EverydaySpy Podcast - Day 1 | How CIA Trains Spies to Make Lasting Impressions

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Find your Spy Superpower: https://yt.everydayspy.com/3FkVidw Middle age brings unique challenges and unique opportunities. And even though it can feel overwhelming, CIA has tools that can help stay focused on the opportunities ahead instead of the losses left behind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a kid, I never really thought about what my parents must have been like before they had me. Now, my mom had me very young and she married my stepdad when he was actually quite a bit older than she was. So I don't really have a strong memory of my parents before I was about 10 years old. And by the time I was 10, my mom was 30 and my stepdad was 43 years old. So I've always really only ever known my parents as middle-aged adults. And as I grew up and as I went through middle school and as I went through high school and even into college, I never stopped to think about what my parents must have been like when they were younger. Now, I myself, am 44 years old and I'll turn 45 in just a few months.

But I'm realizing that middle age really sucks. And for everybody out there who is middle age, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Your body starts to feel funny. It hurts. It doesn't move. It doesn't want to move. It wakes up slowly. to sleep quickly, your mind starts to forget things, your patience basically goes out the window,

whether it's patience for your kids or patience for your spouse or patience for other drivers, middle age poses so many significant challenges. And I'm realizing that my parents were in their middle age when I was still young. So all of my frustrations with them from them not paying attention to me, them not listening to me, them not caring about me, them not showing affection towards me. They were going through a very shitty time in their life, too. Now, I am also a parent of two children, so I stop and I reflect on the fact that in my middle age years, this kind of suck of time, I'm also leaving a memory implanted on my kids. And now, when I was at CIA, CIA talked a lot about the importance of leaving a lasting impression. Oftentimes, people will tell you that the

first impression is the impression that matters most. CIA teaches actually something very, very different. teaches that it's the last impression that lasts. And what they mean by that is it doesn't really matter what you do when you first meet somebody. Your first meeting of somebody is very unlikely to be their longstanding memory of you. In fact, it is the last thing that you do with that person, the last impression that you leave, that becomes the impression that lasts the longest, the memory that lasts the longest. So I think on that and I reflect on that because my parents, what I remember of them is very much the last impression, not the first impression. I remember my parents when I was 16, 17, 18 years old, much stronger than I remember my parents

when I was five, six or seven years old, which must be true for how my kids will view me, how my spouse will view me, how my employees will view me. They will view me based on the last sequence of actions, not my first sequence of actions. And the same thing is true for all of you. you stop and you really start to think about the fact that your last impression is the impression that lasts, in a way, it kind of gives you hope because you always have an opportunity to change. You can always change your relationship. You can always change your attitude.

You can always change your opinion. You can always change your position. And that's, in a way, a very exciting opportunity, even though it sounds like a daunting task. Because as a 44-year-old man, one of the things that I am all so slow to do anymore is change. I used to change very quickly. I used to love changing plans, changing meals, changing what alcohol I drink at night. And now it's much harder to do those things. I want my specific brand of whiskey. I want my specific bedtime. I want my favorite foods and I want them now. It's not like when I was younger. As an entrepreneur who is also in middle age, I find that I'm at a few disadvantages. I don't

change as easily as I used to. I am not as flexible as I used to be. I don't like the idea of being as patient as I used to feel. And I feel justified in being inflexible and impatient because I have become this middle-aged creature. But my lessons from CIA teach me that your age really doesn't matter at all. It's all about your attitude. It's all about your mindset. So as I continue to look forward to how I'm going to keep growing my business over the next year, I look forward to how I can change, how I can adapt how I can grow and how I can find opportunities to grow and to challenge myself and to seek uncomfortable change. I have some very good friends of mine who are special forces operators, who are FBI officers and other intelligence officers. And all of us agree that the power is really

in change. There is no power in being stagnant. There is no power in being rigid. There is power in being flexible. And that flexibility is exactly the power I plan to use to continue to grow my business in excess of $3 million in 2025. And I hope that you will practice that flexibility too.