EverydaySpy Podcast - HOW WE MET: Love, Espionage, and Family | EverydaySpy Podcast Ep. 13

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Did you ever have a conversation with your significant other and realize they were actually kinda scary? Well, that just happened to me today! And you get to be part of my realization. In the face of her sheer-scariness, I had to come clean about a dirty little secret I'd been keeping from her. Luckily, I have all of you as witnesses to keep me safe… Ready to join us in SkunkWorks? 👉 Apply FREE here: https://everydayspy.com/skunkworks 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 in different, very different career tracks at the CIA. Because right now this is weird. There is, well, there's like a whole cadre of targeters that would disagree, or maybe slightly agree that we are kind of weird. But we're all the kind of people that, like, we deep dive, right? And deep diving, it's kind of an obsession. Like, I get that it's been awesome because you became a CIA targeter. Yeah.

But at one point, you were a friggin 10-year-old who wanted to be a fashion designer until your mom told you that... So I had an idea. about our son's complete obsession with Minecraft. Oh. Seriously, I am like running out of ideas with this because it's really irritating to me. He is so obsessed with Minecraft.

I know. It just results in tears and arguments. I know. And because we limit the screen time. So the idea I had was, you were on a trip recently and it was like three days in a row where he was like,

I wish I could just play Minecraft all day. And then it dawned on me like, why don't I let him play Minecraft all day? Like, not in general, but as an experiment because we unschool, homeschool, child-led learning. So I'm like, you know, part of that entire process is helping them learn to self-regulate, helping them learn to make decisions. They can't make those decisions if we're constantly telling them what to do. So my idea was, what if we give him seven days, right?

We have the conversation with him, obviously, like, we do with everything else. He said, hey, Sina, how about for the next seven days we let you play as much Minecraft as you want? I knew that was going to be your face. But hear me out. My theory. Oh, so I also thought, like, we could even make it like a little science experiment with him and be like, look, for seven days, we're going to let you play as much Minecraft as you want, right? So let's hypothesize what do you think is going to happen? And my hypothesis is that he'll play it like crazy until his friends get home from school for like three days.

And then he'll want to play with his friends. Around like, yeah, and then he'll play with his friends when they come over in the afternoon. And then maybe like around day four or five, my guess is that he'll start waning an interest, right? Like he's not going to play five straight hours of Minecraft, right? He'll play maybe four hours and then he'll want to do Legos that or he'll play three hours and then he'll want to do art. Like, this is my hypothesis. But we can have it with him too. We can have him write it down, put it on the wall.

Like, just an idea because... It's not a horrible idea. It's not a horrible idea. I don't know what's going to happen. That's the whole point. That's why we're limiting it to seven days. Like, there's a part of me that sees this as... There's a part of me that sees this as an interesting way of kind of like...

shortening the whole life cycle of this obsession. Because he does this often. Yeah. Like he gets into these phases where it's all about one thing. He was all about Pokemon. Yes. And then he was all about Bay Blades. Now he's all about Minecraft.

He was all about Halo. Like he just gets into these really like deep cycles of like obsession is the only word I can come up with. Where he just thinks about it and he talks about it and every story is about it. And every idea is about it and every game and every piece of art and everything. Yeah. And this is where he's at now. And it's been hard over the summer because his friends are also in a similar cycle. Yeah.

So it's like an echo chamber for them. Yeah. But there's another side of me that's like seven days of unlimited Minecraft for a 10-year-old. He gets to choose. But, okay. So I see. I get that you're laughing about this, right? But here's honestly, like, what are we going to do when he gives himself headaches?

What are we going to do when, like, he turns into like a brainless zombie for half a day? What are we going to do when, like... Then we have the conversation with him just like the last time many, many years ago when I had too much wine. And we had the conversation of, you cannot drink as much wine as your friend over here. you need to drink water, right? We have the same conversation with him except he'll learn it at a much younger age. I'll be like, babe, like you have a headache, right?

How many hours did you play Minecraft today? And I'll be like, oh, I started at nine, and I played all the way until dinner. Okay, well, how much water did you drink? How do your eyes feel? Where's the headache? Well, maybe because you were staring at a screen all day, right? Like, let's, maybe tomorrow,

do you think you can do something different? Maybe it just prompts the conversation. So there are two things happening. So I think partially, I think that it's really interesting that you were the one who was so against homeschool for a while. Because I would have never thought to experiment like this. All of these ideas actually stem from you. Not like the specific ideas, but I used to be, I have gone from being a like extremely rigid. person to having to be like much more malleable. So, you know, if you think about it, it's kind of

in the same vein as what you do, what we do with the business as well, right? Like you, we do, you know, we experiment 30 day goals, 60 day goals, quarterly goals. And then you're checking in on those along the way, right? So. Well, there's an element here too, though, because I feel like Sina, our son is so like you. That's, I also get him. So I feel like, but that's why I think it's funny to you because I feel like you see him and you're like, oh, I get that. I see him and I'm like, what is going on? Yeah. So just look. I mean, I feel like we have very different emotional reactions right now. Right.

I'm a little bit skeptical. I'm a little bit reserved. And you're like laughing about this. But when he's, when he resists you, when he resists you because he wants mind crap, you're the one that gets your feelings hurt. I have actually found my own feelings being hurt by this insane focus on just one thing. thing. Yeah. It's not easy for sure. So what is it like? Like being obsessed. Well, like, I mean, think about, what is it like being so hyper focused on one thing that, I mean, the way he describes it, he can't think about anything else. Yeah. I can't, I can't relate to that. I get it. So you've seen me go through my book series. So like, I've done Harry Potter twice. I did Wheel of Time, which is 14 books. I finished those. You've talked about doing that again. Like,

14 months, yeah, and I'm going to do it again. I'm going to buy myself a nice set and read them all over again. And, you know, right now I'm doing all Star Trek books. So like I'm obsessed with everything Star Trek right now. And it's all I think about. And, you know. Is it all you think about the way he describes it like all the time? Yeah, like I just want to get back to it. So like wheel of time toward in the last like three books. Like I was so engrossed. I was so obsessed with the story that I was actually read. I was either reading or listening to the story nonstop all day. I mean, I see you do this. I see you like, I see you do the dishes with like your headphones in.

I've seen you try to, I've seen you cook. Yeah. With like your mobile phone in the corner of the kitchen. And I don't understand how you watch movies 20 minutes at a time sometimes. Yes. I don't get it. It's so strange. I don't understand how that's enjoyable.

I don't understand how you don't understand how you don't. don't lose track of the story. I don't understand. I don't understand. It's because I'm re-watching the same movie over and over again too. Because I'm obsessed with it. Like right now, I think I've watched Hot Fuzz like three times in the last week, 20-minute increments at a time. Yeah, I love it. I thought we were saving that for a date night. And I'm going to watch it again with you and I want to watch it with Sina. I love the movie right now. But I get it. Like, and I think we've talked about this before. When, you know, we were in different, very different career tracks at the CIA.

And, you know, I think we've talked about, like, the skill set or the, not necessarily a skill set, but the temperament. Weirdness? The weirdness? Because right now this is weird. There is, well, there's like a whole cadre of targeters that would disagree or maybe slightly agree that we are kind of weird. But we're all the kind of people that, like, we deep dive, right? And deep diving, it's kind of an obsession. You find something. I mean, the one thing that we all have to remind each other of when we're working is like,

don't go down the rabbit hole because we will. We are the type of person that we're going to find this little nugget and then we're going to keep digging and digging and digging. And sometimes that leads to reason, you know, sometimes you strike gold. But sometimes you just waste it like a whole eight-hour day digging on something that you really should have stopped. That's interesting. But I know you're not like that. No, but it is kind of strangely comforting that you're like that because our son is like that. And there's just, I mean, I'd never thought of the fact that there's a bunch, there's a whole cadre of targeters at CIA that are like that.

Yeah. And you all sit in your cubicles. Yep. With our earbuds in. Yeah. It's true. So we don't want to talk to anybody. And you deep dive.

That is exactly what you do. You dive so deep, so painfully deep. that like everybody else doesn't even ask you what you're doing. Oh, yeah, no. Because we're afraid of the answer. You don't want to open up the box there. Yeah. And you're right.

I can understand obsession because I obsess about things too. But the level, the severity, the intensity of the obsession is so very different. Now, how has this? helped or hurt you in your life. Like, I get that it's been awesome because you became a CIA targeter. Yeah. But at one point, you were a friggin' 10-year-old

who wanted to be a fashion designer until your mom told you that you have to pick a real job or something. What's that story? Yeah, she encouraged me to... Encouraged. Nice word. Yeah, to choose a profession that would make more money

so I could make a living. Because they were my... Now, in hindsight, I realize my parents were shrugged. financially at the time. But at the time, I was like, oh, okay. I was like, I guess I'll be a scientist. And that didn't work out. So, yeah. So I think, you know, one of the things about, you know, people like me and like our son is, you know, we, when we are, when we start to develop an obsession. An interest. Because it starts with interest. So when we develop an interest. So, You know, I have, so like stargazing is like an interest, right?

But I've never. Oh, gosh. I remember that too. Yeah. I have had, I'm having this flood of memories right now where you like have an interest. Yeah. That turns into an argument because it gets out of hand. Because I'm like two weeks from my due date of having a baby.

Yes. I want to drive out into the boonies to watch a comment. Yes. You were literally on in the last few weeks before having a baby. And you were trying to convince me. we need to go see a meteor shower in the middle of the night, a hundred miles away. Yeah. It's just not normal.

So there's a couple of things that happen. I think, you know, if we have an interest, but we can never get a taste of it, like stargazing. Like, thus far, I have not because I developed the interest, you know, at a very inconvenient time. Like, I don't, like, every time I'm reminded that there's going to be a meteor shower or something cool, happening like it's peaked again but I don't obsess about it because I know that I just can't do it right now but as soon as I get a taste of something which is the same thing with Tina as soon as we get a taste of it we have to see the whole obsession through like we have to get our fill of it right like you can't just have one slice of the Hershey's chocolate cake you're going to eat at least half that

cake until you're you've got your fill of it and you're like all right I don't have to eat that anymore for a while like next year next birthday Right? And that's what it is with him. I remember being young. And, you know, I lived in a traditional authoritarian household. And, you know, there were things that I wanted to make my own decisions. And so I just couldn't wait to move out of the house because all I wanted was to make my own decisions and pursue the things I wanted to pursue. So I moved away for college. And then I spent about six months pursuing all the things I wanted to pursue, making all the decisions. I was like, I'm grown enough to make these decisions making a thousand mistakes until I think I think at the end

of that semester I failed a class. And then I was like, you know what? I think I've had my fill. I'm done there and I'm going to move on. And I find that with, I feel like with Nina, it's the same thing. If we let him have his fill, then, you know, he's like it's finished. He has completed, right? He's followed through and completed everything he wants to know about it. So I think those are the two ways it's gone for me in the past. And I do know that, you know, before I became a targeter, I actually used some targeting skills without even knowing. Like, I had just started applying for the CIA at the time.

And I think I've told you before, I came in actually as a suit, not a targeter. I became a targeter after doing some interim's there. And so before any of that even happened, I actually used some targeting natural skills to uncover my cheating boyfriend. I remember this story. It was great. It was so satisfying. So talk about upset.

This is, so I absolutely want to unpack that story. But this is a fantastic example of obsessions gone wrong. This whole ex-boyfriend of yours, right? The last boyfriend you had before you met me. Yeah. Was, I mean, the only thing I can, the only way I have ever been able to rationalize in my head. Mm-hmm. Why you spent as much time you did as you did with him.

Mm-hmm. Was because of this strange to me, but very clearly very natural to you, like obsession. You were with this guy for seven years. Seven years. And he was a loser. Yeah. He was like, I'm pretty sure that there's a definition out there of what loser is and this guy fits everyone. He didn't have a job.

Yeah. He don't think he had an education. He was a pothead. He was like, and then he was cheating on you. Yeah. Like, you got to see, like, I'm sorry. I think that objectively all of this fits under the category of loser, but you continued, like, just to stay with this guy. to the place where you were like planning a wedding, you were waiting for him to propose.

I was waiting and waiting. And I'm not saying that you were dumb or stupid or anything like that. I get it. People there are, we've met and we've been the people who have been in these like relationships that aren't going anywhere. Yeah. For a long period of time. So I guess my question is before we get to your story about your weird, how you decided to start stalking him while you were still dating. him kind of thing.

But, I mean, is that, is that essentially the future that we have to think about for Sina? Like, will our son potentially fall into that same pattern in love with somebody who essentially doesn't deserve him? That's a great question. So, yes, I think that with somebody like him, we will have to be, you know, I think we'll have to be diligent in keeping open lines of communication. so that if we see signs that, you know, the relationship really isn't good for him, then we can have those conversations with him because he will be,

he's going to convince himself otherwise, right? And that's what I did for like the first four years I convinced myself, right? You know, the relationship wasn't bad in the beginning, but it slowly started to devolve. And then I convinced myself that he was the one. And so I kept myself, like, no matter what it was, I just kept myself going until I actually around year four, I got to a point where I was like, I can't do this anymore. And I broke up with him and then he convinced me to take him back.

And we did that like two more times. You know, and in the end, I was like, I just don't know. I didn't know how to get out at that point, right? Because I had been doing the same thing for so long. I'd gotten myself into a pattern. So I definitely think, you know, for a certain type of personality, that's, you know, something to look out for. I'm not talking about a certain type of personality.

I'm talking about our son. Yeah. Well, I think for sure. Yeah. Because your parents and your sister and your friends, they all tried to warn you. Yeah. Well, we're also people pleasers on top of it.

So, you know, maybe it starts with an obsession, but then you get to a point where you're people pleasing. It's a duty. Right. Oh, that's interesting. It's not just about being interested. interested now, it's also about pleasing the other people around you. Right.

And then I'm sure there's an element of ego because this is what people don't know about you. People don't know about you. What? Because they don't live in our world. That I'm the most humble person. You have this massive ego. You have this massive ego. And at least I also have a big ego, but I talk about it.

And I try to challenge it. And I try to like, I try to depower it by admitting it. you don't even admit it. Like, you're like, I don't have an ego. There's been a lot of therapy. Yeah, it's a lot of therapy after that relationship. But yeah, but along with that, you've got this ego to maintain. Yeah.

So even though you must have suspected this guy was not worth your time, you must have suspected he was cheating on you. You took action. I mean, I want to hear this story about how you took action to uncover his cheating. But you still kept, oh, you still kept in it. So I'm not criticizing you as much as what I'm trying to do is understand what to expect for our son. Because I've learned so much about him. Yeah. Because when I talk to you, I feel like I get in a way, I get a chance to talk to an adult version of where he's going.

Right. Your obsession with books is like his obsession with books. Yeah. And your obsession with story is like his obsession with story. You guys see art in very similar ways. He doesn't like to do things. he doesn't like to perfect things and do things thoroughly. Neither do you.

You like to dabble. I do. You like it when a story is given to you. You like it when a finished product is given to you. But you don't like to be the one that has to finish the product. Right? And so it's really interesting to me because I get to study and adapt my parenting to him by asking you, like, can you help me understand what's happening in his head? Yeah.

So I think that one of the things that we'll have to do with him in particular, but, you know, with our daughter as well, depending on how what happens in their lives, is something that is a tool that we use in targeting. So and by we, I mean, the military, the FBI, the CIA, anybody who uses targeting, who are the targeting discipline, uses something called a pattern of life analysis, which if you break it down, you know, into a, you know, more micro level. It's basically pattern of behavior analysis. So pattern of life analysis is, you know, everybody lives their life in a certain way. You can pretty much, you know, look at somebody's life over a period of time

and see their daily patterns, right? Behavior is much the same way. So when you say daily patterns, you mean what time they go to work, what time they go to school, what day of the week they go to the grocery store, what order they go through the grocery store, where they buy their coffee,

where they buy their gas. where they drop their kids off at school. These are all examples of pattern of life. Yes. Now, pattern of behavior, you said, is also out there. Yeah, so pattern of behavior is when you're looking at a person and the pattern of how they behaved. So if you had taken me many years ago at the beginning of that relationship, you would have

seen that the first year, that the year before I met him and the first year we were together, my pattern of behavior, my pattern of life was going out with friends. I had tons of friends. I was very social. I went to the gym all the time. You know, I had a part-time job. I was in college, but I was out and about all the time. By the second end of the second year of that relationship, I had zero friends.

I did not go to the gym. I didn't really leave my house because we were, he was a very jealous person. And I became very isolated. So if you had been paying attention, right, if somebody had been looking at my pattern of behavior, they would have seen a noticeable change in my pattern of behavior. And then the next year I moved, and so all the, you know, I moved to a different city to go to law school.

So none of those people knew me before. So for them, that pattern was normal. But anybody who had known me before would have seen that my pattern had drastically changed. So I think, you know, when you're looking at, you know, friends or loved ones or whatever, that's something that you can look at. I had a friend in high school who was,

she was like 16 dating a 30-year-old. And only in Florida does that happen? I know. I'm sure that's not true, but that's certainly what I think. A really, really, really smart girl. But, you know, you could see, I didn't know. I was also 16 at the time. So I didn't understand these things at the time.

But if you had looked at her pattern of behavior, you would have seen that she had also become more isolated. I found out years later that he had been abusing her. But, you know, these are things that if you have to be paying attention and have that open line of communication. And then you can see these things. their anomalies, changes. So your family saw changes in you.

Did they highlight to you your own changes in pattern of life or your own changes in pattern of behavior? So my families are a non-confrontational. So they did say things, but they were very subtle and nuanced. And nobody came right out and said, you need to break up with him. Which is funny because now when they talk about it in hindsight, they always say, Like, we don't know what she was thinking. But I bet you're right.

In the moment, they were probably like, so, how are you guys? Yeah. If I'd been in your family, like, if I'd had your sisters, they would have been like, gee, seriously. Or my mom. My mom would have been like, you're an idiot. What is my mom saying? No sympathy for stupidity. Yes.

Oh, my gosh. My mom would have had a heyday with your ex-book. That would have ended the relationship really early on. It's too bad I didn't know your family back then. So how did it actually come to an end? What was the straw that broke the camel's back in this seven-year obsession and this seven-year abandonment of all of your patterns of behavior that were healthy into? And it's so interesting because you were in this dark, destructive place.

And you emerged from that into CIA. Yeah. Like when you showed up at CIA, I'm pretty sure you showed. you showed up as part of your plan to get out of the relationship. Like it was a plan to like, it was a welcome change. Yeah. Move and like get the hell away.

And instead of just running someplace, you like ran to Langley, Virginia. Yeah. Yeah. So the last year of our relationship, I had graduated from grad school. You know, I was trying to get a job. We were living together again because when I was in grad school, we had been living in different cities. and so we had just kind of, you know, just flowed into this, I think what a lot of people do,

this natural cadence, right? This natural pattern of life develops, right? I went to work. He wasn't working for part of that time. Sometimes I think he got a job at some point. You know, he's a rapper, and so he would go to local shows. You're going to laugh at that. I'm not the only one laughing.

Everybody listening to this story right now is laughing at that one. But go ahead. Yeah, he's talented. It always made me crazy that he wasn't more driven. So we had this cadence like I worked, he worked. He did shows at night. And it was nothing was weird until I got to a point where one day I realized like I never saw his phone ever. Like never heard it ring, never saw it.

It just seemed to stop existing. And I was like, what? going on? Like, this is so strange. And then one day, it rang. And I hadn't heard it ring in like weeks. And it rang with a customized ringtone that you would only assign to somebody you were having sex with. And I was like, huh. And I, you know, and I, you know, and I, I happened to be there. And so I pick it up. He was like in the bathroom or something. I pick it up. And he comes running out of the room. And all I see is a letter. It said E. And I was like, oh okay and he was like oh you know whatever i was like who's e he's like just one of my friends i was

like okay so then talk about obsession from that point on i think i spent the next um i spent the next 24 hours i went into work i thought about it all night couldn't sleep i went into work the next day and then i worked my full day and then from work i uh we he was on so i paid for everything So it was on my, we had a family plan that I paid for. So I looked it up and I just, I looked through all of the call records. So I pulled all of the call records for our cell phones. And at the time, you could pull the text messages and the photos, everything, there was a record online. So I pulled all of it for like the last month.

And I started going through with my highlighter line by line. And, you know, because that wasn't the only number that, you know, maybe. was weird, but that was the number that like, for sure, there was this pattern of like three o'clock in the morning, hour long phone calls, two o'clock in the morning, two hour long phone calls, right? Like, like the, right? And I don't think, I think most people would see that as a clear pattern that reminds them of like high school dating. Right.

Because that's what I did in high school dating, right? And I was like, so I'm highlighting, you know, this pattern instead of I'm like, oh my gosh, Like, it's the same person. He's dating somebody. So then he looked up all the text messages. And then the text messages went from the benign to the sexting. And then there was a photo. And I was like, oh, my God.

So I took all of this. And I made a targeting package for him because I knew he would deny it. Like, I knew that he would just lie straight to my face. But I had to have something that made me feel like I wasn't crazy. So I built this whole targeting package where I was like, and you know, here's all my evidence here and here's who she is and here's her phone number because I called the phone number from like another like an unlisted phone. I called just to hear like I didn't want to talk to her, but like just to confirm it was a female and it was and I got the voicemail. Yeah, so I put all of this together and I was like, I know what's been going on. It's been going on for five months according to phone records. Right? That's how long. I spent hours and hours. I was up all night doing this. You know, so I know you've been seeing her for at least five months. I know who she is. Like, I would appreciate it. Like, if you just told me the truth. Because in my mind, I was feeling like a dumbass.

Because I was like, why? I was, and I was, so I was angry at myself because I was like, why didn't, I was angry at myself for staying. but I was angry at him because I was like, you asked me to stay. If you don't, if you are like, I am unhappy. You must also be unhappy. Like,

let us, let us part ways. Like, if you like this girl, like they were like, I love you messages. Like, if you love this girl,

be with her. Like, I'm not angry with her. Like, she doesn't know me. We didn't make, we don't have a covenant together, right?

Like, you and I have the covenant of, we will see each other. And I've even brought up if you ever want, to see somebody else if you ever I mean because even at that time it's like if you ever want to have an open relationship if you want to see somebody else if you want to leave me like just be honest right like let's have the discussion and instead he lied straight to my face like I knew he gave him

the oh yeah you gave him everything like solid yeah everything um he still denied he still completely denied it and he his his answer was so he completely denied it and then he called so he completely denied it And then he called the girl and put her on the phone with me so she could tell me, which was so unfair to her. Like, that must have put her in such an awkward spot, right? Because my beef wasn't with her. It was with him. Like, I didn't need her to lie to me, too. Like, it just needed him to be honest and own up and leave, right?

Yeah. So it just, it was a mess. And he still convinced me to give him a second chance. Are you serious? Yes. for about, let's see, it was like April and I stayed until August. Wow. I didn't realize that was the timeline.

Mm-hmm. And then I, it was, the apartment was in my name. It was, you know, a lot of my stuff was there. And I one day woke up and I was like, I have to leave this place. So I moved back in with my parents. I just left. He was at work and I left. And that's how you went to CIA.

And that's how I went to CIA. Yeah, I completely cut off contact. My parents actually moved all my stuff out. And then I left the state and went through a lot of therapy. But that was my first, like, when I got into the agency and started learning about targeting, I was like, oh, my gosh, I've already done this. Right. Right. Like, this is such a natural fit for me because I'm already curious.

I already want to deep dive into things that interest me, right? Like, I've already used some of these skills. Wow. Okay, so I understand that you get obsessed about things. And now I understand that you had this long-term boyfriend who cheated on you, denied it, even though you could build a solid body of evidence to present to him that he was undeniable. So you caught him cheating and presented him a package of proof that he was cheating and he still denied it. So I feel a little bit like I have to admit something right now before.

before the obsession part of you kicks in here, right? So I have been doing something on the side. I usually do it when I travel because... I'm already getting all these really inappropriate images. And I also now know that when you laugh, it's actually kind of scary. It's not really a funny thing. It's more like you're masking whatever your emotions. So I have this group that I mean.

meet with that is like I really have a fantastic time with this group. Okay. But it's all business related. And clothes are on. And closer. And close are. Well, I think clothes are on. But you can't see the pants.

We meet virtually. Exactly. So about about five months ago, how long goes March? Yeah, about five months ago, I started a group with all of our most successful clients. And it was invite only. And I invited them to come in because what I was discovering is that people go through our trainings and they go through at different levels. Some people really grow quickly and some people don't grow quickly. And some people are like really into our stuff.

Like some people really love learning the spy skills and they love, you know, understanding the science behind how it all works. But the number that actually apply those skills to what they do day to day and then see the. benefit of those skills, that number was small. Yeah. Where the number of people who were interested was very large. Yeah. So what I wanted to do was find a way to continue to teach and serve and encourage that small group of people who loved learning the skills and applied the skills to their business, to their

career, to their life. Yeah. So I started a group. An intelligence harem. That's what I'll just call them. Are they all men? They are mostly men. I do have some very hard-charging women in there,

but I don't know that they would appreciate being called a harem. I don't want to call them that. We call ourselves skunk works. Oh, that's awesome. Isn't that way cooler than harem? Well, I suppose, yes. We call ourselves skunk works, and we kind of claim that we are the place where, like,

business experimentation meets Weapons Lab. Right? So we're always kind of on the edge. So we're a group that's experimenting with, AI and we're a group that's working with, you know, unique marketing approaches that influence people. Yeah. Right?

So we're really like pushing the boundary of how we apply intelligence skills to business and career. We call ourselves SkunkWorks. It's a small group right now. I have seven people in my highest tier, which we call elite tier. And then I have five people in my base tier, which is our entry level tier. Yeah. And we meet.

and there's we have a private group you my phone is always around I don't ever try to hide my phone is always around my phone is always around always dinging at all times a day but you but there are absolutely but there are absolutely people that who call me and who text me and who I chat with yeah who you've never heard of before because they're in that group not because there's any kind of hanky-panky going on inside I was going to say hanky-panky so so none of that is happening but what I will also say is that, you know, as the group has grown, we've had some people have really phenomenal successes in the last few months. And the group has started to kind of ask me if it's time to expand the group because they want more people like them to come into the group. And I've been a little

bit hesitant, partially because it was an experiment in the first place, kind of like what we're talking about with Sina, like an experiment. Yeah. Taking something from the experiment phase to the commitment phase is a big step sometimes. Yeah. But the group seems to really want it. And I mean, to be honest, like, I kind of want it too. But it's going to be a huge commitment in terms of my time, my energy, and the business, really, right?

Because our goal with the business has always been to serve a small group of people at an impossibly high level. Yeah. Rather than, you know, serve a gigantic group of people. Yeah. With like almost no service. Yeah. Right.

It's the difference between mass marketing. It's like the McDonald's versus your like high-end five-star Michelin restaurant. We want to be the Michelin Restaurant that serves a few people at an incredible level. Yeah. Rather than the McDonald's who doesn't remember your name and usually gets your order wrong. Yeah. Right. So as we move to make that shift, I just wanted to kind of come clean and let you know.

Because you can't keep secret that big. Not from you. Definitely not for me. The last thing I want to do is trigger that. That's very what I will call scary level of like you were you were highlighting the guy's call records. And I can't even imagine what it must have been like to read what you read and saw what you saw as you were going through his history.

So I don't want you to do that to me. You don't need to and you don't have to. It's a business group that I'm meeting on the side. You don't want me to be like walking around the house one day. Where's my phone and there I am in the closet? Scroll, scroll, scroll. Who are these people? Exactly. My mistress is related to our business.

Well, that's, yeah. And like I said, I'm, I've got a solid 95% confidence. Everybody's wearing clothes. But there is still room for error there. I don't really know for sure that they're all wearing pants. But they're definitely showing up with clothes on, except for this one guy, Josh, who never turns his camera on. So I have no idea. No idea what that guy's wearing.

That's gone. I keep wanting to know. I keep wanting to have. these horribly inappropriate comments, like calling it your brain orgy. I don't know why you go. You have a unique brain. That is not where I'm going with this. No, you know, I've met at least, you know, one or two of who I'm pretty sure are people

in your skunk works group. And they really are incredible individuals, like not just incredible individuals, but like really successful in their company and the fact that all of you guys are getting together to do this, you know, it's learning, it's brainstorming, experimenting. Training application. Yeah, training application, right? Like, I think it's phenomenal that you are able to bring the teaching style, you know, that you've pulled from CIA, right, those techniques because we've seen them applied in the field. Like, we've seen them applied during our live events and how impactful that is. And, you know, like our live event, you know, might only be a day long.

You know, with this group, you meet them on a consistent basis. We meet every week. Yeah. So they're building a foundation and then building their business week after week after week. Like, that's amazing. And we get to measure each other's goals and we get to keep each other accountable. And because it's all like very successful people, everybody shows up. Everybody does the work they're supposed to do.

Like no one is critical of each other. No one is, you know, flaky or unreliable. It's been pretty awesome. Yeah. So I think I'm admitting this to you, in part because I think I'm going to follow the group's suggestion. In fact, I will just commit right now. I will expand the group. I will expand skunk works.

I will expand skunk works. I will make it so that more people can join us because that's what the group wants. And that's always been the goal for the company. Yeah. Before this episode goes live, I will have a link where you, if you are interested, in joining SkunkWorks, you can click on the link and you can go through and you can submit your own application because it's always been invite only. So it's only been people that we've known. Yeah. So go ahead and open the description box below and you will see a link there that invites

you to go to apply for Skunkworks. I'm going to call that. That link is called Everydayspy.com forward slash skunkworks. I'm already going to make it happen. Everydayspy.com forward slash skunkworks. go to that link or click on it in the description below. It will take you to a registration page, and that registration page is where you can apply complimentary to be part of the SkunkWorks group. If you are a business owner, if you are a senior executive,

if you are in the investment space or the financial space, this is the kind of group for you. This is a group for people who are able to, capable to, or who aspire to, turn ideas into wealth, turn ideas into money. either because you run your own business or you want to run your own business,

that is what SkunkWorks is. If you are not in a position to turn your own ideas into money, then you might qualify to be part of our base group, our entry-level SkunkWorks group. This is where career professionals and mid-level managers go so they can learn all the ideas from the elite members, and they can apply that to developing

and growing in their career. But I wanna make sure that you understand, it's a very small group, the registration process is very, very penetrating because we want to make sure that you're the right fit for the group, because we don't want you to come to the group and then be intimidated or overwhelmed by the folks who are there. So all you have to do is complete the application and we'll be able to take the rest from there. You'll get a phone call from somebody at my team who gives you all the instructions to come in

and shares all the details with you. So visit Everydayspy.com forward slash skunkworks. It's the same link that's in the description. Click on the link in the description and we look forward to having you join us there. And the group can get off my back and they can know that they're going to get more awesome people into the group. And I can now rest easier at night knowing that you're not going to think I'm having an affair. Well, good. I do have two questions, though.

So the first is, can you talk a little bit about explaining a little bit more like, is it a mastermind? What does it really look like? And if you've been running it for so long already, what is it going to be like for somebody new who comes in if you've already been teaching? That's a great point. So I think when I first started it, the idea was just to make it like a community thing. But then what I found is that as a community, that's not what the people wanted. They wanted a mix of like personal training, like a mix of advanced espionage level training, advanced spy skills, plus mastermind. Okay. So what it's turned into and the rhythm that we're in now is basically like every day we have a lesson.

And the lesson is a deep dive into one spy. skill and then it's always done in a community forum so everybody gets to participate and brainstorm and have conversations and ask questions about that spy lesson right so that's what we do every time so it's a mix of tailored customized training and mastermind group we get the benefit of both awesome and then we've been recording everything from the beginning because I didn't really know what to do with it yeah so what we've what I've done is I've just made it so that our our assistant who handles all of our back-end digital stuff, she's made it so that anybody who is invited into the group

has access to the entire history of what the group has talked about. Awesome. So we've been at it for five months. So what is that? Almost 20 weeks. I think we're at week 24 or 25 this week. So yeah, anybody who comes in at any time has a chance to go back and review all of the previous weeks.

And we've gained about one new member every two or three weeks just from invitations and word of mouth. So people are in and people are loving it. And people are talking about it with their own. friends, but like I said, it's been invitation only. We're now, now the invitation is going to everybody who watches us, everybody who wants to learn what we're talking about. So make sure you click the description below.

And while you're at it, leave a comment. Tell us if you enjoyed this conversation. I was a little bit scared about this conversation. I'm not going to lie because I had no idea some of the stuff you talked about today. Leave a comment below. Leave us your questions. Send us your ideas. If you sign up for Skunkworks, drop a comment so I can celebrate.

and I can tell people to keep an eye out for your application. And for sure, if anything about what we talked about today was interesting to you and if it made you feel like you want to be part of our SkunkWorks group, take the time, click on the link, visit Everydayspy.com forward slash skunkworks. Send me your application because I would love to have you be part of the group. With that, we'll see you next time, and thanks very much for your time and attention.