Welcome to the latest episode of "The Last 10%," where we delve into raw, unfiltered conversations that push the boundaries of conventional wisdom. In this episode, Dallas Burnett engages in a thought-provoking discussion with special guest Efren Delgado, a former FBI special agent and expert in human behavior. Together, they explore the tension between wisdom and altruism in leadership, the addiction to comfort, the power of humility, navigating career transitions, finding purpose, and the selfish benefits of living selflessly. Delgado shares captivating anecdotes from his experiences, offering valuable insights and actionable advice for listeners. Join us as we uncover the complexities of leadership, human behavior, and personal growth and discover the unexpected rewards of embracing discomfort and selflessness.

Purchase Efren's Book:

The Opposite is True: Discover Your Unexpected Enemies, Allies, and Purpose Through the Eyes of Counterintuitive Psychology

Connect with Efren:

www.EfrenDelgado.com

Mentioned in this episode:

1on1 App Information

https://www.thinkmovethrive.com/1on1-app/

Hey everybody, we're talking to Efren Delgado today.

What an amazing guy.

He has some incredible stories working in the national security division

as a special investigator of the FBI and the other half of the time in the

criminal division as a special agent.

He's a great new friend of mine.

You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

I am Dallas Burnett sitting in my 1905 Koch Brothers barber chair in

Thrive Studios, but more importantly, today we have a great guest, a man

with some fascinating stories who knows all about assessing threats.

It's personal protection in the private sector and lucky for us

is a new author and speaker for all things counterintuitive.

Now, man, what does that mean?

Welcome to the show, Efren.

Thanks, Dallas.

Great to be here.

Oh man, I just got to start out by saying I saw your

book cover and we'll get to that in a minute, but I just saw your book

cover, just one of the most creative book covers I think I've seen in a

very long time, so I look forward to.

Look forward to discussing that more, but tell us a little

bit about your background.

what's your story,

So, in general, I've noticed a lot of, I guess patterns in

human behavior all of my life, since I was a little kid and growing up throughout my

adulthood and even now in my older years.

I'm almost 50.

these patterns are, I think, very helpful to your audience and definitely to my

reader where it encourages the good guys that they're stronger than the bad guys.

And on the surface, it sounds.

Well, counterintuitive.

but frankly, it makes a lot of sense when you start diving into

the principles that I discuss in my book and today on your podcast.

Wow.

Well, now as a former, person in the FBI, you would know good guys and bad guys.

So I want to talk a little bit about before we get into your book.

Tell us a little bit, cause the FBI , that's a cool background and just,

I know the experiences that you had were, you had some amazing experiences.

Let's talk about a little bit, like what inspired you to go into the FBI?

Was it something that as a kid you just saw and, it's Oh,

well, one day I want to do that.

Or was it something that kind of just opened up on your

path as you went through life?

Tell us a little bit about that.

like most little kids, you're a, you're very innocent,

naive, by definition, just cause you're inexperienced with the world.

And I started school, kindergarten, first grade, a year before a lot of my peers.

So I was one year younger than the average.

kindergartner, first grader, and it wasn't relevant until I entered second grade.

And during those years, one year makes a big difference physically and

cognitively and probably emotionally, too.

I experienced a little bit of bullying from a couple bullies in second grade.

And even though it wasn't overly intense compared to a lot of

trauma people experience in the world, to a kid, it's all relative.

our trauma is relevant to us because our experiences are unique.

and the question that popped in my head as a Six, almost seven year

old, was why would somebody be mean when they could simply be nice?

And I start out the book this way, and if you think about it, that question

is a child's version of psychology.

Why do people do what they do?

Right.

even deeper, why do bad people do what they do?

The criminology side of psychology.

And, I didn't have the answers then, but I definitely have

them now, and it's a lot easier.

They're complicated, but it's easy to understand.

that's so true.

What an amazing question and how to frame that at six or seven.

Like why do bad things when you could just be nice?

I think there's a lot of, 46 and seven year olds asking

that question to each other

I think so too, yeah.

I've got the

it's, that's a.

Yeah, that's under, that's wonderful.

I look forward to jumping in some of that.

So let's talk a little bit about, at the FBI, tell us a little bit

about your experience at the FBI.

You were in two separate divisions.

Tell us what you were doing in those two places in those two main different roles.

So the first half of my career, I was in

the National Security Division.

So that focuses on protecting The infrastructure of the United States,

our rights and, our safety from outside, foreign enemies or other

countries that might want to get the upper hand over our country.

so the way I describe it to a lot of people is the central intelligence agency,

the CIA is the offense that they're out in the world trying to gather intelligence

from other countries to benefit the interests of the United States.

So those countries try to do the same to us.

But we're the defense.

We're protecting the goal.

And so the FBI, the site I was on is protecting our secrets, protecting

our infrastructure, and looking for traitors or espionage, which is

the slang for it as spies looking for, spies within our own ranks who

are looking to betray our country.

So we defended.

Our national security, while the offense tries to like score goals for U.

S.

interests.

Good metaphor, huh?

That's incredible.

I love that.

Yeah, that's a very good way of putting it.

I love protecting the goal.

That's, that makes a lot of sense and I'm very glad that you were doing it

and you guys did such a good job and continue to do such a good job of that.

So,

That was the first half, yeah.

that was the first half.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then the second half, what was the second

The second half was the more traditionally known criminal

division, where we're upholding federal laws that all emanate from the U.

S.

Constitution.

So a lot of people, don't have a clear understanding of like,

where do these laws come from?

But every single law, whether it's federal, state, or local,

emanates to some degree by the U.

S.

Constitution.

And it's preserving our rights.

So as soon as your rights invade or compromise the rights of another

person, there's got to be some kind of a legal statute to defend it.

so it's not just about, I have the right to believe this, or the right to

believe that, or say this or say that.

You can't yell fire in a theater, not because it's rude, but because it

endangers The safety of other people.

And so that would be a good example of the fourth amendment right to

not lose things, not have things stolen, including your life.

So that's why death or excuse me, murder is illegal because you're

literally stealing somebody's life.

Uh,

So the law, it's not a moral law.

It's a stealing somebody's life.

if you think about it on a legal sense,

yeah.

But you see, you literally say here's my, they took that person's life.

They took their own life that somebody took their life.

And it's like you said, they're stealing.

So it's a lawful thing.

I'm all like, that's, I've never heard it put like that.

That's a fascinating way to think about that, but it's very true.

Yeah, I try to bring these big concepts down to just human language.

I do that in the book with these psychological concepts.

But when I worked the criminal division, I was assigned to kind of a

sensitive violation of civil rights.

So that included, hate crimes, human trafficking, and color of

law, which are essentially bad cops.

And, once you start to work those cases, you see the real world of

what's going on behind all the, the dramatic language of those violations.

You've mentioned human trafficking and it seems

like such a hot topic today.

I mean, I can't imagine you talk about seeing people operating on just why

would you do these bad things and thinking that how do you, and this is

just something, how do you process that?

Because if you're investigating these things, I'm sure that you

saw things in that environment.

That you would prefer not to say,

Yeah.

obviously prefer not to happen.

How do you, how did you deal with that at the FBI to see and be a part of

trying to, obviously you feel good to try to stop it, but how do you, how

did you work through some of that?

Right.

to earth scenarios with business and risk and dealing with,

maybe not the best family members or people you know in your life personally.

And the answer is a compartmentalizing one.

And keeping an eye on your North Star, what's your true motive, too.

So I'll break that down.

To compartmentalize, you have to really, separate good and bad,

emotion and logic, what are the goals, what are the parameters, and

just keep your eye and your mind on what your overall intention is.

An undercover agent, for example, his goal is Discover what's going on in the

investigation Get build evidence against the bad guy and put the bad guy in jail

while not dying So if you're getting along if you're getting along with your criminal

colleagues, that's great It doesn't mean you like them or it doesn't mean suddenly.

I'm his friend I'm gonna betray my goal my North Star of capturing the

bad guy to preserve the innocent people you Decompartmentalize the two one.

I'm doing something for the greater goal of my long term,

North Star of protecting people.

And two is, even if I like this person, or I dislike this person, I have to

do the next action that will help me to my goal, regardless of my feelings.

That's awesome.

the same is true in human trafficking, the same

is true of investigating police, who, by the way, I exonerated like

98 percent of the accusations, because frankly, most cops are good.

And they have, they face a lot of false accusations, but when

they're guilty, they're very guilty.

So we look for a systemic pattern of criminal behavior that makes

it obvious that they're guilty.

But most of the, officers that I, I investigated were, were very

good cops and just got accused of something they were innocent of.

Just

Well, I think that makes everybody feel better.

And, it just, that's really good because corruption in law

enforcement is definitely not what you want to hear that's going on.

So let's talk a little bit about, I want to jump into now a little bit about your

book and I would love for you to start.

And I know the audience can't see it.

but I'd love for you to describe the cover and they can look it up on

Amazon after the show, because this is, like I said, one of the coolest

covers I've seen in a long time.

So tell us about the cover, just describe it.

And then you've got, there's some deeper, thoughts that you had around that.

And I'd love for us to jump into your book, by talking about the cover.

if you have it, you can hold it up and we'll post this on

a clip on YouTube, that'd be

Yeah, let's see, so, can you see that?

Yep.

Yes.

That's

So, but I'm going to discuss this, this symbol here, which

to describe it to your audience is it's a circular shape with a dove carrying

an olive branch and a serpent tied to the bottom of that olive branch

and circling back towards the bottom of the circle and trying to bite the

tail of the dove and bring it down.

So, I essentially got the idea from Matthew 10, 16, where God is saying, Be

innocent as doves, but wise as serpents.

And on the surface, that sounds like a contradiction.

How could I be innocent as dove, but as wise as a serpent?

And the answer is, God wants us to keep a soft heart, but not to the

point of naivete where all the bad guys could take advantage of us.

He wants to protect us, but he wants us to stay not hard, not

get hardened, but stay soft.

During the process of this.

So this is where compartmentalizing emotion and logic come in.

mm

The serpents are already hardened and they're

looking to bring down the bad guys.

I mean, excuse me, the good guys.

Not because necessarily you're, well, I think you are a threat to them.

Good guys in my view Dallas have, are stronger because they risk,

they make themselves vulnerable, which actually makes you stronger,

which is a counterintuitive concept.

But when you tear muscle, when you're working out, that's how you get stronger.

You're tearing muscle to get stronger, a counterintuitive idea.

And yet we all can relate to it.

The bad guys are like chihuahuas barking at the doorbell.

They're so scared that they have to be really loud, project strength because

they have no strength and their biggest fear is exposure of the weakness inside.

So, ironically, they are envious of the good guys, the people in your audience

willing to risk being leaders, being entrepreneurs, being speakers, getting up

and speaking to the group as presenters, which is scary, but they do it anyway.

And the bad guys respect it, but they hate you for it.

So they will bring you down as best they can, they'll pretend to be

friends, they'll pretend to be allies, or they'll just be overt attackers.

But the point is, whether you're a bully, an antagonist, a naysayer, any of the

negative connotations we could describe, they're coming from a place of weakness.

And your audience, the good guys, they're coming from a place of strength.

Even if they don't believe it, believe me, you are stronger than the bad guys.

So that's my point of the book.

And so the dove is symbolizing you guys rising above the

serpents trying to pull you down.

And you're carrying that olive branch, which is your purpose, your

North Star, and it's a circle because sometimes you will fall on your ass.

We all do.

We all do.

And that's okay.

We, we grow from our adversity is the catalyst, the purpose,

strength, and success.

That's how we grow.

And why?

I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but we are humbled.

And when we're humbled, you have an opportunity to embrace the wisdom

that comes from being humbled.

Or you could ignore it and be prideful and say screw the world and just give

up and get in the fetal position.

Your audience and my readers don't do that.

They go

I think that's true.

I love the symbolism of the cover and I just, it's such a striking cover.

And when you first see it, you're just like, what in the world?

Now I've got to look closer at this cause there's something else going on.

And I think that it's, it draws you in like that idea, like the idea that you

shared, because you did share something counterintuitive in the sense that there's

a, I think that people, you Struggle with attention you described it very

eloquently in, in the sense that we want to maintain this sense of goodness.

And yet, if you just always say yes.

And you always are available and you always do what the other person

wants to, and you always are just always, then you are absolutely.

Going to be taken advantage of by bad people, good people, everybody, you

know, you, you know, it's like, so

You'll be a doormat.

yeah, you're going to be a doormat.

And so there has to be this other side of the coin that you say, no, there's,

there has to be some, Wisdom that says, no, they have some boundaries

or, I can say no at this, or I'm going to make a wise decision here.

Like you said, separate the emotion and logic.

And I think that's just a really good tension.

So we're trying to live.

In the middle space, somewhere between the extremes.

And I think that's hard because there's, it's not a black and white.

I think people like that black and white where they just say it's this or that.

And a lot of times we try to create that in our life, but I think as leaders.

There is a tension there a lot of times of, in, in that, what, when

is it where I need to have that wisdom and when is it where I need

to be that altruistic, gracious.

Good.

And so that's just hard.

It is hard and you said people like the black and white.

And I believe that's true because people like to understand things.

Because when you understand something, it's comfortable.

But here's the danger.

I think most people are addicted to comfort.

hmm.

and that's really dangerous because the bad guys are

aware of the things I describe.

and so they want to keep people comfortable, safely comfortable.

And they want to take advantage of their emotions

Wow.

and their vulnerabilities.

So if people are emotional, they're either ecstatically happy, scared.

Nervous, craving comfort, then they can't think as well because

the emotional logic don't work.

So they, as long as you keep the people in an emotive state, they can't see what the

bad guys are up to or the people trying to take advantage of them are up to.

So they try to keep churning that storm so the sun never comes out, where

everything's clear and easy to understand.

Again, these are all counterintuitive things, but once we take the subconscious

and all these concepts into our conscious workspace, Then we can manage it.

And to simplify things, I think, I think the company is Think, Move,

Thrive that you guys are pushing.

So I love the first one, thinking, because that is the antidote to oppression.

If you can think, they can't take advantage of you.

Even if you're wrong, you're thinking, you're trying to

assess and trying to judge.

What's the thing that everybody says?

Oh, don't judge.

Why do they say that?

Because they want you emoting, not thinking, and they want you fearing

that you'll be called racist.

They want you fearing that you'll be called closed minded,

and the opposite is true.

The thinkers are actually being open minded.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah,

I titled the book, The Opposite is True, because there's

so many examples of the reality of things, the truth of things.

Or actually flip on the other end when you, when you actually

stop and contemplate them.

and I think it's so powerful that someone who

has seen in your shoes has been in the FBI and you have seen.

The bad guys face to face at the worst of the worst.

And you described some of the things that you worked on.

it's true and you've seen it.

And then this is what you're coming back to everyone and saying, this is, I've gone

to that side and I've spent time in it.

I've reviewed it and here's what I'm come to tell you.

And so that's just, I think that's so powerful.

I think it should be very encouraging for people, especially for people who.

feel like they don't have a voice or are afraid to use it.

maybe people who feel like they can only be good and they've ended

up being a doormat and that they need some balance in their life.

I think that's all very good.

If people, I loved how you put that so many people are addicted to comfort.

And I think.

It's easy for leaders to, and I think if you're listening to the last 10%,

that idea is something that we can just think a lot about in, in your own life.

What are areas that you feel like you may be just addicted to comfort?

What are areas in your leadership, toolkit or your day, your work

that you may be not focusing on.

That the reason that you're not looking under that rock or opening

that closet or cleaning out that or doing what you need to do is because

it might be a little bit painful and you just, you're addicted to comfort.

Let's just be honest.

And so I think one of the things that hold people back is fear, fear of moving and

fear of moving into that uncomfortableness if they are addicted to comfort.

Now you talk in your book, I think about some techniques.

around overcoming fear.

what advice would you give to listeners that are addicted to comfort and

they're a little bit afraid to move into that sphere of uncomfortableness?

Absolutely.

And there's kind of two parts to that question.

One is dealing with comfort and the other is dealing with fear

and the comfort one, it's natural.

I love comfort.

Everybody loves comfort.

There's nothing better than a nice plate of comfort food, a movie and just gorging.

that's my happy place.

but I could only eat so much pie and so many cheeseburgers.

Before you start regretting it, you know

That's right.

So, I think it's just first of all Forgive yourself for

being a human being and loving comfort because we all do but just realize

that complacency hold holds us back We all need to keep in mind our north

star our purpose even as it evolves because it's not the same throughout

our lives We have different phases.

So keep our long term goals and then chop them up and part of I guess resisting

complacency and comfort to a healthy degree, because it's okay to take breaks

and all that, of course, is simply acknowledging that, you will never get

anywhere unless you're working for it.

Unless you're ripping muscle, you won't get stronger.

Unless you're climbing the mountain, you won't reach the summit.

So, challenge yourself, stretch your comfort zone, but you

don't have to rip it apart.

You just stretch and make progress, and progress is good enough.

And just don't fool yourself.

One interesting quote that I often bring up is Plato said no one is more hated

than he who speaks the truth Because the truth is often uncomfortable So if you're

not striving for your North Star and you love comfort and complacency Then people

will hate you when you're bringing up truth because it's cognitive dissonance.

It's like a cattle prod in their side They don't want to know the truth.

They don't want to hear you preach about facts.

They want to be under that warm, fuzzy blanket.

And you could take a horse to water, but you can't make a drink.

Hmm.

But for your audience, for my reader, people

want to live beyond mediocrity and not just be stagnant in existence.

We embrace the uncomfortable.

We embrace new things.

We are embracing new ideas because we want to innovate.

We want to win.

And we want to help our families and our societies.

We want to go for it because carpe diem.

We're going to die.

We might as well live first.

Yeah.

this is kind of the comfort part of your question, and it

goes with fear, and my theory is When you think of snakes, it's scary, right?

Snakes are pretty scary.

Poisonous snakes are scary.

They scare me.

When you think of sharks, they're scary, right?

Standard, standard scary things.

Sharks, snakes, public speaking.

People say public speaking is one of the scariest things, even more than death.

I've heard that.

I don't know the stats, but all these things.

and so here's an interesting idea.

Who's the least afraid of snakes?

And I would say like snake charmers.

they're literally working with them every day.

Who's least afraid of sharks?

Surfers, they're swimming with sharks every day.

That's

And who's least afraid of public speaking?

Public speakers.

Public

Because they're doing it all the time.

So the answer, the pattern there, actually snake charmers are in the most

danger of snakes because they're around them all the time and they get bit.

Surfers are in the most danger because they're around them all

the time and sometimes the sharks are hungry and mistake them for a

Yeah.

And the public speakers, God forbid you make a mistake,

but you're going to keep going.

But one of the prerequisites to success is failure anyway, so they keep going.

So despite all those actual dangers, they understand snakes, they

understand sharks, and they understand public speaking, respectively.

And you could go on with the examples.

So I say, people don't fear those things, they fear the unknown.

Mm.

So the answer is, make the unknown known.

And the way you do that is education, exposure, and repeat.

Learn about what you're scared of, experience what

you're scared of, and repeat.

When I was young, I was afraid of heights, so I started jumping off the bed.

Then I got over it.

Then I started jumping off my fence in the backyard.

I got over it.

Then I jumped off the roof.

Then I stopped there.

Yeah, that's probably why I was

Yeah.

But at the end of the day, I'm not afraid of heights anymore.

fear is healthy to some degree, but I'm talking about unreasonable

fears or some level of phobias.

And your audience probably has some fears they could easily get

over if they jump off the bed.

Exposed themselves a little bit to it and learned that those fears may not

be as dangerous as they might believe.

within reason.

yeah, I think that's fantastic advice, man.

You just dropped so many things right there.

I just, when I think through it as a leader.

The point that you just made about making the unknown known,

man, I love the way you put that.

And I love the analogy that you made with all the snakes and

the sharks and public speaking.

It's so true.

If you're a leader, sometimes you feel.

if, in leadership is very exposing.

So people are watching you, they've got their eyes on you, whether you're

doing a good job or whether you're doing a bad job, they're going to

see it pointed out and you just feel sometimes you feel very exposed.

And so sometimes it does feel like if I make the wrong decision or

if I do this and it doesn't go well, then, oh man, I'm in trouble.

And so it's not, you're not.

You may not have the, may not have the confidence that you need in certain areas.

Now you may be a technical expert.

That's not what we're talking about.

That's what you're good at.

You already know that, but maybe you're not good managing or coaching in, conflict

or having difficult conversations.

that's the place that you've got to be intentional about engaging.

I love how you talked about, progress is progress.

Like we're not saying that you have to climb the mountain in, on the first try.

it's that you take the next step and that's, that's the

point, So I just, I love that.

I love that analogy because it, it gives people something that they can latch on

to, to say, Hey, look, if you're moving into a place of uncomfortability, that is.

That's a good thing that is living in the last 10 percent

people that live in the last 10%.

If you're going to surf in the last 10%, you're going to surf beside sharks.

It doesn't matter.

It has to be, you cannot surf without sharks and be the top

10 percent surfer in the world.

It's just not going to happen.

And so I just love that because that's a picture of what we're trying to do.

And you're sharing some real wisdom there.

Now.

I want to get into a little bit more in the book too, because there's,

you've got some great examples.

then we're going to get some cool stories.

Cause you have just especially one that, that, we talked about before the

show this audience is going to love.

but before we get to the story, I want to talk a little bit about another

example of a counterintuitive point.

and that is really the power of humility.

You have this chapter 16 in your book.

Let's talk about, let's talk about some of the truth in chapter 16.

Sure.

Chapter 16's title is, A Power is a Natural Corrupter.

But then I throw in parentheses, Unless You Insert Humility.

And if you think about it, there's many forms of power.

You could have power of authority, good looks, money, a badge, a gun.

You could even be elected HOA president and there's a form of power there.

Whatever the case may be, and to whatever degree, I think there's a direct

correlation with the more power you have, the more human tendency you have to be

corrupted by that power, so it's ironic.

So, the, the counterintuitive truth here is that if you insert

humility, that's the only antidote to not be corrupted by power.

And if you don't, you will be corrupted by it.

And if your audience just pauses and thinks about any example of power in

their life, in their circles, And the people who are humble versus the people

who are not, they will automatically, right now they're sighing because

they're like, Oh yeah, that's why Johnny does this or Susie does that.

It's because the humble people have the enough strength to make

themselves vulnerable and embrace being humble and think about

others and not about themselves.

And the opposite is true.

Those who are prideful, I know it all, they're actually chihuahuas

barking at the doorbell, trying to hide their insecurities, their

weaknesses, so that nobody can see them.

So they double down on the rudeness.

They double down on the micromanaging.

They double down on the, why did you make the chicken dinner this way?

The little criticisms.

At the Christmas dinner.

Yeah.

all levels.

It's not all Hitler and Mother Teresa stuff This is just real world dynamics

in our own families our circles of friends and our in our offices.

I think that's a fantastic point.

And I think that I love how you brought it down to even Christmas dinner

conversations, because I think that's a challenge to all the listeners.

If you find yourself exerting that Chihuahua syndrome, where you're

really jumping on people and exerting some type of power, whether it's

real or just your personality, what is it that you are, Really afraid

of what are you trying to cover up?

what is it there that's causing it underneath that, that lack of

humility or vulnerability that you're trying to protect, I think that's

a great question that we all can think through on that because it's

definitely going to be something that holds you back from achieving.

The potential of influence, that you say that you could achieve instead of

this pseudo influence that you just have barking at people, you could

have real influence with people.

I read this study recently, and I can't remember the title of the study,

but it was talking about how the leaders that generated the most trust

were very competent and very smart.

But not perfect.

And I thought that was fascinating that like, if you made a flub in your

delivery, just a little bit, or if you made a mistake, it was endearing.

But if you were perfect on everything to the nth degree, then it was actually,

you were actually seeing less favorable.

And I just think as a human, it's fascinating because that goes to me.

It goes to what you're saying is that even as humans were wired to see through,

Just see through some of the bull.

It's like, no, that's just not, that's not real.

That's nobody's perfect.

So I like the authenticity, you know?

And, and so I think people are wired for that.

And I think if, when you are talking about humility to me, it's saying as a

leader, we have a real, a real obligation if we're going to lead effectively for

the longterm and we are given power.

then the way we can do that is introducing humility.

And I love the intentionality that you said we, we have to, because if

we don't, we're corrupted, how did you, how have you seen that play out?

Cause I know you've seen this play out in your career.

Well that that's a great point that you make because It also

encourages your audience, leaders, entrepreneurs, people just going forward

and influencing others that it's not only okay to make mistakes, but they don't

have to hide their mistakes that they're, they are enduring in my favorite trade.

And I, I claim it's most people's favorite trait, whether they realize

it or not, it's just authenticity and your fellow human being.

Somebody who's genuine.

Because the opposite is just exhausting.

Somebody always performing or manipulating or trying to hide their inner self.

It's not that they have to expose all their inner secrets, but

just be real with people and other people will appreciate it.

Right.

I agree.

And so the way I've seen this played out in general is,

it's not just in my personal life, but also just in life in general.

Marcus Aurelius was somebody I quote in my book a lot.

He was literally the emperor of Rome, the most powerful guy on the

planet, and he said something to the effect of, it is possible to

live a good life even in a palace.

Oh

And so what's interesting is obviously it's counterintuitive.

Oh, you've got a palace, you're the most powerful guy?

Of course the world's awesome.

But all the other emperors were corrupted.

They have Nero, Constantine, all of those guys were corrupted because

it's really hard not to have so much power and not give in to it.

King Solomon had, even to his own regret, had all these concubines

and wives and he regretted it.

Yes.

It wasn't until he humbled himself and realizing,

you know, I mean, he probably realized all along, but he's human,

Mm hmm.

that where the wisdom came back, he had the wisdom before

became corrupted and he embraced.

So there's hope there.

When we screw up, you could always go back.

You don't have to beat yourself up.

Humble yourself is also forgiving yourself.

You could turn the ship 180 degrees, so just encourage your audience also to go

for it, and also don't live, the rearview mirror is small, Dave Ramsey says this,

the rearview mirror is small for a reason.

So the windshield is big, but the rearview mirror is small,

so just go, keep going forward.

Oh, that's good.

That's good advice.

That's really good advice.

It's encouraging too, especially if you've felt like you've made some mistakes

and maybe you can, and everybody's a work in progress on the humility side.

So regardless of what stage of your career you're in or what leadership

position you're in, I think that's, that's just a great word.

I want to change gears a little bit, and I want you to tell a story that we were

talking about before the show started.

And that was, you transitioned out of the FBI and you went into the private,

protection, personal protection space and security and all that stuff.

and that's where you've been for a while and you had this.

You've had a lot of stories, but this one in particular was just amazing.

I thought to get, so tell us about one of the experiences that you were

sharing before the show about this new, new space that you had entered into,

Yeah.

So I had a client and of course we have, we can expose our clients usually

cause we have NDAs, that sort of thing.

But I had a fancy A list type of client.

I'm in the Los Angeles area and he was invited to, he was attending

a party at another A lister, which I'll tell your audience in a bit.

So I was getting, you know, earlier in the party, I was getting familiar with

the location of this beautiful home.

And just like we always do, we, they call it advancing, but you don't always

have a full time to do a thorough advance, but you do what you can.

Assess, adapt, overcome, one of my mantras in the book.

So I got, was getting the lay of the land, staying out of the way

of, my client and his guests.

And all of a sudden, I'm in, alone in a certain area where there's like

cameras with another security guy.

The other security guy had left to do rounds or something.

And Elon Musk enters, the host of the party enters this space where I'm

trying to stay out of the way and asks me, Hey, is there a fire extinguisher?

And I asked him quickly, first of all I'm a fan of Elon Musk

so I was taking it back a bit.

And then I asked, well, is there a fire?

And as, as I'm realizing, it just through the half second facial

expression that yes, there's a fire, I grabbed the fire extinguisher and

as he's, barking directions to where it's at, I'm running out of the space.

Upstairs, as he's telling me, it's in one of the bedrooms upstairs.

And I'm running up there and the bed is completely engulfed in flames.

I'm not sure how it

Oh my

but one of the guests must have tipped over a candle or

God knows what, a cigarette, but the bed was completely inflamed.

I put out the fire.

Quickly because I know fire is not only dangerous, but it goes up very quickly

Right.

my priority was not people's feelings or comforts or whatever.

It was just getting this fire extinguished ASAP So the bed was

completely inflamed which the room could have gone quickly after that,

but knock that out He was happy.

Of course, he has to replace that bed, but yeah, at the end of the

day, all the guests were fine, and my, more importantly, my client,

and all the guests at the party were safe, that was the fun part.

day.

Now, did they keep going with the party after that?

Was it just Oh, that was fine.

A minute.

Let's

it was kind of winding down anyway, but, But everybody had a

good humor about it, nobody panicked, and Yeah, it was fine, the home was fine.

They probably had to not only replace the bed, but maybe, I don't

even remember if there was carpet in that room, I'm sure there was.

but the room was fine, the home was fine, and uh, I'm sure Elon Musk

was grateful, even though I didn't have a chat with him afterwards.

But my client was happy, so that's good.

That's awesome.

That's a great story.

So you saved the party and, and Elon Musk and, all that.

That's hilarious.

That was great.

Well, tell us about, I mean, how hard was that transition what are the aspects

that you really liked about that?

Yeah, since I was a kid, with the bullying experience, I

grew a deep empathy for just people who are mistreated and, including

the bullies who I now know, bullies, tyrants, antagonists of all kinds.

Their chihuahuas barking at the doorbell because they're

fearful and have weaknesses.

so I empathize with even the bad guys.

But not to the extent of not protecting the good guys.

So the, what my view is, once you're an adult, no matter what your background is

or the trauma you've been through, you have, you don't have an excuse to hurt

other people that's never excusable.

Right.

So you just have, that's the adulting part, regardless of your

background, you have a responsibility to be a good guy, whether you like it or not.

and if you're not, then that in itself is a choice which makes you culpable.

So you have to face the consequences.

and that could be as severe as lethal force when somebody's endangering the

life of somebody else or seriously injuring them, then to preserve that

life and that safety of that person.

That's why lethal force exists into a much smaller scale.

If you're hurting somebody's career because you keep backstabbing

them or trying to pull them off their wall of progress.

Then you deserve to be exposed.

Unfortunately, a lot of the bad guys get away with things on, on, on those levels.

But at least, at least you could sleep well at night that

you're not one of those people.

so I was wanted to protect the good people from the bad so I did that in childhood

and it evolved in the fbi's national security division with the, protecting

our national security, and it evolved into the second realm of the criminal

division, protecting people against crime.

And then the trifecta of protecting people was the private sector, which is

protecting people as a threat assessment consultant or physically as a bodyguard.

Those kind of go hand in hand.

So even though I'm moving into the fourth chapter of my

life of Speaking and writing.

I think the point is the same where I'm still protecting people But

this time I'm trying to help I'm trying to teach them how to fish

so they could fish for themselves

Right.

No, I think that's great.

I love that.

I would love to talk a little bit about too, you've gone through these

career stages and transitions and you mentioned they are, there's a

connection to all of these pieces.

If someone is going through their career, as you get into.

The last 10%, it's very few things in life are a straight line.

And so understanding how to navigate that and being very good at navigating

those transitions in life is really important and it's very challenging.

And as it relates to career transitions and moving from these different

stages, what advice would you give to people going through these things?

And it could be related to your book and counterintuitive or just your experience.

Yeah, fortunately for me is they go hand in hand So I was

pretty blunt in my book of everything.

I said in there I, I truly believe with all my mind and my heart.

I really didn't hold back, and part of that is, I think to some extent,

we all have a purpose, a North Star, a calling, and to accomplish those

big mountain climbs all the way up to the summit, you have to chop them up.

And one, one story I gave in the book, in a chapter where I'm talking about

Abraham Lincoln who had to deal with a lot of adversity is he said when he was

dealing with the point of Reconstruction after abolishing slavery, he was trying

to put the country back together again.

And it was overwhelming because the South had a lot of hostility.

Because you're pretty much stopping this, money bank of having free labor.

And people get drunk with this power because it's an emotion.

And they get entitled with this power because it's an emotion.

And they convince themselves that, black Americans were subhuman, which

is a prerequisite to enslave somebody.

You have to literally believe that.

that's emotion and logic not mixing.

So that's yet another example.

But, he said that he copied what sailors on these foggy rivers do.

And they say sail from point to point.

As far as your eye can see, only sail to that point.

So that's the chopped up small goal that makes up the big goals.

So he said sail point to point, so I'm encouraging my reader and your

audience, just sail to the next point.

And then once you reach there, keep an eye on where that North Star is, and then

sail to the next point that you can see.

And keep going, zigzag if you have to, navigate.

take shorter ones, longer ones, whatever you have to do, but

chop it up and do what you can.

let go of what you don't have control over and embrace what you do have control over.

think that's great advice.

You've made several comments about people having purpose and that North star.

how do you, how have you.

how have you discovered that in your life?

what did you have a time where you were like, this is it?

Or has it been kind of a progressive elaboration where this gotten

clearer and clearer as you've gone?

and I don't know what's your thoughts on that?

Finding that purpose.

I think, it's pretty plain to see, but I might be biased because as a

flawed Christian, which is how I describe myself, I'm a sinner like everybody.

But as a flawed Christian, I truly believe that God's design is us as a church, which

Maybe some of your secular audience and my secular readers might picture a building

structure with a steeple but when I talk about the church i'm talking about the

body of christ, which is his followers.

So Dallas has certain talents.

I couldn't host a podcast and interview people the way you do so good on you

on that But I also can't sing and dance or play basketball, but I do understand

human behavior and I don't think that came out of me being a an amazing

person, but God given talents that I'm accepting as a gift to understand these

human behavior dynamics so that I could explain it to his flock, to his children.

That's how I view it.

So every human has their own God given talents, whether they acknowledge them

or not is the free will, their choice.

But I'm encouraging your audience and my reader, pay attention,

self reflect to what you're good at and what you're not good at.

Be who you are, don't try to be something else, and you will discover, if you

haven't already, what your purpose is.

And that purpose, it's probably not selfish, it's probably

selfless, which is another counterintuitive truth to happiness.

Seeking happiness will make you miserable.

Seeking humility, wisdom, fulfillment, meaning.

Meaning is the secret to happiness and that comes from selflessness.

So I say in the book, there are selfish benefits to living a selfless life.

Life and that is happiness.

That is a great counterintuitive.

There's

Yeah, it's all counterintuitive

selfless.

But isn't that wonderful?

It's fun.

I've never heard that before.

That's very clever.

Oh, that's very good.

And I think that's very.

And you've made a comment there that I thought was fascinating.

You said that you had gifts that you accepted, and I think that is awesome.

I think that's such a, that's an also, it's something overlooked.

if not, I think there's so many people that just haven't

accepted their own gifts.

Maybe they're looking and hoping for someone else's, I don't know.

There's probably a thousand reasons why, but I love the

point about being reflective.

And we talk about in, in our book lift, we talk about one of the routines is you

have to have a routine of reflection.

You should have times that set aside where you actually just sit

and think and reflect and process.

And, I think those are the kinds of things that you need to be processing is.

are there some gifts that you just haven't accepted?

You just need to embrace who you are and how you're made and the gifts

that you have and let's roll, and be selfish with your selflessness.

Living, living selflessly.

That I just, I love that.

and everybody knows that but it's often inconvenient

until you start doing it.

So that's, there's the rub, you have to humble yourself a little

bit and you have to forgive yourself and others a little bit.

Yes, this has just been a fantastic time.

I just, I've just enjoyed your, I've enjoyed the conversation immensely.

And we always like to close out the show by asking the guests, who they

would like to hear on the last 10%.

So if you had anybody, it could be anybody, but who is someone that you

would like to see or hear on the last 10%?

that's a great question.

And my intention was to give this guy a call before, and

we kept playing phone tag.

But I'm going to go ahead and throw his name out here.

he's a buddy of mine named Ben Wolf.

So he has a book in him and he hasn't written it yet, but he's working on it.

And, he doesn't know I'm talking about him right now, but his book, if he ever gets

around to writing it would be amazing.

I'll keep you guys in touch, but he's lived a full life.

I met him when I was, chasing spies and terrorists in the national

security division in Washington, DC, but he went on to join the state

department's diplomatic security service.

And, he's just a great friend and a great patriot, and I think he would be fun

to interview one day when he's ready.

But I'll keep you, I'll keep you in mind, when I do finally

have that conversation with him.

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

That sounds like it would be a fun conversation with Ben.

I'm sure he'd have a lot to share with our listeners.

He's in my book, too.

Oh, cool.

All right.

then

in there.

a little story in there.

Okay.

So I'm sure you've got some other stories that actually, I know

you do, cause we talked about it.

So if you're listening to the last 10 percent and you like the story

about the bed catching on fire, and you like the hearing about

the FBI and all these things.

Efren has a ton of those stories in his book, and he shares a lot of

that as, as he does with wisdom that he's laid out great on the show.

So how can people get in touch with you if they, you're doing a lot of

speaking now related to your book and you're doing all kinds of other stuff.

What, how can people find you?

How can they connect with

Probably the simplest way, I'm on Amazon and the book's

on Amazon, but the simplest way is probably just going to my website.

I have a little spiel about the book, a little spiel about myself, and then

some, If you're interested in the book, you could just click a quick to buy.

And the website's Efren, E F R E N Delgado.

com.

Efren Delgado.

com.

That's fantastic.

Okay.

We will put that in.

To the show notes in case you're driving and need to reference this

later, but, Efren, it has just been a fascinating time with you . I've

enjoyed every minute of it.

And I just thank you for being a part of the last 10 percent and sharing

your wisdom with our listeners.

So thank you for being on the show.

Thanks a lot, Dallas.

It was fun.

Appreciate it.