Spies use psychology to recruit traitors and build deep connections. Here, former spy Julian Fisher reveals the authentic art of strategic influence.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1164What We Discuss with Julian Fisher:Authenticity is paradoxical in espionage. Spies must be genuine people to build real trust, yet they also lie about their identity. This contradiction requires exceptional self-awareness and emotional intelligence.Quality relationships beat quantity networking. Meaningful connections with targeted individuals who can help achieve specific goals are far more valuable than collecting hundreds of superficial contacts.Personality profiling reveals deeper insights. Understanding someone's background, struggles, and journey tells you more about who they really are than just their job title or surface-level information.Preparation and homework create connection. Researching someone's interests and referencing them naturally (like Julian's football gambit in Zimbabwe) can instantly shift dangerous situations into opportunities.Walk to important meetings for mental clarity. A 20-minute walk before crucial conversations clears mental baggage, stimulates creativity, and helps you arrive fully present and focused.And much more...And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:The Cybersecurity Tapes: thecybersecuritytapes.comBetterHelp: 10% off first month: betterhelp.com/jordanAirbnb: airbnb.com/hostHomes.com: Find your home: homes.comAG1: Welcome kit: drinkag1.com/jordanDid you hear our two-part conversation with the retired ATF agent who worked undercover for years to bust numerous criminal organizations — including the notorious Pagan’s [sic] motorcycle club? Catch up starting with episode 673: Ken Croke | Undercover in an Outlaw Biker Gang Part One here!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the paradox of authenticity in espionage?
Heute habe ich gesagt, dass wir einen Spion haben, und das machen wir. Julian Fischer, der ehemalige Spion. Er kann es nicht sagen. Ich weiß nicht, wie das funktioniert, weil wenn du ein Brit bist und ein Spion bist, kannst du nicht immer sagen, dass du es warst. Aber dann kannst du ein Buch darüber schreiben. Ich weiß es nicht.
Auf jeden Fall, wir erforschen, wie Spionen getrainiert und gemacht werden. Welche Fähigkeiten sie brauchen, um Ressourcen zu entwickeln und tief mit anderen zu verbinden, um sie zu verletzen, dass sie ihr Land verletzen.
We also discuss how to think on your feet and Julian has a bunch of great real life stories about mistakes that he's made, lucky breaks that led to life-saving lessons and a whole lot more. So if you like our undercover and spy stuff, you're going to dig this one. It's also a bit more practical in the networking and relationship development stuff as well.
So I think you'll enjoy it, even if you're just looking at this stuff for business or personal use. Now here we go with Julian Fisher. Well, thanks for coming in, man. I appreciate that.
Not at all. My pleasure.
Great to be here, Jordan. Coming in means something different when you're a spy, I guess.
From the cold into this lovely warm embrace. That's right. The Jordan Harbinger podcast. 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?
I was fortunate enough to get to Oxford University, which is always a great start. And that gave me a springboard to go into the city financial sector in a venerable institution. Das war ein Sprungbord, um auf japanischen Steuern und Steuern zu arbeiten, in einem folgenden Job, der mir einen Yen für die Reise gab. Also habe ich overseas für die Regierungsservice eingeladen.
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Chapter 2: How can personality profiling enhance relationships?
The reason that I kind of brought this up, I've 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.
Das ist eine viel stärkere, in meiner Meinung, Vorstellung von jemandem, als jemand, der sagt, ich brauche etwas von ihm. Jetzt ist es Zeit, mir zu lachen und griechisch zu sein und zu verbinden und zu sehen, was ich für sie tun kann. Das ist für mich sofort, wenn ich sehe, dass Leute das tun. Und ich kann nicht der Einzige sein, der sich so fühlt.
I get what you're saying, because the most important thing, which you project very clearly, is authenticity. The Jordan I'm 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 about George Clooney. They're playing themselves. They might just not be the serial killer version that they're playing.
I think that's right. 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 Ich denke, das ist wirklich in der Psyche der Menschen eingegangen.
Es ist nicht unbedingt der Fall, dass ein Spion aufhören muss, um charismatisch mit dir zu engagieren. Ich denke gerne an sehr verschiedene, was ich als Spionstypen nenne. Einige der Spionstypen, die ich zum Beispiel anzeigen würde, sind am einen Ende der Spion, und das ist der klassische Spiontyp. die Person, die man anschauen kann und sagt, ja, ich würde diese Person folgen.
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Chapter 3: What role does preparation play in building connections?
Aber wenn sie sich engagieren, dann engagieren sie sich sehr bedeutend und sie verbinden sich sehr stark mit den Leuten, mit denen sie sich engagieren müssen. Nun, ich stimme komplett mit dir, dass wenn es Fälle gibt, in denen das nur für professionelle Gründe gemacht wird, dann fühle ich mich so unangenehm, wie du dich unangenehm fühlst.
And I think the best spies bring something of a real genuine connection when they're building those relationships.
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? 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?
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 is being inauthentic. We just know it.
Unless you have some sort of disability where you can't pick up on these things, you are doing this automatically.
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 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.
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Chapter 4: How do spies identify and target potential allies?
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? Der Punkt ist, dass wir bereits einen sehr unterschiedlichen Niveau der Diskussion über die Welt und die Menschen haben können.
Denn am Ende des Tages ist das, worum es geht, interpersonale Verbindlichkeit, weil du dein Homework gemacht hast. Und das ist eigentlich alles, was ich sage. Geh nicht herum, GDPR zu brechen oder äquivalente Privatsphäre und so weiter. Und, du weißt, sei natürlich sehr vorsichtig, wie du Daten an Menschen behältst.
Eigentlich spreche ich von einer hypersonischen Version, der einfach eine Note macht, wenn jemand sein Geburtstag ist, und sich bewusst ist, worauf sie interessiert, und einen Effort macht, wenn etwas, was ihnen interessiert, kommt. In anderen Worten, es ist nicht nur ein selbstobsessives A-Hole.
Ja, genau.
Da ist eine kulturelle Unterschiede.
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 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 not Thursday, isn't it? That is such a huge... Absolutely.
Have you used that to keep in touch with hundreds or maybe even a thousand plus people over the course of the year?
And just remember, what was that kid's name? What was her husband's name?
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.
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Chapter 5: What distinguishes quality relationships from networking?
Weil an diesem Punkt war sie tatsächlich verärgert, dass sie ihre Mutter folgen muss und ein Kleiner werden muss. Nichts ist falsch mit einem Kleiner, aber sie wollte es schlecht, um ihre Vaters Erinnerung zu honnen. Und so war Danas Vater so gut wie sein Wort.
Und ein Jahr später hat sie ihre Examen wiedergezogen, sie haben sie übernommen und dann einen Platz als Studenten-Nurse bekommen, um ein Staatsanwalt-Nurse zu werden. Und ich habe sie, glaube ich, in dem ersten Jahr dieses Programms getroffen. Und sie hat mir eines Tages gesagt, Kachulu, was ich verstehe, bedeutet kleine 1, Jahr 1. Sie hat gesagt, Allies sind das wichtigste in der Leben.
Und immer das erinnern. Und ich habe es immer gemacht. Ich meine, es hat sich so sehr verändert, wie ich über die Welt nachgedacht habe. Natürlich glaube ich an die Bedeutung der Bildung. Ich denke, wir sollten immer auf einer lebendigen Reise lernen.
Aber wenn du keine Allies auf deiner Seite hast, dann ist es nicht wirklich wichtig, wie erfolgreich du intellektuell bist, wie erfolgreich du akademisch bist. Du wirst keine Breakthroughs machen können, du wirst nicht die Dinge machen können, die nur ein bisschen weiter weg sind. Es geht um soziales Kapital. Ja. Das ist die Phrase.
Ich habe das, was sie gesagt hat, in den Herzen genommen und ich habe einen Punkt gemacht, um Beziehungen mit Leuten zu bauen, die hilfreich, unterstützend und in der Position sind, das zu tun. Aber all die Zeit, ohne das in irgendeinem exploitativen, manipulativen Weg zu tun.
Was ist Persönlichkeitsprofile? Und warum ist das wichtig? Du hast diesen Kontakt Silas und ich denke, das ist ein wirklich gutes Beispiel für Persönlichkeitsprofile, kulturelle Bewusstsein und solche Dinge. Und ich denke, das ist eine wichtige Fähigkeit, um zu bauen.
Es ist. Ich meine, ich würde sagen, all das, was ich von Persönlichkeitsprofile meine, ist, jemanden zu kennen. Eigentlich stoppst du, über jemanden zu denken. 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, a celebrity personality. Let's go with that. Sure. 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? Ist es ein Doktor, der in einer Familie von Doktoren zurückgekehrt wurde, die nicht kämpfen mussten, um dort zu kommen?
Oder waren sie geboren im Nordnigerien und mussten kämpfen, um sogar in einem westlichen Land zu kommen, wo sie die Bildung und die Trainingsmöglichkeit haben, um Doktor zu werden? Also, starten wir an diesem kulturellen Niveau, wirklich. Es ist einfach, zu verstehen, woher jemand kommt. It also extends to contextual situational awareness. Where does somebody come from?
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Chapter 6: How can emotional connections influence trust?
Ich habe einen Punkt gefunden, was seine Bereiche und parlamentarische Interessen waren. Wann hat er zu Debatten teilgenommen? Was hat er gesagt? Aus welchem Ansatz kommt er her? Was sind seine Interessen in der Außenpolitik? Und es gab einen Reuters-Feed außerhalb seines Offices.
Also habe ich mich auf den Reuters-Feed eingelassen, bis er vorbeigekommen ist, und dann einen Kommentar gemacht, über etwas, über das ich wusste, in dem er interessiert wäre. Also habe ich mich über ihn überlegt. Es klingt manipulativ, aber im Grunde habe ich mich über seine Interessen überlegt. Ich habe ihm einen Grund gegeben, sich zu engagieren.
Alright, maybe I need one of those good luck pythons. But alas, all I have is an anaconda. We'll be right back. All because no one stopped to ask. Vielen Dank. Ja. Das ist eine große Menge von Männern in den Vereinigten Staaten. Das ist eine gute Größe der Bevölkerung.
Die meisten von uns realisieren es nie, ich selbst inklusive, weil wir denken, dass es stark ist, es alleine zu gehen und einfach super unglücklich zu sein für eine riesige Dekade. 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 it changed my life.
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Vielen Dank. 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 now. 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 at 6minutenetworking.com. Now back to Julian Fisher.
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Chapter 7: Why is self-awareness crucial for effective espionage?
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. Wenn ich darüber spreche, nenne ich das den perfekten Pitch, weil letztendlich auch ein Spion jemanden pitcht.
Sie sagen effektiv nur, ich brauche etwas von dir und ich werde dir einen Grund geben, warum du mir das geben möchtest. Das ist alles, worüber es geht. Du hast die Targeting, du hast den Verwendung der Cover, du hast die Kultivation, du hast den Verwendung der Verpflichtung, die Bewertung der Motivationen. Und dann, und nur dann, denkst du über einen 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.
Ja, ich denke, die Wahrheit ist, dass die Leute denken, dass sie mit dem AI-Tool wegkommen, und sie sind es nicht. Sie sind es wirklich nicht. Jede Art von Template, die du denkst, sieht gut aus, von AI, erkennt, dass das AI jede Person, die mein Show präsentiert, das gleiche Template benutzt. Es ist wirklich offensichtlich.
Und es ist ein Weg, dich in meine immediate Do-Not-Read-Box zu setzen, weil ich 30 davon pro Tag bekomme. Und die Leute sagen, ich kümmere mich nicht um einen Podcast. Wenn du einen Job suchst, machst du wahrscheinlich das gleiche.
Du sendest eine E-Mail zu jemandem in der Industrie und sie sagen, ich hatte noch einen von diesen dummen AI-Tipps von einem Mann, der aus einem College-Programm ausgebildet ist und denkt, du wirst mir das schreiben. Sie sehen so viel davon. 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 story.
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 of 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.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can we learn from Julian's personal experiences?
But again, there we go back, 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. I'm just putting it out there for anybody who might be interested. It's one of those things where people are like, oh wow, seriously, I might be on TV, so come on in.
And now for some not so covert words from our sponsors. We'll be right back. Untertitelung aufgrund der Audioqualität nicht möglich. Shoutout 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.
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