Whatever your adventure is.

Let loose the dogs of adventure and chase it.

If it's going to the grocery store, make that your adventure, whatever, it doesn't matter, but chase your adventure because if you sit back and let the adventure get away from you, it's your loss.

But if you go after it and you trip and fall on your face 10 or 20 times, I've done that.

That's just all part of the adventure.

What did the Apostle Paul and a former CIA officer have in common?

More than you might think.

In this episode of Seek, go, create the leadership journey.

We're joined by Jeffrey Eno, a former senior intelligence officer with CIA, whose career took him across the globe, including over 100 missions to Syria where he regularly walked the very road to Damascus that transformed Saul into who we know as Paul, brings a rare blend of deep faith and high level operational experience to the conversation, offering powerful insights on integrity, leadership under pressure, and how spiritual transformation can inform strategic decision making.

is a conversation that will challenge, inspire, and reframe how you think about calling and the cost of conviction.

Jeffrey, welcome to Seek, go Create.

Thank you.

It's my pleasure to be here.

I am glad that you're here too, and I'm looking forward to hearing some of these stories and it's rare that I get like, first of all, it's rare that I get someone who's got CIA or a three letter attached, and then also that can tie in some of the spiritual conversations we love to have.

Man, this is gonna be fun.

Before we get too much further though, you rather answer the question, what do you do if someone's, you know, you're out and about or on a podcast and someone asks you that?

Or Who are you?

Which would you prefer?

Go ahead and pick it and start answering.

What do I do is easy and boring.

Who am I?

Is much more complicated and entertaining.

I am a farm boy from Ohio.

I grew up on a small farm there.

my parents were divorced when I was 11, so I went through a lot of the entertainment that the children of divorce go through.

And so at the age of 20, after I'd been at Ohio State University for two years, I decided to go ahead and run away from home formally.

So I joined the Peace Corps and went to North Africa.

and after two years there, I still wasn't ready to go back to Ohio 'cause that was the only thing looking at me, more of that cold wind and whistles between those buildings at Ohio State University in the winter.

No, no, no, no, no.

My blood was too thin, so I went to another, country.

I went to Gabon, which is right on the equator.

And, just so you know how impressed my mother was with me, she was thrilled when I said I was going to Gabon.

'cause she went, that's where Albert Schweitzer's hospital is when I guess what my response was.

Who's that?

So that's where Albert Schweitzer's Hospital is that, that I've never forgotten.

I was there for a year and a half and then, due to some other family machinations, I just had to go ahead and leave.

Went to school in Texas, finished up my bachelor's and master's degree.

first job out of college was at, a poultry processing plant in Waco, Texas.

After my second day there, I was pretty sure that was not the job that my mother had in mind for me.

so from there I applied to various international organizations, international businesses, and I was very fortunate.

I was able to spend, three years in India where I was selling irrigation equipment for a large company called Valmont Industries.

I was there three years and ultimately we ended up signing a contract to export plastic components back to the us.

So after that, I went back to the US and managed to find a job in Greece and went back over to Athens where the company was supposedly investing in a latex glove manufacturing facility, which of course never came to pass.

So after two years it's like, okay, there's no job here.

So I had to leave.

I went back to Texas, got continued education certification in telecommunications management.

This was back when the internet was still not barely a glimmer in Al Gore's eye.

and, proceeded to get a job, working for a company out of Houston.

But I was based in Abu Dhabi and I was selling telecommunication network management systems throughout the Middle East.

Which is what brought me to Syria so many times.

and I was there for six years, decided to come back and let my adventurous streak take over, applied to the agency, got accepted because by that time I'd lived in multiple countries, spoke multiple languages, and they really liked that.

and I was accepted.

And so, that's where I wrapped up my career, uh, doing God's work.

And let me just tell your listeners one thing right now, the people, the LA rank and file people in the ccia a are the best that this country has to offer.

They should take a great deal of confidence in that.

I'm not talking about the leadership issues and all the political nonsense goes on.

I'm talking about the folks who show up at, you know, 6 30, 7 o'clock in the morning, work until 4, 5, 6 o'clock in the evening, and do that five days a week, sometimes six or seven days a week.

They are the best this country has to offer.

And no matter what you see on tv.

Your listeners should take a great deal of pride in the workforce That is at the CIA.

I'm excited to do a little bit more of a dive into that CIA in just a little while, but there's so many parts of this story as, I think I told you maybe about halfway through your book that I've been reading, we'll talk about that as we go along here.

Uh, hu hum.

Human for Humanity.

I dunno if I pronounce that right, but Yes, sir.

that.

I'm gonna ask about that in a little while.

But first, I mean, there, how many countries have you been to because you rattled off some names that are not your, you know, Gabon and you know, Tia and all these, so, you know, they're not your average Joe Traveler country.

You know, I, I went to France, I went to Australia.

No, that's not what I'm hearing from you.

How many countries and good gracious the I think the total number when I sat down and added them up was 33 different countries I've either lived in or visited.

I think I've lived in 12.

Somewhere between 10 and 12 that I've actually lived in.

And, you know, I enjoyed it.

It was a blessing.

I'm not gonna deny that.

and I like to think that I was doing good.

and you know, the book, human Stands for Human Intelligence and Americans By and Large, have been protected by these two really big bodies of water on either side and a really cold neighbor to the north, and a river to the south.

So we're very internally focused.

You don't need to go any place to get what you need to eat, drink, sleep with whatever.

We have all that here.

And yet there's a huge world out there And I wrote it so that people could get a flavor for some of the world that's out there, the five foot elevation level, not the 45 seconds you'll get on CNN or Fox News or whatever.

But to actually get a glimpse of some of the silliness that my wife, God, my now ex-wife, God bless her, um, put up with, when her first time outside of this country was in New Delhi, India.

So, you know, she, that's who my book is dedicated to.

And a lot of people look at me kind of cross-eyed going, you dedicated your book to your ex-wife.

What does your current wife think about that?

Well, that book ends about 10 years before I met my current wife.

So she doesn't care either way.

and honestly, I probably would've done it anyway, even if she did care, because none of that book, none of what you read would've been possible without my ex-wife.

So that's why.

I, I get that.

I think I was laying in bed and I mentioned to my wife, I said, huh, Jeffrey dedicated this book to his ex-wife.

I said, I bet there's a story there.

And I said, you know what?

I'm gonna ask about it.

You just told the story so I don't have to ask about it.

I said, because he put it in the front of his book, so it opens up the door for me to ask.

But anyway, before we get too far though, this is where I want to go.

I do agree that as Americans, I believe we're a little bit.

Arrogant about our position in the world and things like that.

I don't necessarily want to go down that path.

traveled a good bit and I mean, you know, you know, when we talk about rose less travel, I shared with you in the beginning, my wife and I have essentially been traveling for the last 12 years.

We've been homeless.

We don't have a home.

We live in this motor coach, and so we've been traveling all over the US for six years, but before that we were in Australia and New Zealand.

And during the nineties I spent time in New Delhi and Mumbai and places like that.

but I think it would be valuable, Jeffrey, to share maybe some of your favorite places, what are some places maybe that you would rather not go back to?

Again, not that we're disparaging anybody, but you would.

Probably rather not.

So give a few, few of the highs and lows just of the travel, not jobs and stuff like that, but just the places.

So I'm gonna give you two examples.

The first one is one of my favorite countries, which is Oman.

Oman is the country where some people claim Sinbad, the sailor sailed from.

And there's actually a mock-up of his ship on one of the traffic circles in Oman.

The people of Oman are hardworking.

They don't have oil wealth.

So, I mean, they have a tiny bit, but not like Saudi Arabia or the Emirates.

I made the mistake of asking, the receptionist at the hotel I was staying in, I think the Hyatt Regency in Muscat, Oman.

I asked her what country she was from and she looked at me like I had two heads, from Oman.

So they work and they tend to be very polite.

I was on the beach, with my wife, my cousin who was a flight attendant for United Airlines, a very attractive lady in her thirties.

And, our two daughters who would've been, I don't know, 10, 12 years old, something like that.

So we were all on a beach in Oman and, a group of men come riding up on horseback and the leader of the group got off and came over and talked to me.

Of course he's gonna talk to me, he is not gonna talk to the women.

came over and talked to me and said.

My uncle would like to offer 12 camels for this young lady pointing to my cousin, you know, you, you have that split second of, oh my goodness, what am I gonna do with this?

Well, it was very, everything was courteous, okay?

No, nobody should misread anything on this.

They were very courteous, they were very polite.

I was equally courteous back.

I said, you know, we're very honored.

That's a very generous offer, but we're gonna have to decline.

And they said, okay.

And they, and they wrote off.

I have not let my cousin forget that I've not let my aunt, her mother is my godmother.

And so she hasn't forgot that.

So every time my cousin Deb is gonna go visit Jeff someplace, her mother's like, you know, you gotta be really careful going any, any place Jeff is, you almost got, it's hilarious.

But that's all mine.

That's very friendly country.

Lots of good memories, beautiful beaches.

the markets are great.

It's always been an entree point for the Indian subcontinent.

In fact, the Indian Rupe used to be their currency for a long time.

So it's just a very interesting, very friendly country.

I'll contrast this with what was once called the Pearl of the Mediterranean, and that was Beirut.

And Beirut had all of the positive influence of North Africa.

It had the positive influence from Turkey, it had the positive influence from Iran.

It was a French colony.

You know, it had all the positive influences and it truly was the pearl of the Orient.

To this day, Lebanese women are still considered to be the most beautiful in the Middle East.

I think that's in some measure because the.

Crusaders were nice enough to drop off blue eyed DNA.

So every now and then you get a very pretty blue eyed Lebanese woman.

And then you fast forward to about 1985 when all the Civil War started and I compare Lebanon to Whitney Houston.

Whitney Houston.

You're old enough to remember when she came out.

Was she not fabulous?

Could that woman not sing?

And she was beautiful as the day is long what the, I think the first song was called Jump or something like that.

I remember her jumping up a not a lot and just phenomenal and beautiful and it did not end well for her.

Very sadly.

As with Lebanon, it's not ending well with them.

So that's where I like to contrast and, and I tell those stories to, to try and bring it home to people.

'cause everybody in the US knows who Whitney Houston is.

Or was, and, and how most people know, you know, what she was like when she came out and how talented and, and they're very sad ending.

So those would be two of my favorite countries to talk about because I like Lebanon, I like Beirut.

I had the ability to travel to, to Damascus many times.

when you walk down the street called straight and you realize it's written about in Acts chapter nine, I believe.

walking down a street that's written about in the Bibles, that's gotta mean something to, to somebody.

Even a, even a miserable Lutheran like me, we do take, take that part seriously.

So it was always very, very nice to be able to do that.

Yeah, we need to check Ensure with your in information you could gather to make sure Bobby Brown didn't visit Lebanon at some point.

the one that messed up.

Whitney Hu.

I believe he messed up Whitney Houston maybe.

Maybe we could blame that on him.

I'm not sure about that.

And then I wanna go back to the Campbell story though, because what's fascinating is I'm surprised you didn't negotiate.

It's like 12 camels.

No, but maybe 13.

I guess a bit bigger question, was that like a lucrative offer?

I mean 12 camels, is that a It was a very generous offer.

Those generous that was a good offer.

camels are valuable, right?

So, anyway, those point to the cultural differences that I think we somehow get locked into.

Another thing that you talk about a good bit in your book, and, I guess this is a good time to ask, is I think you are, a strong proponent of learning the language when you spend Yes, sir.

time in these places.

And these are not easy languages.

But talk about, just in general, the importance of, as you go into a culture, being able to learn and speak, some, if not, all of their language, then maybe any other specifics that you want to around the language thing.

But in general, why is it important to learn the language of a culture that you're spending time in?

Well, there's really two reasons for it.

The first one is simply respect, and you don't have to become fluent, in a local language if you can at least get through the greetings, the respectful high.

How are you?

just basic, minimal conversation.

the woman who my book is dedicated to, as I said, her first time overseas was New Delhi and her first trip to the market, she came back with a moldy tomato and said, this is the only thing that I recognize.

Okay, well, English is a national language in India, however.

She learned enough of the local language that she could go to the shopkeepers and say, good afternoon, How are you?

And she could say, I would like six of these.

Or, how much does that cost?

So just enough to engage them.

So all of a sudden you have a white American woman speaking in Hindi that says a lot to the shopkeeper.

Now he's not gonna give her the rock bottom price, that's just not gonna happen.

But at least he's gonna give her a fair price.

And once she's gone to that same vendor, you know, 3, 4, 10 times and he recognizes her 'cause she's five foot 10 attractive young woman, he's gonna recognize her when she comes back and he's gonna make sure that she gets at least what she pays for.

So she's getting good quality he might offer and say, no, don't get that one.

Try these over here.

Because that's the way all vendors operate around the world.

Once you are a regular customer, they're gonna take good care of you.

And so you prove that by being at least able to greet them, say hello, ask how much, some just fundamentals of conversation.

And you will benefit because the people will benefit you.

They were gonna make sure that you have a good deal, you have a good day, whatever the case may be.

And you know, if you get into trouble, could be a traffic accident, could be a trip and fell, whatever it might be that you, I'm sure you've been around enough to know that there's all kinds of trouble you can get to in this world if you've already established that you are a respectful person because you've learned to speak a little bit of the language, then there's gonna be people that are gonna help you.

Out of respect for you.

So they repay that respect.

So that's why the language is so very important.

I am not a linguist.

you can ask all the people I was, a Peace Corps volunteer with or overseas with.

Nope, I am not a linguist.

but I could get by, especially when I was going into, Syria or Lebanon, because of all we talked about, the blue eye, DNA, they deposited my blue eyes, didn't automatically mean I was a foreigner, and they couldn't quite figure out my Arabic accent.

So between my blue eyes and my Arabic accent, they were like, where's this guy from?

but it wasn't automatically assumed that I was American, and I kind of liked it that way.

learning the language is, as I said, it's an important sign of respect for the culture and the country that you're in.

And it will benefit you immensely when you're dealing with people, whether vendors or police or what have you.

it will benefit you because of the respect you're showing their language in their country.

Yeah, I have a, and I also think it's helpful if you're doing business, negotiating, things like that just because you could lose a lot.

I've got, a business that I interact with and work with a good bit.

Right now we're about to be sending a group of people, I'm not going with them.

They're going over to Taiwan and then to China.

fortunately we have an employee with our company who is Chinese originally.

and she's been in the States for a while, so she's going to help us greatly because there's some negotiating that's going on in this.

And so, that's important.

I love the word you use, it just shows And I, I get discouraged when I see Americans as you travel Whatever the opposite of respect is, disrespect, obnoxiousness, whatever.

They show that as tourist and travelers to, to me, it sounds as if my wife and I say this about ourselves, we're really not good tourists.

We do travel and we go places, but we like to hang out and spend time there.

Sounds to me like you're not really a tourist, you're a traveler.

You go places and you integrate into those places.

Absolutely.

if I just wanna see things, I can sit home on the TV and see things, but I want to connect with the people that I'm visiting.

You know, I lived in Thailand.

And I would go to the markets, and Thai is a very difficult language, trust me.

But just being able to say, hello, how are you?

there's, I don't know if you know what, it's called Stinky Fruit.

It's got a more formal name.

I can't think of what it's called right now.

but it's very tasty and it's very smelly.

Hotels won't let you put it in their refrigerators.

but you know, you go there and you say, I'd like some of this.

And once you've made that connection, obviously I'm gonna stick out in Thailand.

I'm a six foot two white boy from America.

I'm gonna stick out.

So they're gonna see me coming, they're gonna recognize me, and they're gonna know probably what I'm coming to buy, and they're gonna be able to give me good guidance 'cause I'm a good customer.

Why not take care of this guy who's respectful?

So yeah, that, that bit of respect in the languages is very important.

Yeah, that's good.

And, one of the things in your story that I don't hear that often anymore.

I used to hear it more, and that's just people that have experienced with the Peace Corps and so I think it would be valuable for me and probably the listener just, know, give just a brief, you know, you don't have to tell the whole story of all that you did there, the Peace Corps is one of these organizations that, Kennedy early sixties had a purpose, and you obviously have benefited greatly from it.

I'm sure it still exists.

I just haven't heard much from it.

What can you educate us on the Peace Corps, just so that we understand more about it?

Sure.

the Peace Corps, as you said, was set up by Kennedy.

Sergeant Shriver was the first director and it was designed with three tenants in mind.

First.

Take American values and demonstrate them at the village working level.

Second, take English language and develop it in the countries where we wanna do business.

Third, bring the culture of whatever country you go to back to the United States and educate the Americans.

I was, I was working on farm machinery.

I was an agriculture mechanic and in Tunisia, I would've been 20 years old when I got there.

Would you like to guess on how interested these farmers were and what some 20-year-old white boy from America had to say about how they used their equipment?

Not even a ero.

If I hit a ero, it was a good day.

They had no interest in what I had to say, and they had their reasons for doing it.

And one of the toughest lessons that you learn in the Peace Corps and you learn a lot about yourself is what do people need?

What's important?

And you have a lot of time for self-reflection.

I can assure you of that as you're trying to, you know, me, I'm sitting out in some little village I had electricity, but that's it.

There was no tv.

You read books.

and we made friends.

So I was able to do both of those things.

I studied Arabic more when I was there, in fact, compliments of the internet.

I just got contacted about a year ago by my old Arabic instructor.

And so we, we've reconnected.

At any rate, the Peace Corps, the whole idea behind it is to put the best American values, the value that's contributory.

We're giving you, you're paid a little bit.

you're paid a living stipend.

Not just enough to rent a house and eat food.

Obviously if there was any kind of emergency, a medical emergency, you are nominally a US employee.

Government employee.

So the US government through the embassy's gonna take care of you.

That's a given.

Short of that, you're pretty much on your own.

You're on your own to make the kind of impact you wanna make, to deal with the farmers the way you wanna deal with them.

for me, and then we had guys that dug water wells.

We have a lot of English teachers.

In fact, English teachers were my favorite 'cause they were mostly female.

And once again, let's go back to being 20 years old.

so, that's the contribution that they make.

And, and it's, again, it's not terribly often that you go into a village and you see a 20, 22, 23, 24, 20 5-year-old or or older American working in that village, living with the villagers.

It is not a perfect organization, and no one should think that it's not a perfect experience.

I mean, people leave Peace Corps early because they're not getting what they want, and that's fine.

it's not a military organization.

Yeah.

It is largely an organization that is what you make of it, do they still exist and are they strong now?

I just haven't heard much from them recently.

actually.

as I mentioned, my current wife is Ugandan, and I can assure you that the Peace Corps is active in Uganda because I was there.

they actually invited me to, one of their big gatherings.

the law as written is you can go from being in the Peace Corps to being in the CIA, but you cannot go the other way.

So I could go there and show up and shake hands and make nice, but they wouldn't let me work for them, which is fine.

That wasn't what I was looking for.

but they are.

Still very active.

They tended to, in Uganda, they're still working in agriculture.

they work in fisheries.

No, they're not quite as prominent now.

And I suspect these days in the US government, everybody's keeping their head down ' cause they don't want it to go along with their budget, you know, get cut, so to speak.

but yes, they're still very much there.

They are a part of the State department or an office of the State Department.

So they're very active, as I said, in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Bloc.

I believe they're more involved in small business developments, but they're still active there.

Trying to think if they were in Thailand when I was there and I don't remember.

I think they were.

So yeah, they're still out there.

They're still doing things.

and again, for me, peace Corps offered me several escapes.

Number one, I could get away from my family who were crazy.

divorce, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But it also offered me the opportunity to see places at the government expense that I would never see on my own.

I had to work for a living, you know, I had to make a contribution.

I had to have some skill that I could offer.

And in return, they basically said, okay, you go live here, call us at the end of two years.

and you did what you made of it in Gabon, which is right on the equator.

that was a different environment.

I was on an agriculture project and I supervised the equipment for about a dozen volunteers that were specialized in agriculture.

And so I helped keep all the, the machinery working.

And again, it's phenomenal experience.

I'm living in a little town in the middle of Africa.

And the only reason I had electricity was I controlled the generator for the project.

So we ran a cable.

One of the pictures you'll see in my book is, is us running the cable all the way across town.

And I had to get over the big intersection.

So we put a gigantic pole up there to, to carry the cable to my house.

but in that kind of environment, you basically have two choices.

You can pull in and not do anything.

Or you can put yourself out there.

Take your risk yourself risk embarrassment or whatever.

There's no harm's not gonna come to you.

but you'll risk maybe embarrassing, you know, again, there I had to learn French and, there were plenty of challenges.

plenty of bathroom challenges, upset stomach challenges.

While I was in Gabon, the driver for the agriculture project I was on.

he owned a small farm 'cause they all own small farms.

he said to me one day that he was gonna go clear the land and would I like to go with him, which translated into go chop down trees with him.

And so sure, you know, what am I?

You, let's go do it.

And so we went out there, we spent the day chopping down trees.

At the end of the day, I had so many blisters on my hands, I could barely use them.

However, he would take my hand and show it to everybody on the workforce at the agriculture project and say, do you see these blisters that he got clear and land for me?

This guy's a stud.

Those blisters got me more credibility than any number of college degrees could have ever gotten me.

The fact that I could work and sweat and suffer alongside a guy who had.

maybe a fourth grade education.

I mean, because of that, that's how you generate connections.

Anybody can talk.

How many people are gonna get out there and swing an ax all day?

That's the difference.

that's what Peace Corps lets us do.

It puts us in the field.

It puts us side by side with people who maybe, remember that white boy that was there from America that helped clear the land so many years ago.

And, oh, you should have seen all the blisters on his hand.

I don't know.

But certainly that's why Peace Corps is there to make that impression on people.

And then to bring back these kind of stories to say, Capone's a wonderful place.

No, they don't really have very much money.

They're mostly pretty poor, but they sure do have a respectable life.

They're happy.

they love to drink and dance all night long.

and they're drinking cheap beer.

While the government makes sure the beer is cheap, for obvious reasons.

drunk dancing people are easier to govern than sober, not dancing people.

So yeah, that, benefited me, it benefited them, and it cost the taxpayer next to nothing I'm getting paid a hundred bucks a month maybe, and, you know, a little bit of housing, a little bit of transport.

If you bundled all together, you're looking at what, $5,000 for this guy to go sit in the jungle for two years and make America known to people who had never known America.

If it wasn't for meeting Peace Corps volunteers like me and my colleagues, I'm not trying to hold myself above them.

I was not.

but the other folks who were there working and we all had different strengths and all of our weaknesses came out, I can assure you, just because of sitting in the jungle by yourself for 3, 4, 5, 6 months, it can be stressful.

But we had to learn to deal with that and it was all that together.

This is why I think the Peace Corps is a great experience.

You got a kid that's just graduated from college, doesn't know what to do or whatever, just lost his job and they're Flo around for a new direction.

Look at the Peace Corps.

They will put you to work and they'll take care of you and your life will be changed.

that's really good.

that was a good PR promo here for Peace Corps.

We might bundle that up and see if we could do something with it.

you've mentioned a couple times, and also this is prevalent in your book, is that you, I think you used the exact word escape.

You were looking to escape from where you were in Ohio and your family This is what crossed my mind while I was reading through it.

When I went through some tough stuff after oh eight we actually lost our home and stuff like that, we went through quite a financial challenge.

My wife and I started traveling and I had somebody ask me one time, They go, are you running away from something or are you running to something?

I've looked back on that and I believe that.

Often, there was a season that I was running away, but then at some point there was a click where no, I was then running something.

So I'm gonna kind of pose that question to you.

I know early on you were running away and maybe even you continued.

Are you still running away?

Are you now running too or, and at what point did that change or shift in your life, if that is the case?

That's a phenomenal question.

without question, I was running away when I started at the age of 20.

I.

I did my best to stay away from Ohio.

Even when I was back in the States, I had two daughters, and so we had to take them to my grandmother's once a year, and I stayed in Ohio for just as short a time as possible.

Now, I transitioned from running away from a life that I did not really like to two, running towards my next adventure.

And I'm not trying to push my book, but what the last sentence in that book is cry havoc and let loose the Dogs of Adventure.

That's a modification of Shakespeare, which is cry havoc and let's slip the dogs of war.

I don't want war, I want adventure.

So am I running two more adventure?

Absolutely every chance I get, that's one of the things that makes my wife crazy.

Makes my kids crazy.

Where's dad going now?

I don't know.

I'm going someplace because I'm not a young man anymore, and I'm gonna keep chasing adventure for as long as I can.

And if I'm blessed, right now I'm 66 years old.

I'm in good health, and, we're looking at going back to Uganda here in a couple of months and we'll see what kinds of adventures come from there.

I've been very blessed because I lived in Uganda for a year where I was head of the, third largest security company there.

But I met some good people, some great people.

One of the great people there is a gentleman by the name of Daniel Lamar, who was a comedian, a real life standup comedian.

He was best man in my wedding.

Hilarious guy.

I met a, TV personality.

She currently has her own TV show there now.

And so I've already reached out to them and said, Hey, I'm coming back to Uganda for my next adventure because the adventure here in Tampa, Florida has pretty much played itself out.

and I'm used to the weather here.

I'm gonna go do something new.

So, I'm just looking at the next adventure.

the lady has already said, okay, I want you to start doing content creation.

That's a lot harder than it sounds.

So I sent her some of the stuff I'd already written, on leadership, on how to persuade people, things that are from my background.

So we can start working on that.

And I'll work with the comedian who's a good personal friend of mine.

I've helped him out of some tough spots.

we've had a lot of fun together.

And so I'll go back there and see what my next adventure is I'm very much looking forward to it.

I think everybody defines adventure differently, and that's okay.

Whatever your adventure is.

Let loose the dogs of adventure and chase it.

If it's going to the grocery store, make that your adventure, whatever, it doesn't matter, but chase your adventure because if you sit back and let the adventure get away from you, it's your loss.

But if you go after it and you trip and fall on your face 10 or 20 times, I've done that.

That's just all part of the adventure.

so I encourage people to follow their adventure no matter how small it is.

You guys are on your own adventure driving around in an rv.

I'm kind of jealous.

I wish I could.

You know, you wanna stay in my house for a year and I'll drive your RV around for a year.

You let me know if you wanna do that.

What works Something out.

We have to not be afraid of challenges.

That's not to say that, that we live in a perfect world and that we'll master every one of them.

I, my first marriage failed after two and a half decades, so no, I'm not perfect.

and yes, the book is in fact dedicated to her.

So we need to experience adventure.

That is what will keep us going.

And I'm not talking Watson TV experience adventure.

I'm talking go camping here in the, in the state of Florida.

We're blessed to have lots of places to go camping.

Gotta watch out for the Gators.

gotta be smart.

But there's plenty of places where you can go for a hike in the woods, in this country.

And you can have your own adventure as you define it and enjoy life and then cry havoc.

Let's slip the dogs of adventure.

I love that, and you know, obviously you're talking to someone who has maybe a little bit different lifestyle also, Can you sit and be still for of time?

Is there a link that you've noticed?

'cause I have noticed that I, I don't want say adventure, but sometimes adrenaline can be like a drug Mm-hmm.

are addicted to it.

And I don't know that adventure could be similar, I guess.

But what have you noticed about your rhythms?

Obviously you're mature, you're in good health.

I'm 61, so at an age where a lot of people, a lot of our associates are done.

And when I say done, they're done in a lot of ways.

I don't really feel that now.

I don't go with the pace I once did.

but what would you say if I say, can you be still for a season?

It sounds like you have been for a little while and it's now time to go correct.

I used to get what my, my now ex-wife would call sticky feet.

You know, my feet start sticking to the ground.

It's like, okay, I've been here too long.

time to go, time to see what's next.

And, and yeah, if I have a good reason.

I mean, I was berated by my now ex-wife because when I was planning to go back overseas, I had just established a relationship with my youngest daughter and her daughter, my granddaughter.

she was very displeased with me for doing it.

Then she's thought I needed the same.

We don't talk very often.

In fact, I think that's the only conversation we've had in a long time.

and she excoriated me for that, and she was right.

I needed to pay attention to developing the relationship with my granddaughter.

So my granddaughter will know who I am or who I was or whatever the case may be.

And she was right.

So yes, there are always reasons to be thoughtful about what you're doing and make sure that it is the right thing for you.

And it's not the right thing for everybody.

Not everybody should live overseas.

Not everybody should be a Peace Corps volunteer.

Not everybody should be a podcast host.

you need to find the niche that you fit in.

But when you find that niche, you need to also make sure you can enjoy it.

I mean, if you've got my book and I know you do, my favorite picture is that one.

'cause that's what 45 years looks like.

And, I've had people look at it and go, who's the guy with all the hair?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Smack, smack, smack.

so yes, I, I, I think I.

I can sit still, I would obviously sit still for my daughter or my granddaughter, either my daughters or my grandchildren, obviously.

my sister maybe probably my two brothers.

Probably not.

That's just not the way it is.

But that's okay.

The thing about this country and the American persona, if I can use that term, and that's a really broad term, I realize I'm really going into a minefield here.

Americans is, are, are highly mobile people.

We don't live in our family home.

Many places in Europe, they live in the fa in the home they grew up in.

So we're a highly mobile people.

Jobs are easily transported.

Sometimes that means the job gets taken away.

Sometimes that means we have to go find a job.

But I think we have so many opportunities in this country to look at so many different things, to see so much of life and to experience so much of life that unfortunately we think we can see it on tv and that's just not the case.

so I like, I do like to travel.

I do like to move.

Can I stay in one place for 2, 3, 4, 5 years?

Yeah, I can.

I have, I gotta mix it up once in a while and go out and get in trouble somehow.

it depends on what's keeping me there.

we all make the decisions that we make for my daughter and granddaughter, of course.

We have people all the time ask us this question, when are you gonna settle down?

I kind of get a little bit irritated by that because I'm like going, I don't know that I ever will air quotes here for those listening.

I do wanna say this though.

This is interesting.

We are in our RV right now and we are in the alley behind our daughter's home in Colorado Springs visiting our five-year-old and three-year-old granddaughters.

And last night I went to the valet recital and we kind of can combine it, you know, we're migrating north now as the weather changes.

So, we do have to kind of, I guess, balance those type things.

Jeff, I must admit, was something that you, first of all, the CIA, we're gonna talk about that before we wrap up here.

But I wanna talk a little bit about all of your trips to Damascus I'm a Bible guy and there's, there are stories in the Bible, a lot of 'em that fascinate me, there is one in particular that you highlight and you have walked these streets, you've been to this place.

And so I wanna preface it.

I've actually got the Bible open right here to Acts nine.

it's the, it's, they say that his name was changed from Saul to Paul.

It technically wasn't.

It was just a different, you know, it was basically who was talking to him at the time.

But someone who was killing Christians goes to Damascus, has an experience and it changes.

And then I'm really fascinated by this guy, Ananias.

So you've got someone that had been killing.

Looking for probably you.

'cause he was a disciple in that area.

And the Lord speaks to him and says, okay, I want you to go see this person, Saul Paul, and minister to him.

And I'm going, what the heck would you, if you were Ananias, what would be going through your head?

But have been there, walk the streets, been to the chapel, all in this area.

What do we need to know about this geographic area?

Ha.

Is it just a cool spot?

What do you wanna tell us about the road to Damascus?

It is.

First, let's caveat pray that the current political situation there fixes itself soon.

The Assad family, Haasz and em Bashar, they were dictators, they were not nice people.

They did, however, protect religious minorities in Syria because the alloys were a religious minority.

So he did, they did a good job of that.

I just wanna just put that, preface that now back to Damascus itself.

Damascus, in the first a hundred years of Christianity was the second most important city in the Christian world, only after Jerusalem.

So when you read about whoever got converted to whoever, however you wanna call their names, in Acts chapter nine, anus.

The reason he did that, according to my reading, Is he had a vision from Jesus who said, go do this.

Now, I don't think I've had a vision from Jesus in my lifetime.

I hope if I do, number one, I recognize it, and number two, I act accordingly.

So I think he was acting accordingly, and you have many, many religious people in that part of the world.

Remember, Islam did not exist at the time.

There was only Judaism and Christianity, and then Christianity was brand new.

So Damascus is, I think, the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world.

If it's not the first, it's the second.

It's been around a long, long time.

So that history gives it a lot of fascination for me, it's importance in religion.

When you read the story as you continue reading that Bible story.

He was lowered over the wall so that the Jews would not kill him after his conversion to Christianity.

Every time I went there, I went to St.

Paul's Chapel and I lit a candle.

I'm Lutheran.

We don't like candles.

I went and lit a candle every time and said a prayer every time.

So it to, to be able to overemphasize the importance of just that sectional wall to our Christian faith, I don't, I don't think you can overemphasize that.

That's where he was lowered over the wall.

When you go down the street called straight, just inside, it's called Beb Sharkey, which is the city gate right there that the street called straight goes on about 700 yards off to the right down the street is St.

Paul's Underground Chapel.

And you can go in there and you can go to the chapel underground.

That chapel's been there 2000 years.

My goodness.

Come on.

How much more influence, how much more of an impact could you have on your own faith?

And we all deal with our faith individually.

You do it your way.

My wife is Catholic and she's married to a Lutheran.

So trying to figure out which one of us is the heretic here.

Although my pastor does say that Catholics make the best Lutherans.

You have to laugh about that if you understand what she's saying.

You do good.

So, the, the influence that's Syria and Damascus had on Christianity cannot be overstated.

As you go north out of Damascus, you come to a town called Aya.

This is where you have monasteries that were built by Emperor Justinian, the first in about the year 400 again Before Mohammed was a twinkle in his daddy's eye.

they built these monasteries and just to visit them.

If again, if it's not inspirational to you, then you need to kind of look a little harder.

And these used to be big pilgrimage locations in that part of the world because there were so many, of these monasteries built at that time.

This one monastery, I think it's called Our Lady of S, in there, number one, there's a painting of the Holy Mother done by the Apostle Luke, done by St.

Luke.

So he painted a picture of Marian that is hanging in that monastery and you know how steps wear with time to get these little depressions in them when they're, you know, hundreds of years old.

Apparently some time ago they were carrying a vat of olive oil up those steps.

And some of the oil spilled out into one of those depressions and they saw a vision of the holy mother in that oil.

So now when you go visit, you go into the monastery, you go down into the basement, 'cause that's where they keep the oil.

That's also where the prayer room is, where you can go, you write out what kind of prayer for whom, and you stick it in the wall.

They will dip a little wad of cotton into that same va of oil that they saw the virgin mother in.

Put a little Ziploc bag and give it to you to take home.

Now, I'm not saying that that oil is a little bit dilute right now, but it's not the oil that counts, it's the symbolism that counts.

the symbolism that comes with taking a vat of oil where they saw an image of the holy mother, again, I'm Lutheran.

We don't worship Holy mother.

but that doesn't make her any less significant to me as a Christian.

So I get to take that little bit of oil home with me.

So these are some of the places in Syria.

That's how important that place is.

As I said, we gotta pray to God that, that they'll stop killing each other soon and that we can go back to having tourists go to Syria.

'cause it is a fascinating country.

As I said, Damascus is so important to our history.

Our, our cultural and our religious history can't be overemphasized.

And you know, when you're walking down a street that's written about in the Bible, that's kind of gotta get your attention.

And when you go into St.

Paul's underground Church, come on, that doesn't have an impact on you.

it's just a fascinating city.

The people are as nice as the day is long.

I never had any issues there.

My now ex-wife and two daughters went with me on one trip there and they were so well treated.

So courteous.

it was awesome.

I love the history and one of the things this is, I think this is speaking to, we'll call it US Christians.

We've been beaten up on folks.

Let's just keep going, I guess, is that they will read the Bible and they'll read the Bible as if it was, you know, directly written to them and without any context.

And I love that you were able to frame some context.

this real location that Saul Paul was transformed and that it is in scripture.

I mean, it's right here in front of me.

And then Paul went on to write a majority of the New Testament.

That is, is so incredible.

wanna shift just a little bit in our last few minutes Sure.

we've got this CIA thing that's been kind of lingering over the conversation that is also very attractive about history and things like that.

It's like, okay, these three letter agencies, are bashing them.

We're bashing 'em in the media and the press and, and there could be real reason why they, they they need to be.

But whatever you can.

Tell us about experience, and I know there's some things you can't tell and, and I guess maybe let me ask it in a little bit different way.

What should we be asking about the CIA, what are some things that I should be asking that I may be missing that I'm trying to do?

The things that I'm hearing in the press as I tell me about all the, the y'all, you know, you brought your propaganda in and changed the governments and this kind of stuff.

Tell, tell me what I should be asking about the CIA.

My initial response goes back to my opening comment that has to do with the caliber of the people working in the CIA, the sacrifices that they and their families make, in the CIA yeah, it's a government bureaucracy job, but they go to places that are not necessarily nice places to go, under Carter.

And, you know, the PEACE dividend is that when that came out, And they start shutting down offices and consolidating offices.

And then nine 11 happened and they realized that they'd made a mistake of consolidation.

So I think it's important to recognize that the people that serve overseas, they may be working out of an embassy and they may have the security of being part of the embassy.

But that doesn't mean that they don't risk their lives when they go out to do a mission, when they go out on an operation.

In the past, countries generally do not execute other countries.

Intelligence officers, however, terrorist organizations will, um, even the incarceration, yeah, you're gonna get arrested if you get caught by the Chinese and you'll be unhappy, or which pick a country.

I don't mean to pick on a Chinese, uh, you'll, they'll be unhappy for a while, uh, a week, two weeks, a month, a couple months, but you'll be fine.

So I think we need to recognize the sacrifices that they make.

Let me see if I can bring home one of the activities that I was very involved with when I was a senior officer at headquarters.

We work very hard to prevent.

The sale and distribution of weapons, of mass destruction.

We're talking missile technology, nuclear, chemical, biological weapons.

That is a very serious issue.

And my last job was to supervise the identification and prevention of the movement of some of these materials.

And I will give you an example.

I had an analyst come to me and say, we have a ship that is moving materials from someplace in the far east to someplace in the Middle East, and we don't want those materials to go there.

And this officer said to me, you know, it's already on its way.

I don't know if there's anything that we can do.

so I'm not sure what to do.

And my response given to her, and I'd worked with this officer for probably two years by this time, so she knew me and I knew her.

And so I very pointedly, but politely said, we swing at every pitch.

So you get the emails out to every place along this possible route, and you find this material and you stop it.

And again, I was polite, but that those were her orders.

And I said to her, if you have any trouble getting the emails outta the building, it's actually cable traffic and it goes through a long approval process.

If you have any trouble getting the cables out, you come see me and I will go fix whatever's blocking the road.

And she said, okay.

The next morning she came to me and said, chief, we got it.

We got it.

And we turned it around.

So she got an award for that.

What had I done?

I had empowered her to fail.

Failure is something that we don't like to talk about.

Nobody wants to fail.

Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, invented how not to invent the light bulb.

I think a thousand times before he invented how to invent the light bulb.

Did he fail?

No.

He simply invented something that was of no use to anybody.

So we have to accept failure as part, as a path to our success.

If we let failure stop us, then failure wins.

But if we simply redo it, then we can continue.

And that's, that was that lesson.

She got an award for it, and off she went.

Yeah, that's good.

And so much of me wants to just keep digging, but know this one thing fascinating.

I wonder if the ca gets excited when they find out that one of their former employees is writing a book.

I'm gonna hold it up here.

I'm sure they love that, don't they?

They have to approve it.

yeah, to approve it.

explain the title to me.

I'm holding up for those on the video, but Yeah, sure.

that human INT for Humanity, A Humin.

into the World, less Traveled.

Explain that and then I've got a question or two before we wrap up.

Sure.

Human stands for human Intelligence.

That was what we collect in the CIA.

We collect intelligence from human sources.

Cient is signals intelligence.

That's what the NSA collects.

They vacuum up every electronic signal out there.

They put it on a big computer and they look at it.

So Elint is electronics intelligence.

Osint is open source intelligence.

That's where the analysts get to read the newspaper, So this book is Human Intelligence for Humanity because.

I want to try and bring to people the human perspective of what many places we've talked about, a couple of 'em already, many places in the world are like, what is it like in the jungles of Gabon?

What was it like for my wife going to the post office in New Delhi?

What was it like traveling to many of the countries I've been to, I'm not very complimentary with one of our biggest allies in the region, which is Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is, a tough place.

Don't kid yourself.

so that's why I wrote the book because I wanted to try and color in gaps that you're not going to see any place else, you're not gonna get to read about the challenge that my cousin had with the guys coming up on the beach in Oman, whether my wife had to deal with going to the market in New Delhi for the first time.

Or those are not the kind of challenges that you'll read about or see in a James Bond movie or on CNN or Fox News.

I don't mean to pick on either of them.

but you're not just not gonna see it because there's, that's not what they're, that's not what they do.

So the idea behind this book, my motivation was to try and color in the gaps that I know are there.

They're there because I can see them.

'cause I've actually been to these places.

I've been tooma, I've been to Yemen, what a terrible place.

and yet these are countries we read about all the time in the newspaper.

But if we don't have a really good flavor for what they're talking about, because we only believe what we see on the news, and I'm sure you would agree that you can find a news broadcast for every political belief out there.

So what I'm trying to do is bring a, a little bit different perspective.

I try not to push an agenda on either side, because that's not what the book is about.

I do talk about my work in the agency because of my admiration for the agency, and for the employees.

I think I've made it clear the respect I have for the people that I work there.

What I haven't made clear is the disrespect I have for some of the leadership we've had in the past.

the rank and file, they do great things and I wanted to bring this book home to people so they can see, they can read when we talk about Saudi Arabia.

'cause I think Trump, wasn't he just in Saudi Arabia along with being Qatar?

I think so.

When we talk about Saudi Arabia, I mean you got these princely guys and you know, Saudi Aramco and oil money, but nobody really digs down deep and looks at some of the sad things, let's call it that, that have happened in Saudi Arabia.

They had a girl school catch fire and they kept them locked in there because they didn't have on their headscarves and a bunch of them died.

That's Saudi Arabia.

Think about that.

That's one of our biggest allies in the Middle East.

Right?

I hope that when they read that, that sticks in somebody's craw.

'cause that's why I wrote it.

'cause I want to try and color in the human angle, the human intelligence of some of these places and bring humanity back to the forefront.

So we make decisions based on humanity.

Yeah.

And I could tell that you're, and I think this is cool you, this comes across in the book.

You're quite the storyteller.

I've enjoyed it here because you've done that.

I'm sure Amazon, any other way to Yeah.

you, if someone wants to, Amazon the best place to go to get the book.

The Amazon, you can get the book.

I have a website.

It is Jeffrey, s as in Scott Ano.

So it's jeffrey s ano.com is my website.

they can get the book on Amazon, as you said.

They can connect with me through there.

I would encourage people to read the reviews that are up.

so far I've gotten one four.

I don't know why they didn't put any comments, but the rest are all fives and I would encourage you to go back and put your comments in there as well.

That helps other readers know what to expect.

Yeah, I'll go in and give a review.

I appreciate it.

The book is Human Meant for Humanity, holding up my copy here on my Kindle, A journey into the world Traveled.

No doubt that Jeffrey Sano has lived a life and is continuing to live a life, of a less traveled person.

I appreciate you being here, Jeffrey.

This has been a great conversation.

If you've been listening in, go check out the book.

I'm gonna go leave a review for you, Jeffrey, so I'll go in and do that.

And uh, and I know that as an author, we all appreciate that we are seek go create here.

We've got new episodes every Monday.

I appreciate you listening in on YouTube or all the podcast platforms and all that you're doing there.

I appreciate it.

And uh, and again, check out all of Jeffrey's stuff.

We will see everyone next week on See Go create.