WEBVTT
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00:00:01.040So that that was the first question.
00:00:01.040 -->
00:00:01.840What's your job?
00:00:01.840 -->
00:00:07.440And the guy said, Well, I I'm a quality control engineer in a moped factory.
00:00:07.440 -->
00:00:16.160He he would he had been his his his recruitment was based on him being an engineer in a WMD industry.
00:00:16.160 -->
00:00:22.239Turns out that his country had closed that industry a year before he was recruited.
00:00:22.239 -->
00:00:26.399He had at one time worked in that industry, but they closed it.
00:00:26.399 -->
00:00:37.679And he had been working in a moped factory the whole time he was providing high-level top secret reports on the WMD industry.
00:00:37.679 -->
00:00:42.399Next question: Have you ever uh worked for a foreign intelligence service?
00:00:42.399 -->
00:00:46.079He goes, Yeah, I'm working for the Cubans too.
00:00:46.079 -->
00:00:55.439And in fact, my dad worked for the Cubans, and my you know, we we go to Cuba together a couple times a year uh to report to them.
00:00:55.439 -->
00:01:02.799And and there's a couple of of other issues, but those two, it's like it's over right there.
00:01:02.799 -->
00:01:03.679Yeah.
00:01:03.679 -->
00:01:10.079And and the the the interviewer asked him, well, why didn't you tell your case officer this?
00:01:10.079 -->
00:01:12.079He said, She never has.
00:01:18.560 -->
00:01:19.680What am I getting at?
00:01:19.680 -->
00:01:22.879The underlying message is very simple, and there is no way out.
00:01:22.879 -->
00:01:25.040What we can eliminate the feature just by it.
00:01:25.040 -->
00:01:27.519Well, we don't have to do it.
00:01:27.519 -->
00:01:32.560We want to get a max interactive and a situation to do it.
00:01:32.560 -->
00:01:34.719We have a mismatch against both, right?
00:01:34.719 -->
00:01:36.959There is no way out.
00:01:37.439 -->
00:01:41.280All right, we're talking about deception detection today with Kent Clisby.
00:01:41.280 -->
00:01:49.680I recently watched a couple of his uh previous episodes with I believe it's uh Elwood on another uh podcast, and there's a reason I did that.
00:01:49.680 -->
00:01:54.480I'm not gonna go into exactly why I came across him, but I do want to share something uh at the moment.
00:01:54.480 -->
00:01:58.959Years ago, I was in an industry that you can say was uh very deceptive.
00:01:58.959 -->
00:02:05.519It was called the agile industry, and and I know I'm gonna get a lot of hate mail on that, but let me be clear about it.
00:02:05.519 -->
00:02:08.800There's a lot of pseudoscience in there, and we'll talk about that, I'm sure, today.
00:02:08.800 -->
00:02:21.680But I saw this uh shared around the internet, and everybody was celebrating it's it's Elizabeth Holmes, it's an image here of her sitting in a chair saying, the minute you have a backup plan, you've admitted you're not going to succeed.
00:02:21.680 -->
00:02:24.879And I saw this, and I'm like, there's something wrong with this person.
00:02:24.879 -->
00:02:29.120And this is before we found out uh the awful things that she did.
00:02:29.120 -->
00:02:31.840Uh, and I believe she's uh spending time in jail now.
00:02:31.840 -->
00:02:39.439Now, what's fascinating about this, she convinced people like George Schultz, General Mattis, Admiral Ruffhead to be on her board.
00:02:39.439 -->
00:02:45.120And what's interesting about that is I don't think any of these guys have any backgrounds in biotechnology or anything like that.
00:02:45.120 -->
00:02:54.879So they're they're they're great experts in their domain of war fighting and things like that, but they get pulled into this world that we end up uh seeing as a fraud.
00:02:54.879 -->
00:03:07.039And then uh you fast forward a few years, you get into Sam Bankman-Fried, uh, that over the last several years, Bernie Mate, uh, but Bernie Madoff, and then you get into somebody that I just recently became aware of, and that was Wayne Simmons.
00:03:07.039 -->
00:03:22.240Now, the reason I reached out to Kent, the reason I reached out to Kent is is this is I was vetting a potential guest for New Way Out, and I couldn't find basic information on them, their background, the military background.
00:03:22.240 -->
00:03:24.639I imagine Kent knows who I'm talking about.
00:03:24.639 -->
00:03:26.560And and my Spidey senses went up.
00:03:26.560 -->
00:03:31.439And I believe the person lives here in Virginia Beach, or at least Norfolk or Virginia, or did at one point.
00:03:31.439 -->
00:03:36.159And I kept searching and I just couldn't find anything that validated their claims.
00:03:36.159 -->
00:03:38.960And this person has been on massive podcasts.
00:03:38.960 -->
00:03:41.120So anyway, I came across Kent's work.
00:03:41.120 -->
00:03:42.879Uh, I asked him to come on the show.
00:03:42.879 -->
00:03:45.120Uh, he is an Air Force guy, he's a Zoomy.
00:03:45.120 -->
00:03:46.000Is that right?
00:03:46.000 -->
00:03:49.199Yeah, that was a long time ago, but yep, I was.
00:03:49.280 -->
00:03:50.879I did five years in the Air Force.
00:03:51.120 -->
00:03:53.759And and then you did some time in the uh in the CIA.
00:03:53.759 -->
00:03:54.960So welcome to the show, Kent.
00:03:54.960 -->
00:03:55.919How are you doing today, man?
00:03:55.919 -->
00:03:56.800Thanks, Punch.
00:03:56.800 -->
00:03:57.919Great, appreciate it.
00:03:57.919 -->
00:03:59.759Uh fascinating connection here.
00:03:59.759 -->
00:04:03.520Uh we'll get into uh holistic contextual credibility assessment.
00:04:03.520 -->
00:04:18.639Uh I think there's great overlap with things that we're learning from ecological dynamics, understanding the context, understanding that context drives a lot of things, understanding that orientation determines what we sense, how we perceive, how we decide, how we act, how we adapt, how we learn.
00:04:18.639 -->
00:04:21.759And of course, the connection to John Boyd's work as well.
00:04:21.759 -->
00:04:26.879Uh we may not dive into that so much because we have a great expert with us today to talk about his work.
00:04:26.879 -->
00:04:31.839And uh, Kent, can you give us some background on how you got into deception detection?
00:04:32.720 -->
00:04:33.120Sure.
00:04:33.120 -->
00:04:35.199Uh well, I I'm a practitioner.
00:04:35.199 -->
00:04:36.959I'm not an I'm not an academic.
00:04:36.959 -->
00:04:58.160Uh everything I know, I learned either the the the foundation was in training, and then the vast majority is in actually doing jobs where where credibility assessment was a major part of being successful in in that specific job.
00:04:58.160 -->
00:05:19.920Those I s I started out well, I give you a l a real quick, real quick uh background in my bio is it's it's really important when we talk about context, is I developed uh contextual expertise, beginning with flunking out a out of college and and being uh kind of scumbag on the streets.
00:05:19.920 -->
00:05:29.040Not you know, not not major, but I was just kind of loser working in a factory job, drinking, smoking dope, just you know, partying.
00:05:29.040 -->
00:05:36.879I I was I I I went to the number one party school in the United States the the year that I that was a freshman, East Carolina University.
00:05:36.879 -->
00:05:39.279So I lasted uh really a semester.
00:05:39.279 -->
00:05:41.759After the first semester, I didn't go to classes.
00:05:41.759 -->
00:05:44.000Just it was just a great time.
00:05:44.000 -->
00:06:00.240But I was I was involved in things and on the street and and dealing with people that was a great foundation for later um, you know, I I I understand sort of the darker side of life.
00:06:00.240 -->
00:06:06.399Uh luckily two years into that that life, uh, I realized I can do better than this.
00:06:06.399 -->
00:06:09.439I I was uh d just wasting my life.
00:06:09.439 -->
00:06:13.279So I went down to the to the Air Force recruiter and got in.
00:06:13.279 -->
00:06:15.120They accepted me.
00:06:15.120 -->
00:06:21.839Ended up becoming a uh they sent me to to uh Monterey, the um uh Defense Language Institute.
00:06:21.839 -->
00:06:25.120I w I went to school and became a Vietnamese linguist.
00:06:25.120 -->
00:06:28.879Same that that required a security clearance.
00:06:28.879 -->
00:06:32.319I was able to get the security clearance, uh, got into Intel.
00:06:32.319 -->
00:06:42.399So I did I I I I wore headphones like this for three years straight, sitting in the Philippines listening to Vietnamese communists.
00:06:42.399 -->
00:06:46.000Listening to their Air Force mostly.
00:06:46.000 -->
00:07:11.199Uh so that that was an introduction to my my introduction to Intel, to foreign cultures, foreign foreign affairs, uh opened up a huge interest and and a love that I realized, wow, you know, I I I never knew I I had any aptitude for foreign languages, but uh the military is great for for identifying aptitudes.
00:07:11.199 -->
00:07:14.319They have aptitude tests and everything and in basic training.
00:07:14.319 -->
00:07:18.639I I went in I I I uh enlisted with no guaranteed job.
00:07:18.639 -->
00:07:20.959I went to basic not knowing what I was gonna be.
00:07:20.959 -->
00:07:21.519Wow.
00:07:21.519 -->
00:07:35.199And in basic, uh like the second week or sometime, they sent they just pull pull me out, pull, you know, handful of guys out of whatever training we were in, and we we go to a lab and they said, You okay, you're gonna take this this test.
00:07:35.199 -->
00:07:36.480I think it was called D Lab.
00:07:36.480 -->
00:07:39.199It's an aptitude test for languages.
00:07:39.199 -->
00:07:45.680So I took this test and aced it, and that's how I ended up uh becoming a linguist.
00:07:45.680 -->
00:07:49.279So now I realize I've got this aptitude for languages.
00:07:49.279 -->
00:07:58.560I I loved being immersed in in Monterey, California at the time was a huge, a huge community of Vietnamese refugees.
00:07:58.560 -->
00:08:07.439So I I got involved with them, loved the culture, loved learning a new culture, ended up in the Philippines for three years.
00:08:07.439 -->
00:08:11.680I got immersed in that culture, and I realized, wow, this is you know, I'm I'm good at this.
00:08:11.680 -->
00:08:23.839I'm I I picked up the language there, and I then I had to stop and say, Well, I also found out I'm I'm a really bad bureaucrat, and I'm not a good uh I I did not become militarized.
00:08:23.839 -->
00:08:31.279I was just a dude doing my job, and the Air Force is probably the the perfect the perfect branch to to be like that.
00:08:31.279 -->
00:08:35.679Uh so I could do my job, go in, go into the office and and go home.
00:08:35.679 -->
00:08:42.000So I started planning what am I gonna do when I when I get out, because I'm gonna get out at the end of this five years.
00:08:42.000 -->
00:08:51.200So I I uh ended up getting going back to school, got a degree in linguistics, and became English as a second language.
00:08:51.200 -->
00:08:55.360At the time was a in-demand skill.
00:08:55.360 -->
00:09:02.799So I became tea I became a teacher of English as a second language, with my goal, my goal was to go back to Southeast Asia.
00:09:02.799 -->
00:09:12.559So there's at the time there's a lot of refugee camps throughout Southeast Asia that used these kind of uh the ESL English as a second language teachers.
00:09:12.559 -->
00:09:21.440So I ended up going back to the Philippines as uh working as a civilian, uh working uh in Bataan, Bataan Americans call it.
00:09:21.440 -->
00:09:23.919There's a huge refugee camp there.
00:09:23.919 -->
00:09:39.679So I was I was a supervisor supervising a team of 15 Filipino teachers teaching Indochinese refugees, Lao, Cambodian, Chinese, uh and Vietnamese, teaching English and culture.
00:09:39.679 -->
00:09:43.200Uh we had a culture orientation and a work orientation program.
00:09:43.200 -->
00:09:52.720I I also while I was at school, I I I married my my wife who's from Malaysia, so I got immersed in that culture.
00:09:52.720 -->
00:09:56.399I s I was traveling to Malaysia every six weeks from the Philippines.
00:09:56.399 -->
00:10:04.320Got immersed in the the Malaysian Malay, which is Malaysian culture is a mix of Malay, Chinese, and Indian.
00:10:04.320 -->
00:10:11.120Got immersed in that, learned the language, and then I I got my my wife and I were living apart.
00:10:11.120 -->
00:10:17.360She was in in Kuala Lumpur and I was in Bataan, and that that that didn't work very well.
00:10:17.360 -->
00:10:30.639So I got us jobs working in Saudi for the Saudi government, teaching English in a in in a uh the King Saud University in the middle of the desert, uh in the middle of Wahhabi land.
00:10:30.639 -->
00:10:47.039Uh I was the only westerner in in the province uh that I I I ran across one other guy, a German guy who was passing through doing doing air conditioning repair or something, but I was the only westerner that I knew of in the year I was there.
00:10:47.039 -->
00:10:49.759After that, they they offered us to extend it.
00:10:49.759 -->
00:10:50.799I I laughed at them.
00:10:50.799 -->
00:10:55.440It was a it was an interesting experience, but I did not want to stay there another year.
00:10:55.440 -->
00:11:03.360So I ended up going to working for a British company in the UK, and then they sent me to Italy doing language consulting.
00:11:03.360 -->
00:11:15.600Only then, after after my wife got pregnant, and we were traveling the world, uh, you know, having a lot of fun, but the I I had no health, no health insurance, so I had to figure out a way to get health insurance.
00:11:15.600 -->
00:11:29.519So came back to the States, did grad school, uh, ended up doing three different grad programs linguistics, uh, MBA, and instructional design, and ended up at the end of that, got a job with the CIA.
00:11:29.519 -->
00:11:30.480Nice.
00:11:30.480 -->
00:11:38.799With with that with that background that uh it it's it's now once I started working with the CIAA, I realized that you know this is a great background.
00:11:38.799 -->
00:11:42.799Yes, it is, but but it's extremely unusual.
00:11:42.799 -->
00:11:51.039Uh the and most people in the agency fit that they hire fit a very uh a template of uh a profile.
00:11:51.039 -->
00:12:06.000And when when I look at my background and once I ended up doing the job, it's it was excellent preparation and the profile, the standard profile that they hire, that they use to hire is not really a good background.
00:12:06.000 -->
00:12:29.120It was, it would have been 50 or 60 or 75 years ago, in maybe in the 40s and the 50s, hiring a a kid from a fraternity who uh went to you know, he he went to one of the prep schools and then he went to Stanford or or Princeton and you know had had connect high-level society connections.
00:12:29.120 -->
00:12:34.720And then they back then their job was doing a lot in that kind of environment.
00:12:34.720 -->
00:12:41.360And that, you know, go go to France and go to cocktail parties with uh people like you.
00:12:41.360 -->
00:12:47.440That ain't that that is not what the agency does now or when I was in.
00:12:47.440 -->
00:12:49.120I I went in in the mid-90s.
00:12:49.360 -->
00:12:49.679Okay.
00:12:50.879 -->
00:12:56.960And I realized, man, this is this is I I've got a real real advantage here.
00:12:56.960 -->
00:13:13.360I've been ripped off, I've I've I've lived on, I've worked on the strength on the streets, I've seen bad stuff happen, I've I've run from the cops, I've been caught by the cops, I've I've done all kinds of things that when you're a case officer, that's what you're doing.
00:13:13.360 -->
00:13:15.840You're doing illegal stuff.
00:13:15.840 -->
00:13:50.799But with that background, getting back to credibility assessment, what that background also gave me the uh the experience and context, cultural, social, linguistic, subcultural, to be able to I I I could and can talk to anybody from any background and pretty quickly find some commonality as well as I can understand where they're coming from because I've been involved in so many different contexts.
00:13:51.039 -->
00:13:52.399So I'm a little curious.
00:13:52.399 -->
00:13:56.399I I've got a question here about your apt, you know, you brought up D Lab uh and DLI.
00:13:56.399 -->
00:13:58.480So just you you know, I went to a party school.
00:13:58.480 -->
00:14:03.120We didn't have the E in front, we just had CUs to Colorado uh and then joined the Navy from there.
00:14:03.120 -->
00:14:08.159Uh but and one of the things that happened in my career is at 12 years of service, I got selected to be a foreign area officer.
00:14:08.159 -->
00:14:11.840So everything you're talking about, going to DLI, D Lab, and all that resonates with me.
00:14:11.840 -->
00:14:20.480My question to you is what was it in your past, or what do you know from your past or or anybody's past that increases that aptitude for learning languages?
00:14:20.480 -->
00:14:20.879What was it?
00:14:20.879 -->
00:14:21.840I think it's natural.
00:14:21.840 -->
00:14:22.639Music?
00:14:22.639 -->
00:14:24.080What was it?
00:14:24.080 -->
00:14:25.039What'd you do when you were children?
00:14:25.120 -->
00:14:29.440I think no, I think it's a skill, it it is a an inherent skill.
00:14:29.440 -->
00:14:31.679It's you either have it or you don't.
00:14:31.679 -->
00:14:32.480Yeah.
00:14:32.480 -->
00:14:35.440Maybe yeah, I don't know.
00:14:35.440 -->
00:14:40.320I I was I I I was not a good student in high school.
00:14:40.320 -->
00:14:42.159I flunked out of college.
00:14:42.159 -->
00:14:43.519I read a lot.
00:14:43.519 -->
00:14:46.240You know, I I'm I'm a I'm a self-taught.
00:14:46.240 -->
00:14:50.879I'm self-taught in almost everything that that I've that I've done.
00:14:50.879 -->
00:14:54.240So on my own, I read a lot.
00:14:54.240 -->
00:15:00.639I was interested in literature, I was interested in in history.
00:15:00.639 -->
00:15:08.879But when I was a kid, I I I for five years I lived in Puerto Rico, so I was exposed to Spanish.
00:15:08.879 -->
00:15:18.799I learned excuse me, I learned a little bit of Spanish then, took Spanish in high school, you know, three, four years, whatever, which is pretty much useless.
00:15:18.799 -->
00:15:25.360So I I did not div I I I I didn't study to have that aptitude.
00:15:25.360 -->
00:15:25.679Yeah.
00:15:25.679 -->
00:15:30.080I I took the D Lab totally cold and you know, it made sense to me.
00:15:30.080 -->
00:15:37.600All of these they they use like a a nonsense language, and you know, you you see the patterns or figure it out.
00:15:38.799 -->
00:15:44.720Like my background was in music when I was a kid, and that's why they think or I think I was able to decode some of that stuff in the uh D Lab.
00:15:44.720 -->
00:15:45.600Interesting.
00:15:45.600 -->
00:15:49.519Um but I'm just wondering, so there's something that I don't know what it is.
00:15:49.519 -->
00:15:50.879I don't know if we're gonna identify it here.
00:15:50.879 -->
00:15:54.480There's something in your past that that allowed you to do that uh nature and nurture.
00:15:54.799 -->
00:15:55.759I really think it's inherent.
00:15:55.759 -->
00:16:00.960When you say you're into music, you I I think that's inherent in inherent too.
00:16:00.960 -->
00:16:02.320It's a talent you have.
00:16:02.320 -->
00:16:05.120I have zero ability with music.
00:16:05.120 -->
00:16:10.960You know, and I've I've tried, but I have I can't hear, I I I don't get it.
00:16:10.960 -->
00:16:11.279Yeah.
00:16:11.279 -->
00:16:17.840It's just, you know, inherent in my in my thinking, in my brain is I do not get music.
00:16:17.840 -->
00:16:18.080Yeah.
00:16:18.080 -->
00:16:21.039I mean, I love music, but I have no idea how to make it.
00:16:21.039 -->
00:16:25.759Or when you start talking about musical uh concepts, I don't get it.
00:16:26.159 -->
00:16:28.159So maybe it's just the exposure to people too.
00:16:28.159 -->
00:16:31.679Uh that that's something else in your your your early experiences there.
00:16:31.679 -->
00:16:34.000And I I'd have to say there's street smarts involved with that.
00:16:35.360 -->
00:16:39.519Because that's the only thing, the only skill that I had developed by that time was Street Smarts.
00:16:39.519 -->
00:16:39.759Trevor Burrus, Jr.
00:16:39.840 -->
00:16:40.320Yeah, yeah.
00:16:40.320 -->
00:16:42.000And that that to me is is a lot.
00:16:42.000 -->
00:16:50.080Uh you know, growing up uh in Colorado, I'm not going to get into that too much, but I was I was exposed to you know, I was my family's on government cheese.
00:16:50.080 -->
00:16:52.159You know, I got I had to figure out how to go to college.
00:16:52.159 -->
00:16:53.919I was first generation, all these things.
00:16:53.919 -->
00:17:01.759It's a different uh, I guess, dossier or or or uh profile than somebody who goes to Yale or Stanford and you end up serving with them in the in the military.
00:17:01.759 -->
00:17:03.200You could see a difference right away, right?
00:17:03.440 -->
00:17:18.480Huge and so so to bring it back to cred credibility assessment is so in in the agency, everything you do is based on your assessment of the credibility, uh, of the credibility of your targets, of the people that you're meeting.
00:17:18.480 -->
00:17:32.640So the job of a of a CIA ops officer or case officer is to spot, assess, develop, recruit, and run foreign human sources of foreign intelligence.
00:17:32.880 -->
00:17:33.119Yeah.
00:17:33.519 -->
00:17:39.440You're the only the only one meeting that that source or potential source.
00:17:39.440 -->
00:17:46.079It's one-on-one that you are you you don't have somebody, you know, you're not meeting in a team.
00:17:46.079 -->
00:18:00.319Generally speaking, there there's always exceptions that prove the rule, but generally speaking, you are one-on-one with another human being, yeah, and you've got to determine is is this guy blowing smoke up your butt?
00:18:00.319 -->
00:18:04.319Or is he who he says he is, what he says he is?
00:18:04.319 -->
00:18:06.319Can he do what he says he can?
00:18:06.319 -->
00:18:11.200Does he have access to what what you think he does or what he says he does?
00:18:11.200 -->
00:18:51.920And you've got to do a credibility assessment and with without a deeper contextual background, including street smarts, the abil the ha having been ripped off, knowing that people will lie to you, knowing how they lie to you, as well as specific cultural whatever culture you're working in, uh whatever the profession that your target is in, uh, whatever the subculture they're in, if you're not at least aware of all that context, you're you're totally lost.
00:18:51.920 -->
00:19:35.839You know, you're you you end up assuming a lot and making guesses and um and and then so so so then if you don't have the the the contextual competence with in in the um the the the the environment that you're working in against the person that you're uh in if you don't have competence that matches your target, you end up and what happens in in American intelligence bureaucracy is they they fall back on and rely on what they they they think are technical uh solutions, yeah.
00:19:35.839 -->
00:19:43.200That is body-based measurements of human uh of the human body.
00:19:43.200 -->
00:19:43.440Yeah.
00:19:43.440 -->
00:19:50.880And they tried they they claim they can use that to determine if someone is truthful or not.
00:19:51.119 -->
00:19:51.359Yeah.
00:19:51.359 -->
00:19:56.240That's that's breaking down the the system, and uh analyzing it by little pieces.
00:19:56.240 -->
00:19:57.920And I think I know where you're going with this.
00:19:57.920 -->
00:20:03.680Uh and I you know, I read a book years ago by Malcolm Gladwell called Blink, and I was like, wow, that's how everything works.
00:20:03.680 -->
00:20:12.079What we know from complex adaptive systems thinking or complexity thinking is you can't decompose a complex adaptive system to its constituent parts, right?
00:20:12.079 -->
00:20:27.759And I think that's that's fantastic about this is uh uh y you go back to 9-11 and and uh what TSA did and Homeland Security did, and maybe you could talk more about that, but they start breaking things down and saying this is how it works, and we're watching TV shows called was it lie to me back in the day?
00:20:27.759 -->
00:20:29.519You know, and I'm like, ah, this is awesome.
00:20:29.519 -->
00:20:38.079And and I I didn't know back then what I know now, and I'm not not I'm I'm a student just like you, I'm not an expert in I don't I don't claim to be an expert in a lot of things anyway.
00:20:38.079 -->
00:21:02.799But I I can see the connection between um an engineering approach of trying to break human behavior down into little bits and pieces, and a contextualized approach, which is understanding the context, the environment, everything around them, and that's what we're trying to express on this show is it's a it's a agent or performer engaging with an environment that matters, and that culture, that experience, uh the genetics even matter and all this.
00:21:02.799 -->
00:21:04.720And we have to look at the whole package.
00:21:04.720 -->
00:21:05.680Holistic.
00:21:05.759 -->
00:21:09.440That's the the other the other uh buzzword here is holistic.
00:21:09.440 -->
00:21:11.279And I have to say contextual.
00:21:11.680 -->
00:21:21.519Yeah, and and I have to I have to say this uh just to be clear, and that is uh you know, I had a family member that lost $200,000 in a in a crypto scam uh scam recently, right?
00:21:21.519 -->
00:21:31.680Just just yesterday, I was on a phone call, I took a phone call in what seemed to be a very articulate human being, and I quickly realized I was talking to an AI, right?
00:21:31.680 -->
00:21:36.640I'm like, man, this thing doesn't say uz or ease, or you know, it doesn't pause or hesitate, it's just smooth.
00:21:36.640 -->
00:21:38.000And had an answer for everything.
00:21:38.000 -->
00:21:39.839I'm like, man, this is amazing.
00:21:39.839 -->
00:21:44.960So detection, deception detection is absolutely critical in what we do.
00:21:44.960 -->
00:21:53.920And I'll be honest with you, uh veterans, and I I don't know how you're gonna feel about this statement, just because somebody served in the military doesn't make them really credible.
00:21:53.920 -->
00:21:54.400All right.
00:21:54.400 -->
00:21:59.599If you're very articulate and you served in the military, man, you have a very high likely.
00:21:59.599 -->
00:22:04.319That uh you can go out and sell uh snake oil to anybody, right?
00:22:04.319 -->
00:22:07.519Because one, you have the service, and two, you sound smart.
00:22:07.519 -->
00:22:13.039But generally, those are the people that you gotta watch out for, and that I gotta watch out for as a as a military veteran.
00:22:13.039 -->
00:22:16.240Uh that's a lot to share with you, but uh can you build on that?
00:22:16.640 -->
00:22:17.599Yeah, yeah, sure.
00:22:17.599 -->
00:22:35.440Uh so so I I I I think what you're getting at is I I I want to caveat your the thing about veterans is most veterans do not use their experience and and they're pretty much incapable of using their experience uh to to hoodwink other people.
00:22:35.440 -->
00:22:44.720Uh uh what what I found with veterans is that they become so much of part of this little subculture that they can only talk to other veterans.
00:22:44.720 -->
00:22:52.960And you know, that's it's uh it's a whole attitude, it's a lingo, it's that just and nobody else understands them.
00:22:52.960 -->
00:23:02.160However, there's another subset that's realized that that they can take advantage of those people who come up to you and say, Oh, thanks for your service.
00:23:02.160 -->
00:23:08.160And you know, they they that becomes an opening for these, and and they're they're con men.
00:23:08.160 -->
00:23:12.559They're they're uh con men, and many of them are fake.
00:23:12.559 -->
00:23:14.960You know, it's the stolen valor thing.
00:23:14.960 -->
00:23:27.039Many of them that realize that that the the veteran status can be used to con other people are are not actual veterans, or they mischaracterize their their actual experience.
00:23:27.039 -->
00:23:29.440So yeah, yeah, I'm I'm with you there.
00:23:29.440 -->
00:23:31.039Um no, thank you for that.
00:23:31.359 -->
00:23:42.400Because because I I'll say this, uh you know, on one of your recent episodes or podcast, you brought up uh uh psychedelics and then the psychedelic assistant therapy community, which you know I'm a huge proponent and supporter of.
00:23:42.400 -->
00:23:47.839I will tell you right now, there are evildoers that are veterans in that space.
00:23:47.839 -->
00:23:53.759They have big egos, they're out there collect trying to make money, starting 501c3s and all that stuff.
00:23:53.759 -->
00:23:56.319They sound awesome, but they're full of shit.
00:23:56.319 -->
00:23:56.880All right.
00:23:56.880 -->
00:24:00.079I know this because I I I know who they are and they know I know who they are.
00:24:00.079 -->
00:24:01.440And I'm I'm throwing it out there.
00:24:01.440 -->
00:24:02.559It's it's dangerous.
00:24:02.880 -->
00:24:03.279Yeah.
00:24:03.279 -->
00:24:08.319So you you talked around it a minute ago about the guy that you're vetting.
00:24:08.319 -->
00:24:17.440It's the guy's name is Chase Hughes, and you mentioned the the uh the work that I've done with Zach Elwood in vetting Chase Hughes.
00:24:17.440 -->
00:24:19.359Uh he's a perfect example.
00:24:19.359 -->
00:24:21.680He actually served in the military.
00:24:21.680 -->
00:24:25.519Uh Zach foyed his his DD two fourteen.
00:24:25.519 -->
00:24:27.279He was a quartermaster.
00:24:27.279 -->
00:24:31.920Let me uh so I'm I'm not really up on Navy Navy terminology.
00:24:31.920 -->
00:24:45.039I may be I may be misremembering, but I want to say I know that his job was the job that he did, and I'm pretty sure the name is quartermaster, is like a navigation uh the navigator's assistant, sort of.
00:24:45.279 -->
00:24:45.599Yeah.
00:24:45.839 -->
00:24:46.319Is that right?
00:24:46.559 -->
00:24:46.720Yeah.
00:24:46.720 -->
00:24:55.039So I looked at the DD214, and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna bash anybody because I don't I I mean, I mean, I I will contribute to the conversation, but I don't know.
00:24:55.039 -->
00:24:58.880I mean, I looked at Chase Hughes, don't get me wrong, uh the Spidey senses went up.
00:24:58.880 -->
00:25:12.640I looked at the DD214 that you that is shared, uh, and I looked at that after I was trying to understand if this guy should be on my show, and how do I get somebody who's who's getting $30,000 to $50,000 for a keynote to get on this little podcast that I call No Way Out, right?
00:25:12.640 -->
00:25:16.880Uh and and I'm I'm looking at him, I'm like, man, this he's he's awesome, by the way.
00:25:16.880 -->
00:25:18.160He he's very articulate.
00:25:18.160 -->
00:25:23.759He's talking about the things that I'm in, you know, in the space of psychedelic assistant therapy, consciousness, and things like that.
00:25:23.759 -->
00:25:27.680I'm like, this is awesome, but how does this guy know from his career?
00:25:27.680 -->
00:25:36.799And you look back at that, and I'm like, there's nothing in there that says anything that connects to uh deception, behaviorism, or beh behavioral science.
00:25:36.799 -->
00:25:39.039It's it's it's a good military background.
00:25:39.039 -->
00:25:39.599Don't get me wrong.
00:25:39.920 -->
00:25:40.160Exactly.
00:25:40.160 -->
00:25:48.559There's nothing to be there's there's nothing to be ashamed of in his background, but he has lied constantly.
00:25:48.559 -->
00:26:03.920And look look, Zach has a has a great website that uh that spells out that goes back and you know when when he when when Hughes first became prominent, or when he first became active, he tried all kinds of things.
00:26:03.920 -->
00:26:09.440He his first his first uh scam was uh a pick he was a pickup artist.
00:26:09.440 -->
00:26:12.160He wrote a book about about picking up girls.
00:26:12.160 -->
00:26:14.640Which is a great skill to have.
00:26:14.640 -->
00:26:16.799Sure, sure, absolutely.
00:26:16.799 -->
00:26:22.400But what at that time he didn't claim I learned how to pick up girls uh in the military.
00:26:22.400 -->
00:26:35.119But that's he tried that first, and then he uh he he did start building on you know using a military reputation as uh he he was a combat a combat skills instructor.
00:26:35.119 -->
00:26:46.720He had YouTube videos of you know, here's you do this, you strike under the nose, and it immediately kills them, and this don't do this at home, and you know, he that that he tried he tried that.
00:26:46.720 -->
00:26:56.880And somehow he ended soon soon after that, he ended up beginning to tout his expertise in intelligence.
00:26:56.880 -->
00:27:03.599Uh he claimed that he trained the CIA, the FBI, SEALs, uh uh Green Beret.
00:27:03.599 -->
00:27:24.559He he he he realized when he was in the military that the intelligence training that the military provided its operators needed his skills and and insights because they were totally useless, and he knew how to whatever he whatever his claims are.
00:27:24.559 -->
00:27:30.960His claims are I don't even I can't even remember what they are, but but totally based on nothing.
00:27:30.960 -->
00:27:33.680He has no actual experience.
00:27:33.680 -->
00:27:35.279He was not in Intel.
00:27:35.279 -->
00:27:47.440He was he was you know ended up in in in in the Norfolk area and uh he ended up running a harbor, he was uh a boat driver, things like that.
00:27:47.440 -->
00:27:52.480But he he he claim his claims are all were all bait.
00:27:52.480 -->
00:28:01.440When he he goes on these big uh big uh podcasts, uh Joe Rogan, uh CEO, I don't even remember the name of him.
00:28:01.440 -->
00:28:03.839Yeah, Diary of a CEO Diary of a CEO.
00:28:03.839 -->
00:28:15.519You know, he'll always very, very uh humbly, well, you know, 20 years in the military, and you know, it's I I wish I could tell you, but I can't I'd have probably have to kill you.
00:28:15.519 -->
00:28:28.079You know, which which right to me as being an actual operator who's worked with actual I I worked very uh uh uh extensively with the military, all of the military special forces.
00:28:28.079 -->
00:28:37.039I trained DIA, I designed and trained DIA Hugh Mint uh junior case officer training for for several years.
00:28:37.039 -->
00:28:44.880I I know I know them, I know how they work, I know what they do, I know what they know, and this guy is he's full of shit.
00:28:44.880 -->
00:28:45.279Yeah.
00:28:45.279 -->
00:28:50.559And that, but that is those claims are what propelled him.
00:28:50.559 -->
00:28:54.240It it was the foundation of his credibility.
00:28:54.240 -->
00:28:57.039And you know, no nobody dares question him.
00:28:57.039 -->
00:29:03.039Well, I don't know if they dare, it's just you know, it's just well, yeah, we'll just we'll just take whatever he says as as the truth.
00:29:03.039 -->
00:29:06.240Well, it's kind of like it's a great case study of credibility assessment.
00:29:06.240 -->
00:29:08.160Yeah, it's kind of it run across me.
00:29:08.160 -->
00:29:13.440I so in HCCA, it's holistic contextual credibility assessment.
00:29:13.440 -->
00:29:17.359I'm an expert in the context that he's claiming to be an expert in.
00:29:17.359 -->
00:29:18.160Yes, yes.
00:29:18.160 -->
00:29:21.440I am an Intel, human Intel guy.
00:29:21.440 -->
00:29:26.160I have worked military intelligence for many, many years.
00:29:26.160 -->
00:29:31.440I've trained the kind of things that he that that he is claiming expertise in.
00:29:31.440 -->
00:29:33.920I I've and I'm a practitioner.
00:29:33.920 -->
00:29:36.079I'm an expert practitioner of them.
00:29:36.079 -->
00:29:50.559Applying my ex my contextual competence, holistically looking at his stories, his claims, it just does not it's not credible.
00:29:50.880 -->
00:29:51.119Yeah.
00:29:51.119 -->
00:29:55.759So, you know, I started with Elizabeth Holmes and I brought up the names of the uh people that were on our board.
00:29:55.759 -->
00:29:58.079They're not coming, they weren't coming from her context, right?
00:29:58.079 -->
00:30:00.480And and she sounded very articulate.
00:30:00.480 -->
00:30:04.880And that's what that's what I'm getting at is I I don't have any, this is my view.
00:30:04.880 -->
00:30:08.880I don't have any issues against what Chase Hughes says on on podcast, because I don't have that.
00:30:08.880 -->
00:30:09.839That's not my background.
00:30:09.839 -->
00:30:14.000I don't understand, you know, I do look at it, I look at consciousness, I try to understand these things.
00:30:14.000 -->
00:30:14.640I get it.
00:30:14.640 -->
00:30:15.920I'm reading that stuff too.
00:30:15.920 -->
00:30:17.599I'm not an expert in it, right?
00:30:17.599 -->
00:30:19.359But I I do have a military background.
00:30:19.359 -->
00:30:24.480I have a context, contextual background in the military where I look at that and go, well, these aren't connected at all.
00:30:24.480 -->
00:30:24.880Yes.
00:30:24.880 -->
00:30:33.680So I am not gonna say I'm not taking anything away from Chase Hughes and what he's saying on on these podcasts because those things may or may not be true.
00:30:33.680 -->
00:30:36.960They may be consistent with science and what we're discovering about.
00:30:37.920 -->
00:30:40.480I'm sorry to interrupt, but so so that's where he's at now.
00:30:40.480 -->
00:30:55.599He has segued out of the the claims of his expertise in uh he he's he's on on a YouTube channel with other other guys that they'll they'll uh analyze body language.
00:30:55.599 -->
00:30:57.279That's how he got famous.
00:30:57.279 -->
00:30:58.799I can't remember what it's called.
00:30:58.799 -->
00:30:59.839It's yeah, I don't know.
00:30:59.839 -->
00:31:06.400That's what rocketed him into notoriety.
00:31:06.400 -->
00:31:21.200All this stuff about psychedelics and methylene blue and all this other stuff, it that that is he he has segued away, he's stepped away from the claims that that uh that he got famous and and prominent with.
00:31:21.200 -->
00:31:25.920And I I don't care about all that psychedelic and the the stuff he's doing now.
00:31:25.920 -->
00:31:29.839I I don't I don't have any contextual expertise, yeah, and I'm not talking about that.
00:31:29.839 -->
00:31:39.599I'm I'm looking at his the foundation of his claims, which was military intelligence uh expertise, and it's not there.
00:31:39.599 -->
00:31:40.720So sorry to interrupt.
00:31:41.119 -->
00:31:45.759So there are other folks out there that have worn military uniforms and and some have become politicians.
00:31:45.759 -->
00:31:57.920In fact, I would say this my experience in the Navy Reserve is that uh you see a lot of folks that joined out of Yale, Stanford, and they're very articulate, very bright, and you can see they have a desired destination to go on and do something.
00:31:57.920 -->
00:32:06.640And they use that moment, that credibility moment in the military to go, I deployed a Djibouti for a year and look at me, and I'm like, dude, what you're in combat, man.
00:32:06.640 -->
00:32:10.480I mean, I uh when I was on active duty, fuck you and your your reserve time, right?
00:32:10.480 -->
00:32:11.759John Kerry.
00:32:11.759 -->
00:32:24.480But but I get I'm not trying to bash on veterans, I'm a veteran, I love the veteran community, but you got to be careful and you got to be careful with them because some of them are gonna do things and they're very they look very credible.
00:32:24.480 -->
00:32:31.200And I'll tell you, I I shy away from folks right now that you know, once your spidey senses go off, you're kind of like, man, I got to get away from you, you know?
00:32:31.200 -->
00:32:32.960I don't want anything to do with you.
00:32:32.960 -->
00:32:42.480So uh and and in that case, I uh you know, I know Navy SEALs that were trying to figure out what they're gonna do when they get left the military, and and a year after they left the military, they're experts in meditation.
00:32:42.480 -->
00:32:45.519And I'm like, how the fuck is that possible?
00:32:45.519 -->
00:32:48.400Anyway, I'm not a again, I I am a student.
00:32:48.400 -->
00:32:49.599I'm trying to learn.
00:32:49.599 -->
00:32:52.480I'm I I know stuff about teamwork, leadership strategy.
00:32:52.480 -->
00:32:55.039I can help about talk about consciousness and all that.
00:32:55.039 -->
00:33:04.319But I you know, imagine when you're when you're trying to figure out who Ponce Rivera is, you you look around real fast and go, okay, this guy is has a social media presence.
00:33:04.319 -->
00:33:06.559He he sounds like a dipshit from time to time.
00:33:06.559 -->
00:33:07.920Let's have a conversation, right?
00:33:07.920 -->
00:33:11.440That that's what I look at is but we all.
00:33:11.440 -->
00:33:28.799Yeah, and Ken, I was I tell you this having a podcast and and finding folks that seem to be credible and you bring them on here and you realize they're hiding behind AI when they write, you're like, man, so there's a little I'm uh I think there's a good warning for just the folks that are listening that hey, be careful out there, all right?
00:33:28.799 -->
00:33:32.880And and I'm I'm not gonna tell you who you should listen to or not listen to, but just be careful.
00:33:32.880 -->
00:33:37.599And and fortunately, we've got an expert with us today who can help us through that in the HECA.
00:33:37.759 -->
00:33:45.119So uh I I guess I guess the uh the the best the best uh advice there is stay skeptical.
00:33:45.119 -->
00:33:46.799Trust, trust but verify.
00:33:46.799 -->
00:33:52.960Yeah, say, okay, the interesting, send me your stuff, you know, let's chat and uh yeah, figure them out.
00:33:53.359 -->
00:33:55.279Well, let's get into the uh HCCA.
00:33:55.279 -->
00:34:00.720And before we do that, I do want to share something uh with you, which uh I came across just the other day, believe it or not.
00:34:00.720 -->
00:34:01.759Anyway, I'll read it to you.
00:34:01.759 -->
00:34:04.000So John Boyd talked about a pyramid all the time.
00:34:04.000 -->
00:34:09.280Like if you look at a pyramid from the bottom, it looks like a square from the side, it looks like a triangle from the top, it looks a little different, right?
00:34:09.280 -->
00:34:13.199So he he points out you have to look at things from many different points of view.
00:34:13.199 -->
00:34:16.320And only look at the pyramid from one side, you're gonna have one view of it.
00:34:16.320 -->
00:34:18.000So you just brought that up, right?
00:34:18.000 -->
00:34:20.400We we want to look at things from multiple perspectives.
00:34:20.400 -->
00:34:21.840We want to challenge assumptions.
00:34:21.840 -->
00:34:28.960So let's go back to where we we brought up Ekman and we brought up some of the ideas of breaking things down.
00:34:28.960 -->
00:34:35.039Take us back to what you discovered, what was wrong with all that, and how you came up with HCCA.
00:34:35.440 -->
00:34:56.800So as when I I was I was given my my spiel about how I ended up being in the agency, and then what I discovered in the agency was they were doing deception, they were calling it deception detection using measuring body body measurements of your eye movements, your blood pressure, skin, breathing, whatever.
00:34:56.800 -->
00:35:00.800And I real quick learned that doesn't work.
00:35:00.800 -->
00:35:22.559You know, we've got and then then then when I started going back in history, and and one thing that that uh American intelligence and probably law enforcement too is very bad at is practitioners don't go back and look at historical cases because you're drowning in so much happening in the moment.
00:35:22.559 -->
00:35:28.239You've got so much to do, you got no time to go back and and and look at history.
00:35:28.239 -->
00:35:43.519I only ended up having time once I I got out and started started when uh uh actually when I was teaching for the Defense Intelligence Agency, when I was designing courses, I was able to have time to go back and look at history.
00:35:43.519 -->
00:35:50.239And the CIA uh and American Intelligence is has a horrible track record of failure.
00:35:50.239 -->
00:36:00.960Uh best example, there's two great examples was uh East Germans uh assets that we had supposedly recruited in the 50s and 60s.
00:36:00.960 -->
00:36:09.440They they all passed our deception detection body, body measurement based uh deception detection.
00:36:09.440 -->
00:36:10.639They had all passed.
00:36:10.639 -->
00:36:17.760Come to find out, every single one of the who what we were calling agents were were doubles.
00:36:17.760 -->
00:36:21.599That is, they were run by East German intelligence against us.
00:36:21.599 -->
00:36:22.159Wow.
00:36:22.159 -->
00:36:26.159They were controlled by East German intelligence, a hundred percent of them.
00:36:26.159 -->
00:36:29.360Exact same thing with Cubans in the 60s.
00:36:29.360 -->
00:36:33.599Uh we had a stable of agents, I don't know, dozens.
00:36:33.599 -->
00:36:37.360Every single one of them was run by Cuban intelligence.
00:36:37.360 -->
00:36:40.239Cuban intelligence knew everything we were doing.
00:36:40.239 -->
00:36:49.519Every one of them had been measured by our uh specialists in body measurement deception detection.
00:36:49.519 -->
00:36:52.800Every one of them, and every one of them was bad.
00:36:52.800 -->
00:36:53.599Wow.
00:36:53.599 -->
00:37:07.760I didn't know that when I was when I was working, but I knew this ain't working because uh these guys that I'm dealing with and the feedback I'm getting from these body measurement specialists are totally different.
00:37:07.760 -->
00:37:10.159So I realized it's up to me.
00:37:10.159 -->
00:37:18.639I'm the only one meeting with this guy in context, seeing the holistic view of what's happening in this guy's life.
00:37:18.639 -->
00:37:24.159I have to do my own, and I realize it's not deception detection.
00:37:24.159 -->
00:37:30.960I'm not gonna be able to tell if he's telling a lie, but I'm gonna be able to tell, is he credible?
00:37:30.960 -->
00:37:33.599Is this story he's sharing credible?
00:37:33.599 -->
00:37:42.079And I have to assess his credibility to make a holistic determination about his credibility.
00:37:42.079 -->
00:37:50.480When he says, when I ask him a question, he says yes or no, I'm never gonna be able to tell whether that's a lie or the truth.
00:37:50.480 -->
00:37:56.079Not never, but yeah, I'm I'm only gonna be able to make uh uh an educated guess.
00:37:56.079 -->
00:38:05.280But there's nothing that can I can hook this guy up to that's gonna tell me that when he said yes, the actual answer is no.
00:38:05.280 -->
00:38:38.960I have to sit down and talk to him, get to know him, become like a psychoanalyst, best friend, get him to trust me as much as possible, and then I have to understand holistically everything, the culture he's in, his uh the national, religious, professional, organizational, bureaucratic, everything about his life to be able to be begin to be able to come up with an accurate assessment of his credibility.
00:38:38.960 -->
00:38:41.599And I developed that myself.
00:38:41.599 -->
00:38:48.639You're s I I still had to uh I I developed that approach, and I and I never had a bad a bad recruit.
00:38:48.639 -->
00:38:56.400I I never had anyone that uh ended up being discovered as bad.
00:38:56.400 -->
00:39:04.320But I discovered many bad recruitments by by doing file reviews, can counterintelligence.
00:39:04.320 -->
00:39:07.280I I can nobody nobody wants to do counterintelligence.
00:39:07.280 -->
00:39:24.559Nobody wants to to be the the one, I'm gonna say nobody, there are people who do, but case officers uh shy away from counterintelligence because really you're the one poo-pooing or or or proving everybody else's wrong.
00:39:24.559 -->
00:39:33.760My my approach is I I don't know, the the only thing as as I'm as I've matured, I used to be really, really hotheaded.
00:39:33.760 -->
00:39:39.760I get angry about many things and fight and was an asshole, but I'm okay, I'm still an asshole.
00:39:39.760 -->
00:39:45.440But but but now the only thing that makes me mad is somebody trying to take advantage of me.
00:39:45.440 -->
00:39:45.840Yeah.
00:39:45.840 -->
00:39:47.920Somebody trying to play me for a fool.
00:39:47.920 -->
00:40:03.840And that's that's that's what drove me to get to really dig into counterintelligence and dig into credibility assessment, because these people are pay playing CIA case officers, the entire organization, the U.S.
00:40:03.840 -->
00:40:05.920government, they're playing us for fools.
00:40:05.920 -->
00:40:13.280People that that uh that that are lying to us and spinning a story that we buy.
00:40:13.280 -->
00:40:27.519So I I because of that that part of my nature, not hating to be taken advantage of or played for a fool, I was really motivated to dig into and look at various cases.
00:40:27.519 -->
00:40:30.559And the things that I found were just unbelievable.
00:40:30.559 -->
00:40:44.400Some of the the cases that turned out to be bad, and then the the bureaucratic response to these cases being exposed as bad was even more unbelievable and more disappointing.
00:40:44.400 -->
00:41:06.400And which it's one one of the big reasons that I realized, nah, this I cannot do this, I cannot be part of this organization that is not interested in in determining the truth, but rather in racking up recruitments or whatever the the statistic or the whatever the measurement is.
00:41:06.400 -->
00:41:11.920And there was there's no um there's no reward for finding a bad case.
00:41:11.920 -->
00:41:16.320And nobody was punished for when bad cases were found.
00:41:16.320 -->
00:41:21.760There was no punishment, there's no you know, or not even punishment, no, no consequence.
00:41:21.760 -->
00:41:23.199I couldn't stand that.
00:41:23.199 -->
00:41:33.199So I while I was in, I developed my this I developed HCCA, although I didn't un I didn't really put I uh it wasn't explicit then.
00:41:33.199 -->
00:41:37.360It was how I did my work and how I got good cases.
00:41:37.360 -->
00:41:50.239And then when I studied the history of counterintelligence intelligence recruitment, counterintelligence failures, only then was I able to put together the the concept of HCCA.
00:41:50.239 -->
00:41:52.000Uh I'm I'm kind of curious.
00:41:52.079 -->
00:42:02.159Uh you brought up when you do reveal to the system that there is some deception or fraud out there, and we can go back through some of the historical ones that you're you're you're part of.
00:42:02.159 -->
00:42:06.719Uh y you you get pushback from the uh the organization, right?
00:42:06.719 -->
00:42:14.320Yeah, something known that uh you know that you you you you invite the white blood cells of an organization to turn on and they turn against you, right?
00:42:14.320 -->
00:42:16.559And I think a lot of that has to do with ego.
00:42:16.559 -->
00:42:19.199People don't want to feel like they've ever been deceived.
00:42:19.199 -->
00:42:28.400So let's say we brought somebody into our world, we were partners with them three or four three or four years or five years, whatever it may be, and then we find out later on that there were frauds the whole time.
00:42:28.400 -->
00:42:34.800To protect myself, I'll I'll do everything I can to show that that that that never happened.
00:42:34.800 -->
00:42:37.280You know, I'll I'll make sure that information doesn't flow in.
00:42:37.280 -->
00:42:39.599Uh and in fact, I'll I'll attack the messenger.
00:42:39.599 -->
00:42:45.280That's a general bias of humans, I believe, or or uh response by humans is to protect their egos.
00:42:45.280 -->
00:42:47.119So I know you have experience with this.
00:42:47.119 -->
00:42:51.119And then I don't know if you want to talk about uh going back uh what fifteen years ago or so?
00:42:51.760 -->
00:42:53.760Like like a case study of that happening?
00:42:54.400 -->
00:42:56.400Somebody you you actually revealed or helped reveal.
00:42:56.719 -->
00:43:08.480So so uh w one case that uh that was just so egregious was that this guy had been recruited as a penetration of weapons of mass destruction.
00:43:08.480 -->
00:43:14.079He was supposedly working in his country's WMD industry.
00:43:14.079 -->
00:43:19.119He was run for after he was recruited, he was run for several years.
00:43:19.119 -->
00:43:28.960The uh the case officer who recruited him and her boss uh both got huge recognition for this for this recruitment.
00:43:28.960 -->
00:43:34.000Got promotions and and other good things came their way.
00:43:34.000 -->
00:43:49.119Uh when we did a uh I was working at headquarters, uh I I was a new officer working in headquarters, and uh there for some reason there was a civ there's a civ potential civil rights violation somewhere in the world.
00:43:49.119 -->
00:43:59.440And uh the the agency decided to shut down, to do a stand down, no ops, everybody stop, go back and do file reviews of all cases.
00:43:59.440 -->
00:44:03.039For civil rights violations.
00:44:03.039 -->
00:44:14.239So the office I was working in, and I it may have happened agency-wide, but I know the office I was working in said, hey, this is a great chance to do CI scrub as well.
00:44:14.239 -->
00:44:17.360We're look we're looking for civil rights violations.
00:44:17.360 -->
00:44:19.280Let's look at the case as a whole.
00:44:19.280 -->
00:44:20.719You know, is it good?
00:44:20.719 -->
00:44:22.079Is this a good case?
00:44:22.079 -->
00:44:23.199So I was doing that.
00:44:23.199 -->
00:44:28.880I was I was working on a desk and was doing these uh these case CI scrubs.
00:44:28.880 -->
00:44:35.840So I I I got this case, uh dug into it, and you know, it's just like something's not right.
00:44:35.840 -->
00:44:39.440There's all I mean, it was several several volumes.
00:44:39.440 -->
00:44:41.360Back then everything was in paper.
00:44:41.360 -->
00:44:46.000It was several thick volumes of papers that had to go through.
00:44:46.000 -->
00:44:50.400And you know, that's it's something questions.
00:44:50.400 -->
00:44:56.559The more I more questions I had.
00:44:56.559 -->
00:45:09.920Make a long story short, we because of the review I did and the questions I had, we were able to to send a guy out who a guy who uh measures deception detection.
00:45:09.920 -->
00:45:15.920But I I sat down with the this measurement guy and I said, Look, here's the questions.
00:45:15.920 -->
00:45:17.519Here's the questions that we have.
00:45:17.519 -->
00:45:19.360Let's just let's just ask these questions.
00:45:19.360 -->
00:45:20.159Forget the machine.
00:45:20.159 -->
00:45:21.039Forget the machine.
00:45:21.039 -->
00:45:23.920You you know, you're you're gonna have a nice little sit-down with him.
00:45:23.920 -->
00:45:26.000Just ask him these questions.
00:45:26.000 -->
00:45:28.800So the the guy did that.
00:45:28.800 -->
00:45:35.199And he he asked him, have you ever have you ever worked for a foreign intelligence service?
00:45:35.199 -->
00:45:37.440What is your job now?
00:45:37.440 -->
00:45:40.239Uh so that that was the first question.
00:45:40.239 -->
00:45:40.960What's your job?
00:45:40.960 -->
00:45:46.559And the guy said, Well, I I'm a quality control engineer in a moped factory.
00:45:46.559 -->
00:45:55.440He he would he had been his his recruitment was based on him being an engineer in a WMD industry.
00:45:55.440 -->
00:46:01.440Turns out that his country had closed that industry a year before he was recruited.
00:46:01.440 -->
00:46:05.519He had at one time worked in that industry, but they closed it.
00:46:05.519 -->
00:46:16.880And he had been working in a moped factory the whole time he was providing high-level top secret reports on the WMD industry.
00:46:16.880 -->
00:46:21.519Next question, have you ever uh worked for a foreign intelligence service?
00:46:21.519 -->
00:46:25.280He goes, Yeah, I'm working for the Cubans too.
00:46:25.280 -->
00:46:34.639And in fact, my dad worked for the Cubans and my you know, we we go to Cuba together a couple times a year uh to report to them.
00:46:34.639 -->
00:46:42.559And and there was a couple of of other issues, but those two, it's like it's over right there.
00:46:42.559 -->
00:46:43.360Yeah.
00:46:43.360 -->
00:46:49.760And and the the the interviewer asks him, well, why didn't you tell your case officer this?
00:46:49.760 -->
00:46:51.840He said, She never asked.
00:46:51.840 -->
00:46:53.360Never asked, yeah.
00:46:53.360 -->
00:46:58.239So, I mean that that was to me, that was just egregious.
00:46:58.239 -->
00:46:59.599So what happens?
00:46:59.599 -->
00:47:01.039Come come back.
00:47:01.039 -->
00:47:27.119Uh to actually to set that up, to get that interview set up, I had to go through, it was like uh it was like I I don't know what it what is it when when when Indians have a captive and make them run down a line where they but they beat him with clubs on both sides, they had a name for it, I forget what it is, but I had to go through something like that just to get that to that point.
00:47:27.119 -->
00:47:37.039I I called a meeting and brought in the the recruiting case officer, her boss, uh desk officers, analysts who dealt with the WMDs, et cetera, et cetera.
00:47:37.039 -->
00:47:50.400And we sat down, I presented what I'd found and the questions I had, and uh the the recruiting case officer literally stood up and screamed at me, you whatever.
00:47:50.400 -->
00:47:53.519I had no idea what she was saying, but that was the response.
00:47:53.519 -->
00:47:55.440Instead of, wow, thanks a lot.
00:47:55.440 -->
00:48:00.079You know, I I was just I was really busy and I didn't have time, but yeah, you know.
00:48:00.079 -->
00:48:04.719I I don't I don't know, I mean, you know, you you want to say ego.
00:48:04.719 -->
00:48:05.119Okay.
00:48:05.119 -->
00:48:15.280Ego is is is part of it, but it's also see, see, I I don't use I I know we well, we mentioned mice.
00:48:15.280 -->
00:48:18.880Mice is bullshit.
00:48:18.880 -->
00:48:25.599Mice is a horrible way of looking at human uh factors that motivate humans.
00:48:25.599 -->
00:48:26.320Uh we don't know how to do that.
00:48:26.320 -->
00:48:27.599Number one is because of money.
00:48:27.599 -->
00:48:29.840Yes, money money is up front.
00:48:29.840 -->
00:48:35.760The way the my approach, I use uh Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
00:48:35.760 -->
00:48:36.320Okay.
00:48:36.320 -->
00:48:38.159And there's no money.
00:48:38.159 -->
00:48:40.639There humans are not motivated by money.
00:48:40.639 -->
00:48:44.719They're motivated by Maslow's hierarchy of needs, another pyramid.
00:48:44.719 -->
00:48:55.840And ego, or if you want to call it, I mean, if you say ego, it's it's in there, but it's spelled out a little more clearly.
00:48:55.840 -->
00:49:12.559And uh I forget what I forget what it's called, but it's uh social recognition or something like that, which is uh one of the higher level motivators is being recognized in society.
00:49:12.559 -->
00:49:19.679And and I think that that is sort of a a uh an ego, it could be translated as ego.
00:49:19.679 -->
00:49:32.159But anyway, for whatever reason, the bureaucracy in the the American intelligence community does not want to hear that, does not want to hear they've got a bad case.
00:49:32.159 -->
00:49:32.559Yeah.
00:49:32.559 -->
00:49:34.480They don't want to hear it.
00:49:34.480 -->
00:49:42.159And I but I pushed through that, you know, and and I I lost all kinds of uh bureaucratic capital.
00:49:42.159 -->
00:49:54.159You know, if I had gone along with, oh yeah, yeah, this is a good case, then these people by this time, they're they're the the supervisor who had approved this recruitment was now working in the director's office.
00:49:54.159 -->
00:49:54.400Yeah.
00:49:54.400 -->
00:49:56.960You know, it's like a special assistant to the director.
00:49:56.960 -->
00:50:09.119Uh, if I'd have gone along with it, I'd I'd have had a good name and I'd have been able to get a good assignment and you know, good, good uh good professional assessment reviews.
00:50:09.119 -->
00:50:12.239But you know, to me it's like, nah, uh-uh.
00:50:12.239 -->
00:50:17.360That none of that means anything to me if they're if I'm being played for a fool.
00:50:17.360 -->
00:50:20.079So there's a good a great case study.
00:50:20.400 -->
00:50:22.719Have you uh so you just brought up to be or to do.
00:50:22.719 -->
00:50:28.639That's actually something uh John Boyd brought up that you can take you could be somebody or you could do something.
00:50:28.639 -->
00:50:32.480And and what you're saying is you're doing something about, hey, let's take a look at the system.
00:50:32.480 -->
00:50:39.119Most people want to be part of the system, they want to rise up to the top, they they want to go up uh Maslow's hierarchy to status, right?
00:50:39.119 -->
00:50:39.920That's what they're doing.
00:50:39.920 -->
00:50:41.039Yeah, exactly.
00:50:41.039 -->
00:50:46.320And and I think the better approach, and this is what we're encouraging folks to do, is do something, right?
00:50:46.320 -->
00:50:46.880Go out there.
00:50:46.880 -->
00:50:47.679I like that.
00:50:47.679 -->
00:50:50.880Yeah, so HCCA is is is your uh you're doing.
00:50:50.880 -->
00:51:01.199Uh and I do want to bring up a few things here, uh I didn't know anything about and hopefully this this fits into where you want to go next, but I didn't know anything about Wayne Simmons, right?
00:51:01.199 -->
00:51:02.480Hopefully I'm saying his name right.
00:51:02.480 -->
00:51:12.320And and again, this is just you know, uh can you take us through HCCA and maybe Wayne Simmons or another approach, and we can use some slides here so people can see this?
00:51:12.719 -->
00:51:13.119Sure.
00:51:13.119 -->
00:51:27.039Uh so it's another perfect case study of a con man running a running up against someone who has holistic contextual expertise in the area of his con.
00:51:27.039 -->
00:51:40.639He had been for 13 years, he had been one of Fox News's main on-screen sources for uh as a CIA uh counter-terrorism expert.
00:51:40.639 -->
00:51:50.159He he had he he was all over, you know, constantly on Fox News, Wayne Simmons, CIA counterterrorism expert.
00:51:50.159 -->
00:51:57.920I don't have c I I don't have cable now, I didn't have cable then, and I I didn't watch Fox News, so I'd never heard of him, never seen him.
00:51:57.920 -->
00:52:04.559But a friend of mine who who was a friend of Simmons said, Hey, you guys are so much alike.
00:52:04.559 -->
00:52:08.480He was a he was a military guy, not not agency.
00:52:08.480 -->
00:52:11.440He said, You guys are so much alike, you gotta meet him.
00:52:11.440 -->
00:52:14.000Um so I said, sure.
00:52:14.000 -->
00:52:16.239Um so he set up a lunch meeting.
00:52:16.239 -->
00:52:20.400We we got together for lunch at uh BWI airport.
00:52:20.400 -->
00:52:25.519He was passing through, and within five minutes, I knew this guy's fake.
00:52:25.519 -->
00:52:34.559He he he has he doesn't know anything about the CIA, but he was he was just babbling nonstop about the things.
00:52:34.559 -->
00:52:44.639What he was describing was DEA or counter-narcotics law enforcement operations and calling it CIA operations.
00:52:44.639 -->
00:52:53.360Yeah, yeah, we took down, you know, 75 kilos, you know, 300,000, 300 million dollars, and yeah, we busted him, blah, blah, blah, this, that, and the other.
00:52:53.360 -->
00:52:54.960Yeah, you know how it is, Kent.
00:52:54.960 -->
00:52:58.079I'm going, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, right, dude.
00:52:58.079 -->
00:53:04.079You know, I I I did not let him know that I was on to him at that time.
00:53:04.079 -->
00:53:16.480Uh, but it was obvious within five minutes that this guy didn't know what the CIA did, had not done anything in the CIA, and was blowing smoke up my ass.
00:53:16.480 -->
00:53:21.360So again, you know, playing me for a fool, it it really motivated me.
00:53:21.360 -->
00:53:24.880So for the next couple years, I vetted him.
00:53:24.880 -->
00:53:26.559Let me ask you this, Ken.
00:53:26.559 -->
00:53:26.800Yeah.
00:53:26.960 -->
00:53:28.320If okay, let's swap rules.
00:53:28.320 -->
00:53:31.039Let's say you send me into that meeting at BWI.
00:53:31.039 -->
00:53:32.320Would I have picked that up?
00:53:32.320 -->
00:53:33.280I I want to be clear.
00:53:33.280 -->
00:53:33.760No.
00:53:33.760 -->
00:53:34.159Okay.
00:53:34.480 -->
00:53:35.519No, but I don't think so.
00:53:35.519 -->
00:53:36.320No, no, no.
00:53:36.320 -->
00:53:44.239Unless you have unless you have expertise in American civilian intelligence operations.
00:53:44.639 -->
00:53:47.519Well, I have watched Lioness, so that qualifies me.
00:53:47.519 -->
00:53:49.840I haven't, so I don't know what that means.
00:53:49.840 -->
00:53:50.800Okay, okay.
00:53:50.800 -->
00:53:54.559It's it's it's a TV show about uh CIA operating in the U.S.
00:53:54.559 -->
00:53:54.960anyway.
00:53:55.199 -->
00:53:55.280Yeah.
00:53:55.280 -->
00:54:03.280I I I cannot watch any shows like that about the CIA because they're they're so uh then I watched Homeland.
00:54:03.360 -->
00:54:04.320I don't know if you ever saw that too.
00:54:04.320 -->
00:54:06.000But anyway, no, I haven't seen that one either.
00:54:06.000 -->
00:54:11.840I just want to make sure it's clear that that had had you sent me in there, I probably would not have recognized that.
00:54:12.159 -->
00:54:31.760So and that's a perfect example of we need to when if we're involved in assessing someone, the people that we assign the assessment to need to self-evaluate what is their contextual competence.
00:54:31.760 -->
00:54:35.119In fact, let me that's a great example.
00:54:35.119 -->
00:54:36.719Let's see if we can share here.
00:54:37.440 -->
00:54:42.079And this kind of explains why uh and just switching gears for a moment while you're looking that up.
00:54:42.079 -->
00:54:50.159In in when I'm working with corporations and you're speaking to HR professionals or somebody who's trying to understand teamwork and leadership, their context is different.
00:54:50.159 -->
00:54:52.800They don't understand the team science that is actually out there.
00:54:52.800 -->
00:54:54.320They've been looking at it from a different lens.
00:54:54.320 -->
00:54:58.239So when I have a conversation with them, they're like, what the hell are you talking about, right?
00:54:58.239 -->
00:55:00.239They don't know because they don't have that context.
00:55:00.239 -->
00:55:01.199Anyway, back to you.
00:55:01.519 -->
00:55:03.679They don't have the contextual expertise.
00:55:03.679 -->
00:55:17.519So if if you and I were working in some kind of organization that said, hey, uh we need to we need to go uh vet and assess Wayne Simmons' uh uh credibility.
00:55:17.519 -->
00:55:35.360If we have, say we have a a stable of ten uh of ten assessors, each one I would have each one of them have completed this contextual competence checklist.
00:55:35.360 -->
00:55:48.559These are just examples of um cultures or contexts that you have competence in.
00:55:48.559 -->
00:56:18.960So for example, national um national context, think of it as uh so for myself, I here I could say um United States, Malaysia, uh Indonesia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Italy, UK, so I have competence in those national contexts.
00:56:18.960 -->
00:57:15.519Regional, uh Southern US, um uh uh Mindanao, Southern Philippines, uh uh Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, um uh Java in in the in Indonesia, linguistic, um English, Vietnamese, Malay, Indonesian, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, racial, black American, uh to uh to Chinese, Malay, uh ethnic, so so you you you go through, you gotta identify what you have, you have to be honest, what your competencies are, yeah, what context you're competent in.
00:57:15.519 -->
00:57:38.639And you have this profile for each of your operators, and when it's time to send somebody out to assess Simmons, you find so that uh under professional, you'd be looking for uh US uh uh civilian foreign intelligence.
00:57:38.639 -->
00:57:40.719Yeah.
00:57:40.719 -->
00:57:46.719You'd looking for someone who has competence in that in that uh context.
00:57:46.719 -->
00:57:52.159If you don't have competence in that context, you're wasting everybody's time.
00:57:52.159 -->
00:57:53.840Does that make sense?
00:57:54.159 -->
00:57:54.320Yeah.
00:57:54.320 -->
00:57:59.199So I just want to point out for our listeners there, you identified culture and you identified experience in previous experience.
00:57:59.199 -->
00:58:00.320We call it previous experience.
00:58:00.320 -->
00:58:02.400Those two things sit at the heart of orientation.
00:58:02.639 -->
00:58:04.159That is Wait, what is the second one?
00:58:04.159 -->
00:58:04.960What kind of experience?
00:58:05.199 -->
00:58:06.800Uh just we just call it previous experience.
00:58:06.800 -->
00:58:12.639It could be it could be what you had for breakfast, where you went to school, where you worked, were you part of the military, what'd you do in the military.
00:58:12.639 -->
00:58:14.320So you break it down into that.
00:58:14.320 -->
00:58:20.719So those two components, along with genetics, uh determine our orientation, how we sense and decide and act.
00:58:20.719 -->
00:58:21.360That's it.
00:58:21.360 -->
00:58:31.519So this is this is why I think HCCA connects so well, because you have that orientation of the uh in this case, you or me, going in to evaluate somebody else, right?
00:58:32.000 -->
00:58:40.239So I I think that what what I've done here, and uh as I mentioned to you, I know OODA loop, but I don't know it deeply.
00:58:40.239 -->
00:58:47.119But now that you describe that, I think previous experience, that's what context is.
00:58:47.119 -->
00:58:57.920And I'm I'm saying you've got you can't just say previous experience, you've got to break it out into these sp these and more specific categories.
00:58:58.320 -->
00:58:59.119Well, let me build on that.
00:58:59.119 -->
00:59:04.960So a lot of locations you described, I've been to, I have previous experience there, but are you competent though?
00:59:05.599 -->
00:59:06.159That's the question.
00:59:06.159 -->
00:59:07.039Are you competent?
00:59:07.039 -->
00:59:07.280No.
00:59:07.280 -->
00:59:09.679Having passed through there doesn't make you competent.
00:59:10.000 -->
00:59:10.079Right.
00:59:10.079 -->
00:59:10.559There we go.
00:59:10.559 -->
00:59:11.360So that's what I'm saying.
00:59:11.360 -->
00:59:14.800Is you were immersed in these cultures, I passed through them.
00:59:15.119 -->
00:59:15.360Yes.
00:59:15.360 -->
00:59:16.639You're not competent.
00:59:16.639 -->
00:59:16.880Yeah.
00:59:16.880 -->
00:59:19.599You're better off than somebody who's never passed through there.
00:59:19.599 -->
00:59:22.000Yeah, I can find them on a map.
00:59:22.000 -->
00:59:22.880Yeah.
00:59:22.880 -->
00:59:23.519Yeah.
00:59:23.519 -->
00:59:30.719So so uh uh for example, uh professional, like you you mentioned military.
00:59:30.719 -->
00:59:36.800You've got to break that down, the professional, into subcultures.
00:59:36.800 -->
00:59:40.239So I I was in the military, but I was Air Force.
00:59:40.239 -->
00:59:45.360Not only, but I don't know anything about the subculture in the Air Force of flying.
00:59:45.360 -->
00:59:50.079I don't know anything about the subculture in the Air Force of electronic repair.
00:59:50.079 -->
00:59:54.960I don't know anything in the subculture in the Air Force about logistics.
00:59:54.960 -->
00:59:59.599So just being military and just being Air Force is not enough.
00:59:59.599 -->
01:00:21.760If we have a case that is a logistician uh uh deployed to to uh a forward operating base in Iraq, then we need to identify someone who has uh who has expertise in that context, at least logistician.
01:00:21.760 -->
01:00:22.159Yes.
01:00:22.159 -->
01:00:28.079You know, depending on what what it why we're uh what what we're investigating, what we're looking at.
01:00:28.079 -->
01:00:44.000But what I'm providing here is a um a framework that people need to realize that it's not just previous experience, it is uh you've got to break down that previous experience.
01:00:44.000 -->
01:00:47.760So you have a framework here to start thinking about it, and this can be expanded.
01:00:47.760 -->
01:00:50.719There's this is not all inclusive.
01:00:50.719 -->
01:01:10.719But this is so so my contextual competence checklist when I when when I went to meet Simmons included uh in under professional uh American civilian foreign intelligence operations.
01:01:10.719 -->
01:01:17.119I have I have I've I have competence in that context.
01:01:17.119 -->
01:01:20.960And your yours would not have that.
01:01:20.960 -->
01:01:21.760Right.
01:01:21.760 -->
01:01:24.880So d does that explain it?
01:01:25.280 -->
01:01:26.320Yeah, yeah, 100%.
01:01:26.320 -->
01:01:28.239Uh it it it it really does.
01:01:28.239 -->
01:01:35.519And it's a great connection to the real OODA loop, which is orientation determines how we sense, perceive, decide, act, adapt, and learn, right?
01:01:35.519 -->
01:01:36.639That drives everything.
01:01:36.639 -->
01:01:39.119So and that's is it's a strong connection there.
01:01:39.119 -->
01:01:55.840And uh uh uh that context is and I heard Pete Blair recently on on the uh Zachary Elwood uh podcast, and Pete Blair's gonna be on this podcast with in within the next week or so, talking about using ecological dynamics, understanding the the the context, the the uh the environment they're in, right?
01:01:55.840 -->
01:01:57.760So all of these things are connected.
01:01:57.760 -->
01:02:08.639It's fascinating that uh you as a as an operator came up, you know, you're you're converging on the same thing that science and everything else, uh natural science is saying we should converge on.
01:02:08.639 -->
01:02:10.159And that's how legal systems are.
01:02:10.480 -->
01:02:17.039So I I want to also mention that, yeah, I would that's where I developed this approach uh of credibility assessment.
01:02:17.039 -->
01:02:20.639And but I also in civilian intelligence.
01:02:20.639 -->
01:02:31.599Uh that's that's how and where the the the context that I developed this approach, but I realized, you know, this this could be used in any this approach can be used for anything.
01:02:31.599 -->
01:02:32.400Scales.
01:02:32.400 -->
01:02:32.960Yeah.
01:02:32.960 -->
01:02:37.360Where you're dealing with people that you need to assess their credibility.
01:02:37.360 -->
01:02:49.119And as I was excelling in the agency and not being rewarded for excellence, in fact, being punished for excellence, I started going, yeah, this was fantastic.
01:02:49.119 -->
01:02:50.559This was a great move.
01:02:50.559 -->
01:02:51.599I love it.
01:02:51.599 -->
01:02:52.800Great job.
01:02:52.800 -->
01:02:57.840But I cannot, I I cannot, I'm I'm a really bad bureaucrat.
01:02:57.840 -->
01:03:02.159So what can I do with this expertise that I've developed?
01:03:02.159 -->
01:03:05.280And that that was the end of the 90s.
01:03:05.280 -->
01:03:07.840It was 98 going into 99.
01:03:07.840 -->
01:03:10.719There was uh the dot-com boom.
01:03:10.719 -->
01:03:12.079You may not be old enough to.
01:03:12.079 -->
01:03:13.760Oh, I'm old enough to know I'm old.
01:03:13.760 -->
01:03:14.559I'm 54.
01:03:14.559 -->
01:03:15.360Come on.
01:03:15.360 -->
01:03:19.760So the the dot-com boom was it it was it's like AI now.
01:03:19.760 -->
01:03:23.199Everybody's like, oh, AI is gonna change the world, everything's gonna be different.
01:03:23.199 -->
01:03:24.480Same thing, dot-com.
01:03:24.480 -->
01:03:31.039There was no e-commerce is is what's gonna uh change the world, everything's gonna be online.
01:03:31.039 -->
01:03:33.119Back then, nothing was online.
01:03:33.119 -->
01:03:44.159Uh there's people were using a little bit of email and you know, to to browse the internet, there's virtually very little useful there.
01:03:44.159 -->
01:03:57.519But the the the the dot-com industry uh based in Silicon Valley had billions and billions and billions of dollars in investments pouring into it.
01:03:57.519 -->
01:04:01.199And I said, okay, well, I I'm not technical.
01:04:01.199 -->
01:04:09.280I don't know anything about about the internet, but I have this skill and credibility assessment and recruiting.
01:04:09.280 -->
01:04:11.199So what can I do?
01:04:11.199 -->
01:04:14.159So I jumped out of the plane with no parachute.
01:04:14.159 -->
01:04:22.400I I resigned from the agency and took a job with a headhunting company, uh, executive recruiters, 100% commission.
01:04:22.400 -->
01:04:27.119I didn't get paid unless I unless I recruited somebody.
01:04:27.119 -->
01:04:34.000Uh we were paid by a percentage of uh of the the first year's compensation package.
01:04:34.000 -->
01:04:37.119So I I got in this small firm.
01:04:37.119 -->
01:05:01.679These guys were uh involved, they had come out of the um telecommunications industry, and they they were each each each of us, each headhunter in this kind of firm, you build your own business, and they had their own contacts in telecommunications, and they were they were getting orders and uh and doing searches and placements in telecommunications.
01:05:01.679 -->
01:05:10.880So I got in their office and I realized real quick, you know what, I don't have any contextual competence in telecommunications.
01:05:10.880 -->
01:05:21.119And so what ended up happening is they they gave me uh a desk, a phone, and a computer, and I had to build my own business.
01:05:21.119 -->
01:05:30.880And I flailed around for a while, looking, you know, do really doing a survey of who was hiring and who needed help hiring.
01:05:30.880 -->
01:05:39.280And so so my my my background, I ended up doing a BA in linguistics, and my first master's degree was in linguistics also.
01:05:39.280 -->
01:05:42.880So I I understand uh linguistics.
01:05:42.880 -->
01:05:57.440I don't understand computer science, but I very quickly found out there was a huge demand for computational linguistics, computational linguists in in Silicon Valley in dot com.
01:05:57.440 -->
01:06:10.960Turns out that's the computational Computational linguistics is the foundation of what we now we now call AI, the the uh large language models, is all based on computational ling linguists.
01:06:10.960 -->
01:06:11.280Yeah.
01:06:11.280 -->
01:06:13.840Back then it was just starting.
01:06:13.840 -->
01:06:23.440Google had just started, Google was not uh was not dominant, it was just a small startup, and they were they hired computational linguists.
01:06:23.440 -->
01:06:30.159So I realized, okay, I I can I can speak ling lingu linguistics speak.
01:06:30.159 -->
01:06:33.360I'm a c I have contextual competence in linguistics.
01:06:33.360 -->
01:06:38.239I don't have contextual competence in computational stuff, but that's okay.
01:06:38.239 -->
01:06:54.639There's a lot of recruiters who are out of the uh the computer industry and they do have contextual competence, but they have no idea when when a company is looking for a specific flavor of linguist, they have no idea what what they're looking for.
01:06:54.639 -->
01:07:11.039So I jumped on that opportunity and I started doing cold calls and started uh and ended up getting a couple of clients who were startups in in Silicon Valley who were doing uh computational ling linguistics.
01:07:11.039 -->
01:07:12.880Ontology was a big thing.
01:07:12.880 -->
01:07:18.079Ontology is the science of creating meaning in databases.
01:07:18.079 -->
01:07:25.280It's it's kind of esoteric, but it's it's a linguistic and philosophical based specialty.
01:07:25.280 -->
01:07:29.760So I started I I got a couple of of clients.
01:07:29.760 -->
01:07:33.840Client clients, they don't pay you until you until you place somebody with them.
01:07:33.840 -->
01:07:40.239So I had to convince them that I had expertise in linguistics and I could find these people they're looking for, and did.
01:07:40.239 -->
01:07:51.760Got a couple of placements and built on it from there, and I became the only headhunter in the world who specialized in computational linguistics and ontology.
01:07:51.760 -->
01:08:21.920So once I had established that, and and while I was establishing myself, I realized, you know, what what I'm doing here is the same thing that they should be doing in the CIA or in any human intelligence recruitment operation, is vetting and assessing the credibility of these candidates or or in in intelligent human intelligence, you call them developmentals or assets agents.
01:08:21.920 -->
01:08:31.520I was doing the what I had gotten really good at in the agency, assessing credibility, vetting developmentals and assets.
01:08:31.520 -->
01:08:34.880Here I am, and and what I found there, nobody cared.
01:08:34.880 -->
01:08:39.439You know, if you recruited a bad one, like the WMD guy, nobody cared.
01:08:39.439 -->
01:08:40.800There's whatever.
01:08:40.800 -->
01:08:42.800Yeah, whoopee, keep going.
01:08:42.800 -->
01:08:44.000Oh, you always bad.
01:08:44.000 -->
01:08:46.960Yeah, well, you you why you shouldn't have told us that.
01:08:46.960 -->
01:08:48.159Well, guess what?
01:08:48.159 -->
01:08:53.199In the real world, everybody cares and it matters.
01:08:53.199 -->
01:08:53.680Yeah.
01:08:53.680 -->
01:09:02.239You can't send the guy uh as a WMD expert who's a moped uh quality control dude.
01:09:02.239 -->
01:09:09.920So I gave a 100% guarantee the candidate that I present to you, Mr.
01:09:09.920 -->
01:09:17.760Client, company who's hiring, will be ready, willing, and able to do the job that you need him to do.
01:09:17.760 -->
01:09:21.760So first I have to be able to understand the job that they need him to do.
01:09:21.760 -->
01:09:22.239Yes.
01:09:22.239 -->
01:09:26.159And then I have to vet, I have to find the candidates.
01:09:26.159 -->
01:09:28.560That's a whole nother story, building a network.
01:09:28.560 -->
01:09:39.760But once I find the candidates, I have to vet them to ensure that they are ready, willing, and able to do the job that that my client wants them to do.
01:09:39.760 -->
01:09:51.279And I gave a 100% money-back guarantee that the candidate that you hire from me, the candidate that I present to you, will be ready, willing, and able.
01:09:51.279 -->
01:09:54.560I never had to pay that guarantee.
01:09:54.640 -->
01:09:54.800Trevor Burrus, Jr.
01:09:55.119 -->
01:09:57.039I'm gonna argue or I'm gonna point out something here.
01:09:57.039 -->
01:10:01.600I think your strength is actually on the people ideas and then the things, so the things would be the technical side.
01:10:02.000 -->
01:10:02.560Oh, absolutely.
01:10:02.560 -->
01:10:05.600So yeah, I I have no technical expertise.
01:10:05.600 -->
01:10:06.560I'm a people person.
01:10:06.560 -->
01:10:06.880Trevor Burrus, Jr.
01:10:06.960 -->
01:10:10.640But if you're looking at the computational linguistics side, that's your technical expertise.
01:10:10.640 -->
01:10:11.920It just happened to be what they were looking for.
01:10:12.239 -->
01:10:12.640Linguistics.
01:10:12.640 -->
01:10:14.319I was I was the linguistic side.
01:10:14.319 -->
01:10:18.640Which and really linguistics is all about how people think and communicate.
01:10:18.640 -->
01:10:19.600It's it's all people.
01:10:19.600 -->
01:10:19.920Trevor Burrus, Jr.
01:10:20.000 -->
01:10:24.000And then when you think about how people hire today, generally it's based around technical skills.
01:10:24.000 -->
01:10:25.359Do you know these technical skills?
01:10:25.359 -->
01:10:26.159Can you talk about them?
01:10:26.159 -->
01:10:31.760And this is it when veterans transition, that's what they're usually you know, that do you understand how to do this thing?
01:10:31.760 -->
01:10:33.840Do you have a PMP or whatever it may be?
01:10:33.840 -->
01:10:35.039That's not important.
01:10:35.039 -->
01:10:39.359What's important is the people side is the ideas, people ideas, and then things.
01:10:39.359 -->
01:10:44.159And I think recruiters get that recruiters' companies get that wrong because they're looking for a technical thing.
01:10:44.159 -->
01:10:45.199I'm gonna add one other thing.
01:10:45.199 -->
01:10:55.199In the agile space I was in years ago, uh, you discover pretty fast that everybody, a lot of folks that are working in software development don't actually have the skills they say they do, right?
01:10:55.199 -->
01:10:56.880And and that was just very apparent.
01:10:56.880 -->
01:11:02.399It's it's uh they created a resume, and then the people doing the interviews don't know what they're looking for.
01:11:02.399 -->
01:11:05.039They don't have any context, so they can't hire the right people, right?
01:11:05.039 -->
01:11:08.079They're just going based off the technical skills they put on the resume.
01:11:08.079 -->
01:11:11.279So uh I I think your strength is actually on the people side.
01:11:11.680 -->
01:11:13.760So so well, yes, you're absolutely right.
01:11:13.760 -->
01:11:14.640That's my strength.
01:11:14.640 -->
01:11:24.800However, I did also have to assess their credibility in so the the guys I'm I'm hiring, uh my candidates had to have technical skills.
01:11:24.800 -->
01:11:25.520Yeah, yeah.
01:11:25.520 -->
01:11:29.680So I had to assess their technical skills without being an expert.
01:11:29.680 -->
01:11:33.600I I I have an approach to do that.
01:11:33.600 -->
01:11:39.039There, there's different ways you can do it, but the technical skills are very important.
01:11:39.039 -->
01:11:41.359For my job, it's all human.
01:11:41.359 -->
01:11:44.880It's all human uh to to do my job.
01:11:44.880 -->
01:11:57.119But I've I recognize that the technical skills are the most important thing for for most of these the candidates and and the clients who were looking for candidates.
01:11:57.119 -->
01:12:02.239So I had to come up with a way of assessing technical skills, and I did.
01:12:02.239 -->
01:12:07.439And most of it was uh so tell me about your ontology work.
01:12:07.439 -->
01:12:10.000Was listening, you know, getting them to talk.
01:12:10.000 -->
01:12:17.119And just like I got Wayne Simmons to talk, he immediately showed he didn't know what the hell he's talking about.
01:12:17.119 -->
01:12:29.520And even even though I ended up developing contextual competence in ontology and computation, the the computational issues in computational linguistics.
01:12:29.520 -->
01:12:31.279I didn't have it when I started.
01:12:31.279 -->
01:12:31.760Yeah.
01:12:31.760 -->
01:12:43.359But but so you can develop competencies, uh technical or or other contextual competencies, uh, that that become useful in assessing credibility.
01:12:43.359 -->
01:13:08.319And I I could not sit down and have a technical conversation about programming, right, but I could have a conversation and listen to somebody describing to me the uh the the projects they've done in ontology or large language models or anything technical, and I could make a make a judgment.
01:13:08.319 -->
01:13:11.520Uh in fact, let's let me let me share another.
01:13:12.159 -->
01:13:23.520Well, I think what you're describing there is exactly what's happening today, and that is there's a lot of people that don't have context uh that are investing billions and trillions of dollars into vaporware, uh future AI, things that don't exist.
01:13:23.520 -->
01:13:31.760You know, I've had guests on the show that I I'm not gonna call a fraud, but they didn't really you know, their companies have failed, they didn't have what they claim to have.
01:13:31.760 -->
01:13:33.680And you're you're seeing more and more of that.
01:13:33.680 -->
01:13:38.159So the the uh and most American most people don't understand what a large language model does.
01:13:38.159 -->
01:13:44.800They don't understand active inference, they don't understand reinforcement learning, what deep learning is, uh but they're just buying blindly right now.
01:13:44.800 -->
01:13:47.039We're gonna build these massive data centers.
01:13:47.039 -->
01:13:48.239We're gonna need all these things.
01:13:48.239 -->
01:13:53.279Everybody's running at this uh and and I think this is the dot-com bubble all over again.
01:13:53.279 -->
01:13:55.119Because people don't see exactly what it is.
01:13:55.359 -->
01:14:05.359So I I guess I think what you're describing is my my uh my uh analysis is what you're describing is is marketing.
01:14:05.359 -->
01:14:08.319And marketing is all blowing smoke up your ass.
01:14:08.319 -->
01:14:08.640Yeah.
01:14:08.640 -->
01:14:29.680You know, so but when when you get to recruiting, and I need to and these guys that are uh are promising, and and that's the way during dot com startups, uh there's a lot of vaporware, but they're making promises and hiring people to do jobs that require specific skills.
01:14:29.680 -->
01:14:37.840Even if the company that's making the promises doesn't have the ability to do what they're claiming at this point, they're hoping they will.
01:14:37.840 -->
01:14:39.920They're hoping that they're gonna be able.
01:14:39.920 -->
01:14:46.880So they're gonna need uh and uh they're they're gonna need people with with these uh technical skills.
01:14:46.880 -->
01:14:53.760And my job is to find those people and vet them to determine if they have those skills.
01:14:53.760 -->
01:14:57.039Not that they listed on their resume, but do they have them?
01:14:57.039 -->
01:14:57.920Nice.
01:15:00.000 -->
01:15:06.399Curious, before you get into the this right here, uh when you met with Wayne at uh BWI, was he aware of who you were?
01:15:07.119 -->
01:15:07.760Yeah, yeah.
01:15:07.760 -->
01:15:08.079Yeah.
01:15:08.079 -->
01:15:13.199Our mutual friend told him, oh, Kenza counterterrorism, CIA counterterrorism.
01:15:13.199 -->
01:15:16.000At the time, I was I was traveling nonstop.
01:15:16.000 -->
01:15:26.479I was doing a contract, contracting um uh throughout Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, uh doing uh CIA counterterrorism work.
01:15:26.880 -->
01:15:32.319I just kind of thought it weird that uh that he would want to meet with somebody that uh He was arrogant.
01:15:32.479 -->
01:15:35.119He'd been on He'd been on Fox News for 13 years.
01:15:35.119 -->
01:15:38.479Okay, so you there you go and nobody had ever called him out.
01:15:38.479 -->
01:15:46.079He was arrogant and and and that and that's what really pissed me off.
01:15:46.079 -->
01:16:00.159Is you know, if I'd seen you on Fox News, I would maybe I wouldn't, you know, I it's a pretty small, especially back then, it wasn't a huge community of CIA counterterrorism people.
01:16:00.159 -->
01:16:03.760I knew most people who were active in it.
01:16:03.760 -->
01:16:10.560So if I had seen him on Fox, you know, I'd have said, hmm, I wonder I I would call a couple buddies and say, Do you know this guy?
01:16:10.560 -->
01:16:11.680But I never had.
01:16:11.680 -->
01:16:18.960So here I'm meeting him face to face, and um immediately I know I know he's not real.
01:16:18.960 -->
01:16:21.439Um so crazy.
01:16:21.439 -->
01:16:22.720Yeah, yeah.
01:16:22.720 -->
01:16:45.600So uh the this HCCA cycle, uh um uh holistic contextual credibility assessment is when I'm it can be used by I I I I um perfected this as a headhunter because I had to, because I couldn't afford I was a one-man shop.
01:16:45.600 -->
01:16:47.760I was my I was the only one in my company.
01:16:47.760 -->
01:16:56.239I my kids were working for me, you know, filing papers and stuff, but I was the only one actually providing value to this company.
01:16:56.239 -->
01:17:02.960So I I had to um be perfect.
01:17:02.960 -->
01:17:08.079I couldn't afford to pay back a a pla uh a placement fee.
01:17:08.079 -->
01:17:08.479Right.
01:17:08.479 -->
01:17:11.199So I realized this is what I'm doing.
01:17:11.199 -->
01:17:17.439I'm gathering evidence, I'm going out and finding potential candidates.
01:17:17.439 -->
01:17:20.800I gather evidence, I interview them.
01:17:20.800 -->
01:17:27.119Step one, interview, interrogate the subject, whatever you want to call it, interview, interrogate.
01:17:27.119 -->
01:17:40.640I had to use my contextual competence and also don't forget intuition and intuition, your gut is based on it, it's not something you're born with.
01:17:40.640 -->
01:17:53.039You develop intuition, you develop your gut based on your experiences, and you have to have and your gut is contextual.
01:17:53.039 -->
01:18:12.720You you can't be a uh somebody who grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, and then you you go out to the uh to the the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and be walking on a trail in the Rocky Mountains and listen to your gut.
01:18:12.720 -->
01:18:19.119Your gut has no idea that there's a cougar following you down that trail.
01:18:19.119 -->
01:18:19.439Yeah.
01:18:19.439 -->
01:18:22.960Your gut is looking for the crack dealer on the next corner.
01:18:22.960 -->
01:18:24.880So that's intuition.
01:18:25.359 -->
01:18:30.800So the big big point here uh for our listeners, finger spits and gefuel is is fingertip fill.
01:18:30.800 -->
01:18:33.279That's that pathway that goes from orient to act.
01:18:33.279 -->
01:18:34.479That's that intuition.
01:18:34.479 -->
01:18:38.720They're calling it pathfinding, it's skill acquisition developed through previous experience.
01:18:38.720 -->
01:18:42.640It's it's um you can get into interoceptive capabilities and things like that.
01:18:42.640 -->
01:18:44.399That's exactly what you're talking about.
01:18:44.399 -->
01:18:50.880That's exactly what that pathway is and the implicit guide, the implicit guidance control pathway from orientation to act.
01:18:50.880 -->
01:18:52.880Finger spits and good fuel, fingertip fill.
01:18:52.880 -->
01:18:53.439Interesting.
01:18:53.439 -->
01:18:53.600Yeah.
01:18:53.760 -->
01:19:05.600So I call that gathering evidence, you know, using using data, intuition, and you you uh you talk to the person and you don't leave any stone unturned.
01:19:05.600 -->
01:19:25.920You know, you you it's an investigation, it's a uh a data gathering, and then you review all of the the evidence, all of everything that you've gathered about that the person, and your your contextual competence is guiding the thrust of this effort holistically.
01:19:25.920 -->
01:19:33.600Once you've done that, once you've gathered all the evidence, then you assess and evaluate what you've gathered.
01:19:33.600 -->
01:19:50.239You consider everything you've gathered holistically and in context, and use deductive logical reasoning to guide the assessment with your intuition, your contextually uh competent intuition providing support as needed.
01:19:50.239 -->
01:19:55.279Sometimes there's you know, like with the a best example is Simmons.
01:19:55.279 -->
01:19:59.359When I met him, I didn't have any documentation to tell me he was wrong.
01:19:59.359 -->
01:20:00.880It was my intuition.
01:20:00.880 -->
01:20:06.000My intuition, my contextual, competent intuition told me this guy's full of shit.
01:20:06.000 -->
01:20:07.359You thought you were going to meet a peer.
01:20:07.359 -->
01:20:07.840That's all you thought.
01:20:07.840 -->
01:20:08.800Yeah, there's a peer.
01:20:08.800 -->
01:20:10.720I meet peers all the time.
01:20:10.720 -->
01:20:11.520There you go.
01:20:11.520 -->
01:20:18.399And you know, I I know what they it's kind of gross, but I say I say it's like dogs sniffing butts.
01:20:18.399 -->
01:20:18.960Yeah, yeah.
01:20:18.960 -->
01:20:21.119You know, that's they that's what they do.
01:20:21.119 -->
01:20:31.600And that's what when when you meet a peer, it in in which in in an area that I'm contextually competent in, you sniff butts and go, yeah, no, no, you ain't from around here, man.
01:20:32.960 -->
01:20:33.920We used to say that too.
01:20:33.920 -->
01:20:36.479Uh we in in aviation, we say sniff butts, you know.
01:20:36.560 -->
01:20:37.840Um same thing.
01:20:37.840 -->
01:20:47.119It's you're it's just a different context, but it's a it's a contextual competence that you can identify other Navy aviators.
01:20:47.119 -->
01:20:47.680Yeah.
01:20:47.680 -->
01:20:48.079Yeah.
01:20:48.079 -->
01:20:48.479Yeah.
01:20:48.479 -->
01:20:55.359So anyway, you assess and evaluate, then you make a judgment, and then you monitor and review, and then you do it again if needed.
01:20:55.600 -->
01:20:55.760Yeah.
01:20:55.920 -->
01:20:58.880Uh that's that's HCCA in a in a nutshell.
01:20:58.880 -->
01:21:05.680No, that's that's really cool that it's uh you can see the the uh the uh parallels to to UDA.
01:21:05.920 -->
01:21:11.520Yeah, so this would fit within like to me, this is a process that helps you improve your orientation.
01:21:11.520 -->
01:21:20.239So just like PDCA or Plan Brief F2 Debrief are are cycles that you could put to improve your understanding of the environment, understanding of yourself.
01:21:20.239 -->
01:21:24.479Okay, I'm gonna share a few things with you just to make some interesting connections that I'm noticing.
01:21:24.479 -->
01:21:24.960Okay.
01:21:24.960 -->
01:21:26.560Uh so this popped up.
01:21:26.560 -->
01:21:47.439Uh uh, you know, I have some AI capability here that uh so Boyd actually was looking at some um papers from the CIA, and uh I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but he's just pointing out that uh he wrote in the margins that the authors cannot tell the ambigu tell ambiguity from deception.
01:21:47.439 -->
01:21:51.600So he's criticizing some things that he saw inside of uh the CIA's papers.
01:21:51.600 -->
01:21:52.720Good call.
01:21:52.720 -->
01:21:54.720Um and so he I I have it here.
01:21:54.720 -->
01:21:58.079This is just uh I can send this to you if you want to take a peek at this.
01:21:58.079 -->
01:22:04.479Um There's something that he he wrote called the strategic game of question mark and question mark.
01:22:04.479 -->
01:22:07.760The question marks are isolation, interaction, and isolation.
01:22:07.760 -->
01:22:10.159You know, so that's a strategic that's a game we're all playing.
01:22:10.159 -->
01:22:19.600And he goes into a lot of depth on that as far as uh uh you know what is um moral, physical, mental, that aspect of of warfare look like.
01:22:19.600 -->
01:22:24.800Um but one thing he does say is um a deceiver does not paint the false picture.
01:22:24.800 -->
01:22:27.199That's they're they're painting something for you.
01:22:27.199 -->
01:22:31.600Uh he arranges a few features and lets the other man's orientation do the painting.
01:22:31.600 -->
01:22:36.800So when you get inside somebody's OODA loop, that's what that means is we're getting inside their orientation.
01:22:36.800 -->
01:22:39.520Um think of it as uh setting the stage, right?
01:22:39.520 -->
01:22:41.199That's what we want to do there.
01:22:41.199 -->
01:22:50.239Um and then uh something else he comes back up with is uh you got to look at things from several sides, through several channels.
01:22:50.239 -->
01:22:58.560That's what you're saying through the holistic approach, is you're not just taking the one um body reading, uh monitoring heart rate or anything like that.
01:22:58.560 -->
01:23:02.239You're looking at it through many channels, and that's the holistic view.
01:23:02.239 -->
01:23:04.800And I think that's what Boyd puts up here.
01:23:04.800 -->
01:23:08.960And he says a lie has to hold up from every angle at once, right?
01:23:08.960 -->
01:23:16.560So uh it's if you're gonna say something, it's gotta be uh it's gotta hold up from different points of view.
01:23:16.560 -->
01:23:20.159Uh something else I want to ask you about, and that's telling a story backwards.
01:23:20.159 -->
01:23:28.880So when we talk about complex facilitation techniques, we like to have people tell stories backwards uh because it's harder to lie, it's hard to make up stuff.
01:23:28.880 -->
01:23:31.199Uh you ever come across anything like that?
01:23:31.680 -->
01:23:36.479I've heard of that as sort of an an interview interrogation technique.
01:23:36.479 -->
01:23:38.399Uh I've never used it myself.
01:23:38.960 -->
01:23:42.960It's fascinating because we so when we when we use, we call it the future backwards.
01:23:42.960 -->
01:23:50.800So you start with the desired future states, good, bad, ugly, however you want to call it, and have them work backwards in time to the current uh where they are today.
01:23:50.800 -->
01:23:55.680And same thing, where you are today, work backwards from there, going all the way back in time.
01:23:55.680 -->
01:24:01.199All right, it's hard to do, but it's it it's it's it's system, you know, it's a system one, system two challenge there.
01:24:01.199 -->
01:24:03.279We want to slow your thinking down a little bit.
01:24:03.279 -->
01:24:11.520So that's so some of the tools that we've learned from, I believe, good research shows us how to use it in facilitation techniques.
01:24:11.520 -->
01:24:17.039And I just wondered if you ever saw facilitation as in facilitating uh learning or like workshops, yeah.
01:24:17.039 -->
01:24:17.520Yeah.
01:24:17.760 -->
01:24:18.159Yeah.
01:24:18.479 -->
01:24:22.640So uh I was absolutely shocked when I heard, I don't want to say shocked.
01:24:22.640 -->
01:24:27.359So Pete Blair, he and I recorded last week, and uh we'll push this episode out here soon.
01:24:27.359 -->
01:24:38.960But it when he talked about interrogation and and uh using ecological approach to understanding interrogation techniques uh on another podcast, I was like, man, I didn't I didn't know that these things were all connected like this.
01:24:38.960 -->
01:24:44.159So there's a there's a lot we're all learning from having these conversations that interesting.
01:24:44.319 -->
01:25:16.560Yeah, it's well, you know, sort of coincidentally, uh one of one of the many sort of professions or specialties that I've had is uh when I I did uh English as a second language was to be an English teacher, uh teach English as a second language, which led to me becoming a teacher, which led to what once the ESL part of my career was pretty much finished, I I decided that I could build on that teaching experience in as an instructional designer.
01:25:16.560 -->
01:25:31.840So I I did one of my graduate programs was instructional systems design, which led to I I've I've I've done almost as much as in and in instructional design as I have in espionage and intelligence.
01:25:31.840 -->
01:25:36.880But one of the skill sets I have that are related to that is facilitation.
01:25:36.880 -->
01:25:38.479And I'm What's the connection?
01:25:38.880 -->
01:25:39.520What's the connection here?
01:25:39.520 -->
01:25:40.319What's the connection here?
01:25:40.319 -->
01:25:41.039This is fascinating.
01:25:41.119 -->
01:25:42.159What what of what?
01:25:42.159 -->
01:25:43.920In Intel and ISD?
01:25:43.920 -->
01:25:44.640Yeah, yeah.
01:25:44.640 -->
01:25:45.600None.
01:25:45.600 -->
01:25:46.159None.
01:25:46.159 -->
01:25:47.439There's no connection at all.
01:25:47.439 -->
01:25:48.319Are you sure?
01:25:48.319 -->
01:25:50.960Well, officially, no.
01:25:50.960 -->
01:25:56.880You know, they the Intel community doesn't look at look at ISD and say, oh wow, what a great skill set.
01:25:56.880 -->
01:25:57.920We can use that.
01:25:57.920 -->
01:25:59.119But I do.
01:25:59.119 -->
01:26:11.439It's it it has been extremely helpful in you know, I I had already done ISD uh graduate work and and worked as an ISD when I joined the CIA.
01:26:11.439 -->
01:26:39.600So I found it very useful that that approach uh instructional systems development helped me in in looking at people's it it helped me in developing the the way I approach the what became HCCA, you know, you know, in credibility, in listening, in uh facilitating conversations, in you know, it it's all it was all very useful.
01:26:40.000 -->
01:26:43.119Well, it's actually I I want to talk about this for a minute because this is fascinating.
01:26:43.119 -->
01:26:49.840So the the traditional way of teaching or the way we understand teaching is a didactic approach, PowerPoints, lectures, and all that.
01:26:49.840 -->
01:26:50.560That doesn't work.
01:26:50.560 -->
01:26:52.079That's not what we're talking about.
01:26:52.399 -->
01:26:52.720That's right.
01:26:52.960 -->
01:27:01.039If I understand what you're saying is in structural design, ISD, and the connection to what we just went over is that it's contextual, right?
01:27:01.039 -->
01:27:13.439We look at the context, we look at the orientation, the disposition of the people or person we're training or coaching, and we figure out ways to get to the desired outcomes that we're looking for, right?
01:27:13.680 -->
01:27:27.840You identify those outcomes first, you you you analyze so so there the the the the the mantra, the guiding uh approach to ISD is ADI A D D I E.
01:27:27.840 -->
01:27:32.800Analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate.
01:27:32.800 -->
01:27:34.159And that's what you do.
01:27:34.159 -->
01:27:48.000At the end of you you the analysis is looking at the whole context, the people, the subject matter, and the the output of the analysis is uh learning objectives.
01:27:48.000 -->
01:27:51.600At the end of this you know, now we've done the analysis.
01:27:51.600 -->
01:28:03.520Uh if if a learning activity is is what is required or is what can meet our needs, then what What is that what is it that we want to come out of the learning activity?
01:28:03.520 -->
01:28:03.840Yeah.
01:28:03.840 -->
01:28:08.079At the end of this activity, the learner will be able to fill in the blank.
01:28:08.079 -->
01:28:19.840Now you feed that learning objective into development and you develop activities that guide the learners to achieve that objective.
01:28:19.840 -->
01:28:20.560Yeah.
01:28:20.560 -->
01:28:22.000That's design.
01:28:22.000 -->
01:28:28.560Develop is you you take the design into whatever technical solution is used.
01:28:29.520 -->
01:28:36.079So I'm wondering, uh have you followed anything from ecological psychology, ecological dynamics, and anything known as the constraints-led approach?
01:28:37.520 -->
01:28:41.920Probably when I was in grad school, but uh it it does I don't I couldn't quote it.
01:28:42.560 -->
01:28:45.600So it's it's uh the big thing today is constraints-led approach.
01:28:45.600 -->
01:28:49.520It's an ecological approach, kind of like Addy, I'd say it's uh the next evolution of that.
01:28:49.520 -->
01:28:51.199So nonlinear pedagogy.
01:28:51.199 -->
01:28:58.800So we want to create the conditions, the context for the learner, the performer, the agent to do the actions that we want.
01:28:58.800 -->
01:29:00.079So think about sport.
01:29:00.079 -->
01:29:06.000In sport, when you dribble around a basketball cone or a cone, do you ever see that during a basketball game?
01:29:06.000 -->
01:29:07.600The answer is no, you don't, right?
01:29:07.600 -->
01:29:14.000So why do we create why do we create those games that have nothing to do with the game itself?
01:29:14.000 -->
01:29:16.640So you want to create representative design, right?
01:29:16.640 -->
01:29:19.520What is the thing that we're actually going to experience?
01:29:19.520 -->
01:29:23.439How do we create for that in a small-sided game or an environment?
01:29:23.439 -->
01:29:27.199It's the same thing we do with like like uh we call it Flow Learning Lab.
01:29:27.199 -->
01:29:32.399We use a simulation that is about making decisions under uncertainty.
01:29:32.399 -->
01:29:38.960So people have different pieces of information and we observe them and we design things around what they need to do.
01:29:38.960 -->
01:29:44.319So they they're actually helping co-create the learning environment as we go.
01:29:44.319 -->
01:29:48.960The hard thing about that is when you sell that to anybody, that's not what they know, right?
01:29:48.960 -->
01:29:55.199Their context is, well, I'm I want to know what you're gonna teach me in minute one through 10, through 20, or through 40.
01:29:55.199 -->
01:29:56.560You're like, well, that's I don't know.
01:29:56.560 -->
01:29:57.439That's not learning.
01:29:57.439 -->
01:29:59.119So there's gotta be a connection here.
01:29:59.119 -->
01:30:01.279And I'm just trying to probe with you and see.
01:30:01.680 -->
01:30:04.960I mean, they what you're describing is is instructional design.
01:30:04.960 -->
01:30:07.359It's uh it's using different words.
01:30:07.359 -->
01:30:07.840Yeah.
01:30:07.840 -->
01:30:08.239Yeah.
01:30:08.239 -->
01:30:17.520Uh you know, there's I I but but there's really no they they're they're like parallel trains that don't really cross.
01:30:17.520 -->
01:30:19.119Yeah, they don't really meet.
01:30:19.119 -->
01:30:27.920They're you know, instructional design and human intelligence are dealing with very similar sort of raw material, yeah.
01:30:27.920 -->
01:30:33.359But but they they don't really although they do kind of cross every now and then.
01:30:33.359 -->
01:30:34.319No, it's fascinating.
01:30:34.319 -->
01:30:49.840I I can tell you that my my background in instructional design was just as useful to me in recruiting human sources of foreign intelligence as a foreign language and and uh foreign cultural context was.
01:30:50.159 -->
01:30:50.479Yeah.
01:30:50.640 -->
01:30:50.960Yeah.
01:30:51.279 -->
01:30:57.119No, and that's that's why we want to look at uh, you know, we want to be generalists and look across all the domains out there and bring them together.
01:30:57.119 -->
01:31:03.840Whereas the uh specialists, they're they're looking down one domain and they they can't see the other things that that we're all seeing.
01:31:03.840 -->
01:31:04.640Absolutely.
01:31:04.640 -->
01:31:13.760And I think I think that's what makes a good uh in in your case a good agent is is the cross-cutting approach to understanding how systems work.
01:31:13.840 -->
01:31:18.239Aaron Ross Powell What wide contextual competence is the way I would describe that.
01:31:18.239 -->
01:31:27.680Wide competence in many unrelated contexts that then become useful in the job.
01:31:27.760 -->
01:31:28.399Aaron Ross Powell Yep.
01:31:28.399 -->
01:31:28.720Yep.
01:31:28.720 -->
01:31:36.079And that's that's what Boyd did he went and looked at all these disparate ideas and brought them all together and said, this is how things kind of work.
01:31:36.479 -->
01:31:36.800Interesting.
01:31:37.119 -->
01:31:44.079So yeah, by the way, just so you know, the the military taught us all the wrong ODA loop in in the night in 1996 and a little bit before then.
01:31:44.079 -->
01:31:52.079Uh and that's the kind of thing we're trying to correct is hey, if you understand this a little bit better, we'll have greater access to things like our conversation we just had today.
01:31:52.079 -->
01:31:55.279We'll get into cognitive warfare, which we had a lot of conversations on.
01:31:55.279 -->
01:32:06.159We've had some human folks on here that that brought up, just like you, hey, I'm I'm not a researcher academic, I'm an operator, and what they're saying in a in academia is not true, right?
01:32:06.159 -->
01:32:10.399So uh just wondering, anything else you want to wrap up with today before we uh sign off?
01:32:10.720 -->
01:32:11.680Uh I don't know.
01:32:11.680 -->
01:32:14.560Pro uh interesting.
01:32:14.560 -->
01:32:24.960I I mean I I don't know if you've seen uh my my other area that I I have since I've gotten out and been able to spend time researching and looking back at history.
01:32:24.960 -->
01:32:33.680I did mention the CI cases uh of failures of of deception detection credibility assessment.
01:32:33.680 -->
01:32:39.840Is I also now now I call myself pretty much a historian of of intelligence.
01:32:39.840 -->
01:33:16.640I'm right now I'm in I'm in the middle of a biography, doing the research for a biography, but it's based on the last uh another book that I did called Willing Accomplices, which I went back as a as a human intelligence covert influence operator, went back and looked at how the the the Bolsheviks, the Soviet Union, uh targeted the common turn, Communist International specifically, targeted the rest of the world, including the I I just focused on the United States for covert influence.
01:33:16.640 -->
01:33:28.720You know, now you call it cognitive warfare, but it's covert influence, active they call it active measures, we call it what we call it, but covert influence uh and and operations.
01:33:28.720 -->
01:33:51.840So I I identified the operations that are running against us, I identified the operators, how they did it, and I give uh case studies of specific assets that they recruited and inserted in our in our I call them the transmission belts of our culture, Hollywood, the media and academia and education.
01:33:51.840 -->
01:33:54.800They focused on those specifically.
01:33:54.800 -->
01:34:07.680But after in the course of doing that research, I identified one guy nobody had ever really identified as as an operator, as a uh a covert influence agent before.
01:34:07.680 -->
01:34:16.479So I'm I'm in the middle of I've I've gathered all the the uh I've done the the the get evidence gathering.
01:34:16.479 -->
01:34:24.079I'm assessing and evaluating now uh for writing this book on the guy's name is uh Alexander Gumberg.
01:34:24.079 -->
01:34:30.000Um so covert influence, uh cognitive warfare is another one of my specialties.
01:34:30.399 -->
01:34:30.960Well, this is great.
01:34:30.960 -->
01:34:48.000So we've uh we've had four or five episodes recently, and one of the connections that we learned from Oriane Cohen, Oriane, Orianne Cohen, who's French, is uh the connection between cognitive warfare where it first came from the the the I guess work at Coint was a U.S.
01:34:48.000 -->
01:34:51.600Air Force major writing about cybernetics and reflexive control.
01:34:51.600 -->
01:34:52.960I'm hopefully I get I'm saying that right.
01:34:52.960 -->
01:34:53.920I might be wrong on that.
01:34:53.920 -->
01:34:59.439But reflexive control of cybernetics, the connection, the Soviets had a different approach than we did with cybernetics.
01:34:59.439 -->
01:35:04.640Reflexive control sounds like, and I'm I'm not certain about this, but covert influences and things like that.
01:35:04.640 -->
01:35:08.079So have you come across any cybernetics, reflexive control theory?
01:35:09.359 -->
01:35:13.680That's that's so that sounds like probably sixties and seventies kind of I think so, yeah.
01:35:13.680 -->
01:35:19.439So you're a little bit before then, or I'm I'm I start 1917 and and go up to 33.
01:35:19.760 -->
01:35:20.239Okay, okay.
01:35:20.239 -->
01:35:21.279So this is not new.
01:35:21.279 -->
01:35:24.239I mean, this has been going on for Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:35:24.560 -->
01:35:31.359There there were others doing it before the the Soviets did it, but the Soviets and What am I getting at?
01:35:31.600 -->
01:35:33.439The underlying message is very simple then.
01:35:33.439 -->
01:35:34.720There is no layout.
01:35:34.720 -->
01:35:42.079Unless we can eliminate the feature just cited.
01:35:42.079 -->
01:35:44.800Well, we don't know how to do this.
01:35:44.800 -->
01:35:49.760There is no layout.
01:35:54.079 -->
01:36:03.199In fact, the the British, the English were masters of the covert influence against us for both World War I and World War II.
01:36:03.199 -->
01:36:11.600They had massive operations, cognitive warfare, I call it covert influence, but dragging us into their wars.
01:36:11.600 -->
01:36:16.319And and the Soviets learned from them and made it e much, even much better.
01:36:16.319 -->
01:36:20.640The the English were kind of like beaten with a very heavy hammer.
01:36:20.640 -->
01:36:26.079They were effective, but they weren't too uh they they weren't very nuanced about it.
01:36:26.079 -->
01:36:31.520The Soviets were very nuanced and uh very effective as well.
01:36:31.840 -->
01:36:32.000Yeah.
01:36:32.319 -->
01:36:33.760So yeah, it's been going on for a long time.
01:36:34.159 -->
01:36:37.920We've been pushing back on the uh you know the cognitive warfare moniker.
01:36:37.920 -->
01:36:42.720Just you know, we're I I'm in Norfolk, Virginia, not too far from that where NATO is, ACT.
01:36:42.720 -->
01:36:46.800And you know, they push a lot of cognitive warfare stuff out there and they get the OODA loop wrong all the time.
01:36:46.800 -->
01:36:47.840And it just frustrates me.
01:36:47.840 -->
01:36:53.680I'm like, you you guys know that if you if you're gonna talk about this, it might be useful if you use a you use the correct one.
01:36:53.680 -->
01:36:55.119Interesting.
01:36:55.439 -->
01:37:00.960But sorry, I I didn't want to bring up anything too off topic, but just relatively related.
01:37:01.279 -->
01:37:02.560No, it is it's very related.
01:37:02.560 -->
01:37:03.600Uh this is awesome.
01:37:03.600 -->
01:37:04.880Love to have you back, man.
01:37:04.880 -->
01:37:07.119There's so much more we can dive into for sure.
01:37:08.319 -->
01:37:08.640Yeah.
01:37:08.880 -->
01:37:09.279What do you got?
01:37:09.279 -->
01:37:10.880What do you got coming up next, other than the book?
01:37:10.880 -->
01:37:11.840Anything exciting?
01:37:12.319 -->
01:37:12.880No, no.
01:37:12.880 -->
01:37:15.039I I am totally immersed in this book.
01:37:15.039 -->
01:37:19.279So I'm doing research and I I've I've been out to the all the archives.
01:37:19.279 -->
01:37:30.000I probably have to go to the Library of Congress one more time, gather some stuff, but now I'm sitting at my desk uh processing processing archives.
01:37:30.000 -->
01:37:32.960So I I'm available anytime you want to chat again.
01:37:32.960 -->
01:37:33.920Let me know.
01:37:34.159 -->
01:37:35.359And how can our listeners find you?
01:37:35.359 -->
01:37:36.960What's the best way to get in contact with you?
01:37:37.199 -->
01:37:39.119KentClisby.com.
01:37:39.119 -->
01:37:40.560That's easy.
01:37:40.560 -->
01:37:47.920Yeah, pretty much there there's links there uh to my books, to stuff I've done.
01:37:47.920 -->
01:37:51.760My my email is Kent at KentClisby.com.
01:37:51.760 -->
01:37:56.880You're welcome to drop me a note if anybody has questions, comments, criticisms.
01:37:56.880 -->
01:37:57.680Awesome.
01:37:57.840 -->
01:38:00.960All right, I tell you what, I'm gonna keep you on here for a moment, but we'll wrap it up there.
01:38:00.960 -->
01:38:02.399Thanks for uh tuning in, everybody.
01:38:02.399 -->
01:38:03.279See you next time.
01:38:03.439 -->
01:38:04.000Thanks, Punch.
01:38:04.000 -->
01:38:04.319Thank you.
01:38:04.319 -->
01:38:05.600Thanks, everyone.
01:38:06.000 -->
01:38:07.199What am I getting at?
01:38:07.199 -->
01:38:09.279The underlying message is very simple, then.
01:38:09.279 -->
01:38:10.800There is no layout.
01:38:10.800 -->
01:38:19.680Well, problem though, we don't know how to do this.
