On July 6, 2003, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s historic op-ed, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” appeared in The New York Times. A week later, Robert Novak revealed in his Washington Post column that Ambassador Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative. 

It ended her covert career and set off a political scandal that rocked the Bush/Cheney White House. The public disclosure of that secret information spurred a federal investigation and led to the trial and conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, and the Wilsons’ civil suit against top officials of the Bush administration. 

Valerie had worked to protect America’s national Security and prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in particular, nuclear weapons. All that ended, with the public disclosure. 

Valerie has amazing resilience and skillsets. Today she is serves on a number of boards and is affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute, the trans-disciplinary scientific think tank created by two Nobel Prize winners to address the most compelling and complex problems in the world today.

Valerie has lectured throughout the country and internationally on cyber security issues, national security, nuclear proliferation, women in intelligence, and the NSA revelations, and authored The New York Times best-selling memoir Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, which was also released as a major motion picture of the same name starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. 

Along with Sarah Lovett, she’s written two fictional spy thrillers Blowback and Burned. She also served as the narrator and appeared as an expert in the film Countdown to Zero, a documentary on the threat of nuclear war. Valerie also heads up the TED-like annual conference, Spies, Lies, and Nukes in Santa Fe.

Valerie has lived her life in full in public, and private service and is an inspiration to each and every one of us.

Most Recent Episodes

October 1, 2024

Ben Guttmann on the Power of Simplicity

We are not as smart as we think we are.  We're busy and distracted in a world that is incentivized to continually make us more of both. The only things that work, the only messages that cut through...

Listen · 1:18:08

September 1, 2024

Daniel Goleman, PhD, on Emotional Intelligence and Optimal Performance on

You have likely seen moments of peak performance—perhaps an athlete plays a perfect game or a business that has a quarter with once-in-a-lifetime profits. Perhaps you have experienced something...

Listen · 45:01

August 1, 2024

Topaz Adizes on How a Single Conversation Can Change a Relationship Forever

Have you ever found yourself in the presence of someone you love dearly and had nothing to say? The silence, not indicative of your care for the other, nor of your desire to connect with them, and...

Listen · 1:03:32

Load More Episodes

Dr. Chris Stout Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Chris Stout is a licensed clinical psychologist and international humanitarian with a diverse background in various domains. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Global Initiatives (a Top-Rated Nonprofit) and is the Executive Producer and Host of the popular “Living a Life in Full” a top-ranked podcast with an audience of over 3 million. He was a Fellow in the School of Public Health and Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois, Chicago and prior to that he held an academic appointment at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He served as a NGO Special Representative and had the honor of speaking at the United Nations; he holds the distinction of being one of only 100 world-wide leaders appointed to the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders of Tomorrow and was an Invited Faculty at the Annual Meeting in Davos.