CIA psychology: Ask questions that make people reveal everything | Andrew Bustamante

0:00 - This Big Think interview segment is sponsored by BetterHelp, an online platform that makes therapy accessible and affordable. Visit betterhelp.com/bigthink for 10% off your first month. - When you accept that other people have secrets and they will always have secrets, you are preparing yourself for a much more predictable, much more successful future. Because once you accept that reality, you can start applying behaviors, practices into your personal life, into your business life that make it so that you gain more secrets than you share. And gaining secrets in an economy of secrets is the same thing as gaining wealth or gaining power or gaining leverage. You can either live in a world that is not true and believe that people are honest, or you can live in a world that is

0:48 factual and objective and recognize that all people are keeping secrets from you. - [Narrator] The economy of secrets. - I remember being a kid and my stepdad used to always look at me and tell me that the world isn't fair. He would say "Life isn't fair", and I never understood that because all day at school, all people told me was that I had to act in a way that was fair to other people. I had to wait my turn in line. I had to share the chocolate milk. You had to take turns playing kickball. Everybody was trying to police this idea of fairness. But then I would come home at night and I would receive these lectures about how the world isn't fair, and it never made sense to me.

1:34 It still didn't make sense to me. All through college and even through my military career until I joined CIA and CIA was able to explain to me that fairness is a construct that helps to create predictability in human behavior. When people believe there is some sort of level of fairness, when people believe that there is some sort of egalitarian level that keeps us all on equal footing, then you can actually predict and control a society in the long-term. Whereas what we were trained to do as CIA officers was infiltrate those societies and abuse or exploit the areas that were kept secret from the masses. We were charged with stealing secrets from terrorist groups. We were charged with stealing secrets from foreign militaries. We were charged with stealing

2:21 secrets from scientists of foreign countries that were trying to create nuclear capabilities or new weapons. We had to go into this organization that believed in some semblance of fairness to find the few that were willing to compromise on secrets they were trusted with because they inherently doubted that everything was, in fact, fair. We don't live in a world that is fair. We live in a world that is constantly jockeying and vying for more power, more information, more influence, more leverage, but we call it fair in order to reduce the number of competitors who are trying to get that edge. When the majority of people are willing to accept that there is some level of fairness, they stop trying to gain an edge, which means that it's only a limited few that are truly competing for the top slot. When you look at that through a lens of survival instinct, that means if you

3:12 are trying to survive, you have a better chance of surviving. When you let go of the idea that there is fairness and you lean in to accept the fact that there are predictable behaviors, predictable tools, leverage manipulation tactics, motivational tactics that can create high-probability outcomes that benefit you, there's a concept we have at CIA that helps us to frame the entire world around us, whether it's personal relationships or geopolitics or even strategic intent, and that's by understanding that we are all governed by what we call an economy of secrets. If you think back to economics 101 from whether you were in high school or college, you understand that economics is all about understanding that there is a limited supply and there is always demand. The economy of secrets

3:59 is the exact same way. There are always going to be secrets, and those secrets will be in limited supply, but everybody wants access to secrets. So there is an infinite demand for the secrets that are out there. Personal secrets, trade secrets, geopolitical secrets, economic secrets, financial secrets. There's always a demand for secrets and whether we want to admit it or not, we understand that some secrets we want to keep until they're useful to us and other secrets are so valuable, we will never share them ever, but somehow, simultaneously, we expect other people to share their secrets with us, and we want access to the secrets that other people know that we don't know, sometimes, just for curiosity, sometimes because we wanna use it for a competitive advantage,

4:48 sometimes because we just feel like we are entitled to understanding or knowing someone else's secrets. All of that is an example of the economy of secrets in the very real pressure that exists on the supply and demand side of that economy of secrets. Recognizing the value of secrets isn't something that's difficult for the average person. We all understand secrets that we don't wanna share and secrets that we do wanna know, and the value related to those secrets, there are many different types of secrets. There's secrets that people have, that they don't wanna share because they did something wrong. There are secrets that people have and they don't wanna share because they're respecting someone else's privacy. There are secrets that happen because you tricked someone into saying or doing something. There's secrets that occur because it was passed to you by someone else and you're not sure what to do with it. There's a whole litany of

5:36 different types of secrets, and every secret has value to gain leverage in some way, shape or form. But understanding that there are different types of secrets is not a way of saying that all secrets are the same or have the same value. Some secrets get you a great deal of leverage. Other secrets get you very little leverage. In fact, even the terminology that CIA uses to measure secrets isn't the same. CIA classifies their secrets according to different terminology. There's confidential secrets, there are secret level secrets, and then there are top secret secrets. And the way that they define each of these different levels actually has to do with the impact that would occur if the secret became public knowledge. So a confidential secret is a secret that could

6:22 potentially do damage to national security. A secret level classification is something that would cause damage to national security. And top secret level secrets are secrets that would cause grave damage to national security. So even if you just apply this simple three-step rubric to your own personal secrets or your own career secrets or your business secrets, you can see that not all secrets are the same. The secrets that have more damaging outcomes are the secrets you want to keep and the secrets you wanna gain. And the secrets that have very limited impact are the secrets that you don't bother yourself with and that you're okay sharing or trading with someone else. When you want to keep a secret, it's actually much easier than you might expect. The first trick to keeping a secret is really just to limit how much you talk. And if you do talk,

7:11 talk in questions, don't speak in terms of answers or dialogue or conversation, because even by the way that you answer a question, you actually start to expose some of your secrets, the words that you use, the pace that you speak, the level of excitement that you share when you talk. These are all ways that you can share with other people interpersonal secrets about you, your political beliefs, your religious beliefs, how much you care about your kids, how much you care about your job or your family. So it's actually very easy to start to protect yourself simply by speaking less or by being the person who speaks in questions rather than the person who carries on a conversation. Another way that you can keep your secrets is by understanding that when you have a conclusion that you reach in your mind, when you have a suspicion, when you have a curiosity, when you wonder if somebody is trustworthy, when you wonder if

8:00 somebody is lying, when you think somebody might be stealing from the boss, instead of sharing that information with somebody else, you just keep it for yourself and you allow time to continue to pass by to give yourself more information, more time to assess, more observational information, to reach a conclusion that's actually meaningful. Because if you do catch someone lying, if you do catch someone embezzling, it's much more valuable to you to share that information when you have a preponderance of evidence that can actually confirm your suspicion. Where what many of us do is we feel the need to share our suspicions immediately. We share our thoughts, our concerns, our issues right away, because we think that there's value to be gained by having other people give us their opinion, when in fact, the most valuable thing you can do is keep your secret

8:50 to yourself and collect more information about it. CIA is an information gathering service. We call it intelligence, but all intelligence really is, is having what we call information superiority, meaning the best and highest quantity of information compared to our competitors. When you have information superiority, you are deemed to have intelligence. It's the same thing we say when we talk about an intelligent person. Intelligent people have a preponderance of information that is believable and useful to them. It's just the same as having information superiority for CIA. Sometimes, you wanna access somebody's secrets, but you wanna do it in a way where they don't realize you are prying or searching for secrets. We use a term called elicitation

9:39 for this activity, when you are trying to elicit specific information without demonstrating that you're interested in that specific information. If you think about the average movie where you see a guy walk up to a girl in a bar, he's having a conversation to try to see whether or not she's interested or whether or not she has a boyfriend. What he's doing is he's eliciting. He's talking about the weather, he's talking about the band, he's talking about mundane things. But what he's really doing is gaining assessment information from his target to see is she smiling at him? Is she interested in him? Is she wearing a wedding ring or an engagement ring? The same thing is true when you are trying to collect secrets from other people. You wanna elicit that information. One of the most powerful tools that you can use to elicit is really just to engage a person in a meaningful

10:27 conversation with what we call open questions. Open questions are questions that cannot be answered in a single word or a short phrase. So for example, a yes or no question is not an open question, asking somebody whether or not they like their meal or if they're happy or if they've had a good day. None of those are open-ended questions. Open-ended questions start with words like "how" or "why" or "to what extent," or "tell me about." When you ask an open-ended question, the person who's hearing your question has to interpret it through their own psychology, their own perception, their own lens of beliefs and biases. And because they have to interpret your question, they oftentimes share much more information than they intended to share. So when you ask somebody,

11:14 what are your thoughts about the current events in the Middle East, you will get much more information than what you ever thought you would expect because they will share their opinions, their beliefs, their background. You'll see their emotions. You'll see how much they focus. You may even see whether or not they're knowledgeable about what's happening in the Middle East at any given time. When you ask somebody how they feel about the passing of a loved one or how they feel about getting a new puppy, you will actually get much more information than what you're seeking, and that is how you get deeper into understanding the biases, beliefs, and opinions of other people. When you understand their biases and their opinions and their core beliefs, it gives you more information to craft your next question. These concepts of open-ended questions that open

11:59 doors and open windows allow you to dig deeper and deeper into the secrets that people are trying to keep without them ever-realizing they're sharing their secrets with you. Their secret opinions, their secret thoughts, their secret biases, their secret feelings. They're sharing them verbally. They're sharing them non-verbally. They're sharing them with their face. They're sharing them with their mouth. They're sharing them with their body. We've already discussed how secrets have value, and value is really only something that you achieve when you trade the object of value. So that leads us to wonder what is a good secret to trade, and when is the good time to trade it? With this question, we have to remember that not all secrets are equal. Some secrets cause damage to your outcome. Some secrets cause significant damage to what your ambitions and your goals are.

12:47 There's never a time that you wanna trade or share a secret that does grave damage to what you're trying to achieve. The ideal kind of secret to share are secrets that we call have a shelf-life, meaning that over time, the secret becomes less important or less valuable, because there's a very real current time element to many secrets. What happens today is only secret until it makes it into the headlines tomorrow. What happens today in the marketplace is a secret that's only really worth-keeping, while nobody else knows that the market is making that movement. So you always have to be considering the relevancy of a secret when you determine what its value is. So the best secrets to trade are the secrets that have value right now, but that value has

13:32 a half life that decreases every day you move forward because you're gaining reciprocity by sharing that secret with someone else. So when you trade a secret with a fast half-life, for someone else trading a secret with a slow half-life, you end up having a more valuable secret that you receive relative to the secret that you give away. That's the economy of secrets. That's the trading of secrets, the horse jockeying of secrets that makes it so that you can stay ahead of your competition over time because you're not trading damaging secrets, you're trading secrets that are already destined to become known to the light of day. When you accept that other people have secrets and they will always have secrets, you are preparing yourself for a much more predictable, much more successful future because that is a reality.

14:22 You can either live in a world that is not true and believe that people are honest, or you can live in a world that is factual and objective and recognize that all people are keeping secrets from you. Once you accept that reality, you can start applying behaviors, practices into your personal life, into your business life that make it so that you gain more secrets than you share and gaining secrets in an economy of secrets is the same thing as gaining wealth, or gaining power, or gaining leverage. It sets you up to have more success with the outcomes you're trying to achieve, whether those are revenue goals or whether those are personal goals. But if you choose to believe that secrets are not valuable or that secrets are not being kept from you, then you're setting yourself up to always be exploitable by the people who recognize that

15:11 secrets can be achieved through simple, repeatable processes, you open yourself up to being motivated to share your secrets, manipulated into sharing your secrets, tricked into sharing your secrets. You even run the risk of sharing your secrets with the masses because you believe that it's fair to do so. In fact, what you're doing is you're letting go of the very value, the very currency that you need in order to achieve the success, the ambition, and the outcomes you care about. - Maybe it's the secret job search, the crush you haven't told your partner about, or the health scare that you're hiding from friends. Holding it in can turn everyday moments into emotional tight ropes. When pretending everything is fine starts to fray your nerves. Talking to a professional can help. BetterHelp connects you online with licensed therapist trained to guide people through the

15:58 anxiety that comes from keeping secrets. In fact, most BetterHelp members seek help for anxiety, and about 69% report feeling better after just six weeks of therapy. If the mask you wear or the vulnerability underneath it is draining your energy. Visit betterhelp.com/bigthink and complete a quick questionnaire. BetterHelp will match you with a therapist equipped to help you process those worries and build healthier coping strategies. Use our link to get 10% off your first month and support our work at Big Think. Because understanding your own mind is every bit as important as understanding the bold ideas that move the world forward. - [Narrator] Wanna support the channel? Join the Big Think Members Community where you get access to videos early, ad-free.