by Larae Quy | Jun 27, 2024 | Mental toughness, personal achievement, personal leadership, Positive Mindset, Psychology, self-awareness
Before my first undercover assignment, I was sent back to the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy for a series of psychological tests to determine my level of self-awareness. I was disappointed because I expected to learn how to scissor-kick in high heels to...
by Larae Quy | Jun 3, 2024 | Anxiety, Mental toughness, personal achievement, personal leadership, Positive Mindset, Psychology, self-awareness
A runt of a Shetland pony named Socks helped teach me how to overcome adversity. We lived on a remote cattle ranch in Wyoming, and my grandfather bought him for me when I was four years old. Socks had a hard and dry little heart; he only wanted to terrorize his rider....
by Larae Quy | May 14, 2024 | personal achievement, personal leadership, Positive Mindset, Psychology, self-awareness
For almost twenty-five years, I studied the habits and mindsets of foreign spies assigned to the U.S. to steal American classified and proprietary information. I needed to find ways to get these people to talk to me and understand how they thought about themselves,...
by Larae Quy | Apr 10, 2024 | personal achievement, personal leadership, Positive Mindset, Psychology, self-awareness
COVID, a troubled economy, and a violent rise of nationalism worldwide have ushered in a modern version of the Dark Ages. Doom and gloom scenarios assault us at every turn. There are days when we need to be Pollyanna on steroids to remain positive. Much research has...
by Larae Quy | Mar 16, 2024 | Anxiety, Positive Mindset, Psychology, self-awareness
I grew up with a strong sense of right and wrong, and those values impacted my deepest beliefs about my behavior. They guided my decisions, including the one to become an FBI agent at the age of twenty-five. While values and morals are related, they differ because...
by Larae Quy | Feb 1, 2024 | Mental toughness, personal achievement, personal leadership, Psychology, self-awareness
The four years I worked as the spokesperson for the FBI in Northern California were the busiest of my career. I’d spent the previous twenty years as an agent investigating counterintelligence and espionage cases. But, when I entered the world of public relations, I...
by Larae Quy | Jan 11, 2024 | Mental toughness, personal achievement, personal leadership, Positive Mindset, Psychology, self-awareness
As an undercover FBI agent, I had to learn how to lie to people. This is ironic because if an agent is less than honest in their investigations or their behavior toward others, it’s a legitimate reason to be fired from the FBI. I’d been raised to be honest with people...
by Larae Quy | Oct 30, 2023 | Mental toughness, personal achievement, personal leadership, Positive Mindset, Psychology, self-awareness
The FBI requires agents to take annual physicals, including a treadmill test every few years. That year was my time for the examination. Dr. General (his first name, believe it or not) hooked me up so he could follow my heart and lung responses. I was panting along at...
by Larae Quy | Oct 26, 2023 | Mental toughness, personal achievement, personal leadership, Positive Mindset, Psychology, self-awareness
As a kid growing up on a remote cattle ranch in Wyoming, I grew up scrappy. I had to be fast to outrun a charging bull and innovative enough to find a way to saddle a horse so tall that my stirrup came to rest at eye level. I never thought much about well-being and...
by Larae Quy | Sep 29, 2023 | Mental toughness, personal achievement, personal leadership, Positive Mindset, Psychology, self-awareness
As an FBI agent, I quickly learned that the “needs of the Bureau” would always come first. Transfers, assignments, and caseloads were handed out with little or no consideration for how they would impact the agent. We were given jobs that often seemed impossible to fit...
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