EverydaySpy Podcast - EXPOSING The Deep State's Role in the White House | EverydaySpy Podcast Ep. 29

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

The holidays are looming, in-laws are harassing, Israel is bombing, and we all just want a day off! Today is not that day, but you're close – join me and Jihi for a conversation about spy skills to make the rest of 2023 a success, Cuba spy stories, how to beat in-laws at their own game, and of course an update on our life and business. 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

We were taught at CIA that even though you might rationalize that the objective is within the authority or control of the most powerful person that controls an organization or the most powerful person that controls a company or a government, that in reality, the actual decision makers are two, three, sometimes many, many steps removed from that one senior leader. So whether you're talking about a president of a country or a CEO, this idea of looking at the people who are accessible rather than trying to beat your head against a wall, approaching the person who is not accessible. Thank you for being on this podcast with me because today is one of those days where I really don't want to record. I know. We went back and forth this morning via text like,

oh, we should really do this day. And we're in different places, so it's like different things affecting us right now. So what makes today hard for you? Oh, my gosh. So a couple. of things. First, it is freezing cold here. I woke up and it's nine degrees in New Mexico where we are currently filming for the History Channel show. That sounds awesome. And then my whole lower body is sore because I had a

big leg workout two days ago. So two days ago. So it's not even like second day soreness. It's like third day soreness now. And the cold just makes it that much worse. And then, oh yeah. And then it's like, and I had other calls this morning and other podcast interviews this morning. So even though it's, you know, almost it's a little bit afternoon mountain time. Yeah. I mean, I've been on a camera. I've talked my butt off and my butt sore and I'm freezing cold. So those are all my complaints.

Thank you for caring. Why don't, oh, you got some real problems on your side, huh? I have life problems, you know, one of the kids is sick. So I stayed up late with one of them. And then I was woken up at 5.30 by the other one who's sick today. and I'm pretty sure, you know, I'm just, I'm prepping all of my immunity soups and juices and all of these things because you know it's just going to go through all of us. So I prep all my food when one kid gets sick in preparation for me to be too sick to cook anymore. You know, it's fine.

You put on such a strong face, man, because sick kids are hard. Yeah, and you know, it's funny. It's when they first come down with the symptoms. there's always this moment of, like more than moments of anxiety where I'm like, oh my gosh, like kids are sick. I have stuff to do. You know, I'm, you know, my nanny is going on vacation. Like, I'm going to be here by myself. But then after about an hour of those thoughts, I'm like, you know what? We really don't have to do anything. I can literally order my groceries through Instacart. And, you know, somebody else can do that for me. I don't have to leave my house.

I can call off on work. You know, I am blessed enough to be in a position where when the kids, when the, you know, virus rolls through the house, we can just nest, right? And take care of each other and take care of our health. And the food and the rest is the most important. So, and then that makes me feel better because this is just a part of life, right? I mean, this is going around. I know so many people who have been sick in the last two weeks.

Yeah, but I mean, you know, what's interesting to me is the, uh, we are, blessed for sure. And I know a lot of the folks out there who we work with and who are friends with and who work with us and who are friends with us, they also will claim that they are also blessed, right? Everybody works very hard for the life that they have. But for the vast majority of our peers, our friends, our family, the people that we, the people that we really get along with well, they work hard to build a life for their family. It's not like they're chasing fame or chasing career or chasing anything like that. Like they're very proud of their hard work, but they're doing it for someone else. They're doing it for the ones they love. Right. So when the ones you love end up being

the ones that get hurt or get ignored or overlooked in the process of you building your career, especially when they're sick. Yeah. Like our son is sick right now. I'm thousands of miles away, which is heart-wrecking enough to me to be not there to help him. I also can't really help you. I mean, I saw him this morning on our video call this morning because he was calling to you for help and I was talking to you and I see his poor sweaty face and like you can just see he's not happy and my heart just broke because I want to be there for him and I want to be there for you and we're not the only parents who feel that way and there's parents who have to go into work and leave behind one adult and a sick child and there's parents who are on the road.

there's military parents who are gone for months at a time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the struggle is real, right? We all experience it. And so I just, you know, I allow myself to have the, you know, the moment of panic. But then I try to remind myself that this is something everybody goes through. We make it, you know, just try to make the best decisions.

I think I told you I was living hour by hour right now. I'm in there checking on them every hour. taking this temperature, like just seeing how it goes. We'll see how this one hour goes of recording, huh? Yeah, exactly. Well, you look beautiful. I mean, you don't look like you're, you don't look like you're overwhelmed by a house in disarray right now.

Yeah, yeah. That's a, that's some, just a hairbrush magic going on. This is not what I look like. Are you worn? One of my favorite shirts, too. Your shirt looks fantastic. I don't often get a chance to. really like appreciate some of our new designs. So that's pretty cool. We've got to come up with a way

of actually getting these out to people because people ask for the T-shirts all the time. Yeah. And I think we're being very selfish just wearing into ourselves. You know, and it's funny. I was just thinking like it's cool. So I'm in Florida and it's cool enough now that I can wear these like three quarter-length shirts in the studio and, you know, it feels great. But I think when you sent me, you sent me like a screenshot of your temperature this morning and it was like 11 degrees. And And I sent you a screenshot of mine and it was 71. I was like, oh, sorry. Yeah, there is, we don't have everyday spy gear that we've created yet that can handle

11 degrees outside. We've gotten pretty good. I think we're good to like 40 degrees, but we've got to come up with an Arctic solution for our brand, my love. Yes, we need some like everyday spy adventure gear. That's what we're doing. Oh, I like the way that sounds. You know, it's funny because we've been in, we've been in discussions now as we've been

preparing for the next year. Our company is growing quickly. And we've been in discussions with a couple of different people about how and where to expand. And we're expanding in multiple different sectors, right? The corporate sector, formal education sector, as well as our existing kind of direct-to-consumer sector. And one thing that's kind of come up over and over again with the people that we are that we are working with is the idea of kind of, you know, they want to rush to the top. They want to talk to like the biggest most important decision maker and and have it go in their favor, right? That's like you and I going direct to the top of whatever, mountain hardware or Arcterics or Patagonia. And then being like, hey, we want to have everyday Smyad Adventure gear, Mr. CEO of Patagonia.

And we want you to bless it. Yeah. And it just doesn't work that way. We've had success with people partnering with us. but it has never been by jumping to the headline. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because I've actually in the last two weeks had two separate conversations, two different people, they don't know each other, completely different topics that we were discussing. And both of them brought up the, you know, they were, you know, people like to ask me about targeting.

And they were talking about, you know, networking and targeting and, you know, people that they wanted to, approach, but that were seemingly impossible to approach or to kind of bring on to their side. And the truth of the matter is that, you know, in intelligence, you don't, like, you very rarely go for the top guy because they are unapproachable, right? I mean, they got to that, you know, they got into that position by playing a game, by being hawkish, right? So they're not going to be easily swayed. And that's okay. Like the guy who you think has the most, who you think has the most information and probably does have the most information, it's okay that they're not approachable and it's okay that they're not your actual target because oftentimes you have to look around them

and see who has influence in that, over that person or in that area or who else has access, right? Right. So yeah, I just, I thought it was really interesting because it's come up a couple of times now. And I think, you know, people, you know, it would be great for people to be able to understand to broaden their target set, right? I mean, even if you're looking to date somebody, right, maybe you can't approach that super hot guy or girl directly. Maybe you approach them through, like, their group of friends or through something that they like to do. It's a roundabout approach to get access, to get to know them better, to be in front of them, right? Like, The direct approach is the whole reason.

It's the whole reason cosplay exists. So that we can go to a nerd convention and see all the girls dressed in these smoking hot little cosplay outfits and immediately identify which ones are possibly a little bit freaky. Instead of meeting them in a bar where everybody's wearing winter gear because it's freezing cold outside and you have no idea which ones are a little bit freaky. Well, so where are the ladies supposed to see these guys in their you know, in the revealing costumes because the cosplay costumes I've seen for guys are wicked, but like completely, I mean, those aren't there real muscles in those costumes and just

want to out there. Well, I think cosplay serves two different purposes for women and men. It's like Halloween. Halloween serves two different purposes for women and men. For men, it's a chance for them to show what they're into, like all the men who dress up like the ghost from scream and all the men who dress up like, you know, you name the, the, anime character that they show up as with their crazy Japanese anime hair and their foam swords. Yeah.

It's a chance for men to express their, they're like secret nerdy side, whether they're nerdy about horror flicks or nerdy about, about anime in a safe setting. And, like, I can tell you as a man. When you dress up in cosplay and you go to a convention, you are secretly hoping that some like beautiful, stellar, amazing, intelligent woman is going to walk up to you and be like, oh, you're really into Pikachu too? I love Pikachu. And then you'll be like, and then, you know, the gates of heaven open and you have the most amazing sex with a woman who can talk Pikachu all day long. That's what we're secretly hoping for. What is a woman dressed in a revealing skimpy, sexy fairy outfit at a cosplay convention?

What is she secretly hoping for? You know, I'm only speaking from my own perspective, but maybe it's meeting another woman in a scantily cladowing outfit. That's just me, though. I don't know. But what's the goal there? Is the goal there because you're like, you look cute and sexy? I look cute and sexy. Aren't fairies cool?

Or is it like, is it because you're looking for a girlfriend? Guys are always looking for a partner. Guys are always looking for a hookup. You know, it's, it's funny you bring this up because this touches on something else that I've, I was recently talking to somebody, you know, and that I was being asked questions about targeting, but something else where, you know, when, just like you said, you have a target. Maybe you have a specific one, like a specific person, but maybe your target is like a hot person, right, a hot person that I want to date.

Maybe that's the target. You just don't know exactly who it is yet. But part of that strategy of putting yourself in something that you can relate to, right? It can't be something that like if you don't like blue cheese and you go to a blue cheese conference to meet somebody, like that is not going to work in your favor. But if you like comic books and anime and stuff and you know and you're like this year I'm going to really get into it to be able to go to these cost, you know, whatever, like, are you, you enjoy chess, but you're not a nerd about chess, but you're like, you know what, I'm going to go to this chess conference because I want to meet

somebody, like, that's a great tactic because you're putting yourself just a little bit outside of your comfort zone, but you're putting yourself into somebody else's comfort zone, right? You're putting yourself into somebody else's interest. And it's really, really a great tactic to connect with people. Like, no matter what you're trying to do. So I can see that I lost you on the cosplay conversation. I was really excited to hear about why you would talk to a half-naked fairy. But I can see that we're not going to get there today.

So we can talk in more specifics about work for now. Hopefully when the cameras turn off, we'll have a different conversation. Well, when you take me to the next megacom. There we go. We've got to up our con game too. I know. Going to a convention with a 10-year-old, seriously limit. limits the types of adult activities that you can participate in at a convention.

But that's all right. So let's get into some of these examples because I think this is a really interesting conversation because we were taught at CIA that you're pursuing an objective. And even though you might rationalize that the objective is within the authority or control of the most powerful person that controls an organization or the most. powerful person that controls a company or a government, that in reality, the actual decision makers, the real mechanics who make something possible are two, three, sometimes many, many steps removed from that one senior leader. So whether you're talking about a president of a country or a CEO or,

you know, the sheriff of a local police force, whatever might be, it's always going to be difficult to reach that person. In many ways, the organization is, in intentionally built in a way where people can't reach that person, right? We're restructuring everyday spy, specifically so that people can't reach me as the CEO without first going through a certain chain of command, right? So I am being intentionally removed from certain levels to make sure that, you know, an advertiser, an insurance salesman or whatever, that they can't find me directly. They have to go through our structure and submit a form and talk to the president

and et cetera, et cetera. So one example that immediately jumps to mind for me is we're working on a book project with a major publisher. And as we were going through the skeleton outline of that book, the publisher immediately jumped on this specific topic. Yeah. And the editor representing the publisher was talking about this misnomer that's out there where people believe that, like, they have to go,

straight for the jugular and they have to go straight. Like if you want a promotion, you have to go straight for like your boss or if you want, if you want to make a sale, you got to go straight to the person who's in charge of, you know, the company or whatever else. And the idea that we had shown her with everyday spy and with the way that we were taught at the agency, she thought that there was incredible editorial value in this idea of looking at the network that feeds the decisions up. looking at the people who are in a position of influence, looking at the people who have a responsibility, looking at the people who are accessible rather than trying to beat your head against a wall approaching the person who is not accessible.

Right. And I think oftentimes, you know, if it's career-related in an office setting, I think oftentimes people are trying to shine the brightest for the top person. But the truth is, just like you said, you have to take a step. back and look at the entire network and see, you know, you have to get a sense first of who the players are, what their roles are, you know, how influential or powerful, you know, are the different people on the team and in your organization, because then you can target the right person. You can impress the right person, right? And you, and there's, you know, something you talk about

about, I think you've, maybe one of your podcasts before you've talked about, you know, being average, you know, like, you don't have to be the brightest shining star to get the attention. You can blend in and be the most reliable person for the, for your immediate boss, or the most reliable person for the person who has the most influence on your team. and that is going to get you further than trying to be a showboat for the top leader. Right. Yeah, there's an example that, a specific example that comes to mind also. So Everyday Spy just signed an agreement with going back to our Everyday Spy Adventure Gear. We just signed an agreement with a major clothing brand that does extreme weather gear.

Nice. Right? And we were still under NDA. We haven't, like, we can't announce who they are yet. But we'll start, we'll start sharing it. And you'll start getting gear from them. And I'll start getting gear from them. And many of the people that we work with will start getting gear from them.

But it's a very exciting deal. All our podcasts outside. Because you're going to make me put that gear to use. But the way that we got that deal was not by going to the CEO of the company, right? Not even close, right? The way that we got that deal was a low-level manager who was connected to another low-level manager who really liked what we stood for and what we share with the world. And they like our story and our brand and our image and everything like that.

At that lowest level, they introduced me to the right decision-maker who was one spot above them. So like in the hierarchy of corporate America, we're not even close. to being in like the executive suite of characters. We're not even close to being in the senior division level of characters. We are literally a, you know, two or three steps removed from even just the director of marketing. But the right person with the right influence on the director of marketing, who has the right influence on, you know, the director of, of whatever it might be, you know, all the way up to the vice president and the president of the company, all the people who have to approve on partnering with a brand like ours, they all said yes, even though they didn't talk to me,

the only person that talked to me was this lower level manager. And that's exactly what we're talking about when we explain that you don't want to go to the person that you think is the decision maker, right? Because that person is often inaccessible. I couldn't get to the president of this clothing company if I wanted to, right? But by getting to a manager who has just enough influence in a specific sector that their influence flows up, now all of a sudden we've essentially gotten approval from six or seven different decision makers without them ever actually talking to us. Yeah. And I think, you know, when it comes to business and career, this is probably the most clearly applicable in those areas. But it can also be used personally as well, you know, in relationships.

and with friends, with family, you know, I just think about our relationship. And if somebody wanted to have a decision made in our household, you know, who would they approach? Me or you? Or the kids. Honestly. Right? Like, I mean, if somebody took a snapshot of the, you know, how we relate to each other

in our four-person family, who would be the person that, you know, has the person. most access to make a decision happen, right? And it probably depends on the decision also. But these are these are totally applicable in so many scenarios. There's a lot of families that are getting ready to have a Christmas, you know, a Christmas gift opening day. Yes. That's influenced by the advertisers who are advertising to their children on whatever, you know, TV shows or streaming shows or game platforms where their kids are seeing those ads. Like there's going to be a lot of lot of Pokemon gifts. There's going to be a lot of, you know, I don't even know. What else are the what else are our kids into right now? Pokemon, Minecraft, Deadpool. Legos. Yeah. I mean,

we're literally, there are millions of families are going to be influenced because their kids were influenced. Yeah. So Christmas will look like what the kids wanted to look like because the kids were influenced by some sort of marketer or some sort of advertisement, right? So it's exactly what we're talking about. One of our close clients who works for a government organization came to us with a similar challenge, right? He was talking to you about that. Yeah, he works in, I don't want to out him. So he works, he works in a field where he tries to get contracts. He's kind of a middleman, and he tries to get contracts with different organizations for other people. And he, wanted, there was this one particular company that he was trying to get a contract with,

and he wanted to, he was asking me, you know, what's the best way to approach this, the leader who is a woman, and she's just a hard ass, right? And I just can't see an end with her. And after talking about it for a while, I was like, well, who is she always with? Like, who's, who's the second in command? Who's the decision? Like, you know, she's the ultimate sign-off, but who else has influence? And he was able to name somebody right away. And I was like, that's the person you need to learn about. That's the person you should be courting, right?

That's the person that ultimately will have the influence on the person above, right? Because they're going to, you know, you build that relationship, that rapport with them, that social capital with them. And then when you go to cash that social capital in, they are the ones who are going to make the push for you. Right. Right. It'd be great to get the top person. And I'm not saying you can't do that, but the amount of time you would spend trying to do that and the probability that that would work is just not worth it. Right. Yeah. You see this mistake being made in media all the time right now, too. If you read headlines on any major news platform, what you're going to read is about the leaders of countries. You'll hear Biden's name, Netanyahu's name. Zelinsky's name, Putin's name, Xi Jinping's name, you hear the names of these world leaders,

as if they themselves are the decision makers. When they are really the signing authorities, all the decision makers are beneath them, right? Two, three, four steps beneath them. There's advisors who tell Biden what to do. There's advisors who literally write the words that Biden is going to say at a news conference. And the same thing is true for all these world leaders. So what ends up happening is, you know, we attack and we criticize or we follow these headlines that attack and criticize these various world leaders. And people start to think that they're the problem.

And they also sometimes think that they're the solution. If only we had Trump. If only we had DeSantis. If only we had Biden, like, no, those people are far less powerful than you actually think they are. Yeah. And one of the things that's critical in any kind of foreign intelligence operation is understanding that if you want to influence someone at the senior level, you don't target them.

You target the person who's two, three, four steps removed from them, but who has influence over that person. Exactly. Yeah. It's really all about the access and the influence. That's what you're looking for. Those are the two things you're looking for in a person that you're, you're, you're, you're targeting for a specific result, right? You're looking for their access and their influence to get what end goal you want, right? That's what it is. And the other thing that's interesting

is a lot of times the people who are at those lower levels have points where they are also accessible. Yeah. Right? Those are people who carry vulnerabilities. Those are people who carry, you know, personal challenges because they carry the weight of their responsibility, of their authority, right? The advisor to Biden, the advisors to Netanyahu, the advisors to Xi Jinping, they carry a tremendous amount of stress and pressure. But they don't carry any of the glory or the financial benefits or whatever else. They come from being at the senior most position. So they're always kind of stuck in that high stress situation where they have tons of demands and tons of vulnerabilities. And that's what makes them so uniquely suited to,

to any kind of intelligence operation. Because if you want to know who needs a friendly hand or a friendly ear, or if you want to know who needs a stiff drink, or if you want to know who needs a prostitute, or if you want to know who needs a day off, it's those people. And if you can be the one that shows up with their preferred alcohol or their preferred body type or their preferred, you know, vice, all of a sudden you'll make a friend very quickly with somebody who has a great,

deal of influence and very few friends. Yeah. And I mean, you can see, you know, a really great example was just in the news. And we don't know a lot about the case yet, but the Department of State gentleman who was, you know, who has been, you know, a complaint has been filed against him for spying for Cuba for decades. And he's really interesting to look at because he manifests what we're talking about right now. He got, he rose in the ranks of State Department, but he wasn't always an ambassador. He started out as a lower level person. And he was, he's been, I mean, according to the, according to the complaint, he's been spying for Cuba for so long decades that he was very low level.

I mean, when I was doing the math on his age, I think he was in his early 20s when he was approached, right? I mean, the beginning of his career. So he is the accessible person. He is the person that, you know, and it's not clear yet whether he, whether ideology is what pushed him or whether there was something else in the beginning and maybe ideology came afterwards. But, you know, he was definitely at that vulnerable place very early in his career. And he was the right mix of person that they were able to groom him over the years.

I was actually just reading, funny enough, I was reading a sci-fi novel named Hyperion, and it was the exact same story with one of the characters in the book. So this is age-old espionage, right? Age-old espionage. Somebody goes in at a lower level and works their way up, sacrificing, really, especially if they're ideologically driven, sacrificing along the way, supporting somebody who they really don't support because they're actively, working against them at the same time.

Yeah, what you're talking about here is the gentleman who was recently making headlines, potentially because he could be the oldest, longest running espionage case against the United States ever, right? So 40 plus years of service in the federal government, while suspected to be a Cuban mole the entire time, which is incredible, just an incredible streak, right? But, and, you know, all of the, all of the, all of the relevant parts about this conversation that talk about how he was junior when he was recruited and how he was ideologically, like, all of that aside, how freaking good are the Cubans at human intelligence? Nobody realizes it. Nobody ever talks about, how good the Cubans are. The Cubans are so good at this because they're as a country,

they're basically broke. But they have this strong ideology and they have a fantastic way of finding other people who share that like socialist ideology about, you know, if we can all work together, we can all make the world a better place. And it's incredible because that ideology really is what drives a lot of young, politically minded government service professionals, especially in democracies. Yes. So in the UK, in France, in Germany, in the U.S., in Canada, right, our junior level officers are all very much, they all very much believe in the greater good and serving a nation and making the world a better place. And the Cubans know how to find and just tap into that ideology and turn people into reporting sources.

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with you. The Cuban intelligence service is so good. And because, and they have this, just like you're saying, they have this really interesting methodology that works for them because they're able to export this ideology, which is so fascinating. And there's somebody that, you know, when was the last time before that article came out, when was the last time your average American thought about Cuba?

probably I mean the whole like won't how often do you think about Rome like people probably think about Rome more often they think about Cuba but the truth is that Cuba Cuba and Cuban intelligence have a way of infiltrating under the radar other countries in various ways because there's there's you can look up news articles about how they've infiltrated Venezuela as well right the influence that they've had there so they influence in this way where they're kind of like that rotting apple at the bottom of the barrel that nobody really notices until it's too late,

until suddenly you see five other rotting apples and you realize that they've had their hand in it, right? They've been the whole time behind the scenes and nobody noticed. Yeah. The most famous former Cuban spy against the United States is Anamontes. And every 10-ish years, you'll see a new article about Anamontes.

And what was, what's really fascinating is that, you know, at the same time that her case was running, there was another Cuban intelligence penetration of the State Department. Right. His name was William something. I always forget his last name. I'm pretty sure it was William something. An older gentleman, he and his wife. So for this period of time during the Clinton administration, like early 90s, Anna Montez, who was penetrated, was a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a. Cuban penetration of DIA with this gentleman, I forget his name right now, William something or

other, who was a penetration of State Department. And then that gentleman's wife, who was also at State Department, essentially all Cuban policy decisions that were being reported to President Clinton were coming from these three people. Yeah. Perfect example of what we're talking about, where the Cubans found someone at a very low level who had a great deal of influence over the policymaker President Clinton. Cubans could never convert President Clinton because like no intelligence service is going to have real success converting a sitting president. Right. Right. Like, and this is one of the things that drives me crazy about all the conversations about Donald Trump. Is Donald Trump a source of, of the Russian intelligence service? If he was, if he is,

it's because they found him decades ago when he was a, you know, a low level business person or even an aspiring business person who is trying to make ends meet. That's how intelligence works. Intelligence doesn't work in like, you know, some rich guy approaches some other rich guy and they shake hands and have a cigar and all of a sudden they're committing espionage. It has to be, you know, something like decades old before it gets to that level, just like we saw with this gentleman who's now under in a complaint and indictment. I'm not sure what the right, where it is currently for potentially spying for 40 years and being a penetration of the U.S. Department of State.

Yeah, there's a big difference between espionage and influence, right? And people at the higher levels can be influenced, but it doesn't mean that they're committing espionage, right? Right. It's a whole different ballgame. Right, exactly. So, you know, does, do look at President Biden for crying out loud? President Biden is under criticism for being influenced. by Chinese companies, just like Donald Trump was under criticism for being influenced by relationships with oligarchs.

And Barack Obama was under criticism for being influenced by big lobbyists. Like, of course, influence is not illegal. Right. Right. Corruption is illegal. Espionage is illegal. But influence is not. Influence is how the whole world works, whether you're trying to get a promotion in your job or whether you're trying to change the future foreign policy of a country.

Right now, Taiwan is in the final few days before they go to the polls to elect a new president. And the whole, well, not the whole world, because most of the world doesn't even care or know the Taiwan's going through an election right now. But we care. But everybody who's watching China, Taiwan is sitting there waiting to see, will China successfully influence the elections in such a way that the ruling DPP. separatist party is replaced by a pro-China party, right? And even more than that, there's a chance that the current separatist government in Taiwan who wants to separate from China, there's a chance that they'll actually be replaced by a unity government made up of two other political parties who have never gotten along ever, but might actually work together

because of Chinese influence campaigns. Whether we like it or not, that's That's all totally legal. Yeah. That is not espionage. That is influence. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm a personal fan of influence.

I find it such a fascinating topic. Because you're twisted. I just, it's human psychology. You know, and it's funny because it's human psychology. Everybody falls prey to influence. And that's one of the reasons that you and I are always talking about, assessments and identifying the facts and looking at the data because the only way to protect yourself from influence, from outside influence, is by doing those things, by going through

those processes of knowing what somebody else is really talking about because influence is so powerful because it's so emotional generally. And it's so easy to just go with it because you feel it feels right. So it's so interesting to me how masses of people can be swayed because they don't take the time to protect themselves. They don't take the time to seek the truth.

You know, you're talking about how people can protect themselves. I'm pretty sure we had a question about something similar, right? Oh, yes. So interestingly enough, in this festive time of year, we've gotten like four or five questions in a row where people are asking about how do you deal with

hostile people, people who are condescending, people who insult you, people who intimidate you. And I just thought it was so fascinating that, you know, we're in December. Multiple faiths have celebrations this month. And those are the questions that are coming through. I think that makes perfect sense. I think that makes perfect sense because let's let's be honest about this festive season. And let's be honest about the holidays, right? Yeah.

Hallmark makes us all really excited for the holidays. Yeah. But we all know that that also means we have to be with our families, not like our kids and our spouse. Mothers-in-laws and mothers and fathers-in-laws and fathers and cousins and. cousins-in-laws and people who are unfortunately related to us through these things right here. That's where hostility and condescension and criticism and all that awkwardness comes from. And how do you deal with that? I can absolutely understand what people are asking those questions right now.

Those are great questions to ask right now. Well, and you know what's funny is there were a couple of questions that were very clearly about what people felt like were hostile work environments. But I guess if you're looking at the end of year and you're like waiting for a bonus or you're preparing to take time off, I can see how that would apply in the same vein, right, where maybe your work environment is a little bit hostile right now. Everybody's under stress. Maybe you're not going to get the bonus you thought.

Maybe your boss doesn't want you to take that vacation you want. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah, it's true. So it's funny. So I'll give you a personal. example and partial answer to the question from my point of view right now. So I'm on the road in a TV shoot, right? And what I learned that was really interesting and new to me is that TV shows are

shot in large part by independent contractors. So there's a production company and that production company is a business. And that production company will hire a contractor to be the person who creatively designs the TV show. And the production company will sell the TV show idea to some sort of studio, whether it's Netflix or Amazon or, you know, Warner Brothers or whatever. So it's really just a business selling a product to a buyer. It's at its base. But once the TV show idea is purchased, everybody who makes the show from the story editors to the cast like me, to the video camera operators, the audio people, the production people who make the sets and costumes and all of those people are contractors.

Right. So in our TV show, there's this constant struggle because the one person who's most accountable to the production company is. also the most demanding person in the show. And everybody else who's technically not an employee, so who technically is like, there's no boss for them, but they're constantly having to like deal with these challenges, these conflicts with the person who's in charge of the show. So I've had a number of people come up to me on the show on the set and be like, hey, how do you deal with this person? Because like they're condescending and they're hostile and they're aggressive and their boss.

Like, how do you deal with it? Because you're in the same boat as us, right? You're cast. You've got to deal with this person too. And, you know, what I always tell them is that when you take a minute to look at the hostile person and think through what they are being hostile about, not who are they being hostile to, not how are they being hostile at all. If you instead think what is making them act in a hostile way, oftentimes what you find. is that you can relate, understand, and predict that person, and you stop worrying about them being hostile towards you. So in our case, the person who's in charge of delivering the final television show, when you stop to think about the fact that they're being hostile because they've got deadlines to meet and budgets to meet, and they've got, you know, 16 people who are all independent contractors who could quit at any time, who could leave at any time, who could get sick, who could do a bad job, who could drop a camera or corrupt a SIM card or who knows what. Like there are so many things that could go wrong that this person is essentially choosing to micromanage

in an effort to try to prevent things from going wrong. And once you see that, all of a sudden you realize it's not personal. They're not consending to you. They're just terrified about failing in their job and they feel like they don't have control. That's really interesting. And I like your advice because I think that's a great first step, right? I think that's, you know, the first thing you do is put yourself into the other person's shoes and understand what it is that's causing the hostility.

But then what do you say to scenarios where you do that? Well, I don't, you know, it's funny because the question I want to ask is, what do you say about scenarios where you do that and the person's just a jerk or the person, you know, really is out to get you or the person is still hostile, you know, but then that makes me wonder if you're putting yourself in the other person's shoes, will you ever come to that conclusion? Will you ever get to the place where you're like, that person's just out to get me? Or does that conclusion indicate that you haven't properly understood what that other person is being hostile about? That's exactly what my experience has shown me. Is that any time you land on the conclusion

that this is all about me, you've missed it. You missed it. Because here's the truth of it. The truth of it is nobody cares about you as much as you do. So if you ever land on the conclusion that the reason this other person is acting the way they are acting is because they just are out to get you, what you're basically saying is that you are more important than they are. And that is a violation of the first rule because nobody cares as much. about you as you do. So you're missing something, right? If you think this person is out to get my job,

this person is, this person hates me because I'm prettier or because I'm better at gymnastics or because I'm better at my job or they want to replace me or I'm too expensive for the company and they're just trying to fire me. If that's ever the conclusion that you're landing on, if you ever land on a conclusion that has to do with you personally, you're missing it. It's a giant warning flag that you've got the wrong idea. In fact, what you need to look at is what is it that you represent? What is it that you do? What is it that you, what impact do you make? Because that's most likely what is actually threatening the other person. Interesting. So the only other thought this question, this topic brings up for me because I love your response to this. But I do know

of people who are in situations and what I think they're saying when they ask this question is they don't feel empowered to get out. They feel like they're stuck where they are and there's hostility, but they can't escape. I was talking to a friend a couple of months ago who feels stuck in the job, but he keeps saying they, I would really screw them if I left. And I'm like, it doesn't matter if you leave or not if you're if you feel this way and you you can get out you feel you know please be empowered to leave there's always something else and if it's such a hostile situation it's really not going to matter to them whether or not you leave it matters to you that you're putting yourself in a situation that you find more tolerable right and and i think

what's really happening there i don't know who your friend is but for sure that that what strikes me is that they realize that the alternative of leaving is less tolerable than staying in a hostile environment, right? Yeah. And whenever, whenever we've got to remember that our actions show others what our own limitations are. So if you treat me like trash and I stick around, it's easy for me to feel like, oh, you're the asshole because you treat me. me like trash. Whereas from your point of view, you're like, I'm not an asshole. I'm pushing you hard and you're obviously not leaving. So there must be something you like about being here, being pushed hard.

Yeah. Whether it's the paycheck or the future promotional gains or maybe it's because there's no other jobs out there, whatever. So that's the benefit of taking a second to look through the eyes of the hostile party. Yeah. Because, I mean, all of the questions, all the ideas about hostile and condescending, like these are all words that we use to basically attribute to someone else and how they're treating us, which is another way of saying. These are words that we attribute to how we feel about someone else.

Yeah. And I know that's exactly what I see happening here on set in our show all the time. All the conflict on our show basically comes down to individuals who are a assigning their feelings through an emotion or through a label that they're putting on to somebody else instead of just accepting that it's the way they feel. So to put it another way, one of the things that I do whenever I find myself in a position with somebody who is just like unswable, unchangeable, right? When I am in a room with your mother, whose opinions cannot be changed, whose point of view is set in stone, right,

whose like ideas and ideology are not only cast in iron, but there are like shards of glass glued to the top of the iron fence that protects her ideology. At some point, you just have to accept that this person is the way they are. and if I'm going to let the way they are hurt my feelings, that's on me. Yeah. Because they're not trying to be a jerk. You know, I can guarantee you, my love. Yeah.

Your mother is never trying to be rude. No. She is never trying to be cruel. She is never trying to be ignorant or mean or savage. She is never trying to be any of those things. Yeah. Even though the people around her sometimes feel like they are being attacked. that's on them because they're trying to change your mom.

Don't try to change her. Just embrace her for what she is, except this is the way she is. And all of a sudden, your life gets a whole hell of a lot better. Yeah. I love your perspective. Oh, I love you. And because I love you, I also love your mother. My parents love you so much.

You are the son they never had. My love, thank you so much for making time to talk today. Yeah. And I'm glad that we took the risk. And even though we're both tired and low energy, we still made the time to talk and share it with everybody who watches along with us. Please go take care of the babies. I hope our sun feels better soon.

It's not getting any warmer here, but I'll put on extra layers. Thank you. Yeah. Keep yourself warm and healthy so we can have a good Christmas. Yes, and I will be home for Christmas, and I'm very excited to that. Us too. We're counting the days. I love you, girl. All right, I love you, babe.

Thanks for joining us, everyone. We love sharing our stories with you. And if you want to share any of your holiday stories with us, we would love to see them, put them down in the comments, ask us more questions. We love engaging with you guys. We hope everyone here has a very happy holiday and stays warm this season.