: Don't tell me Homeland isn't true. That's the one I was going to ask you about. Don't, don't come on. Do not burst my bubble. Especially you got a woman, you got a woman. You're going to crack on a woman in Homeland? Right. I know. Welcome to the aggressive life. For a decade, Michelle Rigby-Assad was an undercover intelligence offer for the offer. Officer. Yeah, that too. She had offers as an officer in the CIA specializing in counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Translation, she was a spy and a badass one. Like. Like any spy is not a bad ass. While it might sound like a movie, dodging bombs, getting information from terrorist informants and protecting American interests, all that stuff was in a day's work for Michelle. She's lived and worked in six Middle Eastern countries, including working in the green zone in Baghdad, Iraq, where the coalition, provisional authority and CIA had their headquarters. It was a location routinely targeted by insurgents and terrorists on a regular basis. After a decade in near constant danger, Michelle and her husband, also a CIA operative, decide to move on. And since then, she's penned a bestselling memoir called Breaking Cover, My Secret Life in the CIA. She's worked alongside Hollywood producer Mark Burnett, a friend of mine, to rescue Iraqi Christians facing persecution from ISIS. And she's become a highly sought after keynote speaker and consultant working with corporations as diverse as Google, the Disney Institute, and the Baltimore Ravens. and sharing her incredible stories and insights on the TEDx stage. She's bringing all her wisdom, training, and badassery to us today. Welcome to the Aggressive Life, Michelle Rigby-Assad! Thank you, Brian. I'm so excited to be here. Oh, you say that to all the podcast hosts that give you a professional wrestling introduction, don't you? Well, I have to say that was a first. Yes. OK, so. This is the deal. You grow up in Florida. You're a homecoming queen and a self-described Southern belle and homebody. Was there ever a time where you anticipated dodging bombs, being bit by mosquitoes, buried up to your navel in sand, all the kind of stuff that happened, did you ever imagine all those things? No, gosh, not at all. Growing up in such a small town, I think you kind of have a small town mentality of what's possible because you don't know what's possible. So no, I had no idea I would do anything remotely like this. So you're a CIA operative or you were a CIA operative. Is that just anybody in the CIA get to have the title operative or what does that mean CIA operative? So literally what that means, we actually call ourselves intelligence officers. But those of us who were undercover and serving abroad, you could call an operative. It's kind of a fancy word for Intel officer. But bottom line was my husband and I were, spent the majority of our career in the field. And so your job there is to recruit sources of information and handle them securely and get their intelligence and send it back to DC. So that's what we did for 10 years. Recruit sources of information. You're being like just an all points bulletin out to anybody who would tell you something about a terrorist event happening, or what do you mean by that? Yeah, so you have to figure out, OK, so how do I get to this terrorist? How do I figure out who knows him, who might report on him? So developing those sources of information is not easy. It can be very challenging, obviously. And then, once you try to get to the source of information, close to someone, then you've got to show them that you're not going to get them killed, that you've got the chops to handle them securely, because the information they're giving you is so sensitive that if it's spilled, they can lose their lives. So getting them to work with the CIA, who really oftentimes they consider their biggest enemy is not a small thing. How do you do that to get them to have trust in you that you're going to cover them and all that stuff? I mean, you're not going to say, look at my high school yearbook. Here's all the things I did that are nice. What do you do? No, yeah. So you have to figure out what makes each person tick. So you have to figure out what motivates them. And then you have to appeal to that motivation. And of course, you have to do that authentically, because these guys are really street smart. They are reading your non-verbals. They're really trying to size you up and figure out what you're all about. And so you've got to figure out, OK, what's What makes sense to them? How can I spin what we're doing in a way that makes sense to them? So again, it's more about psychology than throwing punches as people see in Hollywood movies. It's a mind game more than anything. I know somebody who is in the energy process for the FBI. Give us a primer on what exactly is the difference between the FBI and the CIA. And what are the key qualifications needed? Is it the same? If you're in one organization, you would function well in the other organization? Or are they different? Just give us a little rundown. Sure. So first of all, the FBI's responsibility is as law enforcement officers. So once a law has been broken, then they have to investigate and hold people responsible. So they're domestically focused. The CIA is focused on overseas issues. We are not permitted by law to operate in the United States against Americans. There are certain times in which when a person might be a US citizen operating overseas and we get special permissions to do that. But what it takes to be either an FBI or a CIA officer is first of all, and this is perfect for your podcast, you have to be a person who's very adventurous and very- brave and willing and able to handle large amounts of stress. And of course, they're looking for people, especially in the CIA, who are comfortable operating overseas in foreign cultures, foreign languages, and foreign travel experience. And FBI are more looking at people who understand US law, like you're an attorney. or you're a linguist in another language. So the FBI and CIA look for different things, but at the end of the day, they are looking for people who can think on their feet quickly and can unravel complicated situations. When you say adventurous, how do you define adventurous? So adventurous is like, you know, so when you work for the CIA, if the CIA says you You need to go to Iraq for a year, pack up, and you're leaving next week. You have to do that. So you have to have an adventurous spirit who's like, okay, I can get up and go. I can move quickly. I can change direction quickly. I want to see the world. I want to experience things. I want to get off the beaten path. I want to see what other people don't see. You have to be willing to go where other people don't want to go. The places that we served. would probably not make it on your top 10 travel destinations. Right. And how do they test for that in the interview process? Well, they ask, Oh my goodness. So your interview process could be like a three hour interview. And they ask you all kinds of questions about, you know, how you live your life and what are your goals and what are your achievements and how you answer those questions goes a really long way in telling them, you know, what you're made of and what you're about. You mentioned large amounts of stress. I like that because I've been thinking about myself. What makes myself able to do the job that I'm doing? And as I age, get older and older, at some point, I've got to be out of my job and somebody else has got to be in somebody who's younger and hopefully better. And a lot of times, we put down the obvious things for a job like me who is a mega church pastor by day, right? Got to be able to speak well, have leadership, blah, all that kind of stuff. But aside from that, a huge thing is just what you said, handling large amounts of stress. There's people who could speak really well and could behave okay in the boardroom, but the daily grind, the daily pressure, the stress would just crush them. And you actually call that out in the CIA, large amounts of stress. Yeah, and the only way to get there is to be willing to do hard things often. So you build up your risk tolerance, you build up your ability to operate under stress by operating under stress and not running from doing hard things in life. How might the average person increase their stress level? What kind of things? Well, I think I don't think we have to work. Actually, stress resistance level. I'm sorry. The average person can increase their stress just by watching the news. Oh, no. I can't handle it. Freak it out. How might somebody increase their stress resistance level? It's by doing things that scare you a little bit. It's by saying, you know, I'm. Oh gosh, I really would love to jump out of a plane and you know, but it scares me, but I wanna do it. It would be saying, you know what, it scares me, but I'm gonna go do that anyway, I'm gonna skydive. Or I would love to travel to another country, but I'm really nervous because I've never, I don't have a passport, I've never done that before. Do it. It's about challenging yourself to push through. the whole what ifs. What if something goes wrong? Well, what if it all goes quite right? What if you just love it and you won't know until you try? Yeah, we've just got too many spreadsheets, too many contingency plans, too many insurance policies, seeing too many documentaries on things that have gone wrong to make us feel freaked out, too many comforts, too many on and on and on and on. And I think all of these things are producing lives that are very sterile. Quite frankly, lives that are more prone to mental disease, mental illness, were just less resilient. Do you agree with that? I totally agree with that, and I'm on a mission to change that. I'm on a mission to remind people that you start small, and when you start small and you build, then you will find yourself in places that you don't even know exist, doing things that you didn't even know were possible. So for instance, in the CIA, our career was not easy. And there were, I have to be very honest, Brian, there were so many times when we learned the next place we were being sent to. And we'd be like, are you kidding me? We have to go there for a year? We just served two years in this really, really hard place that no one wants to go to. And it felt like we kept drawing the short end of the stick. Like, why, why do we have to do all the hard stuff while my friend's getting sent to Paris and Rome and- so jealous. Like, why can't we go there and do that? And complained a lot to God. Like, why Lord, why is this our path? Why is it so hard? And at the end of that 10 years, we look back on it, we realized that we had a level of counterterrorism expertise that you can't develop in Paris and Rome. That you can only develop when you're working in war zones, interacting daily with bad guys and dealing with these... you know, hardened insurgents and terrorists. Like there's no better schooling on terrorism than dealing with actual terrorists. And then God was able to use the 10 years of really, really hard places and hard work to do something amazing with that. So I always tell people, like, be focused on how God can use what's hard to build up your ability to operate under stress so you can do something even greater for the kingdom. So really all those Parisian folks were just weenie boys and weenie girls. Come on, say it, go on the record. Come on. They had a lot less experience than we did in dealing with. Whatever. They're weenie boys and weenie girls. You don't, you don't have the aggression to say it. I'll say it. How about, how about this? You and your husband, are you, cause he's a operative as well. Were you. Were you posing as a married couple or did you have separate assignments in the same country? We were together. So that makes you stronger, obviously, than if you're on your own. And we, you know, who knows you better than your spouse. So when you're preparing for an operation, you know, your spouse like, don't forget this and that. And so that was really, I was so grateful to build each other up, especially when we were in really hard places and didn't know why all the time. How long have you been out of the CIA now? 10 years. So we were in for 10 years. And now we've been out for 10 years. And did you have PTSD recovery kind of things to go through? Or how was that process? Especially after war zones, there was a fair amount of PTSD, which part of me feels bad for even saying, because we were not on the streets of Iraq getting shot at in the wave. Right. our brothers and sisters in the armed forces were, boy, I don't know how they did that every day. But we did, you know, in the green zone have rocket shot constantly every day, multiple out, multiple, you know, 15 rockets every few hours being shot at us. I mean, that wasn't fun either. And so what that, I think the PTSD we had was for, with loud sounds, loud noises, just kind of living on the edge, you know, like this produced to something weird. you kind of don't know how to let go. Like when you leave a war zone type location. So we would go on R&R, we'd come home and it would take us a full week to just relax. And so there was a little bit of that. And of course, you know, the jobs were just really, really difficult. So there was a lot of emotional PTSD and dealing with death and destruction every day. A few years ago I had, in to speak at our church, former Navy SEAL, Gosh, he was the guy or the main seal in the movie Act of Valor, which had real life seals in it. He's a pretty interesting guy. Anyway, when he came in, we went to a local restaurant. And he was real particular about where he wanted to sit at the table. It was like three or four of us. And he wanted to be in the corner with his back to the wall towards the door. And I was like, OK, that's fine. If you want to be Mr. Anal Boy, just. having that, and he said, look, here's the thing. He said, right now, we're all like traffic lights. Right now, you go into a situation, and you're green. Like, everything's fine. If things go, I'm going, I'm good, I'm good. If you were in a foxhole, and you're having mortars shot over you, you would be red. He said, me, I'm always orange. Or excuse me, yellow, yellow light. I'm always yellow. I'm always like, I just can't turn it off. I've thought about that a lot. Like, I might be too green. Maybe I'm just too assumptive. I don't know, though. Being yellow all the time, that might be like bondage. How would you describe yourself with that? Yellow, green, orange, red? I would say that, first of all, you can't be in those zones yellow and orange and red very often. It takes a real toll on you. And so, yeah, you're right. That would be bondage. So what we're doing is we're trying What Joseph and I are more like, we're in the green until we're in situations where we know, like with travel, you might be more vulnerable. So you kind of like up it. But also we are really readers of body language. And so we can quickly go from like green to yellow to red based on someone's body language, if they appear to be a threat. So we probably see a lot that the common person wouldn't normally see. I've noticed pedophiles in toy stores before based on their appearance and their behavior in the toy store. When no one else, everybody was walking by, they had no idea. That was so obvious that guy's a pedophile. Or one time I was in Target and I think I saw a FBI surveillance operation going on because I saw the guys with the earpieces and I saw how they were positioning themselves. So when you know what to look for. you can see things that other people don't see quite often and move quickly between those zones of alertness. All right. So a pedophile in a pet store would do what? Inquiring minds want to know. So yeah, he was crouched. He was weird. He was crouched down by the Barbie dolls. And I was like, he looked weird. He looked out of place. So I paid a lot of attention to him. He looked greasy. He was very unkempt. His shirt was like half tucked in. And I'm like, where's the kid? You know, where's the child? And I'm looking around and there's not seeing any kid. Who's he in here with? And I had my six year old niece with me. And so as we were about to walk by him, I, my eyes are completely on this dude. And I watch him turn and look at my six year old niece with those terrible eyes that told me that he was a pedophile. Like, you know, the kind of thing that makes this makes you shiver because you see him looking at her. And of course. you put your body in front of her and then like, No, of course you kick him in the nuts is what you do. What do you mean of course you put, you use down, kneel down. Michelle, I thought you were a bad ass. Why don't you kick him in the nuts? You know, that's what you want to do. It's terrible. And then you want to like put a file on aisle five. Oh, wow. Gosh, that would be, man, I, I kind of don't want. your powers of observation, that would be like bondage, just seeing things all the time and looking for them. Or do you not view it that way? I don't view it that way, but I am kind of a extroverted introvert in the sense of when I'm out in public, it takes a lot of energy for me. And it may be because I'm just always reading people. It's just a lot of data to take in. And so it exhausts me. So, you know, like I can go speak on a stage, but then maybe the part afterwards where I'm selling book and talking to people that, you know, by the time I'm done with that, I am spent. Um, I don't know how you are as a preacher, but it takes a lot of, of energy. So you kind of have to know where your limit is. Right. Well, your job speak on stage is very difficult, very, very grueling. I have people who say, gosh, you know, you get speaking and you go back to your green room. How can I hang it out with the people? Well, I'm freaking fried. That's why. And I got to get enough energy to do it all over again two more times. It does. It takes it out of you big. And I'm thinking for you and all of the other CIA and probably FBI operatives as well, I hadn't thought about the energy drain till now in your quote. You actually say this. I'll just read it. Being an agent. or what they're looking for in the CIA is walking contradictions on as people who are willing to lie, people who love their country but are willing to leave it, people who will follow a plan but have the ability to change on the fly. That's a lot of variation that's gotta take a lot of energy, yes? Oh my goodness, yes. And then you can see how hard it is to hire, you know, for the CIA when you're in HR. because you're going to find these very strange people. But quite honestly, they really love people come from a faith background because they kind of understand that you can orient yourself. You've oriented yourself to where you have to lie to be undercover. That's the nature of what being undercover is. But fundamentally, they have to trust that you're telling the truth because your whole job is collecting information for the government. So if you're a liar and fabricator, that's not good for the job. So can you lie and tell the truth? Can you tell the truth and lie? It's a very strange contradiction. You love your country, but you're willing to leave it behind for 10 years and serve in very difficult places for it. Say goodbye to your family and friends, sell your house, sell your car, leave it all behind. You have to be able to work with people because when you design an operation, you're really designing it alongside your colleagues. But then when you run it, you're on your own. And then you have to be able to adjust when things go off the rails or when Murphy shows up, Murphy's law, something's always going to go wrong. You've got to plan for that and adjust to it. So it's a very interesting kind of person that they're looking for, that as we've mentioned earlier, really is someone who can handle large amounts of stress. The lying thing is an interesting angle. how to make your peace with lying, the right time, the right situation. I probably should have spoken with you, gosh, a year or so ago, I was on the short list to be on Survivor. How interesting. Yeah, it was very interesting. I realized I had never watched any of them before, never watched any Survivors. Maybe one episode the first season in 1999 or something like that, way, way back when. someone said they had started watching them. They were great. I said, really? OK, we haven't been doing anything for a while. That was really great. So let's do it. So Lib and I started on it. And I don't know, we picked up on, who knows, season 13 or something like that. I mean, there's so many seasons right now. And I started getting really into this. And it's hard to watch that show without thinking to yourself, how would I do in that show? It's part of the draw, right? How would I do? Where would I go? As I'm doing that in episode three or whatever, I realize, wait a minute. minute, I know Mark Burnett. I've had him on the podcast. I've been to his house. I know him and Roma. So I send off an email. I send off an email. And sometime in the future, I don't know what it was, two, three weeks in the future, guy self-identifies himself as a producer with Survivor. And I just read it as spam. Like, yeah, right. What? What do you want? I said, well, Mark Burnett gave me your name. He was like, oh, that's right. I sent that email. So then I'm like on my game, right? And so we were in this like back and forth thing for gosh, several weeks. And the reason why I didn't do it, there was two main reasons. The main, main reason was I felt like to be a good competitor and to win, I really have to lie. And I would be okay, like in a game of, you know, liar's poker lying because, because that's what liar's poker is about lying. So everyone expects you to lie. It's, it's fine. So, but with Survivor, I'm like, I don't, I don't know. Like if that's good for me as a pastor to be seen lying to win. And I just thought, I'm just freaking out here. I'm out. I think they were kind of bummed, but I just, I couldn't reconcile that. So maybe I could have had some coaching with you to figure out how to do that. Well, actually it's not different because what you're lying about is, we can't walk around and tell everybody you work for the CIA. You can't do your job, right? So you have to maintain your cover by saying you are something that you're not. But is that hurting anyone? No, that's not hurting anyone. If I had been told, you've got to go out there and lie and manipulate to twist somebody into doing something that's bad for them, like come be my source. I promise that you'll never get into trouble and I'll be able to protect you and then tell them some false reason to do it. No way I could do that job. Now the way I could reconcile it is when I'm dealing with trying to recruit a source and I can find a way that it benefits him. That's how I go at it. Right? So if it's, I'm not lying at all. I am finding a way to turn things so that person is very well aware of the risks, but can also understand what the rewards are. It's less, you know, you're more lying for your cover, but when you operate, people know when you're being authentic, people feel it in their bones. And if you don't approach it authentically in that manner. You're not going to be able to do a good job. I could tell that you were lighting up a little bit when I was talking about Survivor. Would you like me to set you up with Mark Burnett? Would you like to be on Survivor, Michelle? I could probably make that happen, or at least make you one step closer. I could tell you're like, this life is boring compared to what I was doing before. I got to do something adventurous, like go on Survivor. You're pretty digging it, aren't you? I would be just like you. I'd be like, no, I can't do it. Not if that's what it takes to win. I wouldn't be able to. Yeah. You mentioned. Well, you could try it. We'll see. You mentioned that the CIA is actually looking for people who believe in God. Did I hear you right? They find it easier to get us cleared. You have to go through a very extensive interview and clearing process to be sure you're not a double agent, to be sure that you're an honest person, to be sure you're in it for the right reasons. And so what they found is that Mormons and Christians and people of faith are easier to get through the process. It doesn't mean that someone who's an atheist or agnostic can. It just means that they found that these populations tend to produce people who are a little bit more forthright and open in that way or don't have a complicated background. That's always not always true for me. Drugs and drinking never interested me. I never had any issues with that growing up. It's easier to clear someone who hasn't done those kinds of things before. That's really interesting. I hadn't considered that before. It seems for those of us who believe in God, it seems like, maybe it's not, but it seems like it, that America is quickly leaving us by progressing to believe and do things that people like me just wouldn't believe and do. You can start to feel like your country is just leaving you and to think that, oh, there's actually a branch of the government where... my makeup and beliefs might actually help me get hired. That's interesting. I hadn't thought of that about that before. Yeah, exactly. I worked with a few people who were not honest and that was dangerous because they embellished or fabricated reports that went to the president and the national security council. That doesn't work very well. Wow. So are you and your husband totally bored with life? You're living on the edge. You're serving the national interests. You've got an arsenal of guns and hand grenades probably under your bed, all kinds of fun stuff. And then you come to America and you binge Netflix like the rest of us. I mean, is life boring now? Um, well, first of all, I would just say like after 10 years of that, you're exhausted, you need a break. You do need to come back and just binge on Netflix. Like you need to come down. And so, uh, we, we desperately needed that after 10 years, but then, you know, you're like, ah, I need a new toy. You get used to being up there so often, you become an adrenaline junkie. But God's got lots of interesting things for us to do. One of them is with Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. Because of them, we were involved in a very fascinating operation, which brought to the fore all of our CIA skills on the surface of a greater cause. Yeah. Tell us more about that. So if you recall in 2015, it was the summer of the great migration of refugees across from the sea and land. And ISIS had taken over Iraq's second largest city and swept across the country and uprooted Yazidis and ancient Christian communities in that sweep across the country. And Mark and Roma have always had a passion for persecuted Christians and said, is there anything we can do to help some of these persecuted people? And my husband is originally from Egypt, an evangelical Christian from Egypt, which is a minority of the minority, then a persecuted Christian, which is why he came to this country. So, we were brought in on this effort to try to operationalize an idea of Can we help some of these people who need to leave Iraq and find a new country to live in? And so that kicked off for incredible months of choosing a group of people to work with and trying to find a country and then trying to arrange for this miraculous airlift, which resulted in the relocation of 149 Iraqi Christians. So Mark and Roma funded that and grateful that they brought us in and said, hey, can you take this and run with it? Yeah, okay, sure. And so that was like the most amazing feeling because it was so clear how all these, how we diplomacy, learning how to carry out operations in dangerous places, learning how to vet people, understanding how to vet logistics and set up logistics, all of that came together for this incredible cause. that was made possible by being in the CIA for 10 years. So, you know, God can always pull things, you know, out and he's like, hey, I know you're a little bit bored. Here, you've got to do this. How long did that take you, that assignment? Four months, three and a half, four months. It was a shock to all of us. We thought this could be a couple of years, but it happened very quickly. You said it happened, what? You rescued everybody in the entire country quickly or what happened? was the end. You know, Mark had said, look, it's overwhelming. So many people need help, but why don't we just start small and see what we can make happen? And so it was during a period of time when, you know, every country in Europe and Australia and New Zealand, United States, Canada were overwhelmed with requests for refugees. So everyone said no, nobody needs any more refugees. So it was the worst possible time to try to find a receiving country. And so the miracle came in that God led us to one country that said yes, which was Slovakia. And that was the miracle. And so what that resulted in was us arranging for a flight and transporting 149 Christians from northern Iraq to Slovakia. But even that last bit of that process got thrown off. by the Russians who were shooting cruise missiles over Iraqi airspace into Syria against ISIS targets. So our entire evacuation got thrown off by the Russians. So it was one of those situations where God was like, I know this feels bad. I know that in fact this feels quite awful, but just watch. And so he, oh boy, standing and watching the work of God is so incredible because there was a. one plane on the ground and one only, and he miraculously provided that plane to us for that and the permission for us to take off with this group of people. So, you know, nothing is easy, but all for his glory. So you go into Iraq, and how do you find these Christians? So we were working with a couple other people as part of this team trying to make this happen, and one of them had met an Iraqi priest. who had been based out of Baghdad and was taken hostage by al-Qaeda while we were in Baghdad. So he was told to convert or die and wouldn't convert and had his bones broken, was tortured by al-Qaeda and withstood that torture multiple times. And he was in Washington, DC. trying to get American Christians and American politicians to try to stand up for Middle Eastern Christians, for Iraqi Christians. And so when Joseph saw Father Douglas, he's like, oh, I think that's the guy. So you wanna work with someone that you trust and that you can work well with in order to arrange for this evacuation. So yeah, he was the guy. And so you work with him and he just says, Here's your 142 people, or you're going out and trying to woo each person. You're trying to get people to trust you and get on a plane and go to a country. How does that information roll out? So the way that worked was when these tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians fled their ancient homeland and went into Kurdistan, he was in charge of a church. Here is a man who was persecuted by Al-Qaeda. had his teeth knocked out, his back broken, was tortured for Christ in charge of a tiny little church. Next thing you know, hundreds of thousands of people are flooding into Kurdistan, and he's standing there as one of many receiving these people. So his church suddenly had thousands and thousands of people on the floor, on the ground, seeking shelter. So he was in charge of thousands of people and then was working to arrange for tents to be sent up. for water and food to be provided, for bathrooms, for laundry facilities. So he already was in charge of hundreds and hundreds of people and families, you know, families with old people and small children and babies. And so he had all these people at his church compound. And he said, the problem is not finding people who want to go. They all want to go. The problem is deciding who goes. And for us, we wanted to vet. We wanted to vet. the people so that when we went to countries, prime ministers and ministers of interior presidents and said, will you take these people, that we could say we have vetted them and we're not going to bring anybody to your country who's going to pose a danger to you or your country. So he was like, come, come vet, vet away. And we said we want to collect all their documentation. He said, come, because we were like, we know what they need. So it was like, God gave us all. the ideas and the skill sets to figure out what was needed ahead of time so we could find a country willing to take these people, which required an incredible amount of diplomacy. How did you get hooked up with Mark and Roma to do this? So we, I just had, you know how when the Holy Spirit speaks to you sometimes and you don't listen, it gets louder? No, no, because I always listen the first time. I always hear exactly what he says immediately and always do it perfectly. What kind of Christian are you? I thought you were more like me. I am a very real one. So his voice kept saying, Joseph needs to connect with his former human rights boss. He's got to call her. And a month went by and we didn't make the call. We didn't. And the Holy Spirit was like screaming into my leg. It felt like you've got to do this. And so finally, I'm like, Joseph, pick up the phone and call. So he finally did, picks up the phone, calls her. She goes, oh my gosh, I've been trying to get in touch with you. I've just been put together with Mark Burnett and Roma Downey who've asked for my help in trying to help persecuted Christians. But we were looking for someone who knew how to carry out operations in difficult places. Wow. And it's not a view. Wow. Gosh. Today's episode is brought to you by AG1. I gave AG1 a try because I was feeling a bit sluggish, not confident I was getting all the nutrients that I felt that I needed. And I thought maybe this is an easy solution. So I drink AG1 in the morning. I love doing the morning. I do it on an empty stomach. It forces me to get 12 ounces of water into my system. I love. doing something proactive and aggressive to make me feel better and at least give me peace of mind. AG1 is designed with this kind of ease in mind so you can live healthier and better without having to complicate your routine. Each scoop has 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food sourced ingredients of the highest quality. If you want to take ownership of your health, try AG1 and get a free one year supply of vitamin D free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. So go to drinkag1.com slash aggressive life. That's drinkag1.com slash aggressive life to take control of your health. Check it out. Wow, that's really, really fantastic. That's the aggressive life, right? Here you are. That's it. Mark and Rome are trying to aggressively do something. You're aggressively trying to hear God and listen to God. You aggressively go and move places. And the only thing that we have to caution ourselves on, those of us who are leading more normal lives, very few of us are ever gonna. serve in Iraq and save Christians and very few of us are ever going to do CIA or very few of us are ever going to be kajillionaires like Mark and Roma who can finance all this stuff. Hey, where we are right now, our income level, where we are right now, the things God's asked to do is right now we can be aggressive in those. And no one may ever find out about those things. I never found out about this until talking with you, Michelle. Nobody may find out about the things that we do, but God knows and we know and that's the most important. There are life-altering things that God throws in front of us every day, but if we're not paying attention, if we're not seeking Him and saying, I am willing to do the small hard things until you bring the cooler, more interesting things my way. Like, in other words, we couldn't do the Iraq evacuation unless we did the 10 years in war zones. You know? So God is like, you know, I can't use you unless you let me increase your risk tolerance. by doing hard things, by slugging through the stuff that feels hard. It's not sexy. It's not sexy to read a thousand intelligence reports a day. There's nothing cool about sitting at your desk and researching and researching, but if you do it and you're faithful in the small, uncool things, he's preparing you. He's using these things in ways you can't even understand for the big... cool, life altering things that we are all called to no matter where we are. Yeah. Is this what you mean by getting off the X? I want to squeeze as much juice as we can while we've got you in our hands. You've got a bunch of concepts that you speak on and all that stuff I want to just give our listeners some stuff with. So talk about getting off the X. Okay. You're going to love this. So perfect for your podcast. So When you're under extreme stress, like you're being attacked by a terrorist, you have one of three potential responses, fight, flight, or freeze. And so when we're in the CIA, and the military does this as well, this is a very well-known security concept, they teach you to get off the X, which is essentially training your brain not to freeze. Okay, when something bad is happening, figure out what's going wrong so that you can respond accordingly. So if you're being ambushed, being able to figure out where they're launching the ambush from and how to get off that X, how to potentially save your life. If you sit on the X, you'll die. There's so many examples out there of people who froze and were shot and the grenade exploded. They're like, you have to do anything you can to get off the X. If you take that and you apply that to life in general, you realize, wow. The X is the comfort zone. Because we're frozen, what freezes us? Intimidation, uncertainty, that's a big one, or fear. And so the idea is, what's got you frozen? What's got you so locked in the comfort zone? You're scared to push off of it. And so if you can identify what's holding you there, fear, intimidation, uncertainty, circumstances, then you can change your mindset. and start pushing yourself. And a lot of people are like, well, I can't run off the X. If all you can do is crawl, that's what you do. Like you take, you put one foot in front of the other. Today, how can I get myself unstuck from this situation? Just today. And then the next day you wake up and say, what more can I do to get myself off the X? How can I think aggressively, even when it's hard, especially when it's hard? Yeah, that's great. Yeah. So being staying on the ex is being passive, getting off the ex is being aggressive. Yes. That's great. How about the life altering power of grit? Grit. Which is one of those things that many Christians have a hard time with. This isn't a Christian podcast per se, but I am a Christian and it's podcast. So therefore I guess, I guess, I guess it is kind of a Christian podcast, but we're not trying to cover Christian topics. And I actually didn't know we were going to get in as much God talk as we have today, which is great, but I find that many, many believers are much more comfortable with grace than grit. They're much more comfortable with the concept of God giving with second chance. They're much more comfortable with the concept of, hey, take it easy. It's not going to be all perfect. They're much more confident with the concept of God's in control. That's grace. There's not a lot of us are really comfortable with grit as seen in all of us who start. doubting our faith as soon as something doesn't go right. Oh, I thought God loved me. He loves me. We don't have to go through this difficulty. Maybe it doesn't exist. No, maybe you're a weenie boy and weenie girl who had a bad, who had a bad understanding of God, who like, all these people in Iraq, I'm sorry, I'm trying to preach right now, you're getting fired me up, all these people in Iraq, like, did they abandon their faith? No, they got their teeth punched out. They got their back broken. They left everything. They didn't leave their walk with God. But us. We don't get a promotion or we get a bad medical diagnosis or somebody close to us dies or something, whatever it is, it's like crisis. And the crisis is your faith is too small to not be able to accommodate pain and grit. I think this is the key for living a victorious Christian life. That's it, this is the key right here. The key is once he sets you free from slavery, are you gonna step right into the promised land? Chances are probably not. You're gonna have to traverse the desert. And the desert is hot and dry and difficult and empty and terrifying. But what if you knew that in order in life to get to any promised land, you're gonna have to go through the desert. What if you just know that? Could you have a better, could you have the faith we're called to have? Because faith isn't faith if you can see the end result. The essence of faith is when you don't know where the promised land is, but you say, I am going to hold onto you, God come hell or high water, until you show me the promised land and we get to the breakthrough. That, that's what real faith is. Yes, amen. He's called us to grit. He's called us to, you know, for us, he's called us to serve for 10 years in places no one else wanted to go. Where every time we left our house, Joseph and I were looking, for surveillance who might be wanting to attack us. I mean, we lived in places that were crawling with al-Qaeda and that's a really hard way to live. Every time you leave the house, you're looking for hostile surveillance or an RPG or somebody standing with an AK-47. You're driving a different route to work every day. You're leaving a different time every day. So you're not an easy target to potential terrorists. That's not easy. Yeah. That's what God called us to. And for years we didn't understand why, but we had to do it anyway. What's your, what was your hardest assignment or can you not tell me or else you'd have to kill me? So the two places that are like neck and neck on this and that's Iraq, a year in Iraq. But right before that we were in a place that's, I can't specify, but it was, we were two years in this place which was one of the arms bizarres to the world. a very historic place, a lot of carjacking, a lot of kidnapping, and a lot of al-Qaeda running around. So that was, boy, that was hard. Yeah, I bet. I'm curious, when you are in these situations, I'm not sure if you're armed or not because you're in a country that has different gun laws and all that kind of stuff. I'm curious, like... Now that you're in America, do you feel so safe and so great? Doesn't think about your personal defense at all because it's so much more secure than those things? Or are your sensitivities raised and you think about things like that and you have an arsenal? I'm thinking about these right now because I'm about ready to buy a scope for a rifle of mine. I'm really geeking out. Yeah, no, actually, I think when you live the kind of lives we've lived, you're just very aware of what the threats are. And I also live in Florida. We've got a lot of interesting stuff going around here. So I have a concealed carry license and I, like my husband is traveling, but I have a Glock next to my bed because I can't sleep without a loaded weapon. He's not there. Oh, interesting. Yeah, but you know, I've gotten training. We had to get qualified in a Glock. So I really believe that if you're going to carry or you're going to have a weapon, you better know how to use it and use it well. I thought one of the only training was that you're a certifiable human being. You carry a gun. Yeah, that's unfortunate. I know it is. No, if you're going to have a gun around and you need to know how to handle it and you need to know what, you know, what's legal, what's going to get you into trouble. You don't want to mishandle that and accidentally shoot a family member. It's very important to know how to use it. Yeah, I have my concealed carry. Liv and I did a concealed carry class several years ago, mainly because it was a really good thing to do as a couple. Like, oh, it's fun. Let's learn this and go do it. It was actually kind of cool. And I got my license coming out of that. I like never am carrying, like, never. I don't carry it. No, unless I'm listening. Unless someone's hearing me that thinks they're going to come up to me someday. Every once in a while, I do. Just every once in a while, I pick a random day. So maybe that's it. All that. All that to say, I kind of feel like sometimes, man, maybe I should be more prepared. Maybe I should be more prepared than I am on a normal day. So, I don't know. Yeah, you know, if I'm going on a long trip, especially if I'm by myself and I'm driving multiple hours, then of course I'm going to want to have a weapon with me in the vehicle. So, you just think about being smart, right? Yeah, right. All right. Hey. One more thing, squeezing some juice out of you. Turning perceived liabilities into your greatest strengths. In summary, and I go into a lot of detail in my book, Breaking Cover on this, I was told for many, many years when I first got hired into the CIA that I wouldn't be able to handle or recruit sources because I was a female. And that was very disappointing because I got a master's degree in Arab studies from Georgetown. learned Arabic, traveled the Middle East. And then I would stand next to my colleagues in class, and I'm like, gosh, these men have never been to the Middle East. They don't know the difference between Sony, Shia, Kurd, and Christian. But you're telling me they can do that job and I can't? I don't understand. And so after being told that I didn't have the chops for that, I discovered by taking a project other people didn't want. how very well suited I am to dealing with bad guys. I'm actually really good at it. So this perceived liability of my gender, my femaleness, I figured out how to flip it and turn it to my advantage. And then I became like one of the best people so skilled at dealing with these bad guys who didn't wanna give us information or who were double agents and who were playing us. I could figure out, I could crack the code on whether they were being honest or not. So I realized- And it was because you're a woman? Because you're a woman, you're saying? Take that liability, flip it, and use it to my advantage. But in order to do that, I had to be very smart. Like, oh, I can't just do it because I'm a woman. I was smart and I knew my subject matter better than anybody else. So once I could show my intelligence, show that I knew the region, I knew the country, I knew the culture. Then because I had proven that and because I was a unicorn, now I was so interesting, I'm the one they wanna deal with. That's cool. Does that make sense? That makes sense, it does make sense. What TV shows or movies are there that really get your role right or really get it wrong? Oh, well, almost all of them get it wrong. And that's probably why they're fun. You know, like, Homeland, everyone loved Homeland. Don't tell me Homeland isn't true. That's the one I was going to ask you about. Don't, don't come on. Do not burst my bubble. Especially you got a woman, you got a woman, you're going to crack on a woman in Homeland. Right. I know it's so disappointing. Well, you know, it's close. There are certain parts of it. We're actually kind of, kind of close. Um, but of course that her role, Carrie's role was like an ops officer. a tech officer, an analyst, a linguist. Like she did everything. Normally it would take like five or six of us to do. But I love, I love how, you know, she would lock onto something and then she wouldn't let it go. Like, like, yes, I can relate. Yeah. If you haven't seen it, Homeland, it's on Showtime. You can rent it. The series, I think through Amazon Prime, I think that's how we did it. It's, it's worth it. It's really, really well done. This has been fantastic. Michelle, is there anything that you want to talk about that we haven't talked about yet? Oh, no, this is so great. I just want to encourage people, I don't want them to think, oh, I can't be like you, I will never be in the CIA, I'll never be like that. The thing is you can summon the adventurous spirit and the strength to do interesting things right where you are. You just have to be open to it. And I just want to encourage people to do something today, this week, this month. you know, to explore your world, try something new, push yourself out there, be a little bit aggressive and thinking, you know, maybe I can do this. It's worth it. And you've got a new book coming out. Tell us about that. Yeah, so I am working on a new book, which is essentially this very theme of pushing yourself forward, getting unstuck, you know, getting out of the comfort zone and strategies for doing that. Are you gonna call the book, Getting Off the X? Possibly. That is the working title. It is really. Because I find that really interesting. As you're talking about that, I'm already going, ooh, I think I'm going to give a talk on that. I'm going to get an actual X on the stage. I'm going to stand on that thing. Yeah. That's good word right there. We've got to do that dirt. All right, hey, everybody. Michelle has been incredibly generous with her time, incredibly and generous with her wisdom. Her name again is Michelle Rigby Assange. You can find her as a speaker. How do people find you if they want to hire you? How's that happen? Yeah, if they just look at Michelle CIA online, you'll find my website and all the information is there. Great. Boy, it's really rare that I have a guest that intuits the language of the aggressive life. It's not rare. that we have somebody who understands aggression because that's, we screen everybody. There's a lot of people who say, oh, put this person on, put that person on. I don't see how they're, what we're looking for. So we always have people who are aggressive, but there's very few people who intuit it and are able to transition the language to it like you have. So I think Michelle's been helpful for us. And folks, here's deal, here's deal, come on, come on. What's your ex? What is your ex? What is the relationship that you're just, it's going nowhere? And it's never going to go anywhere. You can maybe keep waiting for him to ask you to marry him. He's not going to. He's been dating you for two years. He's a passive person who's not going to get off the X. Maybe you're on the X and you're fresh up your financial life and you think, I'm never going to get out of credit card debt. Well, yeah, you're never not going to get out. If you don't do anything different, get off the X. Start eating oatmeal. Start doing something instead of what you're doing right now. Maybe you are. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. Hey, we got to be about moving. Our life moves well, and that's when it works well. And we stay where we are, justify where we are, hope that something else passively comes our way. It doesn't work out for us. Michelle has enlightened us and reminded us of that again today. Thank you, Michelle, for your time, for your wisdom. We'll see you next time on The Aggressive Life. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes and live events over at bryantome.com. Pre-orders for my new books, a repackaged edition of the Five Marks of a Man and a brand new Five Marks of a Man Tactical Guide are open right now on Amazon. If you haven't yet, leave this podcast a rating and review. It really helps. Get this show in front of new listeners. And if you want to connect, find me on Instagram at Brian Tome. The Aggressive Life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.