EverydaySpy Podcast - The #1 Rule to Stay ALIVE in CIA Covert Ops

Episode Date: August 9, 2026

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There's a concept that we teach at CIA called being the gray man. And that idea of a gray man or a gray person really just means being forgettable. Being someone that blends in in the moment and who isn't worth remembering a few minutes later, right? That's what gray really is. It's that color that fades against all the bright colors out there, all the flashy colors out there. Everybody's trying to be somebody who gets attention. And what a spy wants is to just disappear. So that's what I mean by being gray.

Boring people are gray. Ugly people are gray. Overweight people are gray, right? That's the benefit of really understanding the difference between real-life espionage and what you see in the movies. So speaking of the movies, this kind of reminds me, have you seen Oppenheimer? I'm assuming you've seen it. I've heard of it. I haven't actually had a chance to watch it yet.

I don't have like three hours of life to commit to it. Yes. Yeah, it's a long one. But what they do so perfectly is, I'm sure you know of the person, the scientist that was at Los Alamos that ended up spying for the Soviets. What they do so perfectly is making him that almost like gray, boring, just another scientist. And then you find it at the end that that's the spy for the Soviets. Do you know anything about that story in particular about how the Soviet spy for Los Alamos? So what's interesting is that the case.

study in Oppenheimer and the case study that really happened throughout all of the development of nuclear weapons is still very much relevant today. People think that spy agencies are interested in senior politicians, right? Like, look at the Trump case right now or all of the attention on Donald Trump. People think that the Russians are targeting Donald Trump or that they've already recruited Donald Trump because he's the president of the United States. The way real espionage works, nobody goes after the top dog. Nobody goes after the president. They don't go after the senior ranking general. They don't go after the CEO of a company. You go after the people who are beneath that person, one or two steps, senior engineers, senior administrators, chiefs of staff, right?

Those are the individuals that you want to cultivate a relationship with because those are the people that truly know what's going on. They truly know the secrets. Presidents don't know secrets. Presidents get briefed on secrets every day by two or three people who actually have access to secrets, right? In order for the president to know something secret, he has to ask somebody to ask somebody else. He can't just look it up on a computer like, say, a middle manager at CIA can. And that's exactly how it works in the corporate sector and in the national security sector. So you're seeing in Oppenheimer, you're seeing how vulnerable those engineers and those senior administrators and senior managers. you're seeing how vulnerable they really are to foreign intelligence collection.

How do you get people to open up to you in that way? So those middle people like you talked about, how do you get them to open up and be more vulnerable to you? Well, there's a couple things that are interesting there, right? So first of all, getting people to open up to you isn't as hard as you might think because it's human nature is the main lever that you want to pull on. People want to talk. All people want to talk.

even introverted people want to talk. The question is, what do they want to talk about? And oftentimes what happens is people end up in conversations talking to other people where the only thing anyone wants to talk about is themselves. So I'm talking to you. You talk about yourself. I talk about myself. Guess how we both feel about that conversation. It's pretty boring, right? I feel like you're not listening to me. I feel like all you want to do is talk about you, and we're not going to make any progress as far as a relationship goes. The primary thing that spies are taught is that when you have a conversation with somebody, you can basically assume that what they want to talk about is themselves. And you already know that the reason you're talking to that person is because they're a

target of interest. You want to learn about them. So the main thing you have to do as a spy is just stop talking about yourself. You can still talk, but don't talk about yourself. Talk about the other person, ask questions, ask follow-up questions, ask open-ended questions, talk about things that the other person is interested in. I don't know anything about NASCAR. So if you're a big NASCAR fan, let's talk about NASCAR. Because as I learn from you about about, what I'm really learning is what you care about. And you're going to start talking about what you care about that's related to NASCAR, you're going to talk about the things that you care about that have nothing to do with NASCAR. So the big thing that spies have to learn is just stop talking about yourself and let your target

spill the beans. Can you give some examples of how you would phrase the question? Because I feel like that's equally as important, right? Like asking like you said, like asking open-ended questions, asking questions to get deeper about their personal life. Is there a certain way that you frame those questions to really get them to open up? Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, if you're a game for an experiment, I'll do one with you right now.

Sure, let's do it. All right, absolutely. So, hey, Brian, how are you doing today? I'm doing good. Did you have a, what did you have for breakfast, man? I had eggs and avocado toast. So I try to have avocados every morning for breakfast because they're one of those fats that people don't realize are so important. Oh, wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, you didn't know. So the body basically just needs three things to run, right? It needs carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.

avocado is one of those fats. So is the yolk in an egg. So really the reason we like eating eggs with avocados is because you like the fat and the protein. And then guess what your toast is? Carbs, right? Carbs. Yeah.

So then what did you have for lunch? I had a protein bar. Nothing exciting. Anything else? That's it. That's it. I'll have something else after this, but just something to get me through, you know. Is that a typical lunch?

for you? No, it is not. So what is typical? Typical lunch is a protein shake. So a protein lunch or protein shake. Yes, yes. Protein bar, protein shake. I promise for dinner I have, I have like a full meal, rice, chicken, yeah. There we go. So are you just heavy in the gym or what's that all about? Yeah, I go to the gym five days a week. Do you have a trainer or your own trainer? By myself, yep. So I only really go to the gym when I have a set workout schedule. If I don't have a set workout routine, I try to, I do a long distance running or something that is aerobic instead. Yeah, I just do, I do some cardio, I do sauna, lift some weights. And then is your gym close to home or do you have a gym at home?

It's close to home, five minute walk. Okay. So that was a very difficult. conversation, Brian, in many ways. What we saw there was I tried to use a technique on you called two questions and a follow-up. And sometimes that follow-up was just an awkward silence. Did you feel those long pregnant pauses? Yes, definitely. Yeah. And then you had to feel, you felt the need to fill in for those pauses. Yeah, I tried hard to like think of something to say without even, it was almost like it came out of me. It wasn't really like I pre-consciously thought about it, right?

Right. So basically what we did there is we had an exchange where I asked you two questions, and then whatever your response was, I validated your response. So I basically made you whatever you had just said, I was telling you was the right thing or a good thing or an interesting thing. Right. And then what that turns into is a chance for us to have more conversations about things that matter to you. And that's how by the end, we found out that you walk five minutes to your local gym. And that's like personal information that I don't share with anyone. So there you go. Right. And it's funny, we didn't know where we were going to get to. It's not like I was trying to find out what your route is. But at least now, I know a little bit more about you. I know that you eat protein shakes or protein bars for lunch, which tells me that you're

busy. It also tells me that you probably don't plan for lunch. It also tells me that you probably live in a fairly Spartan house. Because if you're going to only eat protein bars and protein shakes for lunch, it probably It also means you're not spending a lot of time and effort decorating your walls or making sure that you have fancy plants in the house. No. Yeah, that's 100% right.

Yep. So there's a lot of information that comes out when you're just willing to have a conversation where strategically your objective is just ask questions and then validate the other person's response. Ask questions and validate the other person's response. So even though it could feel awkward, right? It for sure felt awkward. Everybody who watches or listens to this conversation is going to feel that awkwardness. but at the end of the day, the awkwardness is something that you'll get over, but the information

is something that's invaluable. Because people are so uncomfortable with that awkwardness, it almost comes out of them some personal information because they almost feel like they need something to say, right? Right, exactly, right? And what happened is those pregnant pauses that I introduced, that's in, it's a form of what we call elicitation. Elicitation is a technique where you get other people to share personal information without asking for it directly.

So I could ask you directly, you know, how do you get to the gym? I could ask you directly or I could just pause while we're talking about the gym and I ask you something like, is your gym at home or is it nearby? Right? That's not, I'm not pressing you for specifics. But then when that silence sets in. Try to fill in the gap. It gets really awkward, right? It gets really awkward.

So that's just one of many elicitation techniques that we use. but just to give you a sense of how that works. That's if you're going to try to control a conversation, getting back to your original question, what are some techniques that you can use? If you're going to try to control a conversation, the first thing you have to understand is that it's going to feel awkward at first.

But then once you start to get into a rhythm of it, and once other people start to understand that when they talk to you, you're the one in control of the conversation. Until that happens, it always feels a little bit awkward at first. So now this is interesting. What if everything I told you is BS and I lied to you?

Is there a way for you to tell that I lied to you? It's a valid question. This is where the movies get it wrong too, right? This is my first time ever talking to you. So I don't know any of your baselines. I don't know any of your normal standard behaviors. I don't even know if the person you are off camera is the same person you are on camera, right? Because who you appear as whenever you start your podcast episodes, this could all be

persona that you've been preparing for for the last two hours or two days and that once the camera turns off, you're actually someone totally different, super introverted, super extroverted, who knows what, right? So it's very, very difficult to be able to tell if someone is lying to you in the moment if they are a stranger. It's much easier to tell if somebody is lying to you if you've known them for an extended period of time and you have some kind of personal relationship with them. It's called understanding their baselines and being able to see the variance that they have against their baseline. So in a way when you, so let's say we first met and you don't, you're right off the bat. You're not going to go in.

You're not going to go in just going for the personal information right away. You're going to work up towards it over time by maybe asking those smaller questions like you asked me. Correct. Yeah. It's a technique that we call windows and doors, windows and doors. in any conversation, people will talk. And as they talk, what they are doing is they are opening windows and opening doors where you can steer the conversation. So, for example, if you and I were to have met on the side of the street or met at a grocery store or met at the gym, right?

It would probably start just like it started today, right? Hey, good morning. How are you? Well, that's just a window. We're opening a window to just see, will you talk back? And some people say, I'm fine, but other people are like, yeah, it's been a good day. Or other people might be like, I'm having a great day. How are you?

So there's all these different responses. So when you open a window, you open a window to see whether or not someone's going to further engage on that topic. So if you imagine, think about the last, are you married, engaged girlfriend, anything like that friend? Nope. No. So whether you like girls or boys, I won't press you on that. But when you're flirting with somebody, what you're doing is you're offering these little windows to see if they're going to let you continue to take that conversation in a certain direction, right? Hey, I like your earrings. Where did you get them? Or, hey, I like your pants. Where did you get them? Or, hey, your shirt looks nice. Or, hey, you look good in plaid or you look good in blue, whatever it might be. You're opening these little windows to see if somebody will let you go through and then have a bigger conversation.

Oh yeah, you know, I really like. I'm a summer and my skin has always matched summer colors and you look like a winter. Are you a winter? Do you look good in blue and gray and black? Like, that's how you know that somebody has let you in to the conversation topic. But you have to constantly be trying to find these windows and doors in conversation so that you can advance the conversation forward. Oftentimes when you feel like a conversation has come to an awkward halt or a strange end

and you're sitting there and you don't know what else to say, that's because you didn't offer a window or a door, and neither did they. So now you're both kind of standing there in the hallway, wondering what to do next. I've heard you say that anxiety is a superpower in the CIA. Why do you, why did you say that?

Well, there's a couple things, right? So I'm going to make an assumption because I haven't known you for very long, but I get the impression that you're an introvert. Are you introverted, Brian? Yeah, I would say so. I would say, yeah, for the most part. And then do you also deal with some anxiety on your own? Of course, yeah.

And then is the majority of that anxiety, social anxiety, or is it like something else? That's a good question. I never thought about that. I would say it's other things rather than social anxiety. So things like work. Yeah, like career, just all that stuff. Worrying about the future kind of thing. Yeah. Yep. Okay, so one of the reasons that I call or that the CIA sees anxiety as a superpower is because anxiety focuses you. There are so many people who don't know what they're going to be when they grew up. There are so many people who don't know where the next week's paycheck is going to come from. They don't know how they're going to fix their relationship.

Like there are people who have no idea how to do anything. And right now, they're just playing video games or surfing Netflix. or, you know, doing whatever they do for their day job flipping burgers or turning wrenches or programming computers, right? They're distracted, even though they know they have shit they need to figure out. Anxious people don't have that happen to them. Anxious people have such anxiety because they can't take their mind off the thing that causes them anxiety. So if that's work, there's a reason anxious people become super successful at work. It's because they've been worried about work since they were like 14, right? There's a reason that anxious people so rarely get raped, beaten,

mugged, abused, because if they're anxious, they're worried about those things. They're thinking about those things all the time so they don't let themselves get into dangerous situations where they will become victims, right? This is the unfortunate, you know, truth about the lie that the society believes about extroverts and people who are the life of the party and people who are like fearless all of those people tragedy befalls them all the time they're the people you read about who like whatever got hit by a car on new year's eve or they're the people that you read about who have these tragic accidents or the people who are like murdered on the side of the street or the people who are part of of shooting of accidental shootings and whatever else people who

who have anxiety are so hyper-focused on self-preservation that they persevere and have higher levels, higher probabilities of success than the people who don't have anxiety. All CIA has learned how to do is be able to use psychological profiling to find those people, and then they train those people so that they can direct and harness their anxiety instead of constantly be overrun by their anxiety. So anxiety is a superpower that's so valuable that CIA actively recruits to find people who have it. And then they train them how to use it. It's just like any other superhero story you've ever heard, right?

The hero has the talent, but they need to be trained to use their superpower.