A Spy's Guide To Thinking

When you're a spy, your life depends on connecting thinking to action.

The Spy's Guide books illustrate the mental tools of a spy with true spy stories.

The tools are useful under pressure. They bring focus. They remind us what sets us apart: We think.

Bottom line: They work.

The first (short) book is A Spy's Guide To Thinking. Here's the first part:

Spy gadgets are fun. Not Q’s rocket cars and jetpacks. Not James Bond’s remote detonators. The real world stuff. Crazy, complicated things. Fun, yes. Interesting, yes.

But if you’re a spy in the field, you start to think. Do I want to bet lives – my life – on a gadget working?

You say no to a lot of gadgets. You turn down most of what they send you. When you get one that might be good, you ask questions. Does it work? Does it work in a simple way? Will it break?

Even then, you pause. You want someone else to use it first. Just to be sure. You learn the best things aren’t the new things. Used things are better. Worn things. Things that have worked in the field. For fifty, sixty years, if possible. Updated, sure. But tested. Proven. If the mission fails because a gadget breaks, it’s not Q at risk. It’s you.

When you find something that works, it’s gold. The thing does its job, you do yours. You go out and be a spy. Maybe even save the world.

The first part of this book is about thinking, but it’s like a gadget. It has tools that work. In a simple way. Without breaking. Even better, the tools have been used for a long time. Updated, sure. But used successfully by people and organizations for many years.

The tools here are most useful under pressure. First, because they stop us from only reacting. They bring focus. They help us resist the takeover of the lizard brain. They remind us what sets us apart: We think.

Lastly, they’ve been tested in a variety of environments with a variety of people. With varying levels of complexity. Different situations, different people, different needs.
Bottom line: They work.

On that, I bet my life.

He told me a lie.

And then, more lies. A whole bunch of lies.

But that wasn’t the problem.

Lies are normal, when you’re a spy.

The problem was that it was the wrong kind of lie.

Usually, a spy’s lies:
1. Conceal something and/or;
2. Protect the spy.

Sometimes, a spy’s lies do both. But these lies didn’t. They didn’t do either one. They did the opposite.

The lies exposed him. And didn’t protect him. The lies made things more dangerous.

Not just dangerous for him. Dangerous for me, too.

Which made me wonder if it was an accidental lie. Maybe it was a heat-of-the-moment kind of lie. Maybe it was an emotional lie. Maybe he lied from embarrassment. Or shame. Or insecurity.
Then, after he lied once, he had to lie again. And the second and third and fourth lies were told for the usual reasons. To conceal the first lie. To protect him.

Maybe that’s what happened.

Whatever the reason, I had to do something about it.

He had lied. Now, it was my turn to act.

It was my turn to do something about it.

But first, I wanted to understand why. I wanted to understand the decision behind the lies.

You see the action of a lie and you take a step back in the Data-Analysis-Decision-Action sequence. You look at the decision to lie.

Then a step further back. What were his choices?

Then a step further back. What analysis led to that decision?

Then another step back. What information or data did he analyze to make the decision that led to that action?

Then you go back to the action and take a step forward.

What result did he expect from lying?

You look at intent.

Like the courts do. They dole out different punishments depending on why something happened. When someone gets killed, the courts want to know why.

They want to know intent.

Accidental? Negligent? If so, third-degree. A crime of passion? If so, second-degree. Maybe third. Malice aforethought? Cold-blooded and pre-meditated? First-degree. The worst kind.

It doesn’t matter if the initial crime was third-degree if a worse one followed. You get judged on the worst one. If there was first-degree crime to cover up a third-degree crime, you’re judged on the first-degree crime.

Which he had done. Whichever way they started out, his lies had become first-degree.
They were done on purpose.

Which meant intent.

And his intent mattered for a practical reason.

His intent was a clue to what he would do next.