EverydaySpy Podcast - What 9/11 Teaches YOU About How Manipulation Works

Episode Date: September 12, 2026

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CIA taught me the exact recipe that terrorists, cult leaders, and even political parties used to manipulate your mind and turn you into a radical extremist. And 9-11 showed us just how powerful that recipe can be. Because the 19 hijackers who carried out the worst terrorist attack in American history weren't born willing to die and intent to murder innocent people. And there's a shockingly simple process to make that happen. It's called the radicalization ladder. And without a doubt, some politician, tech billionaire, cult leader, or foreign enemy is trying to use the radicalization ladder against you right now. So in this video, I'm going to show you how to spot the radicalization ladder, stay in control, and never let yourself fall victim to the kind of tragedy we all saw on September 11th, 2001. My name is Andrew Bustamante and I'm a former CIA intelligence officer.

CIA taught me that terrorists, cult leaders, and even far-leaning political parties all use the same. process called a ladder to turn everyday people into radicalized weapons. For those of you who just want to know the steps of the radicalization ladder, I'm going to teach you that first. But for those of you who want to understand the psychology behind how the ladder works, and more importantly, how you can defend yourself against it, stick with me and I'll teach you that in the second half of the video. The radicalization ladder has eight predictable steps. Step one is a personal grievance. This personal grievance is driven by a recurring thought in your head that says, This thing that happened to me is not right.

The second step of the radicalization ladder happens when that personal grievance becomes a perceived injustice. And the driving thought behind that injustice is, this thing that happened to me is not fair. From that thought comes step three, solution seeking, where you start to ask yourself, what can I do about this injustice? Step four is called group introduction, and your driving thought becomes the realization that you are not alone in your injustice. From that group introduction, you learn step five, an externalized enemy. And your driving thought becomes that my pain is their fault. And as you focus on that externalized enemy, you roll into step six, which is called moral distancing. The driving thought is that the person or group that's causing you pain is actually morally evil.

And by creating a moral divide between you and the people or organization that's hurting you, you move into step seven, legitimization. And inside that legitimization, you start to come to the conclusion that you must fight that evil. And the final of the eight steps after legitimization is the idea of radical action. Where your driving thought is that you must take an action no matter the costs. Those are the eight steps of the radicalization ladder. Personal grievance perceived injustice, solution seeking, group introduction, externalized enemy, moral distancing, legitimization, and radical action.

So let's jump into the psychology behind each of these steps in the latter. So we can understand how they work, and more importantly, what you can do to protect yourself against them. People don't become extremists overnight. Radicalization happens incrementally. You start with an ordinary person. You identify their frustration, and then you give that frustration an enemy. You surround them with people that reinforce the same. belief. And then, one step at a time, behaviors that once seemed unthinkable start to feel

justified. That's the radicalization ladder. Islamist terrorist organizations have used this process to convince people to carry out horrific acts. That's how 2,97 innocent Americans died on September 11, 2001. But it's not only terrorist organizations that are using this dark psychology against you. Cults use it to convince you to give up your money, your property, and even even your own sexual freedom to them. Political movements use it to get you to vote for strangers that you've never met. Online communities, digital algorithms, and even AI chatbots are using the radicalization ladder to convince you that there's only one kind of phone you should have.

Step one is personal grievance. And if you recall that personal grievance is driven by the thought that something that happened to you is not right. The reason that personal grievance is the first step is because we all have personal grievances. and by nature of the fact that they are personal, they are all legitimate. So while you might have a perfectly valid grievance that I cut you off on the highway, I may also have a perfectly valid excuse that I cut you off because I was on my way to an emergency. So personal grievance is free of any kind of manipulation and very unique to an individual. This is the easiest of all steps to defend yourself from going further,

because all you have to do is recognize that your grievance is indeed legitimate. It is valid, if only because it's true. It's yours. Don't look or listen to anyone who validates your grievance because they might be trying to coax you into the second step. Step two of the radicalization ladder is something called perceived injustice, which is driven by a thought that something that happened to you is not fair. This is significantly different than step one where the driving thought is that something happened to you that isn't right. Isn't right is based on your opinion. Isn't fair is actually rooted in law. Formal law, yes, but also informal law and possibly even moral code.

So when you get fired for showing up late to work, even though you know that other people come late to work all the time without any kind of repercussions, that gives you a sense of unfairness. Radicalized people have to believe that not only was something done to them that wasn't right, but that it was done in an unjust way. And because it was done in an unjust way, there is a justice yet to be delivered. If you find yourself on step two of the radicalization ladder and you want to stop right away,

what you have to do is recognize that fairness is actually something that's written in legal law, whatever the law of the land is in the country where you choose to live. And if that injustice is documented in law, then there is a way for you to pursue justice inside the law rather than radicalize outside of the law. If you haven't discovered your secrets by superpower, then somebody else might be using theirs against you. CIA teaches us that there are only three types of people in the world. Those who motivate, those who are being controlled by one of the other two. I created a three-minute CIA-style quiz to help you unlock your secret psychological advantage

and identify your hidden blind spot. All you have to do is click on the first link in the description below or scan the QR code on your screen and you'll be taken directly to your private quiz. This test was developed to help you weaponize your natural-born gifts. and use them to get ahead of 99% of people in power, wealth, and purpose. It was also designed to make sure that you can protect yourself against those who would use their skills against you. I want you to discover your secrets by superpower and use it for good before somebody else uses their power against you.

Step three of the radicalization ladder happens when somebody senses an injustice that was done against them and chooses to seek solutions that are outside of the law. There's nothing wrong with seeking a solution to an injustice that, was done upon you as long as you follow the letter of the law. You can always file complaints, you can ask for refunds, or report something to the police. The danger comes when you start to seek solutions from organized groups that may not adhere to the laws when they try to carry out their way of bringing justice to a shared injustice between them. You protect yourself from moving on to step three of the radicalization ladder by making sure that any effort you put into seeking

a solution for your injustice is done with the utmost privacy. You can share that solution. You can share that solution seeking behavior with the people you trust, but you don't want to share the injustice that has happened to you publicly, especially not on a public or anonymous forum where you might be identified and targeted for further radicalization. Step four in the radicalization process is that group introduction, the step after seeking a solution where you actually seek your solution in a group of people with a shared injustice. This is the most dangerous part of the radicalization ladder because not only are you finding a solution to your problem, but you're finding a group and a biased group at that that shares your perceived injustice. So you feel both validated

and welcomed into a group without having any say or control over what decisions the group will make in the future. This puts you in a compromised position where you have to prove your loyalty to the group without the group having to do anything to prove their faithfulness to you. You can protect yourself against step four of the radicalization ladder by always being skeptical of any group that you choose to attend. Always be asking yourself if the group is trying to help you do something you are comfortable with doing or whether the group is asking you to do something you are uncomfortable doing. And the more uncomfortable you feel, the more likely that that group introduction is actually trying to manipulate you towards radicalization. The group dynamic in step four is extremely important

to moving somebody into step five of the radicalization, which is identifying an externalized enemy. During this phase of the radicalization process, the pain and injustices that you felt were done, to you actually get directed by the group towards an external object, sometimes a person, sometimes a nation, sometimes an organization. It's inside this idea of an externalized enemy that you start to hear many of the political tropes that you see here in the United States, that liberals are trying to take your guns, that conservatives are trying to force your children to pray at school. It's actually very easy for the human mind to slip into this step five of the radicalization process because we're always looking for external threats. It's part of our

survival mechanism in our brain. The most important distinction is that within the radicalization ladder, it's a group that defines an externalized enemy for you. It's not something you land on yourself. If you think that you might be in step five of the radicalization ladder, all you have to do is stop and ask yourself one simple question. Do you believe that it's better to cause pain than to receive it? Or was that a lesson that you learned from a group? Because the choice between causing pain or receiving pain is fundamental to step six of the radicalization ladder, moral distancing. Inside moral distancing, your driving thought becomes the idea that your externalized enemy is evil. This idea that an externalized enemy is not just different, but are actually morally evil,

which automatically puts you in the implied position that you are morally good. When a radical group gets a person to this position, they know they have gotten them across the hardest part of the radicalization process. Once you find yourself in a position of moral distancing, it can be very difficult to step back. And what you have to do to get out of moral distancing is recognize that ethics are actually what's supposed to come from external groups, but moral decisions are supposed to come from within. So you have to ask yourself whether your labels of good and bad were truly defined by you or whether those labels have been fed to you by some sort of external organization. After moral distancing happens, step-sept

is right around the corner, the idea of legitimization. Legitimization of not only what you believe to be evil, but also your ideas about how to defeat that evil. If you think you know somebody who might be in the legitimization stage, or if you believe that that's where you yourself might be, stop and ask yourself or them the question, is there any other way to resolve the original injustice they felt? Could there be an alternate besides just what the group is proposing?

Could there be multiple people who are responsible for that injustice rather than just the single externalized enemy they're focused on? If they answer yes to any of those questions, there's still hope to prevent them from getting to step 8. Radical action. With the idea of radical action becomes the driving thought that I must carry out this action no matter the cost. Whether it costs me my life, whether it costs my reputation, whether it costs the lives of other innocent people. when somebody has been groomed across all eight steps of the radicalization ladder, they land on the idea that there is truly only one solution to their injustice. And that one solution, no matter how radical it is, is worth the cost to themselves and to innocence.

If you or someone you loved has reached this state of radicalization, it's still not too late. You can still turn back. And what you have to do is walk yourself or walk them backwards through each of the pre-eastern, seven steps. It's going to be very difficult to do this if they are still physically within proximity of the actual group itself. So the best thing to do is find a way to pull them away, pull yourself away. Give yourself 72 hours to calm down, to reflect, and to think through each of these eight questions so that you can work yourself from radical action. Find your way back to the true cause of your injustice and validate your own personal grievance.

Radicalization is all about escalation. And for that reason, de-escalation is also the solution to radicalization. Most importantly, if you believe any of these eight steps may be happening to you, someone you know, someone you love or care about, forward this video to them immediately. Let me be the one that shares the hard news. And let me be the one that helps them understand how they can help themselves. Because when it comes to stopping radicalization, the most important step is really just identifying that you're on a ladder at all. If you learn something new for me today, don't keep it to yourself.

Hit that subscribe button right now. Leave a comment, share this video with a friend. And if you want to learn more spy skills that you can use to break barriers and unlock your peak performance, make sure you click on the link in the description below and find your secret spy superpower. I'll see you on the other side.