Step with me into the shadows, where we will study The Art of Spycraft,
We'll take a break for this week with the seasonal content I've been trying to shoehorn into The Art of Spycraft. Instead I'd like to focus on a subject receiving endless debate right now. The prospect of America's Tier 1 operators engaging in lethal action against Mexican drug cartels smuggling drugs across the U.S. Southern border has been raised several times since the election of Donald Trump. I've written about this previously, and in tomorrow's Spycraft Dead Drop, I'll be writing about these elite individual Tier 1 units. But what really makes these operators elite is their mastery of soft skills. So, what are these elite skills, how can you learn them, and how can they be applied to your life?
Soft skills are the intangible abilities that separate good from great in any field. They differ from what can be considered “Hard skills”, like combat ability, physical strength, and stamina.
For Tier 1 operators, these skills—emotional intelligence, adaptability, situational awareness, communication, and trust-building—are as crucial as their physical and tactical capabilities.
The exciting part here is that you and I may not have all the training, abilities, and equipment of a Delta Force operator but, we can cultivate these same soft skills to become more elite in our own lives.