EverydaySpy Podcast - Inside CIA's Game: Unraveling Hard Power vs Soft Power | EverydaySpy Podcast Ep. 15

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

Check out AURA digital security for yourself for 2-weeks absolutely FREE by clicking on my sponsor link here 👉 https://aura.com/everydayspy Today I got taken to SCHOOL on FEMINISM by my brilliant and beautiful wife! If you've always wondered what it really means to be 'feminist,' if you grew up in a home with a bra-burning momma, or if you just want to hear a couple hilarious stories from two spies with feminist roots – this is the episode to watch! We also get to share a pretty cool little spy lesson buried deep under all the talk about sexism and sex appeal, so stick with us till the end! 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

CIA gave us a school of thought where we had to understand the psychological advantages that we had over other people. The agency teaches us to recognize it because we use it, and that is we all have personas. One of my favorite personas that you have, I want to call it ditsy, but it's not ditsy. The little lady persona. Yes! So you're using kind of inherent sexism to get what you want. I mean, do you see why I call you brilliant? That's all soft power.

and it's really powerful. Right. Because hard power, you know, it's just a bunch of threatening and you can lose your spot at any time. But soft power, soft power lasts. I went for an early morning grocery shop yesterday, and when I go to the grocery store in the morning, I always go to the same one because it's five minutes away.

Right. I always see this older gentleman who's a bagger, and he actually commented yesterday. He doesn't normally, we have like small talk sometimes, but yesterday he was like, I see you in here a lot. You must have a huge family. You know, it's funny because we don't. We don't, but we eat.

We eat so much. I'm in the grocery store so much. So yesterday we were having this really like lovely little conversation about family and food and whatever. And then when he, you know, I was finished checking out. He finished bagging. You know, they always ask if you need help. I always decline.

And he was like, all right. have a blessed day honey and as i'm walking away i had the thought you know because it's and i don't know if it's a thing in the south or or if it's just me or but you know i every time an older gentleman calls me something like honey or sweetie or some kind of name um you know i always walk away thinking to myself you know there are women out there who would be really offended at being called honey right that they would take it as demeaning or patriarchal or whatever, but I really don't mind it. And I remember when I was in my 20s, I used to call children, honey. It was just for me, it was just this like Southern thing that you said.

But it's just I always find it interesting that, you know, it always just brings back these memories. I remember when I was a kid in the 90s, early 2000s, whatever. And, you know, the women who would get so angry at being called anything or having the door held open for them. I'm like, you know, it's okay, really. Like, let them do it. So I'm, I'm a grown man and I get called honey. Do you really? Oh my gosh, yeah. Like, it's really, it's not ever insulting or offensive to me. Yeah. But I am kind of, it's always surprising to me. And we live right now, we live in Florida. And we live in the South. Yeah. Even though if you were in Georgia, just like 50 miles north of us, they tell us that we're not actually in the South, which is really funny.

Yeah. But yeah, so I have, especially like the next generation, older generation, African-American women specifically in this area, man, they just call me honey all the time. And it makes me feel like a kid again, right? Because it's like, oh, I'm just a little, I'm still young. I'm still funny. But your story takes me in like, takes me in like five different directions all at once. But the first thing is immediately my mind goes. to this idea that what you're talking about with women being offended by, you know, being called honey or having doors held open, especially like late 1990s, early 2000s. I feel like what you're talking about is feminism, but I have to be honest, I don't really understand feminism. I'm pretty sure both your mom and my mom were pretty staunch feminists. Yeah.

Because my mom used to always, like, talk about it. but I never actually understood it. Well, so it's funny you say it because I would consider you a feminist. I'm a feminist? I'm certain you don't consider yourself. Because feminism is really just the ideology, the concept that you shouldn't be treated differently, arbitrarily. You shouldn't arbitrarily be kept from doing something just based on your gender. Isn't that like, I feel like that's.

Maybe I'm crazy. I feel like that's kind of common sense. Nobody should arbitrarily be kept from doing something because of anything. It's arbitrary. Yeah. So I feel like, so I, my undergraduate degree is in African American and women studies. So African American studies and women studies. Can I just tell you after coming from a military college? I'm certain that doesn't sound like a real degree. That does not sound like a real degree. I don't know how there's enough out there to study to even call that a degree. Oh my gosh, there's so much to study. So the African-American part I can kind of understand because there's a long history. Right. But women's studies? There's a long history with women, too. Let's putting that out there.

Really? Yes. Do I still sound like a feminist or do I sound like something else? No, because in practice, you're a feminist, right? When you live life, you're a feminist. Like, you're never going to be like, well, our daughter can't do that because she's a girl. Like, those words will never come out of your mouth, right? So I think oftentimes people have this idea of what a feminist is. Can I tell you what idea that I think that is?

I can't wait to hear it. Especially as you're telling me that I might be a feminist that doesn't know I'm a feminist, this is turning into a lot of fun for me. Okay. All right. So when I think of feminist coming from, again, and I'm fully admitting I've never known what a feminist is, when I think about what the commonest is, when I think about what the common idea is a feminist. You think of like, like women that act like men that are like kind of butchy and mean. And no, seriously, women that like want the right to like burn bras. I knew you were going to bring up burning bras. It's like it's like the woke before the woke.

It's like pre-woke. That's totally what I think of with feminism. And I'll tell you why. Here's here's a story since you love it when I tell stories. I do love stories. I grew up in a household, and I'm a, so my mom, my father died when I was very young, like months old, less than a year old. And my mom raised me as a single mom in a household with my grandmother, who was also a single lady, a single divorced grandmother, right? So I was raised by two strong women.

And my mom, the one story that she always talks about is how she took her bastard son to a women's rights, liberation rights, whatever it's called? Women's lib. I don't know what the lib stands for. I really don't know much about this. But she took me to this like women's lib demonstration

in Washington, D.C., where they were like protesting Roe versus Wade. But that's like my thing. My thing is my mom took me to a parade or to like a demonstration. where she was advocating for women's rights to kill their own babies, right? And I was her bastard child. So I don't understand necessarily what she was trying to communicate there.

That she made a choice because it was available to her. And the choice was to have me? Or like she would have preferred the choice not to have. I've always interpreted that story through the lens of, look at this child that I have that you forced me to have. That is literally how I have always taken her story. You're killing you right now. So she was, you're saying she was protesting because she was proud of her choice?

Yes. You can, you. So that's a, this is a whole separate conversation. That kind of makes me want to change my whole relationship with my mom. Mom's a great lady. She is a great lady, but I thought that she was a great lady who, like, She's never wanted to be a mom. Yes.

Seriously. That is exactly how I've thought of. I'm 43 years old. I've thought about her a long way this way. No. She chose. She had the choice she chose to have you. You're so funny.

But anyways, going back to... That's all the stuff I thought feminism was. I thought it was, you know... So what's funny. Negative. Net negative is definitely how I've interpreted it. I think your previous point was spot on, right? I wanted to go into so.

rights. I ended up going into social work. But, you know, the civil rights, which encompasses, you know, gender, race, sexual orientation, whatever, you know, just like you said, it should be common sense. It should be human to human. Let's treat each other in a way that's respectful and that we take into consideration without, you know, judging a book by its cover, we take into consideration, you know, how similar we really are. So, you know, instead of, it's funny because there are so many things that, that, you know, traditionally have been, so I think about like space and flight, right, airplanes and whatever.

You know, there are so many things that have, like, for example, we're traditionally male that didn't need to be traditionally male. Like our son came back. from space camp and he was like, he was like, I think somebody's going to be like the first woman to go to the moon. He's like, you know what's dumb? How is a woman never been to the moon before? That was pretty cool. He keeps repeating it. And I'm like, did you make that up by yourself? Like, did you come to that conclusion by yourself? It's so funny. I mean, I think only like 11 people ever have been to the moon. Right. Yeah. So I don't know that it was intentionally anti-woman,

but he's super like the the current day astronauts like the lineup of astronauts yeah for the current projects like the Artemis project man it is there are tons of women in there like really impressive people right that just happen to be females right right but I mean scientists and and doctors and wow like it's his I think that is probably part of what informs his point he looks everywhere you look at NASA's lineup now and there are so many women And he's like, what do you mean a woman's never been to the moon before? That doesn't make any sense. So it's great because he's coming up in a time where civil rights movements and, you know, feminist movements.

And, you know, they've come so far. So for him, it really does seem like common sense. Like, how is this ever any different? But, you know, part of these, you know, in these fields, a part of what allows somebody to go up into space or to fly a jet plane or whatever. you know, there's height requirements. So one of the things I read about some time ago was they make those, the space suits are really expensive. They don't make them for every astronaut.

They make them a standard size. So if you don't, and same thing with aircraft, right? I think you've told me this, where they make the planes a standard size. If you were, if you were too tall or too short. You just can't be in the airplane. You just can't be in the airplane. You can't like put a phone book in the seat of an F-16 to make it so that everybody can fly it. Although that would make for some kind of great movie or show. I don't know.

My dad was just telling us the story of his aunt who sat on three phone books and had to tie like a block to her foot to drive the car. I mean, you know, in like the 30s. And before we get too deep into this awesome conversation, because I really want to connect this idea of feminism with the future and the past that we came from and that our children are moving into because, again, there's a really powerful spy lesson in here. Yeah. But I want to take just a minute so that we can thank the sponsor for today's podcast episode. Today's sponsor is ORA.

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you're going to love it once you try it because I fell in love with it very quickly. And I'm sure that you'll see the value as soon as you click on the link in the description or visitora.com forward slash everyday spy. Now let me get back to this conversation because I'm absolutely adoring the fact that I'm a feminist without ever knowing it. And it sounds like my son is a feminist also without ever knowing it. And so that must mean there are so many, there are many men out there who are feminists without knowing it.

even though coming from my background, it doesn't make me necessarily feel comfortable being called a feminist. Well, you know, I think... Because I just want to be called like an equalist. I just... People are people. So why do we have to call it feminism to just see people as people? Well, and I think that's totally fine, too. And I think that what happens is, you know, when you have a group that is oppressed for whatever reason,

and they start to rise up and have a voice and to be heard, right? there's this pendulum, right? So the pendulum swings from a pressure, from like being silenced to like, I am going to be as loud as I can, right? And then that's where like the bra burning and the all the like all the really. Because that did happen, right? Yeah. That's not just like a story.

You can tell how old we are because our parents came to age in like the 60s and 70s, right? So, you know, the pendulum swings to the other side because you're like, you know, I'm tired of being silenced. I just want to be as loud as I can. so you hear me. But really where we need to be is somewhere in the middle, right? Like the common sense place is in the middle. It's interesting because when you are as loud as you want to be, you become very offensive to people. Yeah, it's too much. It's too far. Well, I wonder if that's part of what makes it so that there are so many people who have a negative opinion of what feminism

is. Right. Because the pendulum is swung. Can I admit something kind of embarrassing? Yeah, always. So, so I never understood how your mom and mine participated in the braw burning days of feminism, but then still wear bras. Seriously, it was something that I never understood. And then, in my own lack of knowledge about anything, I also noticed that in like, what, 2017-ish, like women stopped wearing bras. Like you can like young women around like in the city. Yeah. It's like it's a it's a fashion something.

I don't know if it's a statement or if it's just in vogue. I don't know. I don't even know what in vogue means. But you see women everywhere going brawless. Yeah. And I've wondered like is that feminism again? Like is that the is that the eco-friendly version of burning bras? Instead of burning them, you just don't use them at all because burning them would cause greenhouse gases.

So I don't know. Right. It's the idea that you can like. you can be how you want to be. Like if you're a man and you're wearing dress clothes and you wear, right, it's traditional to wear an undershirt, right? Like wearing an undershirt is very similar to wearing a bra. A bra can be practical or maybe you don't need it and you don't feel like wearing it

and you shouldn't have to worry about people ogling you or judging you because you're not wearing a bra. And it's just this idea that, you know, I'm a human being. I should be able to do things that I want to do and not be judged. Okay. So I have to push back on this. I have to push back on this because this is where the reality of it is very different from the utility of it. Because you and I came from a school of thought.

CIA gave us a school of thought where we had to understand the psychological advantages that we had over other people. So let's take the example of a girl walking around, modern day female, walking around, wants to be seen as just a person. Yeah. Not true. Because to a potential suitor who she approves of, she wants to be seen as a potential suitor. So like ugly, zit-faced, four-eyed guy looks at her.

She doesn't want it. It's called ogling. Yeah. Super sexy, well-built, built handsome guy looks at her. She likes it. She considers it like flirtatious. How does that play? How does that work?

Same activity. Two different guys, it's her interpretation of the two guys that makes one oppressive of her rights and one, like, welcoming of her interests. Well, I think so there's a couple things. So one, it depends on how each gentleman acts. If each gentleman acts exactly the same way where they don't overstep their bounds, they don't touch her, they don't say something rude and nasty, you know, then, you know, they are within. like normal human behavior. If the guy like, look, if both gentlemen look at her and they're like, hey, it's nice to meet you. My name is Bobby, right?

They've both done exactly the same thing. If she reacts adversely because one is, is, you know, doesn't look great, then that's on her. Because if they both react the same way very politely, very gentlemanly, right, then they're not doing anything wrong. The second thing is that I think the agency teaches us something that most people do that they don't realize that they do. agency teaches us to recognize it because we use it. And that is we all have personas. Now, just one. We have multiple personas that we put on depending on who we're interacting with. And I think that most people. Most people do that. Most people do it. They're just not aware. cognizant that they're doing it. And so the CIA teaches us to recognize the personas that we use

naturally and then to cultivate personas that we then use in the field. That's interesting. I know one of my favorite personas that you have is I don't even know what the right words are for it. I want to call it ditsy, but it's not ditsy. The little lady persona. Yes. Yeah. You're like a little lady. I'm a little lady persona.

Yeah, but it's like it's unassuming and it's not flashy and it's not attention grabbing. Like you use this all the time. You are a brilliant, intelligent, well-informed. I'm being honest. You are an awesome person who is also a female, so therefore you are an awesome female. And most of the people who meet, you have no idea. Most of the parties you go to, the public settings, like I've seen you interact with billionaire clients that we have. I've seen you interact with foreign intelligence officers.

I've seen you interact with so many people and the little lady persona where you just like, you just smile nice and you say nice things and you don't ever talk about yourself. Yeah, so I find the, I mean, I call it the little later persona, but I think anybody of any gender could use something similar. It's the persona where you come in very non-threatening, right? It's the non-threatening persona where you come in and you stay quiet about yourself, you ask gentle questions about somebody else, not probing, you know, confrontational questions, but just gentle questions, easing in, like about their, family or about little things and then moving into, you know, deeper questions as they become more comfortable with you. You listen more than you speak. You are, you behave a bit differential to the other person because especially when you're meeting somebody for the first time,

you don't, even if the other person says something that you disagree with, you don't want to go head to head with them. I mean, when I'm in this persona, when I'm working it like this. Which is often. Which is often. This is like your go-to public persona. Right. You're getting to know that person, right? Your information data gathering about that person.

So you don't want to be like, you think poodles are the best dog? I totally disagree. You absolutely don't want to do that. So you defer to them and be like, oh, yeah, I can see your point there. Tell me more. Tell me more, right? So you're a bit deferential. You don't argue right away.

But doesn't this go against all of your upbringing and feminism? It doesn't. Because so you're supposed to be a person that stands on your own two feet. You're supposed to be equal head to head with anybody that you meet. So why would you act deferential? Why would you act like the little lady? Because I'm- Wouldn't you want to show a little bit of threatening behavior just so that they know that you're equal?

I want them in those scenarios, because I don't use it all the time, in those scenarios, I want them to open up to me. And that is how I have found for me personally. That works. I want somebody to feel open and comfortable with me in those scenarios. I think it's in line with, I don't think it goes against feminism because I'm not, you know, so I have my core beliefs about equality and. equity, you know, and those would come into play. Like, it's not like, you know, if I am really,

you know, if I'm advocating for the rights to do something that I would have that persona on, I'd have a different persona on, right? And me having one interaction with an individual, you know, right in the beginning of the relationship that we're building, I don't think it damages, right? I think it would be more damaging for me to come in with like a hardcore persona of like, it's so nice to meet you. I'm a threat. I burn bras. I'll burn one on your front porch.

I'm not going to tap you on the shoulder. I'm going to stop on your foot, right? Like, you know, I just think in the agency teaches us this, right? I mean, oh my gosh, that some of the people that spies recruit are horrible people, right? Like they just, they're people that do heinous things, but you have to develop a relationship with them to influence, to gather intelligence, you have to do it. And if you came in as a threat, if you came in as a ballbuster, those heinous people are hypersensitive to anybody who could potentially unmask them for what they are.

So you have to appear quiet and you have to appear deferential. if you want a heinous person to demonstrate their true heinous tendencies. Yeah. Because they don't show that side of their life unless they're very confident the person they're talking to is like submissive to them. Right. And the great thing about a persona is it's something you put on and take off, right? So you're not going in there as Andy and Andy has to start believing in these horrible things

to make friends, right? Right. Like Andy's not going in there. Andy's persona named Bob is going in there, right? So then when you get home, you remove that. No offense to all the Bob's out there. But, you know, I mean, we have had friends who have worked, you know, deep undercover in law enforcement at the agency. And that's what they do.

They put on a persona before they go out into the field. And then when they come home, they take off the persona. And some of them who are really deep undercover, you know, they live in that persona. for a long time. And it takes them days to put it on and take it off, right? Your average person can have more minor personas that they use in different situations. So there are two stories that come to my mind, right? So the first is the fact that what you're talking about is a lesson that we learned at the agency called being the dumbest person in the room, which is an idea that you're not a dumb person. Right. You just want all the other people in the room to think of you as the dumbest person in the room.

underestimate you. To underestimate you. Exactly. Because if they underestimate you at the beginning, then the probability is they will always underestimate you until the end because they'll always be double checking anything they suspect against their first impression. To be like, oh, maybe that person's smarter than I once thought. Uh, probably not. Right. Oh, maybe that person knows more than what I thought. Uh, probably not. Like they will forever underestimate you. So that's a huge advantage is if you can get people to underestimate you at the beginning, you can basically count on that. And you can basically count on them continuing to underestimate you for the entirety of your relationship. But I also think that being underestimated is something if you choose to, you can turn around.

For sure. Right. Right. And that's, I think, where your point is really powerful. You're underestimated at the beginning, essentially so that you can slot yourself in to being in a relationship with a person of interest, whether that's an intelligence target or some other target, because you will be able to go along with them without ever threatening them. So even as you assert your knowledge and you assert your power and you assert your leverage more and more, they still don't see you as a threat, even though you are becoming a

genuine threat, right? Like in any spy relationship, there's a handler and an asset. The handler handles the asset. Like the handler is a huge threat, but the asset continues to believe that they're the one in control when they're not. That's how compromised they are. They don't even realize it, right? So it's really interesting that you're exactly right. It's this idea of coming in as in your persona, the little lady, people are like forever, they assume, well, gee, he's just a little lady. She's just, she's kind and she's sweet, but she's, you know, she doesn't know much and she doesn't talk much. And that's exactly what I like. And then by the time you're in, like, total control of the relationship, they still love you. And that's the thing that's so

fascinating to me is that people love you forever. Like, you have friends that you had since, like, high school. I have yet to meet a single person who has ever said anything bad about you. I mean, a solid 60% of the people who meet me have something bad to say about me. Really? Oh, my gosh. Yeah, they have something to criticize. They have something I'm arrogant.

I'm rude. I talk too much. And they're not wrong. Yeah. But I, my little Andy persona or my little man persona. I don't know if you have a little manny persona. Exactly. Yeah.

It's hard. I can do the dumbest guy in the room thing for sure, but it always, like, it just doesn't have the resilience that your persona does. And it's really been fascinating to me because it must be something that you come by naturally. And it's fascinating that you have such a natural relationship with this persona while also being raised in a feminist household. Why, I think that. Because I'm sorry to interrupt you a more time, why people don't like me. because you are also female. So you're a female using the little lady persona,

which is essentially a sexist idea that people have against women anyways. So you're using kind of inherent sexism to get what you want. I mean, do you see why I call you brilliant? Do you see why I put a ring on your finger? Because it's pretty badass. Oh, well, I'm so glad to know that. So one, I think, so a couple things. One, I think that, you know, that personas really, you know,

it's going to be difficult to create a persona if you don't have any of the attributes of that persona, right? Any of the characteristics. Like your persona is like, it's like when you're playing D&D and you pick your character, right? D&D, Dungeons and Dragons. Sorry, Dungeons and Dragons. You know, and you pick your character. Not everybody knows what it's like to play D&D. Sorry.

Sorry. But anyways, when you pick your character, it's like picking your persona. You are choosing things. At least there's at least one small part of it that you relate to, right? That is a part of your personality. Maybe it's not dominant, but it makes it easier for you to play that character, to use that persona. The other thing is, you know, because I am a feminist in my heart, right?

And I know that it's, you know, when I use the little lady persona, I know I am playing on, depending on who it is, right? But that in some situations, I am dealing with, you know, a person who is sexist. Yeah. You know, male or female, right? A person, because it can go both ways. And we're all a little bit sexist. Right. Because all of us have been conditioned in some way to have a relationship with the opposite sex.

Right. So we've all got varying levels of like preconditioned sexism. Right. Prejudgments and, you know, concepts. So, you know, I know that the little lady persona can play on those. But the feminist in me is like, you know, in this half-hour interaction, I am not going to change this person's mind on how women should be, on how men should be, how the relationship should be, and gender roles. I'm not going to, this isn't the time or the place and me doing this so I can get to know them better.

right so I can build an open relationship with them like it's not hurting anything so let me ask you this we have another we have an intel peer um who was part of an eastern European intelligence agency and she is another brilliant beautiful female spy yeah right and we worked with her we know her well we're friends with her she has a completely different point of view on this than you do because she doesn't have a little lady persona. She has like the sultry lady persona. Yeah. Like she is,

she actively leans into her beauty and her, you know, her dark eyes and her curvy body. And like she can't, she absolutely presents it all. Yes. Again, as a way of like disarming. It's very disarming.

It is. Even for women, even for me. Yes. Right? It's very disarming. So she disarms both men and women by being hyper, feminine. Yes. You disarm both men and women by being a little lady, like not being hyper feminine, but being like hyper deferential. Yeah. Is that, are this an example of two people doing,

using the same tool two different ways? Or is there like a, what's helped me understand, help me find the words I can't use because I'm afraid of pissing off women. Yeah. So I think, you know, like we were saying before, you know, everybody's, the personas that people, use come from something that's natural within them so she is naturally I I think from what I know of her like she is naturally beautiful visually but she is also naturally feminine and that comes across really well so I think it doesn't seem artificial right it's not not artificial she's not trying to be feminine she is naturally feminine so her persona just kind of dials that up and to make it

more disarming, right? And it's funny because I think when we call it disarming, what we're really saying is it's very attractive. Men find her feminism like comforting and predictable, which is probably why she loves it, because she can anticipate the mood, the mood, the decisions and the thought process of every man around her. Yeah. Because she's this very classic feminine woman. And then women also are attracted to her femininity because in it they see the classic femininity of the past, right? They either see a reflection, depending on the woman, they see a reflection of themselves,

they see something that they could be, or they see something that they want to be. That's true. And all of those things help you as a woman relate to her, and then when she speaks to you, she's not, she's, you know, she's not like a conceited haughty. Right.

She is feminine. Yep. So when she speaks to you, it's soft, it's open, biting. Right? It's not just the way she looks. It's her mannerisms and the words that she uses, right? It's, you feel supported by her when you have a conversation with her. You feel like she's listening to you. Yeah, it's really interesting because I feel like what we're talking about is kind of getting into the realm of what in military terms we call hard power and soft power.

Yes. Because when men interact with other men, especially traditional stereotypical men, Right. It's like we have to be hard. It's about power and strength and like... Who has the biggest stick. Yeah, right? I said stick, by the way. Just put that out there.

But for real, no, you're not lying. There is an element of like, in order for me to respect you, I have to push you around and you have to push me back. Right. That's all hard power. That's very much like saber rattling in the geopolitical world or you build a nuclear bomb. I build a nuclear bomb. You have a stealth fighter. I have a stealth fighter.

power versus soft power, which is what you're explaining with yourself and with this other female spy that we work with and with a number of, I'm guessing, like, female, intelligent females of all varieties. They've probably all figured this out, this thing that I am just now coming to realize, that you can be non-threatening and you can be disarming in a soft way. Right. But that doesn't make you a soft person. Right.

And so like geopolitically, that looks like building infrastructure in another country. Foreign aid. Foreign aid. Education. Exactly. That's all soft power. And it's really powerful. Right.

Because that is how you actually build the roots of a relationship, right? Hard power, you know, it's just a bunch of threatening and you can lose your spot at any time. But soft power, soft power lasts, right? People remember that. Like, I think I've told you before, you know, one of the, you know, one of the, you know, the one of the things that endears me, and we have a friend who what's the most endearing about her is how she treats my children. Because every time we are with her, she is so good to them. And that, right there, last. Last. Like she has a place in my heart forever because of how she treats my

children. That's soft power. Yeah. And it's really powerful because hard power is almost temporary. Yeah. because it's always competitive. Yep. But soft power is sticky because it just, it's, it's there and it doesn't really ever go away. Right. Right. Just like, I mean, one day our children will be adults.

We won't care. We will still always remember how that friend treats our children. Yes. Right? Even now, it's been probably a solid half year or a year since we've worked with that Eastern European foreign intelligence officer that we've been talking about. and so much of her style and her skill in espionage, it sticks. It sticks because it's so soft. I mean, we have dozens of examples of hard case officers who have done hard things.

And inevitably, we end up not liking them, right? But the softer folks, the folks who actually learn how to make themselves memorable in a positive way, they have that soft power. So this all brings me to the question. that I wanted to talk about today, which is really interesting. Because at first I was a little curious how I was going to even be able to answer this question. But somebody wrote in and said, how is it that Andy, me, how did I rise so quickly through the corporate ranks at CVS Health, which was the first company I worked for after we left CIA? How did I rise to the ranks so quickly at CVS Health using skills that I had learned at CIA? Right.

And when I first kind of read that article, where my mind went as I was like, oh, well, it's because CIA taught me how to learn a new skill quickly, right? And I worked as an IT project manager for CVS Health. I was working within seven or eight months after I left CIA. And I knew nothing about IT and I knew nothing about project management. Yep. I fraudulently got myself the job. And there's no way around lying about that. Well, because we were still undercover. We were still undercover. Yeah, we had a covered resume, which was horrible. But when I was hired, I had to quickly learn how am I going to continue to pretend like I know what I'm talking about? And I 100% used all the skills that CIA taught about how you learn quickly, how you retain information, how you essentially professionally fake it until you make it. Right? So I was thinking, oh, I'm going to answer this question. I'm going to talk about my adaptability and talk about rapid learning styles and talk about

memory tools and talk about all these, like these tactical stuff. What I'm realizing now after this conversation is that the real reason I rose to the ranks was because I made myself sticky. Because I went in there and I was the dumbest guy in the room, figuratively and literally. And I just used it as an opportunity to learn. And everybody, all the male personalities that were in that career field at the time, right, IT project management. That's a heavily male dominated career field. They were all fighting with each other. time. Documentation should be this way. Format should be this, you know, yada, yada, yada. And I just

kind of came in and I was like, hey, guys, like, tell me what I can do to help whatever you're trying to accomplish. And then through that process, like the natural evolution of things happened and that the people who were the most threatening, they were either asked to leave or they were fired or they were promoted. And the guy that ended up getting promoted up the chain the fastest was me. Not because I was accidentally promoted, but because I had taken a passive stance where I was learning everything instead of trying to show off what I had learned. And then I was helping everybody, which just made more people want to work with me. So, you know, I found my way rising through the ranks very, very quickly without having to be like, you said, the conceited

hottie. Is that what you called? The conceited haughty. Instead of being some conceited, skilled person, I was just sticky. Yeah. And you teach this in some of your courses, the idea that when you're in a work situation, you should be asking, what does my boss need? What does my coworker need? And because that is, when we've talked about this before, you know, that is how you build social capital, right?

And then as you're building social capital, you can, you know, you know, trade that in for other things, right? And part of what you trade it in for is opportunity. Opportunity. Opportunity, right? Promotions. I mean, it's amazing that you can turn people's good favor towards you. You can actually turn that into money. Yeah. If people like you at work, you can ask them to promote you and they probably will. Yeah. And people don't realize how powerful that really is. Yes. And you're right. We teach this in our Winning the Workplace ebook. We teach this in all of our workplace education where folks who are trying to build a career need to start seeing their career through the eyes of their supervisor.

Right. Because their supervisor looks at them as an asset. Yes. So any assets that produces is an asset everybody wants to keep. Right. When too often we think of ourselves in our career as we're in control. Like we're the handler and the company we work for is our asset. Yeah.

Like that puts you on constant competition. Now you're in the area of hard power. Right. You can absolutely look at your asset. You can look at your company as your asset. You can look at your career as something you're in control of. 100% you can do that. But the way that you succeed is when you do that and you give the appearance that is soft power.

Yes. You give the appearance of, I'm here to help you. Right. I'm invested in this company. I want to see everybody succeed. All of a sudden people give you a funnel opportunity to you. Yes. Because you are either what they want to be, what they see themselves as, or what was the third thing?

You have three great examples, and I want to remember those forever. Or what they currently are. Or what they currently are. So they can relate to you in some way, and that makes you stick. Right. So I guess, so the short answer to the question, how did I raise to the ranks? I rose the ranks by appearing disarming and by appearing non-threatening and by enabling other people to succeed. And by enabling other people to succeed on their rise up, they wanted to take me with them

because they understood I was the asset that helped them succeed. And that's exactly how it turned out. When I came in as a senior analyst, I left four years later as a senior advisor for promotions in four years. And every one of those promotional steps, the same senior leader, I was following them all the way up. Yeah. They were two steps above me, but they were rising through the ranks and they just kept pulling me along with them.

Yeah. They're like, that Andy guy doesn't threaten me and he helps me get my shit done. He's coming with me. Yeah. And it was really useful. Yeah. It was really useful. Thank you very much.

That was an awesome conversation. Yeah. Thank you for helping me learn about my inner feminist. You're welcome. And now I think the next thing we have to learn, we have to train me for is how to be like a little man, a little man persona. I don't know if that little man persona is going to work for you. I want to figure something else out.

Something else. Something else is also non-threatening. Maybe a goofy man persona. The D&D persona. The D&D, the nerd persona. Oh, it's going to be so great. I'm so excited right now. Oh, my gosh.

If I become too much of a nerd, I'm afraid that's going to turn you on. That's my... Isn't that what you want? Duh. True. This will be worth investing our time in. Yes. This will be worth investing our time in.

Thank you very much for joining us today. I hope you had as much fun as I did exploring this idea of femininity versus feminist and how we can use both of them to our operational advantage to get what we want in life. To get what we want at work, to get what we want in the career place, to get what we want in business. And apparently to get what we want at home too, because I'm about to learn how to be a nerd. For sure. If you have any comments, please leave them. Let us know what your thoughts were. Let us know any questions you have.

If you want to give us feedback on the conversation topics or if you disagree or agree with anything, please leave it in the comments. We want to hear your thoughts. We want to hear what you have to say. And of course, take a moment to click on the sponsor link that we have below. Go ahead, visit Aura. Take a look at Aura.com forward slash everyday spy. They really are a fantastic tool.

If you're looking for a solution to protect your identity, protect your family, protect your data, they've been fantastic for me. I want to make sure that you know you get a chance. to know what their product is, what their service is, and how it works. And with all that, we will see you on the next show. Take care.