A former CIA spy has revealed the agency hires individuals with a certain level of anxiety, saying it is actually viewed as a ‘superpower.’
Andrew Bustamante, who spent seven years working covertly as a CIA officer, said the organization actively seeks people with the disorder because they are naturally more attentive, suspicious and have a stronger recollection.
‘Anxiety is a superpower in the world of espionage,’ he said. ‘It keeps you alive, it keeps you sharp.’
However, Bustamante noted that anxiety can be very damaging if a person does not know how to train it.
‘Anybody who has anxiety knows the spiral that comes out of anxiety,’ he said. ‘What the CIA does is they teach us how to recover, recuperate and maintain our energy reserves, our mental health.’
Bustamante explained that his wife, who is also a CIA agent, suffers from anxiety, but has learned how to ‘stay sane’ by having a routine.
That routine consists of the same foods in the morning that she could get anywhere in the world, such as eggs and hot tea.
‘It’s a very predictable, calming anti- anxiety routine,’ Bustamante said. ‘People don’t realize that 90 percent of your anxiety that you will feel during the day is actually determined in the first two hours of your day.’
Andrew Bustamante, who spent seven years working covertly as a CIA officer, said the organization actively seeks people with the disorder because they are naturally more attentive, suspicious and have a stronger recollection
Bustamante was recruited by the CIA after he left the US Air Force and applied for the Peace Corps.
While in the Air Force, he specialized in nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) operations, earning medals in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bustamante believes that the techniques that shape international events can also serve everyday people in their daily lives.
Speaking on his podcast Everyday Spy, Bustamante shared how the CIA helps its agents use their anxiety for good.
‘So if you start your day and there’s a lot of changes, threats or confusions, you’ve determined with almost 90 percent certainty that you will have lots of anxiety through the day,’ he said.
‘But if you can start the first two hours of your day in a low anxiety state then you can present and and protect your energy reserves for the rest of the day.’
Bustamante explained that most people set themselves up to fail first thing in the morning, reaching for caffeine, checking their phone and catching up on the news.
‘All these things cause them anxiety, and all they’re doing is they’re ruining the rest of their day,’ he said.
Bustamante explained that his wife, who is also a CIA agent, suffers from anxiety, but has learned how to ‘stay sane’ by having a routine
He urged people to set an alarm not on their phone and another on the device for when they can pick it up.
‘When instead, if you just set in an alarm on your phone for when you can
‘So then you wake up you can’t even touch your phone so you can’t go looking for things,’ he said.
Another former CIA agent shared other insights into the agency’s hiring practises, revealing it looks for people with sociopathic tendencies.
A ‘sociopath’ is someone who lacks empathy, disregards the feelings of others and may manipulate or harm people without remorse, often for their own personal gain.
John Kiriakou, who had a 14-year career as a CIA officer, said: ‘Sociopaths are impossible to control.
‘They slip through the cracks because they have no conscience and they pass the polygraph very easily because they don’t feel guilty.
Someone who has some of these qualities tend to rise to the highest levels of the CIA.
‘People who have sociopathic tendencies do have a conscience but are still perfectly happy to work in moral legal and ethical gray areas,’ said Kiriakou.
Kiriakou admitted that he falls into the category of having sociopathic tendencies, explaining how he was ‘happy to break into people’s houses and plant bugs.’
The former officer used the idea that he was part of the good guys and that his country needed him as a way to feed his sociopathic tendencies.
Kiriakou provided a question he was asked during the CIA hiring interview.
‘They said, ‘You know that Mr X has something in his house that you need, whether it’s a file or whatever. You need it. And you work on him to recruit him so that eventually he turns that file over to you.’
‘But he’s not recruitable. And in the end, when you ask him for the file, he tells you, no. What do you do?’
‘I said, I break into the house and take the file.’ Seemed like a perfectly logical answer to me.’
The former CIA officer explained that because he believed he was part of the good guys, Mr X was surely a bad guy, such as a Russian scientist.
