Episode 10 · May 10, 2026 · A Healthy Conversation
with Leigh Dal · Retired FBI and CIA Agent
About this episode
Leigh Dal spent nearly fifteen years in the national security sector, working as an analyst with the FBI and within the CIA on both domestic and global counterintelligence and counterterrorism. She describes intelligence as a slow, careful assembly of small pieces gathered across many agencies, put together by analysts who assign a confidence level before that picture reaches the policymakers who must decide what it means. Her account replaces the fast-paced version familiar from television with something steadier and more human, built on judgment, patience, and the work of many hands.
A graduate of American University, where she earned degrees in communications and public policy, Dal draws a clear line between threat, which carries an imminent quality, and risk, which sits further away. She offers ordinary listeners a way to hold uncertainty without living in fear, zooming out from each alarming headline to the larger, statistical picture. On questions of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and a distorted information environment, she encourages drawing on many sources and forming one's own view rather than trusting a single feed or algorithm.
Since moving to Maine, Dal has found a lower stress level, deeper friendships, and a renewed attention to the present. She walks the woods without headphones, plays tennis, and notices the smell of fall leaves she had stopped pausing to take in. Her conversation closes on a quieter kind of resilience, grounded in place, honest self-reflection, and genuine human connection as a pillar of health.
From this episode
“It's not as fast as TV would like to have you see it happen. That would be a miracle. But that's unfortunately not quite the way it works. It can be fast paced, depending on the operation or the investigation, but not quite in that 45 minute segment.”
“If people can zoom out and look at things more macro versus micro and say, you know, is this car going to hit me right now? What is the statistical likelihood, that then that might be a healthier way to approach a threat or a risk, rather than feeling fear constantly.”