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As an FBI counterintelligence agent, my job was to identify and recruit Russian spies to work for the United States Government. Little did they know that the Russian government gave my colleagues and me the most powerful gift, a toxic system filled with corruption, suffering, and stagnation. The desire to take over their own destiny was, and remains, the surest way to get a spy’s attention and drive them into the arms of the FBI.
U.S. and allied intelligence services give foreign spies a way to make a difference in their life. It allows us to pierce the tender underbelly of a person who is fed up with supporting a system that doesn’t represent their values or goals.
One doesn’t need to be a foreign spy to experience these same feelings. Our most basic instinct is the desire to take over our own destiny — it explains why potty training gets easier as we move from diapers to toddlers. It also explains why we begin to ask more from our life as we age and yearn to understand what it means to take over our own destiny. At some point, we’re no longer content with vague answers that turn into clouds of mediocrity.
People seek to find satisfaction and fulfillment but often come up empty if they’ve not made simple, good choices about the kind of person they want to be. After all, age and wisdom do not travel…
