When I was a kid, I had all sorts of wild fantasies about how my life would turn out.

I would become a secret agent working undercover for the CIA.

I would have my own TV show.

I would marry into the Kennedy clan. Although none of those

childhood dreams came true for me, my guest today, Ambrilist Fox, has done them all.

Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Levitt.

Emerillist Fox spent nearly a decade working as a CIA operative, recounting her experiences

in the bestselling book, Life Undercover, Coming of Age in the CIA.

More recently, she helped create and hosted the Netflix series The Business of Drugs.

She's also married to the grandson of Robert Kennedy.

But describing what she's done doesn't begin to capture who she is.

Amarylis is unlike anyone I've ever met.

She's an impossible mix of fearlessness, intelligence, empathy, and charisma.

Ampherson? and charisma. Ameralist, Fox, it is such a pleasure to have the chance to talk with you today.

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for the invitation.

So you were not exactly a typical teenager. How did you spend the money your mom gave you for

a prom dress? Well, much to my mother's

chagrin, I took that money and added it to a little bit of savings that I had for school

books in college. And I bought a plane ticket to Southeast Asia to go volunteer on the Thai-Burmuse

border for what was supposed to be a couple of weeks, but ended up being

a year of really full exposure to the fight for Burmese democracy, which unfortunately, I think

we all thought was farther along than it turns out to have been.

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