Understanding The Private Lives Of People (w/ Andrew Bustamante)

When you're trying to make friends with somebody or connect with somebody in the CIA, is charisma that sugar? Is that not a tool that you pull out of the toolbox?

Absolutely. Absolutely. That's something you pull out of the toolbox. And in large part, it's because charisma is lacking in so many people. Because for many, many people out there, charisma, like sugar, is something they like to be around, but they themselves either lack the confidence or they lack the social experience, or they lack the comfort to exercise their own charisma. So then what ends up happening is, especially in human operations and human intelligence operations, you go after a target to carve them out of their social realm, right? Part of the way that you increase the loyalty between people is by cutting them out of whatever social context they have. You take away those options, but you do it in a way where they don't realize that's what's happening. And then what ends up the byproduct of that is without other people to lean on, they just become closer to you. And as they become closer to you, then their own natural personality, their own natural charisma starts to show, right? And you want to see someone's charisma? Ask them about their family. Ask pet owners about their pets. Ask parents about their kids. Ask people about their favorite show, their favorite book, their favorite food. Boom. Their charisma comes out, their smile gets easy, their eyebrows go up, right? They just start to talk. And they'll talk, they'll say the most amazing things that are truly charismatic, endearing.

Entertaining, humorous, because that's something that they know well and they're passionate about. But it takes proximity to make someone consistently charismatic, unless they have the practice to turn it on or off like a light switch. So for us, we use it as sugar to carve them away from their existing friend groups, their networks. And then as they get closer, we use their charisma and as almost like a way of reinforcing that they're with the right person. Because what ends up happening is when somebody makes you feel good, you become loyal to that person because you start to feel like that person is the reason you feel good. It's like sugar again. You see what I'm saying? It works the opposite way, too. When you're around someone who doesn't make you feel good, you start to think they're the reason you don't feel good. That's why so many divorces happen. But when you're around somebody who does make you feel good, or when somebody asks you questions or shows natural interest in you. That triggers dopamine in your cerebrum. It triggers a dopamine rush. It makes you feel like you're special. It makes you feel like you're important. When you're not with that person, you don't get that rush. So then you come back to that person to get that rush again, and then, boom, you've got an addiction, a connection, loyalty, whatever you want to call it. You got power in that relationship.

And would you say that the most important.

Tool is making people feel accepted? Is acceptance the most important part of that? Because everybody wants to be accepted. And when you feel accepted, then you open up?

Yes. Vulnerability. Vulnerability. Vulnerability is the word that we use. That's the most important part of a human intelligence operation. Finding where someone else is vulnerable and then being able to go into that space and have them be comfortable with you in their vulnerable space. There's three lives that all people have. We were already kind of touching on one of the lives earlier today in our conversation. We all have a public life, we all have a private life, and we all have a secret life in our public life. That's the life that we all put a lot of effort into showing everybody. Right? This is my public. What I wear, how I do my hair on Instagram. Yeah, Right. That's my public life, what I talk about, what I show people when I go down the street and I'm in a public setting.

You're never posting your worst moment.

No, exactly. Right? You also never post like you're barefoot when you have a blister on it. Right. You don't ever show weakness in your public life. Now, your private life is a life that only a small circle knows. Right. Like your fiance knows if your feet stink when you take off your shoes, but most of your employees don't. Right? My closest friends know that I love 1950s musicals. Most people out there, except for the people who watch this, will have no idea that I like 1950s era musicals.

Can you name a 1950s musical for me?

Just to have context. So Singing in the Rain, Top Hat. Right. There's some fantastic musicals. White Christmas, these fantastic musicals in the 1950s, my wife and I bonded over them. That was our shared vulnerability that led us to get married. She was embarrassed and I was embarrassed, and somehow it came up and I was like, you like 1950s musicals? And she was like, you like 1950s musicals'? And then, boom, we had a date and ended up making out all the way through a 1950s era musical.

Nice. So you sometimes when you're walking around, like, let's say you're making breakfast for your kids, you feel like just breaking into song?

Not necessarily, because I can't sing if I break into a song.

But it makes sense to you that somebody would just be going through their day and then break into song? Because that's my problem with musicals is it's like all of a sudden, I'm walking through the grocery store, and then I'm dancing and singing. I can never make that. That suspension of belief.

I don't necessarily watch them and think that they're real. I like them because the music is happy, the storylines are happy, things are upbeat, the feelings are deep. And I'm not a big feeler. I don't have a lot of high and low feelings. I tend to have kind of a very whitewashed emotional existence myself. I have had low moments, and I have had high moments, but they're years apart. So what I like about a musical is they take you on this journey through the music, Right? So it's not because I believe that somebody's gonna step outside after they got their first kiss in a pouring rainstorm, and then they're gonna dance and throw their umbrella around. I don't think that, but I do love that no matter what mood I'm in, if somebody turns on the song Singing in the Rain, it makes me smile, it makes my wife tap her foot. It makes my oldest son dance around in the living room. He recorded a video for me when he was, like, 7 years old where he's singing the Singing in the Rain song, and he's acting it out with his little Superman umbrella. Just did it on his own. I was traveling, and he was like, mommy, I want to do something for Daddy. So she hit record, and, you know, he did his rendition. But my point is, that's all private life stuff. Vulnerable. Vulnerable to a select few. Right inside your private life. This is where you have your closest relationships. In your public life, you don't have a lot of close relationships. You might have friends, you might have acquaintances, but there's still people that don't know that your feet stink and people that don't know what movies you watch when you're home alone. In your private life, you make really close, powerful friends, but you don't make spies. People don't tell you their deepest, darkest secrets just because they're friends with you in your private life. That happens inside of a secret life. We talked about shame earlier. Your secret life is where you hide your shame. Your secret life is a Thing that even the woman or the man that you take to bed every night doesn't really know what happens in your secret life. If there are other people in here, they are so trusted that they're like family. They're closer than family. They're like compatriots to you. If there's anybody even in there. When you want to turn someone into a traitor, you have to get into their secret life.

So what are the tools to move them from close group of friends to secret life? I'm going to guess one would be telling them something that you shouldn't tell them. Being vulnerable first, Would that be one?

So it all ties to vulnerability. Exactly right. And then there's different tools of vulnerability.

You can share shame.

You can share shame.

By the time you've walked somebody from public life to private life and you're starting to get close to secret life, you're also able to assess, meaning you're able to kind of read what they might have. Have you ever been friends with somebody who you thought might have been gay, but they didn't come out with it? That's one of those areas where you can be like, if you really want to dig into a secret life. For a long time, homosexuals had to keep that in their secret life, right? I've had friends when I was in the Air Force Academy. That was at a time when it was still don't ask, don't tell, and you could get kicked out if you were gay and all sorts of stuff. I had friends where I suspected they were homosexual. And I knew that at any given moment I had a close enough relationship that I could have gone up to them and I could have been like, look, man.

I wonder if you're just not into girls or you're into boys. And if you are, I still love you, man. You're my best friend. I just want you to be happy. If there's something I can do to make you happy, just tell me. Tell me what that thing is.

And now if they admit to that, now you're in their secret life. So then how do you do that.

With a target out in the field?

Because everybody has a secret life. Everybody has shame. You just need to find what that shame is, right? For some people, that shame is the fact that they've had an affair. For some people, that shame is the fact that they've stolen money. For some people, that shame is the fact that they're closet alcoholics. For some people, that shame is all sorts of different things, right? And it's not always things that you have to be shameful of. Some people are ashamed of the fact that they're not in love with their current spouse. That's not something to be ashamed of. But for them, they are. Maybe because of their religious background, maybe because of their parental upbringing, they're ashamed of it, right? But if you can read a relationship, if you can read a person over weeks or months, watching them interact with their spouse, watching them interact in their private life, in their public life, and then you come up and you think that you got it right. If you dig into that vulnerability, right? And you say, hey, sometimes I don't like my wife, man. I married her. I made a promise to a lot of people, but sometimes I really don't like her at all. And then they come back and they're like, man, I totally understand. Tell me more. And then you're breaking into that secret life. It's not because they should be ashamed. It's because they are ashamed. And if you can get. If you can be vulnerable with somebody and help them feel less shameful, you're winning incredible loyalty from them. Because guess what? There's only one other person in the whole world they can talk to about it now. You. And that's something that we carry to bed. If anybody's ever been in your secret life, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There's, like, something that's heavy on your heart. You're like, there's only one person I could talk to about this. This, right? And then you think about them constantly. And when you get your chance to talk to them, it's like coming home again. That is what we simulate. To create, like, that artificial relationship and espionage is to get people to tell us those secrets. It's not healthy. Don't think for a second I'm trying to advocate that we should all do that. But that is what we do.

Thanks so much for watching this clip. Clip of service driving revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers Chris CollinsInc. Com. I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.