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The Impossible Network
075: Carmen Medina - Her Path To A Life In The CIA - Part 1
Season 2, Ep. 75
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Guest Overview
Carmen Medina is a former CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence. A veteran of the Intelligence Community, she is also the author of Rebels at Work: A Handbook for Leading Change from Within.
Puerto Rican born, to a fun-loving father and an achievement-driven mother, Carmen excelled through an itinerant childhood to lead school debating teams. Her forensic debating skills and serendipity led her to a University scholarship and ultimately set her on her path to a 32-year career in the CIA.
In Part One Carmen unpacks her chaotic and unsettled upbringing and childhood, the role of her education, how debating helped her develop the skills that served her well over her CIA career.
We discuss her experience of interning at the CIA in 1978, a time before desktop computers, operating as a human algorithm, to running the South Africa desk, and leaning into the male-dominated CIA culture to make her voice heard.
In Part Two we discuss her perspective on power, the current state of the world and her hope for the future. We also cover the role of curiosity and creativity in her work at the CIA, applying empathy to be heard by policy and decision-makers in today’s polarized political environment.
And finally, we end with her life insights as she answers our quick fire questions.
I hope you enjoy this refreshing and fun episode and learn from the kindness, reflective wisdom, and optimism of Carmen Medina.
What we Discuss
The impact of her itinerant upbringing from being an Army child
The role her mother played in setting her standards for achievement
How her father made her appreciate the fun in life
The role of her grandmother in being a rock of stability
Developing a skill and talent forensic debating at school
Being the first in her family to go to college and university
Dealing with male prejudice of her father questioning her need to learn
How a serendipitous debating experience led her to secure a scholarship at a Catholic University in Washington DC
How she transitioned out of Law to Georgetown for a Masters in Foreign Service
Getting accepted as an intern at the CIA
Being asked to stay on a full time
Starting out as a watch officer before the era of Desktop computers
We discuss how her role was pre-internet days she acted as a human algorithm or search engine
Her point of view on the veracity CIA based films Argo and Zero Dark Thirty
How she was promoted to the Africa Division to cover South Africa while apartheid was still in full force.
The experience of joining a male-dominated CIA at age 24 and being determined to avoid being pigeonholed as just another token woman.
The challenges of conveying an image in the workplace as a woman.
The role of curiosity and creativity in her role as an analyst
Her curiosity in soft power over hard power
Her prediction that peace would happen without violence
The brittleness of power
The evolution of the CIA’s intelligence on how societies work
Embracing cognitive bias
Her optimism and how reading a book called Complexity changed her perspective
Her perspective on the world
What if the Romans had discovered the Internet and Electricity?
Carmen’s view on talking truth to power
Respecting decision makers cognitive style and personality and providing a broader context so they listen, and in a framework, they appreciate
The role of empathy
Her Principles
Inequality of opportunity
Expecting and demanding failure
Taking ownership of your impossible
Social Links
Links In The Show
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242. The Reluctant Leader of The Re-Action Collective
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