Outsmart Everyone

Information is the lifeblood of spycraft, and the key to unlocking opportunity, influence, and freedom in everyday life. But in a world of infinite newsfeeds and data sources and AI-generated search results, the most powerful person in the room isn't the person with the most information, or even the best information. It's the person who knows how to turn that information into knowledge.

This is what intelligence operatives do better than anyone on earth—and ex-CIA officer Andrew Bustamante, bestselling coauthor of Shadow Cell, is here to tell you how. Packed with high octane stories from his seven years undercover and practical strategies the CIA doesn't want you to know about, Outsmart Everyone reveals how to:

• Cut through information overload: Distill information into precisely what you need to complete a task or perform a role.
• Detect lies and hidden agendas: Five tools for reading people like a professional interrogator.
• Ace any networking event: Pick the right people to talk to, approach them effectively, and work the room like a pro.
• Control the trajectory of any conversation: Steer away from pointless topics and reorient the dialogue in the direction you want to go.
• Become a master observer: Adapt surveillance techniques to notice what others miss and remember key details others forget.
• "Park" a contact: Cut ties with someone who is no longer useful to you, without permanently burning bridges.
• Build genuine, lasting influence: Ten ways to motivate people to (voluntarily) bring you the best opportunities and do anything for you.
• And much more.

These are the same skills that CIA operatives use to hunt terrorists, learn enemy secrets, recruit foreign assets, and stay alive. In this one-of-a-kind field guide, you'll learn how to deploy them to gain what elite intelligence professionals call operational advantage: the ability to see situations more clearly, act more decisively, and influence outcomes more successfully than those around you.