EverydaySpy Podcast - Predator, Prey, and Not Playing Fair

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

Good surveillance can operate right under your nose without you even knowing they are there. And even though your tail may have all the advantages, you have one powerful tool that can flip the odds in your favor. In this episode, Andrew teaches you how spies beat surveillance in the field and how you can use the same skill to beat your opponents in everyday life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My name is Andrew Bustamante, and this is everyday espionage. Espionage is illegal. It's illegal everywhere in every country, under every law, in every corner of the world. If you get caught stealing secrets from a government or a corporation or even an individual, local police have the grounds to arrest you. And in most parts of the world, police custody is not very common. comfortable. So operators put a lot of time, planning, and effort into something we call surveillance detection. In the surveillance game, there are two sides. The people surveilling, we call those people the tail, and the person being followed. We call that person the rabbit. And the surveillance

game is not fair. The tail has all the advantages. They have more people, more tech, more support, but the rabbit has one powerful tool on their side, the surveillance detection route, or what we call an SDR. SDRs happen on foot, in cars, on bicycles, public transit, pretty much anywhere you can find people moving. And that's because the secret sauce to spotting your tail is to force your surveillance out from wherever they are hiding. This is the key to all surveillance detection. You have to take deliberate actions that force your opponent out of the shadows and into your sight. If you don't force them to move, then they're going to remain invisible to you, and they will keep their advantage. Now, CIA taught me surveillance detection in 2008, and I loved every minute of it.

I was in a U.S. city, but I can't tell you where, and it was springtime. The weather was perfect, and the U.S. government had given me. me my own rental car, my own hotel room, and my own surveillance instructor. Now, against my team of two, just me and my instructor, there were several teams of trained government surveillance units. Some were police, some were FBI, some were private contractors. I was given five days to prove that I could learn the surveillance detection skill. I needed to spot my surveillance with 90% accuracy or higher, or I'd be taken out-of-field training, and moved into a different career category, one that was indoors with a cozy cubicle. Each day included a few hours of classroom time and a whole

lot of street time. Two days of the training were focused on foot SDRs, which means detecting surveillance while you are walking on foot, and three days of training focused on mobile SDRs, which means detecting surveillance while you're in a moving vehicle, like a car, or a bus or on the subway. And to boost my confidence right away, I remember that my instructor sent me out on my first SDR without any training at all. No instruction.

He just told me to leave and come back two hours later and tell him if I detected surveillance. Now, with no formal instruction, I was still hell-bent on proving that I could spot surveillance. So when I left on my SDR, I started out driving, and then about halfway through, I ditched my car and continued on foot. I was doing illegal U-turns. I was stopping in parking lots. I was pulling over on the shoulder of highways to look around me. I was peeking over my shoulder every few seconds, and of course,

I was using every reflective surface I could find around me. I was doing my best, but it was easily two of the most stressful hours I have ever known, in part because I felt like a paranoid fool wandering around aimlessly. And secondly, I had no idea if I was being followed or not, and it felt terrible not to know. After 90 minutes of putting myself through mental knots, I started convincing myself that it had to be a ruse. This had to be some kind of hazing ritual designed to embarrass new recruits. There was no way the government would actually spend money to deploy trained surveillance teams

to follow a rookie with no training on a two-hour wild goose chase. So I got back to my car, and I went to the rendezvous point to meet my instructor after the exercise was over. You can guess his first question, right? He said, did you detect surveillance? And you can probably also guess my answer. No, sir. I looked everywhere, but I was clear. I couldn't have been more wrong. Do you want to know how wrong I was? I was so wrong. I had a seven-person, three-car team of private contractors that picked me up at 12 minutes into the exercise and followed me for 87 consecutive minutes all the way back to the hotel rendezvous with my instructor. They had already, sent video and images of me back to my instructor before I even arrived. And the car that followed me

on my final leg back to the hotel, they even honked and waved as they drove by me and my instructor doing our debrief. Now, the reason I'm telling you this totally humiliating war story is because it was a powerful and important lesson for me. You see, it's not enough to just look for your opponent. You have to think like them too. My big disadvantage on that first SDR had nothing to do with training. It had everything to do with perception. I was thinking like prey, looking around for a predator, when I should have been thinking like the predator that was hunting for me. Think back on every nature show you've ever seen, whether it was on PBS when you were a kid or on YouTube or on Animal Planet, you name it. Predators always hunt from the shadows downwind in the tall

grass. They sit there watching their prey and the prey stand there looking around. That's exactly what I was doing. I was standing there looking around through my whole first SDR. That gazelle stupidly chewing cud with its ears up and its head on a swivel, I know how that gazelle feels now, prey move from one patch of grass to another. They move over to the watering hole and back again. They look around, but they never force the predator out of their hiding spot in the tall grass. It's the same way in surveillance detection. Even a poorly equipped surveillance team knows how to hide in their environment and watch you without being caught. The team following me saw all my illegal U-turns. They will

watched me gawk around on sidewalks and inside shops, and they easily moved from foot to car and back again to keep pace with me. And they did it all without me ever seeing them, because I was thinking like prey, moving between patches of grass in the watering hole. When I needed to be thinking like them, like predators, and I needed to force them to move out of the tall grass. Opportunity is hunting for you right now, at work, in business, even in relationships. The kind of opportunity that decides who gets the job, who gets the raise, who gets the project, the deal, the girl, you name it. But our society teaches you that your job is just to do your best. Intel operators are trained differently because we learn that doing your best has nothing to do with success. You can do

your best work, but that doesn't mean you're going to get the race. You can build the best product, but that doesn't mean people will buy it. You can even be the best expert and never get hired. I did my best on that first SDR, and it made no difference. I was watched the entire time, and I never saw them. Success is about thinking like your opponent, thinking like the predator, and then taking deliberate action to force them out of hiding and into your site. Because as long as they can hide, you can lose. So you have to force them out. If you're looking for a new job, stop thinking about whether you qualify for the job

and start thinking like the hiring manager. Why are they hiring right now? What skills do they need? Who is their ideal candidate? And then write your resume and your cover letter so it fits. It's exactly what that hiring manager wants. Force them to move. Let the other applicants guess and wonder.

Let them stand around chewing cud. You are on the hunt. If you're trying to close a new client or sell your high ticket offer or negotiate a raise, it won't happen by just buying gifts and sending follow-up emails. You have to force your target to move. They are hiding. Get your boss or get your client on the phone. Tell them you know your value and you back your quality.

Then put a deadline on your offer. You have to force them to move. And if they don't move, then you know they aren't hunters like you. They're just wandering lost on the planes. They aren't worth your time. Instead of longing for that guy or gal that you can't stop thinking about, sheepishly clicking like on their social media posts, put an invitation in that person's face that they cannot

ignore. Tell them you have free tickets to something they like. Who cares if you don't? Say that you know the owner of a restaurant and get a dine and discount, but don't let them see the bill. Invite them to your favorite yoga, aerobics, or boot camp, even if you've never gone before in your life, because the goal is to take action that forces them out of their hiding place. And if you're wondering about whether or not lying to somebody to get them on a date is a good idea, just think about how you would feel. If someone lied to you because they were so excited to get you out with them, would that really make you feel bad or would that make you feel pretty special? Look, the goal is to take action that forces other people out of their hiding place so you can move your

op forward. The world is full of near-sighted prey thinking they're going to get ahead by staying in a heard. In reality, the predator is watching and waiting to strike. But when you take action that forces your competition, your target, your surveillance team to move out of hiding, they are no longer the predator. And you are no longer their prey. That is everyday espionage. Everyday espionage is dedicated to one thing, educating everyday people. I know that that not everyone will listen, but those who listen will learn. If you learned something new today, click subscribe, review, and share the podcast with a friend. Find me on social media at EverydaySpy or on my website, Everydayspy.com.

If you are up for a special challenge, visit Everydayspy.com forward slash operations. And join me for an authentic spy training mission. And above all else, remember that knowledge is freedom.