How To Stay Calm Under Fire With Former CIA Agent

When my team came across your book and like James, I think you might want to see this, that is not.

What I imagined for myself. Everyone's puffing up their chest. Everyone wants to be the biggest brain and the biggest, the most important voice and all of this stuff. Some egos are just too big.

What is the CIA and what was your role there?

You know, it's spies, it's martinis, Aston Martins, you know, high paced, high speed stuff. But immediately I thought, holy, we're under attack. No amount of trading can really prepare you for that moment. Everything sucks. Nothing is worth it. Why is everything working against me? I would just be angry and frustrated, pissed off at the world. You gotta suck it up, buttercup, and just keep on going. That is where the magic happens. Do not let other people infect your choices. What everybody else is doing is pretty much largely irrelevant. And.

From CIA to CEO, unconventional life lessons for thinking bigger, leading better, and being bolder. Rupal Patel was a CIA operative. She took the time to sit down with me and share some of her lessons from on the field and how she applies that to life. She's a serial entrepreneur now and she applies it to business as well. So please sit back and enjoy what's going to be an amazing episode. I'd like to thank NZ Mortgages for sponsoring the Lead On Purpose podcast. You can check them out at nzmortgages co nz. Rupal, a huge welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

Thank you so much and it's wonderful, James. I'm really, really looking forward to our conversation.

Oh, me more so I'm super excited. You know, when my team came across your book and like, James, I think you might want to see this, I looked at it, I was like, 100% yes. And please can we have her on the show because your background blows me away and what you're doing now and how you're applying these insights to life and leadership and business. I mean, that's what I geek out on. So I'm so excited to spend this morning with you and thank you. So, CIA, for someone who's maybe been under a rock and doesn't know what the CIA is, please just fill us in. What is the CIA and what was your role there?

Yeah, so the CIA is the US's foreign intelligence organization. And what the organization is charged with doing is to collect information through covert means more often than not, and use that information to help inform U.S. policy, keep our nation safe from potential threats, and generally be one of the many ways that the decision makers, the President you know, is his cabinet, the Pentagon, all of the sort of the US Government apparatus, you know, we feed into how they, how they execute their policy. We don't tell them what to do, but the role of the Agency is to give them the best information available and also the most unavailable information that we can possibly get to help them make better decisions.

Incredible. And I imagine the selection process, when the CIA is looking for new operatives, they're looking for people who are critical thinkers, potentially creative thinkers. They have the ability to maybe remove emotional bias and other biases when they're analyzing. So how did you fit the bill? How did you end up in there? What was the process?

I need to go back to the leader who recruited me and actually ask him that question, because the reality is, yes, all of the things that you just identified are, of course, essential skills. And I know that the Agency looks for them and, and screens for them and actively sort of recruits for them. Right? They're, they're essential. They're essential life skills, by the way. But particularly in sort of the intelligence world, where the stakes are particularly high, it's, you know, it's important to, to leave out the bias, to be critical thinkers and to be able to read between the lines, right? Not just, hey, this is what this person is telling me, but here's all the subtext. Here's sort of their motivations for saying what they're saying, and here's where some of their biases might be feeding into the intelligence. And, and so doing all of that analytical heavy lifting is, of course, huge. And that's where, you know, our value really comes from. So for me, I think what sort of brought me to the attention of the, the people who recruited me was the fact that I have experience living and, and traveling all over or at that time, when I was in my early 20s, you know, I'd lived and traveled all over the world at that point. I spoke, well, English fluently, of course, and then two other languages pretty decently. I was studying foreign affairs. I again had to demonstrate through academically, my critical thinking skills and an ability to especially focus on sort of foreign policy and politics, et cetera. But that was not my plan. My plan was when I was in graduate school studying, you know, getting my master's in International affairs, my plan was to join the Foreign Service and to become a diplomat. And then one fateful day in October, someone from the CIA asked me to apply for a role. And it was not something that I had even imagined. It was not on my radar at all. Right? My Perception of the CIA was perhaps like many people's. It's spies, it's martinis, Aston Martins, high paced, high speed stuff that's been breaking into denied areas. And all of that, which it is maybe less. Fewer martinis and Aston Martins, it is all of those things that is not what I imagined for myself. And so when I got that invitation, it was, it was a totally. It was a leap into the unknown. And I, as I went through the process and found out more and more about what I would be doing as an analyst, I realized, wow, this is actually a perfect fit for someone like me with my skills, my interests, my. My desire to do something bigger and do be a part of something bigger and not just rely on theory and academic work, but actually how can I put some of what I'm learning into practice? So it's a really beautiful blend of lots of different streams of who I am and what interests me. And then of course, you know, being able to serve a bigger. A bigger mission was hugely, hugely important to me. Also in the. This was in the. Not immediately post 9 11, but in the few years after 911 where, you know, sort of foreign policy and our ability to protect ourselves as a nation was particularly still front of mind. So, yes, it was an unexpected invitation, but it was one that I couldn't really say no to. I mean, I could have said no. That is not true. Right. Like, you can leave the Agency, you can say no, but I just thought, let's see where this goes. And it was the best decision I've ever made.

That's incredible. Thank you for sharing that and what I hear, because obviously we're on the Lead on Purpose podcast. I feel like you were leading yourself on purpose by going, hey, this is purposeful and meaningful work and there's something much bigger at play here in terms of I will do my best and do my work, but actually what I'm working for is the greater good. And that's deeply meaningful. So when you stepped in and you're thinking, how do I think like a CIA person? What is the CIA mindset? How would you describe it to a friend?

Yeah. If I had to distill it into.

Its essence, what I, and I actually, I think I refer to it in my, in my book in this way. It's. It's an enlightened swagger. So the swagger is probably obvious to everyone. Right. We're indomitable, we can do anything. We've got incredible people and resources at our disposal. We're going to go out and make Things happen and, and, and, and, and be bold and not be held back by convention or, you know, self imposed limitations. All of that kind of that, that swagger. Right. The enlightened part, which tempered it for me and, and was my experience. There was, yes, all of that stuff is true, but there was also a real humility and acknowledging how much is out of our control, how much even in the face of our best efforts, so much will not go our way. How the world is a crazy and chaotic place and we're not going to rail against the reality, we're going to operate within the reality and acknowledge it for what it is, but not let it dictate what we do and how we perform and how we show up. So it was a really nice blend of yeah, that high performance swagger and a real awareness and acceptance of the limitations of that swagger and, and, and accepting that, not trying to, to make it otherwise. And really. Yeah, I think the humility part is, is what was a real, perhaps surprise to people, but there was this awareness that no matter what we do, we can't force every single outcome or we can't predict every outcome. We can't say, well, this is the mission objective and this is how it's going to go and it's just going to happen, you know, very smoothly and perfectly. There was an awareness that things, there's blowback, there are things out of your control and you just got to keep moving despite what's, what's going on around you. So for me, it's that mindset of, yes, of realism and also ambition, that enlightened swagger.

I love it. And really to me, when I hear you say that, it's like, well, we can apply that to our lives and control the controllables and go, hey, what's within my control? If you're running a business or you're leading a team, there's so many uncontrollables and yet we focus on those and we worry about those and we try to plan for those, but actually what's within our control and the CIA obviously understand that there's only so much that they can control. Let's just focus on that.

Exactly. And sometimes you can control more and sometimes you can control less. But the reality is that that is the only way you can lead right, as exactly as you identified, is by controlling the controllables. Because otherwise you become a victim of other people, of the external market forces, of, I don't know, policy changes, of, of the entire environment around you. And that is again, as you Said, not as true in our individual lives as it is in, you know, our professional lives. There will be infinite things that you will never be able to influence or control or game in the way that you want to. So why waste your precious energy, headspace, you know, bandwidth, all of those things, obsessing on those things. And as you said, so many people do, and I know had to train myself out of that habit because it's so easy to be like, oh, well, that person screwed up, or that was such an unfair decision, or whatever it looks like, right? And the reality is that's just life, right? You got to suck it up, buttercup, and just keep on going and what can you do? And, and one of the analogies that I love to use, which dates me and, and definitely places me as, as an American, but I grew up watching this TV show, MacGyver. Don't know if it came out in Australia, New Zealand, but it was this really. It was a wonderful show. And in it there's this man named MacGyver who will always find himself in like, the hairiest situations, right? He'll be like, I know, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, locked into, you know, a shipping container or, you know, in like a nuclear bunker, two miles underground, with like, no way, you know, no ways to dig himself out. And somehow, instead of despairing over the scenario, he would just be incredibly resourceful. Look around him. There was always somehow a roll of duct tape and some string or something, and he'd like Jerry rig an explosive or Jerry rig some tunneling device or whatever. And that, that, like resourcefulness, right? It wasn't. And I know this is sort of a very oversimplification of reality, but the reality, but actually reality is exactly that. You can only work with what you have, right? You cannot wish your way into having more resources or more talent or more budget or whatever. How can you work with what you've been given, be realistic about it, be a grown up about it, and just cobble together the best solution, the best way forward that you can, given what you've got in that moment. And that MacGyver spirit, I think is something really, really essential again, for thriving in life and in leadership.

That's so well put, honestly, the way you describe it. And I honestly agree that in my experience, working with leaders and just in my own life, it's not often resources that give us the advantage. It's resourcefulness that gives us the advantage. The difference that makes the difference.

Exactly. And, and sometimes spiritual resources can be, because, you know, you end up Throwing money at a problem or throwing talents at a problem and you get some intellectually lazy. And I think there's a real beauty in constraint and in not seeing it as a burden, but seeing it as an opportunity to be creative, to come up with solutions. You know, that whole thing of necessity is the mother of invention. Well, you know, when the world is your oyster, it's hard to be inventive because literally anything is possible. Whereas if you narrow those choices a little bit and you constrain sometimes artificially, right? If you, all of us are probably operating in our businesses are operating in some external constraint, because that's just how it is. But sometimes it's really powerful to also artificially constrain ourselves, right? Not give ourselves, for example, a whole day to finish a project, but maybe two hours to finish it so we can be a bit, you know, more nimble and creative about how we solve that, or not give ourselves the full budget and force ourselves to maybe, I don't know, roll out the next new product on 30% of the budget and just see what happens, right? There's, there is a real invigorating sense of like, as you said, resourcefulness and proving to yourself that actually I don't need more, sometimes more isn't more. And, and a constraint can be an opportunity to be creative, to be innovative in ways that you didn't even realize. Excuse me, you didn't even realize it could be.

100%.

I want to take a moment to think about. In your career in CIA, in the field, what was one of your greatest lessons? When something didn't go quite the way you'd planned it to go, what was the lesson you took away from that that you applied to life moving forward?

It was in many ways tied to what we were just talking about, this idea of resourcefulness, because so often when things don't go our way, we then obsess over the problem and get really tunnel visioned and focus only on this problem. Or as one of my former colleagues put it, you know, we start admiring the problem. And when I was in the field, there were so many times when you're like, oh man, how did I find myself literally or figuratively in this position? And what it, what I trained myself to do was instead of narrowing down my focus was to actually think much more laterally and say, okay, well, this is the hairy situation I'm in, or this is the difficult situation I'm in. What are the other things that I have access to that will help me out of this problem? So for Example, you know, I talked a lot about mission and being important, and when I was in. Serving in a. In a war zone, the mission wasn't just the US mission, it was the international mission, right? There were all of our allies that we were collaborating with and working with the local allies as well as international allies. And I remember very, very vividly.

One time being literally stranded in the middle of nowhere because the airfield was being bombarded by rockets at the time. So it was me and one of my colleagues, and we had to get back to headquarters or to our headquarters in that country that day. And so we're sort of standing, like, listening to the radio, you know, hearing, like, when it's going to be safe to travel, when it's not going to be safe. We get the all clear to get to the airfield and then we get to the airfield and then all of a sudden none of our assets are still there, so. Because they can't necessarily just wait for us. And so we. And. And I remember thinking, well, you know, what are we going to do now? And I literally looked around me and I was like, well, it's not just us in this fight. We have all of these allies. And what we ended up doing is running onto the tarmac and flagging down a Norwegian asset. There was the 747 that the Norwegians had in country. We literally flagged it down, like, right in front of the pilot's windscreen, and they let us on the plane. And it was the most beautiful memory for lots of reasons, but also example of, like this, we're all in it together because they didn't know anything about us, aside from the fact that we were American. They didn't know who we represented, what we were doing. You know, we're armed to the hilt. They led us onto this plane purely on trust, purely on that sort of, you know, sense of camaraderie and teamship. And the Norwegian Prime Minister was on the plane, the Defence, the Defence Minister was on the plane. Nobody batted an eyelid, right? And so in that instance, it was two of, like, really big things I learned was how it's not just your stuff, like the literal stuff and the material and the resources that you can sometimes tap into when you are in need or you have, you know, you're feeling a bit stuck. Look around. There are allies, there are friends, there are colleagues, there are other resources that you can access if you think very laterally and strategically about not just who am I in this. This position, in this role in this company, but who else do I Know what other resources can I tap into? You know, government resources, local resources, business resources, etc. Networks, personal resources, all of those things. And also how important having people, even if you don't know them, as individuals who are on the same journey as you, that you can call on sometimes to give you that support. Right. In this instance it was the Norwegians. But in many other cases, I, as a business leader, I have picked up the phone to total strangers and just said, hey, this is who I am. This is why I'm reaching out to you. I've done my homework, so I know you have some experience or insight about X, Y or Z thing. Do you have 20 minutes to discuss 1, 2 and 3 points? Right. Made it very clear, like this is our common mission. You know, we share values and we're in the same industry or whatever the reality might be. Would you be willing to help? And James, without. Well, actually, I won't say without exception. I have been pleasantly surprised at how many times those total cold calls to perfect strangers who are very senior have turned into a conversation. And sometimes those conversations turn into friendships, sometimes they don't. But I have never been anything but humbled and pleasantly surprised by how willing total strangers are to help. So those two things around again. Resourcefulness and being willing to ask for help and, and being able to tap into something beyond yourself and your narrow little part of the world is a critical life and leadership skill.

I agree, Rupal. And I would say that collaboration is the only way for us to actually move forward at speed and to move forward any great distance. When we go alone, we can go quickly, but actually when we go together, we can go super far. And the African proverbs kind of say that over and over again in many different ways. But like working together is the only way. Was there ever a time that you personally felt fear for your life?

Yes, I remember. So when I was in this war zone, it was me and one of my special forces colleagues, we were just in a, what we call a thin skinned vehicle. So no armor, no nothing to protect us, no bulletproof glass. Literally just like a battered old jeep. And we were driving from our headquarters to the, the local airfield which was about maybe 2 to 3 hour car ride away. And you know, he and I are just happily chatting. We're, you know, we both have our heads on a swivel, just keeping our eyes around what's happening, but it's, most of it is just pretty barren countryside. But even then, you know, you don't, don't let yourself be fooled by what you just see. Um, and at one point, I mean, he's very, very experienced. So I put my full faith and trust in him because my training, even pre deployment was pretty intense. But it wasn't, it's not the same as like the SEAL training that he went through. So, you know, I was using my common sense, he was using his, all of his spidey senses, etc. But anyway, at one point we, we hit a pothole and it made the most horrific popping sound. I don't know how we didn't bust a tire, but immediately I thought, holy shit, we're under attack. Because it sounded like a bit of an explosion. It was like, like a loud bursting sound. And I think we both had that holy shit moment, right, and, and started like, you know, going into like adrenaline mode and then within sec. And it's incredible how, how much our bodies do this instinctively without it being a conscious thought. We went into this like high alert adrenaline mode, like quickly looking around, seeing like, you know, was anybody hurt, was the car hurt, damaged, et cetera, and then within milliseconds realizing actually everything was fine. And in that roller coaster moment, I remember thinking, holy shit. Well, I remember thinking many things that had lots of expletives in it, but I also remember thinking no amount of training can really prepare you for that moment. And thankfully, in that moment, it was nothing. And we were able to proceed onwards with no incident and got back, back to headquarters later that day without incident. But it was a real, it gave me a real respect, like a deep respect for the men and women who do that every single day. And whether it's in the military or, you know, sort of police or whoever it is.

All politics aside, like, there are human beings who are living that horror show on behalf of all of us, millions of civilians. And I remember thinking this. I wish there was some way to translate this to the general public, to the people sitting back at home who are able to totally detach from everything that we do out in the world, you know, as. Whether it's the military or, you know, other foreign, and just to give them a real sense of like, thankfully this instance was nothing at all. But as a civilian who went through something that got me even this close, and then obviously there was a broader sort of war happening around us, it just, it really made me, I mean, I've always had respect for the military. Again, politics aside, like, people have volunteered to do something that most of us will not right and are literally putting their lives on the line, but it really gave me a lot of appreciation for that. It showed me also just sort of what my instincts were like in that moment and how when we do feel physically or emotionally or mentally under threat, how it is so easy to go into that tunnel vision. And some of that is a survival instinct, of course, but how quickly if we, we train ourselves right, if we go through that again and again and again, we can train ourselves into new instincts. So it was like a bigger picture insight and takeaway, but also a really sort of tactical insight which was, you know, sort of put yourself regularly in high stress, high perhaps highly volatile environments, because every time you do it, you learn something else about how you can perform better for next time. And so as a leader now, I do that with my team, with myself, sort of, not scenarios like that. But look, this is going to be a high pressure conversation. This is going to be a high intensity project, whatever it looks like, you know, in the, in the civilian world. So how are we, let's, let's run through this in as realistic a way as possible so we can see what our instincts are going to be. How are we going to respond, how are we going to behave, how are we going to interact with each other and then learn new instincts, more productive ways of proceeding in this, in this sort of. Yeah, in this really pressured environment.

Such great advice. And it's often, you know, I feel that people want to read a lot or bring experts in to say, hey, here's what you do under pressure. But actually the only way to learn how to operate effectively with pressure is to expose yourself to pressure and tensity and learn what you do and how you respond. Because you might respond with, I'm going to run towards it, James, the pressure. And I might respond, I'm going to hide under the table while you do that. And actually we both need to be running towards, or I need to be standing back keeping an eye out for you to make sure you're safe to be running towards it. So we have to learn what our roles are under pressure. So from your time in the CIA, do you have any advice for thinking clearly on highly volatile or high pressure situations?

Yes. Learn how to tune out all the noise. And this comes with practice because there is literal and figurative noise that even just in a normal day by day to day life, we're bombarded with all of the pinging of the emails and the WhatsApp and the slacks and the signals and the phone calls and all of this stuff and what I have practiced doing. And again, the CIA training, it didn't train me to do it. But I just somehow developed this ability through some of the scenarios we were doing, through some of the training we did again and again and again to, to zone out all of that stuff, all of the distractions, all of the like big flashy things happening, excuse me, in the distance and really what's in front of me, what am I going to do? Again, controlling the controllables. So now in, in sort of a leadership context, the same is true for all of us, right? Not every input is valuable, not every input is useful, not every bit of advice is worth taking on board and being able to ignore all of that. So I refer to it as tactical ignorance, right? Choosing the things that you are consciously ignoring, very tactically ignoring, because you know it's a distraction, you know it's not going to help. And zeroing in on all of the inputs that are going to be useful. So that can be everything from, look, I'm just going to lock myself in this room for an hour, right, and not let anybody physically have access to my headspace. But it's also about the information we're taking in, it's about the ideas we're letting in. And for me, in those high pressured contexts, I know that there are real diminishing returns to getting another bit of advice, another piece of insight, another person telling me, do this or do that. At some point, as a leader you have to decide, well, fine, I will take in the relevant inputs. Not everyone's the relevant inputs. Those who are qualified to give me the advice, who have done the thing before, who share my values, all of that stuff, ignore all of the other bits and then make the best decision I possibly can because there is no universe. And I think we all need to sort of give, give up this idea that there is this objectively perfect decision or an objectively optimal decision. Because every decision has so many ramifications that you can never again perfectly foresee every outcome of everything you do. So you make the decision, you make the right decision in the moment, but, and then as it unfolds, you make the decision, right? And by that I mean you don't force it to be anything other than it is. But if things aren't going the way you had hoped or you planned, then you make new decisions and you tweak it, or you pivot or you, you know, you, you change like things on the margins. But it doesn't mean that everybody gets to have a say that every input is valuable. And for me it's about just ignoring very intentionally and very Very thoughtfully, certain inputs and then letting in the high value ones. And over time, you know, people are like, well, how do you know what's high value, what's not? Isn't it useful to get all of the opinions? No. Right. We know, we know it's not, because again, they become distractions. And then it's like you're just swimming in all of this noise and chaos. So at some point you just cut it off. And there are psychological experiments. At the CIA, we did a lot of this training around, like, the diminishing returns of more information you just make. Sometimes it might feel an arbitrary decision to be like, okay, no more inputs. Right, I'm done. And then given again that, that, that. Then you put on that resourceful MacGyver hat, right? And you say, okay, well, given this is what I've got in front of me, this is what we're gonna do. Not like full steam ahead, but we're gonna test it a little bit. We're gonna take one small step and then we'll do another, and then we'll do another, see what's going on. And being a bit more agile and adaptive in real time as opposed to being like, okay, well, this is the final plan and this is how it's all going to pan out. Right. I think it's that acceptance of, I'm going to make a decision because I have to. Right. There's no such thing as perfect information. There's no such thing as an optimal decision. It's just doing the best with what you've got and then move forward in whatever way you need to and then make adjustments along the way.

That's so liberating to hear you say that as well. Like, you don't need to have all the information, and then the decisions you make will be imperfect. There's no perfect decision. And I really, honestly, personally, I appreciate hearing that a lot. It's. It's liberating. And, you know, I want to think of a business leader. Maybe they've got a small team, maybe they've got a massive corporate organization and they're trying to set a vision or a strategy. If they were to set it like the CIA sets their strategies and their visions for operations. So, yeah, what would they do? How would they approach it? Like the CIA.

Yeah. So I'm going to actually borrow from the military here because there are some. The phrasing is a little bit more accessible and it's very parallel. But the idea here is that you set what in the military they call a commander's Intent. So you set the big picture end goal, right? We want to grow 40%, we want to, you know, capture market share. We want to open up three more, you know, sort of offices or chains or whatever in the next 12 months, whatever the specific, very concrete, quantifiable outcome sort of end goal is. So that's the commander's intent, the big picture vision. And then within that, that you identify as the leader to your team. Here are the specifics, must haves, non negotiables, and here's where you have wiggle room, right? So when in a military context the commander will say capture that hill, secure that village, you know, cordon off this neighborhood. Again, the, the final end goal. And then because they are not actually in the literal field doing the doing, they have to of course give, have trust in their team and, and give some authority and independence and agility to the people who are actually putting that, that plan into place. And the commander says, okay, well now you go off and you do it. Here's what's required, here's, here again the non negotiables, here's how it has to, you know, certain things that have to be done this way. But everything else you decided on the fly. You use your intelligence, you make the best decision you can in that context because you are the one actually in, you know, sort of executing this, this strategy. And so it's a combination of setting a very clear intent and then identifying this is what's, what must happen. This is where you have, have some flexibility and sometimes the must haves are very, very small and very few. Sometimes they're, they're bigger and take a bigger proportion of that. But the reality is again, in a, in a, in a, in a business context, you know, the customer facing people, for example, will have a far better idea on the marketing, on some of the rollout strategy, etc. Than you as the leader might. So you give them as much independence to make those decisions based on their expertise and their engagement with the end customer or the client or whatever. But you also can identify, but this is what it has to look like in these specific areas. So there's a real blend of independence and empowerment of your team as well as a very clear intention from you. And that is where the magic happens, right? Because you cannot be the chief everything officer. You are not an all knowing like prescient being who can predict everything or know everything. Nobody is, no matter how smart you are. So set the content, set the intent, commander's intent, and then let your team execute it within the parameters that you establish. And sometimes you have to create them together, sometimes you can dictate them more. More fully yourself. But that's, that's the sort of the strategy and execution dance that I think is the most effective.

I love how you simplify that and distill that. Because I feel like any leader that's heard that right now can go, bam, I can do that right away. That makes sense. And also the liberating point again, is that I've never heard anyone say that. The chief everything officer. I love that. The CEO. We can't be that. We've got to empower the people around us. We can't be the know it all. And sad to say, often we find that we will, particularly at war. Geopolitical presidents, prime ministers, often they're male and often it's. There's ego at play. And that's not to say every male thinks like that, but I think that's something that male leaders probably battle with more is, I need to know it all. I do know it all and let me figure it out. Because we know that that doesn't work. We need diversity of thought. People need to be able to do their jobs. And I think the big thing here is about learning from failure. And my understanding is that the CIA gets it right sometimes and gets it wrong sometimes. So do you have a specific example where you or your team got it wrong? And then what was your process after to debrief and go, here's the lessons learned, here's what we'll do differently?

So, yes, many, but. So for example, there was one instance that I'm thinking of where what we didn't get wrong, the, the analysis, the intelligence or any of that, what we got wrong was how we presented it to the people that we were presenting it to. Because this was, you know, for most of my time at the Agency, I was working on, on one of our sort of global war on, on terror efforts and, and sort of counterinsurgency and nation building and that kind of thing. So it's already very politically charged. It's already. There are so many competing interests. There's so many.

There's so much politics involved in it, not just the US Politics and internal and sort of Congress and the President and the generals and then also all of the international sort of community that was involved. And so in this one instance, we were briefing a group of senators who are part of the oversight committee for the agency and what we do overseas. And they had started playing politics and they had started trying to score political points against the President by asking very leading questions. And we didn't feed into that. But we didn't push back as much as I. Well, I won't say we. I didn't push back as much as I would have liked to. And the lesson for me there was. So it was a failure in that sense of like my not personal integrity, but my, my instincts to not let untruths or like think the truth be twisted. And some of it was just the dynamics in the room. There was only so much airtime that I had, but some of it I just felt like, oh my gosh, they're going to leave with something totally other than what I had wanted them to leave with, right? And then they're going to go and then tell their, you know, their aides and their colleagues and it's going to turn into this whole thing. So what I learned from that specific experience was, well, one, speak up, right? Like train yourself to just speak up. Push back sometimes. To hell with the dynamics, to hell with who's in the room. To hell with, you know, all of the niceties around that kind of thing. Because nobody is served by that really, right? That like letting a myth persist or just like a twisted form of reality sort of go out into the world. But the other thing I learned is that it's not over till it's over, right? So I was. So you can always do something about that feeling of frustration or this didn't go super well or whatever the reality is. And in that case, what it looked like was having a follow on brief, right? You have some ability to have a conversation again. And so I made that effort to be like, it wasn't just my decision, of course, but hey, can we not have a do over, but can we refine this conversation? And sometimes you have to be a little bit clever about how you make that happen. Hey, there's been an update or, you know, there's something that we think you really need to hear based on what we were talking about in this con, whatever it looks like, right? You can come up with a way to get your foot back in the door. And in that instance, I was able to do so you're not always able to, so you have to sometimes, again suck that up. But in that instance, I was able to and just sort of shift things back to where I think they needed to be. Now if it. How it was received on the other side, you never know, right? But I at least did my job in being like, well, you know what? Actually that didn't go down the way I wanted it to or that it should have. And I don't want, because the stakes are so high with what we're doing, I don't want it to be anything other than what it should be to some extent. And I want to inform you in a way that you're not going to be able to twist around. So let's try this again and let's have this conversation again also, one on one or in a smaller group. So there's less ego at stake. Because what happens and what I've seen happen again and again and again, when you have this whole boardroom full of people, you know, 20 people sitting around this table, everyone's puffing up their chest, everyone wants to be the biggest brain and the biggest, the most important voice and all of this stuff, right? And this is true in mixed groups as well. You have men and women. So when you take, take that out of the picture, right? And you can just have a smaller, more intimate conversation. Not always because some egos are just too big, but a lot of the time you can have a more honest conversation and you can, and you can be a bit more. The other person can be a bit more real. So in that instance, it was a fail, a fail or, or a suboptimal sort of initial outcome that I was able to claw back and make into a more optimal outcome. But you just, again, you gotta. It's that thing you said right at the beginning, right? Control the controllables. That didn't go great, but can I, can I do this again? You don't always get a second chance. So, you know, that is also part of it. But like, what could I control? And I think that willingness to acknowledge that, like I said, it's not over till it's over or you get to decide when it's over. Right? I could keep pushing. If they had said no to that follow on meeting, I could have written a memo and sent the memo. You know, there are many other sort of ways of doing things. Until you decide that you're done fighting or until you decide that you're, you know what, that enough is enough, I'm just gonna sort of let that one ride. So it wasn't a failure per se of anything sort of tangible like the information or the intelligence for it was like the delivery just didn't. It just wasn't what it should have been. And so just learning from that and then training myself again to speak up when I would sort of feel a bit uncomfortable doing so and then try to fix things when you can.

It'S incredible.

And Rupal, as you're sharing this, you're talking about your time in the CIA. But I know that the leader listening right now is like, God, this is exactly like how a CEO has to deal with things and think. And your book, and I'm going to just say a shout out right now for the listener that's listening or the viewer that's viewing. Please go to the Show Notes. There's a link in there where you can get this best selling book from CIA to CEO. And I think it's just an incredible book. And subtitle is Unconventional Life Lessons for Thinking Bigger, Leading Better and Being Bolder. And I just love that. And don't we want to think bigger? Don't we want to lead better and be bolder? Of course we do. We live once, we want to do it the best we can. And you've created a blueprint for people. It's just, it's incredible. The one thing that interests me, Rupal, is when we're under pressure, some people can handle it really well and outwardly they look pretty cool and camp, but from a nervous system standpoint, we take all of that pressure on board and it does have an impact on our nervous system. So did all the years in CIA have any impact on your nervous system? And do you have any advice for people that are dealing with work pressure on managing that stuff?

Oh, that is really, you know, no one's ever asked me that.

I probably, right. I, I didn't have a baseline sort of assessment done of my nervous system before, during or after to be able to tell you where that sort of fluctuated or how or if that fluctuated instinctively. I would say probably yes. I mean, it's almost inevitable. Not every single day was high intensity and high pressure, but there were enough days that I would imagine, yes, it did do something to my nervous system. How I handled that, even whether, you know, whatever was happening internally, if it didn't manifest externally, how I handled it when I was consciously aware of it was a couple of things and I think again will perhaps be useful to your listeners. So I do talk a lot in my book about understanding yourself, understanding your operating manual, how you operate, how you tick, how you naturally and instinctively respond to stress, to pressure, to joy, to all of these things and not take any of it for granted because we all, I think, do this thing of like, well, this is how I am, so that's how everybody must be, right? And, and I mean, not, you know, perhaps, you know, in every single instance but we just sort of assume that how we do things is, is. Is more normal or not even normal. That's just how it is, right? The reality is everything can be trained, unlearned, retrained, you know, changed, tweaked, whatever. But first we do have to get that baseline understanding of ourselves and how we tick. And so when I did that for myself, I realized that. And this is not going to be news to anyone who knows me, I am a very emotionally extreme, not extreme, but I have very high highs and I have very low lows. And I think some of that adrenaline rush is just built into me, right? Like that, that real exhilaration and that, like, outward expression of, like, joy and success and excitement, and then also the plummets that, you know, the, the. The extreme opposite of that. And so what I found I, I needed to do was to help modulate that because it's an exhausting way to live. And it's also, as you said, not great on your nervous system or on probably your adrenal system or any of the other sort of systems that we all, you know, internally. So a couple of things that I've done and that have, you know, I started playing around with, then experimenting, trying different things that do work, don't work were all small tweaks, acknowledging who I am and how I operate. So my sort of toolkit now is a combination of one. When I find myself plummeting, for example, into like, the depths of, like, everything sucks. Nothing is worth it. Why is everything working against me? And you know, that spiral of doom that we can sort of sometimes slip into, I, I check myself and I can feel myself doing. I can feel sort of that, like, descent of the heaviness and the ugliness of like, just, why does everything suck? What I do in those moments is I force myself to stop. And it takes practice. It's not easy because again, sort of this is unlearning, you know, probably a few decades of just the way I'd always operated. I force myself to stop and think of either. What is one thing I can do to stop the suckiness, right, to like, again, control the controllables, or two, what is just one thing that's going to light me up in that moment, right? It can be something totally small. Sometimes I just scroll through pictures of my kids. I've got two small, two young daughters who are incredible and amazing and sometimes just looking at them just makes me smile and also takes me out of myself and reminds me of, like, actually, no problem is, is. Is really that serious because I've got this, you know what I mean? And just sort of that perspective of like, just, just chill, right? Like nothing is really that serious. Some things are, but most things are not, especially when it comes to work. Sometimes it's just what I do. And again, this is something I started at the agency. I started what I call a brag sheet. And this was at the time to help me with my performance reviews to, to go through like, hey, this is what I've done, this is the outcome, this is the impact, this is the accolades that, you know, we got about this piece that I worked on, et cetera, and just a regularly updated list of just the positive things that I was doing or contributing or how, you know, the comments I was receiving as my career changed and evolved out of that world into what I do now. I still keep that sort of brag sheet of like positive feedback, client testimonials, emails that I get out of the blue from people who have read my book. Like all of the things that remind me of like, you can't have the high highs unless you're also willing to accept some of the low lows. So when you are in those low lows, I bring myself back up by just reviewing. Even if it's just a few of those emails that remind me of like actually. But this is the bigger pager, this is what I am serving, this is what I'm working towards and it just helps recalibrate me internally. The other very tangible thing I do because of that sort of extreme is there were times before, especially in the early days of starting my first company, where everything was going wrong and I would, I would just be angry and frustrated and pissed off at the world for weeks, sometimes months, right? Because when I got into a zone, like I would just only focus on the negative. And then this thing happened and then that thing happened and it's not productive, it's not helpful, it doesn't change anything. It's again, it's internally exhausting and draining and literal and figurative ways. And what I did, because I know I'm the type of person who needs to get those emotions out, is I started setting myself an alarm now before my. I would give myself like a day to just wallow in self pity and like be annoyed at the world and be negative. Now I've shortened that to 15 minutes even now I still do that sometimes. I set an alarm for 15 minutes, go off into the bathroom or under the covers or into a room and just scream and cry, be angry, punch some pillows do whatever I need to get it out, help my nervous system, you know, sort of process that, whatever it's feeling. And then when that alarm goes off 15 minutes later, that's it, I'm done, right? I, I pick myself back up, clean up my face, do whatever I need to do and then do some of those other things like that first initial step. What is the one thing I can do? What's a small thing I could do? What's one thing that's going to lift me mentally and emotionally out of this, this, this place that I'm in? And it just really helps. It's, it's small things. But as we all know, as all of your listeners will know, small things compound over time and they have a real power to just, to just shift things enough, you know, and, and, and that's what I do. It's the small things that then create a different momentum and a more sort of positive or, you know, depending on which way you're looking at, positive trajectory. So that's what I do. And how my, my, my nervous system is handling that, I don't know. And then, and the last thing I do, and I know this sounds well, this is advice that we've all gotten. It's movement, it's not exercise necessarily. It's not like a three hour sweat fest in the gym for me sometimes just literally just getting my blood pumping to my muscles and away from all the stuff happening here. Sometimes it's literally a 10 minute stretching session, sometimes it's just doing a set of chin ups on like my door bar at home. But something that takes me out of my head and back into my body has been another huge sort of way of hacking myself. Right? These things might not work for everyone. So you have to again first understand yourself how you operate all of that stuff and then try different things. But these three things for me have been like gold. They're small so they're easy to do. It's not like a whole plan, a whole, okay, well step one, then step 15 or whatever, right? Keep it simple because when you are stressed, when you are in those high pressure times of your life, you're not going to have the bandwidth or the headspace or the time to do a whole like, okay, go and sit and meditate for six hours and then go and you know, all of that stuff. I'm all about the realistic, like just give me something that's going to just shift things enough. And these are all really simple things to do.

Such tactical advice. And you know what people need to Hear that right now because we're in a fast paced world. We've got to so much information. We've got a million, 3 million podcasts, I think it is, you know, we've got all these commitments. Information in the news is every two minutes. Notifications are in the hundreds a day. So getting tactical advice like that is just absolute gold. Now, Rupal, I want to be mindful of your time, but I've just got a couple of questions before we wrap up. So one, a lot of leaders are in the headwinds right now. Difficult times in lots of industry right around the world. What's the piece of advice as a CEO that you would give to them? What's their role? What's the most important component of their role as the leader of their team or their company in these difficult times?

Fundamentally, and this is true in difficult times even and less difficult times, be honest with yourself, but also with your team. And that second part, I think is so hard for CEOs because of that whole thing around society has created this expectation that you have to have all the answers. You have to justify your paycheck or to justify your title. You have to have it all figured out and know what's going to happen and be able to predict the right way of proceeding. And the reality is, as we've talked in many different ways about, that's just not how it works, right? So as a CEO, be very honest about what you know, what your challenges are and what you're trying to figure out. And it's not, you know, go out and like sort of cry in front of your team or act like you don't have, you don't know anything, because that's also not true. But just be very candid. And I have had to have this conversation many times with myself first and also with, you know, with my team around me. Hey, look, I know things are difficult, right? Here's what I'm doing, here's what is taking up my time, my attention, my energy. When I am open to ideas, I will come to you for ideas. Right now I just need you to leave me alone, for example. But sometimes it is, hey, these are the challenges, this is what I've tried and I don't think it's working. What do you guys think? Right? And you can have layers to who you ask some of these questions, who you have these more honest conversations with. It's not about having a calling a town hall necessarily and just, you know, baring your soul, but I think be very honest about the reality and I think what it does is it humanizes you, which is important just in general. It also takes some of your pressure off because you're not the only person who's in charge of making this company succeed or fail. Right. I love sports analogies, especially team sports analogies because they are in many ways so apt for leadership. You are just one person. Yes, you are the person at the top. The buck stops with you. All of the responsibility is ultimately yours. But you are not the only person whose role it is to do something about the challenges or to pursue the opportunity. So force other people to earn their paycheck, right? Bring them into the conversation, have them come up with the ideas, the strategy, the execution, or at least have that conversation and not keep it all for yourself. So for me, it's really about a candid assessment of what you can do, what you can't do. Who do you need to talk to, who do you need to be bringing in? And when you are a bit more honest in a relevant way. Right. Again, you don't have to sort of tell everything to everybody, but sometimes it also just helps calm the nerves in the organization because again, being a leader is in many ways similar to being a parent. Your kids and your, and I'm not saying this in a patronizing way or in a paternalizing or maternalizing way, but you know, our kids, I have two young kids, they feel everything. Whether or not I'm telling them something's wrong or something is distracting me or stressing me out, they know, right? And it affects them, it infects them. The same is true for our organization. When we are going through something or when we are angry or frustrated or stressed or whatever, everybody around us feels it. And then it's this trickle down effect that, you know, your sort of next layer down feels it. So then they feel it and they sort of, they're exposing it and it's. You're casting this really dark shadow. So talk about the elephant in the room, right? And just give some of that away. It doesn't have to be, you know, a total guessing game for, for the rest of your team. And then it just reassures them that actually everything's not going to turn into hell tomorrow. Right. Like I think people, when they don't know what's going on, they will fill in the gaps with the biggest catastrophes that they can imagine. You know, there's going to be redundancies or we're going to shut down shop or things, you know, whatever it is. Sometimes that's true, right? So sometimes you have to walk that line of, like, honesty and, like, just uncertainty a bit more carefully. But a lot of times it's not true. It's just we're going through a period of uncertainty or challenge or stress or whatever. Let's be honest about it. Here's what's going on. Here's what I know, here's what I don't know, here's what we might have to think about in the coming months. And it just gives everybody a bit more certainty and then frees them to come up with creative solutions because they're not going to go into that tunnel vision of stress. And like, every day is this the last day? Are we going to hear the bad news? Like, you know, it just creates a really weird context to operate in when there is a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty. So take it out of the picture whenever you can.

I seriously admire your ability to share insights through incredible analogies because it makes it so easy to connect with and understand. And for me, I'm taking that on board for my team, selfishly, in times that, you know, that different people are dealing with different things. But I know a lot of leaders in the corporate sphere right now are struggling with major headwinds, so that was gold. Politicians have opposition that they don't love. Often people have opposition or enemies or, you know, people they're competing against. As a CIA operative analyst, you would have an enemy, potentially opposition, we might call them. What's your perspective on having empathy for your enemy or your. Or your opposer?

I think.

There are two elements to this. One is it's important to have empathy with everyone. Not because you're going to go out and become best friends, but if for no other reason than to understand, however, best you can, right, that whole thing of, like, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Sometimes it's more important to understand your enemies or your opposition or your haters or whatever, and just how they operate and how they. How they tick. Only to the extent that it is useful to get into that headspace. Right. In some ways, if it's going to affect your strategy, affect your execution of anything. Because I think sometimes we can also get too distracted by our enemies and our oppositions and the naysayers and all that stuff. And actually it is exactly that. It's just a distraction. So I would say sort of tread carefully with how much time and attention you give your enemies because it will force you to look away from what you're supposed to be focusing on, which is your organization, your life, your ambitions, your strategies. Whatever it looks like. So, again, I think that piece of, like, tactical ignorance is really key here. It's be very careful about how much attention and how much of your enemies you are letting in and how you're letting that affect you and impact you, and be very intentional about how much of that you're keeping out. And most of the time it's not relevant, really. Most of the time, especially in corporate and business context, we're so obsessed with our competition or perceived competition or what they're doing over there. What's happened over there, that's irrelevant because you cannot do anything about what they're doing. Right. Again, a sports analogy. But here is perfect. Run your own race. There are always going to be faster sprinters. There are always going to be slower sprinters. You do your training, you focus on your nutrition, on your physio, on all of the things that you do, and then you run your own race. Because if you're constantly looking around, you're going to get off pace, you're going to run faster when you should be perhaps, you know, holding a little bit back. You have a style, your organization has a culture, it has a best practice, it has. It's something that makes it unique. What everybody else is doing is pretty much largely irrelevant. And. And I think we, we obsess over competition and enemies and like, oh, well, well, it's just a useful benchmark, right? I just want to know what's happening over there. Fine. No, but then don't obsess over, right? Like, know enough so that you're not blindsided, right? You don't want someone to come in and just totally like, take over your market or whatever more extreme case might be. But the reality is, like, we shouldn't let our enemies dictate who we are. And I know that sounds a bit sort of. Well, actually, it sounds whatever it sounds like, but that's the reality, right? Like, you are who you are. You are the organization you are, your company, your team, your people, your culture, your product, your service. It is what it is. It is not somebody else's. So if you are so worried about that other person and getting into their headspace and what they're doing and how they're operating. You're not going to be performing at your best. You're not going to be making the most of what you have. So to be honest, ignore as much of that as you possibly can. The other reality is, like, on a more personal level, when you have, and this happens a lot to leaders, especially as you get more and More senior, more and more high profile. You just all of a sudden enter people's firing lines without even realizing it, right? Like I do a lot of public facing work, whether it's keynotes or podcasts or, you know, sort of events and that kind of thing. Writing a book and you just never know how it's going to be received. And I think again, this idea that everybody either has to love you or hate you. You're with me or you're against me, it's so unnecessarily binary. The reality is most people, for example, don't care. They actually aren't your enemy. They might seem that way, but they were just having a bad day and they were being a jerk because you just were a target of opportunity. It's really not personal. A lot of times, yes, people will love you and a lot of times people won't like you. So what? Right? I think again, this, this need we have as human beings to be liked and admired is a human need for sure. But there is no way you can do anything of any importance. How big or how small you define. You cannot do it only with a group of cheerleaders, right? You're going to get haters, you're going to get negativity, you're going to get bad press from time to time that you don't deserve. That's just life. So I would say accept. It's just part of the process.

For me personally, it gets easier to just again, put in its rightful place over time. And because the main thing is, is that if I am paying attention to all of that, it's going to take my eye off the ball of the people who I am serving, of the people who I can reach, of the people who I do want to resonate with. And that's what you have to remind yourself is that for every hater, for every detractor, for every person who sends you a negative review or gives you a one star review on Amazon, there will be others who actually need you to keep doing exactly what you're doing and how you are doing it. Because. Because it is serving a need. It is inspiring, enlightening, helping, whatever it's doing. So actually, I've sort of gone in a different direction than I started. But actually, don't pay your enemies much mind. They really don't matter.

That's such gold. And for the listener or the viewer that's listening right now, I know you're loving this. So I'm going to just give you one more reminder in the show notes, you can go and get this amazing book from CIA to CEO. Please do go and get it. And secondly, if you'd like Rupal to come and speak at your conference, your organization, she's available for keynote speaking. I'm going to put her details in there as well, so you can connect with her directly on socials or through her website. Rupal, just one last question for you.

You got it.

So I want you to fast forward many, many years into the future. You're highly aware that it's your last day here on earth and a very young person that you love dearly comes into the room and says, rupal, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What would you say to.

Man, gosh, that's a beautiful question. I got chills.

Don't let other people decide that for you and be willing to try different things. So so many things around this intangible idea around purpose is, is, is sort of like, oh, but how do I find my purpose? And for me, nothing like that can be a theoretical exercise, right? You have to live your life. You have to make mistakes, you have to make good decisions, bad decisions, have your heart broken, you know, have some, you know, again, high highs and lows, lows. And then it, it evolves over time. You will probably get inklings of it throughout your life. And there will be, at least for me, I will say there's always been this like inner sense of something. And I remember very vividly when I was, I think it was 19, I was having a chat with a friend of mine at university and I remember saying to him, I just feel like I was made for something big. And at that time, at 19, I had barely any life experience really, if you think about it. Or I can say that now sort of, you know, being almost twice as old or more than twice as old and. But that feeling never really left me. But the reality was what that purpose was, I had no idea what that something big was. I had no idea. So for me, what I would say to this young person is, over the course of your life, decide the what right that I want to have a positive impact. I want to make my community better. I want to start a, you know, a billion dollar company, whatever it is, decide the what, but be open to how again, within sort of the as long as it fits with your values and your integrity, right? Not everything goes. But be open to the how and the form it takes for you to achieve that goal. And most importantly, be very, very open about the when. Because as we all know, success takes time but it takes its own time. And as much as we like to try to force things or make things happen or do all that alpha stuff, the reality is that we cannot accelerate the process beyond a very small margin. So decide the what. Be open to the how and to the when. And while you are in that exploratory phase, do not let other people infect your choices. It's hard to do, especially as you're younger, but actually, I would argue even as you get older, there's so much noise and so much expectation about what things should like and what things should be like and how you should be and how much you should have or what you should do or all of these things. These things. And again, as you get a little bit more life experience, I would say just start tuning all of those shoulds out. Or as my friend put it so beautifully, is stop shoulding all over yourself. Right? So be open to the how and to the when and stop shooting all over yourself.

I love it. That's such golden advice and I know there's many listeners right now going, my God, I needed to hear that. Rupal, thank you so much for the work that you do and thank you for opening us to your work world and sharing your book with the world. It's going to make such a difference and an impact not only on businesses and leaders, but on humans trying to live better lives. So thank you so much.

It's been my pleasure, James. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you to your audience for tuning into our chat.

They will have loved it. Thank you. I'd like to thank NZ Mortgages for sponsoring the Lead On Purpose podcast. You can check them out at nzmortgages.co nz.