← The Watch Floor with Sarah Adams
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- [00:01]
A
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability. Various 18 plus.
- [00:26]
B
And we're live on Matchday as Doug reaches for a buffalo wing. He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it, it just tastes better. Matchdays deserve Pepsi.
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C
Welcome to the watch floor. I'm Sarah Adams. Surprisingly, one of the questions I get the most. Is Sarah in the CIA? What watch did you wear? I kid you not, this is the number one question I from any person when they find out I worked in the CIA. Because of course, there's like this folklore between watches and espionage. It happens in real life, as we all know. And then of course, we see it all the time in the movies. If you think about spies in popular culture, the spies are always wearing watches. I mean, James Bond literally made brands famous based on this. Watches also play other roles, as we all know. They have hidden cameras, laser beams, tracking devices, and you see all sorts of gadgets made from them in the movies. So there's this part of mythology that, right, there's something in the watch or there's something special about the watch. So when people find out that I spent over a decade in the CIA, they want, as you can imagine, some incredible story about a rare luxury watch or some secret spy equipment watch I had, and. And it's just a lot less exciting. So I did bring my watch today. It now is just stored in my jewelry box. I wore a Tissot. So it wasn't a Rolex, it wasn't an Omega, it wasn't some super secret government spy gadget. It was just a Tissot. For those who are interested, it's a women's Carson automatic watch. And honestly, I feel it was the perfect watch for the CIA. I'm biased, it's my show, so I get to play that game. So when you think about the CIA, there's this huge misconception that spies need to be like flashy people, want to stand out, but in reality, you want to blend in. You want to be as low profile as humanly possible. You don't want to walk into a room and everybody is like, oh, that's a CIA person. You're already in a bad spot if that's the case. So. So, honestly, when you're getting dressed, you're getting ready for events, you're even going into work. When you're putting your clothes and your accessories together, you're actually thinking, hey, I don't want anyone to remember me, right? I don't want people noticing me. I want to be the most uninteresting person in the room. And a luxury watch first will make people think you're wealthy and overseas. Then they decide they have to become friends with you, because that's just how it works. A tactical watch can say, well, you're in the military. A flashy watch can be really memorable because people will notice that about you. Atiso says pretty much absolutely nothing. And in intelligence work, being remembered isn't a good thing. I, luckily, for many years, was behind the scenes. I was overseas, I met a lot of individuals, I used a number of fake names, and it all worked very well for me, and I was safe and it was good. Now, as you can imagine, my name's all over the place. And these terrorists, for example, aren't dumb. They remember my face. They're like, yes, that's the girl I met with. Oh, her name is, I guess, Sarah. And that's really the world you don't want to be in. The best part of clandestine work and the work all these brave Americans do for our country is they stay under the radar, undercover, and they get shit done. Between China's military exercises, the Iran conflict, Cuba's economic demise, and the war in Ukraine that keeps shifting week by week, the last few months has been a whirlwind. The global threat landscape is completely flooded with information. Knowing where to turn, let alone what to trust, is harder than ever. Luckily, there's a solution. Ground News is a website and an app that collects thousands of news stories around the world every single day. It organizes each news story by topic, but then it digs a little deeper. It shows you the political bias, the reliability, and then the ownership of each source. So. So you can compare the coverage and see the story from every angle. Let's take this story where the Kremlin is declaring that the war in Ukraine has entered a new paradigm shift. So in this case, the Kremlin is accusing Kiev of acts of terrorism against civilians while continuing to strike civilian targets itself. So an interesting case. You get both points of view from inside of a war. The great thing is, if you're in Ground News and You pull this up, you see, okay, it's covered by 25 sources. The sources skew slightly, right? And then 75% of the sources are highly reliable. Now you can dig in and click into each source. So let's choose the Kiev Independence. I've long used this publication, so it leans left. And in it, it focuses on the fact that, look, the Kremlin's blaming Ukraine for terrorism while conversely, ignoring the number of ISIS plots that are being directed inside of Russia. It's just showing the contrast of the way the Kremlin is using the term terrorism. Then if we pull another source, we can go with the Irish Independent. So this leans right. So they focus in their article on Russia's massive retaliation strikes inside Ukraine. Right. So it doesn't really discuss terrorism in the way Russia's trying to use it, but it picks another angle. So, same story, but they both have very different framing of the issue. And then underneath both, if you're an analyst, you're looking at something completely different. So I'd be thinking, is Russia setting the groundwork to justify some sort of massive escalation in response to these recent successes Ukraine has had? We all have a different question when we're looking at the news, and lots of times we're looking at the news. To help us answer those questions, there's a feature in ground news that I've really been enjoying. It's called Blind Spot. So this shows you stories that are covered almost entirely by one side of the political spectrum. So no matter where you sit politically, you're getting a filtered version of reality. Right. Our algorithms are essentially an echo chamber. So with ground news, you can actually see what you're completely missing. Go to Ground Dot News slash watch, or scan the QR code for 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan. It brings the price of this tool down to a cup of coffee a month. That's ground news, slash watch. To subscribe today and to transform how you read the news. Do you ever feel like something is off? You're hitting the gym, you're crushing your goals, you're showing up every single day? Or have you noticed a change in your partner? Slower recovery time, less focus, and a drive that used to be there that just isn't. It's subtle, but it's real. Most people don't understand that testosterone naturally decreases 1% every year over the age of 30. Think about it. That slow change really does make workouts harder. It makes the workday longer, and it can make life more exhausting. 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There's essentially no risk to just go out and try it. 91% of users have felt, you know, some change in their performance and thousands have been happy with the product. I mean, just go see the reviews for yourself. And here is the best part. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life plus free shipping and three free gifts. When they go to MengotoMars.com it's literally the perfect way to continue the gains that you kicked off at the start of New year's. Again, that's men g o t o mars.com to get your 50% off and your three free gifts. And at checkout, let them know the watch floor sent you. So why did I pick this watch? It's pretty simple. I picked it because it was dependable, low profile and practical pretty much how I am. It is one that you don't put any sort of battery in, so it works with the movement of your wrist. I know watch people are watching this like it's so painful. She knows none of the verbiage. But I knew if I got a watch where I had to replace something, especially a battery, it would sit on my wrist literally for a month and not change the time because that's just how I am. So it's like I want something that works all the time. And this has worked since the day I bought it. It has literally sat in my jewelry box, I mean, I think all year and it's moving. So good news. So Tissot does have this history of practicality over prestige. So when the company was founded in 1853, they wanted to produce reliable watches over the function. And one of their most interesting inventions at the time in 1930 was the first anti magnetic wrist watch. Now that can be completely boring for most people. But if you work in the world of intelligence, think, think about how things can affect the timing of your watch, right? You have magnetic fields from radios. You know, back in the time we're talking about the early 1900s, you had communications equipment, you had generators and other electrical systems that can affect a watch's accuracy. So this technology was expanding and it became a huge problem, as you can imagine you to the watch industry. So their solution was simple. Let's build a watch that can function in environments where accuracy might fail. Simple. That's what I like about it. Intelligence work is actually the exact same thing. That's why it's really great to look at industry and compare things. So as an intelligence officer, you're focused on reducing uncertainty. It's very simple. So you're identifying vulnerabilities before they become problems. You're eliminating variables. You're removing like a single point of failure if possible. And that's what they did, you know, with this anti magnetic watch. And it makes a tool more reliable in this case, but also it can help make your work in an operation more effective as well. Now when I look at the watch today, it has nothing to do with engineering, right? This is now a keepsake. So I think about where it went. I think about the borders across with me. I think about all the meetings I had to sit through that were way too long because remember I was in the government. I think about the airports, the delays, the deployments, all the deadlines. I think about the countless terrorists that were with me when I had this watch on. We spent a ton of time, for example, with Taliban's Mullah Barader. He probably stopped this watch way too many times. So it was there for the ordinary days, it was there for the extraordinary days. There were success while I had the watch on. There are lots of failures while I had the watch on. And these are kind of all those little moments in life that change a career. And I think that's one thing people don't talk about when they talk about these things that are with you and carry on with you every day. And obviously a watch is always this great thing. You can pass it on to a child, you can keep it in the family. Like there is a piece to it that kind of holds memories. And not a lot of people talk about that or focus on that. So when people think of watches in the spy industry, they think of like some gadget or some tool. But when we talk about intelligence work, like it's really ordinary tools. It is just a notebook, a passport, a phone. Hopefully it's a cool Nokia with the Snake game on it. And then it's really just a simple watch. Right. You gotta stay on time when you're overseas collecting intelligence. It's a very simple thing. Even though no one overseas stays on time, you know, you still should try to do it. So when I look at my Tissot today, Cause, you know, I did have to dig it out for this episode. I don't think about a brand at all. I think about the people I worked alongside, the places I never thought I would get to go. I think about the mission that contributed to such a significant part of my life, like all the lives we saved that no one will ever know. So everyone expects someone in the CIA to be wearing something exotic. I didn't. It wasn't flashy, it wasn't expensive, and luckily nobody noticed it. Thanks for being here today on the watch floor.