Professor Gad Saad Used to Be a Mossad Agent? [CLIP]

So I kind of couldn't believe it in the book. You let the cat out of the bag. You're actually a Mossad agent. Oh, you know, you are the first person on my media tour to actually either have read that far into the book or to mention it. I thought it would be the top story in every show. I mean, this is serious. This is serious stuff. And most people, you know, they're not as candid about this stuff, you know. I thought that maybe I had extended the statute of limitation, that they won't come after me at this point. Do you want me to tell that story? Yeah, sure. So that actually is something that I discuss in the chapter on play, the importance of, you know, living your life with a playful mindset. Now, you might say, how does the Mossad fit with play? Well, so when I was about 18 years old, I had a cousin who had come from Israel who said, hey, you know, I have a friend of mine who would like to meet you, to chat with you. I'm thinking, for what purpose? So, you know, he'll talk to you. So I meet this gentleman. He says, oh, there are some guys who would like to meet you and see if you're interested in working with them. And so I meet these gentlemen who don't introduce themselves as being Mossad agents or whatever. They say, oh, you know, we're interested in checking the quality of our security in various environments. Would you be interested in being the person who does some of these tests for us? I said, tell me more. So the first mission that I went on was I was asked to go to an El Al office in downtown Montreal, walk in there. Everything was scripted. They told me exactly what to do. Walk in with a bag, ask some questions, then take the bag, leave it there and end up leaving without taking the bag. Did you actually look in the bag before you dropped it? I did not look in the bag. I'd like to think that there weren't any bombs. And so I did that. And then the security person came, oh, you forgot your bag and so on. So the test was done successfully. I don't remember exactly how long after, a couple of weeks later, they asked to meet me again. They said, we have a more challenging mission for you. You are now a student at, I think it was University of Montreal. It's a fake story that they're asking me to play a role. You're working on a paper, whatever, Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You'd like to interview the Israeli consul in Montreal. And what we're going to do is in your glove, you know, Montreal is a very cold place. In your gloves, there's going to be a fake gun. And the idea is to then see if they catch. Now, this one was a lot more elaborate in that there were multiple layers of security. And in the final layer, if I can get through all of the different things, there would be a very detailed pat-down. And I remember telling them, but what if he finds the gun, I mean, the fake gun? I said, don't worry, we're behind this. Like, it's secure. And so I go through all the stages. I, the guy, I noticed that he's getting stressed. They asked him to stop. Now they're very happy because they're, in a sense, I mean, I don't have confirmation of this, but I think it was two tests that were happening. Test one is literally the security. Test two is this guy, someone that is worthy to keep working with him because, and again, I'm speculating here, but I think it's on solid ground. I'm kind of the dream of the Mossad and associated agencies because I'm the Lebanese Jew who's a perfect Arabic speaker, left Lebanon. The most famous case of the Israeli spy game is someone named Eli Cohen, who was executed by the Syrians, having infiltrated the highest ranks of Syrian society, who, because he was a perfect Arabic speaker, was able to infiltrate the highest society of Syria. And so I can't know for sure that that's where I was heading, but it certainly seemed as though they were testing me. And then there was a third mission, which apparently I was told I shouldn't speak too much about it based on the legal review of my book from my publisher, but where I was going to go on a third mission that kind of raised the stakes of what I was being tested on. And as I tell in the book, what ended it is something that the Mossad is apparently very afraid of, and that's the angry Jewish mother. And so apparently my mother found out. And the only way that she could have found out, by the way, because I never told anybody, I didn't even tell anybody these stories for something like 25 years after the fact. It might have well been my now wife who first, maybe I was trying to impress her when we were going out on our first courtship dating. And so I think it must have been my cousin who would have told her, because there's no other way that there would have been a leak, that must have said, oh, you know, Gad is doing really well, he's working well with these guys, whatever. And then she ended up saying this has to end. She was going to blow it in the open. These guys don't really like to have a lot of attention. And so that was the end of my Israeli spy game career. Well, and so you tell the story, of course, in the context of, you're explaining how being playful or having a playful nature is something that's actually very closely tied with happiness, or at least the pursuit of it. So let's talk about humor a little bit. Sure. Okay, because we need it. And in our current cultural moment, it's almost like you're afraid to say anything, because who knows who it might offend, right? Which is, humor typically is offensive, right? That's part of how it works. So you said something, I thought this was so fascinating, ideas that cannot be mocked cannot be true. I think this is one of the most profound things in the book. You probably say, well, there's a lot more profound things, knowing you, but that is a very interesting idea. Well, and I think off air, we were talking about the concept of anti-fragility, that speaks to anti-fragility, because if an idea cannot withstand the stressor of mockery, of derision, of being made fun of, that means it's too brittle. That means it can't be true. It breaks. And so, and that's why, by the way, dictators will often round up the satirists first, the guys with the sharp tongue and the mighty sword. They don't go after the guys with the big muscles. Those guys, we can handle them easily. It's the guy who can attack the legitimacy of my existence on the throne that I have to go after. That's the guy with the sharp tongue. And so I use humor for two different reasons. I use humor because, number one, it often conveys the message in a very punchy, poignant way, memorable way. But I also use it as a self-medication tool. When I'm seeing all the lunacy, it helps kind of diffuse the pressure that's building in me, the pressure of frustration to just laugh at it. So there are really two purposes to my use of humor. Is it obvious that having good humor or being able to appreciate good humor lends itself to happiness? Is that obvious? I mean, to me it should be, but there's even research that shows that there are physiological downstream benefits to humor. There's the classic movie with the real character Patch Adams who used all kinds of humor in his medical practice. And then there's a famous quote in the movie that I actually quote in the book where he starts citing some of the medical benefits of laughing, of having a humorous, sunny disposition. And so, yeah, even in the worst of circumstances, whether when I went through the Lebanese Civil War or I think even worse, in the Holocaust, people found a way to retain their humor, to retain their playful attitude. So even in the most precarious situations, we have this innate need to bond with things that are funny, uplifting. Linking my Lebanese Civil War story to the topic of happiness, paradoxically, it has actually taught me to always attach myself to a sense of gratitude and happiness. Because whenever I feel bad about something, you know, even it could be something very trivial or something a bit more profound, I can always contextualize it against the backdrop of what I faced in Lebanon. And what I could have not escaped from. And so I think we were talking earlier at lunch, oh, I'm whining about I missed this flight. It was canceled. I actually missing tonight's flight. And then I stop and think, come on, man, you escaped Lebanon. You went through. I mean, get it together. And so having gone through some of these trials and tribulations allows me to even appreciate the majesty of life that much more. Fortunate.