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Thank you for your company. Well,
1:22
when you find one, what's that
1:24
phrase about buses? When you
1:26
want one, you can never find one, but then
1:28
all of a sudden three come along at once. We, we
1:31
have another ex
1:33
British spy here on
1:36
the security circle podcast, and
1:38
he's here because he's written a
1:40
great book. Julian Fisher,
1:42
welcome to the security circle podcast.
1:44
How are you doing?
1:45
I'm good, thanks Yolanda, fantastic to be
1:48
here, lovely to join your lineup of stellar
1:50
speakers, even if I am
1:52
the third in the queue.
1:54
I don't know,, if we go back to the buses
1:56
analogy, but look, I don't
1:58
know that I would necessarily have,
2:01
found you on LinkedIn, but that's
2:03
the power of network, right? Yeah, absolutely
2:06
right.
2:07
Although I, I emphasize targeting over networking,
2:10
but we can perhaps talk about that as we go on.
2:13
Listen, one of the things I really love about
2:15
your book, it's like a kit. I've
2:18
noticed. It's like a kit
2:20
that you can take with you and all of a sudden
2:22
you do these recaps. You provide
2:24
these little tips and advice. It's not just
2:27
reading. It's a kit book, isn't it?
2:29
I want it to be a manual., it's
2:32
trying to do a lot of things at the same time.
2:34
There's the autobiographical elements,
2:36
there's a little bit of investigation of how
2:39
spies work to the extent that I can do that
2:41
without transgressing relevant
2:43
laws. there's also the,
2:46
as you say, the kit of, Skills
2:49
that anybody can use to improve their
2:51
personal and professional lives. So yeah, it's quite,
2:53
it's trying to do quite a lot at the same time. I quite like,
2:56
what Charlie Cumming, the, novelist
2:58
and friend of mine wrote about it.
3:00
he was kind enough to say that if I were a young graduate
3:03
looking to gain an advantage in the workplace,
3:05
this is the first book I returned to.
3:08
And he calls it part memoir, part tutorial.
3:10
I think that pretty much sums it up.
3:13
Yeah, I think I didn't do it justice by saying
3:15
kit book, tutorial, fantastic
3:17
analogy. And I like what he said. And
3:19
I get that. And I think, crikey,
3:22
I would have loved to have read this 10 years
3:24
ago.
3:25
I'm so surprised at how many people say
3:27
that to me, Yolanda. And it's really,
3:29
it's gratifying, in fact, because I'm a great believer
3:32
in social mobility, improving
3:34
social mobility. I think we have a problem with that in
3:36
this country. And if even
3:39
a handful of, you know, Younger people
3:42
learn to better improve
3:44
their prospects in the workplace
3:46
through reading my book, then I'm very happy
3:49
that that to me counts as success.
3:51
Tell me why I have to pick up on that.
3:53
Why do we have a social mobility problem
3:56
in this country or even in the Western world?
4:00
I mean, these, these things have deep
4:03
historical roots, but I think part of the problem
4:05
we have in the UK is the prevalence
4:07
of the public
4:09
school system. What, uh, American
4:12
listeners would understand to be private schools and
4:14
the fee paying schools. There's
4:17
a, A fantastic club, which has been
4:19
set up, by inspiring
4:22
a woman called Sophie Pender, and it's the 93
4:24
percent club. And what she points out is
4:27
that 93 percent of people
4:29
in, in this country, the
4:31
UK go to non fee paying
4:33
schools, but a preponderance
4:35
of the most senior positions, whether it's in the
4:37
judiciary, in the military,
4:40
in business, in politics
4:43
are drawn from the
4:45
7 percent who went to the fee paying schools.
4:48
And that's a structural, it's
4:51
a structural deficit that I think will take
4:53
some time to address. I'm
4:56
not going to get into the politics of it, but
4:58
it needs to be done because there's a whole, there's
5:00
a wellspring of talent out there,
5:03
which just isn't being tapped into. And I
5:05
think that's a shame for us as a country.
5:07
If you look at centuries, um,
5:10
and we won't go down this rabbit hole, but if you look at centuries,
5:13
elitism seems to have been a theme
5:15
in every single century, the
5:17
elitism of wealth, power, money,
5:20
and privilege. And that's
5:22
woven its way through, hasn't it? Even to
5:24
our society today, I noticed
5:26
it seems to be something, you
5:28
know, we don't seem to as a human race be able
5:31
to be really, equality
5:33
focused.
5:35
No, we're getting better, but.
5:39
Inequalities take time to break down because
5:42
there are so many vested interests, aren't there? I mean, that's, that's
5:44
the way that inequality works. And
5:47
I'm not a believer in top
5:50
down solutions to a really
5:52
big degree. I mean, I think that it's important that
5:54
we have the right political setting to ease
5:56
some of those inequalities. But
5:58
I also think we as individuals,
6:01
including younger people, have a lot more at their
6:03
disposal. Disposal to address
6:06
the problems that they might face through lack of social
6:08
capital, for instance, and that's
6:10
what this book is all about. And
6:12
so I, I believe there's a lot of
6:15
truth in that old saying that it's not what,
6:17
you know it's who, you know, of course, I would urge
6:20
everybody to educate themselves to the
6:22
highest degree possible. It
6:24
is true that it's important to, you know
6:27
and if you're born to a particular background,
6:29
you know, You don't have access
6:31
to that network of people who represent
6:33
social capital, who are able to make the introductions
6:36
that ease your path in life. You
6:40
can control both of those elements.
6:42
You can control what you know through pursuing
6:45
education and you
6:47
can control who you know. And
6:49
my book at its heart is about
6:51
how to take control of building
6:54
that network of goals, allies, building
6:57
the group of people around you. In
7:01
a perfectly reasonable and ethical
7:03
way, seek to help
7:05
you attain your goals.
7:08
That's profound because, and
7:10
it will be well received because a lot of the listeners
7:13
to the Security Circle podcast,
7:15
they listen because they learn and
7:18
there are so many people within the
7:20
security community, very broad
7:22
community they're just learning
7:25
kind. They want to learn.
7:27
Listen, but you've given me a great segue to the book.
7:30
The book is called Think Like a Spy,
7:33
and I can see why you've called it that, Julian.
7:37
Publishers have a lot
7:38
to do with titles.
7:40
I know. In fact, I understand that
7:42
the publisher determines the name of
7:44
the book, even though authors quite
7:47
often say, this is the name of my book. And the publisher
7:49
will go, nope, it's not.
7:51
I've, I've heard similar stories and actual fact, this was
7:53
purely collaborative. So the publishers,
7:56
I suggested the name in the first place,
7:59
wavered about it. They
8:01
liked it. They think it's, it's, it
8:03
does what it says on the cover.
8:05
And it's described here by Charles Cumming,
8:08
who you mentioned earlier, who is the best
8:10
author of, uh, Box 88.
8:13
What's Box 88? I've not heard of that.
8:16
You'd have to read the book.
8:20
So Charles describes your book as,
8:23
as close as readers are likely
8:25
to get to the secrets of intelligence
8:28
recruitment, a fascinating and
8:30
instructive guide. The book is
8:32
described as master the art of
8:34
influence and build life changing
8:37
alliances. And I want to give everybody,
8:39
thank you for your inscription, by the way. Love
8:41
getting those.
8:42
Oh, you're very welcome.
8:44
I love your introduction and I remember when
8:46
I sat down, opened the pages and
8:48
had a cup of coffee and I started
8:50
to read, I'm going to read the introduction because I think it sets
8:53
the scene nicely. Okay.
8:56
A spy does something extraordinary.
8:59
She travels abroad, often undercover to hostile
9:01
territories. Once in country,
9:03
she engages with senior political, military,
9:06
and legal personnel. Some of
9:08
them, she peels off from their professional settings
9:11
and draws them into close, personal
9:13
friendships. Over time, she
9:16
focuses on the most promising of these relationships
9:18
and deepens them, strengthening the bonds
9:21
of mutual trust and understanding. Then,
9:24
after careful assessment and
9:26
with exquisite timing, she
9:28
strikes. I was like, oh
9:30
god, this is brilliant. Lastly, when
9:33
the right day comes, she sits down
9:35
with one of her new friends somewhere
9:37
quiet and unobtrusive and
9:39
relaxing. A plush hotel
9:41
restaurant, perhaps, or a park bench
9:44
on a balmy summer's evening. She
9:46
pours him a glass of wine, soothes
9:48
any nerves he may have, and
9:50
settles him into an easy rhythm of
9:53
attentive conversation. She
9:55
reads his body language and listens
9:57
intently to his words, her
9:59
emotional antennae attuned
10:02
only to him. Her sense of time,
10:04
place, and occasion heightened, but
10:07
her posture relaxed and her
10:09
facial features open. And
10:11
as the evening mellows and the
10:13
edges of the day begin to soften,
10:16
she asks him to do something
10:18
for her. She asks him
10:20
to betray his country. Oh, love
10:23
it. It
10:25
sums it up, doesn't it? You
10:28
know, I think that's the first time I've heard that read
10:30
back to me. And
10:33
it still sends a tingle down my spine
10:35
when I think about it. And
10:37
I'm sure many of your listeners
10:39
We'll be, we'll have had
10:41
a similar experience when you first, when
10:44
you're first introduced to the idea of
10:47
what an intelligent officer is expected to
10:49
do. I
10:51
think it's a life changing moment in some ways.
10:53
It's a moment when cognitive
10:58
dissonance creeps in at first,
11:01
because you think how on earth
11:04
does anybody persuade another
11:06
person to betray their country?
11:08
I'm sitting here thinking, could I
11:10
betray my country? I mean
11:12
it annoys the hell out of me sometimes. You
11:15
see these clips and these soundbites everywhere and people
11:17
saying, if they had the choice to live abroad, would they, and most
11:20
people say yes, because the weather here is a bit naff
11:22
on the naff scale.
11:23
Yeah, especially today.
11:25
But when you go abroad, I find
11:27
when I go abroad, my patriotism
11:29
increases. My, my
11:32
belonging meant to my country.
11:35
is very strong when I'm abroad.
11:37
yet I can be abroad and not like
11:39
the British very much. So I feel
11:41
a little bit conflicted, but
11:43
would I betray my country? And I'm wondering
11:45
if people hearing that would be thinking, well,
11:48
cripes, would I betray my country?
11:51
I mean, that would be a British man saying that, but American
11:53
would be like, yee haw, would I betray
11:55
my country? Y'all. I think
11:57
that's, what's very poignant about that introduction.
12:00
And I guess really that's what a spy is looking
12:02
for.
12:04
Indeed. Let
12:06
me reflect on that by talking about
12:08
a conversation I had with my producer
12:11
when I made the Channel 4 TV
12:13
series, released back in 2017
12:15
called Spies, where
12:17
I was one of the lead trainers and we took
12:19
16 people and put them through a series
12:22
of exercises to find out if they had what
12:24
it takes to be a spy. I was part of
12:26
the whole process of designing that
12:28
series, as well as. Fronting it
12:31
a lot of very interesting conversations
12:33
with the producers. And at one point we
12:36
were talking about the same thing, who, why
12:39
would somebody choose
12:41
to betray their country? Would you choose to betray
12:43
your country? And it's moved
12:46
into the question of what patriotism
12:49
means. And
12:51
my producer said, do you buy
12:54
into Queen and country? This was before the
12:56
Queen's death, obviously, and
12:58
my response was, I don't, and cars
13:01
on the table. I'm a Republican. And I think
13:04
that's, I'm afraid that fits with
13:06
my, the problem I have with the inequalities
13:10
we have in this country. I actually think it stems
13:12
from the fact that we have a monarchy. But
13:14
that's a slight, that's a different conversation.
13:17
It's not though. I think I've always
13:20
supported the Queen and Country,
13:22
King and Country. But recently,
13:25
if we were to do a poll on where
13:27
I stand, after the
13:29
news came out about how much
13:31
money they're taking from people using
13:34
their land, I started to think,
13:36
Oh, this could be a deal breaker for me. This,
13:38
if nothing else has I
13:40
don't like the way they've, dealt with, Megan and
13:43
Harry. I think that's appalling. They should never have allowed
13:45
that to happen. But I also think,
13:47
well, if I was to do a poll right now on,
13:49
on the socialization of that news,
13:52
I think, what's the word I'm
13:54
looking for? The consensus for me would be an
13:56
all time low in favor of the royal family. And
13:58
that's significant. I've always been a fan. Have
14:00
you seen that change?
14:02
I do always make one observation when, people
14:04
are often surprised to discover that I'm a Republican.
14:07
And they asked me why. And I say, well,
14:09
consider this, but for a very
14:12
minor quirk of fate, we may today
14:14
have King Andrew and
14:17
you would have no say
14:19
in whether or not that man. Was
14:22
allowed to reign over you, allowed to present
14:24
himself as the person
14:28
to whom you have to say
14:30
you are his citizen, his
14:33
subject, sorry, to
14:36
me, it's mind blowing. And I think stemming
14:39
from that comes every element
14:42
of. inequality in
14:44
Britain today. I genuinely believe that. That's a
14:46
profound political statement to make. And I know it
14:48
won't go down terribly well with
14:51
the number of your listeners, but I'm not in the business
14:53
of pretending to be something I'm
14:55
not, but that doesn't
14:57
stop me being a patriot.
15:00
And, So when I
15:02
was asked by my producer, okay, what is it then,
15:05
if you don't buy into Queen and Country, what
15:07
is it that makes you a
15:09
proud Brit, if you like? I said, well,
15:12
yeah, when I was 12, I was, I
15:14
walked in front of a car. I write better than
15:16
a book. I spent nigh on
15:18
a year. In hospital where
15:21
I was rebuilt by the NHS
15:25
and following
15:28
that I was able coming
15:30
from the poorest postcode in the United
15:32
Kingdom, I was able to go on to a
15:34
world class education in Oxford
15:36
University and
15:38
that's what makes me proud to be British because
15:41
we're a country that no matter
15:44
your class, creed, background, whether you're
15:46
a visitor to the country, whether you're a long
15:48
time resident, whether you were born here, if
15:50
you're smashed up in a car accident, You
15:53
will be picked up, you will be taken and you
15:55
will get world class care. And I think that's an amazing
15:57
thing. I think it's particularly British, in fact,
16:01
the country also gives opportunities to kids
16:04
like me from backgrounds, which weren't terribly
16:06
promising. There were great elements to my
16:08
background. Don't get me wrong, but it
16:10
wasn't terribly promising, but I was able to go on
16:13
and study at one of the premier
16:16
educational institutions in the world. And
16:18
I think that's worth being patriotic about.
16:20
Yes. I think you make an incredibly
16:22
good case, but like me, when I
16:24
joined the police, I would have sworn allegiance to the Queen
16:27
and country. You would have done the same.
16:29
I was a Crown servant. Yeah, absolutely.
16:31
I was also proud of that, David Blunkett
16:34
was my, Home Secretary,
16:36
but I was always very proud that we saw our allegiance to
16:38
the Queen, but then I did as a Brownie. As
16:40
well, when I was like seven,
16:42
this is a really complicated subject, isn't
16:44
it? And I had huge
16:46
affection for Queen Elizabeth. I
16:48
think she did us as a country proud.
16:50
And if you think about the amount of time she was on
16:52
the throne and the stability, she
16:55
represented during some quite chaotic
16:59
times. I have nothing but
17:01
respect for her. I don't have respect
17:03
for the institution.
17:04
One of the things I love that you've done in the
17:06
book is that you've talked about the You,
17:08
you've got a chapter here called a note on terminology,
17:11
and I think it's really important that you've done this
17:14
because you've said, and
17:16
you've premised this with the phrase spy
17:18
is an imprecise term because
17:22
there are, like you say, even more
17:24
murky intelligence officers that have
17:26
a variety of functions. Some are engaged
17:28
in intercepting messages sent
17:30
by electronic means, signals
17:33
intelligence or SIGINT.
17:36
Others might spend. Others
17:38
might spend their time analyzing
17:40
publicly available information to
17:42
spot patterns or provide leads for
17:45
other types of operations. You've
17:47
got obviously. OSINT, open
17:49
source intelligence, yet others
17:52
pour over photographs taken for military
17:54
aircraft or drones and you've got image
17:56
intelligence, IMINT. But
17:58
the category of interest for present
18:00
purposes is human intelligent. Do
18:03
you call it human or intelligent? Or hamint.
18:05
It
18:05
is, humint. Hamint
18:07
might run the risk of getting mixed up with a
18:10
Greek snack food.
18:13
Yes, so hamint, following
18:15
the, for the general folk, the Ossint precipice,
18:18
principle. This involves at the
18:20
operational sharp end, the type of
18:22
operation that you outlined in
18:24
the introduction, identification, cultivation,
18:27
and recruitment of human sources of
18:29
intelligence. Let's talk also
18:32
about why it's important to profile
18:34
someone's personality in that element
18:36
of human source intelligence.
18:38
So that comes under what I, turn
18:40
targeting and it's, it's one of
18:42
the preparatory stages. I divide the
18:44
book as you know, into three sections, getting
18:46
ready, getting together and
18:49
staying together, getting ready. That
18:51
first section is operational groundwork
18:54
and within that, one of the important part,
18:56
one of the most important skill
18:58
sets to develop is targeting. And
19:01
the reason for that is go
19:05
back to the story that
19:07
you read out about the
19:09
spy sitting down with her target and inviting
19:12
him to betray his country.
19:15
Now that may well be happening in a hostile
19:17
third country. Where if it
19:19
goes wrong, the
19:22
spy, the person making the invitation could well
19:24
end up in a very uncomfortable situation,
19:27
potentially imprisoned, certainly thrown out in
19:29
disgrace. It's
19:32
absolutely vital before
19:35
you get to the stage of recruitment, that
19:38
you have not
19:40
a racing certainty, but
19:43
certainly a strong balance of probabilities that the
19:45
answer is going to be yes. And
19:48
part of the way you get to that is by
19:50
effective profiling, effective targeting.
19:52
And you're looking for three things,
19:54
really, you're looking for somebody who's got access
19:58
to the information of interest, the intelligence
20:00
that you want. You're looking for somebody
20:02
who's got motivation. To
20:05
give you that information, and we can talk
20:07
about what motivations apply in
20:09
different circumstances. And you're
20:11
also vitally looking for suitability. You're
20:13
looking for somebody who is not
20:15
going to, be
20:17
indiscreet about their new relationship.
20:19
You're not looking for somebody who's going to take
20:21
unnecessary risks. So all of
20:23
that requires quite careful profiling,
20:27
quite careful targeting. So
20:31
I think a lot of human intelligence operatives
20:33
are in some ways, Not
20:36
academically trained, but they
20:38
are psychology
20:42
practitioners. You have to learn
20:44
to become readers of people
20:48
and to look for the clues in how people
20:50
present themselves and what people say that
20:52
might be missed by others, because
20:55
if you get it wrong, the
20:57
stakes are enormously high.
20:59
So the incentive to get it right is
21:02
incredibly strong.
21:03
Talking about that, does that mean that
21:06
spies don't have the same, heartbeat
21:09
as everybody else? Because surely
21:11
they have this ability to remain cool and calm
21:14
and collected in quite stressful situations.
21:16
Are they a different type of human being?
21:20
I don't believe so, in fact,
21:23
all personality types are on a spectrum
21:25
and there will be certain
21:28
types of personality that are perhaps
21:30
more suited for the profession
21:33
than others. But the whole premise
21:35
of my book is that everybody has what
21:37
it takes. it's really, we all use
21:39
the set of skills that I talk about throughout
21:43
the three sections, whether
21:45
or not we realize that we're doing it, we use
21:48
them every day. Our
21:50
interpersonal relationships depend
21:52
upon the ability to use this suite of
21:54
skills, but
21:56
what we don't necessarily do is use
21:59
them as intent. The difference between
22:02
a trained spy, if you like, and
22:05
a civilian is
22:07
simply that, really. It's
22:10
learning to use a set of skills, which is
22:12
available to all of us, in an
22:15
intentful and purposeful manner with a specific end
22:17
in mind. I wrote this
22:19
book because I realized over
22:21
the years, I'd been doing that
22:25
in my day to day life without
22:27
realizing, It wouldn't have occurred
22:29
to me to think that I was using spy skills,
22:32
say, when I was cultivating
22:35
Winston Churchill, the grandson, to
22:37
be one of my referees
22:40
on my CV. But actually,
22:43
I had been targeting, cultivating, and recruiting
22:45
him. And a lot of us do this,
22:48
a similar thing, all the
22:50
time, every day. We just don't realize
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for all enforcement security. And
24:02
look, Smith requirements.
24:16
it. You talk in your book about how Churchill
24:18
got you your first job. Yes.
24:20
That's what you're referring to, isn't it? It
24:22
is. I'll tell you. I'll just
24:25
very briefly tell the story. So
24:26
listeners love stories. Go for it.
24:28
Indeed. So. Coming
24:31
from a background in
24:34
inner city Birmingham, without necessarily
24:36
the contacts that were going to get me jobs
24:39
in the more elite institutions,
24:42
I had to do a lot of heavy lifting myself
24:44
by making sure I had the right allies on my side.
24:46
And during
24:48
my gap year, I'd hoped that
24:50
I would be spending it in Africa,
24:53
working for an organization called Project Trust,
24:55
but it turned out that, they
24:57
required you to raised quite a lot of money.
25:01
I quickly realized that money was
25:03
usually raised through the simple expedient of
25:05
going to the bank of mom and dad. And I didn't have
25:07
that option. So I had
25:09
to abandon that dream. And I ended up peculiarly
25:12
working on the European parliamentary
25:14
elections in 1989, which gives
25:16
you an idea of how old I am.
25:17
You're working it well.
25:20
From Indeed. Thank you.
25:22
That's very kind of you. Spying,
25:24
keeps you young. The,
25:28
during, I, I ended up
25:30
working in, in a marginal conservative party
25:32
constituency called Midlands West for a
25:34
incredible chap called Mike Whitby,
25:36
our law Whitby and. It
25:39
was probably the most marginal seat in the country.
25:41
And as such, the
25:43
conservative party headquarters threw everything
25:45
at it. And we had everybody visit. So I met
25:47
Margaret Thatcher, Norman Tebbitt,
25:50
and I think Cecil Parkinson,
25:52
and the luminaries
25:54
of the day, which to my young
25:57
impressionable minds, made
25:59
quite a big difference. What I decided to do as
26:01
these. Figures were coming
26:03
through. The constituency was on
26:06
every occasion. I would ask them if they needed a parliamentary
26:08
research or need, or knew of anybody who needed
26:10
a parliamentary researcher. And eventually,
26:13
I, struck, lucky, and ended
26:15
up working for an mp. I won't
26:17
name that MP 'cause it would be unfair.
26:19
I figured that if I really
26:22
wanted to have powerful impact on my cv,
26:24
I needed to have another, more
26:26
high profile MP as a
26:29
referee. So,
26:32
I set about a targeting exercise.
26:34
I went to the library at the House of Commons
26:36
and I sat down with a list of MPs and worked
26:38
out who had the highest profile and
26:42
who didn't have a full
26:44
quota of researchers or speech writers
26:46
or staff. And
26:48
one name jumped out to me and that name was Winston
26:50
Churchill, which for a moment
26:53
threw me because I thought he was dead.
26:56
And indeed he was, but he'd, he had,
26:58
had a grandchild
27:00
also called Winston and Winston was an
27:02
MP. So I set about
27:05
getting to know Winston and, you know, having a parliamentary
27:07
past, I worked out where
27:09
his office was and outside
27:12
of his office, there was a, one of those old
27:14
Reuters ticker tape machines that
27:16
would basically spool out greener. White
27:19
striped paper with the headlines of the day, you
27:21
know, this is long before digitization. I
27:24
got a rough idea of when Winston
27:27
was likely to be arriving or leaving his
27:29
office. And so I would make sure that
27:31
on those, at those times I was outside
27:33
examining the headlines coming through
27:35
on this Reuters machine. And
27:38
I also took it upon myself to work
27:40
out what his areas of interest were. So what parliamentary
27:43
committees did he sit on and, you know, what
27:45
were his. Declared member's interests.
27:48
And every time I saw a subject come through
27:50
on the Reuters machine, and he was in
27:53
my vicinity, I would engage him in conversation
27:55
about it. And that way we struck
27:57
up a friendship. And eventually I said to him, do
27:59
you have need of a researcher? And he said, well
28:01
no, I don't, but I do have need of a speechwriter.
28:04
So suddenly I was a brilliant speechwriter
28:06
and I presented myself to him as, the answer
28:08
to his prayers. And
28:10
indeed, he took me on as a speechwriter. There
28:13
are somewhere in old Hansard
28:15
some fairly exorable speeches that I wrote
28:17
for him. I have to admit that looking back, but
28:20
it did the trick. And having
28:23
worked with him for a while and he was a really lovely
28:25
chap. He was very, very supportive of me.
28:28
And I asked him if I could put his name down as
28:30
a reference. When I went for my.
28:32
first graduate jobs. I ended
28:34
up with him and the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, a chaplain
28:37
called Peter Barwell. Sadly,
28:39
neither of those two gentlemen are still with us, but they
28:41
were most, both incredibly supportive
28:45
and I think made all the difference
28:47
as I put my CV around. And
28:49
I've ended up being interviewed for
28:51
a job at a firm called Casanova,
28:53
which at the time was the last remaining
28:56
independent stockbrokers in the city of
28:58
London, a partnership. People
29:01
mainly The types we were talking
29:03
about earlier, the graduates
29:05
of the 7 percent of fee paying schools,
29:08
and they were of a particular type and suffice to say,
29:11
I was something of a square peg
29:14
in a round hole, but I got a job there
29:16
and I actually enjoyed working there a great
29:18
deal. I got to know
29:20
a lot of people. And one
29:22
day, many of whom remain
29:24
friends to this day, but one day I sat with
29:26
my boss, John,, fantastic
29:28
first employer, brilliant mentor.
29:31
And a man with a reasonable sense of humor, I
29:33
hope because I said to him,
29:35
okay, so why did you choose to offer
29:37
me the job? And he said, well, I had to, didn't I? Because
29:40
I really wanted to phone the house of commons
29:42
and ask to speak to Winston Churchill.
29:44
I think
29:47
he was joking,
29:48
but
29:48
if he wasn't, then that's fine too,
29:50
because it proves my point that
29:53
in targeting a particular person,
29:55
profiling a particular person, cultivating
29:57
them, getting to know them and providing
30:00
them with support as well, because that wasn't a
30:02
one way street. I worked for Winston, Gratis,
30:06
as I recall, and he needed
30:08
my assistance. It may not have
30:10
been the greatest speechwriter,
30:12
but it was. So what I was giving
30:14
him something, he gave me something in return. And that's
30:17
what I think lies at the very heart of
30:19
the best alliances. And that's also what
30:21
I think lies at the heart of the very best agent
30:23
recruitments. It's a partnership rather than
30:26
an exploitation.
30:28
Yeah. I think a lot of our relationships
30:30
are transactional and I think we should accept
30:32
that they're transactional. And I
30:34
think one of the things that I've learned recently
30:36
is when. Part of that relationship
30:39
stops being transactional. It kind of leaves
30:41
the other one in limbo a little bit. Um,
30:44
yeah, it's just reality, isn't it? I mean,
30:46
we can, we can
30:49
get ourselves worked up about the idea
30:51
of transactional relationships, but what's
30:53
wrong with that? The
30:56
simple act of living requires us to
30:58
be transactional to some degree. We've
31:00
created a whole thing, which
31:03
reflects the importance of transactional
31:05
relationships. And we call it money.
31:08
I don't think having transactional relationships is
31:10
bad. I think the biggest mistake
31:12
we can make is thinking we have true friendships
31:14
and we haven't. We have transactional
31:16
relationships the two
31:19
are not mutually exclusive. By any
31:21
means, and many many
31:23
relationships, partnerships that start out transactional develop
31:27
into very strong friendships, which transcends,
31:30
quickly transcend the transaction. But there are
31:33
all sorts of psychological studies
31:36
that suggest that actually the number
31:38
of true friends we can really manage
31:40
is quite small. Yeah.
31:43
You can count them on one hand, the fingers of one
31:45
hand.
31:46
So,
31:47
and in this day and age where, and the last
31:49
time I looked at the number of contacts I have
31:51
in my iPhone, it was something like 1,
31:54
500, you know, that's not 1, 500
31:57
friends.
31:58
No, it's associates, isn't
32:00
it?
32:00
Associates. And, but some of them will be very strong
32:03
transactional partnerships.
32:06
A very small number of them will be very close
32:08
friends.
32:09
this is a nice segue because you have nine
32:11
steps to building a relationship. And
32:14
that must have taken some time to
32:17
think about that structure. What
32:19
led you down that route?
32:22
it did and it didn't in the sense that
32:24
the structure actually is one that's used by intelligence
32:27
services everywhere. You know, if
32:29
it is in its place. Simplified
32:32
form. It's about the targeting,
32:35
cultivation, recruitment, and running
32:37
of a relationship, in secure terms.
32:40
And so it's everything from that
32:44
process of working out who it is you're going after
32:47
to the adoption of an appropriate cover. there's
32:49
an interesting area perhaps
32:51
to unpack to the commencement
32:54
of the cultivation, the use of elicitation
32:56
skills in order to understand better
32:58
what your targets motivations
33:01
are setting the
33:03
right recruitment pitch, and
33:05
then use of influence to maintain relation
33:07
to that relationship on a sound
33:10
footing in the cases.
33:14
Intelligence officers, strong
33:16
debriefing and detection
33:18
of deception skills, and then
33:20
setting up around that relationship.
33:24
The secure
33:26
environment called trade craft in the
33:28
business, and all of those
33:30
things have that they
33:32
are recognized steps in the
33:35
building of a relationship, but it's what makes
33:37
possible that extraordinary story
33:39
you told at the outset. It's what makes it
33:41
possible for the spy to sit down
33:43
and say, will you do this extraordinary
33:45
thing for me? And to give their
33:47
target the confidence to say yes. the
33:50
ability to create a secure
33:52
environment for. for that relationship through
33:55
tradecraft is equally important as the
33:57
targeting, is equally important as the
33:59
elicitation, is equally important as the motivation.
34:01
So it took me some time to
34:04
piece it all together in a way that
34:07
makes sense in civilian terms,
34:10
but the process is the process is the process.
34:13
And it applies whether or not the practitioner
34:16
of it is. Chinese or Taiwanese
34:19
or South African or
34:21
British or American or Irish or whatever.
34:24
So actually in a funny sort of way, one,
34:26
I've had one or two less obliging reviews
34:29
saying there's nothing new in this book. That's
34:32
my point. that is
34:34
precisely my point. Spies
34:38
don't have access to a suite of skills
34:40
that are denied to the rest of us. They just
34:42
use the skills that we can all use.
34:44
And we all do use on a daily basis
34:47
in an intentful and purposeful manner. And
34:49
guess what you can too. And
34:52
if you choose what that intent
34:54
and that purpose is, you can turn that
34:57
set of skills to almost any end.
34:59
If you think about it.
35:01
As you were describing those nine SERPs,
35:04
with the exception of elicitation, you've
35:06
described how I find security
35:08
circle podcast guests.
35:11
Well, there you are. I mean, what
35:13
a brilliant, actually, I can't think of a better
35:16
analogy. That's precisely it.
35:18
you have, if you think about it, you've persuaded
35:20
me to come on your podcast
35:21
and
35:22
in inverted commas, give up my time
35:25
and talk to you and you gain something
35:27
from it. I gained something from it. We also
35:29
happened to get on incredibly well and I think there's
35:31
chemistry there and that's great.
35:33
Yeah.
35:33
You did the targeting, you did the cultivation, you've
35:36
done the recruitment and here we
35:38
are. You kindly helped me
35:40
set up, as I fumbled
35:42
around with my IT, you helped me set up a secure environment
35:45
in which we could manage this relationship. So thank
35:47
you very much. I absolutely, um
35:49
grateful for your management of the relationship
35:52
in, in, in using those
35:54
steps that I outline in the book. It's
35:56
a great analogy.
35:58
I started thinking also how other people
36:00
can apply it when they're looking for customers.
36:03
They are looking to manage customer
36:05
relationships and some of the best
36:07
sellers, some of the best, gurus
36:09
in relationship management or targeting
36:12
your customer always talk about
36:14
finding a commonality, something
36:16
that, you know, your potential customer likes. It
36:18
could be golf, for example. So, you
36:20
know, you do a bit of research on what they like to do.
36:22
So when you go along, you can use a golfing analogy
36:24
and it's, Oh, you like golf? Yeah, I like golf. And
36:26
then all of a sudden you're building a rapport, a
36:28
neuralistic program comes into a lot.
36:30
So maybe, like you said, there are a lot of things,
36:33
a lot of components that we are
36:35
using as professionals that are ultimately,
36:38
imagine reading your book and then having it all
36:40
in one space. Wow. Yeah.
36:42
Well,
36:43
thank you for that. I'm going to put a shout out for
36:45
another author, actually, who wrote a book, his
36:47
name's Jeremy Hurovitz, and he
36:50
published a book which came out a few
36:52
months after mine called Sell Like a Spy.
36:55
It is an exploration
36:57
of the use of espionage
36:59
skills in the sales arena. Say in the book
37:02
that I don't think a spy is like
37:04
a salesperson because
37:06
although the relationship is transactional, they're
37:09
looking for intelligence and often they're paying
37:12
for that intelligence. Actually,
37:14
that's more like a very highly specialized procurement
37:17
officer when I think about it than it is
37:19
somebody who's selling something because they're
37:22
buying the intelligence. However, my
37:25
perspective on that was changed when I read Jeremy's
37:28
book. I do think there are many.
37:31
elements of the sales process,
37:34
which are equivalent
37:36
to the process of cultivation,
37:39
recruitment, and management of
37:41
a relationship between a spy and their target. And
37:44
you just had to buy one, which is commonality.
37:47
And can I, I'll tell a story about commonality. This
37:51
was in Zimbabwe. I think
37:53
a little bit of it, plays into
37:55
something you mentioned earlier, the ability to keep your
37:57
head in quite difficult circumstances.
38:00
And I was never actually entirely convinced
38:02
that I could, but
38:04
actually when I find myself often in
38:07
very challenging circumstances, a certain
38:09
coolness Kicks in.
38:12
And this is a case in point.
38:14
I was visiting Zimbabwe
38:18
shortly after the 2008 elections,
38:20
which have been pretty fraught. I
38:23
won't go into the history lesson about Zimbabwe's
38:26
politics, but I think we all recognize that
38:30
there was a very, very Difficult
38:32
relationship between the UK
38:34
and Zimbabwe for many years, and perhaps
38:38
the peak of that was around 2008
38:41
when, Mugabe and his suggs bullied
38:43
their way to a victory. I
38:46
make no bones about it saying that,, I
38:48
visited that country shortly afterwards. It's a country
38:50
I know well and have huge affection
38:52
for. I think the vast majority of Zimbabweans
38:54
are victims. in my experience
38:56
are uniformly wonderful people. But
38:59
they are, and have been abused
39:02
over the years by Mugabe and
39:04
his regime and perhaps
39:06
his successor. I have
39:08
many friends in Sarnia
39:10
PF, which was the, Which is the ruling
39:13
party, many of whom
39:15
were educated in places in the UK
39:18
and actually very pro Brit. If
39:20
you strip away some of that political
39:23
superficiality. Now on one occasion I was
39:25
visiting one of these friends, pretty
39:27
much on the top floor of the ZarnoPF
39:30
headquarters, and I kid you not, the ZarnoPF
39:32
headquarters are on a street called Rotten
39:34
Row. Somebody
39:38
has a sense of humor. Somebody has a sense of humor.
39:40
But then I was brought up in a part of Birmingham
39:43
called Rotten Park, spelled
39:46
with an O rather than an E. Anyway,
39:49
I was there in the Zona PF headquarters
39:51
and I'd had a very good chap,
39:53
a friend of mine, who's
39:55
a senior figure in the party. And
39:57
I climbed into the
40:00
lights right in the stairwell and
40:02
I was slightly claustrophobic. So I was a
40:04
bit reluctant to go in the lift, but it was
40:06
too dark really to use the stairwell
40:09
safely. So I climbed into the lift and
40:12
it sort of held my breath, hoping
40:14
that there wasn't going to be a power cut. And we came
40:16
down one floor and the doors opened and a group
40:18
of. youth leaguers walked in
40:20
and youth leaguers are sort of renowned for
40:22
going around the country, sort of knocking
40:25
heads. And they
40:27
were all obviously reasonably
40:29
drunk on
40:32
the local, Chibuku, a local
40:34
brew, quite evil brew. You could smell it
40:36
on their breaths. And they were
40:38
heavily armed with pangas, which are, you
40:40
know, this long bladed. Tools,
40:43
which can be used for everything from cutting
40:46
hedges to decapitating people. They were,
40:48
they're the weapon of choice during the Rwandan genocide
40:50
in 1994. You know, really rather
40:52
evil instruments. They're all sort of
40:54
wielding these things. They kept
40:57
piling in to the
40:59
lift. So until there was barely
41:01
room to move. So there's a group of these
41:04
youth leaguers and then two slightly
41:06
better dressed, suited
41:08
gentleman in the corner. And
41:11
I thought, well,, I'm just going to
41:13
keep quiet and sort of shrink into the corner. And
41:16
we started descending again. And then suddenly
41:18
with a jolt, the lift came to a
41:20
halt between floors. So that just the
41:23
worst thing that could possibly have happened
41:25
at that moment. But of course it was overloaded
41:27
as well as everything else. Uh,
41:30
and then the lights went out and bear
41:32
in mind, I've said that I was,
41:35
I am claustrophobic, um,
41:37
I saw, I'm going to, you know, I'm
41:40
going to have to really manage myself not to panic
41:42
in these circumstances, sort of breathe in this rancid
41:45
air, people
41:47
crushing up against me, but I really wanted
41:49
some light. So there was, I fished
41:52
out my mobile phone and I used the torch
41:54
function on the phone. And
41:57
of course that just drew attention. To
41:59
me, suddenly I
42:01
was the subject of interest for quite a lot,
42:04
quite drunk, quite angry, agitated
42:07
Sarno Piaf youth leaguers who
42:09
got it into their heads that I must be
42:12
a British spy. What
42:14
was I doing there? Who was I visiting? What was
42:16
this Brit doing in a lift in
42:19
Sarno Piaf headquarters? And all the venom
42:22
started to come out. It was quite uncomfortable.
42:24
And I, I make
42:26
no bones about it. I was scared. My
42:30
instinct kicked in or training kicked in or
42:32
something kicked in. So
42:34
I started looking for an ally.
42:37
And what do you look for in an ally? Primarily
42:39
you look for commonality. So
42:43
first of all, I focused on the two men
42:45
who were in suits. For a start, that's, at
42:48
least it suggested they were. probably
42:50
a bit more senior. And then on the lapel
42:52
of one of these gentlemen, I
42:54
noticed an old beaten up enamel
42:57
badge and it just had the word United on it.
43:00
And I don't really know anything about
43:02
football. I really don't, or soccer.
43:05
but I know enough about it
43:07
to surmise that that was likely to be
43:09
a reference to Manchester United. I
43:13
think it was half the remainder of a, of
43:15
an enamel badge. I
43:18
thought, okay, I don't know anything about football,
43:20
but I can pretend a commonality
43:23
which doesn't exist. So I caught
43:25
this chap's eye and I said to him, Oh, how
43:28
was the game the other night? I
43:31
had no idea whether there'd been a game the other night or not,
43:33
it just, it was, but I had
43:35
to do something. And he sort of looked
43:37
at me quizzically for a while and then broke into a smile
43:39
and he said, yeah, it was great. And,
43:43
started singing the praises of one of the players and
43:45
then somebody else piped up from over
43:47
the. The other side of the lift saying that
43:49
it's not him. Ronaldo is the greatest player.
43:51
And suddenly we're into the middle
43:53
of this very spirited debate about
43:56
British football, one
43:58
of the most high profile British football teams. And
44:01
all these anti Brits were debating
44:03
the merits of these different football teams
44:06
and knowing nothing about it.
44:08
I didn't venture
44:11
very much, but I did throw in the odd question.
44:13
By the time the lift
44:15
had started working again, and we got down to
44:17
the ground floor, all of those people who
44:19
had been angry and jostling
44:22
were now mates. And
44:25
that was all about establishing a commonality.
44:28
It's a commonality that didn't actually exist,
44:30
but I created it. So there's a little bit about creation
44:34
of cover there as well. In
44:36
the instant I was creating a
44:38
cover of being somebody who was a football
44:40
fan could establish that commonality
44:43
with them because I know enough about
44:45
many African countries that they
44:48
do have an obsession with British football in fact.
44:51
The subject of commonality is phenomenal.
44:53
You could have an apartment block
44:55
in a pretty run down area of
44:58
a city where nobody gets on. But
45:00
the minute that apartment block
45:03
is on fire. And everybody is
45:05
standing outside all of a sudden they're
45:07
united in this, almost
45:09
vitriol of how could this fire have happened
45:11
with this is our home and all of a sudden the commonalities
45:14
come to the forefront and people start
45:16
to form alliances and support
45:18
for each other and like for each other. It's
45:21
phenomenal, isn't it? How that's such
45:23
an intrinsic part of our human society.
45:25
We often find commonality and adversity.
45:28
That's absolutely true. And
45:30
I think that's why in the past people fighting
45:32
together in the two world wars.
45:35
I think probably played quite a big part in
45:37
establishing British identity.
45:40
I'm not passing judgment on it one way or the other. It's
45:42
just an observation that there is a
45:44
lot of commonality to be drawn from adversity.
45:46
And actually there's some hope there, isn't it? I suspect Without
45:50
getting too political, I suspect we're in for some pretty
45:52
rough times And I hope that the
45:54
adversity that we will face, whether that's economical,
45:56
political or social, will actually draw
45:59
people together rather than drive them apart. I think
46:01
that's the most optimistic assessment
46:04
I can make of it.
46:05
We've been through a diluted, version
46:07
of where we are now. A few years ago, when
46:10
Trump first had his, first
46:12
position of power as president of the United States.
46:14
And we had the same COVID. And COVID, I feel,
46:17
put a pause on everything. It just
46:19
put a pause on everything. It's the only way I could describe
46:21
it. It's like having a VHS machine and just pressing
46:24
pause. Everyone in their
46:27
communities supported, they liked
46:29
each other. People met people they didn't know
46:31
before. There was a whole new way of thinking.
46:33
It was actually a really nice model. Now
46:36
I feel like everything, that pause has come
46:38
off and everything is almost, heightened.
46:41
My thought leadership question to
46:43
you is, when you look at how
46:46
Elon Musk's X is
46:48
a mirror to society, we talked about
46:51
this in the debrief, it's holding a mirror to
46:53
society, I find it quite ugly.
46:56
I don't like what I see. I don't like
46:58
being a part of it. And it
47:00
has a very negative impact on me. And I don't have
47:02
any anxieties or depressions or anything
47:04
like this. So imagine somebody who
47:06
does have anxieties and depressions
47:08
where this would have a greater impact
47:11
on that individual. And then
47:13
you weigh into that, the knowledge that security
47:15
professionals have around geopolitics
47:17
and hostile threat actors. And you think
47:19
you can't help but think we're moving into a very
47:22
acerbic. bitter disenfranchised
47:25
society that is even more susceptible
47:28
to the hostile threat actors. So
47:31
if it was hard to find somebody who
47:33
was going to turn on their country 30 years
47:35
ago, it's going to be very easy now
47:37
because their people are not. As
47:39
loyal as they would have been. What do you think
47:41
to that?
47:43
Wow. There's quite a lot to unpack there.
47:45
You get that on the security.
47:47
Indeed. Uh,
47:50
I mean, that is sort of a potted
47:52
threat assessment by the security service
47:54
and in one, one or two paragraphs,
47:57
say you landed. Where to start? I. Sort
47:59
of agree with you about COVID, but
48:01
I also disagree with you in a profound
48:04
way. I think one of
48:06
the problems, whatever the rights
48:08
and wrongs of lockdown, and I really don't want to get
48:10
into that, but what it did was it forced
48:12
us into this sort of
48:15
arrangement. Teams
48:17
meetings and zoom meetings, which
48:21
are great, but they're nowhere
48:23
near as great as the real thing, which is face to face
48:25
meetings. And I think a lot of the
48:27
problems that we now face, particularly
48:30
young people are related
48:32
to that. The. I
48:35
say to people, IT is
48:38
fantastic. Technology is fantastic.
48:40
Communications systems are
48:42
wonderful, but remember that's all
48:44
they are. They are communication
48:46
systems. They are a way of connecting you
48:48
and me quicker and
48:51
more efficiently than might've been the
48:53
case previously. So for the way in which we're
48:55
using those communication systems
48:57
now, you and I, Yolanda,
48:59
it's fantastic. But
49:02
I have a feeling that some
49:04
people during COVID and
49:07
before then, and after then have
49:09
become too reliant on the systems
49:11
themselves. And so they
49:13
are mixing up, the medium
49:17
with the practice, with the users of the medium
49:19
and losing that vital thing,
49:21
which is personal interaction. So
49:25
if we take, I have
49:27
never used Twitter, or I've never
49:29
used X and I never would. I
49:33
avoid it because I
49:35
don't see its utility, really.
49:37
I don't think that you can distill
49:39
anything important into a few words. And I think
49:41
the very idea of it was harmful
49:44
from the outset. I
49:46
wouldn't control it. I wouldn't censor it.
49:48
I wouldn't do anything with it. I just allow it
49:50
to be what it is.
49:54
But what I would do is particularly for young people
49:56
is. Urge them to
49:59
lift their heads from it and
50:01
to do the most important thing that we can all do, which
50:03
is interact in real life
50:06
with other people and establish communication
50:08
and connection in real life. And
50:10
it's those connections, it's when you get to
50:12
know the other, that the fear
50:15
of the other begins to dissolve. You don't
50:17
get to know anybody really.
50:20
Through a screen. You certainly don't get to know people
50:22
when you're obsessed with how many followers you
50:24
have on, whether or not it's
50:28
Twitter or blue sky or LinkedIn.
50:30
Even you
50:32
get to know people by sitting
50:34
down with them face to face, reading their
50:37
emotions, engaging with them,
50:39
being tactile if you need to be tactile.
50:42
And that's what dissolves conflict.
50:45
So yeah, it is
50:47
fantastic. Communication technology.
50:49
Wonderful. But use it as. what
50:52
it is, a tool, and don't make it
50:54
a central part of your life. That's what I implore
50:56
everybody, especially young people.
50:59
Oh, it's interesting that you use the word dissolve conflict
51:01
because Gene Roddenberry prophesizes
51:04
this in Star Trek and talks about
51:06
how the technology, It
51:08
doesn't give an opportunity for conflict to dissolve.
51:10
Do you remember the episode where, people
51:13
wore bracelets and if their bracelet was activated, they
51:15
had to go and walk into a device and Jim
51:17
Kirk learns, because obviously Jim and I would
51:19
be friends for years now. We're
51:22
on first name terms. But Jim Kirk realizes.
51:24
Oh, good old
51:24
Jim. I
51:25
was just at the
51:26
pub with him the other day.
51:27
He's a top bloke,
51:30
he's been to space. These people, they just voluntarily
51:32
go and walk into this capsule that ultimately
51:35
kills them. That's the technology
51:37
doing nothing to resolve conflict. And I
51:39
always remembered that, even though, the
51:41
wood and scenery and the, but it was great
51:44
principle.
51:45
Isn't it interesting when you look back at some of
51:47
those, apparently quite fantastical
51:50
ideas, whether it's Star Trek or
51:52
1984,
51:55
Philip K. Dick's books and actually how
51:57
much of it is coming to pass. It's
51:59
scary. It is quite scary. I
52:03
remain optimistic because one
52:07
of the things that worried me, let's go back to COVID.
52:09
It makes me laugh that you're a former spy,
52:12
but you remain optimistic. I
52:14
think it's almost healing to hear that.
52:18
Yeah. I think it's important to get out of that
52:20
world actually. It's important,
52:22
whatever you do to lift your eyes
52:24
from the immediacy
52:27
of your day to day work. The
52:29
reason I'm positive is because I
52:32
did worry during lockdown
52:34
that we were going to enter an
52:37
era when people were atomized.
52:40
There's a great book called, The
52:42
Future is Analog. David Sachs,
52:45
I think wrote it. And I recommend it again.
52:48
As he puts it, we dreamed of this future
52:50
and everything would be online. We dreamed of this future
52:52
where all of our lives would be managed through IT. And
52:55
then overnight, we had it. because
52:58
of lockdown and we hated it.
53:01
And you know what? I think he's right. I
53:04
think we were grateful for
53:06
it. We were grateful for the fact that you were able
53:08
to make connections, sustain connections,
53:13
outside of real life. But
53:15
boy, did we want to run back to
53:18
interpersonal human connection as soon
53:20
as we could.
53:21
Let me robustly challenge that, Julian,
53:24
with a completely
53:27
different perspective. I definitely
53:29
sit in the paragraph of people who,
53:32
were definitely during COVID relieved
53:34
they didn't have to lie to anyone about why they didn't
53:36
want to go to an event anymore, because we were quite
53:38
happy being at home. And
53:41
for the introverts out there that weren't
53:43
bouncing off the walls because we couldn't go
53:45
out, have a run, or we couldn't
53:47
go around and breathe the same air as other humans,
53:50
we were incredibly content
53:52
that we didn't have to breathe the air of other
53:54
humans and that we could stay away
53:57
from them and we could live and breathe
53:59
and smell the coffee, it's
54:01
definitely a tale of two worlds in the sense
54:03
of introverted and extroverted.
54:06
people. But when you look at how Sam Smith
54:08
was dealing with COVID, a true
54:11
narcissistic approach to where
54:14
I can't do this because I need
54:16
to be around people to validate
54:19
my existence. Yeah. Those people
54:21
really struggled on the extreme
54:23
end of the spectrum. Yeah.
54:25
I think I can see it from both sides., I'm an
54:28
introvert. Actually, I know there's nothing
54:30
I enjoy more really than periods
54:33
of introverted reflection. And
54:35
that's where I get my, that's where I recharge
54:38
my batteries. But I think there's sometimes a bit
54:40
of a misunderstanding about introversion, which
54:42
is this idea that introverts don't want
54:44
to engage with people at all. I'm certainly not going to speak
54:46
for you, Yolanda, you look at you, you're engaging with
54:48
a lot of people, professionally and
54:50
personally, even. To create
54:52
these podcasts. So protest
54:55
all you like, but I
54:57
would say this about, introversion, my
54:59
understanding of it is about
55:01
the need sometimes to withdraw from society,
55:03
to recharge your batteries so you can go back
55:06
out and re engage. And that re engagement
55:08
thing remains as important
55:10
to me as an introvert as the periods
55:13
of introverted reflection.
55:16
A lot of people ask me why I do the podcast
55:18
and I can only say,
55:20
and I'm going to base this on something we talked
55:22
about. You said that the book
55:25
is aimed at younger people, but
55:27
I can't help but think having spoken to
55:29
you and listened to you and reflected that
55:32
you kind of need to be of an older age to appreciate
55:34
why you need this book.
55:35
It's a wonderful thing. What a shame it's wasted on
55:37
the young. It
55:40
is. I have. Well, first
55:42
of all, I have to say it's not
55:44
just for younger people. I think there's something
55:46
in it for everybody. You also said that
55:48
your listeners are lifelong
55:51
learners and there's, I hope there's material
55:53
in here, which lifelong learners will
55:57
benefit from as well as people
56:00
entering the workplace for the first time, for instance.
56:02
I think you're right that sometimes
56:05
younger people don't
56:08
necessarily, they're not necessarily
56:11
going to gain as much as. somebody
56:13
who's a bit older and had a bit more life experience.
56:16
And that's where, actually,
56:19
what I'm saying in the book is go
56:21
and find mentors, go and find guides,
56:23
go and find allies, because
56:26
the book itself, important
56:28
though it is actually only a guide,
56:31
a manual, a kit. To
56:35
a kit of skills to do
56:37
the thing I keep coming back to, which is building
56:39
relationships. And
56:42
for younger people, the most important thing I think
56:44
is building relationships with mentors,
56:46
older people who can help them to understand and navigate
56:49
the world a bit better. And that's probably more important
56:51
now than it's been for
56:53
as long as I can remember.
56:56
I think sometimes when I look at the geopolitics
56:59
of the world, and I'm only touching
57:01
the tip of the iceberg of it in my
57:03
knowledge and understanding and the holistic
57:05
security knowledge we collectively have
57:07
as security professionals. I
57:10
think the benefit I have to
57:12
this experience is surrounding
57:14
myself with an echo chamber of
57:16
incredibly smart, intelligent, optimistic
57:19
people who constantly learn. I
57:21
think that's why I do this. And
57:23
I wonder if that's why You write
57:26
Julian.
57:27
I think there's something in that. Let's go back
57:29
to very
57:32
briefly to lockdown because actually one thing I did
57:35
during that was write a novel.
57:38
And I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Sadly, it wasn't
57:41
to be published, but, it was a, I think
57:43
a worthwhile endeavor because it enabled me,
57:45
I think one of the important things about writing
57:48
fiction and nonfiction is it
57:50
gives us an opportunity to think
57:52
about our place in the world. And
57:56
to think about the importance of human relationships.
57:58
In the end, if you think about it, every
58:01
story is
58:03
about interpersonal relationships. So
58:06
writing feels like it's a solitary,
58:08
introverted activity. And indeed, of course it is
58:10
by necessity, but it is
58:12
also impossible to do well,
58:15
unless you have a
58:17
curiosity about the world and a curiosity about interpersonal
58:20
relationships. And here's the thing about storytelling.
58:22
I'm reading the book,
58:25
Christopher Booker's seven basic plots at
58:27
the moment. And what it comes down to
58:29
is it is every story
58:31
is about As far as I
58:33
can see, a version of recruitment. And
58:36
I write, whether
58:39
that's recruitment of self or recruitment of the
58:41
other, or recruitment of an alter ego. And
58:44
I write a substack,
58:46
Julianfisher. substack. com,
58:48
which explores this. Because
58:50
I'm fascinated by that question of why
58:52
we're all so fascinated by espionage. I
58:55
think I've arrived at the answer with the help
58:57
of Christopher Booker's work,
58:59
that it's because, actually, at the heart of espionage
59:02
is one very important thing, and that's interpersonal
59:04
skills.
59:06
Yes.
59:07
That's where all drama comes in, really,
59:11
it's not about car chases. It's not about the world
59:13
blowing up. It's about the
59:15
management and the blow ups within interpersonal
59:18
relationships. That's where we really find drama.
59:21
That's why writing, I think is about learning
59:23
because it's about reflection on precisely
59:26
that. The role that you play. Of us, our
59:28
own role in the world and that as a
59:30
people with which we engage.
59:32
Then you add into that the chess game, the
59:35
strategy, the intent, the purpose,
59:37
and then you've got yourself a healthy combination
59:40
of attributes, haven't you?
59:42
I like to think so. Yes.
59:44
But crucially again, and maybe
59:46
this is the note on which I want to end it. It's
59:48
a combination that is available to everybody
59:51
if they want to stop and think about how to develop
59:53
it.
59:54
Just reading this book alone,
59:56
it says at the back here, discover the secret skills
59:59
of influence used by spies and
1:00:01
learn how to adapt them to win people over
1:00:03
and achieve your goals. Apply
1:00:05
it in your everyday working
1:00:07
life. Julian Fisher, what can I say?
1:00:09
Think like a spy. Thank you so much for
1:00:11
coming in, sharing insights
1:00:14
about your book and also letting us
1:00:16
understand a little bit more about the author
1:00:18
as well.
1:00:19
Thank you so much, Yolanda, I say think
1:00:21
like a spy and I thank you for getting me to think
1:00:23
more about what I'm writing about as well.
1:00:26
That's why I think these sorts of podcasts
1:00:29
are so vital because they get everybody
1:00:31
to get everybody's intellectual juices flowing and that's,
1:00:34
that can only be a good thing.
1:00:36
Check out our transactional relationship.
1:00:39
Yeah. Look at that. Yay. Us.
1:00:41
Boom. Thanks
1:00:44
Yolanda. All the best.
1:00:46
Bye for now.
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