EverydaySpy Podcast - Small Gift, Big HACK

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

We live in a society that gives gifts. Gifts were designed for two original purposes: 1) to show gratitude, or 2) to win favor. Since the dawn of mass marketing and hallmark holidays, however, gift-giving has mutated into something much less enjoyable and much less useful... until today. In this episode, Andrew gives you the 3 gift-giving HACKS that CIA uses to win favor, influence, and power. Whether you want to shortcut your next promotion or win over your lover, you are only 3 steps away from the perfect gift! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My name is Andrew Bustamante, and this is everyday espionage. So I've been on the road for about the last 30 days, and I still have about another 30 days of travel still ahead of me, because I've been filming a TV show that is travel-based. And this week, we've actually been shooting in Arizona in a place called the Navajo Nation. It is the reservation for Navajo Native Americans, and I had this awesome experience here that, immediately translated to spy tactics that I want you to have moving forward for your work, for your career, for your business, and for your everyday life. So a few days ago, I was out in the evening filming and there's a large crew out here with me about 12 people. And we had a Native American Navajo medicine man who was on set with us, helping us with the filming for the

day. And it was getting to be evening. We had been filming all day. And this piercing, cold wind set in, and it was just not expected. Well, this wind came in and, you know, everybody on the crew is very experienced when it comes to making television. So they broke out their heavy jackets and their insulated gloves. They had all the right, you know, clothes to wear in this cold weather. But this medicine man, who was only expecting to come out and spend a few hours with us, ended up being out much longer than he anticipated. So he did not have the kind of cold weather equipment on hand that the rest of the crew had. Well, our audio engineer, a tall, really genuine nice guy named John, our audio engineer was the

only person on the crew to see this medicine man kind of shivering and huddling like behind a rock shelf trying to get out of the wind. So John actually went over to the medicine man and he offered the man his sock hat, his beanie, and then he offered the man a pair of gloves. and the medicine man gladly took both the gloves and the beanie and, you know, said thank you to John and was able to go on and continue filming what we needed to film for the next two or three hours in this freezing cold day. Well, everything went off without a hitch. Everything was great. You know, hopefully the TV turned out fantastic. We won't know what it looks like until it airs live this summer. And I'll tell you all the details when it goes live, of course. But the story here is about John and the

medicine man because two days later we're still on location and we have to film another scene and during that scene the medicine man is back in the story again and he shows up and right after we're done shooting this second day's filming he goes up to john and he pulls from his back pocket a hand-carved black obsidian rock spearhead it was an absolutely beautiful piece of work and a spearhead for those of you who don't know is basically like an arrowhead, only instead of putting it on an arrow, you put it on a spear. So it was about three, three and a half inches long, maybe an inch and a half or two inches across, of hand-flinted, hand-sharpened, black obsidian rock.

I mean, this thing belongs in a museum. And the medicine man told the story about how he had had that spearhead now for two generations. It was passed to him as a gift when he healed a sick woman 15 or 20 years ago. and the woman herself had received it as a gift from her grandfather or her father who had actually gone hunting with that exact same spearhead. So this spearhead had just tons of history behind it. And the medicine man was giving our audio engineer the spearhead as a gift as a way of saying thank you and showing his appreciation for the fact that two nights previously when that freezing cold wind was ripping through the planes and everybody had something to keep them warm except. for this man, John went out of his way and sacrificed his own hat and his own gloves to help keep this medicine man warm. I mean, to see it happen in person, to see John and how John reacted when he

received that spearhead and to see the genuine sincerity in the Navajo man when he thanked John and actually showed John the traditional Navajo way of saying thank you, it was really just touching on a whole different level. But the thing that I saw that I really wanted to try to translate into your life and your work is that gifts carry very real power. And sometimes we forget that, right? Because we live in a world where there's many holidays, there's birthdays, there's anniversaries, there's, you know, a multitude of different appreciation days. So gifts kind of become something that we feel obligated to give. Now, gifts can carry real power. Gifts can really unlock a whole slew of advantages and opportunities for you when you understand how to properly use a gift.

And CIA showed us that gifts are a really powerful tool when it comes to being able to rapidly build a relationship that gives you advantages, right? Whether that's a professional relationship, whether it's a personal relationship, even if it's a romantic relationship. But there's three rules to giving gifts. And I want you to understand these three rules because John, my audio engineer on set, and the medicine man, the Navajo Medicine Man, they both seemed to understand and obey these three rules of gift giving without ever being taught. So here are the three rules. The first is you have to

make a gift unexpected. That's the most important rule. You have to make a gift unexpected. The second rule is you have to make a gift relevant. And the third rule is you have to make a gift small. Now, some of these rules seem pretty obvious, but at least one of them, I'm sure, is not obvious. So let me expand on these three rules and tell you why they're so important. First, you have to make a gift unexpected. There is nothing special when a gift is expected. And you know this as well as I do. It's why Christmas is often more of a pain in the butt than it is anything exciting. It's why birthdays become something we all grow to get bored with or even loathe or disdain. Because whenever people give you a gift and you know they have to give you a gift, you expect the gift, it's just not nearly as

fulfilling, it's not nearly as important or meaningful to you. It's why, you know, anniversary gifts and Valentine's Day gifts and, you know, any other holiday you can think of graduation gifts. These gifts don't really carry a lot of meaning. You probably don't even remember what you got for a graduation gift. You probably can't remember what you got for your last anniversary gift because these gifts don't carry any significant meaning. The way you make a gift significant is when you make it unexpected. You give somebody a gift on a day, at a time, in a place that they just have no reason to expect. That's exactly what happened when John gave the medicine man his sock hat and when the medicine man came back and gave John that spearhead. Totally unexpected gifts that left two very

meaningful memories in both men. Now, the second rule is that you have to make a gift relevant. Now, what do I mean by relevant? Relevant doesn't mean that the gift has to be relevant to history or that it has to be a significant gift that has to do with someone's, you know, passions or interests or their personal life story. It just means it has to be relevant to the individual at the time that you give it, right? So in the instance of John and our medicine man, it was a cold, windy day. And the gift that John gave the medicine man was to help keep him warm. That is a very relevant gift. And then a few days later, the medicine man gave John a spearhead, a Navajo handcrafted spearhead. John was on site in the Navajo Nation. For those of you who don't know, Navajo Nation has its own

laws. It's its own kind of sanctioned land in the middle of the United States. It's like a country itself inside the United States with its own law enforcement, with its own rules and regulations, its own legislation, its own president. It is a completely foreign land, even though it's on domestic soil. And John was a guest in this foreign land, in this foreign country for all intents and purposes. And he was being given this piece of tradition, this piece of history that was very, very important to the medicine man, which made it relevant to John. So you can see in this example, How in both cases, the gifts were unexpected. That's the first rule.

And the gifts were very relevant. That's the second rule. Now, the third rule is the rule that most often surprised folks when we went through the farm. You always think that gifts have to be big and fancy and expensive and they have to be shiny and they have to be new. But instead, what we were taught is that really powerful, meaningful gifts are actually usually quite small. Small meaning small in price, but also small in actual physical sense. size, right? The gifts that people carry with them the most, the gifts that often carry the most meaning are really very personal. And in order for something to be personal, it oftentimes has to be

small, small enough to fit inside your hand or small enough to fit inside of a backpack or small enough to even something that you would wear on your body, like a piece of jewelry or a pair of shoes or even a pair of socks. It has to be small. When you gift somebody a car, that's not really very meaningful. When you gift somebody a cross-country trip in a bus or a flight, or you buy somebody a cruise, or you buy somebody a three-day vacation at a resort in Hawaii, those aren't usually very meaningful gifts. Those might be gifts that somebody appreciates, but they're not always very meaningful. A small gift carries a great deal of meaning because it's something that someone can keep with them on their person at all times. And it's usually something small enough that when you

give it to the person, you can do it at a time and a place that's unexpected. So those are your three rules. Make a gift unexpected, make a gift relevant, and make a gift small. Now, why does it matter? Why do we care about giving these meaningful gifts? What's the point? What's the benefit? What's the value to you as the gift giver? If you're not asking yourself that question, I want you to start asking yourself that question because the truth is in espionage and in everyday life if it doesn't benefit you you shouldn't be doing it the magic the sweet spot happens when the things that you do to benefit yourself also benefit others that's the sweet spot when you benefit others and get no benefit yourself that's called sacrifice when you are the only one that benefits and nobody else benefits that's called selfish so somewhere

between selfish and sacrifice is the sweet spot, the spot where everybody wins, that notoriously difficult to find win-win positive sum game. That's what we call reciprocity. Reciprocity happens when you do something for someone else that inspires them to essentially reciprocate or return the favor to do something in return that benefits you. And then that act of kindness for from the other person, guess what it triggers in you? It triggers reciprocity again. And now you have this almost like a tennis match or a ping pong game where everybody's trying to do a little bit better for one another. That brings net benefit. Nobody is sacrificing, nobody is being selfish, everybody is winning. That is called reciprocity and reciprocity happens when you give meaningful gifts. The reason

that our medicine man insisted on giving a gift to John was because John's small, gift of kindness triggered reciprocity in the medicine man. And when the medicine man gave John that spearhead, guess what John immediately thought of? He started racking his brain for what could he possibly do to return that kindness back to the medicine man. Now let me give you a couple other ways that this act of reciprocity can kind of play out. So first, when I first met my wife, Gihi, we were brand new recruits to the CIA and we were friends. And as we were going out and having tea or coffee or meeting in small groups at the agency, it came to be known that Ghi's favorite fruit was cherries, that she liked cherries, which were only in season for a short period of time

when you're living up north in Virginia. Well, a few months later, it became cherry season, and I actually went and bought Gihi, who was then just my friend, not my girlfriend, and most certainly not my wife. I bought her a small bag of cherries. And then when we all went out as a group, I actually gave her those cherries. And I said, hey, I saw these at the grocery store. I thought that you would like them. I know that the season is short. To this day, now that we've been married 13 years, to this day, my wife still remembers me giving her that small bag of cherries when we were friends in 2007.

It's unbelievable how significant a small gift can be. And she was so eager to reciprocate that gift that instead of just buying me a gift in return, I essentially bought her attention. She started giving me her focus. she started seeing me as potentially more than a friend. That's the power of reciprocity. Another example happened just recently. I moved to Jacksonville from Tampa with my family about a year ago, and we were struggling to find a decent coffee shop. Now, Jacksonville is a large city in northern Florida, but it's not really a coffee town. So in our part of Jacksonville, we were, you know,

driving far 15, 20, 30 minutes trying to find a decent coffee shop, and we couldn't find one. And And then a new one opened and we went and we visited. And as I was driving through the drive-through, the actual owner of the coffee shop was working inside the window. And when he saw me, he immediately recognized me from one of the podcasts that I had guessed on recently. He recognized me from the Lex Friedman podcast. And he saw me.

He got excited. And he said, hey, man, anything you want is on the house. I saw you on Lex. I thought your podcast interview was excellent. I'm a huge fan. Anything you want is on the house today. Well, that small act of kindness, right? I was looking for one cup of coffee.

He gave me a free $3 cup of coffee, and I was so moved by that small gift that I have not gone to any other coffee shop since that day except that coffee shop. Because I'm so dedicated to giving this business owner every possible excuse to sell me coffee. To sell me coffee, I want to have guests who come in. I take them to coffee. When my executive assistant is feeling sleepy, I take her out for coffee, anything I can do to make sure this man's business succeeds, all because he showed me one small act of kindness, one small gift that fit in my hand and cost less than $4. And I was so touched and it became so meaningful to me that I'm talking to you right now

on this podcast about the power of gifts. And there's probably no better example to speak to this power of gifts than a CIA story that comes from E.D. Jackal. Now, for those of you who have not met E.D. Jackal or don't know the name Edie Jackal, I encourage you to go back to season two. I have a fantastic multi-part interview series with E.D. Jackal, who is a deep cover CIA officer, and we can't release his real name. Now, Jackal spent a lot of time traveling throughout the Middle East on operations, and he has this fantastic story about how he embedded himself with a tribe in Pakistan. And one day, just as a normal tribal member, he was working and he came and he sat around the proverbial kind of dinner

table, the way Pakistanis eat when they're farming in the field. They basically slaughter a goat and then they'll cook it on a spit and then they'll share all of the pieces with each other along with some vegetables and everything else they can make right there on the site. But the most significant part of the goat is the head. So the elder of the tribe usually gives the head to one of the members of the tribe that he feels worked very hard or deserves some special recognition. So they only eat a goat maybe once every two or three days. So it's a pretty, it's a pretty common, but not necessarily daily occurrence. And Jackal is an outsider. Jackal is not Pakistani. Jackal is Caucasian. But on this particular day, the elder took the head of the goat and actually

gifted it to Jackal. Now, Jackal understood the significance of that. gift. But the gift was unexpected. It was extremely relevant and it was small. The head of a goat is not very big. The meat on the head is not very much. It's really far more significant to have the attention of the elder be given to you in front of the tribe than anything else. But when Jackal took that head and he ate the cheeks and he ate the eyes and he ate all the parts of the goat that he was supposed to eat, including the brain, he was touched and he became part of the tribe on the that day. And to this day now, even though Jackal is well over his 60s, he still remembers that single event and the man went to war with that tribe, part of his mission, including putting his

own life at risk to defend the tribal elder and to defend the senior members of the tribe. That is incredible dedication, incredible commitment that was triggered from a single gift. And, you know, even though Jackal had, he had to put up with criticism from his CIA seniority, he had to put up with negative marks on his performance review, because he basically put himself at risk without advancing the mission. There was no mission-driven reason that he would fight so hard to protect his tribe in Pakistan, but he did anyways. He fought anyways. And that's a really powerful demonstration of exactly what happens when you create and give a meaningful gift. You can unlock magic when you understand how to use gifts. And there's three simple rules.

Make the gift unexpected. Make the gift relevant. Make the gift small. When you follow those three rules, you will trigger reciprocity in whoever you're giving that gift too. And when you trigger reciprocity in them, they will want to return the favor. They will want to give back to you. And in so doing, you are creating a win-win, positive sum game where everybody benefits. When everybody benefits and nobody loses because you understand how to give meaningful gifts, that is everyday espionage. Everyday espionage is dedicated to one thing, educating everyday people. I know 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.