349 – Andrew Bustamante of Colorado Springs, CO A Former Covert CIA Intel Officer, USAF Combat Veteran & Dad of Two

Transcript:

Tom Couch: Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Working tirelessly to research, develop and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics mission at horizontherapeutics.com.

Andrew Bustamante: And my father-in-law actually turned out to be a very good father figure. He was a great father figure to my wife and to her sister and one of the most warm and open fathers and fatherly types that I’ve ever met. So I have had an experience with a loving father and I’ve had an experience for my children with a loving grandfather. Right. It just I happen to marry into that family, which is something that not many other fathers, I think get a similar experience.

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Andrew Bustamante, a former CIA operative and host of the podcast Everyday Spy, where Andrew takes the lessons he’s learned as a CIA operative and applies them to everyday life. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a world most of us will never see. And it’s happening on this Special Father’s Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Now say hello to the founder of the Special Fathers Network and host of the Dad to Dad Podcast, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi and thanks for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast presented by the Special Fathers Network. A dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children, children with special needs. The Special Fathers Network Mastermind Group experience is the most comprehensive program the 21st Century Dads foundation offers. Dads raising children with special needs, meet virtually on a weekly basis and form meaningful relationships while sharing weekly wins, discussing books and sharing heartfelt challenges. One of the highlights of the year is attending an in-person weekend retreat. We’re launching 10 new mastermind groups in 2024 with 10 dads per group. That means we’re only looking for 10 like-minded dads in each community. If you’re a dad raising a child with special needs, we hope you’ll join a local mastermind group and make the investment to become the best version of yourself. For more information, please see the show notes or simply go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: Now let’s listen in to this week’s conversation between Andrew Bustamante and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with Andrew Bustamante of Colorado Springs, a former covert CIA intelligence officer, US Air Force combat veteran, business consultant, host of the everyday espionage podcast, self-proclaimed improvement junkie and father of two adolescent children. Andrew, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Andrew Bustamante: Oh, it’s my pleasure, man. Thanks so much for having me.

David Hirsch: David, you and your wife, Jihi, who is also a former CIA intelligence officer, been married for 14 years, and the proud parents of two adolescent children. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Andrew Bustamante: Yeah, I actually grew up in Pennsylvania. I think the most significant thing about my family is that I came from a strange family situation. My father was killed in a violent crime just before I was born. I was raised by my mother and my grandmother until my mom remarried. And when she remarried, in hindsight, as an adult now, I realized that my mom remarried into a household or with a husband that was the polar opposite of everything she came from. So Latino, background for me and my mom. She married a Caucasian guy. As soon as she got married, she moved myself and her and my new stepdad all the way to Pennsylvania, the exact opposite side of the country from where my family came from down in El Paso, Texas. And then from there, my stepdad and my mom very clearly went into a process of trying to become like your typical white picket fence, Caucasian family. So it was very strange to me. I remember being a brown kid trying to grow up and pretend I was a white kid. Not that I think race is a real, like a big deal, but it certainly made for some difficulty, especially as my mother had half sisters with her new husband. And then I. I had to try to figure out how to be an independent young man in a family that was, you know, predominantly not really who we tried to demonstrate ourselves to be in the community.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thank you for that brief flyby. And, my condolences. Right. That your dad was. Your biological dad was killed in a violent crime and you never had a chance to know him. What do you know of him? What’s your understanding of who he was?

Andrew Bustamante: Yeah, it’s, you know, it’s really. It’s a difficult thing to navigate because everything is rumor. He died in, 1979-1980. And I was born just a few months afterwards. So everything I have is hearsay. I, have stories. Stories from my mom, who doesn’t talk very often about him at all. Stories from my grandmother, who has very strong negative

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Andrew Bustamante: opinions about him. But then I also get stories from his mom and his dad and his brothers and sisters and my mom’s brothers and sisters. So it’s really weird to spin a web of it, but what I know is that he was an athlete, and what I know is that he joined the military. And what I know is that he did not have a successful military career. He was a rebellious, disrespectful, what’s the word? Insubordinate kind of guy, which fits my mom’s type. My mom likes those kinds of like, you know, boisterous, verbal, independent kind of souls. And it also fits my own personality. So it makes sense to me there too. However, it was interesting to Lear how unsuccessful he was in fact, the night that he was killed. It was part of his attitude, his insolence that contributed to the. To the violence because he essentially picked a fight with a criminal who was high on drugs. So it’s just one of those things where, you know, most people with good judgment wouldn’t pick a fight in the first place, and they most certainly wouldn’t pick a fight with someone they knew was carrying a weapon and they knew was high on drugs. But apparently my father was the kind of guy that did that. So it was a little bit of a guiding light for me because I knew what chemistry I had in me and I knew to avoid the instinct to demonstrate that chemistry.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing. Quite powerful. So let’s talk about your stepdad because he’s the person that you grew up with. And I’m wondering what type, of relationship ah, you have with him and influence that he had.

Andrew Bustamante: So, yeah, the relationship was, unfortunately, it was a strained and difficult relationship. And it was one where I remember trying very hard at certain moments to heal and mend the relationship. And it wasn’t met with an equal interest in mending the relationship. So as a result, now he’s in his 70s and I’m in my 40s and my children won’t know him really, as a member of our family at all.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thank you for your authenticity, and transparency about that. My heart reaches out to you, is somebody who’s passionate. Right. About being a parent and trying to build relationships, maintain relationships. And you know, I sense there’s this sort of frustration in your voice. Right. for not being in a different place than you are. But hey, at some point you just have to worry about what you have control over. Right. And make the best of the situation and move on.

Andrew Bustamante: Yeah, I agree. I’m blessed also, David, because I married a woman and my father in law actually turned out to be a very good father figure. He was a great father figure to my wife and to her sister and one of the most warm and open fathers and fatherly types that I’ve ever met. So I have had an experience with a loving father and I’ve had an experience for my children with a loving grandfather. Right. It just, I happen to marry into that family, which is something that not many other fathers, I think, get a similar experience. instead they marry into competition, or they marry into fiefdoms, or they marry into, you know, comparisons. But I very much married into a loving fatherly relationship. So I have to appreciate what I received from my father in law as much as I have to be honest about what I didn’t get from my stepdad.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, great observation. And is your father in law still alive?

Andrew Bustamante: He is, he is alive. And we are constantly trying to encourage him to care for his health. And he doesn’t listen very well because he’s such a jolly, happy guy. He’s one of those guys that until disaster strikes, there’s nothing to worry about. You know what I mean?

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks again for sharing. So my recollection was that, you were in the Air Force Academy and then served four years in the military. I’m wondering, where did you think your career was going to take you after the military?

Andrew Bustamante: A big part of me choosing to go to the military at all, and this is, I think this is worth mentioning. When I was very, very young, I mean, 11, 12, 13 years old, I knew all I wanted out of life was to be a husband and a father. And when I meet other people who understand that feeling, it’s like, it’s like a homecoming, right? It’s like sitting with people who are of a like mind. I just remember, even before, before puberty, I remember how excited I was to be somebody’s husband and somebody’s father. I was never excited to go into the military. So I saw the military as a way of getting out of Pennsylvania, getting out of my family’s house, getting away from my stepdad, getting away from my mom, growing some independence and developing myself into the person who would be a good father and a good husband. And then I struggled with the military. The military was not a great fit for me. I’ve got a big beard and huge hair, and my inner hippie is very strong. So when I was in the military, the one thing that I kind of envisioned every day was,

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Andrew Bustamante: I am building a legacy. I am building a foundation of responsibility and discipline, and I’m creating opportunities that are going to make me the kind of husband and father that can care for my family, that can provide for my family, that can be resilient through difficult times. It was never about, you know, Loving America or serving America, those were great benefits and those were fantastic missions and purposes. But still, in my heart of hearts, I was preparing for the day I got the privilege of being a father.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, thank you for emphasizing that the military, career, which was not just putting your minimum time in, but an influential part of your life, is a stepping stone of sorts. Right? That’s what I heard you say.

Andrew Bustamante: Yeah, absolutely. And in hindsight, again, it was a great decision. But man, I remember and anybody who’s ever served in uniform knows there are some very trying days and trying hours and trying months, sometimes very trying assignments, where you wonder if you ruined your life. You worry if you screwed up something or if you cut off an opportunity, or if you’ll never catch up to your peers who skipped the military and went straight to college. There’s definitely some uncertainty along the way.

David Hirsch: If you had to reflect on one or maybe no more than two things from your military career, what would you consider be the highlights?

Andrew Bustamante: You know, the highlights have nothing to do with me. I’ll be very honest about that. Because when I reflect on my military career, I’m not particularly proud of anything I did. But there were people that I met along the way that were just jaw droppingly impressive people. One of those people is a guy, his name is Peter Euler. Peter Euler was a cadet at the academy with me. A very disciplined, very structured, very friendly student. I believe he came from Tennessee, good southern boy. And no matter how hard the academy got, it never got him down. And I remember, you know, being depressed for weeks or months at a time sometimes in school, and always looking to Peter as somebody who just, he was somehow able to float on the waves of it all. Right, well, I moved to Colorado Springs not too long ago with my family. 20 years, 20 plus years after I graduated from the academy. And it turns out Peter Euler is living here in Colorado Springs with his family. He is a instructor at the Air Force Academy. So it was this incredible opportunity to come back and see this person who was so significant to me when I was a cadet, even though he was a friend, but never like a close friend, but, there’s just not many people you remember for your whole life. And here’s this kid that I will remember for my whole life. And, and it’s awesome to reconnect with them. And then a second thing from the military that I also reflect on is there were people who believed that just doing what you were told was going to be enough to build your career. I never believed that I always believed that you had to do what you were told to the point where it diverted from what you cared about, what you believed in, what you prioritized. And again, now that I’m here back at the Colorado Springs and back in the area of many of my academy graduate friends, I can see that now. I can see that I charted my own path, and my family and my business are all in a very different and arguably more predictable, controllable, beneficial space than many of my peers who continued on the Air Force path. And now they find themselves retired and they can’t afford for their kids to continue in private school, and they can’t afford college, and they don’t get to stop working. They have to find a new job. And now in today’s economy, they’re dealing with that. So it’s one of those things that I have been able to reflect on, to say, you know, for all the mistakes that I made, I’m very glad that I kept that streak of independence in me to try to shape my own future rather than let other people shape it for me.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, I think you can connect the dots looking backwards a little bit easier than maybe looking forwards and knowing that that was your path. So I’m, glad that you can, reflect on that in a way that you have. So what’s the path to becoming an intelligence officer and working at the CIA? That’s not like there’s a line out the door for people, looking to pursue that. Yeah. What was it that prompted your interest and, what’s the process?

Andrew Bustamante: It’s a great question. And it’s funny. It’s funny because sometimes it’s shocking that there even is an intelligence, an intelligence office or operational element, because how do you become an intelligence officer? So, going again back to my childhood and reliving my childhood with my children, which everybody listening, every father understands what that gets to feel like, to relive, live your childhood through your own children. I remember wanting to be a fireman or a police officer or a spy right. As a kid, along with race car driver, astronaut, the same stuff that probably everybody here is laughing about remembering when they were a kid. And my children, of course, went through the same phase. My daughter is going through that phase now at 7. My son

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Andrew Bustamante: is just past that phase at 11, where he wanted to be everything. And now he’s actually kind of thinking about what really jobs look like. But to answer your question, after I left the military, I was looking to do something that was the exact opposite of the military. Right the military made me shine my shoes. Where could I work where I didn’t even have to wear shoes? The military made me, you know, keep my hair short. Where could I work where I could grow dreadlocks if I wanted to? Right. I’m looking for the exact opposite. Just like every time we’ve ever had a bad breakup, you try to find a girl who’s the exact opposite of the last girlfriend you had. That’s what I was looking for, was the exact opposite girlfriend. And it took me to the Peace Corps. So I started applying for the Peace Corps, and I thought I would be a strong candidate for the Peace Corps because I was coming from the military and I had all this responsibility and everything else. And during that application process, I was actually, interdicted by a CIA recruiter who said, hey, we see that you’re applying for the Peace Corps. If you think you would like that job, we would love to introduce you to this other job. And that was when I started the process of interviewing and exploring and applying for the CIA instead of the Peace Corps. So I had to put my Peace Corps application. Essentially, I had to terminate that application to pursue CIA, because there’s a rule in the federal government that if you work for CIA, you can never work for Peace Corps. And if you’ve worked in the Peace Corps, you can never work for CIA. Because they never want their Peace Corps volunteers to ever be accused of espionage, and they never want their CIA officers to ever go undercover as Peace Corps. So they try to protect the two, elements by making a hard line between them, even though the skill sets and the character traits are very similar.

David Hirsch: Thank you for that distinction. I don’t think I’ve ever read or heard that before.

Andrew Bustamante: Yeah, a lot of people are surprised by that. There’s a number of places where CIA simply does not mix disciplines. The clergy is another one of those areas. You’ll never find an undercover priest or an undercover pastor or an undercover religious leader, because the CIA wants very much to protect the true clergymen who are out there proselytizing, and they want to protect against anybody ever accusing CIA of abusing. That same thing with the medical profession. They’re not going to send a doctor out under CIA cover because they never want to a doctor or a priest or a volunteer to be captured and accused of espionage. They want to be able to always show that those disciplines are independent of undercover operations.

David Hirsch: Why is it that journalists, then, are the ones that are always accused of being spies?

Andrew Bustamante: So it’s funny that you ask that because journalists are the closest thing to being actual spies. right. Think about what a journalist does. Journalists try to find secrets. They pay money to get those secrets. They protect their sources, they protect their assets. They try to find the juiciest, most breaking news. That’s all the same thing real spies also do. So when you’re Russia or Iran or North Korea and you arrest a journalist, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re arresting a spy or a journalist. In both cases, you’re just controlling the flow of secrets. So for them, it’s a win win. But for us in the United States, we see them as two different categories, when in reality, they’re more like close distance cousins than anything else.

David Hirsch: Thank you. it seems more obvious now that you mention it. So, I’m thinking about the type of lessons, that you learned in the CIA, because that’s really what you’re talking about, with the work that you’re doing. And, maybe you can just reflect on the responsibility you had as an intelligence officer at the CIA before we talk about the lessons learned.

Andrew Bustamante: Absolutely. So I was a field operations officer, which means that I was in charge of going into the foreign field, going to foreign countries, collecting secrets that had demonstrable impact to American national security, and doing so in a way that the President had plausible deniability that I ever existed. So it’s a high risk, high stakes job, but it’s also a very exciting job where you can kind of work at your own creative whim. Anything you can do to get the secret is essentially good work. It’s not like you’re punching a clock or working nine to five. There’s lots of administrative stuff that also has to happen. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like James Bond, but you do still get some of the pieces that James Bond gets. Minus the nice suit, the beautiful cars, and the beautiful women. You don’t get those. But you do kind of get to go out there and meet with terrible people and steal secrets from those terrible people and save American lives. That is very real. And that job, it’s about skills, right? It’s about lying and it’s about living undercover. It’s about understanding disguise

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Andrew Bustamante: and understanding dead drops and understanding technology and using different weapons. Yes, it’s about all of that. But it’s really a job about managing your resources, your energy, your focus, your rest, your capabilities to think critically under tight time constraints. It’s really about managing your resources simultaneous with protecting your own, self, keeping your body healthy, keeping Your mind sharp, keeping your health, intact. Because the truth is, without you, the secrets won’t get discovered. And a big part of that lesson is really what I try to bring to the, people that I teach. Now, whether you are an entrepreneur or a business person or a stay at home dad, the truth is, whatever mission you’re trying to accomplish, if you don’t do it, somebody else isn’t going to. So, like, you have to find a way to not only show up and deliver the best of what you can give, but also protect yourself day to day so that you’re there to do your best the next day.

David Hirsch: Also fascinating. Would it be safe to say that, because you and Jihi met in the CIA that you took more away from the CIA than most people?

Andrew Bustamante: Yeah, for sure. Without a doubt. The CIA was, it was one of the most challenging and most rewarding experiences of my life because it gave me an incredible experience. It gave me an incredible set of skills, but it also delivered to me the one thing I wanted my whole life. It delivered this amazing woman who became my wife, who became the mother of my two incredible children. I don’t know how I would have ever achieved my goal of being a father and a husband if not for CIA putting me into the same class where my wife happened to be sitting in the back row.

David Hirsch: Well, it’s fate. It’s just amazing how things work out.

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a great dad coin. Thank you. Now back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: So I think I mentioned in a prior conversation that most, of the families involved with the Special Fathers Network are parents raising children with special needs or disability. these are some of the most resilient parents you’ll ever meet. do you or your wife have any connection to the disability or special needs community?

Andrew Bustamante: So with our children and with us ourselves, we don’t have a direct connection. We haven’t been clinically diagnosed or had anybody in our family clinically diagnosed as being special needs or non neurotypical. However, we have a family that has a genetic history of depression, that has severe anxiety, and we know our family lives on the spectrum and we’ve seen symptoms of autism not just in my wife, but also in my eldest child, my son, with sensitivity to, extrasensory inputs like loud noises, tactile sensitivities. We’ve also seen focus the way that, that parents with non neurotypical children see focus. Sometimes they can’t focus on anything, other times they focus on these very strange, specific things. So that’s the closest that we’ve come outside of having friends and peers who have had very serious challenges with raising their children because of physical challenges or mental challenges.

David Hirsch: Well, thank you. And while you’re not parents, to children with special needs yourselves, these parents who are raising kids with disability do a lot of on the job learning, overcoming adversity. What advice can you share from your training and your experience that might be helpful?

Andrew Bustamante: As a father, I really am thankful every day that I was blessed with children that have sound mind, sound body, sound health. Because when I meet fathers who have the extra challenge of special needs with their children, my heart goes out to them. My heart goes out not out of pity necessarily or but because they have a completely different experience of fatherhood than what I have had. I had a, fantastic friend of mine who’s had a daughter with cystic fibrosis and hearing his stories about waking up every day to pat her back and clear her lungs and monitor her health and build his whole lifestyle around her health. You know, it’s a beautiful and amazing

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Andrew Bustamante: thing. And when he tells the story, he doesn’t tell the story with a grimace on his face. He tells his story with a face full of life, like he’s so intimately connected to his child. It’s something that I don’t have with my neurotypical children, right, because they don’t need you as much. They become more independent and you end up not being as aware of every developmental step as parents of special needs. But the big thing that I will say that I’ve been able to share and I’m excited to continue sharing with parents of special needs is just the idea of protecting your cognitive resources. Right. Essentially your body is a machine that’s built to conserve energy. So your brain is actually very lazy. We think that our brain is like this great tool and that it’s very sharp and that it’s hardworking. It’s not. The brain naturally is wired to conserve energy. That’s why we leap to conclusions. That’s why we have inherent biases. That’s why when we are tired or low resourced, we fall back on what happened to us when we were kids. So anybody who’s ever yelled at their kid or possibly raised their hand or threatened their child with something like they were when they were a child knows exactly what this feels like. And what CIA taught me is that the way that you overcome that previous wiring is through a process of neuroplasticity where you recondition your brain a different way. And part of that conditioning process is having a healthy daily routine, a morning routine, a nighttime ritual, doing everything you can to resource your brain so that it has excess resources to make good decisions in moments that are draining energetically.

David Hirsch: Yeah, very insightful. we talk about that a lot within the Special Fathers Network under the banner of self care. You know, if you’re not healthy, physically, emotionally, spiritually healthy, it’s hard to bring your A game. And I think you’ve articulated that, but, with a neuroscience, insight and, the importance of that. Right. And you know, it’s easy to take your health for granted. Right. You know, and if you don’t have those daily routines, which is what I think I heard you saying, you know, life sort of sneaks up on you.

Andrew Bustamante: Yeah.

David Hirsch: And, you find yourself in a position that you wouldn’t have expected or want to be in. And, it has a lot to do with decisions, maybe small day to day, week to week, month to month decisions. And, you know, it is important to have healthy routines. So you have this great website. I think of it as a great website with a lot of resources. And one of the things that really, sort of caught my attention is I’m just going to read this. Most people waste their time, money, and freedom doing what they are told. When you give up control, you lose time that you can never get back. You miss out on, money that you deserve, and you trade freedom for regret. There’s a lot there.

Andrew Bustamante: Yeah, there’s a lot there. What I. In a moment of clarity, I don’t know whether it was divinely inspired or inspired by starvation. I’m not sure which. But there was a moment. After leaving CIA, it’s very hard to find a job when you’re a former covert intelligence officer because you spend this period of time where you’re still legally required to maintain your cover. However, you do not have the backing of the federal government to maintain your cover. So your resume, your. Your phone numbers, your contacts, your. Your network, it doesn’t exist because you’re not an undercover officer anymore. You’re in this no man’s land where you’re still required to say that you’re not CIA, but CIA is not required to give you a phone number or reference. So I was living in my father in law’s, my, my in laws. I was living in their converted garage with my wife and my one year old child in Southern Florida. In the transition from spring to summer, which anybody in Florida knows, that transition happens in like two hours. And it goes from being comfortable to being uncomfortably hot and sweaty. And I’m sitting there at 33, 4 years old, wondering what I have done to my life. I was an undercover CIA officer traveling the world with a beautiful wife and a newborn child. And we were living in Northern Virginia and we were the cream of the crop and the tip of the spear. And now we’re in this junky converter garage with no air conditioning and no insulation and I’m struggling to find a job for like month number two and I’m living off of my in laws. Like they don’t have a lot of money as is,

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Andrew Bustamante: but they’re doing everything they can to keep us afloat. And I can’t help but wonder and be afraid that I ruined my life somehow, right? And that’s when it struck me that the thing I was looking for more than anything else was freedom. The freedom to choose what I wanted to choose, to live for the people I cared for the most. I didn’t want to have to chase some CEOs bonus check. I didn’t want to have to chase some mission dictated by the President. I didn’t want to have to meet the standards of some, you know, college degree program to, to get tenured or whatever else. I wanted to just focus on the things that I’d always cared the most about. Being a husband, being a father, building a life that I could be proud of and giving my children a, step ahead of what I had when I was a child. And it struck me in that moment that I was closer to that than I was to anything else. Even though I felt struggle and I felt like a failure, and I felt like maybe I was screwing up a good thing, the truth was that in that hot, sweltering garage with my kid on my lap and my wife by my side at 2 o’ clock in the afternoon on a Thursday, I was closer to freedom than I had ever been. And that really shaped me into the entrepreneur that I became. Because I would realize, like, oh, you know what? I’ve learned how to master spy skills. And now I can teach people how to use those spy skills to have the kind of freedom I have right now. And Once I started teaching people how spy mindset and spy routines and spy rhythms and spy exercises converted to increased clarity of thought, better memory retention, better physical health, better career success, better relationships, that’s when our whole life changed, and that’s when our business was born.

David Hirsch: I love it. I do recall that you did a little bit of a stint at CVS on an interim basis. Was that just to sort of like, put food on the table, gain some financial independence while you were sort of working through what you were just describing?

Andrew Bustamante: Yeah, absolutely. So what happened is I had that epiphany where I. Where I thought, I can use spy skills to get good sleep in a hot place. I can use spy skills to, you know, forge a closer relationship with my partner. Why can’t I use spy skills to get a job? And that’s when it struck me like, oh, I can, because, as an undercover officer, you’re always lying about what you do, and you just get jobs left and right. You’re just. They’re all fraudulent, but you get the job. So I had never really considered essentially defrauding my way into a job. And it struck me in that moment, I was like, well, let me see if I can. Because if I can, that means anybody can. And that’s how I started working for CBS Health. I essentially targeted an executive, found my way into meeting with that executive. I, you know, had a profile of what that executive was looking for and a good person. I fit that profile artificially. Before I knew it, I got a job offer. So. And then once I got hired by CVS Health in a job I didn’t deserve, then I used my. My rapid learning skills that CIA taught me to quickly learn the skills I needed to succeed. And then it was. My career took off. Because CVS had never seen a CIA officer use CIA skills to grow inside their career. I learned more, remembered more, built relationships faster. And then within six years, I was promoted six times and became a senior advisor in a company where, arguably, according to my resume, I should have never been hired in the first place. And that was all the proof of concept I needed to be able to create programs and eBooks and digital training materials so that other people could massively increase their impact at work as well.

David Hirsch: I love it. So you host a podcast, and I’m wondering, with like, 150 something episodes, what do you like most about the podcast? And is there one podcast that comes to mind that, you know, if I was to direct listeners to, that would be the one?

Andrew Bustamante: Yes. So my podcast is The Everyday Spy Podcast, and you can find it on YouTube, on Spotify, on any of your favorite platforms. Where I would direct everybody to start is just look for the word ED Jackal. The letter E, the letter D, the word Jackal.

Andrew Bustamante: My name is Andrew Bustamante, and this is Everyday Espionage. I’ve really enjoyed sharing what I’ve learned from CIA during season one and season two of the Everyday Espionage Podcast. But for season three, I wanted to do something different. You’ve listened to me teach you about using espionage skills and tactics in everyday life. So for season three, I wanted to let you hear from other spies, heroes who are still serving and cannot share their identities for personal or professional reasons.

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Andrew Bustamante: In this first episode, I introduce a, good friend I’ve codenamed ED Jackal. Jackal is as real as it gets.

Andrew Bustamante: ED Jackal is in a series of interviews I did with a friend of mine who was a deep cover CIA officer, and he never left CIA. So as a senior officer leaving CIA, he tells the story of his operations, but he also tells the story of his regrets, how he lost his family, how he lost his wife, how he lost these things that he cared so much about because he put the mission and the job and the excitement of the career first. And it’s just a. It’s a wonderfully transparent, authoritative conversation with somebody you’ll never get to meet. And that only exists in audio, but you’ll be able to find it on any of the audio platforms. And then it’s also in an audio format converted to YouTube, but you’ll find that there. The reason I love the podcast is because podcasting is an opportunity to share your knowledge with everyone without asking anyone to pay a dime. And one of the hardest things about being a teacher, and I’m sure you’ve discovered this yourself, when you want to teach somebody something you care about, price is always a barrier. Because some people can’t afford what you have to teach. Some people don’t trust what you have to say enough to pay for it. So podcasting is this incredible opportunity to spread knowledge without requesting any money at all. And what happens is when you give that knowledge away for free, there’s a handful of people out there who appreciate it so much that they come hire you for other tasks, they come hire you for private speaking engagements, they hire you for corporate consulting, they hire you for personal consulting. So podcasting has been this incredible platform to share the message. And it’s worked very well for me because people have heard my message and then invited me to be on larger and larger podcasts and bigger and bigger platforms. There’s no way that I could ever say that I was successful without the podcast.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing. I made a note, ED Jackal, the, deep undercover agent. So I’m going to, make sure we include something in the show notes, so I’ll make it as easy as possible for our listeners to, follow up on that suggestion. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Andrew Bustamante: I just. I very much appreciate the chance that I’ve had to be a father. And I very much appreciate the dedication and the commitment that every father listening right now has had. Because there’s fatherhood and then there’s, fatherhood of children with special needs. And there isn’t a single father in the world that doesn’t understand the difference between the two. And yes, there are plenty of fathers out there who have no interest in being fathers. And then there’s a huge contingent of fathers who are so grateful and appreciative and recognize the blessing and challenges of being a father. And for most of them, they get the opportunity to have good days and bad days, on days and off days and a game days and X game days. Right. But when you’re the father of a child with special needs, you don’t get days off, you don’t get golden years off. Right. But you have to. You still find an incredible amount of joy in being a father, and that is a whole different caliber of fatherhood than most people experience. So. Well, I am very thankful for my children. I am very, very thankful for the fathers out there who have special needs children who don’t ever stop trying and never give up. And anything I can do to help equip them with more energy and more focus and more resources to be successful in that job. Right. That would be a privilege and an honor for me, unlike any other privilege and honor I’ve had in the past. So thank you very much for having me here and for anybody who wants to hear more from me. You’ll find me on the Everyday Spy podcast. Of course, you’ll also find me at my homepage everydayspy.com on social media @everydayspy. And in the show notes here, we’ll leave a number of links to the ED Jackal episode for sure, and also to our spy quiz, which is a very fun quiz that helps people understand their own intrinsic natural gifts and what they can do with those gifts.

David Hirsch: Well, thank you for being so open and generous with your time and the resources. Andrew, thank you for the many insights. As a reminder, Andrew is just one of the individuals who’s part of the Special Fathers Network of mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21stCenturyDads.org. Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads foundation is a 501c3 not for profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concern. Would you please consider making a tax actable contribution? I would really appreciate your support.

00:40:00

David Hirsch: Andrew, thanks again.

Andrew Bustamante: Thank you David.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturydads.Org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook group facebook.com groups and search dad to dad. Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to david@21stcenturydads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch. Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics who believe that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly to research, develop and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at horizontherapeutics.com.

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