In the second half of our conversation with Dr. Andy Morgan, we cover topics including:⁠⁠- Advice for people seeking careers in the intelligence community⁠- Andy’s work as an expert witness testifying at the International Criminal Court⁠- The effects of trauma on memory, and why an inconsistent story of a traumatic event does not indicate lying⁠- How people can be given false memories, and how he did so in his research⁠- The science and myths of human lie detection⁠- When polygraphs are BS and when they're not⁠- The appeal of "corporate horoscopes", aka made-up personality tests sold to corporations⁠- Methods for rapidly learning or memorizing information. ⁠If you haven’t done so already, please check out the first episode of this talk (Episode 21), where Dr. Morgan discusses the psychology and biology of performance under stress in special operators, the characteristics of effective special operators, and what it is that the operational psychs are looking for at selection and assessment courses. Timestamps:Part 2:00:00:51 How to Join the Intelligence Community00:05:19 Testifying at the Hague00:20:54 Detecting Deception00:23:56 Polygraphs00:29:15 Magic and Tarot00:33:24 The Yale Harold Fiasco00:35:51 Memory Castles00:41:34 Association00:45:35 Yohimbe and Norepinephrine

Dr. Andy Morgan is a Yale-educated former CIA medical intelligence officer, and one of the world's foremost experts on performance under stress in special operations personnel. In this episode we cover:- "The Warfighter's Stress Response" - What are the mental and physical differences between SOF candidates who perform well under stress, and those who don't?- SOF selection criteria - What are the differences in the profiles of ideal SOF candidates from one program to another? - The psych interview at SOF selection - What are the operational psychs and cadre looking for, and what is the best advice for candidates going into these interviews? This is part one of a two-part episode. Part two will follow soon after, and will cover many other topics ranging from the science of detecting deception (Are polygraphs BS?) to navigating a career in the clandestine intelligence community and how to rapidly learn and remember lots of novel information. Timestamps:Part 1:00:02:23 The War Fighters Stress Response00:16:07 SOF Selection Criteria00:36:29 The Psych Interview at Selection

Self-herding is when you refer to your past actions for subconscious guidance rather than mirroring what others around you are doing. This effect can persist a lot longer than the situation that produced the action. By taking advantage of self-herding, we can use temporary circumstances to shape persistent, long-term behavior. A common method for doing this used by successful SOF candidates is to "quit tomorrow." No matter how much what you're doing right now hurts, you can tell yourself that you'll finish out today and quit tomorrow. This takes away the daunting prospect of future suffering while focusing you on pushing through today's challenge. Most of the time, people do this in reverse. They take the easy way out today and tell themselves that they'll do the hard thing tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes. Each day they make a new excuse, skip the hard work, and put the burden of their ambitions onto their future selves. Present-day actions never match future goals. Quitting tomorrow helps you do the hard work today, by mentally promising yourself that you can take a break tomorrow. In the same way, tomorrow never comes. Each new day becomes just one more today in a long string of them in which you suffer through one last time. Just as making an excuse and avoiding discomfort becomes a reflex for many people, quitting tomorrow makes a habit of perseverance. 

In SOF selection, you'll often hear instructors say "Don't set yourself up for failure." From your viewpoint in the pushup position with wet sand abrading every inch of your body, this might seem like yet another form of casual derision. But it's an important reminder. Many of the little tests in selection are assessing for conscientiousness and long-term planning, or the ability to account for second and third-order effects in our behaviors. In other words, the ability to process "If I do X now, then Y will happen as a result, and then Z will happen like this." How well we do this determines where our actions fall on a scale between setting ourselves up for success or setting ourselves up for failure. Think of a drop of water. You want it to get from point A to point B. You’re not going to expect the water to get there because that’s what’s good for it. You expect it to get there because that’s where gravity will take it, and if that environment were to change, so would the path of the water.We’re not as different from that drop of water as we may like to think. Our control over our future actions is limited. What we can control, however, is what we do right now to shape our future environment so that the path of least resistance is the one we want ourselves to take. This episode is about this concept - that if we change the upstream drivers that affect our behavior, we'll be better able to do the right thing in the future when doing the right thing is hard. 

Metacognition is a fancy word for “thinking about thinking”.⁠⁠To borrow definitions from research with Olympic athletes, metacognition can be broken into 3 forms:⁠⁠- being aware of goals and how those goals relate to specific situations;⁠- using specific psychological strategies (such as goal-setting, imagery, self-talk, relaxation, and activation) to manage and control your thoughts and visualizations;⁠and⁠- being aware of how past experience might shape your present perspective and future predictions.⁠⁠We learn by making and correcting mistakes at the edge of our ability. This means that metacognition is an essential tool for recognizing our errors, rapidly correcting them, and continuously improving during training. ⁠⁠In this episode, we discuss how that works, and one method for doing so that you can use today. ⁠

Dr. Doug Kechijian is a physical therapist and CEO and co-founder of Resilient Performance Systems, which has locations in Manhattan, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Resilient seeks to systematically explore the continuum between acute rehabilitation and athletic performance. Their clientele includes athletes and operators from Major League Baseball (MLB), the NBA, professional mixed martial arts, the X Games, the Winter and Summer Olympics, Major League Lacrosse (MLL), the NCAA, federal law enforcement tactical teams, military special operations forces, and those with a history of persistent pain and extensive surgical backgrounds. Before beginning his sports medicine practice, Doug was an Air Force Pararescueman. He deployed throughout the world to help provide technical rescue capability and emergency medical care to U.S and allied forces.On this call, we cover a wide range of subjects, ranging from Doug’s experiences in PJ selection to how his background in special operations has influenced his approach to training and rehab in the civilian world.

When our secondary emotions work out well, we call them instincts. When they cause us to do stupid things, we shrug and say "I was in a weird place I guess" or "It seemed like the thing to do at the time."If we understand how secondary emotions work, we can shape them over time. With training, our secondary emotions can help us to think and react better under stress. ----------Here's the process that we outline at the end of this episode: The next time you’re in a difficult situation in which you struggle to manage your emotions well, run through this quick sequence:Identify your stress response - What are you feeling, what is your body doing, and what is happening in your mind? Use a specific skill to regulate your stress response (start with controlling your breathing, with a focus on deep, slow exhales. From there, you can consider other mental skills like segmenting or compartmentalization.)Identify the secondary emotion triggered by this situation and your stress response - What do your impulses drive you to do at this moment? If your emotional impulses are pushing you in a direction you don’t want to go, think of them like bad weather. You can feel the wind blow and watch storm clouds pass overhead, but you can still do what you need to do anyway. The weather will pass, it doesn’t have to change your actions. Acknowledge what you’re feeling, and then recognize that a temporary feeling doesn’t have to be in charge of your actions. You don’t have to feel like doing the right thing to do it anyway. Once the moment has passed and you’ve got some perspective, your final step is to run a feedback loop:Ask yourself how it went, how well you were able to regulate your stress response, and how effectively you were able to act in the way you had planned for. Remember that we learn by making and correcting errors at the edge of our ability, so look for mistakes and places to improve. Refer back to the principles of stress inoculation and keep in mind that you may have to adjust the intensity of the situation to keep yourself just on the edge of your ability where success is challenging but possible. 

Stress makes us age faster, but not always. Some people remain healthy and capable throughout remarkably long lifespans, even when they undergo incredibly difficult circumstances. The difference in how we're impacted by stress comes down largely to how we think. In this episode, we discuss several variables and strategies involved in managing our stress responses and becoming more resilient. 

Those with a more internalized locus of control - who believe that they determine their path in life through their own decisions - are less susceptible to learned helplessness and are much more likely to succeed in SOF selection. 

Some sled dogs will put just enough pressure into the harness to appear to be working while they’re actually taking a break. “Honest dogs” throw their full weight into the straps no matter how tired they are or how much further there is to go. These dogs take the lead positions in the harnesses so that they can set the pace for the rest of the team.Much of SOF selection is separating the honest dogs from the dogs who are going home.