Emotional Intelligence with Former Spy | Dave Fielding

0:28You know why you're tired all the time? talking or even using my camera. Stuff is built to intake information quickly in whatever form you think in and turn it into actionable tasks right away. Lists and stuff are built like completable projects. So that book you want to write, that business you want to start, or that trip you want to plan starts to take form inside stuff, step by step. The magic is it gets exponentially more powerful the more you feed into it. Download stuff today. Start brain dumping and organizing your tasks and feel the freedom of an uncluttered brain. Download stuff for free today by going to trystuff.app.

1:04That's T-R-Y-S-T-U-F-F dot A-P-P. Or simply by searching stuff, S-T-U-F-F in the app store and to enjoy everything stuff has to offer. You can get 50 % off your first year of extra stuff by using code charm at checkout. Get stuff done and start closing your open loops. Download stuff from the App Store today. There is no way out but through, and there is no one coming to save you but you. Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast, where we break down the science of powerful communication and winning mindsets so you have the cheat code to succeed with people. Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of you.

1:49Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands of hours of research into the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today. Let's face it. In order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise. And we're going to show you how. I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm. And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background.

2:24We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary. All right, let's kick off today's show. Today we're talking with Dave Fielding, a U.S. Army Green Beret turned spy. Dave has worked with every U.S. intelligence agency and is a Bronze Star recipient, a veteran of Operation Inherent Resolve and Operation Enduring Freedom. He is the author of Into the Darkness, A Journey of Love, War, and Emotional Freedom. Today, he shares his journey out of the darkness and his struggles with suicide.

2:59We had the honor of training Dave in our Elite Human Dynamics Boot Camp. We discuss how to build rapid rapport across diverse cultures, why relationships are so important to your mental health, the importance of getting to the why in conversation as a leader, and spycraft lessons he still uses today to create deep connections. Dave, Johnny and I are so excited to have you here with us. We got to experience some fun in Las Vegas and Elite Human Dynamics, and now we welcome you to the show to share your latest book, Into the Darkness. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a real pleasure to be here.

3:31I've come a long way since our time in Vegas at Elite Human Dynamics, but it's been a journey. It's definitely been a journey. A little bit about myself. I was a Green Beret for a number of years. And then at one point I became an intelligence officer and I did some pretty cool things in my career. But I think most importantly, the things I'm passionate about is a lot of the stuff that you talk about here on Art Charm. It's emotional intelligence, emotional bids, feeling people out. And mostly my book, it's got a pretty cool cover, but a lot of it is about emotions and it's about internal dialogues and you know the the things that we face inside of us and and how to deal with it yeah and how that impacts our relationships which was a big motivator for us to even start the art of charm and we had a great opportunity to train with you in las vegas and recognizing your journey and the identities that you've taken on over the years from the special forces to the intelligence community, and now as a mental health advocate.

4:33I'm actually working with a client now who's stationed overseas, and she just went dark on me. And I'm like, I don't know if it's because you don't have a connection, or now you're on an operation, or you just don't know what's going on as to why you were talking, and all of a sudden you're not talking anymore. Very sneaky. No, I know. And that's kind of how the life is, too. If you're doing sensitive things, you come down on something. You don't give people forewarning. You just dump your stuff and you pop up back on the net when you do. But I'm not correlating that they could be doing something.

5:11You never know. Family, life events, stuff like that happens. But I know that, yeah, it is really tricky. I mean, you do have to live two very separate lives. And in a more interconnected world that we live in, it gets very, very difficult. It's not like you just, hey, I'm day fielding one day, and then the next day I'm AJ. And then, you know, we're day fielding. He's not replying to my text. Where did he go? You know, so it's, you know, these are things that not so much me anymore, but the future generation has to contend with. Well, it's also, it's fascinating because you're in a role that requires you to keep developing these people skills and emotional intelligence.

5:57But at the same time, you have to keep the people in your life at a far enough distance that you can be operational and drop everything to go abroad and do what you need to do. So you're balancing, like, I'm getting this training. I need to be developing these skills outside of training. But at the same time, I also need to keep everyone at arm's length so that I can be functional. And honestly, that was, you know, some of the things I talk about in the book, but like, you're absolutely right. It's when you go out there and you start dating and you're doing these jobs and you can't, you know, the other person knows what's up.

6:34Not knowing what you do, but they're just like, there's this wall and I can't peer over it. and I'm afraid to ask. And then you being the emotionally intelligent, you know, intelligence officer, right? You're feeling that. And, you know, if you're an empath like me, it's like, oh, you know, it's just like kills you on the inside, you know? Yeah. And, and that's hate that part of the job. Totally. That's why a lot of people just date within the community. Cause it's just easier, you know? Yeah. Contextualizes all of your behavior. Exactly. It's like, uh, I remember I was dating one girl and I was getting phone calls from work at like 10, 11, 12 o 'clock at night from someone on the other side of the world.

7:18Like, hey, man. Like, hey, I got some questions. Can you help me out? And they're like, who is that? Who's that bitch? At midnight. No, it was like, no, it's my friend in Iraq. It's like – It's actually a dude. It's a really important call. I need you to leave the room, but it's not a booty call. It's not what you think. No, not what you think. You're my only one. And it is kind of funny because when you put it on a table, there's something we say when someone mentions something, it's on the table, right? And so conversation-wise, someone mentions it. So you can ask about it. And then when you put some of these things on the table, the whole thing is to alleviate the other person's concerns, right?

8:05You have to convey it in a way of being like, yeah, I do this, or this is what I do, and there's not a whole lot I can really talk about that. They're like, okay, cool. Usually, a normal person is going to be okay with that, or they're going to be like, oh, that's pretty cool, but it's not like you could take work home with you. No. This is a situation where your job requires you to withhold information, but the relationships in your life don't feel comfortable with withholding information. Absolutely. And it's like, you definitely, back to what we were saying, it's two different lives. Definitely two different lives.

8:44You go from one in the morning, you're the intelligence officer out there doing a surveillance detection route, going out there, meeting a source, getting the intel, running back, all within a certain timeframe window to keep on your appearances with everything else. and then the stress of that, you go home and you just got to pretend like nothing that day didn't happen. And a lot of it is, you could just be like, babe, I had a stressful day at work. That's it. Don't ask me anymore. And this is something that AJ and I had the opportunity to really get to understand when we work with the military, such as yourself, which is you're human beings and you have these, these tasks that other normal human beings aren't going to have to execute.

9:40And that makes you guys special, right? There's a special ability, special training, and, and, and a special mindset that has been adopted, learned, and trained in order to go out and, and accomplish those feats. But at the end of the day, when you're done, guess what? You're still a human being. Your mind is still thinking about things. Your emotions are still processing certain things. Your heart is healing from everything that it has been through. Because heart and mind, soul and body, this is all interconnected. Absolutely. No, and just so for the audience, I did the Elite Human Dynamics course with AJ and Johnny during my time in the intelligence community.

10:25and I think it's real you bring up excellent points and that's exactly what I say in the book you know is that you zoom out to whatever 2d image you have of a of a green beret or navy seal or intelligence officer right and and we have all these hollywood movies that we can look at and say wow that's really badass but at the end of the day all of us got the same problems we all have And we all deal with things in similar ways. It affects us in similar ways. It brings us down. The trial, I like to call it the seasoning of life, right? The seasoning of life is out there. And you go through these things and how do you deal with it?

11:09Part of being more emotionally intelligent, part of asking people their why is gaining that perspective and learning deeply and connecting with somebody. Whereas, you know, we, you know, as Green Berets or, or at least my time in the IC, it's like, we're not just pawns on a chessboard. You know, we got, we got children, guys got married with family, you know, married with, with families and, and, you know, whole slew of things. Or they could be going through, you know, they could be taking care of a sick parent, for instance, you know? And it's like that when you're in your mid thirties, you're going through that you of life, man.

11:45Right. You know, ultimately what this training does, you know, especially what a lot of the great things that you guys do that I love is equips you with the bare bones of what you need to do to connect with people, to be more human. And I think the beautiful thing that you guys do with us is you open up that aperture, you know, because we see things one way, right? We're the product of our own environment. When you have experts out in the private sector like yourself with all the experience that you have and you're teaching and coaching us, it's going to make us better leaders. What I say in the book is if there's anything you're going to do and ask your people why.

12:32Take that five seconds to ask that person why. I talk about this all the time. It's like when I was an intelligence officer, you see everyone goes in. They get all these great points, but no one ever asked the source why. Like I've worked with people and I'm like, hey, what's the source's motivations? And they go, they love America. I'm like, I have a feeling that you didn't ask enough. Ask why with that question. You know, so – and I'm like – so everybody goes through – we all go through a lot of similar training. We all get similar stuff. But it's – and granted, we all make mistakes and stuff.

13:13But that's the most important arrow in your quiver to pull out and use. And it doesn't just – not in the intelligence community, not in special forces, but in everyday life. everyday life because humans are human, man. We're messy and we're not perfect.

13:37If anything, this book is, I tell the worst version of myself. The reason why I tell the worst version of myself is, well, A, it's the truth and B, there's something me and AJ were talking about before we jumped on. There's a conversational ploy called Give to Get. And we were talking about when I came to Elite Human Dynamics and how the first day we did the videotaping and basically what you had me do was bump somebody and videotape me. And I started talking to this person and they didn't get a single fact. They didn't even get my name. They didn't get anything out of me. And the crowd that we had was a bunch of IC types.

14:21And we're all like, yeah, that's a true professional right there. and I look at the video, I was like, oh my God, I was a fucking cyborg. Like what, what, what happened? And the beauty of the, the beauty of the job is what takes time and practices is understanding that everybody is an onion, right? And we all have multiple versions of ourselves. We all have, you know, today I'm this, you know, I'm feeling like I'm in this mood. The other day I'm in this mood and other people are like that too. So when you're showing up for somebody and you got to think, all right, so what version of myself do I need to be for this person right now?

15:00Right? Do they need to be motivated? Do I need to be more of a coach? Do I just need to listen? Do I just need to, you know, these are all things, this is ebb and flow. And I feel like there's a lot of things out there that people are like, follow this five-step method and it'll work every time. No, not with people. You know, you can't put people in buckets. You can't, you know, you can't follow that, that, that one solution. It's, I kind of, the thing I've learned definitely from your training and my experience over the time is that every new person I meet is a blank canvas and I'm just filling it out with colors, you know, as I learn.

15:38And, and the way to do that is asking them why. Well, I'd love to talk through your journey and there's, there's multiple identities in this journey as we talked a little bit before Johnny hopped on, But, you know, what drew you to the special forces, then to make the lead to the intelligence community, and then now as an advocate in the mental health space, you know, this is different parts of your identity that even Johnny and I have now witnessed from having worked with you originally to where you are now. So paint a little picture for our audience, what the journey has been like for you. I was always destined to serve, I believe, ever since a young kid.

16:15My grandfather was – he was a pilot in the RAF during World War II. He was shot down and was a POW for 18 months in Stalag Luft III. And the night of the great escape, they were determining whether they were going to amputate his legs or not, right? And so he actually worked on the second set of tunnels after he got out of the infirmary and was in Stalag III for 18 months until he was liberated by the Russians. So I grew up with this story in my head. I'm like – I was just waiting for my moment. But I ended up – I went to college. I went to a military college. And then afterwards, I had some friends in New York and they were like, Dave, the war is going to be over.

17:00Just come to New York and make some money. Right? Obviously, they're all from Boston, so hence a little bit of accent in there. And so I was like, all right, yeah, you're right. And I worked in Manhattan. I worked for an ad agency for about two years, and I saw Ground Zero. And all of a sudden, I was reminded. I was like, what am I doing? I'm not a guy. I'm not a desk guy. What is this? And so I was watching all my buddies go off to war fighting Iraq and Afghanistan. And I'm like, I have to do this. And I did an 18x-ray contract, which for your audience, it's a special contract that the Army does.

17:44It gives you a chance to try out for special forces. So I went in, went to basic training, infantry training, airborne. And then I went to selection, and then I got selected. And then I did the special forces qualification course, which is anywhere from 18 months to two years long, depending on your job. I was in 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group in Okinawa for five years. I look back at sort of my family kind of like, you know, my grandfather was like a guy that always did hard things. And so I grew up doing hard things from an early age just in honor of him. And, you know, my father taking me hiking up in the White Mountains.

18:24I remember the first hike I ever did was Mount Lafayette. And I did a nine-mile hike. And I did it. I was nine years old. I did it in Tevas and there was a mist storm at the top of the mountain. And I had no idea at nine years old, we were in danger, but we were in a lot of danger. Right. And, and so, you know, it was, I always got, he was like holding on to my little East pack backpack as I was getting blown around on the Ridge. And, and so I always have, I had a lot of stories like that to like lean on and look back at. And then, you know, kind of towards the end of my time in Okinawa, I, I applied for this special program to become an intelligence officer.

19:03And the reason why I did that was I was gone pretty much like nine months out of every year in special forces. And so I decided to kind of being a spy or an intelligence officer was a lot more stable lifestyle. Surprisingly. Surprisingly. To give you any, you know, there's that crazy matrix. Yeah. Like I was just all up in this quadrant. You know what I mean? But like for me, it would be bring me stateside and in a decent area, which is Washington, DC. So I decided to do that. And, um, and plus I was on deployments, you know, when you're on the, on all these deployments, it's, it's a lot of boredom, you know, I mean, you're doing cool stuff, you know, as a green beret, but you do have a lot of downtime and, you know, you don't have internet.

19:49You're just, you're in some open air barracks, sleeping on a metal bed with a mosquito netting and you got nothing but time on your hands. You're just training the host nation, forces and stuff like that. I read a lot of spy novels. So when the opportunity came, I was like, I think this is cool. And really for me, like we were talking about this earlier, is that I saw that as an opportunity for growth because part of me was more introverted. I saw myself more as an introvert, more as a thinker, very analytical. But there's definitely been versions of myself in my life that I've been very extroverted.

20:32And I was like, I like that guy. And I was like, I want that guy to come back. And I kind of saw that intelligence officer role as a way to kind of do that and sort of break me out of my shell, so to speak. and what I was doing. Ever feel like you're just one step behind? You're super skilled, yet something seems to always hold you back. It might just be your mastery of human dynamics. Truth is, we all hit walls, especially in crowded rooms where it feels like everyone knows each other or in high-stakes meetings where the air is thick with tension. That's where our executive coaching at Elite Human Dynamics steps in.

21:14Over the last seven years, I've been personally coaching executives from Fortune 100 companies and the U.S. military. If you're ready to take your career and relationship to the next level, join us in our Elite Human Dynamics Executive Coaching Program. We're not just about networking. We're about transforming good leaders into great ones. Imagine resolving conflicts as smoothly as butter sliding off a hot knife or walking into a networking event like you own the room. That's the power we offer. With our tactical frameworks and personalized feedback, You won't just build connections. You'll forge alliances.

21:47At Elite Human Dynamics, top execs aren't just skilled at spreadsheets and strategies. They master the art of human dynamics, and now you can too. Now here's where it gets spicy. If your interest is piqued, why not change the game? Head over to theartofcharm.com slash elite to request your next level coaching session. Check out Elite Human Dynamics who take your first step towards legendary leadership. Visit theartofcharm.com slash elite to dive into our curriculum and make every opportunity count. And now moving into mental health advocacy, I think is a big takeaway from the book. And you know, what has been that shift now?

22:26Because one thing that Johnny and I recognize with almost everyone we've worked with in the military is we get one version of them while they're active. And then we get this whole other side of the rainbow once they've retired, where we get to see quite a bit more of them. So how are you viewing this part of your life now? Well, it's to say it's great is a disservice because it's really awesome. I feel as though the person that I had to be, the person I had to be in the uniform, the person I had to be in the intelligence community, there is, it became exhausting, right? It was the emotional dissonance.

22:59And it wasn't like it was anything bad, but for me to be a good guy on a team, to be the good intelligence officer that I was, is that there's a game that you have to play. There's a game that you had to play in the office and you had to be a certain way. And I felt as though as I was falling, it took more energy to be that person every single day. So when I made a decision to kind of get out of the military, deciding to do the book. And so for all our listeners out there, it's, I struggle with suicide. I struggle with suicide. And the book is about, I'm basically breadcrumbing my mental thought process that led me into the darkness.

23:44And I think that the reason why I wrote the book was because I've lost so many friends to suicide over the years. I've lost more friends to suicide than I have to combat. And we've been at war for how long, right? And so we're up to 22 veterans a day now. When I wrote the book, it was on average 17. Yeah, the numbers are disheartening. It is. But here's the thing. I think it's the second or third leading cause of death amongst veterans my age. But when you look at the United States as a whole, it's the 11th, the 11th leading cause of death creeping up there. You know, cardiovascular disease has been number one for a long time.

24:32And we have cancer and just go down the list, right? Diabetes, stuff like that. There's a lot of comorbidities with these things. But so I figured I had to tell my story. I had to tell my story because I wanted people to read this book who are out there struggling to see, oh, wow, I'm heading on the same path that he is, right? And really, the same internal dialogues, the same conversations that, you know, the most important thing, the most important conversation that you have is the one with yourself. You know, I was at the moment of truth, you know, sort of speak, and how I got out of the darkness as well.

25:09I was using the same mental toolkit that I learned in all my intelligence training and the same thing that we talk about at Elite Human Dynamics. I was intrigued by the angle that you wrote the book because obviously it's about some relationships you had while you're out, while you're on these missions and how they were affecting you. And when I hear that, hey, I'm a military guy. I wrote a book about my service. Of course, my first thoughts are, oh, it's going to be tanks and guns and explosions. And sure, there's some of that here. But this is more about what you were going through, going on these missions and having to deal with a normal life and normal relationships, even with somebody who works in the military.

26:01So was it difficult to write that book in that way? Or did you find it liberating for yourself to write that book in that manner or a little bit of both? I found it difficult in the fact that when I had to sit down and write this thing, I had to become that person again. The person that's in chapter one, the person in chapter two, the person in chapter three. And going through that mental thought process of what I was doing at that time and that recall and all the ugly internal dialogues I was having with myself. because chapter two is a great chapter. It's one of my favorite chapters that I wrote because they're during my time going through all the intelligence training.

26:43But it was also, I was dealing with some serious stuff. I was going through a divorce. I was questioning why am I doing this to myself or why is this happening to me? All these things that we all go through, You know, the whole time I was there, I was just saying, I can't win. I can't win. That's probably the most dangerous statement that I was making to myself was that I was saying, I just can't win. And I was looking at this as like kind of this game that, you know, if I felt like I did it this way or if I did it that way, then I would win and I'd feel better about it. But that was the hard part of was trying to encapsulate a lot of those, re-encapsulate a lot of those emotions because when I step into that person, it kind of sticks with me for a couple of days.

27:33And I was just like, there's like an ick. There's definitely an ick. I remember when I did the elite human dynamics training, I was in the throes of chapter one and I was in the throes of like, what is this book going to be? And I knew it was going to be an ugly book because I wanted to talk about suicide. I wanted to talk about the ugly stuff. And so that was the hard part. The second part to your question is I wanted to write a book that hasn't been written like this. Maybe there's comparable comps, but I don't think that there's many people – many people in the military community are not known for being vulnerable or that showing emotions and talking about the worst days in such a way.