A Spy's Guide to Taking Risks: A Book You Need to Read
Imagine yourself in a foreign country with a fake passport, a fake name, a fake cover story, and mission to make it home with stolen, top secret documents from that country’s government.
Now, imagine it’s the first time you’ve ever done this.
That’s how John Braddock begins his third book, A Spy’s Guide to Taking Risks. With the story of his first mission as an alias.
In his previous books, A Spy’s Guide to Thinking and A Spy’s Guide to Strategy, Braddock, a retired CIA Field Officer, provided readers with top-notch spy stories and top-shelf tools for success. After a career in espionage, Braddock concluded that the business world lacks the handy mental tools that keep spies alive and our nation safe.
So, he’s filling that gap with easily-adopted frameworks to help us think, strategize, and manage risk better. Better than our competition. The way a spy has to be better than the enemy’s secret police.
This is a short book you can read in a day or two, but it’s not a book you read and forget. You’ll want do two things as you read it:
Take notes.
Practice the techniques.
You want Braddock’s risk framework to become second nature to you. Something you do automatically when starting a project, planning a vacation, or thinking about what you’ll need to retire.
With Braddock’s spy-quality tools in hand, you’ll manage the risks and develop more ways to win. Like Donald Trump.
Remember how, during the election, Scott Adams liked to talk about the way Trump consistently left himself two or three ways to win and no way to lose? Like when he demanded that Iran release the US Sailors it took hostage. If the Iranians released them, Trump could take credit. If they didn’t, Trump could use that as an example of how weak our foreign policy became under Hillary and Obama. Two ways to win; no way to lose.
Braddock teaches you how to do that like Trump. To stack the deck in your favor.
And the Risk book, like all his others, suck you into the best true-life spy stories you can imagine. I’d read them just for the entertainment!
I can’t decide if A Spy’s Guide to Taking Risks is more entertaining than informative or more informative than entertaining. Maybe you can help. Read it and comment.
Right now, A Spy’s Guide to Taking Risks is just 2.99 in the Kindle Store on Amazon. It’s too hot to go outside, so why not read it tonight! And leave a review on Amazon. Help a good guy.