71: Finding Faith, Courage and Confidence as a Secret Agent—Michele Rigby Assad's Pivot from CIA to Author

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Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. I am so excited, just absolutely joyful to have my good friend Michelle Rigby Asad here with us on the podcast. Fun Fact. Michelle is the sister of one of my bestest friends in the world, Julie Clow, who's in Pivot. Julie and I met working at Google 11 years ago and I've had the great joy and pleasure of getting to know Michelle in the years since. This woman is a badass. Ladies and gentlemen, Michelle Assad is a former undercover officer in the US CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations. She was trained as a counterterrorism specialist and served her country for 10 years, working in Iraq and other secret Middle Eastern locations. By the way, for the first good half of my time knowing Michelle, it was that Julie's sister worked in the State Department. That's all that we could know. So upon her retirement from active Service. Michelle and her husband Joseph, who's also a former agent, joined a group of Americans who wanted to aid persecuted Christians. So their efforts resulted in the evacuation of a group from northern Iraq that was featured on ABC's 2020 in December a few years ago. Michelle holds a master's degree in Contemporary Arab Studies from Georgetown and today she serves as an international security consultant, splitting her time between the Middle East, Florida and D.C. what's really exciting is that Michelle's first book is coming out in February, so you can pre order now. It's called Breaking My Secret Life in the CIA and what it Taught Me about what's Worth fighting for. Michelle, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Jenny. I'm very excited to talk with you today.

You basically lived as a real life. Mr. And Mrs. Smith.

Did you ever think growing up as you described, a sweet faith based Southern girl that you'd be cut out to become a spy?

Never in my wildest dreams. I think to even dream something like that, you have to have a concept that it's possible. And so it would never enter my mind. Like I wanted to be a ballerina, I wanted to be a Rockette. I never thought CIA, ever.

It's so wild. Like, you know, Michelle grew up in a small town in Florida and I'm sure probably didn't travel much internationally growing up. Maybe. I think you said maybe you did one mission abroad.

Yeah. So I mean, I did not even grow up in a family that knew much about the world. I mean, we did not have passports. My parents weren't political, so they didn't talk about politics or foreign affairs. So I was very sheltered. And you know, it's a small town that I grew up in central Florida. And so you just aren't exposed to very many different things. So I had a very, my childhood was very simple. But the one thing that really had a huge influence on me is National Geographic magazine, which delighted me. The pictures and the photos and all of these foreign cultures really grabbed my interest in a massive way. And so when I got the opportunity in high school to do a mission trip, I jumped on it. I so wanted to go abroad and see something completely new and different. And so a couple days after my high school graduation, I traveled to Egypt with a group of students. And so it was this trip to Egypt that really introduced me to the whole rest of the world outside of my little town in Florida and really kind of changed the direction of my.

Whole life for more than one reason. Isn't it fascinating how we find those clues like for you, National Geographic, huh? What an interesting clue. And then I led you to go on this trip to Egypt. And wasn't it on that trip that you met your future husband?

Yeah, so in fact, he was the reason why I went on the trip because he was leading this group of students from the university to Egypt to work in an orphanage.

An orphanage that his parents ran. And so I had met Joseph through mutual acquaintances in central Florida. And so I went on that mission trip with him, obviously not knowing he was going to be my future husband. And I was so fascinated by Egypt because it was so different than anything I knew in my life. Different culture, different sounds, smells, food, ways of doing things. And so it kind of whet my appetite to understand more about the world. I just realized how little I knew.

Do you remember a moment that stood out to you or just your impression of the region?

Yeah, there are so many of them. But I remember we were so excited to.

To be in the orphanage and help these kids and be some great influence in their lives. And.

It was so overwhelming because all the kids were so excited to see these foreigners and these Westerners and make new friends. But it was so frustrating not being able to speak their language, and it was so frustrating not to have that greater connection. So I think that that.

Gave me the seeds of wanting to learn Arabic and wanting to understand where these people were coming from and understand more about their lives and their backgrounds. And so it just kept. All these little experiences kept whetting my appetite for more.

And you ended up going on to study Middle Eastern studies and learning Arabic while you were at Georgetown. And then as Joseph was applying to the CIA, you did, too. And you described this early whiplash of rejection where you went through the process of applying. And wasn't it that you got rejected for an analyst role, which I would love for you to explain just what happened, how you felt at that time, and how it ended up being the perfect catalyst so that you weren't stuck behind a desk your whole life.

So, Jenny, I'm not one of those people for whom success has come quickly or easily. I have struggled so much along the way to find my place in the world, and I think it's really important for people to understand that, because we tend to look at people who we think have made it, and it looks like it was just instant success, but when, in fact, I could not get a job to save my life after getting married and moving to D.C. and when I finally did get a job, it was as an administrative assistant, and it was you know, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that I didn't believe that was my ultimate calling. And I had friends who were on the Hill and they were getting these amazing jobs working for congressmen and senators and think tanks. And I'm looking at them, I'm like faxing and filing and I'm looking at them and they're like, creating policy. And I thought, what's wrong with me that I can't seem to find a job that suits me or is giving me a chance to learn and grow and do something more significant?

So, because I didn't know what else to do, Jenny, I decided, okay, I'm just going to take baby steps in the direction of my passion. So I decided to take an Arabic class, and I could barely afford it, so I got the cheapest Arabic class I could find. And I took that class at night so it didn't interfere with my job. And then I had this, again, this very strong intuitive pull. You and I have talked about intuition a lot, and it was, I need to study the Middle east as much as possible because somehow my life is heading in that direction and I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do with it, but I have to do this. And so I ended up applying to Georgetown and getting in because they have this amazing Middle east program. And so I got into Georgetown and my family said, what the heck are you going to do with an Arab Studies degree? I mean, because they loved me and they cared, but it just seemed so strange. And I said to them, I absolutely have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this degree. Really induced quite a bit of confidence in my parents, of course.

But I did it. I got my degree. And then while I was studying at Georgetown, I went to an informational session about the CIA. So at the end of that session, I ended up putting my resume into a pile and was terribly surprised three weeks later when I got a call back from a CIA recruiter. While I was finishing up at Georgetown, I was actually getting hired into the CIA and going through this really long interview and vetting process. And so I graduated Georgetown and I was due to start my job within like two or three weeks. And in the mail, Jenny, I got this one page letter from the CIA. And I opened it up and it was a rejection letter that said that I had done something and I was no longer qualified for this position in the CIA. I literally fell on the ground. And I thought I was in such shock, like, I don't know what I just did that jeopardized the CIA job. I'm not aware of having done anything that could have put myself in that position. And I spent the next couple of years trying to figure out again what to do with my life and why am I back to square one. So frustrated and thinking there must be something wrong with me that it's taking me this long to figure out my place in the world. And there was so much doubt and uncertainty that flowed through me at that time. So eventually met with a friend who said that he was applying to the CIA. And I had such a bad taste in my mouth from my experience, that I almost couldn't listen to him talk about it. They said, no, no, no, this job isn't as an analyst like you were hired initially. This is to be in the field, in operations. And this. This is what we all need to be doing, me, you, and Joseph. And I'm like, oh, really? There's this whole other side to the CIA. He said, yeah, yeah, you have got to apply. Well, eventually, Joseph applied first. Because I wasn't yet allowed to reapply to the Agency, I had to wait an entire year. So my husband ended up getting into the CIA operations side of the house first. And then I went through the process and followed him in. And after I got hired and vetted and I was about to start training for the CIA, I learned that had I gotten that earlier job as an analyst, I could have never taken a job in the field and operations, because once you're in the CIA, you are stuck in that side of the house. And so I didn't ultimately know. You know, I would have been at a computer behind a desk in Washington, D.C. area for my whole career versus being in the Middle east, being in the field, being on the front lines of the war on terror, which is what happened when I got taken into the operations side of the house. Had I not been rejected, I would have been stuck in a position that wasn't right for me. So I am a huge advocate of understanding, of trying to understand that when you are experiencing rejection, even though it's painful and it hurts, it is rejection that often gets us to the places that we really need to be.

And it's so hard, not in the moment, not to take it personally, that like you said, you never thought you were cut out for this. You were feeling like, what's wrong with me? You say in the book that you always assumed everyone else was smarter than you, more experienced and better prepared. So why wouldn't that be the case here? And then, sure enough, it is revealed to you later. And that's such a prominent theme in your book, is the faith that even. And you finding your faith over and over from these experiences that later you have the aha. Oh, so that's why that didn't work out in that way at that time.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm one of those people who tends to get very intimidated easily by things. And so basically, I had to have faith in something greater than myself to get me through these. These times. For me, that's a faith in God. For, you know, for other people, it's different things. But for me, it was incredibly important to understand that something, a force greater than I was in charge of my life, because otherwise I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in myself. And I also couldn't find meaning in the chaos of life without that. Otherwise, you know, a rejection is simply a rejection. But when you have faith that you are supposed that you are meant to do something worthwhile in life, you can hold on to that notion that even rejection.

And things that seem to be so unexpected are the things that help move you into your place of purpose.

What's so wild about hearing you talk is for you to be saying, I'm easily intimidated. I didn't have a lot of confidence. I worried that I wasn't good enough, wasn't smart enough. And yet here you are. You now land this role doing fieldwork. You were interrogating dissidents, and your job was to try to discern who is a terrorist or not. Or we're actually interrogating and speaking with those who are identified as dissidents and learning from them and getting information from them. So here you are, this woman who you. It's just the most beautiful juxtaposition and should give us all so much encouragement that despite these inner doubts at times, here you are doing what some would say, that's no job for a woman. You can't be interrogating dissidents in the Middle East. It's not safe. And you're not going to be good at it, for that matter. They're not going to trust you. They're not going to want to talk to you. What was your experience like, not only as a CIA intelligence officer working in war zones in the Middle east, but doing it as a woman.

Yeah. Yes. I love what you just said, Jenny, because that really is the whole point of the book. Because people look at me and they're like, wow. Counterterrorism expert, counterintelligence expert, person who's Worked all over the Middle east, like, you must be fearless. Well, actually, it's the opposite, which is so funny about this whole thing, that my purpose was to do something so far on the edge of life, when, in fact, I was just this cute little kid from central Florida who, you know, had a little ballet box and wanted to be a ballerina. So.

When I finally made it through training and was deployed abroad, my husband and I were sent to a place I'm not allowed to specify, but it was a very, very difficult place. And we kept being, my husband and myself, that he should be the one doing operations in the field, not me, because he was the guy. And because as counterterrorism officers, our job is to meet with sources, to stop. To gather intelligence that we need to stop attacks from occurring. So obviously, who are we going to be meeting with? We're going to be meeting with bad guys, with people that, if they met you on the street, would prefer to cut off your head, not engage with you. So these are the kinds of sources we had. And they said, given that these people are so radical, they would never respect a woman. So your husband is so much better prepared to do this than you are. And so I got funneled in a particular position, and he got funneled into another. And that's generally how the CIA worked. Women to the left, men to the right. And so not only did I have this internal intimidation factor as part of my general personality, but then I was specifically told, and told repeatedly that as a female, I didn't have what it took to do this job. And then I had a special project that I was given by leadership when I was serving in Baghdad. And the project was that I needed to collect a particular kind of intelligence on an attack that occurred. And so it got me into the debriefing room finally. And.

There'S no better learning about terrorists than meeting directly with them. That's like the best schooling you could ever get in terrorism. And so when I walked in that room, Jenny, I had so many disadvantages. So as a female, the men that I was meeting with assumed that I was not intelligent. I couldn't possibly know anything about the Middle East. And I had absolutely no business being in that room, debriefing them and trying to collect intelligence. And so I thought to myself, because I had studied the Middle east for so long, and I had traveled in the Middle east, and I had lived there as a student, and I had been on the mean streets of Cairo, I understood this thinking, and I understood the guys that I was dealing With. So I said, okay, Michelle, this is what you've been preparing for for years. This is your chance. And so I took all of my knowledge of Arabic and culture and human motivations and I was able to figure out very strategically how in the first five minutes of that meeting I could address those assumptions about me with that terrorist, turn them on their head, and then get this guy to rethink who I was and then decide to place his trust in me. And so I took my disadvantage, I turned it on its head, and then I turned it into my advantage. And once the terrorist said, oh my gosh, this, this, this person is smart. Oh my gosh, she understands Iraq. Oh, holy cow, she understands me, then I could sense a sea change in the room where he just decided he was willing to put his life in my hands. And then I went, I turned it into now a position of power because now he wanted to impress me. So now I have used all my knowledge of culture and human motivation and non verbal communication to get this guy to give me intelligence that he would not give other officers. And so it was a light bulb, an aha moment for me that like, we shouldn't be playing the game the way everyone else is telling us to do it. You've got to find a way, your own way, using your skill set and your knowledge to do it in your way. And you'll find that the results of that are so much greater.

This story just gets a slow standing clap from me. So cool to hear you describe how this thing, this complete hindrance, according to everybody else, that you're a woman, you were able to flip on its head and therefore surprise people, disarm them. Use your intuition. One of the things that I love about you and that I find so fascinating. So those of you listening, I've had the pleasure of going on vacation with Michelle and Julie. And Michelle will sit down with us by the pool and be like, so let me break down some body language for you. Here's exactly how you know when someone's up to no good. And it's, it's incredible how you have developed your sensitivity to detail and body language and intuition over the years. How have you, has that served you in the field?

Oh my gosh, so much.

And if you can give us like a pointer or two about listening to your intuition, I would love that.

Okay, so one of those first debriefings that I got in for the special project was with a. He was probably mid-20s, he was an Al Qaeda emir. And that means the head of an Al Qaeda cell in a particular neighborhood in Baghdad, and he was being run by another officer for. He'd been run for, like, a year and a. And I came into that meeting to do this special debrief. And these meetings are very long, Jenny, so they might be, like three hours, but you are doing so much in that three hours that it feels like three minutes. And so you're speeding through this really, really important debrief. And so we finished up that day, and I went back to the office, and I had this very strange feeling that I just could not shake that something was wrong. And I kept telling myself, michelle, you're just being sill. But something about that debriefing was not right. But I couldn't put my finger on it. And I wrestled with this over, like, numerous days. What is wrong with me? And why does that guy bother me? There is something about him that's just not adding up. And instead of just, like, ignoring it, I decided to entertain it in my brain. And I really spent so much mental energy trying to break through what my intuition was telling me about him. And so it took me a good three or four days to make these realizations. But it finally dawned on me, because at that point, I had met with so many real terrorists, and these guys had such huge personalities. And then suddenly I was in the room with this guy who's supposed to be a big old Al Qaeda meer, you know, really important, really tough guy. But what I saw through his body language told me otherwise. And so I was able to tease out of my subconscious the fact that when I asked him very specific questions on his role in the group, he shifted a lot and looked very uncomfortable in that moment. Then I would switch it, and I would ask an easy question, what I considered easy question. And then he'd get comfortable again. And then I would revisit the topic later on about his specific.

Duties within Al Qaeda. Because if you're an Al Qaeda mirror, you're going to be able to tell me all kinds of things about who's in the group, what they. What your responsibilities are, how you plan attacks, things like that. And he could not specify these things to me. And every time I asked those questions, I saw expressions of discomfort in the way that he was sitting or the way that he couldn't look at me any longer, his eyes. And so I finally realized that this guy is not who he said he was. And in subsequent debriefings, I was actually able to prove that not only was he not in Amir, he was never in Al Qaeda. He was never even in the group. And so he had spent a year fabricating this information and getting paid for it, because the poor guy just needed to put food on his table and feed his family. And it was the only way he knew how to do that. And so what I ended up learning from that experience, Jenny, is that when you're lying, it's really difficult to act like you do when you're not lying. And so when you're a debriefer, say you're in law enforcement or intelligence or your own mother, for goodness sakes, you get to have a good understanding or a baseline of how the person you're talking to normally acts. You know, how your child acts when everything's fine, or if you're in the debriefing room, you want to talk about topics that make people feel comfortable, that are easy to talk about, and then you get a baseline for their nonverbals. And that way you are able to identify a departure from that baseline. So let's say the person is just sitting very casually in their seat, and then you ask a question, and suddenly they jump out of their seat and they start pacing across the room like, I've literally had that happen to me. And every time that particular topic is raised, they literally couldn't even sit in their own seat and made them so uncomfortable. So reading body language is so much about establishing that baseline and then identifying the moments when they depart from that baseline. And that doesn't necessarily mean they're lying so much. Something about that line of questioning makes them so uncomfortable that they can't contain their nervous energy and have to do something to let that energy out.

This is so fascinating and how much experience you've had over the years to gather those data points where now, like you said, what I love about you is that you feel something in your body and you now know to pay attention to it, that so much of intuition is being willing to say, huh, Something's not right. And instead of beating yourself up thinking, oh, what's wrong with me? Why can't I just get on board? You pay attention and get curious.

Yeah, get curious and then see, like, what can you do to honor that intuition in the future? Never discard it, always honor it. And then see what you can do to try to make sense of that intuition.

One thing that I have come to learn about myself in the last year and a half. So my partner is Lebanese, and in getting to know him better, I realized that the only news that I ever heard about the Middle east was about Terrorists. And really, I didn't know anything about Lebanon, where he's from, other than a friend who had gone to Beirut for three weeks this one time. And I would love to know from you, because you've worked in the region, you've worked in war zones, you've worked in horrible conditions, but your husband is Middle Eastern, and you have spent so much time studying the Middle East. What you love about that reaction?

Oh, my gosh, I love how hospitable Middle Easterners are. I really did not know what hospitality was until I went to the Middle East. And then I, you know, you're a guest in someone's home, and they fall over themselves in order to serve you, in order to make you happy. And I remember thinking to myself, oh, that's what hospitality is. The idea that as a guest, they. They will give you the last, you know, grain of rice that they. If they don't have much. I remember when I was 18 years old and volunteering in the orphanage, I complimented a young girl on her barrette, and she literally took the barrette out of her hair and gave it to me.

Out of that sense of trying to be generous with others. I was so struck by that generosity, that hospitality, and I have learned to incorporate that into my own life, and I'm so grateful for that.

That I loved your anecdote in the book about preparing meals, and that this was a big stretch for you to learn how to prepare Middle Eastern food. And that you'd be surprised when, after toiling in the kitchen all day, everyone eating the meal would start giving you feedback like, oh, this would be better with a little more lemon here or a little bit of this there. And it's so funny because Michael does the same thing to me, like, oh, this is great, but it could use a little lemon. And the first time he did it, I just took it kind of personally. I was kind of bummed, like, oh, man. And then when I read it in your book, I thought, oh, okay, makes sense. Like, it's so fascinating to learn. I'm with you. Just the entertaining, the generosity, the kindness of spirit, the sense of community. I've never felt so welcomed so immediately by a group of people I've never even met in person yet.

Absolutely, yes. And so I love that. That really strong sense of community. And it's the reason why, if you think about it, when you look at large concentrations of people who. From a different country in, like, cities in the United States, you'll often notice that, oh, you know what? All the Arabs live in this high rise apartment building. It's because they don't feel generally comfortable living in a home all by themselves. They're so used to strong community, being part of their lives, that they like to live in more, like, communal conditions. And I think that's a really beautiful thing.

Tell me more now about the book journey. How did you go from 10 years undercover where even the people closest to you couldn't know what you were, were doing, to this feeling that it was time to share your story? And, like, when that feeling dropped in, you must have been somewhat terrified. Like, how to go from completely undercover to sharing your story publicly. I would love to hear more about that journey.

Yeah. So it was even within the CIA. Joseph's and my career was considered pretty difficult. So I have a lot of colleagues, current and former, that worked in the CIA whose careers were far easier than ours. But I think because we were both Arabists, we got sent to, like, one war zone after another. And it was so challenging, Jenny, you know, to be so far apart from the people that you love. You know, work, the pressures of working undercover, the stress of working such long hours every single day, working weekends, working holidays, you just can't keep that pace up forever. It takes a toll on you. And so after 10 years of that, I think we were really exhausted and. And.

Joseph's father passed away and was experiencing quite a bit of grief. And there was a moment in which I was by myself in my apartment and I was having a little grief session, Essentially very overwhelmed at a lot of the emotions I was dealing with.

In that moment, I heard a voice that said, time to write your book. So it was very strange. Even now saying it out loud, I know that sounds weird to a lot of people.

Seems really strange, but this is what I experienced. And I said, well, time to write what book? And it repeated, time to write your book. And the thing about me is, Jenny, I never wanted to write a book. I never dreamed of writing a book. It's not on my bucket list, so it's not like something in the back of my head. And so in that moment, I said, but I don't know how to write a book. But I just knew in that moment that. That the right people would be placed in front of me at the right times to give me the knowledge to know how to do that. And you were one of those angels for me that helped give me direction and guide me in a very critical moment when I'd been called to do this thing for which I felt completely unprepared and Completely lacking in knowledge. And so that began a six year process to get this book written and get a publishing deal and get it out.

By the time it's out in February. It would have been seven years of a great deal of rejection and uncertainty on that path. But again, because of course, nothing comes easy for me.

I had to stay strong. Even in the moments when I thought, I don't know if I'm ever going to get a book deal. But I had to cling onto the idea that I was called to do this. It was a spiritual calling and therefore it will have to come to pass in one way or another. I kept with it even when there just seemed to be no reason to do so at times.

I remember when you first mentioned this idea, I felt such conviction as well, that this book is happening. I mean, I could see it, Julie and I knew. We were just like, oh, this is happening. We knew you would get an agent. We knew you would get a deal. But you're right, it didn't come easily over those six years. There were plenty of rejections. This is the third version of the book that you've written, right?

Yes.

And not to mention, we hear all this hullabaloo about creating a personal brand. Well, you had the reverse of a personal brand. You had. Everything you ever did was secret. How are you going to get a book deal with no platform and no ability to show what you had done? You were up against something really challenging.

Oh, my gosh. Exactly. In fact, you know, you read all the books on how to write a book and how to get a book deal. And the number one thing is you have to have a very well established, established public Persona and platform. And I'm coming into this with like, I've been a ghost for the last 10, 15 years of my life. And so how do you overcome that?

It felt, you know, here we were undercover for so long, and even after we left the agency, we did such sensitive work for the next five years that even after that it. So it'd been really like 15 years of hiding. How do you then come out from underneath that and then start promoting yourself? It was absolutely terrifying.

It's funny, when you're in the CIA, you will Google yourself to make sure you don't show up.

You don't want to be in the news. And here suddenly you're being saying, well, unless you've got a certain amount of Twitter followers or Facebook friends or LinkedIn connections, we will not even look at your book proposal. So the fact that I have a book coming Out. For me, it's a total miracle.

Beyond the tactics of starting to become more. More public facing, how does it feel, the inner shift that's required of you? It must be nerve wracking to put yourself out there in some way. I don't know, I don't want to speak for you, but I'm just curious. The rest of us kind of struggle with vulnerability and putting ourselves out there. And I've been building an online platform for 11 years. So what is it like for you just now starting to share your story?

Terrifying.

Completely terrifying. You know, I wasn't used to social media and even now I really struggle with it. And I have to push myself because at the same time, you know, being a public personality, as a former counterterrorism officer, there is a risk associated with that. And I, and I have measured that risk and decided that the calling to inspire others was worth it. So there is an actual risk attached to me doing this, number one. Number two is that this huge intimidation factor of putting yourself out there. And again, I love talking to you about intuition, but I've had some folks telling me that I need to put videos out. I need to put the videos out on social media. And so I spent the last couple of days trying to video myself at numerous locations around my house. And it just felt wrong and I could not make it work. And suddenly I had a moment where I was like, forget the video cameras, the two of them you've been trying to use. I grabbed my cell phone, I turned it around, I did the whole video selfie thing. And I did probably put together in like a couple of hours, about 15 short video selfies where I just speak about my passion, different little tiny things of my passion. And then I asked questions and I suddenly had an aha moment where I was like, yes, intuitively that felt right. And so there's this sense of, you know, how can I spend my energy doing the things that matter the most? And it's not the same thing for everyone. And so in that moment, I'm like, okay, you gotta trust your intuition when something's not working. Move on and find out what will work for you.

Absolutely. And we've talked about this. There are so many ways to write a book, market a book, and everything that goes with it. And why bother with the stu that feels terrible. Why bother with the stuff that you're cringing? And I know that feeling where something that I should do and I cannot bring myself to do it. And I love that in this case, you took the pressure off and you just said, you know what? I have a phone, and I can do a selfie video and look at how prolific then it was once you followed your intuitive hit about what would feel good.

Exactly. Exactly. Right. And the other thing was, you know, just approaching. Writing a book for me, I love. Just like you, I love to inspire people. So I have no problem getting on a stage and speaking to large groups of people. And so what I decided when I was trying to write my book is I said, well, Michelle, just pretend that you're standing on a stage and you're speaking. You're communicating with people. And so that's literally how I wrote my book, and that's the voice that the book is written in. I'm not trying to be the greatest author ever on the face of the planet. I'm just trying to get a message across that I believe will resonate with other people. And so through the entire process, I've had to think about, this is for people like me who need a little extra reassurance that you're normal, there's nothing wrong with you, and that you've got to push through the uncertainty and fear and get to the place of your calling and purpose.

So beautifully said. You are so articulate. It's truly. You guys will not believe this. Listening. This is Michelle's first podcast.

Yay.

Does that shock you? I know. It's like I can listen to you all day. And I love how you say in the book, you say God does not require perfection. That the message you got? He said, I need empty vessels.

Yes. And so really, we all have this. Well, not we all. I think a lot of us have this intimidation factor of, like, I can't do Project A unless I have attained, you know, unless I. I am. There's some level expectation of perfection, or I have to be able to do this perfectly, when, in fact, you just need to be able to be willing to put one foot in front of the other, because, again, you're not called to be perfect. You're called to be open. And you're called to be willing to do the things that scare you. I mean, the Middle east terrified me. Terrorists terrified me. And yet I found one of my greatest joys to be debriefing terrorist assets. How strange is that? So in Baghdad, the one place I begged God not to go, it was in the middle of the war. Thousands of people were dying every day. It was every time you turned on your TV or got on the Internet, you saw these horrible, horrible stories about Iraq. And yet in Iraq, is the place that I developed my trade craft to a point of where not only I realized I was a sufficient, intelligent officer, I was actually truly gifted at it. And so for me, it was a lesson. Don't avoid the difficult situations, because it is the fruit of the struggle in which you really figure out what your skill set is, and you can really build that skill set and that expertise. It was in Baghdad, after reading thousands and thousands and thousands of intelligence reports and meeting with dozens of sources, that I became an expert on what a terrorist looks like, acts like, and what good intelligence is and what bad intelligence is. And as a result, now I have these amazing assessment skills where I can look at something very quickly and figure out, you know, whether it's. It's good info or it's, you know, BS or whether, you know, I have an amazing ability to assess others. And that was based on Iraq. Had I not gone to Iraq, I would have never arrived at the that place.

That was one of the most powerful parts of the book. And I actually tagged it because I want to read an excerpt. You say that right? Isn't it, man? That which we resist persists. Like you can almost be guaranteed. The thing that you say, just don't give me that is on its way. And so there you are. You're stationed in Iraq at the height of the war, and you say it was the most draining experience you have ever had, mentally, physically, emotional, emotionally. And yet, and I'll read a quote from the book because I tagged this. I love this part, you say the challenges I faced in these types of situations had transformed me from a naive young recruit with an inferiority complex to a mature, highly experienced officer capable of succeeding in the most hostile and exacting environments. The assignments I had once perceived as a never ending string of punishments were actually amazing career builders. Somewhere along the line, while I was busy doing the grunt work, staying late into the night, serving on weekends and holidays, and going where others refused to go, I had become an expert in my field. I could speak authoritatively on a wide range of topics and experiences, the likes of which most in the agency had never even encountered.

Did I write that? That was good?

You did, you did. And then you even link it to the analogy of the vintners in Provence and the wine and the vines, and that you. I'll share this too, because I really loved this. You said Provence vintners actually ascribe the beauty and complexity of their wines to the difficult circumstances in which the grapes are grown. The harder the vine works to push down into the dry earth to reach water, the better the fruit. Because the vines work so hard to burrow through the soil, they become harder and hardier and more more robust. The process of struggle imbues the grapes with a well rounded, multi dimensional character. The challenges those roots encounter establish, shape and cajole the fruit into a masterful product. Likewise, the harsher the environments I served in and the more trying the circumstances, the stronger I became. What I had perceived as a hardship was actually a tremendous gift. That's you, girl.

Don't be scared of the struggle. We all go through it, but there's a purpose for it. And if I can be that any kind of an encouragement today, it's like, don't shy away from the struggle.

It means so much to hear that coming from you because again, and I'll keep saying it, but to know that you have these feelings on the inside and yet you ended up serving in the CIA for 10 years in war zones. It's like we can do that thing we want to do. You know, Listening wants to create a creative project. It can be done. And you, Michelle, and I mean this as the highest compliment and you say it yourself in the book, if I can do it, you can do it.

No doubt. Absolutely.

If you could give people one assignment to do when they stop listening to this episode, what would it be?

It would be to think about.

What has held you back from your past passion and to identify if something has been holding you back from your passion. To then give voice to that, to admit it, to even maybe speak it out loud. And then to say, regardless of that thing that's holding me back, there is a way through it or around it. And I'm going to decide today that I am going to not let that stop me right now. So I think the first thing is just recognizing when we're holding ourselves back and telling ourselves, nope, not going to do it anymore. I have decided to move forward regardless. And then probably you could give them, because you're so good at this, steps they can take after that to then take that passion and move forward in very meaningful ways.

Speaking of that passion, what is your vision of smashing success when this book comes out in February? What would you love to see happen?

I would be so excited to hear from people who read the book who said, oh my gosh, you were speaking to me. And I feel so encouraged and I feel so able to take on these new challenges in my life. That for me is the ultimate success. Being able to connect with people who are in the same spot. I was and to give them the encouragement they need to push through the difficult times. That's what is all.

I have a feeling you're going to get a lot of that just from this conversation. And I do want to know, Michelle, because you're in a unique situation and I do feel like one of your books, Guardian Angels, somehow, like it's really near and dear to my heart. After these six years of you working on it with such dedication, how can we all be helpful? Everyone listening has different. Some people run podcasts, some have their own blogs or newsletters, some have friends, some have connections. You tell us, how can we be most helpful to you in these months before your book comes out?

Well, because I love to share my stories. Any opportunity at sharing via podcast or speaking engagements. Love, love, love to speak to groups of people, whether that's talking about women's empowerment, whether it's talking to college students, whether it's talking to corporations about how to incorporate voices of diversity and authenticity into what you're doing. Jenny, I feel like I have that unique calling to be able to speak to a wide variety of audiences. And so any opportunity to do that I certainly welcome. And things even like I've had a lot of people reach out to me on Facebook and say, I've got a reading group and we'd like to get your book for a reading for a group of women, those kinds of things. And having a back and forth with those reading groups about their feedback on the book. I'd love to do that as well.

Amazing. Amazing. Michelle Rigby. Asad, you've done it. You are an author. Your book is coming out. It is so exciting. It's such a gift to the world. Thank you for all that you did during the time that you served in the CIA and for all that you're doing now. It's just so inspiring and I'm beyond grateful to know you and have you in my life.

Thank you, Jenny. I so appreciate it and thank you for being the angel in my life at a very critical time. You've been such an encouragement and it's so important to surround yourself with people who are positive and who are going to help you get where you need to go. Like you have done for me.

Absolutely. It now occurs to me I got to get Julie on the show.

Yes, that would be great.

I need the Rigby sisters podcast duo.

That would be fun. That would be really fun.

I'm thinking that I haven't had her on yet. Yeah. And then we'll do the trilogy. We'll be with both of you on the same show. That'd be so fun.

Fabulous.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Michelle. And where, where can people find you if they're want to get in touch.

So you can find me on Facebook, Michelle Rigby Assad. And I also have a website again, Michelle with one L, Rigby Assad A S, S, a D. And maybe we can also put something on your website in case they have a hard time finding those locations. Okay.

Awesome. All right, thanks for listening everybody.

Thanks, Jenn.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com.

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Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.