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GUEST BIO:
Andrew Bustamante is a former CIA covert intelligence officer. Check out his work and podcast at https://everydayspy.com

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So I discovered I had messy hair in CIA, because I used to go mouj, we called it mouj.

I used to go Mujahideen style, big burly beard and crazy wacky hair, because an ambiguously brown guy with a big beard and long hair can go anywhere in the world without anyone even noticing him.

They either think that he's a janitor or they think that he's like some forgotten part of history but nobody ever thinks that that guy is a spy.

So it was the perfect, for me, it was 1 of my favorite disguises.

1 of my favorite disguises to Don was just dilapidated brown guy.

Can you actually, we'll just take a million tangents.

What are the different levels of disguise?

Yeah, there's 3 levels of disguise, by and large.

Level 1 is what we also call light disguise.

So that's essentially, you put on sunglasses and a ball cap and that's a disguise.

You look different than you normally look.

So it's just different enough that someone who's never seen you before, someone who literally has to see you just from a picture on the internet, they may not recognize you.

That's why you see celebrities walk around with ball caps and oversized jackets and baseball hats, because they just need to not look like they look in the tabloid, or not look like they look in TV.

Level 3 is all of your prosthetics, all the stuff you see in Mission Impossible, your fake ears, your fake faces, your fat suits, your stilts inside your feet, all that's level 3.

Whenever they make any kind of prosthetic disguise, that's a level 3 disguise because prosthetics are very damning if you are caught with a prosthetic.

If you're caught wearing a Sutton, wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, nobody's gonna say you're a spy.

But when you're caught with a custom-made, you know, nose prosthetic that changes the way your face looks, or when someone pops out a fake jaw and they see that your top teeth don't look like they did in this prosthetic, then all of a sudden, you've got some very difficult questions to ask or to answer.

So level 3 is extremely dangerous, level 1 is not dangerous.

Level 2 is all the things that you can do to permanently change the way you look for a long period of time, so that whether you're aggressed in the street or whether someone breaks into your hotel room or whatever, it's real.

So maybe that's, maybe you get a tattoo, maybe you cut your hair short, maybe you grow your hair long, maybe you go bald, maybe you start wearing glasses, well glasses are technically a prosthetic but You can, if you have teeth pulled, if you gain 20 pounds, really gain 20 pounds, or lose 15 pounds, whatever you might do, all of that's considered level 2.

It's designed for a long-term mission so that people believe you are who you say you are, in that disguise.

A lot of that is physical characteristics.

What about like, you know, what actors do, which is the...

Yeah, the method acting, sort of developing a backstory in your own mind, and then you start, you know, pretending that you host a podcast, and teach at a university, and then do research and so on just so that people can believe that you're not actually an agent.

Is that part of the disguise levels or no?

So yes, disguise has to do with physical character traits.

What you're talking about is known as a cover legend.

When you go undercover, what you claim to be, who you claim to be, that's called your legend, your cover legend.

Every disguise would theoretically have its own cover legend.

Even if it's just to describe why you're wearing what you're wearing, it's all a cover.

So the method acting, this is a fantastic point that I don't get to make very often, so I'm glad you asked.

The difference between CIA officers in the field and method actors is that method actors try to become the character.

They try to shed all vestiges of who they really are and become the character.

And that's part of what makes them so amazing but it's also part of what like makes them mentally unstable over long periods of time.

It's part of what feeds their depression, their anxiety, their personal issues because they lose sight of who they really are.

We have to always, always remember we are a covert CIA intelligence officer collecting secrets in the field.

So we're taught a very specific skill to compartmentalize our true self separately, but make that true self the true identity.

So then we can still live and act and effectively carry out our cover legend without ever losing sight, without ever losing that compass true north of who we actually are.

And then we can compartmentalize and secure all the information that we need, retain it, remember it, but then return to our true self when we get back to a position of safety.

So I just have kind of anecdotal evidence for myself.

I really try to be the exact same person in all conditions, which makes it very easy.

Like if you're not lying, it makes it very easy to, first of all, to exist, but also to communicate a kind of authenticity and a genuineness, which I think is really important.

Like trust and integrity around trust is extremely important to me.

It's the thing that opens doors and maintains relationships.

And I tend to think, like when I was in Ukraine, so many doors just opened to the very, sort of high security areas and everywhere else too.

Like I've just interacted with some incredible people without any kind of concerns.

And I tend to believe that you're able to communicate a trustworthiness somehow if you just are who you are.

And I think, I suppose method actors are trying to achieve that by becoming something and they can, I just feel like there is very subtle cues that are extremely difficult to fake?

Like you really have to become that person, be that person.

But you're saying as a CIA agent, you have to remember that you are there to collect information.

So 1 of the flaws in your argument is that you keep referring to how you feel.

I feel this, I feel that, I feel like this, I feel like that.

That feeling is a predictable character trait of all human beings.

It's a pink matter, we call it pink matter.

You are not alone in trusting your feelings.

But because what CIA teaches us is how to systematically create artificial relationships, where we're the 1 in control of the source that is giving us intelligence.

And the core element to being able to control a relationship is understanding the pink matter truth of feelings.

What all people feel becomes their point of view on what reality is.

So when you understand and you learn how to manipulate what people feel, then you can essentially direct them to feel any way you want them to feel.

So if you want them to feel like they can trust you, you can make them feel that way.

If you want them to feel like you're a good guy or a bad guy, if you want them to feel like they should give you secrets even though their government tells them not to, you can do that.

There are men who make women feel like they love them and just so that the woman will sleep with them.

There are women who make men feel like they love them just so the men will give them their money.

Manipulation is a core behavioral trait of all the human species, because we all understand to some level how powerful feelings are, but feelings are not the same thing as logical, rational thought.

What CIA teaches us how to do is systematically tap into the right side, emotional side of the brain, so that we can quickly get past all of the stuff you were just saying.

All of the, well, don't you have to be convincing and don't you have to really know your story and don't you have to be able to defend it.

Don't you have to have authenticity And don't you have to have genuine feelings?

Yes, all of those things are true if you're having a genuine relationship.

But in an artificial relationship, there's ways to bypass all of that and get right to the heart of making someone feel comfortable and safe.

I guess the question I'm asking, and the thing I was implying, is that creating an artificial relationship is an extremely difficult skill to accomplish the level, like how good I am at being me and creating a feeling in another person that I create, for you to do that artificially, that's gotta be, you gotta be, my sense is you gotta be really damn good at that kind of thing.

I would venture to say, I mean, I don't know how to measure how difficult the thing is, but especially when you're communicating with people whose job depends on forming trusting relationships, they're gonna smell bullshit.

And to get past that bullshit detector is tough.

I would say that once you understand the system, it's not that hard.

But I would also say that to your exact point, you are right that people smell bullshit.

But here's the thing, if you come in smelling like goat shit, you still smell like shit, but you don't smell like bullshit.

And if you come in smelling like rotten tomatoes, or if you come in smelling like lavender, or if you come in smelling like vanilla, or if you come in without any smell at all, all that matters is that you don't smell like bullshit.

Here's the thing that's 1 of the secret sauces of CIA.

When you look and act like a spy, people think you're a spy.

If you look and act in any other way, you know what they never ever think you are?

They might think you're a, they might think you're trailer trash.

They might think that you're a migrant worker, but they never think you're a spy.

And that's what's, that lesson in everyday life is immensely powerful.

If you're trying to, If you're trying to take your boss's job, as long as you don't ever look like the employee who's trying to take the boss's job, the boss is focused on all the employees who are trying to take his job.

Everybody's prioritizing whether they know it or not.

The goal is to just not be the 1 that they're targeting.

Target them without them knowing you're targeting them.

So people just, when they meet you, they put you in a bin.

And if you want to avoid being put in a particular bin, just don't act like the person that would be, just show some kind of characteristics that bin you in some other way.

you knowing these methods, when you talk to people, especially in civilian life, how do you know who's lying to you and not?

That gets to be more into the trained skill side of things.

There's body cues, there's micro expressions.

I'm not a big fan of, I don't believe that micro expressions alone do anything.

I also don't believe that micro expressions without an effective baseline do anything.

So don't for a second think that I'm, all the people out there pitching that you can tell if someone's lying to you just by looking at their face, it's all baloney.

Like the way you move your eyes or something like that.

Without knowing a baseline, without knowing.

For that individual, then you actually don't know.

And an individual's baseline is based on education, culture, life experience, you name it, right?

But when you combine facial expressions with body movements, body language, nonverbal cues, and you add on top of that effective elicitation techniques that you are in control of, now you have a more robust platform to tell if someone's lying to you.

So there's like a set of interrogation trajectories you can go down that can help you figure out a person.

Technically they're interview, interview concepts.

Correct, because an interrogation, an interrogation is something very different than an interview.

And In the world of professionals, an interrogation is very different.

So in an interrogation, there's a clear pattern of dominance.

You are there until the interrogator is done with you.

Anybody who's ever been reprimanded by mom and dad knows what an interrogation feels like.

Anybody who's ever been called into the principal's office or the boss's office, that's what interrogation feels like.

You don't leave until the boss says you can leave.

And you're there to say, to answer questions the boss asks questions.

An interview is an equal exchange of ideas.

You are in control of this interview, for sure.

But if we were having coffee, I could take control if I wanted to take control.

If I wanted to ask you personal questions, I would.

If I wanted to talk to you about your background, I could.

Why am I in control of this interview exactly?

Because The person in control is the person asking questions.

I'm sitting here, as you've spoken about, my power here is I'm the quiet 1 listening.

Anywhere you choose to take it, because you're the 1 asking questions.

Every time I answer a question, I am creating a pattern of obedience to you, which subliminally, subconsciously, makes me that much more apt to answer your questions.

Of course, you can always turn that and start asking me questions.

But you're saying that there's, through conversation, you can call it interviewing, you can start to see cracks in the story of the person and the degree to which they exaggerate or lie or to see how much they could be trusted, that kind of stuff.

What I'm saying is that through a conversation, you develop a baseline, right?

Like even just in the last, the first part of our conversation, I've been able to create some baseline elements about you.

You've been able to create baseline elements about me.

From those baselines, now we can push through more intentional questions to test.

To test whether or not the person is being truthful because they're operating within their baseline, or if you are triggering sensitivities outside of their baseline, and then

That's fascinating, yeah, baseline, like even like, yeah, the tells, right?

The eye contact, Like you've probably already formed a baseline that I have trouble making eye contact.

And so if you ask me difficult questions and I'm not making eye contact, maybe that's not a good signal of me lying or whatever.

Because I always have trouble making eye contact.

Stuff like that, That's really fascinating.

The majority of your eye movement is to the right.

Right, which is usually someone who's, if you ask micro-expressionists, that's someone who's referencing fact.

That's not necessarily what's happening for you because you're pulling concepts out of the air.

So it's also a place that you reference something other than fact.

if I just thought that you were lying because you look up and to the right, I would be wrong.

And a lot of that has to do with like habits that are formed and all those kinds of things.

Or maybe some right hand, left hand type of situation.

I would say that like all good art, art is taught from a foundation of skills.

And those skills are played, are taught in a very structured manner.

And then the way that you use the skills after that, that's more of the artistic grace.

Being able to hack human beings is an art.

But it's all based in a foundation of science.

You still have to learn how to mix the color palette and use certain brushes.

Do you think of that as a kind of the study of human psychology?

Isn't that what a psychologist does or a psychiatrist?

What from this process have you learned about human nature?

I mean, I suppose the answer to that could be a book.

But is there things that are surprising about human nature, surprising to us civilians that you could speak to?

Yes, 1 thing is extremely surprising about human nature, which is funny, because that's not the answer I would have said, So I'm glad that you clarified this specific question.

The thing that's surprising about human nature is that human beings long, like in their soul, there's like a painful longing to be with other people.

And that's really surprising because we all wanna pretend like we're strong, we all wanna pretend like we're, you know, independent, we all wanna pretend like we are the masters of our destiny, but What's truly consistent in all people is this longing to commune with others like us.

My more practical answer about what I've learned to be the truth is that human nature is predictable.

And that predictability is what gives people an incredible advantage over other people.

I mean, even when CIA taught me that human nature is predictable, it just made sense.

But what I never ever anticipated was no matter where I've been in the world, no matter who I've talked to, no matter what socioeconomic bracket is that longing, man, it hurts.

Loneliness sucks and togetherness feels good even if you're together with someone you know isn't the right person, it still feels better than being alone.

I mean, that's such a deep truth you speak to, and I could talk about that for a long time.

There is, I mean, through these conversations in general, whether it's being recorded or not, I hunger to discover in the other person that longing, you strip away the other things and then you share in the longing for that connection.

And I particularly also detected that in people from all walks of life, including people that others might identify as evil or hard, as completely Cold.

They've hardened themselves in their search, and who knows what dark place their brain is in, their heart is in, but that longing is still there.

It's the reason why in World War I and World War II, enemy combatants still shared cigarettes on the front lines during periods of holidays or bad weather or whatever else, because that human connection, man, it triumphs overall.

See, that's in part of what I refer to when I say love, because I feel like if political leaders and people in conflict at the small scale and the large scale were able to tune into that longing, to seek in each other that basic longing for human connection, a lot of problems could be solved.

But of course, it's difficult because it's a game of chicken.

Is if you open yourself up to reveal that longing for connection with others, people can hurt you.

Well, I would go a step farther and I would say that taking the connection away, punishing, penalizing people by removing the connection is a powerful tool.

That's why we put economic sanctions on countries.

That's why we ground our children and send them to their rooms.

Whether we know it or not, we're using punitive damage by taking away that basic human connection, that longing for community.

See all Lex Clips transcripts on Youtube

How CIA spies disguise their identity | Andrew Bustamante and Lex Fridman