EverydaySpy Podcast - Who's Really Behind Kamala Harris?

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

The whole world is watching the 2024 election in the United States. With high stakes (and high drama!), the race between former President Donald Trump and candidate VP Kamala Harris is sure to be one for the history books. But the real question isn't who will win… it's who has a real plan to give Americans a better life. The race doesn't end in November for the average American… in only STARTS in November. Find your Spy Superpower: https://yt.everydayspy.com/3WNlWB0 CLICK HERE to see Andy and Jihi's private Spy Back-to-School webinar ⇒ https://yt.everydayspy.com/3AkKnhq Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We learned a lot about how to create influence. And we learned a lot about how to create persuasive messages that lead to long-term influence. When Joe Biden endorsed Kamala Harris, I think it took maybe 10 days before you started seeing a lot of Kamala Harris advertising. I don't know if you remember there was a transition period. And the messaging during that transition period was a very graceful out for Biden. So that's all the messaging you heard was this very very. very graceful out for him. But what was happening in the Trump camp?

They were pivoting, I think. Correct. Yes. Because they had spent a ton of money creating their messaging ads to go against Biden. I know. And then all of a sudden, Biden wasn't running. Now, I also think it's interesting because she hasn't been nominated. You can see the pillars of influence, as we understand them, being laid in place.

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Everyday Spy podcast. My name is Andrew Bustamante. and I am very excited to sit here and have a meaningful conversation about what the whole world is talking about right now. The Americans, Canadians, Chinese, everybody is talking about the American elections and what to expect from the Democratic National Convention happening Friday at the end of this week and onwards to what's going to happen in November because we've had some pretty spectacular events since, I mean, of all time, really. We saw a series of unprecedented events. We had the attempted assassination of a former president. Publicly, Donald Trump got shot in the ear during a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. We then had the sitting president, Joe Biden, endorsed the vice president to be the candidate for 2024, himself stepping down from his run for 2024 office.

Something that does not happen often. I think it's happened three or four times in history total. Right. And then we had this massive surge of support for a candidate that was never a candidate, right? Kamala Harris with money coming in, the donors coming in. You had, you know, various delegates promising support. You had the field of Democratic contenders all kind of rushing to rally behind her, right? And now here we are, just a few days, like I said, before the DNC convention.

and the war, the question is, what's going to happen next? Because when I look at what's happening in our country right now, I have to admit, Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was probably one of the worst of all time. It was a total disaster. You could literally watch when his head was turning left and right as he was following the script.

You can literally watch it. And then you can see when he just stopped following the script. And he just started talking with his smug face about whatever, like the dude, you got to give him credit. He survived an assassination attempt. He's riding quite possibly the strongest position he's ever had running for office. And now the Democratic National Convention is kind of shuffling to put up a candidate that has the slightest hope of contending against a populist and popular because of his recent notaract. from the assassination attempt and and Kamala Harris is the one that they have chosen. So I'm curious how do you feel about choosing between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump? So I think it's a for me it's a

difficult situation to watch. Maybe it's perhaps a less difficult decision but it's a difficult situation to watch because you know we've watched over time as our democratic system has become more I think the word is dynastic. So it's like a monarchy, right? Where you know when the king dies, the son's going to take over, the daughter's going to take over. So you can just look at who he's related to and see who's going to take over next. You're talking about Trump? Both sides. Oh, yeah, both sides. In two different ways. I mean, because you have, to your point. Yeah, I feel like nobody knew has come from either side in quite some time, right? Any candidate that has been put up for president or as a presidential

candidate has come from they were either a former president rerunning or they were a VP. There's nobody out of left field that is being put up by either party as like here's new blood, here's new ideas, here's the new path forward for our country. It's more like, here are the people who will keep doing the thing that we've been doing. You know, it's funny because, you know, Donald Trump is the most countercultural candidate that we've seen in a long time since Donald Trump. in 2016. But the point there is that not widely supported

even within his own party. He's become kind of a force of nature on his own. But in contrast to that, on the Democratic National Convention side, you have these groomed politicians. Right? Obama was groomed. Biden was groomed.

Clinton was groomed. Kamala Harris has been groomed since her time as an Attorney General in California. So I see exactly what you're saying. That's where the dynastic system seems to exist. It's almost like the next choice for president isn't really ours. Right. Somebody else decides who's going to be the option that we get to choose between.

Yes. And it's the idea that these candidates are being chosen because of their ability to win, right? To win the vote, to win favor with the. American population. They're not necessarily being chosen because of their, you know, what policies they stand behind or their vision for the country, right? I mean, I oftentimes when you're listening to these campaigns, these presidential campaigns, they don't even, you know, they talk about the highlights of policy, but that's not really enough for me. I really want to know, like, what is your plan for the next four years for our country? I don't need to hear sound bites.

immigration or sound bites about the economy. I want to know your real policy plans and how are you gonna get those through a divided Congress. So then why do they use sign bites? What is making it so that so much airtime is dedicated to the things that you personally, as a voting citizen, don't care about? So that's really interesting because I also have my own opinions

about how all of these campaigns should be run. So if I ruled the world, campaigns would last two months, right? Two months before election time, that's your time to campaign. None of this campaigning for an entire four-term. Remember when Hillary Clinton announced two years in advance that she was going to run? I mean, just outrageous. So two months to campaign, everybody's allotted the same airtime.

Just make it even across the field. It's not going to be about how much money everybody can raise. There would have to be some kind of filtering system. but you know everybody just give us all the same airtime do proper debates i loved i love that the last debate had no audience personally because it's just one person against another not feeding off the audience like i'm not honest i don't care what the audience thinks i just want to hear them talk about the points turning off each the person's mic when it's not their turn to speak it was funny right it was funny exactly what i want it was funny that it took so long for them to put these

kind of basic guidelines in place. Because it's a debate. It's not a show. It's not reality TV. Or is it? Or is it? I mean, that's the elephant in the room is that our American elections turning into more of a dog and pony show than true political democratic process.

Right. And I think people on both sides of the camp see this, right? If you're wearing a blue tie, you watch bombastic Trump go out there and pound on the table and, you know, get people excited and you see all the hats and you see the flags and everything else. But then if you sit and you wear a red tie, what you see is the beginning of almost every YouTube video for the last, what, six weeks has been Kamala Harris. And you watch the commercials in between the Olympics and it's Kamala Harris.

And you just see her everywhere, right? And you see her smiling and you see her in her in her power suits and you see her whatever, Right? But still, what they're not talking about is exactly what you said. They're not talking about their plan for the next four years. They're not talking about their policy. They're not talking about their history of accomplishments. What they're talking about is vilifying the opposition or talking about what's wrong with us right now.

Right. Not solutions oriented towards the future. Right. And where are the, you know, they could even include as part of campaigning like town hall meetings. What do people really care about? me you know something to assist the American public in their political discourse because what's happened so far as we've all seen over the last several years is that we've just become polarized and there is no talking to people that disagree with you I mean it's so it's so unusual to find somebody

who can have a civil conversation about I feel this way you feel this way that's okay or maybe I feel this way you feel this way. Maybe we can sway each other a little bit. You know, I mean, we're all Americans. We all really want the same basic fundamental needs to be met. Policy just has to do with how are you going to meet these fundamental needs that we all have. So, you know, the how is what we need to talk about. How do we go about making sure that everybody has enough money in the bank, has enough food to eat, has a roof over their head, that their kids get a good education, right, that they can stay healthy. That's what we all want.

Yeah, it's funny because I think that what you're highlighting is that what we all want isn't necessarily what moves voters. Right. And what we're seeing play out on screen is politicians, more specifically campaign managers who are managing a message or a series of messages that speak to what moves voters. And it's not the mundane, how do I make enough money? how do I keep my kids safe? That's not what moves people to get out of their,

out of their lazy boy recliners and go stand in line to vote, right? It's much more dramatic. It's that our borders are unsafe and immigrants are flooding in, or it's, you know... You're killing babies. The currency of America's crashing

because we're printing money. It's all of these crazy extremes that actually move people to get up and vote, and I think that's what we're seeing play out. So there's a couple things that I think are very interesting through the lens of our experience at CIA, right? we learned a lot about how to create influence. And we learned a lot about how to create persuasive messages that lead to long-term influence.

So a couple of things. One, when Joe Biden endorsed Kamala Harris, I think it took maybe 10 days before you started seeing a lot of Kamala Harris advertising. Right? You saw a lot of promotion. You saw a lot of her, like reaching out to get. donations from people, right? I don't know if you remember there was a transition period, and the messaging during that transition period

was a very graceful out for Biden. Correct. So that's all the messaging you heard was this very graceful out for him. So it took 10 days for them to basically close the loop on one, open the loop on the other. But what was happening in the Trump camp? They were pivoting, I think.

Correct. Because they had spent a ton of money creating their... messaging ads to go against Biden. And then all of a sudden, Biden wasn't running. Can you imagine all the overtime hours happening is there? Think about it. The marketers, the advertisers, like the, I mean, all the B-roll that has to be recut up, all the, oh, my gosh, the research that has to be done, the polling results that have to be done.

So even still to this day, right? And we're coming up on the middle of August right now. We still have not seen a true concerted Trump campaign push, especially not in the attack act. space, whereas we have already started to see those coming from Kamala Harris, which really shows the benefit of having a head start, right? The DNC knew what they were going to do. They were able to start doing it in advance. Meanwhile, the American public and, of course, the Republican camp didn't know what was going

to happen. So now what we've seen is this momentum get built under the Kamala Harris campaign, and the Trump campaign has appeared silent. Now, I also think it's interesting because she hasn't been nominated by the Democratic National Convention yet. Right. So when we saw all that activity for generating support, generating donations, generating delegates to stand behind her, all of that was kind of premature because she hadn't

been nominated by the Democratic National Convention yet. So it's very, very interesting to me because you can see the pillars of influence, as we understand them, being laid in place. Yeah. Emotional messaging. Emotional messaging that doesn't speak to rational fact, but speaks to emotional feelings, right? And then you also see the overwhelming preponderance of information. Why so much information?

Because it triggers your innate biases. It triggers the biases that show how often you see something makes it more true. The in-group bias where more people in your group say the same thing. So then you believe that what you're saying is true. The confirmation bias where you believe what you are. already agree with faster than you believe something that's different or dissenting. So you're seeing how influence is being used systematically, not not nefariously, but strategically. Yeah. To give momentum and to help the Democratic voting base accept that Kamala Harris is who they need

to vote for, essentially. Right. She is their only choice because they decide. They decide who the choices. But I think your point is so interesting because I think that people really need to remember that all campaigning, all of the presidential campaigning is an influence campaign. So the Republican Party is conducting an influence campaign on the American public. Correct. The Democratic Party is conducting an influence campaign on the American public. And they always have. And nefarious actors, Russia, Iran are also conducting influence campaign. on the American public. So every bit of information that we get, that we take in,

we really need to filter that through the lens of somebody's trying to influence me, you know, and then, you know, is it, are they trying to influence me based on my emotions? Are they trying to influence me intellectually based on what the policy actually is? By your ideology. By your ideology. By your religious background. And you have to think about these things. You can't just be sheep and follow, you know, the path, right?

That they're, you know, you can't be shepherded by this influence. You really need to, I think, you really need to stop and remind yourself. People are trying to influence me to make a decision. And I need to gather my own facts and assess my own feelings and make the right decision. So we were taught at CIA not only to see what influence was happening. And we were taught to see it based off of understanding. our emotional response to it. Yeah.

So whenever we saw alarmist rhetoric, whenever we saw egregious injustice, like played out, whether it was in a letter or in a video or in a picture, those were kind of, that was, that was what they trained us to see is, hey, these are the red flags that what you're actually seeing is influence, not fact, not journalism, not poll results, not rational data. what you're seeing is emotion. Yeah. Because it's supposed to trigger your emotion. Yes.

And then what we were taught to combat that was because emotions, you can't hold back your emotions. Right. Like nobody can see puppy dog eyes and have a cold heart. It's just not going to work, right? But what we do have to focus on to get past the influence is to focus on the outcomes, which is why you keep talking about what is the plan for our country. Yeah. That's why you keep talking about having the candidates explain.

Here's what I will do to solve the problems. Instead of highlighting the problems emotionally, pointing fingers emotionally, making accusations emotionally, right? You want an outcome. And that really is what everybody can do to choose the candidate that they really want in 2024. Yes. It's to ask themselves, what is the outcome that I want?

What is the future that I want? And who can get us to that future faster? Yes. And I think, you know, I feel like you really have to, I mean, We're both non-party affiliated, so it's easy for me to say this, but I really think you can disregard party lines, right? And when you, when any issue is brought up that makes you feel something, right? The first thing you have to do is realize is say out loud to yourself,

this makes me feel angry. This makes me feel upset. And then as soon as you say it, just recognize it. You need to pause and give yourself, like, let yourself feel that way about the issue. Right. But then look at the facts and look at the policies and look at the plan and decide for yourself. You know, I might be really angry about what I perceive to be the immigration problem, right? Like, I live in a border town.

This affects me directly in a negative way. Right? And that's totally valid, right? But then look at everybody's policies. Like whose policy is actually going to solve your problem, not whose campaign message is getting you all riled up about it. Right. Right? Like you have a problem. Who's going to actually fix it? Combating influence is not easy.

No, it's not easy. It's something, it's why it keeps working. It's why Russia, as much as we call them a paper tiger, they're very effective in their paper bag. Because they know how to create influence. And influence is inexpensive. Influence is far reaching. Influence is insidious. Like it sticks. It sticks because once you get someone to question something, they keep questioning it. If anybody's ever had like a boyfriend or girlfriend that they thought might be cheating on them, once you have the thought, the thought lingers.

Once you wonder if maybe you're being underpaid, the thought lingers. That's the power of influence. That's the power of emotional triggers. And that is what makes a covert influence campaign, but also what makes an overt presidential influence campaign. And we will continue to see that. We will continue to talk about it throughout the entire election season because we're proud, loving Americans.

And we're going to keep watching and caring about what happens. Exactly. And we're going to, like this time last year, you started talking about voting your conscience. And I just want to say it again because you're totally right. You've always been right about this. Yes, I'm a husband saying that my wife has always been right about this. About this. Lots of other things she has not been right.

Have to qualify it. but we should vote our conscience, which means we have to follow our conscience. We have to know what our conscience is saying, and we have to follow our conscience. So now, we have not sat down together for a long time. I think this is our first time sitting down to have a conversation like this.

And has it been six months? I think it's been about six months. I think so. We're in a brand new space. We're in a brand new house and a brand new city. Right? We've had some big changes in our life in our personal life and the business.

The business has grown. It's doubled already in the first six months of 2024. I mean, I am blown away by how exciting and how difficult it is to continue running a growing business. Yeah. But, yeah, we've had all this change. And anybody who has been following us for a while knows, Ghi Bustamante does not like change. That is true.

So how have you been coping with it? How have you been handling it? CBD helps I'm being honest We need a CBD sponsor I know You know I When we go through transitions

Which honestly we go through fairly often And we're hoping that this is a time of a little bit Less transition But when we go through transitions I really Go into a day by day mode So I have my plan looking out Of things that need to get done

Like we need to book movers and we need to pack and we need to plan for a trip and, you know, what about the kids? But really, I go into day-to-day mode, which I know you are not a fan of. I don't even understand it. Like, I don't, I don't, how do you, how can you not think past tomorrow? I can only handle one day at a time. And, you know, I think part of it is because I have general anxiety disorder. And so if I let myself start thinking about what do I need to do tomorrow and what if, what if, what if,

because that's what happens. that's the spiral, then it becomes too stressful. But you already find things to stress about. You find a thousand what ifs in the next 24 hours. One day at a time. I can only handle 24 hours of what ifs. Okay. So I need some support here.

If you are listening to this conversation, if you are watching on YouTube, I need you to leave a comment right now and tell us, are you the kind of person who when change happens, when lots of change happens, like moving, changing jobs, some kind of massive transition, maybe somebody passes away, maybe a new child is coming. When you go into these moments of change,

do you literally just think one day at a time, like do you just go into a survival mode? Survival mode is what you call it. Survival mode of just get to the end of the day, get to the end of the day. Is that how you work? Or are you more sane and rational like me and you can still think in the future?

You still visualize the future. No, I guess that's all I can say about that. Because I visualize the future, but I accept the day. But you know what the truth is? The truth is that I kind of like change. Like, I know it's going to end eventually. It's going to, the pain will stop eventually. Yeah.

But it's like how exciting. How exciting that we get to do this right now and we get to be here right? Even if it's like a shitty rainstorm, it's still like how exciting that like we're in a new city with a shitty rainstorm. It's way bad. better than the old city with a shitty rainstorm. Yep. So the truth is that, and I think you know this about me, I also like change, but it's just like how I also like travel,

where at the inception of the idea, I'm like, we're going to move. Awesome, I'm so excited. We're going to go on a trip. Awesome. I'm so excited. And then that excitement lasts until a period of time when I feel like I need to start preparing. And that's when it kicks in where I'm like, I made a mistake. And so in the back of my mind, I'm like,

I know I want this, so we're going to move forward. But in the front of my mind, I'm like, oh my gosh, I am, why do I keep doing this to myself? That's always a question. Why do I keep doing this to myself? But in the back of my mind, it's always so powerful. I'm like, I'm so excited for this new thing. So, I mean, this really being married for 14 years. I know.

Being married for 14 years. We've made it. Fingers crossed. That year tends really rough. But being married for 14 years has taught me more about why we operated together at CIA so well. Oh, yeah. Like when we were, I mean, what were we 30? I think we were 32, 31, 30.

No, we were 30 when we were assigned to our first operation together at CIA. Yeah, right after we got married. And all that went through my head, because I'm a stupid simple creature, obviously, is I was like, how awesome is this? Like this beautiful woman who's also my wife is on operation with me, which means I get to have sex like every night of the operation. Like that's literally where I lived. I know. For a long time. I was like, this is awesome.

What were, where did you live at that time? What was in your head? I was like, what are the security risks? Are our go bags prepped? Have we put our mail on hold? Did we pay the bills in advance? Is our life insurance up to date? Yes.

I remember you bringing that. up. So now you'd be like, but what about the sex? I'm like, yeah. It'll be later. It's great. So fast forward 14 years and now I see it because, I mean, frankly, my love, our success is largely tied to you because you keep me grounded. I sometimes I feel like, so if I'm going to use a very masculine example, I feel like a falcon with a 20. mine like with a leather strap tied to my feet holding me down to the ground, but I still can soar, you know, but I'm under control. When I take your hood off. Hurrah to all the falconaires out there.

But the actual thought that went through my head is I feel more like a butterfly. You just kind of float around and sometimes like you see them crash diving and floating up high and riding waves. Like, so, but the truth is I've always been like flighty that way. Just whatever's got my attention, whatever's got my interest. I don't ever think of the consequences. I only think of the upside. And I'm always like, my mantra is who gets to do this? Yes, that is actually your mantra.

So that always moves me forward. Like, who gets to do this? Who gets to do this? And that's gotten me into a lot of trouble when I was younger. It's gotten me into a lot of trouble with CIA too. Yeah. But when I was paired with you, all of a sudden there was like this reality check on all of my ideas. So 14 years later, I guess what I'm saying is thank you for being my reality check and leading me to success.

And you're welcome because you've had a shit ton more fun being married to me than you would have had if you were single. Maybe that's not true. If you would have married somebody else. That's probably true. That's only because you don't think reading for eight hours a day is fun. How is reading? What I would do if I were saying? How is reading eight hours a day?

I don't understand that. It's so amazing. Oh my gosh. Yeah, on the beach with your book. If I read for 18 minutes, I start yawning. I'm dead serious. It's hard. I have to like walk around.

I have to drink caffeine. I have to drink caffeine to read. You sit there and drink like chamomile tea and stay awake. I don't even know. I don't even know how it works. It's so relaxing. So we've had all this change. and along with the change for us has also brought change for the kids.

Yes. And we have two children, 11 and 7 now. And many of the people listening, they've been with us since our kids were very young. And for everyone who's been with us for years, for months, for weeks, we appreciate you more than you know. Yeah. But we put our kids through a great deal of change. Our daughter, she eats change like it's sugar candy. She loves it.

She's amazing. She eats more change than she does different types of food. I mean. That's true. She only eats four foods. She wants no change from those four foods. But you can take her on a last minute trip anywhere in the world and she'll love it. But our son really struggles with change.

And maybe the better way of saying is not that he struggles with change, it's that he adores patterns. And he adores tradition and he adores predictability. Yeah. Because like me, when you ask him, he says he likes to travel. He likes moving. He likes change. But it's the beginning their process that is challenging. Now, one of the biggest changes that has come about for our kids is that we homeschooled for a long time.

But they have now gotten to a place where they learn so fast, we can't keep up with them. And for any homeschool parents out there, they have either experienced this or they have found a way to overcome it themselves. but our children consume information so quickly. And our son is basically our daughter's tutor sometimes because he's just so much, so incredible in terms of his knowledge. So one of the big changes is we actually took, we used to have a nanny, and we removed the nanny from our household,

and we replaced the nanny with a full-time educator. So we have a professional in-home educator, what the British sometimes call a governess. And she is the one who is in charge of caring, feeding, educating, enriching, and developing our children. And she's been amazing. Yeah. But one of the things that she did is that she started highlighting to us all the things

that we did wrong. Yeah. Which is like a blessing and a curse because I think all parents on a certain level, all parents wish there was a book that we could have learned from. Yes. We wish that there was a teacher for parenting. We wish that there was like a coach for parenting, a mentor, than our mothers and for damn sure not our mother-in-laws.

Wait, who's mother-in-law? Yours or my? I mean, my mother-in-laws and your mother-in-law, I don't even. That's why they're not good parenting coaches or mentors. Well, because being a good parent doesn't mean that you're a good parenting coach or mentor, right? True, true.

I mean, being a parent means that you have a child that you're caring for. It doesn't mean that you really know anything about parenting. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why we don't have parents. parenting education. So one of the things that our private educator introduced to us and showed us the error that we were doing is that we didn't have what she called a rhythm. Yes.

You are a fan of routine. You are a fan of schedules. I am a fan of challenge. I am a fan of spontaneity. Free range. Of freedom. Yeah. I'm an American.

Of course I'm a fan of freedom. That is what our kids were for a little bit. So for a long time, our children, and I never thought of it this way, right? Our children were trapped in a world where it was either all about routine and schedule with you or all about unpredictability and spontaneity with me. So now, again, let's layer in our kids. Our one kid who loves change struggles with your schedule. Our other child, who loves predictability, struggles with my spontaneity.

And that's the environment that we were raising them in. And when she introduced us to this, when she opened my eyes to this, I felt, terrible. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm really letting my kids down. For all of the things that they've accomplished, they could have accomplished so much more had I found a way to give them more of a rhythm in their day. And I'd love for you to kind of explain what rhythm is, what she taught us, what we've done with rhythm. And I would also love for you to talk about our recent road trip where you carried that rhythm on the road with us and we had such an awesome experience. Well, the concept of rhythm was so interesting when she introduced it because I thought that that's what I was doing

with the routine. And what I learned was that routine and rhythm are two totally different things. Like routine is you wake up at eight, you go for a run at nine, you eat breakfast at 10, whatever. I don't know who has that routine. But, you know, it's time-based. You do it in an order. But rhythm is like a flow to your life, right? It's like it's like music. musical rhythm. So it's the flow of you wake up and you do your morning stuff. And there's no times attached, right? You wake up, you eat breakfast, you brush your teeth, you brush your hair, get ready for the day. And then- Sometimes that takes 10 minutes. Yes. Sometimes that takes two hours. Yes. But you always do the rhythm. You always go through the same sequence of events. Yes. And you don't

ever feel rushed. Yep. And you just accept what's natural. Yes. And then, you know, there are these points in your day that are these natural, you know, rhythmic points in the day of, you know, when you do your morning stuff, maybe your mornings are spent outside. Maybe your mornings are spent in school. Maybe your mornings are spent at work. And then you have the natural rhythm of a lunch break. And then you have the natural rhythm of whatever it is, you and your family do naturally in the afternoon. Maybe you're still at school or at work. Maybe it's quiet time. Maybe that's when you do your nature time and then you flow into the natural evening of, you know, dinner, dinner, games, talk. Whatever it is. And, you know, that's the thing is it's, it's so particular to

your family, right? So if one family's schedule is that their kids are at school from eight to six, they can still develop a rhythm to the day that works around what their schedule has to be. So maybe your rhythm is you have your morning stuff, they're at school all day, which has its own rhythm that you have to be cognizant of. And then when they get home, your rhythm, your family rhythm is to decompress

from everybody having been at work and at school, and then you have your dinner, and then you do all your nighttime stuff, right? So it was just this very powerful concept of, that wasn't rigid. It was such, when you think of it as a flow, it's so much easier to take that in

and think about, oh, yeah, what is our natural rhythm as a family? What I really valued was that I've always seen you as a very rigid person. Oh, yeah, you've met my mom, right? But you are not. Your mom is like sharp-edge rigid. You're more like...

Because I don't really want to be rigid, but that's how I was raised. Yeah, I was going to say, you're more like rounded rock, rigid. Yeah. I'm not going to cut myself talking to you, But your mom would cut me. Like prison style.

Yeah. That's the, that's the German in us. She's glad Germans were on time. I'm like, okay. But I've always viewed you as a very rigid person until you learned this concept of rhythm. And then I saw like all that rigidity was all,

I mean, it was wrong of me to assume that of you. And it's not that you were rigid. It's just that you were looking for predictability, which is what our son is looking for. Yes. And you can have that predictability through a flow, through a process,

through a rhythm of what the day looks like. And it's really been transformative for the family, but also for our relationship. So I wanted to share that. And I think it really dawned on me how much we had grown as a family when we went on the road trip recently. So we went on a road trip around Colorado,

around the Rockies. We went from Colorado Springs all the way north to Estes Park as far west as Grand Junction down to Durango, across to the great sand dunes. which was amazing and then back into Colorado Springs. Yeah. But what was really shocking is I hated road trips growing up.

Hated them. Always hated them. Yeah. I didn't like being in the car. I always got in fights with my sisters. Nobody slept well. My parents were just yelling at us all the time. Yeah.

It was never fun. I've always hated road trips. Yeah. This was a blast. This road trip was so good. And it was it dawned on me when you and Amanda, our private educator, highlighted that all that had happened is that you maintained the rhythm for the kids every day that we were on the trip. Yeah.

How did you do that? Well, and then you and I talked about it before, and we, so the beauty of the rhythm too, right, is that you can, once you're in a rhythm, you can change certain components of the rhythm because they just fall within the natural rhythm and, like, daily energy of your family. So you and I had actually talked about, you know, normally they do the morning stuff, they go out, they have quiet time, evening stuff. That's kind of the cadence of the day. But you and I had talked about like in the car, we wanted to have, we didn't want the kids to be plugged in on their headphones the whole time. We wanted to have family time. So we decided we would start reading, let's start listening to the Harry Potter books as a family, right?

And part of our rhythm that we instituted, right? So we kept our morning rhythm because it's really easy to do. Meaning everybody woke up at their leisure. Yes. We didn't wake anybody up to alarms. Correct. They had their normal breakfast. Our family normally wakes up around eight and they normally start doing their first activity around 10.

So that's exactly what we do on the road trip. Everybody still woke up around eight. We checked out of our cabins for the most part around 10. And then we started our first activity. And our first activity just happened to be listening to the family audio book while we started driving. And I wouldn't say it just happened. to be like we intentionally made it so that the first hour you know we we prep the kids before the road trip the first hour we're going to listen to harry potter as as a family and we got some pushback

from our youngest at first at first yeah but then an hour later they didn't want to turn it off yeah so we ended up listening to an entire harry potter book over the course of the trip but that you know we also had set up in the car because i know that they are used to a rhythm of having art time yep And for sure, our youngest, who that is a very important part of the rhythm for her, started picking that up in the car. So we would listen, we would drive, and then she would pull out her notebook, and she would start doing art in the car. Or some would pull out his action figures and start playing in the car.

And you could see that, you know, having those available for them, even though we were all stuck in a car together, allowed them to continue with the rhythm that they normally do day to day. Right. And then, you know, and then we would talk to them about, you know, when we stop, we're going to do a hike or we're going to do quiet time, but it all fit within what for the most part they're used to having here. So they always knew what to expect. They always felt safe in the day on, you know, what was going to happen next, right?

There weren't really, I mean, there were some, and what's interesting is when something unexpected did happen, they were able to handle that. It wasn't, you know, nobody flew off the handle, nobody was upset. They were just like, okay, we'll pivot because they were in this cadence. They were in this rhythm the whole time. So our private educator actually participated in a webinar with us. And I'm going to attach that webinar link in the description below. So if anybody's watching us on YouTube, you'll be able to go into the description below.

You'll be able to find a link that will take you to the webinar where our private educator talked with us as well as multiple of our customers talking about rhythm. but also talking about four other different strategies that she's applied to our little spy family. And I think we call them the five spy strategies for getting back to school because really what we have found is that just like any other public school or private school child, we're prepping our children for the school year.

We don't necessarily observe a traditional summer or a traditional school year, but we do kind of have a cycle to when it's more academic heavy and when it's more play heavy. And we're coming out of summer, so it's less play heavy now, and it's getting more academic.

So we very much have a back to school, just like everybody else has a back to school. The whole country is going back to school this month. It's a new season. Yeah, it's a new season. A new rhythm has to be written, right? So if anybody wants to learn about that and anybody wants to see that webinar,

you're welcome to it. It's going to be linked down in the description below. And yeah, and I've just had such a great time with this change. Moving to a new city, moving to a new state, starting, I mean, a new studio,

more business clients. I mean, really, it's a brand new business. We went from being a million dollar business. We're on track now to be a two and a half million dollar business, possibly a $3 million business. I mean,

that's pretty incredible change. So it's just exciting to me that for the first time and a long time, the change has been exciting. Like the change is coming with smiles instead of tears. and the change is coming with celebration instead of depression and discouragement. And it's been really exciting.

Yeah, I agree. I think this change has been. I mean, it helps that we moved to a place that we all wanted to move to, and it's been amazing here. So, yeah, and watching the business grow has been so much work, but it's so exciting at the same time. So, yeah, all these changes have been really incredible, especially considering, I think, two years ago when we made our big transition the last time, there was, you know, my

grandmother had passed away there was grief and you know it was really really challenging so this time was a much more exciting period where I was like you know I can I've I've been through this once when it was really really hard for me so now I can do this and learn from everything that happened before so we recently got a question from one of our followers asking about how we prepare our children to deal with strangers uh strangers at school strangers on vacation strangers on the strangers and other people's households. And it's such an important question for me because I remember growing up

with the idea of stranger danger. Yeah. But that's not what we teach our children. And largely, that's no longer become the mantra of most childhood development suggestions or recommendations for stranger danger because stranger danger kind of means like a police officer is a stranger.

So does that mean a police officer is danger? And a nurse or a doctor might be a stranger. Does that mean that they're danger? I think when we were growing up, maybe nobody thought about it, or maybe they thought the answer was yes. But for sure, that's not what we've done with our children. I'd love for you to share what strategy you've adapted for our children in dealing with strangers. Well, and I wonder, too, if perhaps there weren't as many studies that had been done when we were kids,

where now, if you look at data, it really shows that the majority of issues that happen aren't with strangers. Right. They're with, you know, the... Members of your known group, friends, family, relatives. Exactly. So, I mean, the likelihood of something negative happening to your child from somebody they know or are acquainted with or somebody that you know, that that likelihood is higher

than them being stolen off the street by, you know, Chesterner. Yeah, yeah. So when we actually started looking at this when Stee was pretty little, I don't even remember if we had our daughter yet. But the concept that we implement, it's called tricky people. So it has nothing to do with whether you know the person or not. It's really focused on behaviors.

Behaviors, right? Is this person trying to trick you? Right. So is this person acting sneaky? Yes. Is this person making you feel uncomfortable? Yes. Is this person asking you to do things that you know are not allowed?

Yeah. And from a very young age, you can. teach them very simple concepts. Like if anybody, anybody asked you to keep a secret, tell mom and dad that we don't do secrets, right? Anybody asked you to tell a secret right away, tell us. Which is funny because we are CIA, former CIA officers, and we know how to keep secrets. And yet we are teaching our children, don't keep secrets. And for the most part, they don't, even though our daughter is really good at lying, really naturally, freakishly good at lying. That our son is horrible. Yeah, thank goodness.

Thank goodness. So I interrupted you. So tricky people is what we teach. And we teach them simple behaviors that we're not, that they should not, they should not tolerate and that they always can come with, they can bring those questions to mom and dad. And the first example you had was if someone says, this is a secret. Or this is just a secret between you and me. Or let's keep this a secret or nobody has to know. That is a sign of a tricky person.

Yeah. And I, you know, you can, depending on the age, of the child right you can say that's a sign of a tricky person but if they're really little just say we don't keep secrets in our family if anybody says that to you like just be very specific and direct for the little ones and maybe anybody says that to you tell me right away okay um and then uh another one is being touched right nobody touches you and you don't touch anybody right if so and certain places right so like it's just break it down for a very simple concept of who is allowed to see you naked, who was allowed to touch your private parts. You know, it's mom and dad. And when you go to the

doctor, they have to ask. And I have to be there. Mom or Dad has to be there. We did the same thing with all the members of our family. Oh, yeah. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, if anybody is, our babysitters, if anybody is going to see you naked, or help you naked, help you on the potty, help you in the bathroom, help you in the shower. Then you should ask mom and dad if that's okay or mom and dad will tell you if it's okay. And if you feel uncomfortable, you can tell the person not to help you or not to touch you. And we know what's fascinating is how much a child's confidence comes from just being able to say what makes them uncomfortable. Yes, absolutely. And I think that is really key in empowering them to say no. Empowering them to, you know, if you go to your friend's house

and they want to show you their penis, and you know, maybe they're eight-year-olds and they're just joking around or whatever, just say, you know what, no thanks. Right. Like, I don't, I don't want to play that way. Right. You know, and just empower them and, you know, role play with them and try to think of different scenarios with them, but I agree with you completely. Once you have empowered them to say no, it's okay for you to walk away.

What's been really cool, too, is like with this idea, this framework of tricky people, our son, who's 11 now, he's really internalized it. So he knows when someone makes him. feel uncomfortable. It has nothing to do with touching or secrets or anything. If somebody gets too close to him, if he just feels uncomfortable, he feels totally empowered to tell us to say, hey, I'm not really comfortable here. Can I stand on the other side? Like this person behind me is making me nervous. He just uses his words. Similarly, he's also played with other kids to nine, 10, 11 year old kids. If anybody has boys between the age of like eight and 13. Yeah.

Like, it's so gross what boys do. I'm a boy. I remember the stuff that I remember my friends. Like, I remember the stupid stuff we did at that age. But, you know, you see sex jokes that they don't understand. Yeah, they have zero idea what they're talking about. And then they're hanging out with other friends who either have older brothers or who have, you know, crazy dads or who knows whatever else. So all of those sometimes very macho, sometimes very masculine, sometimes, you know, like the job.

jokes that come across as homosexual jokes. Not to mention all the inappropriate jokes, too, like the things that are actually racist or biased or whatever else. But when those are introduced to him by peers, he has no problem just being like, put your penis away. It's not funny. I don't like it. Wave it at him.

Don't wave it at me. But he knows that's not a tricky person thing. That's just a kid being a kid doing silly things that he doesn't like. So he's got words for it and he's comfortable with it. I mean, I remember being a kid and never really knowing if it was okay to tell my friends that something wasn't funny. And never really knowing what to do when somebody, you know, stretched out their scrotum or, or moaned me. Oh, I've heard stories of this. It's so funny.

Boys do stupid stuff. I mean, it's so funny. Girls don't understand. No, we don't. Boys are born with a little gift. And we get to play with that gift our whole life. We get to stretch it. We get to watch it change shape.

we get to watch it, change color, and it does even better things when you get older. I guess ours is just less fun. It's like the gift that just keeps on Giffin. Right? So, but it's just, it's so ridiculous because that's what boys come into when they're about nine years old. And it's been awesome because he knows the difference between immature joking behavior. Yeah. And stuff that really makes them feel uncomfortable.

Yeah. And I think that one of the big things that we try to do, too, is if the kids go to another house, to a friend's house, I always try. to download with them at the end of the day. And not, you know, starting out with just very, how was it? What did you guys do? Whatever. But you'll find if you sit with them and even just allow some quiet space in your conversation, they'll say stuff.

Yeah. And maybe even the next day, they'll be like, oh, yeah, I was at so-and-so's. Like, it'll come to them. I was at so-and-so's house and his brother, you know, had this or did this. Yeah. You know, so it'll- Something, I mean, anything. They feel safe.

Yeah. hitting dogs, whatever else it might be. And not just bad stuff too, but really kind stuff. Yes, but all kinds of stuff will come out if you just make a safe space for them too. And I think that when we were growing up, it was difficult because not only were we taught stranger danger. So when if something happened to us, because I know plenty of people who, you know, molested and things happened to them by people who weren't really strangers. So it's very confusing when a non-stranger does something to you. And then you don't really feel like you can go home and tell your parents because you're afraid.

You're afraid they're going to get angry and because it's, you know, if it was an adult especially. So I think, you know, part of the tricky person strategy is just making sure that they feel safe coming to you with anything. So we have, we have a special place in our hearts any time we have a parent who talks to us. Because yes, we're former CIA. Yes, we've done really exciting things and we've been blessed and privileged to. serve our country but at our core we're just we're a mom and a dad who are trying our best to raise two contributing members to society and we're trying our best to expose them to a world that is dynamic and dangerous and changing we don't want to shelter them we want to

empower them to make their own choices but we also don't want to let them make choices that are too detrimental too fast yeah and that's really the plight of every parent. So, you know, if you're listening and if you're a parent like us, if you have children of any age, we don't care if they're one month old or if they're 35 years old. If you know what it's like to care for another life and you know what it's like to carry the privilege and the burden of being a parent, we would love to hear from you in the comments. We would love to take your questions. You know, we are very much on the same page with you and we are very excited to continue to share our parenting journey, our parenting strategies with you,

because we are parenting like two former spies. We're not parenting like the average parent. I think that anybody who meets us, anybody who meets our children understands that fairly quickly. Our kids are just kids, but we have taught them things that the average kid I don't think gets to learn. And I mean, like, I'm impressed every day by what our children can do. just because of the fact that we raised them in this non-traditional setting. Yeah, and I think it's because, you know, the CIA really, I don't know, shifted our perspective, opened or broadened our perspective, perhaps.

So I think that we were really lucky that we joined the agency when we did because it's given us, you know, it's given us the tools to really step back and take a look at what we're doing and be intentional about it. Absolutely. Well, folks, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a fantastic conversation talking about parenthood, talking about the upcoming elections, talking about influence campaigns and how those work. And we are really excited to stay engaged with you throughout this entire season, the season of the school year, as well as the season of the election cycle. Again, if you click in the description below, you're going to find a shortcut to get to the webinar that we recently had with our private educator about five strategies to help you get your kids set up for success this school. school year. You'll also find a link to our spy quiz, which is your opportunity to learn how to see the world through the eyes of a spy, which is what Ji and I do every day when we teach it to our clients, when we teach it to our friends, when we teach it to our children. But with all that,

it's great to be back. It's great to have you in our new studio, in our new home, and we will see you soon.