they grab my hair? How do I get out of that? How do I protect myself from that? The reason that

people are so afraid of a hair grab, women specifically are so afraid of a hair grab is because they understand intrinsically that if somebody grabs your hair, they control your neck. Right. The saying is wherever the head goes, the body goes, right? The control over the neck is a very dangerous place. Your air flows through your neck. Blood of your brain flows through your neck. Your nerve endings flow through your neck.

Your spinal column is most easily reached through the neck. If you haven't discovered your natural-born spy skills, then somebody else might be using theirs against you. CIA teaches us that there are only three types of people in the world. who motivates, those who manipulate, and those who are being controlled by one of the other two. I created a three-minute CIA-style quiz to help you unlock your secret psychological advantage and identify your hidden blind spot. This test was developed to help you weaponize your natural-born gifts and use them to get ahead of 99% of people in power, wealth, and purpose. It was also designed

to make sure that you can protect yourself against those who would use their skills against you. All you have to do is click on the first link in the description below or scan the QR code on your screen to start your spy quiz now. I want you to discover your secret spy superpower and use it for good before somebody else uses their power against you. So if somebody grabs your hair, they control your neck. If they control your neck and your head, they can do anything they want with you. They can throw you down. They can break your neck. They can do all sorts of terrible things.

So we're taught that if someone grabs your hair, the first thing you do is you grab the hand that grabbed your hair. and you push that hand against your scalp. What happens is that your head and their hand become one molded device. And now you just regained control of your own head because you're holding their hand on your head. And as they try to move your head, you have more biomechanical advantage to fight back. That change of control creates all sorts of secondary opportunities for now you to hold their hand in place while you wail on their face, wail on their, on their, on their, their sensitive areas, whether it's a groin or whether it's a sternum or whether it's their throat, and you get a chance to fight back against your attacker because you've controlled the head.

Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I'm friends with Tim Kennedy and obviously he's come under some, you know, sharp criticism for not honestly telling the stories of, you know, his own time in service. And, you know, that's an unfortunate thing. I haven't talked to Tim about it specifically. but one thing about what he's been doing, which I really appreciate, is he has this whole program called sheepdog training, where it's about situational awareness, and it's about like preparing yourself.

And it really feels like if we are, if there is a high likelihood, we're heading into a more dangerous situation, we have to train that paternal instinct, we have to train that situational awareness. We have to train, you know, just some basics. Doesn't mean you have to be the highest level operator,

but we all have to raise our base level of proficiency to another level to help not only keep ourselves safe, but to help keep society safe as a whole. Yeah, we created a course called Operational Defense. We created a digital version of it called OpDef Plus, like Disney Plus with the little plus sign, specifically because people have been asking for this type of training. They want to understand what's the fastest, simplest way to train to defend yourself. So we created a digital version of what CIA taught us with our operational defensive tactics. Nice.

And people can find that if they look up Opt-Def Plus. We'll make sure that you get a link so we can put it in the description. And is that all found through everyday spy? All found through everyday spy. And it's our way of trying to fill the gap. Because for many, many people, they have spent years, decades, focused on growing their financial security, but not growing their personal security. And now we're at a place. where our personal security is being threatened in unprecedented ways.

And how do you get yourself to a place where you are sufficiently able to protect yourself and your loved ones? That is what Opt-Dep Plus is for. Yeah. And if you haven't accessed that paternal instinct and something goes down and you hide behind your girlfriend, I can only imagine how uncomfortable that's going to be when you're trying to have sex with your girlfriend later. I don't know, but it just appears to me that that's not going to be the most of rousing of your characteristics, you know.

He's not going to tell that story. And, you know, the girlfriend's going to be like, damn, that's sexy. You know, it's going to really be the opposite. And I think we are guided. I mean, why are we so eager to make money? We're eager to make money so that the goddess loves us so that we're adored by the feminine. And, you know, I'm speaking from a masculine perspective because that's my. own lens and purview i'm not speaking for everybody but for for many men and i would say the majority of

men a lot of this is about the adoration of the feminine okay well money is one vector for sure and you know go for it go build your businesses do your thing you know and also doesn't matter if you got you know a fancy Rolex on or whatever but if you act as a coward in a time where you need to show up as a lion you know like all of that all of that counts for not you know like all of that all of that that you've built it all deteriorates in a in a moment so you know and also i it seems as if everything linked to that paternal instinct has been you know culturally attacked it's all been associated with toxic masculinity or like this kind of instinct to violence when it's not that at all it's actually an instinct for protection protection and protection

provision. And so I think there's an important reclamation of, you know, as you said in the studies in the training, like this instinct, four to one is, is the instinct that's going to actually neutralize the threat. Keep yourself, your family, and society safe. Absolutely. And it's a powerful thing when you see that you have it in you. And that's another element of the way CIA trains. CIA trains by educating us first. And then we go into a process called exercising, where we exercise the thing that we were educated on. And then we go into the third phase of training called experience, where we experience

the exercised skill in a real world environment where we have to fend for ourselves. So it's important because what ends up happening in society is we educate and we don't exercise. We educate and we expect that we're ready for the experience.

And then when the experience presents itself, we oftentimes don't recall what we were educated in because we never exercised it. Right. Right. So as people hear this conversation, I would encourage you to immediately start exercising how you park in the parking lot. Immediately start exercising. Find someone to grab your hair right now. Go to your spouse. Go to your daughter and be like, let's do a real quick exercise. I'm going to grab your hair. I'm just going to pull your head gently. And I want you to see what that feels like. And then I want you to hold my hand on your head and I want to do it again. And it's night and day. When you see these things work, they're unforgettable.

right? When you build a practice of sitting in the right place in a restaurant, when you build the practice of even assessing vectors of attack in a restaurant, where are the windows? I would challenge anybody right now. Think of your favorite restaurant, the place where you eat the most often. Can you picture all four walls? Do you know where the street is in comparison to those four walls? Do you know where the windows are? How elevated are you either above the street or are you are your windows actually at street level? what are the entrances and exits to those restaurants? Here's a hint. Almost every kitchen has its own dedicated exit. So if you count the hidden kitchen exit that you don't know is there, where are the other exits? Think about that, work through that. And what you're going to find is that there are lots of restaurants out there, Chick-fil-A being one that people use all the time.

Two out of four walls are almost always lined with windows. And they are always streetside because the restaurant is built to be easily accessed by vehicles. Yeah. So that's just a simple example of how we want people to think. And as you build up your education and your exercise and your experience, you'll start to experience that you have the skills that you've exercised. And once you see your paternal instinct, it's incredibly comforting to know that it's there. Yeah.

Because if what you see is individual instinct, you can't unforgettable, like you can't unremember the fact that you jumped behind your girlfriend when that piece of glass fell off the truck and you thought it was a gunshot. This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Group. Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why L'Oreal Group has built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of its brands, championing diversity. With 25,000 professional opportunities for people under 30 worldwide

and 54% of leading positions held by women, diversity is a strength that helps L'Oreal Group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit laurel.com to learn more. You know, I have one instance, you know, in my life, I questioned because I'd never gotten in a street fight. I'd never been presented with the situation where the paternal instinct would have. I mean, small little situations where, you know, I saw somebody bullying somebody and I stood up, but it wasn't really scary. You know, so I had this question, like, do I have that in me? You know, like, do I have it in me?

and I was training MMA and I was trying to and I was going to go enter a fight because I, this wasn't happening to me in real life. So I needed to know that about myself. I didn't fully have the same kind of self-respect for myself that I needed. And coincidentally in the middle of kind of training, preparing for an amateur fight, which was hopefully going to teach me that I was capable of doing something in that way, leaving a bar with my fiance at the time, Caitlin. There was four men surrounding the car.

I didn't have the situational awareness to think that that was dangerous. It was like, all right, but they were throwing like pizza toppings on my car. And I didn't have the situational awareness to understand that it was dangerous for my fiancé to go around to the passenger side of the car. And obviously, the gentlemanly thing to do is to, open the car door in the first place, but I failed in that regard. And they got into an exchange. And she was like, you know, don't throw fucking, why are you throwing pizza on my, on my, you know, fiance's car? And he's like, I'll put my meat where I want, bitch. And she's like, don't disrespect my boyfriend. And this is all happening. And I'm on the other side of the car. And he slams her face,

smash, slams her face right into the window. And there was not a, there's not a thought that occurred in my mind. I like flew around the car and I hit that guy as hard as I fucking could. And it was, it was clean. He didn't expect me, I guess, to make it through that fast or whatever. He didn't see it coming. But then there was three other people. Now we were in a fight. And it worked out all right. I mean, my fiancee jumped on one of their backs and he had the sensibility not to throw her off and do something terrible. So I had to fight two people. I got a concussion, but I managed to do all right. And, you know, but ultimately, while that that was intense and like kind of traumatic and happened so fucking fast.

When that was finished, there was a deep peace that I had, like a deep piece that I had like, oh, wow, when there was no shot and there was no, you know, and there was, there was not me thinking about what I would do, what instincts were present. And I got to know that about myself. And that's been something that that rests deep in the foundation of my cycle. like okay and it's like it's you know obviously I don't wish any situation like that to happen it was an incredibly dangerous situation it caused damage and you know she was bleeding I was bleeding I was had a concussion it's a fucking nightmare however you know it was a great gift and it was a great gift

to know and and I and I think you know not all of us are going to get the gift to know how we'll respond but there will be other you know there may be and there may be times it may you've had that and you've you failed that test that's okay forgive yourself you know like remember that and like and actually go through the exercises and the mental preparation say like next time i'm gonna i'm gonna act differently it's such a powerful story man it's such a powerful story and and and the one kind of point that i want to sharpen is less that it's a past fail criteria and more that it's a self-awareness criteria. Just like you became aware of the need for situation awareness and you became aware of the threat as time went on. And then you became aware of your response time when the threat

became acute. Right. Right. Like there's a lot of awareness that gets learned there. And I think that awareness is part of what also drove your sense of peace. I, I am aware that my natural response is maternal. And it's always been a problem for me. It was a problem for me in CIA training. It was a problem for me in military training. And it's, it is my natural response. I have a maternal instinct. Just three months ago, I was at my friend's house with my kids and my dog, my dog just under a year old. And my dog is off-leash trained. So we go to leave the house. I open the door at my friend's house and my dog jumps out. Good dog, staying there waiting for me. A lady's walking her two German shepherds, a tiny lady with these two giant German shepherds, is walking. her two German shepherds on the sidewalk, maybe 25 feet away from the front door of the house.

One of those German shepherds see my dog jump out. That German shepherd takes off. Lady's not strong enough to hold onto the leash. So she loses the leash. The dog comes snarling at my dog. Big teeth, big German shepherd. And my dog is like, what is this threat that's coming out of nowhere? So my dog does a quick turnaround and just tries to run around to stay away from the German shepherd. I move towards my dog. Pull my dog. underneath my legs and stand between my dog and the snarling German Shepherd. 100% the wrong thing to do. Luckily, the German Shepherd could tell the difference between a person and a dog,

and it didn't snap or bite at me. It had snapped and bit my dog's tail, so my dog's tail was bleeding. It had torn part of the skin off the tail, but it wasn't coming after me. And the lady came over and she apologized about her dog and blah, blah, blah. And I just wanted her away. Again, maternal instinct. Just go away. Just take the thread away.

The thing I'm trying to protect is safe. And then I take my dog and do all the stuff that you're supposed to do when you get your dog bit. That was just a few months ago, man. And I'm still reminded that my instinct is maternal. My instinct is to stand between the threat. I didn't grab a fucking rock or a shovel.

I could have grabbed an umbrella. I could have grabbed anything that was right there by the entrance of my friend's house. And I could have wailed the shit out of that German Shepherd. It may not have gone well for me, but that's what a paternal instincts would have done it. It wouldn't have hid my dog between my legs and then stood between like a wall. It would have damaged that dog. I grabbed that dog's leash and rustle it down to the

ground. Who knows what, right? For anybody who's been attacked by a dog, for anybody who's had a dog attack their animal or their child, they know what their response was. And some people fight back against the dog. Fucking, that's all instinct. I actually have to put work into constantly training a paternal instinct because in my responsiveness, when I was surprised in an unexpected confrontation. That's what I do. And the result was actually the perfect result. You know, so it doesn't mean that the paternal instinct always yields the best result or the

maternal instinct yields the best result. In many situations, in the aggregate, paternal actually yields the result more often. Right. I think that's really vulnerable. And actually, like, I have so much more admiration for you for sharing them. And also, like, not only your vulnerability, but also just, an exercise and awareness, be aware of what your natural instincts are. And situations like that allow you, if you self-reflect, what is my instinct here?

Like, how do I, how do I naturally respond? And I think that's really important. If you like that video, you're going to love the next one, and I'll see you there. Courage is doing the thing that you're afraid of. That is courage. So going off script and asking a question,