My public school years weren’t that different from yours. There were too many students, too little money, too much free time, and too little supervision. The whole world seemed to revolve around Friday night football games and rumors about who was having sex with who… and who wasn’t having sex at all.
I joined the Air Force after high school, less out of love than for the opportunity. I needed to get out of my hometown and the military was the fastest way with the highest pay. I was only 18, but I thought I was ready for the world.
I was wrong.The military humbled me. It taught me how to follow rules that need to be followed and how to break rules built to be broken. It showed me that competence didn’t equal success, and that incompetence can carry people just high enough to hurt others.
I won awards, earned enemies, lost friends, and gained enough perspective to know that I still had a lot of growth still ahead of me.
CIA found me in the last few months before I traded my uniform out for a pair of torn jeans. I was ready for civilian life; ready for long hair and a beard, ready for women that wouldn’t remember me and wouldn’t care.
On the road to nowhere I found the opportunity to go somewhere amazing. And I took it.
My time at CIA was exciting, heart-breaking, terrifying and transformational.
My years of service – first in uniform and then in the shadows – taught me that there is no greater reward than serving others. Not because you have to, but because you want to. That’s the joy a father feels when he sees his sleeping child. That’s the thrill a teacher feels when they watch a student thrive. That’s the tear you see in the eye of the dying just as they pass away.
My mission now is simple: to share spy education that breaks barriers.
Your barriers may feel personal to you, but they are shared by thousands. They are common across time, across borders, and across cultures. And while they have tied others down, they will not hold you back. Because you found EverydaySpy.
We are here to break barriers together.
The world needs heroes – it always has and it always will.
Heroes are made from everyday people, just like you and me. They aren’t born, they are trained. Trained to become smarter, stronger, and more capable than they ever thought possible.
That’s a mission I can’t ignore.
And that is an adventure you can’t turn down.
One Life. No Compromise.
Andrew Bustamante
FOUNDER
EVERYDAYSPY
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