Julian Fisher (4:16)

Not at all, my pleasure. Great to be here, Jordan.

Jordan Harbinger (4:18)

Coming in means something different when you're a spy. I Guess I don't know.

Julian Fisher (4:21)

From the cold into this lovely warm embrace. The Jordan Harbinger podcast.

Jordan Harbinger (4:25)

That's right. Give me a brief overview, a very brief overview of your career. You know, where did you start? And how does one become a spy, so to speak.

Julian Fisher (4:34)

I was fortunate enough to get to Auxiliary University, which is always a great start, and that gave me a springboard to go into the city financial sector in a venerable institution. That was a springboard to work on Japanese stocks and shares in a subsequent job, which gave me a yen for travel. So I applied for government service overseas, and that was like my entry into the world of broadly intelligent security and diplomacy. And I was lucky to be posted in a number of places in Africa with that overseas agency. And from there I went to work for a gentleman called Tim Spicer, who had set up a private security company which had a private intelligence arm. They did a lot of work in Iraq post the invasion of Iraq, providing security for the reconstruction teams there, and was asked by Tim to become his head of Africa. I did that for four or five years. And then I went to set up my own company called Africa Integrity, which specialized in Africa intelligence to support ethical engagement.

Jordan Harbinger (5:34)

I see.

Julian Fisher (5:35)

So it's many years of experience in private and public.

Jordan Harbinger (5:38)

Public sector, and you can't say which agency that you worked for. Is that allowed or not?

Julian Fisher (5:42)

Not specifically.

Jordan Harbinger (5:42)

Got it.

Julian Fisher (5:43)

Okay. Really, as far as I should go, is to say that I worked in foreign affairs for a British agency.

Jordan Harbinger (5:49)

Wow. Okay. They try and leave that nice and vague.

Julian Fisher (5:52)

They do indeed.

Jordan Harbinger (5:53)

I suppose that makes sense, because spies.

Julian Fisher (5:54)

They'Re sort of meant to be secret, aren't we?

Jordan Harbinger (5:56)

Yeah, that's kind of the idea is it's meant to be a secret and you have to convince other people, depending on what line of work you're in, you have to convince other people to betray their country and the country. Consequences for that are pretty high. I mean, I'm thinking about Robert Hanssen, who went and betrayed the United States and gave away all these counterintelligence secrets. I assume somebody like that who's high placed in the FBI counterintelligence and was responsible for looking for moles and turned out to be a mole. Were probably still recovering from that damage.

Julian Fisher (6:23)

Absolutely. I believe Hanson died recently in prison.

Jordan Harbinger (6:27)

Yeah.

Julian Fisher (6:27)

He gave up the rest of his life in the cause of becoming a traitor.

Jordan Harbinger (6:31)

Yeah.

Julian Fisher (6:32)

And that's the extraordinary thing, because that's what spies do. They travel abroad and persuade people to betray their countries at the risk of imprisonment, if not torture, and potentially, in certain countries, execution and so we see with the likes of Hanson that he gave up his freedom, we see with the likes of Burgess, Philby and Maclean that they gave up their reputations, in some cases their freedom, their ability to remain in the country. But people do it. When I talk about spies, I really mean intelligence officers, the person going to recruit those individuals to become traitors, if you like. And they do it for those spies because the latter are trained in a set of skills. All of these skills are well within the realms of what we understand. Everybody has access to these skills, everybody can develop these skills, everybody can train themselves and everybody can perfect them to do broadly what spies do, which is persuade other people to do what they want. I mean, of course, in the case of the spies, an extraordinary achievement and it's an amazing thing to be doing. But there's nothing to stop a civilian, anybody, anywhere in the world from using that same set of skills to good and effective ethical ends. The whole difference is spies do it with intent and they do it with purpose. And if you can learn to take those sets of skills and turn them intentfully and with purpose to particular goals, you will make a big difference in the progress of your life, personally and professionally.

Jordan Harbinger (7:51)

So do agencies that recruit people to become spies or foreign intelligence officers, whatever, do they recruit people who already have these skills or do they recruit people that they just think they can train these skills?

Julian Fisher (8:03)

That's the billion dollar question. It's inevitably the case that some people will have them more innate and will have developed them more consciously perhaps over the course of their life. But actually those kinds of characters are quite rare. So I think, as in so many cases, what the agents are looking for is potential. And it's the recognition, not so much that somebody knows how to target, use, cover, use, cultivation, use techniques of influence. But somebody has the hunger and the personal capability to learn all of that. That's, I think, the major difference. Because we know there are some people who perhaps are a little bit more closed minded about things and about their own capabilities. And the services are looking for those people who are open minded and ready to experiment, ready to take risk.

Jordan Harbinger (8:49)

I've met a lot of intelligence officers from various agencies, various countries. Many of them are very unimpressive people in many ways. If you're listening to this, you're watching this. I'm not talking about you, but I meet these people who work for French Foreign Intelligence or they're retired, you know, because otherwise I wouldn't know. German, us, uk. And I just think this guy. But it's like if you really have to turn it on all the time in order for me to think you're not someone who has their head stuck in their butt, that's not a good sign. Because if you don't know me and you're thinking, I don't need to be nice to this person, I don't need to worry about this person, I don't need to connect with this person, you don't really know that. And then if you turn it on later, it seems so stinking disingenuous. So I would be more drawn to the person who is friendly, outgoing, connects everyone, even if they don't think that I can help them with anything.

Julian Fisher (9:37)

Bingo. I couldn't agree more with you about that. And I've had people say to me that I look like a librarian or I look like an accountant, but I think that's probably rude to librarians and accountants in all honesty. And one might say, well, okay, job done. It's meant to be a secret, but that's a cheap answer. And the reality is there is a breed of officer trained intelligence officers who can be a bit disingenuous and do have to turn it on. It isn't entirely natural for them. Now, whether or not you would notice the switch on is a different question. But it sounds to me if you've met somebody who's fully retired from the profession, then they're not likely to have to manage that segue much more.

Jordan Harbinger (10:17)

The reason that I kind of brought this up, I spent a bunch of unfortunately too much time in Hollywood, right? And when you meet an actor like George Clooney, for example, yeah, he's so charming all the time. David Duchovny, really cool guy, pretty cool guy all the time. Because if you can act like a really charming cool guy that everyone loves, why on earth would you turn that off? You'd leave it on almost all the time. So if your job is to connect and network with people and get them to like you, why are you an ignorant stick in the mud until you're on the clock? That part doesn't make sense to me. I don't turn my personality on and off depending on whether or not these cameras are rolling. I'm pretty much the same guy all the time. And so if I have to become myself in front of other people for this show, my wife told me this. She goes, I always wondered if you're going to be like the same. And I used to hear this all the time, oh, wow, you're like the same person that I hear on the Podcast. There's really no difference. That is a much more powerful, in my opinion, impression of someone than somebody who goes, I need something from him now. It's time for me to smile and act gregarious and connect and see what I can do for them. It just that, to me, immediately turns me off when I see people do that. And I can't be the only one who feels that way.

Julian Fisher (11:24)

I get what you're saying, because the most important thing which you project very clearly is authenticity. The Jordan I am sitting talking to here is the Jordan I was talking to 10 minutes ago outside the studio. That's fairly clear. And I think what's interesting about actors, and I've had the good fortune to work with a number of actors, even though their whole job is about pretending to be people, they're not, they're actually as authentic off the screen as they are on the screen, and vice versa. I find that very interesting. It's the same point you're making, right?

Jordan Harbinger (11:49)

They're playing themselves, they're playing them right. It might just not be the serial killer version that they're playing.

Julian Fisher (11:54)

And I think that's right.

Jordan Harbinger (11:55)

Yeah.

Julian Fisher (11:56)

The difference, maybe with intelligence officers, is this, that you mentioned spending a lot of time in Hollywood, and there's a Hollywood view, there's a Hollywood image of what is the intelligence officer like? It's the Bonds and it's the Bournes. And I think that's really ingrained in people's psyche. It's not necessarily the case that a spy has to switch on and become charismatic to engage with you. I like to think about very different, what I call spy styles. A few of the spy styles that I would point to, for instance, are at one end the exciter. And that is the classic spy type. The person that you can look at and you say, yeah, I would follow that person. They're clearly a leader, perhaps more sort of special forces than civilian intelligence, maybe the Bonds and the Bourns. But there's also the validator at the other end of the spectrum. And the validator can be quite introverted, they can be quite shy, they can be quite non flamboyant. They fade into the foreground. But when they engage, they engage very meaningfully and they connect very strongly with the people that they need to engage with. Now, I completely agree with you that if there are cases where that's being done purely for professional reasons, it leaves me feeling as uncomfortable as it leaves you feeling uncomfortable. And I think the best spice bring something of a real genuine connection when they're building those relationships.

Jordan Harbinger (13:13)

It seems like that's the only way that this is really going to work. Because if I'm going to convince you to betray your country, and if you get caught, your whole family gets executed. But if you do it right, you get a blue passport and you get to live in New York, the stakes are pretty high. So am I going to trust the person who seems to only have a rudimentary understanding of world affairs that they got from watching TV news in America, or am I going to trust the person that feels like they're actually my friend and not just being paid to act like my friend for three hours a day?

Julian Fisher (13:39)

I agree with you that we're all capable of reading people pretty acutely. And we do it all the time. We do it from the moment we're born. Basically, we teach ourselves to switch off often, but we all know when somebody's being inauthentic. We just know it.

Jordan Harbinger (13:52)

Unless you have some sort of disability where you can't pick up on these things, you are doing this automatically.

Julian Fisher (13:57)

Absolutely. Even if you can't say why, you know that person who's in the party looking over the shoulder for the next most interesting person to go on and talk to, you just. You want to avoid them. And they may be flamboyant, they may be charismatic, they may be larger than life, but you just don't feel right about them. So of course there has to be a personal connection, because if you're going to take that risk, right at the basis of this is trust, you've got to trust that person, that they're going to protect your identity, they're going to protect their dealings with you, they're going to look after you if something goes wrong to the extent that they can, you have to trust that they are giving something back to you. And that's not just material considerations, financial considerations, undoubtedly. But actually, part of what is given back quite often in those relationships is emotional connection, and that has to be genuine. I don't think anybody really can do it without being genuine. This is the paradox at the center of espionage. You have to be an authentic person to do it well. And if you're not, you're soon caught out.

Jordan Harbinger (14:53)

But also lie about who you are.

Julian Fisher (14:54)

Yes, it's a huge paradox, isn't it? You know, you can imagine that moment of unmasking when you say, well, okay, you know, you've been talking to me, but I've got something to tell you, actually. I work for the CIA or I work for the Mossad, or I Work for the IRGC or whatever it is. And by the way, having just admitted that I've been lying to you for the past three years, I'm now going to ask you to risk your life by giving me secret intelligence. How about it?

Jordan Harbinger (15:18)

It's a tough sell.

Julian Fisher (15:19)

It's a tough sell, isn't it? So unless you've got a genuine, authentic connection already, I think it's an impossible cell. I've always described it as being about three things. Having self awareness, others awareness, and situational awareness. And if you can't combine those three things effectively, you won't ever be a good spy.

Jordan Harbinger (15:35)

That actually sheds some light on things. What's this place with all the pythons that you wrap around your neck?

Julian Fisher (15:41)

Ah, in Ouidah. It's in Benin. It's in West Africa, south coast of Benin. And it's the center of voodoo, which people often mistake as hoodoo, which is.

Jordan Harbinger (15:56)

I don't even know what hoodoo is. That's a real thing.

Julian Fisher (15:58)

Hoodoo's the inadverted commas, black magic concept. Whereas voodoo is a legitimate religion followed by a lot of people in that part of West Africa.

Jordan Harbinger (16:09)

Oh, I didn't realize that.

Julian Fisher (16:10)

And they worship the python. One of the consequences of worshiping the python is you're not allowed to harm it. You're not allowed to go against its wishes. And they have a temple there in Ouidah, which I visited on a project some time ago. And I foolishly decided to go to the temple and allow them to put one of the many, many pythons that live there around my neck without realizing that were it to strike or to do whatever pythons do which is harmful, nobody would intervene.

Jordan Harbinger (16:43)

Right. They're not gonna help you.

Julian Fisher (16:45)

They would not help.

Jordan Harbinger (16:45)

It's God's will.

Julian Fisher (16:46)

Absolutely. The pythons will. But fortunately, we seem to get along okay. Me and the snake. You know, I petted alligators or crocodiles, rather, in Gambia. So there's something about traveling to West Africa which obviously makes me take leave of my senses and decide that it's okay to pet very dangerous animals.

Jordan Harbinger (17:06)

Yeah, it must be the jet leg. I don't know, man. That seems crazy to me. Cause they put the python around your neck and you go, oh, so how do you defang these things? And then they don't. Right.

Julian Fisher (17:17)

The answer is touch them. No, I mean, the veneration of the python in that part of the world is so great that each residential property has a python hole. So the python come and go.

Jordan Harbinger (17:29)

So it's a doggy door for Snakes.

Julian Fisher (17:30)

Absolutely.

Jordan Harbinger (17:31)

No, thank you.

Julian Fisher (17:31)

They can slither them out at any time, day or night, and you're not meant to evacuate them should they come into your living area.

Jordan Harbinger (17:38)

And so you could just wake up with a python next to you.

Julian Fisher (17:40)

Absolutely. I think, in fact, Adherents of Voodoo would consider that very good luck. Consider that a good sign.

Jordan Harbinger (17:47)

At what point doesn't it become bad luck when one kills a member of your family? I mean, that's not good luck.

Julian Fisher (17:54)

I'm not going to question their beliefs, but it's not something I think I could subscribe to. I have to say. Luckily, I was staying in a hotel.

Jordan Harbinger (18:03)

No python hog.

Julian Fisher (18:04)

Not on the ground floor. No python hog.

Jordan Harbinger (18:06)

Oh, man. I've read the book, as you may be able to tell from some of the questions I'm asking you. But I read the book and I like that you're very detailed, because a lot of this stuff tends to be like 10,000 foot or 30,000 foot overview of something like develop rapport. And it's like, okay, yeah, how'd you do that? Colon. What? What do I do now? And there's plans in there that you can, you know, here's how I would do a dossier. That's not the word you use, but like a file on somebody. So when I meet them, I have a plan that's really useful and I do that. What I'm talking to you right now is probably very similar to what you would use or have in your head when you're meeting a contact. It might not be a PDF, but it might be similar.

Julian Fisher (18:43)

Really interesting thing you just said there, Jordan, that you've read the book. You'd be surprised how many interviews I've heard with people who clearly haven't read the book.

Jordan Harbinger (18:50)

It's actually the norm. And people always go, oh, gosh, you're so talented. Interview. No, I just literally do the most basic level of homework on the guest and it's already cleared the bar in the 99th percentile.

Julian Fisher (19:01)

And here we are connecting and we're off able to talk about things which in many other encounters, I'd still be stuck in the weeds of. So what happened when you were 12 years old? The point I'm making is that we're already able to connect at a very different level of discussion about the world and about people. Because at the end of the day, this is what it's all about. Interpersonal connectivity. Because you've done your homework. And that's actually essentially all I'm saying. Don't go around breaking GDPR or equivalent Privacy laws and what have you, and obviously be very careful about how you keep data on people. But essentially what I'm talking about is a hypersonic version of just making a note of when somebody's birthday is and being aware of what they're interested in and making an effort when something of interest to them comes along. In other words, just not being a self obsessed. A hole.

Jordan Harbinger (19:43)

Yeah, exactly.

Julian Fisher (19:45)

There's a cultural difference.

Jordan Harbinger (19:47)

Put people's birthdays in your calendar, set the alarm for one or two days before so you're not wishing them happy birthday only on the day, because that's what everyone else is doing. And then you'd put a little list of things you know about them in that calendar entry, like, hey, man, you still playing pickleball? Happy birthday. It's on Thursday, isn't it? That is such a huge.

Julian Fisher (20:02)

Absolutely.

Jordan Harbinger (20:02)

I've used that to keep in touch with hundreds of maybe even a thousand plus people over the course of the year.

Julian Fisher (20:06)

And just remember, what was her kid's name, what's her husband's name?

Jordan Harbinger (20:09)

So that aside, tell me, you had a nurse from Iran when you had an accident as a kid. Can we talk about that? Because it seems like you learned quite a bit from her about alliances which I think might have informed your work later in life.

Julian Fisher (20:23)

Most definitely. I think Maya was probably the person who made the most significant difference to my life. I ended up meeting her because When I was 11, my older sister took her own life and this cast me into a very severe period of emotional turmoil. I won't seek to put a label on it and I don't think anybody would ask me to. I think it's fairly clear that an 11 year old losing his sister to suicide is going to be quite traumatized by it. About a year later, in the midst of my trauma, I didn't used to be able to face going to school because I was being bullied about that event the year before. And one morning I got the bright idea of being able to avoid going to school by walking in front of a moving car. Now, I can't say that I was intending to kill myself, but I was certainly intending to get out of going to school. I think we'd probably now call it a cry for help. As a result, I ended up in hospital in a fairly serious state, which required quite a number of medical procedures, surgical interventions, and had the good fortune to meet some incredible staff. Our NHS staff are almost universally fantastic, I have to say, but I met one in particular, Maya, who was not very much older than I Was she can't be more than 18 or 19, and she had fled with her mother as recently as 1979. Now we're talking about 1982, when I was in hospital. In 1979, there was an Islamic revolution in Iran and a number of people were arrested as counter revolutionaries. And her father was one of those. He was a medical doctor. She never saw him again, as far as I'm aware of. Has no idea what became of him. She fled with her mum, ended up in Birmingham, which is roughly in the middle of the uk, where I'd been born and brought up, and sought to become a nurse because she wanted to honour her father's memory by going into the medical field. But she failed her exams the first time around because she didn't speak English. Didn't speak English, essentially.

Jordan Harbinger (22:12)

That'll do it.

Julian Fisher (22:13)

It's an impediment. And then had the bright, I mean, I think, fabulous idea of asking one of her teachers to get in contact with universities where they offered Farsi. And through that she met a young student called Dan, Israeli by background, as it happens. And Dan and she would meet every day over the course of a summer and they would have two hours of conversation, one hour in English, one hour in Farsi, so that they would improve each other's grasp of the language.

Jordan Harbinger (22:37)

Dan works for the Mossad now, probably now that he's fluent in Farsi.

Julian Fisher (22:41)

Yeah, yeah. By the end of that period, she was able to take her exams again. Didn't do as well as she should have done. And then Dan's father stepped in. Dan's father was. He was involved in the Jewelry Quarter in Birmingham, reasonably well to do business person. And he said, look, if you continue working with my son, help him through university, I will pay for you to go back to school and to retake over the course of a year. Because at that point she was essentially terrified that she was going to have to follow her mother's footsteps and become a cleaner. Nothing wrong with being a cleaner. But she wanted badly to honor her father's memory. And so Dan's father was as good as his word. And a year later she retook her exams, passed them, and then got a place as a student nurse to become a state enrolled nurse. And I met her, I think, in the first year of that program. And she said to me one day, khachulu, which I understand means little one, dear one. She said, allies are the most important thing in life and always remember that. And I always have. I mean, it just made such a profound difference to the way I thought about the world. Of course I believe in the importance of education. I think we should always be on a lifelong quest to learn. But if you don't have allies on your side, it doesn't really matter how accomplished you are intellectually, how accomplished you are academically, you won't be able to make those breakthroughs. You won't be able to do the things that are just that little bit beyond. It's about social capital. That's the phrase. I took to heart, what she said, and I made a point of building relationships with people who would be helpful, supportive, and in a position to do that, but all the while without seeking to do that in any exploitative way, manipulative way.

Jordan Harbinger (24:16)

What is personality profiling and why is this important? You have this contact, Silas, and I think it's a really good example of personality profiling, cultural awareness and things like that. And I think that's an important skill to build.

Julian Fisher (24:28)

It is. I mean, I would say all I mean by personality profiling is getting to know somebody. Actually. You're stopping to think about somebody. We so often go through our lives and we come across somebody and we'll happily label them. I met Jordan the other day. He's a podcaster and broadcaster and celebrity personality. Let's go with that.

Jordan Harbinger (24:45)

Sure. Laying in on thick.

Julian Fisher (24:47)

I met Jules the other day. He's an author, former spy, maybe. I met a doctor. Doesn't really tell us anything, does it? What I mean by profiling is actually, where does that person come from? Is it a doctor who was brought up in a family of doctors going back generations who didn't have to fight to get there? Or were they born in northern Nigeria and had to fight even to get to a western country where they could get the education and the training to become a doctor. So starting at that cultural level, really, it's just understanding where does somebody come from? It also extends to contextual, situational awareness. Where does somebody come from? Because where they come from tells you a lot about who they are, because you have to be a certain type of personality, a certain type of character, to get from A to B.

Jordan Harbinger (25:30)

That's a really good point. There's definitely a difference between somebody who's parents were both doctors, not that they didn't have to work hard to get there, but whose parents are both doctors, and they born and raised in Los Angeles and then went to medical school and came back and worked in their practice there. There's definitely a difference between that person and the person who went from Russia, came to The United States as a teenager, got into medical school and their parents were both autoworkers like mine or something like that. There is a difference in personality based on the background of those people.

Julian Fisher (25:58)

I think there is. And there's a difference in the way in which we would wish to engage with them. I think. Now, let me be absolutely clear. I am not belittling anybody in. I'm not saying that if you're fortunate enough to be born with privilege, you know, I don't blame anybody.

Jordan Harbinger (26:10)

Lean into it, man.

Julian Fisher (26:12)

Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger (26:12)

We're all just jealous.

Julian Fisher (26:13)

I would. With the exception of those people who take that privilege and squander it, sure. I have no objection. I think that's a wonderful thing, that we can pass on knowledge, we can pass on wealth, and we can pass on contacts and social capital from generation to generation because we rise by lifting others. I genuinely believe that.

Jordan Harbinger (26:29)

Something I say in every show, I assume that.

Julian Fisher (26:31)

That I didn't know that, and I'm not actually joking.

Jordan Harbinger (26:34)

I was like, that's pretty good, man. Where'd you pick that up?

Julian Fisher (26:36)

It must have been said to me by somebody who's already been on one of your shows.

Jordan Harbinger (26:39)

Maybe that's the conclusion of every single show.

Julian Fisher (26:42)

It shows that we're in sync in our views, man.

Jordan Harbinger (26:45)

This is. It's quite fascinating. You mentioned organizational awareness and how spies pick their targets. You discuss organizational awareness, you think about it and find contacts who say, know an industry well or are well connected because they're rich or they're famous or something like that. And I feel like this has been a background process of mine and it can go wrong. Right. If you're in Hollywood and you're just a social climber and you're trying to get around famous people, it's really transparent. But if you can make friends with people that maybe have deep connections in the fitness industry, wellness industry, and you're just friends with them and you rarely talk about fitness. But then when you go, I need to contact this person, they just have the Rolodex for days. And I feel like I've sort of naturally come by that for much of my life. And I'm that person for podcasting and digital media for those people.

Julian Fisher (27:32)

I think there's a difference between targeting and networking. I think lots of people mix the two up and they misunderstand what I'm talking about when I use the phrase targeting. And we know people who are adept at building their rollerdeck. But there are two types of rollerdeck. There's a roller deck with a bunch of cards that mean absolutely nothing. Because if you picked up the phone, the chances are that person will never remember you. You were ships that passed in the night. And then there's targeting. And targeting is focusing on relationships because that relationship is meaningful. Not necessarily just for your professional advancement, not necessarily just for your personal reasons, but it's advantageous in the widest possible terms. Sometimes that can be strictly personal, sometimes that can be professional, sometimes it can be for everybody. Sometimes it might be charitable, it might be philanthropic. But you get my point. There's a reason to develop that relationship rather than that networking idea that, oh, I've met somebody who's a sound engineer, I might need them one day, I'll put their number into my phone, forget about it till five years later, call them five years later. And they're like, well, who are you? And anyway, I've moved on and I'm now glassblower. So what are you talking about? You know what I mean? That's the difference. Meaningful connection building. I use the phrase targeting, if you want to talk about that in the professional context. I talk about goals, allies. You set your goals, you understand where you're going. You make an assessment of the types of people that may be able to help you get there, may become goals, allies on that journey, and then you target that type of person. And you can be doing that in a preparatory way. And spies do this all the time, by the way. Sometimes they might be thinking about targeting for problems which are way over the horizon. They're constantly looking ahead, thinking, where's the next geopolitical problem going to come from? Or you might be doing it for an immediate requirement. And the same goes for personal or professional targeting. But the difference between that and networking is again, it's not just going to a conference and picking up as many cards as you can. It's why am I here? What am I trying to achieve? Who would be best placed to come with me on that journey in a collaborative alliance and then seek to engage with them as an individual rather than just a name or a function or a job.

Jordan Harbinger (29:37)

So it's more depth, quality over quantity. Which surprised no one who's listened to the show before. It seems like we talk about that a lot on the show. It's common in your profession. And yet people will literally go and meet as many people as they can and collect the business cards, never get a follow up email from them. Maybe you hear from them three years later or they follow up, but it's like there's no action here. There's no reason for us to really stay connected that I can think of. Other than you're casually maybe going to ask me for something in a few weeks.

Julian Fisher (30:03)

That's right. That's really transparent, isn't it? Especially if somebody contacts you and they haven't seen you in three years. Hey, remember me? We met in San Jose. And why are you calling me? You want something, don't you? And it's immediate. Again, remember what we said a short while ago? We instinctively know these things. We don't necessarily react harshly as a result, but we instinctively know these things. Whereas if you're spending time building up quality relationships, that shouldn't be an issue. There's a parallel here, and this is a passion of mine. I'm sure we would come to it anyway, but I'm going to jump the gun.

Jordan Harbinger (30:34)

Sure.

Julian Fisher (30:34)

Which is about networking online for me. There's targeting, then there's networking in person, and then there's building up thousands and thousands of friends online. Okay, fine. If you're an influencer and that's your job, and you are seeking to reach a wide audience and for somebody like you, as wide an audience as possible. Absolutely right. For the vast majority of us, it makes very little difference. If you have 10 friends on social media or you have 10,000, it really makes very little difference apart from manageability, this striving for likes for connections and all the rest of it. I think that's probably going to do an awful lot of harm to young people and the young people who I'm trying to reach with this book, by the way. What I really want to say to them is get out there, meet people, build meaningful relationships.

Jordan Harbinger (31:13)

Because a lot of people measure the quality of their social circle in the amount of people that they have or followers or whatever. Because it shows a visible, tangible metric of popularity. I think people mistake popularity for real connection, and that is a huge mistake, especially in the professional sphere. A lot of people might know who you are, and that means you're popular, but that doesn't mean that they're connected with you or that they feel necessarily some affinity for you. It's just that they know who you are. It can actually be bad depending on the industry that you're in, I would imagine.

Julian Fisher (31:44)

I think that's probably right. And there's a distinction to be made between using it as a means or tools as an end in a tool as an end in itself. You know, if your end in itself is to have 20,000 followers and numerous likes every time you put something out on whatever social media it is that's pointless. Now, of course, if you've developed something, a capability, a genuine capability, a genuine talent, you genuinely have something that is to be consumed. Whether that's a talent for podcasting, whether it's a talent for writing, whether it's a talent for singing, and you seek followers so that you have as wide an audience as possible, that's an entirely different thing. That's not targeting, that's a different thing. That's building your customer base.

Jordan Harbinger (32:22)

That's right. That's totally different. You mention in the book, you ask who has access to the information that we want and how do we structure an approach they're likely to be receptive to? The great example of this is you volunteering for this campaign. Tell me about that. Because you ended up finagling a spot in the House of Commons and you're sorting essentially these boring papers, but then you're gaining access and you're gaining experience with these sort of blue blood upper class folks.

Julian Fisher (32:48)

Yeah, well, I mean, there was. The particular end point here was that I wanted to have Winston Churchill as my referee when I was coming out of university and trying to find my first job back in those days, very long time ago, paper, curriculum vitae, sent out by post with a stamp on it covering national, all the rest of it. And a very important part of that was to have two people prepared to give you references or testimonials.

Jordan Harbinger (33:11)

Okay.

Julian Fisher (33:11)

And I was quite active in the Conservative Party in my youth, and I'd volunteered to work in the 1989 European elections, which was great fun, actually going at campaigning, it was just. It was enormously good fun. And I was working with a fantastic candidate who went on to sit in the House of Lords. And I've got a great deal of time for him. But in the process, I thought, well, rather than just doing this for its own sake, what am I trying to achieve? So I thought the next step needs to be to work in the House of Commons. And there's a cadre of research staff in the House of Commons. So every time during this campaign, somebody from the senior leadership from the Conservative Party, which was then in government, came along to campaign with us. I would make a point of getting to know them, making sure, almost obsequiously carrying their bags around with them, trying to build a relationship, and at the end of each day, say to them, do you know of anybody who needs a research assistant? Nine times out of 10, the answer came back no. But on one occasion it came back yes. And I ended up working in the House of Commons as a research assistant to an MP no longer sitting. But that wasn't enough for me. I wanted to have a really big name. I sat down with a list of serving MPs, and the first one that jumped off the page of me was Winston Churchill. I thought, I've got to have Winston Churchill as a reference. Now, just to be absolutely clear to everybody listening out there who's confused, it's Winston Churchill, the grandson that I was working for, rather. I'm not that old. I look old. I'm not that old. And so I set about cultivating him. I made a point of finding out what were his areas of parliamentary interest, when did he contribute to debates, what did he say? What angle is he coming from? What are his interests in foreign affairs? And there was a Reuters feed outside his office. So I would sort of linger by the Reuters feed, wait till he came by, and then make a comment about something that I knew that he'd be interested in. So I was thinking about him. He said, it sounds manipulative, but in actual fact, I was thinking about his interests. I was giving him a reason to engage.

Jordan Harbinger (35:02)

All right, maybe I need one of those good luck, Pythons. But alas, all I have is an anaconda. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell and Nvidia. AI is the shiny new toy, and everybody wants to be the first one to use it. But in the rush to automate, optimize, outpace the competition, one thing often gets left behind. Security. In episode seven of the cybersecurity tapes, a large healthcare system rolls out generative AI to manage patient intake, a movement to streamline operations and cut wait times. Instead, it sparks a digital domino effect. Ambulances are sent to the wrong locations, delays in urgent care and network on the brink of collapse. All because no one stopped to ask, is this thing actually ready? The cybersecurity tapes doesn't just tell stories. It exposes how real organizations stumble into crisis. When tech moves faster than caution. Episode seven is a bit of a ride and a warning shot. Catch it wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is also sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, a guy can walk into a doctor's office and say, my head hurts. Eh? And everyone's like, oh, man, I hope you feel better. But if he says, hey, mentally, I am falling apart at the seams. Suddenly it's like, change the subject. Mental health has a weird stigma around it, especially for men. We're supposed to man up, you know, rub some dirt on our emotions and Push through. Meanwhile, we're walking around like emotional pressure cookers, trying not to explode at a red light because the other person didn't go within 2 microseconds. And here's the truth, man, life is hard. Over 6 million men in the US deal with depression every year. That is a huge number of men in the United States. I mean, that's like a decent sized portion of the population. Most of us never even realize it, myself included, because we think being strong means going it alone and just being super unhappy for a freaking decade. I'm not there anymore. Thanks for asking. But the strongest thing you can do is talk to someone. And that's where BetterHelp comes in. This is what I did. I got a therapist and changed my Life. You got 35,000 therapists to choose from. You can do it on your phone, your laptop, even while you hide from your kids in the garage. And if your first match isn't working, switch anytime, no additional charge. Over 5 million people have used it and the app has a 4.9 star rating with over 1.7 million reviews. So don't freaking white knuckle your way through life, folks. Get a little help.

Ryan Reynolds (36:58)

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Jordan Harbinger (37:17)

Managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, creators, spies every single week, it is because of my network. The circle of people I know, like and trust. I'm teaching you how to build yours for free over@sixminutenetworking.com look, you're listening to a show about networking and relationship development, whether you know it or not. And this course is taught to three letter agencies. That's how I developed it. I'm teaching you most of that stuff in a non cringy, very down to earth way. And it's free. I don't need your credit card number. I make money off shilling mattresses. Y' all should know that by the course takes a few minutes a day. You can binge it. Even if you just take one or two things. It'll make you a better connector, a better friend, a better peer. And many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course, especially the spy folks. So come on and join us. You'll be in smart, covert, Company where you belong. You can find the course again, all free@sixminutenetworking.com now back to Julian Fisher. If somebody does this to me and sets up a news alert for North Korea and then emails me when something interesting comes up, I'm not thinking, you manipulative sob. I'm thinking, oh, this person took the time to set this up so they could get my attention and it worked.

Julian Fisher (38:19)

Yeah, absolutely. And that's what I was doing. Some people do think it's manipulative. I clearly don't. Whether it was or not, the end result was I was able to say to him, do you need a research assistant? He said, I don't, but I do need a speechwriter. So I became a speechwriter at Winston Churchill.

Jordan Harbinger (38:34)

That was a gutsy move for him to just be like, actually, you must have been so fresh faced. And he's like, I want you to write the things that I say in public.

Julian Fisher (38:40)

The funny postscript to that is there's one speech which he gave where it was so poorly written. And I admit that now I look back on it, it was gauche. It was ill informed.

Jordan Harbinger (38:49)

Politicians, that's what they do, is they say things that are gauche and ill informed. I think you were probably right on target, man. You were just ahead of your time.

Julian Fisher (38:56)

Yeah, I read the room. Yeah. But the respondent to it, his phrase was, if I recall correctly, I don't know who writes the honourable gentleman's speeches, but I suggest he finds a new assistant. Winston sent me a copy of it kindly by post. He was amused about it, as was I, and he went on actually to give me a really lovely reference and helped me to get my first job at an organization of stockbrokers which I wouldn't have expected to get into. Back in those days it was very much dominated by fee paying, school, upper.

Jordan Harbinger (39:27)

Crust, super educated people who have, I don't know, played polo on weekends or something.

Julian Fisher (39:33)

Absolutely. Everybody called Kasnov the blue blooded stockbrokers.

Jordan Harbinger (39:36)

How did you fit in?

Julian Fisher (39:37)

I didn't. I was fortunate that I worked with some consummately charming people and they all embraced me and they respected the fact that I was a reasonable economist. So in that context, I wouldn't put myself up as an academic economist. But they respected my professional ability and over time we got to know one another. But there was always what I call a glass partition. So we talk about, we know about the glass ceiling. I could have probably gone all the way up to partnership in that firm if I'd stayed there. But there would always have been that glass partition between me and the other people. They had a different way of speaking. They did different things. They went to different places. They knew each other. They went to each other's country estates. I was never going to be part of that.

Jordan Harbinger (40:17)

It's one of those things where people say, oh, yeah, Vail, the snow was terrible this year. And I go, I would not know.

Julian Fisher (40:22)

That's right.

Jordan Harbinger (40:23)

Because my parents took me to a lake that you can't put boats on, and they told me I should go ice fishing. And I didn't catch anything else, you know?

Julian Fisher (40:32)

Exactly. Exactly. I have a similar. An equivalent story to that, that I took a message from one of my colleagues while they're out at lunch one day, and it was somebody calling to organize a skiing trip. And they said, could you just leave a message that I'll meet this person at Val d' Zaire? And I'd never heard of Valdez French. It's a skiing resort.

Jordan Harbinger (40:50)

Okay, I think we have a bad connection. Can you spell that?

Julian Fisher (40:53)

Oh, of course.

Jordan Harbinger (40:54)

Val d' Z. Oh, naturally.

Julian Fisher (40:55)

Yeah. I wasn't quite that sharp back in those days. I didn't dare ask how if they would spell it for me. I spelled it phonetically because. So I wrote a V, I, Z, A. Exactly. I then went out and came back a bit later and there was a group of people around the desk all laughing at the way that I'd spelled Val D's. I look back on it and it's excruciating.

Jordan Harbinger (41:14)

Yeah. Oh, man. But that hurts.

Julian Fisher (41:16)

It taught me something, which is a little bit of humility, which is important, too. And just sometimes just ask if I just said to my boss, who was an absolutely fabulous guy, if I just said to him, don't really know what this is, he'd have just told me and he wouldn't have judged me. But talking of John, my boss, the end to that story, really, is that I said to him, you know, I don't really belong here. This is a totally different social class and so on. Why on ass did you employ me? And he said, well, I had to employ you, really, because I wanted to phone the House of Commons and ask to speak to Winston Churchill.

Jordan Harbinger (41:45)

One thing I love about the book is you talk about how to tailor outreach, how to use social media like Facebook or LinkedIn, and use the. You may also know, connections and things like that. I do get a lot of pitches like, you don't know me. But 17, paragraph letter, the ask is somewhere in the middle, maybe at the bottom. Now, I have an AI thing that reads it and summarizes it. It comes with Superhuman, which is my email client. But I don't want to have to look at that. I usually just don't read it if it's too long. I can't spend 20 minutes reading your email when it's your life story followed by and so can I come on your show or something like that. It's not gonna work. You tailor the outreach and you talk about what to do instead. But one of the best rules of thumb is respecting boundaries and don't stalk. I don't have this problem yet, thankfully. But the rule of thumb is, would this person be happy that I know this about them? That is a really good heuristic because I think there's quite a few people that will try and say something about me in an email that's personal. And it's very clear that they asked a lot of people. It's a little invasive and it doesn't make any sense when what they could have done is said something like, I know you're interested in travel in North Korea, and I heard on your show that you went to Paris and you liked it and you think French food is great. I mean, something along those lines is fine. There's a really fine line between, hey, man, you did your homework and get off my porch.

Julian Fisher (43:08)

Yeah, totally. I don't think anything replaces instinct on that front, actually. We've just got to instinctively know when you're overstepping that boundary. It would be like if somebody sent you an email, for instance, with the title we rise by lifting Others. I would say that's right on the margin. Of course, they know, as you've just explained, it's a catchphrase of yours. It might catch your eye, but it could also just be seen as a little bit too on the edge. I would. Personally, I wouldn't do it. I would say my instinct would tell me that you wouldn't react particularly well to that.

Jordan Harbinger (43:35)

Somebody went to a coffee shop and the wall said, we rise by lifting others. It was just a phrase that was on the wall of this coffee shop. They sent me a picture of it and they said, this reminded me of you. And then they said, I'd love your show. And by the way, I thought this guy would be really interesting. Yes, I'm his publicist, but that's not why I am doing. And I read the pitch.

Julian Fisher (43:53)

I like that, because it's actually saying, okay, here's a third party thing that's going on that I'm connecting To. So if I just play something back at you by just quoting you in your own words in an email, it's not bad, but it's not great. But that thing of saying, okay, I saw this and thought of you. Yeah, okay, that's doing two things, isn't it? That's saying, I thought of you. That's quite important because we all like people to be thinking about us. Doesn't matter who we are. Let's put our hands up. And it's also saying, I know enough about you and I'm sufficiently interested in you not only to think of you, but to think of you in connection with something. Whether that's a phrase or a way of saying exactly.

Jordan Harbinger (44:27)

If you know that they're a little bit cheeky like me. There was some sign I saw in a bathroom that said something a little bit vulgar. And I took a photo of it and I sent it to somebody and I said, this reminded me of you. And they called me because they were laughing so hard. It had to do with the length of someone's member and standing close enough to the urinal to make a mess, basically. And I was like, I don't know why, but this reminded me of you.

Julian Fisher (44:48)

I want to say, we've all been there.

Jordan Harbinger (44:50)

Son of a. You know, it's one of those. And you can play with that a little bit. But, yeah, would they be happy? Basically. Are they going to be smile when they see this or are they going to close the window blinds? Because they're a little bit unnerved by the fact that you know this.

Julian Fisher (45:03)

I would say to people, use your instinct. And if your instinct is telling you no, just don't do it. Don't take the risk.

Jordan Harbinger (45:08)

Nothing is creepier than finding out somebody's done a little bit too much homework on you.

Julian Fisher (45:13)

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger (45:13)

And I didn't care as much until I had kids. Now I'm like, okay, now you're not invading my privacy. It's my kids and my wife's privacy, and that's not okay.

Julian Fisher (45:21)

I know exactly what you mean. And with people able to find out so much about anyone who has anything of a public profile with through AI.

Jordan Harbinger (45:28)

Yeah.

Julian Fisher (45:29)

The worst, I think, is when you get something that's clearly been AI generated and they've got AI to look at something. And so I've had emails, and I'm fairly liberal with my email address, and perhaps I shouldn't be, but I've had emails come to me where you can see it's the same font as was delivered by a particular AI.

Jordan Harbinger (45:45)

Machine.

Julian Fisher (45:45)

And they haven't bothered to change the font from the first sentence that says, yeah, I read your book and I really loved it. I have one particular one. Just I very quickly tell this story because I think it illustrates a hell of a lot. I read your book, thought it was fantastic. I'm a book promoter and I think we could do really great work together. And here's what I do. AI Chunk of text.

Jordan Harbinger (46:04)

Yeah. Copy paste.

Julian Fisher (46:05)

Copy paste.

Jordan Harbinger (46:06)

Spacing is different.

Julian Fisher (46:07)

Absolutely. And then signed off and I wrote back and I said, it feels to me like you probably just copied and pasted from AI there, but I'm going to give you another shot. So would you mind telling me what it is, particularly about my book that you like?

Jordan Harbinger (46:19)

No response.

Julian Fisher (46:20)

They came back and said, could you send me a link to it?

Jordan Harbinger (46:22)

Oh, gosh. So they had lied about reading the book. Yeah.

Julian Fisher (46:26)

I mean, that clearly is at the very far end of the spectrum.

Jordan Harbinger (46:29)

This is a good point. This is a good point. We're not just whining here, people, because a bad pitch if it's not successful. Let's say I get a pitch where somebody goes, this guy'd be super interesting. And I go, actually, he's been on the show before. And they go, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. I sent this from my phone. I should have searched your website. Here's another person I think would be interesting. I searched your website and you haven't had them on yet. Fine, you get another chance. Should you have searched my site? Yes, but it's not the end of the world. However, the person who writes with AI, I loved your latest episode with Andrew Callahan, who did this AI Summary of episode, paragraph about me, paragraph about what I want. So I now have read this whole thing and then I go, I've already had this guy in the freaking website. This email must have taken them 20 minutes to write. Oh, wait, no. AI did it. And they sent this a hundred times. So then I just block their entire email. I'm never going to hear from them again. So it's actually better to have a slight little mistake that took me a few seconds to read and correct than a long thing that looks like you put effort into it but was completely fake. Something about getting bamboozled just really pisses me off, and I can't be the only person who feels that way.

Julian Fisher (47:29)

No, I get it. And I want to echo what you said there. This isn't whining. The reason I think we're both telling these stories is to help people, because it is Tricky. Let's be honest about this. It's hard. Selling yourself is hard. None of us is comfortable doing it. We hate writing those emails. With some rare exceptions. We certainly don't want to make cold phone calls to do it. All the rest of it, this is hard to do. So if you're going to do it, don't waste your time by doing it in a ham fisted way, is what I would say. In the chapter in the book where I talk about this, I call the perfect pitch. Because ultimately a spy is pitching somebody as well. They're effectively just saying, I need something from you and I'm going to give you a reason why you might want to give that to me. Because that's all it's about. You've got the targeting, you've got the use of COVID you've got cultivation, you've got use of elicitation, assessment of the motivations. And then only then do you think about a pitch. Obviously it's different when we're talking about somebody wanting to help me with publicizing my book or somebody coming on your podcast. But the same principles apply. Don't fall at the first hurdle by sending something that you haven't properly researched or haven't properly thought through. If in doubt, just put yourself in that other person's shoes for a bit. If you got that email, how would you feel? Because that will tell you an awful lot.

Jordan Harbinger (48:39)

Yeah, I think the truth is people think they're getting away with it with the AI thing and they're not. They're really not any sort of template that you think looks good from AI. Realize that that AI is telling every person pitching my show to use that exact same template. And it's really obvious. And it's a way to set you into my immediate do not read box. Because I'm getting 30 of those per day and people are going, I don't care. I'm not booking for a podcast. If you're trying to find a job, you're probably doing the same thing. You're sending an email to somebody in an industry and they're going, I had another one of these stupid AI things from a guy who graduated from a college program and thinks you're going to write this to me. They're seeing so much of this. I want to switch gears. You have a really interesting anecdote about being in the elevator in Zimbabwe. It's not quite related to what we're discussing, but I love this.

Julian Fisher (49:23)

It sort of comes back to targeting really and a bit of thinking on your feet, but the biggest lesson about that is what you can pull out the bag when you're panicking, really. So the brief background there. I had many years of engagement and dealings with Zimbabwe, which is a beautiful country, full of amazing people. It's a great tragedy that its leadership has let it down so badly over the past decades. And I've traveled back to and from there for many, many years. One particular time I went there, 2008, was after a really seriously unpleasant election period during which a lot of people had lost their lives. The opposition candidate Morgan Tsangira pulled out because he felt that the threat to his supporters was too great. And then Mugabe had gone on to win by 99% or something.

Jordan Harbinger (50:06)

Oh yeah, very believable.

Julian Fisher (50:08)

We know the play ball. It was a febrile atmosphere. And one thing that then President Mugabe had done was whip out very anti British sentiment. He blamed Britain for everything. As the former colonialists, we were responsible for his disastrous economic policies. We were responsible for hyperinflation, we were responsible for the state of the road, you name it. And I traveled there soon after the election to go and see a friend of mine who happened to be a very senior figure in Mugabe's party, had been to a university near where I was born. And we'd really struck it off and I'd gone in to see him actually just relationship maintenance. I wasn't after anything. He was on the top floor of the Zanu PF building, which is based, and I'm not joking, it's based on a street called Rotten Row, the Zanu PF headquarters. I don't know whether they were aware of the irony of that when they selected that address. But I was coming out of the meeting which had gone very well. We got on very well, had a cup of coffee and etze and cake, as I recall. I got into a lift and I'm slightly claustrophobic. Talk about being the sorts of things that you wouldn't expect somebody with this sort of background to have. You know, a bit of claustrophobia is not necessarily what you might expect from somebody who seeks work in the intelligence field. But I'd forced myself to get into the lift because the lights were out in the stairwell and it would probably been quite dangerous to go down it. And then came down one floor, doors opened again and this group of people got in. The first two were wearing suits, looking fairly respectable, and then a group after them of God knows how many, 15 maybe, people dressed in sort of ragged clothes but carrying pangas, which are those long curved Blades, like a machete kind of thing. It's like a machete, basically.

Jordan Harbinger (51:45)

In an office building.

Julian Fisher (51:47)

In an office building.

Jordan Harbinger (51:47)

I might get out of the elevator at that point.

Julian Fisher (51:50)

Well, I was sort of penned at the back. I thought I'd just hold my breath, literally, because they all stank of local beer, which they'd obviously stoked up, and they were on their way to campaign. Shall we put it into verte commas? And often that meant going to an opposition rally and beating a few people up or worse, hence the pangas. So it was uncomfortable, but I thought I should probably have got out. Yeah, maybe I'm here.

Jordan Harbinger (52:12)

Yeah, I'm committed to the bit.

Julian Fisher (52:14)

All right, start going down again. And then suddenly, big jolt and the lift stops between two floors, which is bad enough. And I begin to think, okay, I'm claustrophobic. I'm surrounded by people with pangas. I'm British, they hate the Brits. This isn't stacking up terribly well. And then the lights went out. So I had a mobile phone, fairly rudimentary one, but it did have a torch. So I reached into my pocket because I was just. By this point, I just needed some light. I needed to see what was going on and illuminated the situation with the torch, which, of course, just drew attention to me. So suddenly, I've got all these people with their pangas thinking of local brew, saying, you know, who are you? You're a Brit, You're a spy. What are you doing here? You know, we don't welcome you here. What are you? You a colonialist? All of this stuff. And it was threatening to get quite nasty. But I noticed that of the two gentlemen who got in first, leading this group, first of all, they were wearing suits. So that told me something. They're probably senior. And number two, I noticed on the lapel of one of them, he was wearing a little enamel badge, and it just said United. Now, I don't know how much your audience will know about football. Some people occur in the uk, our Premier League soccer is or was dominated by a team called Manchester United. Back then. Back then, it had a roll call of some incredible players. As I understand it now, I know nothing about soccer.

Jordan Harbinger (53:34)

Oh, okay, we're on the same page then.

Julian Fisher (53:35)

But I did know that if I saw somebody wearing an enamel badge that said United, chances were it meant Manchester United. And so I just gambled. I just turned around to him and I said, how was the match the other day? And I had no idea if there'd been a match. And I certainly had no idea who would have won it. I literally don't think I've ever seen a soccer match from beginning to. But it was worth a shot. Excuse the pan again. And it worked. And he sort of looked at me for a bit, sort of quite quizzically, and he said, yeah, it was good, actually. Ronaldo was playing really well. And then somebody else said, no, it's not Ronaldo. It's this other player. And within a few seconds, the whole attention had shifted from me to football, soccer, British soccer, and there was a healthy debate going on about who was the best player in Manchester United at that time. And I had been completely forgotten by the time I left that we were rescued, taken to the ground floor. I was exchanging my telephone number with the guy with the United batch, and that was another way in to find a senior person within the party as it happened.

Jordan Harbinger (54:33)

That's great. Hey, I'll give you a call next time I'm about to get stabbed with a panga and you can rescue me.

Julian Fisher (54:38)

Just look for the evidence of something else. There's a technique called blue catting as well. It's slightly related. It's not quite. It's the idea that people say, I bet I can make you think of a blue cat. And immediately you're thinking of a blue cat. And you can't stop thinking of a blue cat. So long as I'm saying blue cat to you, it's a distraction technique. So all I was effectively doing was just saying, okay, the focus is on me. I need the focus to be somewhere else.

Jordan Harbinger (55:00)

Interesting.

Julian Fisher (55:01)

So I was doing a version of blue catting by saying, I'm going to invite you all now to expend your mental energy just talking about something, which I knew, to be fair, I knew enough about Africa to know that soccer is incredibly popular. And Manchester United was by far and away the most successful and popular team on that continent.

Jordan Harbinger (55:19)

I feel like I've done this by accident. I had a police experience when I was in former Yugoslavia, and they were very upset with me. And I've told the story on the show before, so I'll skip the details, but basically, they were figuring out when and how they were gonna beat me up, basically. And I started talking about food and different kinds of drinks, and it shifted from them figuring out how many holes to put in me, I'm sure to. This place does not have the best burgers. You guys don't know what you're talking about. They weren't burgers, but this place and the drinks over here are good, but the drinks that I make in my bathtub or whatever are even better. And this stuff is too commercial. And I remember my friend was getting his ass kicked in the next room and I thought, man, he should have talked about Pleskowica because it might be going differently. So that's the blue catting thing, right? I mean, it's just basically, it's a version of. It took the energy away from the.

Julian Fisher (56:09)

Redirected the conversation in a conflict situation, which is what this is. Your mind is geared to conflict. If you insert something into the mind that jostles with the mental space, that helps. It's not going to work every single time, but it's always worth a shot. Far be it from me to promote smoking on your show, but one thing I did used to do when I was traveling frequently in Africa was carry a packet of cigarettes. Because even if I wasn't smoking myself, if you do get into a conflict situation, the first thing you do is offer somebody something. It does a couple of things.

Jordan Harbinger (56:38)

First of all, it keeps their hands busy.

Julian Fisher (56:40)

Keeps their hands busy.

Jordan Harbinger (56:41)

They get less stabby when they're smoking.

Julian Fisher (56:43)

And creates a sense of obligation. That human sense of reciprocity. You've given me something, so I owe you something is very strong. So if the thing that you owe me is to not stab me.

Jordan Harbinger (56:52)

Right.

Julian Fisher (56:52)

Yeah, that'll be a good start.

Jordan Harbinger (56:54)

Yeah. Yeah, I'll take that trade. No kidding. In the book, you go over different types of COVID which I thought was really interesting. There's differences between saying what you were really doing in Africa, which resulted in people saying that you were a spy and then just leaving it at this sort of boring. I'm a consultant. And then everybody's praying you don't say anything else about your job at that point.

Julian Fisher (57:14)

Hang on.

Jordan Harbinger (57:14)

But I thought the note that overlapped with the undercover cops in undercover law enforcement that I have on the show is, keep it close. Keep your cover story close to the truth. Ensure plausibility. So if you're shy, you don't say that you're a performer and make it about something that you know about. This guy I ran into on an airplane a while ago, he was an older guy. He told me about how he got recruited by the CIA probably. I guess it must have been in the 80s. And he was like, I don't get it. I work for Ford in Indonesia. He was like the head of Ford in Indonesia. And they were like, that's what we need. Because no one's going to go, you're CIA because you are so well known in the business community in Indonesia, and you're going and having dinner at the President's house because you're the head of Ford in Indonesia, whatever it was. And so that was actually perfect. He told me this on the airplane, and he goes, I didn't know anything about being a spy. And they said, that's good. We don't want you to act like a spy. We want you to act like the head of Ford in Indonesia and just tell us information that you get from the people that you go to parties with.

Julian Fisher (58:12)

Basically, the best cover sometimes is being yourself.

Jordan Harbinger (58:14)

Yeah.

Julian Fisher (58:15)

The authenticity bit is what draws me back to if you are a spy and you're in a difficult place, you don't want to be advertising the fact that you are. So just present yourself as something bland, anodyne, boring. The more boring, the better. Just don't draw attention to yourself. That's defensive cover. Much more interesting, I think, for your. Well, I mean, some people will be very interested in that, but others will be more interested in what I call offensive cover, which isn't quasi militaristic, so forgive the term, but I can't really think of a better one. What I mean by offensive cover is the way in which you present yourself to make yourself interesting to another person. How do you come across to draw another person to you? And that doesn't necessarily mean you have to pretend to be something you're not or pretend to know something that you don't. And the more that you understand the thing you're presenting as, the better, obviously, because authenticity shines through every single time.

Jordan Harbinger (59:05)

So it seems like a good offensive cover would be, let's say that you're a Russian hockey player living in the United States. You spent most of your adult life here in the NHL playing for the Detroit Red Wings. They send you back to Russia, you're hanging out with Vladimir Putin. That's good. Offensive. Right. You're a celebrity, you're well known, you're not lying about being a hockey player.

Julian Fisher (59:24)

But if you genuinely are, you're genuinely.

Jordan Harbinger (59:26)

A professional hockey player. Yeah. But then, like, hey, when you go to Putin's palace, we'd love to know about the security measures that they've got over there.

Julian Fisher (59:32)

I think one really powerful potential cover is recruitment consultant.

Jordan Harbinger (59:36)

Like for jobs, essentially.

Julian Fisher (59:38)

Yeah. Because a professional recruiter. Because that gives you an opportunity to go. First of all, you don't have to be expert in anything. If you think about it, that's true.

Jordan Harbinger (59:45)

All right, I got that going for me.

Julian Fisher (59:49)

Second, you've got a good excuse to talk to lots of people. Because, of course, the first thing you come up against whenever you're trying to build a relationship which is ultimately aimed at getting somebody to give you something that they don't necessarily want to share with you, is, why are you asking me this question?

Jordan Harbinger (60:02)

I use this all the time. I ask people these deep personal questions and I go, hey, no obligation to respond, but I'm a journalist covering this for a podcast. And they go, fine. Off the record, they'll tell me all kinds of personal things.

Julian Fisher (60:14)

Absolutely. No. Journalism is a difficult one for the agencies to use because it's checkable.

Jordan Harbinger (60:19)

Obviously, unless you're a BS journalist like me, you can check it all you want. I actually do have a podcast.

Julian Fisher (60:25)

Well, quite, believe it or not. But again, there we go. That comes back round to if you can have somebody working with you who's genuinely doing the thing that they do, which gives them the opportunity to go and ask the questions. Brilliant. Actually, being around here put me in mind of something. A few years back, we were filming Spies, and we filmed down in Granary Square, which is just by St. Pancras and King's Cross. I was with the production crew and they were scouting around for locations and going in and telling somebody at a reception, hey, I'm a production assistant. Scouting for a location opens a lot of doors.

Jordan Harbinger (60:58)

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Julian Fisher (60:59)

I'm just putting it out there for anybody who might be interested.

Jordan Harbinger (61:02)

Oh, my gosh.

Julian Fisher (61:03)

It's one of those things where people are like, oh, wow, seriously, I might be on tv. Come on in.

Jordan Harbinger (61:07)

And now for some not so covert words from our sponsors. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Airbnb. Just got back from my fourth trip to Taiwan, and it was a blast. As soon as we landed, Jen and I hand the kids off to the grandparents like a hot potato, head straight to a local cafe to get some work done, because we do work on vacation. Anyway, we're sitting there typing away, feeling very international power couple, special cafe energy, laptops out, coffee flowing, and we're packing up to leave. And the guy goes, excuse me, are you Jen and Jordan Harbinger? And listen, I'm not gonna lie, that felt pretty darn cool. Minor celebrity moment unlocked. Shout out to Daniel T. It was awesome meeting you. We had a great chat. Honestly, it's one of my favorite parts of traveling. Meeting sharp, interesting people who somehow still recognize us, even disheveled after 13 hours on a plane. And while we're out there living our best D list celebrity spotted life abroad. It hit me. Our home could have been making money the whole time. If you got a place sitting empty while you're traveling, you could be picking up some extra cash by hosting on Airbnb. Find out more@airbnb.com host I've Got Homes.com as a sponsor for this episode. Homes.com knows what when it comes to home shopping, it's never just about the house or the condo. It's about the homes. And what makes a home is more than just the house or property. It's the location. It's the neighborhood. If you got kids, it's also schools, nearby, parks, transportation options. That's why homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in depth information they need to find the right home. It's so hard not to say home every single time. And when I say in depth information, I'm talking deep. Each listing features comprehensive information about the neighborhood, complete with a video guide. They also have details about local schools with test scores, state rankings, student teacher ratio. They even have an agent directory with the sales history of each agent. So when it comes to finding a home, not just a house, this is everything you need to know, all in1place.homes.com We've done your homework.

Ryan Reynolds (62:55)

This episode is also sponsored in part by AG1. A part of my morning routine is AG1. I drink it right after I wake up. Before the chaos starts, before emails, before kid wrangling, before my morning workout. Just add one scoop in cold water, shake it up and I'm done. It's actually kind of peaceful. When I'm consistent with AG1, I feel on clear headed, steady energy. Digestion's smooth. But when I forget it for a few days, I notice I feel a little more sluggish, a little bloated, a little off. AG1 is a foundational nutrition supplement and it really does make me feel like I'm giving my body what it needs to handle whatever the day throws at me. Kid meltdowns and zoom calls. You get it? And now AG1 has leveled up even more with their AG1 next gen. This upgraded formula has been clinically shown to increase healthy gut bacteria by 10x, all for the same price of less than $3 per day. One scoop every morning and I'm good. So subscribe today to try the next gen of AG1 for less than $3 a day. If you use our link, you'll also get a free AG1 morning person hat, a welcome kit and more goodies included. Check out drinkag1.com Jordan to get started yourself. That's drinkag1.com Jordan, if you like this.

Jordan Harbinger (64:03)

Episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. They make the show possible. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support this podcast are searchable and Clickable over@jordanharbinger.com deals and if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find a code. You're not sure if we ever had that sponsor on. Feel free to email us jordanordanharbinger.com we are happy to surface codes for you because it is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Julian Fisher. I probably shouldn't admit this, but whatever. There's a lot of nice roof decks in New York. And I went back there after living in Hollywood for a while and I met this guy who was a location scout and he told me all about how his job worked and I thought it was really fascinating. And then when I went back to New York, I remember thinking, I always wanted to check out all these roof decks. So I started to just go into the where the doorman is and go, hey, I'm location scouting something for Paramount. Can I check out the roof deck? You can obviously escort me. I just want to go up there, take maybe a couple of photos. And they were like, let me call the manager. And the building manager was like, somebody from Hollywood wants to see the private roof deck. Absolutely. So I would just would go up there, I'd bring girls up there and I'd be like, watch this. You know, we're up to the rooftop.

Julian Fisher (65:13)

There you go. You see, you're instinctively thinking like a spy.

Jordan Harbinger (65:16)

It was awesome. There are some very nice private roof decks, I bet, in Manhattan. And you're just thinking, man, this is wasted on the person who actually has access to this.

Julian Fisher (65:24)

Probably some hedge fund manager who never uses it.

Jordan Harbinger (65:26)

Yeah, hedge fund manager who never uses it. Or it's a common area for a company, but nobody works in the office in that location. Or they never go up there because they just smoke up there and then where they ban smoking up there. So everybody just goes downstairs now. And it's like, man, this is really, really nice. Yeah, it's really incredible. It has a full view, panoramic view, Statue of Liberty. And you're just thinking, like, there's nobody up here.

Julian Fisher (65:47)

It's incredible as well.

Jordan Harbinger (65:48)

Or they only go up there for lunch. They never go up there any other Time. So you go up there in the afternoon or in the evening. It's just amazing.

Julian Fisher (65:53)

Situational awareness. I mean, situational awareness is great for all of us because it's equivalent to mindfulness, isn't it? Just take a little bit of time to appreciate what you've got. Guys. Just get out there and if you've got access to one of those roof decks, go and enjoy it and just drop into yourself for five minutes and enjoy the fact that you are where you are. But I have to say on that note, about location scouts, that is a job in another life. That's the one I want to do. I think it must be so, so interesting.

Jordan Harbinger (66:18)

You probably go to some of the same places that you went to as a security consultant.

Julian Fisher (66:22)

I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Jordan Harbinger (66:23)

Yeah. Tell me about your trip to Congo. That was a location scouting experience going wrong.

Julian Fisher (66:27)

Yes. So this one there, we do get into consulting as a very useful cover, because on that occasion, I was working for a mining company that had interest in the east of the Congo. And at that time, there had been a war with Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and had been incredibly bloody. It was so deadly that it was known as Africa's Third World War. And it affected primarily the east of the country where there's a lot of minerals. And I had a client who wanted to understand, as the war had come to a point, apparently a close, because a peace deal had been signed, they wanted to know, is it possible to go back in? Can we commence our operations there? And they asked me to go in and find out for them, which was the sort of thing which I used to really enjoy doing. Now I think about it, I'm like, what on earth was I thinking of? But, you know, back then, I was younger, and I jumped on a plane and ended up, of all places, in Kinshasa. Now, the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the biggest countries, I think, if not geographically the biggest country in Africa. And it basically occupies that central chunk, and its width is about two thirds of the width of the entire continent. I was meant to be looking at what was going on in the east, on the border with Rwanda and Uganda. But I've flown to Kinshasa, which is all the way on the other side of the continent, on the west coast. And the reason I'd done that is because I knew a chap there who was a former military leader who was, by that point, being appointed to the Transitional national assembly, which was their sort of transitional parliament, as implementing the ceasefire deal. And Patrice had agreed to meet me in Kinshasa, and he would help me to make contact and make an assessment of the situation on the ground. Truth, essentially. So I'd flown into Kinshasa and the night before I had gone through Johannesburg and I'd stayed in a place in Sandton is a really upmarket part of Johannesburg. Five star hotels and all the rest of it. And I got chatting to a chap, let's call him Paul. His job was head of African government engagement for a really well known consulting firm. The following day, having arrived in Kinshasa, I went to go and find my friend Patrice at the Palais de Peupre, which was where the Transitional national assembly was meeting. I turned up there only to find at the appointed time, I discovered the place was absolutely deserted, literally nobody there at all. And weirdly, I was able to get into the building. The doors were open. I walked in, wandered around these deserted corridors, knocked on a few doors, couldn't find anybody. Literally nobody there at all. And I thought, what's gone wrong here? This is really very strange. So I got on my phone and I was trying to call Patrice. It was a really bad reception. Mobile telephony back in those days wasn't that good anyway. And I was in the middle the of. I had my head down as I was pushing my way out of the door and I suddenly felt this slap to my hand and I heard the phone hit the ground and go skidding across the tarmac. I looked up and I was looking right into the barrel of an AK47. And I was surrounded by soldiers who were acting as police security guards for the Palais de Peup, who obviously hadn't done a very good job because I just. Yeah, they were round the back or something.

Jordan Harbinger (69:41)

Gambling around the side of the building.

Julian Fisher (69:43)

Exactly. Sinking the odd beer or whatever. But they were quite angry, obviously, and they wanted to know what I was doing there. And I said I would phone Patrice and get you to talk to him, but my phone's broken and they weren't having any of it. Their position was that I was in the wrong place, the wrong time. The word spy came up because it always does. You know, they were demanding that I explain what I'm doing here. I work for an international consulting company and we've been taken on by your president because he wants to understand better the terms and conditions and salaries for the army, because he's looking at how he can improve them as the ceasefire deal is implemented. So I was immediately just reaching for something I knew that they would be interested in. Of course, you're talking to your president.

Jordan Harbinger (70:24)

About giving you guys a raise. Yeah, basically.

Julian Fisher (70:26)

Exactly. But of course, there was a certain amount of suppression. Can you prove who you say you are? How do we know you're telling the truth? So I said, well, if I could just lower my hands and I reached into my top pocket and I pulled out a business card and I had.

Jordan Harbinger (70:39)

For the guy you met at the bar the night before. Oh, my goodness, my name is.

Julian Fisher (70:44)

Right. And that was enough. I like to say that's a clever cover story. I lied. I just made up a lie right there and then because it was the easiest way. I couldn't say, look, I'm here to work out what's going on in your war zone in the east of the country. Because that's probably going to fuel your suspicion that you're here. Exactly. But it turned out that unit had previously been in the east of the country. And we got chatting and I had my packet of cigarettes and I doled those out and we sat down and we got chatting and we spoke for about two hours, partly about terms and conditions and salaries, but also partly about conditions in the east. So they went a long way towards telling me everything that I needed to know without me actually ever having to set foot in that war zone.

Jordan Harbinger (71:21)

But even though you avoided the war zone, you still almost got shot.

Julian Fisher (71:25)

There's a special knack there.

Jordan Harbinger (71:26)

That's right. You have talent. Building rapport is obviously this. Well, you got lucky a few times, but it's a skill that you have. The story of Maria at the bar in Roppongi illustrates it pretty well also. I'd love to get that one out of you.

Julian Fisher (71:40)

Well, so this was. Well, I was in a professional context, but I wasn't trying to conduct solicitation for intelligence reasons. I was working at that time as a Japanese bank, stockbrokers, in fact. And I'd gone to Tokyo where I was basically schmoozing some clients and the clients decided to take me to Roppongi. Now, Roppongi is effectively the red light district of Tokyo.

Jordan Harbinger (72:04)

Isn't the US Embassy there?

Julian Fisher (72:06)

I don't think it's very far away, actually. That's right. I wonder why.

Jordan Harbinger (72:09)

Yeah, well, which one came first?

Julian Fisher (72:12)

Cover.

Jordan Harbinger (72:12)

Yeah, yeah. Which one was there first?

Julian Fisher (72:15)

So there's lots of people sneaking about for all sorts of different reasons.

Jordan Harbinger (72:17)

Right.

Julian Fisher (72:17)

Actually, to be fair, there was no sneaking about going to this topless bar. The whole idea was just, you know, they've absolutely bald face. Let's go and sit in a bar and watch women Take their clothes off, which is basically what it's all about. While drinking exorbitantly priced cocktails.

Jordan Harbinger (72:34)

Sure, now.

Julian Fisher (72:34)

So in the course of this, it became clear that if somebody was prepared to pay for it, you could also go and have a private dance in the back. And I was quite young, in my twenties, and I've never liked this sort of thing anyway. But frankly, I was a bit terrified. I was like, you know, this is like, it's skeezy. I was not happy, but I was with clients and they got a wadge of yellow and they're like, okay, we're going to pay for you to go and have a private dance. And this woman, Maria in inverted commas was allocated to me. When we went, it was a corridor and down each side it just had little cubicles which you had a damask curtain across and there was a seat in there and a mat in front. And it was just like this whole thing is just. And an ashtray, right?

Jordan Harbinger (73:17)

I mean, the whole set and no hand sanitizer. Can you believe it?

Julian Fisher (73:20)

Nothing. Exactly. It's pre Covid, obviously. Yeah, really just quite horrible. And so I sat down and Maria sort of pushed me into this. This little stool. And then she started taking her clothes off. And I was like, please don't do that. I really don't want you to do that. And initially she was really upset. She was like, don't you find me attractive? You know? And I like, no, it's really not that. I thought I've got to come up with a reason. So I said, well, you know, I'm getting married and I don't think it's fair. That was enough. So I said, but she said, well, okay, but we've got 10 minutes. What do we do? So I said, well, just sit and talk to me. So she sat down on this sort of tiny little stool together and we shared a cigarette. So we got chatting and very quickly it became clear that she didn't want to talk about her background at all. She was extremely jumpy about it until I told her about some personal matters in my own background, some of which we touched on today. And my sharing of vulnerability with her gave her the confidence to open up to me. And over the course of several other private dances that night, she told me her story. And it was truly horrific. Ultimately, her home country, the country where she had nationality, was the Netherlands, but she'd been trafficked. There's no two ways about it. She was tricked into coming into Tokyo, offered modeling jobs and all the rest of it. Sure As I say in the book cover, can be used for criminal ends as well. She'd ended up working in the red light district in Amsterdam as a result of experimentation with drugs. And somebody came along and said, look, I'm a talent scout looking for models and we're going to fly you to Tokyo and we're going to do a full shoot and you're going to be, you're going to be famous. And of course, actually all they would intend to do was to traffic her and she became essentially a sex slave. I began to understand why she didn't want to tell me the story initially. And my concern was, I've got to do something to help. Put yourself in my shoes for the moment by sort of session number three or four. I was thinking, I have a moral duty to try to help this person. But of course she had bodyguards in a vertical.

Jordan Harbinger (75:14)

Well, they're watching her.

Julian Fisher (75:15)

They're always watching her.

Jordan Harbinger (75:16)

Do or say anything.

Julian Fisher (75:16)

Yeah, but right at the end, as we were coming out, it was five o' clock in the morning or something ridiculous like that. She was out standing in the vestibule with this man who I took to be her mind a nasty piece of work. So I reached into my pocket and pulled out every denomination of currency that I had. And, you know, there's some dollars, there's some sterling, there's some yen. And I went over to her and I pressed it into her hand as a tip. And as I did so, I leaned over and I said, will you just tell me your real name? And she did. She whispered her real name back to me because in that split second, so almost like she didn't have a choice. I could see she was startled by the idea and obviously concerned that she was going to be overseen. But her bodyguard was, or mind was too busy sort of pretending not to notice the exchange of cash, which she was probably going to extort from her shortly afterwards anyway. And with that I was able to go to her embassy and say, look, you know, I've got the name of somebody who I understand has been trafficked from your country. This is where she works, this is what her name is. And I think you've really got to try to do something about it because she's had her passport taken off, she's got no way of proving it. And the guy said to me, wow. He said, you know, not many people are able to get that sort of information out to somebody like that. He said, what are you, a social worker?

Jordan Harbinger (76:25)

It's the most productive lap dance I've ever Heard of. Yeah. Thank God. You got a lot to.

Julian Fisher (76:30)

And then he said, as I turned to go, he just said, maybe you should be a spy.

Jordan Harbinger (76:35)

Yeah. Foreshadowing. Wow. That story hits close to home for reasons that I wouldn't necessarily want to share on the show. But it reminds me of one of my other favorite episodes, folks, Daniel Levin. I don't have the episode number handy. Daniel Levin, L E V I N It's also about trafficking. He wrote a book about it. It's very interesting.

Julian Fisher (76:51)

Yes. I haven't read it, but I will make a point of that now, actually.

Jordan Harbinger (76:53)

Oh, yeah, you'll love it.

Julian Fisher (76:55)

Super interesting. I think it's not discussed enough. Let's put it like trafficking.

Jordan Harbinger (76:59)

Yeah, I do.

Julian Fisher (77:00)

It's so prevalent and it affects so many countries where we just turn a blind eye. There are certain things which are, shall we say, a little bit politically contentious, which recover for nothing much more than sex trafficking and human slavery. And I think it really. We've got to be more honest with ourselves about this.

Jordan Harbinger (77:15)

What happened to Maria?

Julian Fisher (77:17)

I don't know. It's a short answer. There was no way they were going to tell me. The upshot of that, I'd like to think that they were able to make contact with her one way or another. I was in two minds about whether it was worth talking to them. Because sometimes you put somebody's life in danger by trying to help them. I thought initially about just going to the police, and I thought that's if you're gonna put somebody's life in danger, that's probably the way to do it. And I thought if I would talk to the diplomatic service, her country's diplomatic service, they would have a better set of protocols for how to handle it.

Jordan Harbinger (77:45)

Yeah. Their high level police liaison will go to a high level police officer, not one that's going to run to the Yakuza boss who runs that club and rat her out.

Julian Fisher (77:52)

Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's right that I don't know what happened to her. And I wouldn't have asked them to tell me because she deserves her privacy still. Obviously.

Jordan Harbinger (77:59)

Indeed. Yeah. Tell me about this Hungarian border guard. I love the way you handled this one. Yeah.

Julian Fisher (78:06)

Hamon. Yes. So again, actually, I was really young.

Jordan Harbinger (78:09)

We're old enough now. We don't have to talk our way through borders anymore. Man.

Julian Fisher (78:12)

That's true.

Jordan Harbinger (78:13)

Part of the reason you. I missed those days, you know, it was fun.

Julian Fisher (78:17)

I think every young person needs to go through an experience of a hairy border moment or two.

Jordan Harbinger (78:22)

Yeah, I agree.

Julian Fisher (78:23)

It's a rite of passage.

Jordan Harbinger (78:24)

It is a rite of passage a little harder these days with the fall of communism, you know, you wouldn't want to do that in North Korea, for example.

Julian Fisher (78:29)

Exactly. And certainly within the European Union, borders were all open anyway. And that would include it up to Hungary, which is where I was traveling to and from. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I was part of an initiative from my university, Oxford, to build relationships with young people who were experiencing capitalism or free markets for the first time, and that included Hungary. And I went to Budapest, but I couldn't afford. This was the first time I ever traveled abroad, having not had a particularly wealthy upbringing, to put it politely. We didn't have overseas holidays. And so the first time I ever managed to go abroad was to go to Hungary on this sort of exchange, if you like. And I had to travel by train because it was too expensive to go by plane. This was pre easyjet days. And also Budapest was not exactly a destination high on the stag do list back then. It was the bachelor party list back then.

Jordan Harbinger (79:23)

Should have been, though.

Julian Fisher (79:24)

It should have been. I mean it's got a lot going for it.

Jordan Harbinger (79:27)

Budapest in the 90s was something else, man. The whole Eastern bloc of the 90s.

Julian Fisher (79:31)

It exploded, didn't it? But I was going there almost immediately after the war fell and things were still very fragile. They were still very fractious and febrile. To cut a long story short, because it was the first time I'd ever been abroad, I didn't realize that you had to sign your passport. So I hadn't signed my passport. And on the way in, when we traveled across the border, on the way in, I'd been slightly startled by the border guard coming in to check my passport and sort of confronted, opened the door to the compartment where I was sleeping start naked. And he was so taken aback by this hanging out. He neglected to stamp me in.

Jordan Harbinger (80:06)

He didn't want to spend any more time with you than absolutely necessary.

Julian Fisher (80:08)

Exactly. Now all of this meant that when I was coming back out and I had very little money with me by the end of this, so a few foreigns really and you know, sort of 20 pounds in sterling, something like that. When I was coming back out and they came to check our passports, there was this young man who could speak pretty good English, am on basically talked to my passport and says, okay, this is a regular. There's no signature and there's no entry stamp. There's a brand new passport, nothing in it. So he put it in his Pocket. And he said, right, we're going to have to get off the train and deal with this. Heart sinks. Obviously, this was before the days of knowing really how to deal with demands for bribes. I didn't really know what I was expecting, but eventually I got sat down in one of those classic sort of Eastern European rooms. Bare walls and bulbs swinging over you, and those bare bulbs stank of you.

Jordan Harbinger (80:55)

Full ashtray and all that stuff.

Julian Fisher (80:57)

You know, it was like the full on cliche of an interrogation room, which I suspect is just where they just hung out when they didn't have anything to do between the three or four.

Jordan Harbinger (81:06)

It was the break room before you got here.

Julian Fisher (81:08)

Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger (81:09)

It was the break room before you got there.

Julian Fisher (81:10)

Now suddenly I'm thinking, I'm in the middle of this huge interrogation. Essentially, he just wanted way more money than I had. I never can tell if this is a false memory, but I remember him using the word infraction, which I just think was amazing.

Jordan Harbinger (81:22)

In English.

Julian Fisher (81:23)

In English, yeah. I mean, this guy was quite well educated. That's the point. This is why I was able to get out of the situation. But I literally didn't have the money that he was asking for. So he was, whatever. It was $50 for infraction number one, $50 for infraction number two. And I'm like, well, I've got like $17 equivalent. And I put it on the table in front of it. And he's like, that's not good enough. And he said, I'm going to have to report this to my superior. And I thought, I thought, okay, the train's going to get.

Jordan Harbinger (81:47)

It's going to get more expensive too.

Julian Fisher (81:48)

Absolutely. And then they might actually take me to court and I might actually have to defend my infractions, minor as they were. But whatever else happened, I was going to miss the train. So I just instinctively grabbed for the thing that connected us, which was a shared language. He was able to speak English. And I said, look, I want you to help me here. I'm stuck. I'm in a horrible position. I'm a young man like you. I've got very little money. You can have it if you want, but just let me get back on that train. Because if I'm stuck here, then I don't have anywhere to go. I haven't got a credit card, I've got no way of getting money. I don't know anybody here. I'm throwing myself on your mercy. And you know, and he's like, I can't help you. I'm not senior enough, basically. And I said, well, I bet that's where you're wrong. I bet you are. You know, look at you, you speak pretty much fluent English, you're well educated. You should be at Oxford University with me, not on a border post like this. Of course you've got the influence to do something about this. Everything changed. And he got up and said, okay, let me see what I can go and sort out with my superior. And he stepped outside for a bit, probably for as long as it took him to get my passport out of his pocket. And then came back and he's like, yeah, it's all right, I've sorted this out for you. You're right, I was able to say the right things. I've got this done. And he pushed it over and pushed the money back to me. And that was a really important lesson to me there, that this was somebody who was looking for recognition. He was probably over educated for his position. He'd probably been promised the earth was the end of the Cold war and he was still stuck in some God forsaken border office, middle of nowhere, getting drunk to get through it and shaking down poor unsuspecting backpackers, librarians. And on this occasion he met somebody who just almost out of desperation, just appealed to his sense of self importance. Because I was like, I'm sure you can help me. I'm sure you've got more influence than you think you've got. And at that point it was almost like the challenge was, okay, I have to show that that's right, that this person's confidence in me is justified.

Jordan Harbinger (83:38)

I love this. There's so much in the book about validation, earning mindshare, getting in the right mindset for a meeting, pro social behavior, encouraging pro social behavior. But I think a good little couple tricks I want to end with you recommend walking to important meetings. I love this. This is such a good idea. And I find that when I can't do this, I really come in with much more anxiety than if I'm able to walk even just a block.

Julian Fisher (84:00)

Yes, I walked this afternoon.

Jordan Harbinger (84:02)

That was why you're late. No, well, that and this place is really hard to find.

Julian Fisher (84:06)

That's because I got the wrong place. That's how good a spy I am.

Jordan Harbinger (84:09)

Yes, I was joking about that when we were waiting for you. I was like, and this guy works for your intelligence service. There's two doors, come on, man.

Julian Fisher (84:17)

But no, I had walked here. I got off the train at San Pancras and yeah, it's a 20 minute walk and the sun's sort of shining as much as it shines and the bush is summer. But more important than that, it just gives you that moment to. The way I put it is when a spy is going to a meeting, they're conducting anti surveillance. They're getting rid of the physical followers. They all want to make sure that they're not being followers. It's essentially making sure that they don't carry with them surveillance so that that team can then identify the person they're meeting. It maybe stretches the analogy a little too far, but I talk about mental anti surveillance because we bring with us all of the stresses of the day, all the things that we're worried about, all the baggage, especially with phones in our hands. So I could have come to this, this discussion with you two ways, couldn't I, really? I could have had the concierge come and pick me up, in which case I would probably have been reading emails, which would have been zinging in my mind as I sat down with you. Or I could put my phone away, walk, which we know anyway. I mean, I'm no scientist, but I understand from psychologists, does stimulate our creativity. I always find as I write, when I'm writing fiction, or even if I get stuck, go for a walk and the answer sort of presents itself. So we all know from experience that walking clears the mind, stimulates creativity. To me, it's like you're doing a form of mental anti surveillance. You're getting rid of those mental emotional demons that might otherwise mar the first 10 minutes of an interaction. And sometimes that first 10 minutes is really important.

Jordan Harbinger (85:41)

I love the idea of walking to a meeting. I do this before shows too. I'll even go for a walk if I have a show in my own house. I'll go for a walk around the block before I jump into my show. Or I'll go out in my gym and do something really quick. I have to have some sort of reset, mental reset. Sometimes it's a shower and sometimes it's a walk. It depends on the circumstances. But I love that I never thought about. I used to think of it as just a ritual. But you're right, it does get rid of a lot of the baggage. I don't have the emails in my head. I'm not just getting off of a call or something like that, right. I've got music in my ears. Maybe something like that at the most.

Julian Fisher (86:11)

And your circulation's up, you're feeding your brain, literally. But I would add, while on that walk, just also practise a Bit of mindfulness. Be aware of where you are, take notice of where you are, just enjoy the fact that you're walking past a particular bar or a particular park. I try to notice something, even if I'm walking a familiar route. I just try to notice one new thing on that walk.

Jordan Harbinger (86:33)

By the way, before we hit cut here, do spies still use dead drops in meetings now that there are encrypted messaging apps and stuff like that?

Julian Fisher (86:40)

Right. This is one of my favourite subjects.

Jordan Harbinger (86:42)

Is it? I've always wondered this, because it's like, why do I need to meet you and then risk getting executed when I can send you a message on the Internet?

Julian Fisher (86:47)

So I talk about human intelligence in the age of artificial intelligence. The challenges of artificial intelligence are, first of all, cover. As I mentioned when talking to you about that anecdote in Congo, they could have checked me out in no time now. So cover becomes much more complicated. Also, technically, as good as we are, our enemies must be expected to be equally good, if not better. So actually, while it feels like you can encrypt something and it's going to be 100% safe, you can never take that for granted. And so in many ways, you need to go back to first principles, what they call Moscow rules. Because my biggest secrets, personally or professionally, I just don't commit to the digital world. I literally write them down and keep it somewhere where only I know. So it's in my head or it's on a piece of paper. And states do that as well. So that's why human intelligence recruitment's become much more important. Because however good your intercept of state communication is, we don't really know what Putin's planning to do. For instance, we don't know what Chinese state plans to do, for example, with regard to Taiwan, because the really important things, they're just not going to broadcast because they know that intercept is a vulnerability. So actually, those human intelligence capabilities, the recruitment of humans who can get to the information you want, becomes much more important. And in fact, those very stone age versions of remote communication, dead letter drops, brush contacts, may well be making a renaissance.

Jordan Harbinger (88:17)

Yeah, I never would have thought of that. I suppose that makes complete sense. You think, oh, like what's encrypted on my phone? But somebody has come up with a way to read the screen on a phone through a wall, and we just don't know about it. Or there's a Mossad guy listening to this, nodding right now and going, we put Pegasus on the phone. I want you to send something through your encrypted app because we're reading what's being displayed on the screen using this vulnerability or whatever.

Julian Fisher (88:38)

Or you have a meeting in a park and you've got lit readers at work.

Jordan Harbinger (88:42)

Right.

Julian Fisher (88:43)

You know, there's so many different ways that we just, we don't think about it. It feels like you can engage in secure ways, but as you think it through, you start to realize just how incredibly difficult that is. And some of those age old techniques are valuable for precisely that reason, because they were developed to be foolproof. And in many ways they still are foolproof.

Jordan Harbinger (89:02)

Yeah. So the best cover is a newspaper with eye holes cut into it and you're talking behind it. Right. So nobody can see it.

Julian Fisher (89:07)

Or go back to what we said earlier. The best cover is somebody who's doing the job that they actually do.

Jordan Harbinger (89:10)

So you just go to a meeting with everybody watching to the office of Ford in Indonesia and you're an auto supplier and you're talking with somebody else, whatever it is.

Julian Fisher (89:20)

That way of calling. Hidden in plain sight.

Jordan Harbinger (89:22)

Hidden in plain sight. Exactly. You know, in the digital age, a lot of people think that they can replace in person, contact and relationships with digital ones. And I really don't believe that to be the case. I think one of the biggest challenges that intelligence agencies are going to have is a whole generation that comes up thinking that you can befriend someone online and it's the same thing as having real rapport in person. And that's going to be a big challenge for trust building and things like that. I think in the future.

Julian Fisher (89:48)

It's not just the intelligence agents. I think it's a challenge for every employer everywhere that young people today understand the value of building personal relationships. Or I say that, but on one or two occasions I've been very favourably impressed. When I've spoken at universities or schools recently, there seems to be a bit of a move, a bit of a backlash. And I would say now, Jordan, that if I go and talk to a group of middle aged executives, they're more likely to be the ones playing on their phones and checking their emails than if I'm talking to a group of 16 and 17 year olds because they.

Jordan Harbinger (90:19)

Know that it's dangerous. Us middle aged guys are the ones, we think we've got it under control.

Julian Fisher (90:23)

It seems that way. I think there's some hope. I'm not gonna write them off. I don't think there's any generational write off going on.

Jordan Harbinger (90:28)

That's phenomenal. That's great news. Even if those skills may be Becoming more rare. I have no data for that. I would love to see a backlash against the technological stuff that my generation fell into.

Julian Fisher (90:36)

I think it's there. Yeah, I really do.

Jordan Harbinger (90:38)

Excellent. Julian Fisher, thank you so much for coming into, well, not my studio, but studios here in London to do this.

Julian Fisher (90:45)

It's been an absolute pleasure. I've really enjoyed talking to you, Jordan. Thank you ever so much for inviting me along.

Jordan Harbinger (90:51)

You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with an undercover ATF agent that infiltrated the infamous Pagans biker gang.

D (90:59)

Everyone was saying, hey, motorcycle enthusiasts, bikers are all bad. So they did this whole study and basically out of study, it came back and said, hey, listen, 99% of them aren't, you know, 1% of these bikers might be problematic or gang members or what have you, but the rest aren't. Well, then the bikers, the real bikers, the outlaw bikers, were like, hey, this is great, Great. We are the 1%. We're proud of being the 1%. I mean, you know, people think that these are just a bunch of morons running around partying, and they're not. They're very sophisticated in how they move their money. They're very sophisticated in their structure, and they're also very sophisticated in what they do. People are always like, oh, whatever made you decide to do a two year undercover? Listen, I didn't sign up for a two year undercover deal. That's just what it turned into. Very few of these run for two years. You're always kind of just seeing how it's going to play out. And that's where, you know, some of this dumb luck comes into it. They assigned me to this hit squad inside the gang. Most of the gang members don't even know that this group exists. And it's selected by mother club members of what they consider to be their heavy hitters. You know, the ones that can do the real down at dirty work. And so Hellboy, he had approached me, he's like, hey, they want you to be a part of this. We were going to be targeting Hell's Angels and we were going to be killing them. You have to be very quick in thinking the reason why to go undercover is from the outside. You can deal with, you know, maybe some low level members. You're never getting anywhere near the leadership. The only way to do that is to go undercover in the club and go up into the ranks. I would have failed if I didn't have some dumb luck on my side. And I had plenty of Dumb luck throughout this case.

Jordan Harbinger (92:30)

To hear how Ken Croak spent two years risking his life going through initiation in one of the most ruthless biker gangs in the world, check out episode 673 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. I always love the spy stuff, always love the practical stuff. One of my weapons that I use all the time is asking for advice. When you ask somebody for advice, even if they don't like you, they find an affinity for you. This is called the Benjamin Franklin effect. And there's a famous story where he borrows a book from somebody that doesn't like him and they become fast friends as a result. I actually ask for advice all the time from a lot of different people, even if I am quite sure about the course of action that I'm going to take already. And a lot of my friendships, I would say, especially with a lot of the high level people that you hear on the show or that you know that I'm friends with through various stories they tell on the show. Those come from me asking that person advice and then ending up going out to lunch with them and asking them for more advice you think you're taking from them. And if you do this right, actually they feel great giving the advice and they feel attached to your outcome, which is a really good place to be. After the show, we also discussed a little bit about deception detection. Gillian told me that people who are too precise with things such as I left at 7:32am instead of 7:30. That's a little bit of a tell. I wanted to get into more detail about that. Maybe next time if we have him on the show, we can discuss why that is. Also asking someone to recall a detail from a story out of order. So they tell you the whole story and then you say, wait, what happened before you went to the pub again? What did you say before the speech began? They'll have a delay because they have to replay the entire lie, the entire story in their head. A true recounting would be quicker. I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around this. I don't know, I'd have to test this out and see because I feel like if you ask me what happened before, something else, even in a true scenario it might take me. I'd have to replay the thing in my head as well. So I'm not sure if that actually is ironclad. Somebody tell me if you've tested this and let me know. Last but not least, he did let me know that detecting deception is an artist, not a science. Most of the stuff you see on YouTube is not used by spies, not used by any intelligence agency, not used by law enforcement because it's actually just bullshit. All things Julian Fisher will be in the show. Notes@jordanharbinger.com advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show, all@jordanharbinger.com deals Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also our newsletter Wee bitwiser. You guys love this. I love writing it, you love reading it. The idea is to give you something specific and practical, something that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology and your relationships in under two minutes. Just about every Wednesday. So if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It is a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com News is where you can find it. And hey, don't forget about six minute networking as well. Over at sixminutenetworking.com I'm ordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and this show, well, it's created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tatas Sidlauskas, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Yeah, that's it, that's it. This whole thing just upheld by that skeleton crew of amazing people. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends. When you find something useful or interesting, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's into the spy stuff, into the networking stuff, definitely share this episode with them. Maybe they just love a good yarn. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time. Running a business is hard work. Building your website shouldn't be. With wix, you can express your ideas, give direction, then leave the heavy lifting to AI. From site creation to branded content and images. Have fun with the details, customize what you want the way you want, and manage your whole business from a centralized dashboard with expert AI tools. Build, scale and enjoy the incredible results. You can do it all yourself on wix.