175: Sizing People Up with Former FBI Agent Robin Dreeke

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Welcome everybody. I'm so thrilled to be here today with Robin Dreek. He is an author and a fascinating man who's a former Marine and FBI agent and an expert in interpersonal relations and behavior for the past 30 years, both within the US government and the private sector. Today we're talking about his latest book, Sizing People, a veteran FBI agent's user manual for behavior prediction. It's a powerful six step system to assess who you can trust and who you can't. Robin, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Jenny. And I love the introduction. That's the best one I've ever had. A fascinating man. That's awesome.

I ad libbed that. I just threw it in there.

That's very kind, thank you.

It must be interesting doing a podcast tour for the book and writing about trust. I wonder how do you form these connections and first impressions with people that you. In this case, we're not even on video. You just have a couple seconds to either trust or not or build a relationship or not. How has that been for you since this book came out?

It's really easy and nice actually. And actually you just demonstrated really quickly right off the bat. 1. You did a great job of making it all about me because I'm on time constraint and you're very accommodating. I can hear your smile through the mic, so it's beautiful because the first thing you're always looking for if you're trying to do a quick assessment of people, is you're looking for nonverbal comfort displays in the face, which are smiling, a little bit of head tilt, some eyebrow elevation obviously. And when you can't see someone, what you're always doing is looking for language Language is beautiful, you know, so when you're seeking people's thoughts and opinions, talk in terms of what's important to them, validating everything about them in their lives without judging them, and we're giving them choices, those are the really telltale first signs you can look for when you actually are trying to assess someone as to whether they're looking for a good, healthy interaction or not.

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. I'm glad you described both when you can see someone and when you can't, because I, in my past have done a lot of career coaching and people used to ask why I don't do it in person or even on video. And for me, there was something very intimate about only hearing each other's voice and that actually then we weren't distracted by what the other person was wearing or how they were looking. And I guess in your profession I could have gotten a lot more data that way, but at the same time, I learned how to really tune in to their tone of voice and their energy and those micro nuances. So maybe in that way it trains me more for the audio side of things than in person analysis.

Well, you know, I believe there's no right or wrong to doing anything. But one thing that you're able to do when you're focusing like you do so much on, on the voice, is you're paying attention to the words. And when people are sharing words, what they're. Every time they're sharing something, they're sharing their priorities. And the most important thing to do is when you're dialoguing with someone, if you're looking for them to actually pay attention to you is talk in terms of what's their priorities. And so when you're not distracted with other input, you can really focus on what their words and priorities are. So really nice.

I'm curious. You said something in the book, and you can explain this better than me, something around intuition. And I remember, I almost remember you saying not to entirely trust your intuition, but maybe you do. I'm curious where you stand on this. Sometimes I feel like I'll meet someone or interact, and within like microseconds, I just know that I cannot trust them. It's something in their eyes, or I have a certain radar, or I'm a highly sensitive person. I don't know what it is, but my intuition alarms go off. And then, of course, every now and then, it's possible to be wrong about someone or make snap judgments. How do you help people discern who to trust and especially when those alarm bells go off and you don't even know why, you can't even explain why.

Absolutely. And I think intuition is fantastic as long as you kind of can start assessing exactly what your intuition is, kind of categorize it for yourself. I kind of break down intuition into two different categories, and some people are better at one than the other, and some people are better than the other than the other. And some people can put them both together. And so here's what I think of intuition. Intuition is that gut feeling like you described. But gut feelings actually come from input. You just don't have this magical spider sense that goes off. It's actually coming from somewhere. And the first side of intuition, I think, is kind of the one that can be very, very misleading. When assessing someone, whether you can trust them or slash, predict their behavior is liking. If you like someone. We tend to think we can trust them to do things and perform a certain way. But liking someone has nothing to do with, you know, expectations of performance in areas, because liking someone is generally based upon, you know, overlapping and similar morals, ethics, beliefs, backgrounds.

Interest. All those different things kind of go into whether we like someone or don't like someone. And a lot of people use that side of intuition, which can be very misleading. If you're like someone and you expect them to be able to perform a certain task, well, you actually haven't looked at the task you're asking them to perform, if they can actually do it or not. And so then they'll let you down, and then you ruin a relationship because you said, I like them and I should have been able to trust you to do this. So that's one side. The other side is a side I think you were describing, and you're. So the other side of intuition is where we're looking for what I call congruence. And that's congruence between the words they're saying and their nonverbals are giving off. And so I quickly described, you know, at the beginning. You know, the fifth sign of assessing people is language. And the language I always like to demonstrate to other people that demonstrates that I'm actually trying to affiliate with them and that I'm demonstrating that I value them, is I'm always going to seek their thoughts and opinions. I'm going to talk in terms of their priorities and what's important to them. I'm going to validate the things they're saying and who they are without judging them, and I'm going to give them choices, because that's what we do with people that we value. We want to build trust with them we have a relationship with. Now if someone's doing that back to me, it's fantastic. But what I'm also looking for at the same time is I'm looking for those positive nonverbal indicators that they actually have great comfort when saying those things. So I am looking for them to smile. I'm looking for a little bit of head tilt exposure, a little bit of the carotid artery in the neck. I'm looking for some eyebrow elevation. I'm looking for your palms facing upwards. All these upward and outward elevation moves are saying and demonstrating that I have high comfort with these great words I'm making about you. I guarantee that most likely the times when your spider senses are going off and your people are kind of creeping you out and things aren't seeming right is they might be saying the right words like we just described, but they're demonstrating a lot of stress on non verbals potentially where their eyebrows might be a little compressed or lips are compressed, maybe they're pulling away from you or blocking or bleeding away from you in some way. So in other words, there's some incongruence between their nonverbal indicators and then maybe their words.

I've also found they don't blink. There's like this crazy eye penetration happening.

Is that. Yeah, that's a thing. Yeah, you know, it can be a couple things, you know, so blink rate is blink rate and eye movement is extremely individualistic. I remember years ago, you know, there's a. Not a very good research study that was done, I think believe it was in the 80s that said, hey, if someone looks up into the right, that means one thing, down into the left that means. Yeah, yeah, that's really been debunked a lot. Eye movement can be very indicative of things potentially, but it's very individualistic. So you need like thousands of data points for the one individual to see what that one individual is. So just because someone isn't blinking doesn't necessarily mean anything unless you understand what that means for them. In other words, someone might just be, you know, it's kind of like that resting angry face that people sometimes have. It's hard to hold it against them. So the best thing to do if you do have one of these behaviors that might be off putting like that is kind of, and you can't do anything about it is kind of make an excuse for it right at the beginning of a conversation and say, listen, I look like I'm really highly intense and really coming at you. But just realize that's my natural paying attention to you to look. So I apologize. But that being said, if someone is doing that, and it does, it tends to have a sign of intensity, tends to have also a predatory type association look with it. So I wouldn't discount it, but I. You might want to explore it because you don't want to, you don't want to write everyone off just because they have a certain look. At the same time though, it should give you pause and, and some questioning in your head.

So good job right in it. I guess it goes along with their energy too, that there is. Sometimes it's almost like there's. I don't know, some people have a dark cloud. I can just. There's. There's energy that people have that's either light and bright or dark, opaque, secretive in a way.

You also mentioned it's interesting someone, when you shook hands with her, she had very cold hands and that that was a signal, could be a signal of nervousness. Now, like you said, it might be individual. Some people might just be very cold.

But that's interesting and I totally agree. You know, some people that you know now, it is definitely intuition, but it's intuition based on observation and experience also between experienced people that are, that are light and open and dark opaque. And basically what you're looking for is you're picking up on transparency or lack of transparency, because people that are transparent and open are very agreeable and they're easily formed good, healthy relationships with generally. And other people that might be super intense and think that they have to win over you or conquer you or conquer the world or beat others. Yeah, they'll tend to have a more, you know, as you described, a dark or definitely more intense look about them.

I'm so glad you brought up that phrase about winning, because I love in the chapter on Mr. X, which is a Silicon Valley executive and corporate security firm, and you say, I'll read from the book, you say he had talked about winning trust of the clients. You said win. Trust is a phrase I never use because trust isn't a game. And winning trust makes no more sense than winning love in either case. It is given freely or it doesn't exist.

Right? Yeah, because winning, you know, when you use that term, winning, you know, winning generally gives off the connotation that I want to conquer, I want to win. And trust is not about what you say it is. Trust is about what the other person says it is because you cannot make someone trust you. And that's what you're saying basically saying, I want to win trust. You want to say, I want to make you trust me. And there's no way you can make anyone do anything. It's the difference I call between convincing someone to put something by inspiring them to do something. Because convincing someone to do something, which a lot of people try to do every day in their lives, whether it's in sales or personal life or business, is, you know, you can't convince anyone of anything because convincing is about you and your priorities. If you want to inspire someone to do something, inspiration is about them and their ideas. And all you're trying to do is discover how can I inspire them to want to. You know, instead of trying to convince someone to trust you, which you can't, you think in terms of how can I inspire them to want to trust me? Because that makes the focus on them.

I love that shift. And it reminds me, the other day, someone was talking to me about negotiations in business, which is something I'm working on. And they said, negotiations are like war. And right away I stopped them. Like, that's not how I do business. I do business for the highest good for all involved. That's my aim in a negotiation. So I've loved reading this in your book because I even try to stop using language. I know you're probably going to laugh at me, but kill two birds with one stone. You know, we joke in my momentum community, like, why are we killing all these birds? Like, so I just shifted it. And there's all kinds of metaphor in our language, especially in business of like, war, battle, competition, win. And I just love your perspective on this that.

Thank you so much.

It's not zero sum.

I am completely so on board with you with this, with language. Language means so much. And every little nuance of words, matter of fact, one of my, my three anchors, my ends, goals for every encounter I have with everyone is my first one is everything I say and do. I got to make sure that it's going to help and support a healthy professional relationship. Number two is I got to make sure I have open, honest communication, transparency. Because you can't have a healthy relationship without that. My third goes to what you're speaking about, which isn't war and winning. It's this. It's. I make myself an available resource for the success and prosperity of others with no expectation or reciprocity. No. So you offer up your goods and services in terms of their priorities, with no expectation. Because if you have an expectation, well, then who are you really doing it for. And if people. And now granted, I always say there's no right or wrong to any of this. There's just cause and effect. You can. People can conquer the world and they can have great businesses, you know, where they're winning, winning, winning. But I guarantee you that person and their brand compared to you and your brand is light and day different. And I'd rather live with a brand that people want to come back to rather than a brand where people leave with buyers remorse.

Absolutely. I love that you put that.

Yeah. And so with language. Even when I took over my behavioral team, we used to have language that was, you know, we'd have subjects of investigations or targets of investigations and we talked about their vulnerabilities. Oh my God, what a horrible way to think about another human being that we're trying to have a good, healthy engagement, you know, basically dialogue and relationship building with. So it's always about the individual that we're going to have a dialogue with. And we're not talking about vulnerabilities. You know, everyone doesn't have vulnerabilities. Everyone has priorities. So we'll talk in terms of people's priorities. We're talking in terms of them as a human human being. Because if people start getting a sense or picking up any slight nuance that you're demeaning them or looking down on them in any way, I guarantee you there's not going to be a level of trust.

Yeah. And it's so powerful, especially in the line of work that you're in, which often involved maybe working with people who were informants to the FBI. And instead of exploiting their vulnerabilities.

Oh my God.

Never the shift you described seeing them as human. And the story of Leo in the book is so beautiful of he Russian, he was living in the US and the breakthrough you had around realizing he wanted. He was like bouncing back from so much stress and trauma and turmoil in his life. And it was so important to him that he could get his, I believe it was his nephew or his grandson a visa to stay in the US like that was your breakthrough. Just seeing the humanity of what he was trying to do so that you could better partner with him.

You know, one of many, one of the beautiful. You know, obviously I changed names and things up in the book to protect people, but very, very real individual and a beautiful human being, a great patriot. And besides, you know, doing these things for him without expectation, reciprocity. The big thing was we totally valued each other, you know. You know, and that this is, you Know, the first sign, you know, of assessing people whether they're, you know, we call predicting behavior and assessing people for trust. But it's really, I'm assessing whether you're looking for a healthy relationship with me or not. That's what I'm really looking for. And if you don't, no harm, no foul, I just, you know, will back away and not force myself upon you in your life. But one of the first signs is vesting investing is where, you know, they're demonstrating through their actions, words and behaviors that they're as mute, as much interested in your success as their own and that the two are tied together. And we would strategize. I mean, we used to go to this Chinese restaurant near where he worked and no kidding, I know, I wrote about in book, you know, he was very dedicated to his job. He worked six to seven days a week, you know, got there like seven in the morning, stayed till seven at night, accommodating and being a resource for everyone that came in this place. And so we could never go out to, you know, talk business on my side of stuff until, you know, around seven, eight o' clock at night. It's out in Long island, you know, it's like two hours for me to get home from there, you know, and so it was long, long days for me. But we used to sit down and share a meal, you know, our favorite place. And we would talk for hours, just strategizing relationships, you know, and we're seeking our, you know, again, those four elements. We're seeking each other's thoughts and opinions, talking in terms of what was both important to both of us. We're validating the living heck out of each other, you know, without judging. And ultimately I gave him choices and he gave me choices on how we can move forward on these operations we were doing. It was really, really, really good.

I just love your emphasis on giving without expecting anything in return. And you also say that the more long term a person thinks a relationship is going to be, the more they'll sort of honor that relationship in a way. And that like, you know, it's so interesting how you frame just that.

The.

People are predictable in that you can predict they're going to operate in their self interest to an extent. And that doesn't make them a bad person. But removing the emotion and not taking it personally out of it helps us see, okay, what is important to this person and how do we both align those things?

Oh my gosh. And I deal with this all the time. You know, I have Two kids in college, my daughter's about to graduate. My son's a sophomore at the Naval Academy. And literally, you know, I look with my son last night, you know, he's talking about how, you know, someone in his company at the Naval Academy, you know, he thought would treat him really unfairly, unjustly, you know, and I keep just reversing the context for him. I said, kevin, you know, they weren't doing it to you. They were dealing with their own stress in their lives and they're making the best decisions they could for the things they're dealing with. And you just happen to be in the way that day. You know, this is not personal. You can take it personal if you want, but it has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with them. So try to understand why they have the behavior they have so you can have it more of acceptance, so you can actually make healthy decisions on how to move forward from there, which is.

Such a huge foundation for empathy overall, like trying to understand and, and I think that is such a big shift, especially for your son. And he is making that shift of. This isn't actually about me.

Yeah. And, you know, it's why it's so important that, you know, everything in life is based on relationships, you know, and I, you know, when you read my background, you know, at the intro, no kidding. I am nothing more than a hardcore, hard charging type A. I'm the kind of guy that would give you the creeps, you know, years ago, because I.

Love that you just admit it.

Oh, my gosh. I am a, you know. Do you ever take the Myers Briggs type indicator by any chance?

Yeah, yeah.

I am a TJ hardcore. You are.

Did I get it right?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. You know, life's natural leader, the executive. No, when you're 20 years old, narcissistic megalomaniac, you know, so I was all about conquering the world and thought it was all about how I made myself look, how I made myself valuable to other others through the things I did and what I started realizing later in life as I was failing majestically. Especially when you're in the hardest sales job in the world, which was mine, which was recruiting spies, which is nothing more than selling a product of American patriotism to foreign nationals that are diplomats from foreign countries, that are intelligence officers. That's, you know, it was illegal for me to approach. So that's, that's a tough sales job. And if you take that type A hard charging approach, you are going to fail hard. And so you have you know, I'm looking at the people that were successful around me. Like in the book Jesse Thorne, who's still a good friend of mine, he lives about five miles from me when he retired too. And these people had this majestic art form down, but they had no idea what they were doing. They're just being who they were. And so it was my life study and pursuit to how do I be like that? Take that art form and make it a paint by number so it can be repeatable. That's why I always say my books I've written are my manuals on how not to be the moron I was born to be.

That's a great way to put it. That's what my books are too, you know.

You know, it's so funny how to.

Not suffer awkwardly through something the hard way.

Well, it's, you know, it's such a great place in life when you can let go of your insecurities and. Because here's another truth, you know, and you said it already, one truth in life with all human beings is that we will, we will always act in our own best interests according to what we think it is in terms of safety, security and prosperity for us and our families. And so it can be very altruistic things. It can be, but basically we're going to take care of ourselves and our families first and foremost. And if we have time, we're going to expand that more time, expand it, you know, so that's what we do as human beings. And so all I got to do is figure out what you think is in your best interest, offer you resources in terms of that, and we might have a good relationship based on that. But the other thing is, is that we are all insecure about something. That's another guarantee. We're all born pretty perfect and the world messes us up for about 19 to 24 years until that prefrontal lobe is fully formed and we spend the rest of our lives trying to unscrew it. And so the faster you can admit to yourself what you suck at and you can start working on it, that's when you're going to be self aware and that's when people are going to really let their guards down around you. Because hey, I know what my strengths are. I got about one or two. And I don't need to focus on those. I need to understand what I really am horrible at so I can actually build tools around that so that I can actually be more valuable to other people.

That's so true. And that self awareness Allows us all not to overcompensate, which again creates that opacity. You also had such a powerful hero's journey, I would say, as you described being that hard charging, type A. I love your sense of humor around failing majestically or what you thought at that time was failing majestically. And then there you were downtown, September 11th, downtown. And you were in the next six months, if not a year, on fingers and toes duty, which is like, you know, so terrible to have to see every day. And you describe how you felt very helpless at that time. And. And then this shift, this like, breakthrough that you said feels neither like capitulation nor epiphany, was, you said the destruction of my dreams left me with nothing to lose. And my mindset shifted as if on its own and settled in a place that said it was acceptable to help one person at a time, take us to that moment and that realization that you didn't have to be this grand, hard charging hero, and that actually by helping one person at a time, that.

Was the way forward. Yeah, you use really great words with me. Thank you. Hero's Journey. I never thought of that before.

Because. So, yeah, so I was. I was about five blocks away, you know, like everyone in my office was because 26 Federal Plaza is about five or six blocks away from the old World Trade center, you know, so I saw it live. I saw eight people jump. I had an engine that hit the south tower laying about 40 or 50ft from my car. And so, yeah, we were the most. So everyone. Everything struck everyone different that day. For me, besides all of that, it was every day going down, whether it was going to ground zero at the Fresh Kills landfill, where you're literally raking for fingers and toes or anything to give back to family members, whether it's personal articles or genetic articles, anything so they could, you know, be at rest.

Lining the west side highway, up and down were hundreds, if not thousands of people every day, cheering.

Every time you stopped at a checkpoint, you had to have your windows rolled down because you're getting water, water bottles thrown in, homemade sandwiches from people that were volunteering to feed you. Respirators, I mean, you name it. And 24 hours a day there was this group, I called them the west side Guys. Not guys alone. It was women, children, everyone. They were manning around Christopher street down in Greenwich Village. And they're holding up candles day and night, rain or shine. And you felt this immense. And, you know, and these kids were holding up signs, please find my daddy. I mean, it was heart wrenching things. And you felt this incredible burden to save the world because so many people, you felt so many people were looking at you and counting on you to do something to make them feel safer. And at the end of the day, you know, you covered like one lead where you talked to one person that might have known one person. Or you found thing at a Fresh Kills landfill where you found nothing of value because it's just all a big crumpled pile of debris. And you went home at the end of the day, which was 12 on and 12 off, not accounting commute time. My kids didn't see me and my wife didn't see me for about six months. And you go home at the end of the day saying, what did I do to save the day today and save the world today? And you reflected on the very small nothing you did comparatively. And you said, I didn't do enough. I have to do more tomorrow to get in this cycle of not thinking you're doing enough to make a difference in the world. And after about a year of that, you really start over, working hard and, you know, relationships start deteriorating. I don't know what caused it. It's probably my wife because she's very good and objective with everything I've ever done in my career, because I remember every time I had an opportunity to do a promotion or do a transfer, her line is very simple to me. She always said, so are you going to be home more or are you going to be home less? Because we don't care what you do, we just want you home more. And it was a great way of laying a great guilt trip on me and reminding me that I'm a father and husband first. And she probably said something along that lines about a year into this. And that's when I kind of had that moment of, yeah, one person cannot save the world. It's just impossible. But you can make a difference one person at a time. And if you make enough one person differences, they might make one or two people differences. And that's how you change the world.

It's such a powerful shift. And even what your wife said, like, talk about just the humility in a way of family life. And my husband and I, we don't have kids, but we have a puppy.

And I realized three babies.

Yeah, it kind of. My work had for so long had been about one to many. How do I be as helpful as possible to as many people as possible? That was truly my motto all my twenties. Just because I had struggled through so much, I was always trying to share back out and then the more I build a family, it's like, oh, but then things zoom way in on the tiny family unit, you know, and they're both important and they both kind of balance each other out.

And people ask this all the time, too. It's so easy to tell, you know, you are so people oriented and you're so such a resource for others. And my whole mantra, too is, you know, again, that third anchor and available resource, success and prosperity of others. No expectation, reciprocity. I'm all about building trust and building relationships. People say, don't you have just way too many relationships? I said, no, do you? I mean, because it really comes down to, you know, if you have a good, healthy relationship, the people you interact daily with are people that you currently have overlapping priorities with. You know, whether it's overlapping priority of a project at work and overlapping priority that you're a neighbor and you have shared, shared fence line, you know, all these overlapping priorities. I mean, think about this. You know, everyone, most people anyway, have at least one or two friends from childhood that you were best friends with all through maybe elementary school, middle school, high school. And then all of a sudden, you know, it's like. It's like all sudden. What happened? You know, we don't see each other anymore. We don't communicate anymore. Yet when you see each other again, it's like no time had passed. And what happened? Well, you didn't have overlapping parties anymore. It's not. It doesn't mean the relationship is bad or gone. It just means that time and space are no longer colliding. And so that's why, you know, if I always say if I have a great first meeting with someone, you know, whether we're talking business or, you know, I can be, or they reach out for me to be a resource, I always end it with, hey, if nothing else, and like, even today with you, I say thank you so much for such a beautiful, great conversation. And if it's. And if it's a long time before we never chat again, just know I value today a lot because it was really worth it. So thank you.

Well, likewise to you as well. It's been fun to just connect. And what you don't know, before we hit record record, we shifted the timing a little bit. And I love that. I actually love that. That spontaneity and just saying, all right, In a way, it creates teamwork, right? It's like, okay, this is our new time constraint. Let's do it. Can we do this? You know.

I was, you know, because I always honored, you know, the first commitment first. I said, hey, if it didn't work out, great. If not, let me know. I can adjust. And you were so gracious and so fast responding because I've, you know. And you do a lot of these, too. I do. I've done tons of these over the years. And, you know, some people are very common. Everyone's always been very nice, always great host. But some people are busier and some people have time to accommodate, and you were just very kind. So it's very appreciative. So we hit it off right away. Me imposing on you and you just being saying, okay, no problems.

Well, you had a good head start because I was immersed in your book anyway, so. And then it was this weird moment. I'm like reading your book and then text from Robin Drake. I'm like, like, oh, okay, cool. And it's funny, some people are very strict about cancellations and their policy. And I. Maybe this is just a mindset shift, but I just take it as well. Then it must be perfect. Like, oh, you. If we need to shift the timing up, it must be perfect. I'll be done early. I'll have this opening to do this other thing I need. And even when clients cancel, I figure it must be perfect. I must need this extra hour today. So stay calm.

We are on such the same wavelength. You know, I'm a big believer. If it crosses my path, I meant to engage it, you know, and so I have. I. A lot of times I might not have any idea why or how, but if it's, you know, life is pretty much a norm and, you know, in your schedule, normal. And if something deviates from normal, I'm like, that's interesting. I got to pay attention to that because that's not normal. And it crossed my path for a reason, so. And norm. And every single one of those things that cross your path, it revolves. It involves a person and a person's relationship. Because everything. You know, this is the truth I've learned in life, you know, my last couple years. It's one. It's so funny. My books are, you know, everyone thinks you're going to get something spooky manipulation, spy book. And they're anything but that. It is about how to understand people at a very deep level so you can actually create relationships. Because without relationships, you can do nothing, absolutely nothing. You can have the greatest biology and genetics on the face of the planet, but without relationships, you might as well be a moron on top of a mountain by yourself, because you Cannot do anything without relationships. And so that's why you focus on relationships first, and everything else falls into.

Place and then within that. Trust has been such a key theme for you because you say without trust, you don't have a relationship.

Right. And it applies to everything, you know, because, you know, my lap. You know, my last book before this one was called A Code of Trust.

Yeah.

And I have these five steps of trust. And it was. It came about in such a random, not random way. The typical way that I've been living my life was, you know, hey, someone asked me to do something, explain something, or teach a class or. Or do a podcast. And you have to take that subjective art form and make it linear so you can share it. And what happened was with the Code of Trust and understanding the importance of it, someone asked me to do an article for the Law Enforcement bulletin back in 2013. And I mean, I've been doing rapport and I've been doing relationship building for years, you know, in the FBI, but I never actually took that optic back. And they. They said, hey, can you do one on counterintelligence? And I said, oh, let me write about what my team does, my behavioral analysis team. And it was the first time I actually took a step back. I mean, I knew what I. I knew how we did what we did. I assembled a team, we talked to a case agent about the individual they want to engage. We came up with a strategy for it. And I also came up with a strategy for them to deal with their management, to get support for the things they wanted to do. So it was basically strategizing how to talk to someone. And when I took that optic back and said, what I'm actually doing, what's the baseline of what I'm actually doing in all these cases and all these operations for my career and the career of others. And that's when it hit me like a ton of bricks. All I ever was doing was strategizing trust, because no one was going to do anything, cooperate, share information, follow you, you know, be. Be a friend of yours, unless there was trust. So in every instance, I was strategizing trust. And again, when you give things labels and meanings, you start recognizing it everywhere. I call it the new car effect. You know, you buy a new car, and all of a sudden you start seeing that same make and model everywhere because it has a label and meaning to you now. And so the same thing started having behaviors, and I gave it these labels and meanings, and I started recognizing, oh, my God, everything in life is trust. And what's the purpose of trust? Well, the purpose of trust is relationships and oh my God, everything's based on relationships. What an epiphany. How simple too the elusive obvious in life.

Yeah, and it's. You reminded me when you were talking about trust just now. What is the dynamic? You know how they say, like empaths often fall for narcissists or Maria Konnikova's book the Confidence Game was the subtitles. Why we fall for it every time. Like why good smart people get tricked basically, or get conned. So what do you think happens with people that are too trusting where they. And there might be very intelligent otherwise, but somehow trust the wrong people? How do you advise people to be cautious enough while still open and transparent?

Like we talked about, you know, it's a combination. You need that combination, that subjective, you know, art form of opening up. And you also need a cognitive thought process of maintaining objectivity. You know, in the book I coined that word stem pathy. And I believe stem pathy is really the key to maintaining a balance. And I have one other thing to remind me if I forget to mention it, there's one other thing too that will help you in those situations. So stem pathy is a combination of stoicism to me, which is basically just pure cause and effective behaviors and the impact of your behavior on others without bias, which is very difficult to do. I mean, no one can do it purely. But the more you can look at objectively at individuals and the words that you have and are using and their words that they're using as well. And that's why I have my six signs for assessing, you know, behavior in others. So you can assess an objective observation you can make so that you can actually open yourself up and be empathetic. Because that's where the second part of that sympathy comes in. The first part is that objective stoicism. Look at the cause and effect of. The second part is empathy. Because without empathy, you cannot have a healthy relationship or trust. And empathy is about understanding people at a very deep level. And so all these six signs for assessing people is about understanding people at a very deep level. So it's a combination of two coming together. So that's why I think is really important if you tend to be one of these people that is, you know, has a great abundance of optimism and positivity and openness towards others. It's a beautiful trait to have. It's, it's. You are the, you know, people like that are the glues of society, I believe. But if it's over an abundance. One thing you'll lack in another, which might be objectivity. And so if you can either act, start adding those behaviors on your own by, you know, doing things like I try to help people practice as well as safe beta testers is what I truly believe in in life, and that is someone in your life that can maintain objectivity for you. In other words, we tend to lose our objectivity when we're emotionally invested in something, and we. When we become emotionally. Yeah. And so if you have someone who maintains objectivity for you that you bounce everything off of that's not emotionally invested in the things you're trying to do, that's poetry. I mean, I'm very good. You know, I have. I have. Over the years, I've developed one strength, actually. I'm. I'm decent when I'm game on. And strategizing how to make a conversation about the other person. Strategizing trust with open, honest communication. Transparency. Again, no. No manipulation. I'm the counterintelligence guy that says, I will not lie to you. I will not use a pretext. I'm completely transparent. Because as soon as you. If you even detect any sense of manipulation, there won't be trust, no relationship. But that being said, before I do anything, before I send an email to someone, before I pick up a phone call, if it's, if it's deviates from that norm like I talked about, I will definitely bounce things off my wife. When I was at work, I'd bounce it off the guy I work with. And it's not because, you know, I suck and they're so much better than me or vice versa. No, no, no. It's. Objectivity gives us some great clarity sometimes. And I'll tell you, I resist it sometimes, you know, when my wife, you know, I'll want to do something because I'm a. Emotionally attached to wanting to do something a certain way, and she will, she'll get on me, and I've learned to shut up because if I start battling back too much, she said, fine, I'm not gonna help you. And then I'm. Then I'm really screwed.

Well, I love how you captured why an outside perspective is helpful. And it's that objectivity, and we don't have time to get into it, but just that if you're flooded by your own emotions or desires, you'll. And talk about, like, for me, dating in my 20s, it's like my. My brother and I had a guy that they were always way more skeptical of. Anyone I was dating than I could be, you know, and in a way.

They have a bias though as well.

That's true, actually. That's true. Like, no one's ever good enough.

Absolutely.

But in a good way. In a way that it's like, okay. And we do that for close friends as well. Like, hey, the red flag card. Just before I close this out. Did you cover the second thing you said reminds you?

Yeah, that was on. That second thing was. That second thing was the. Yeah, the beta test in life and, you know, whether it's you're writing a book and you need a beta test to read it for you, you know, because, you know, we live in our own mind and to us everything makes sense, but you got to make sure that makes sense of someone else. You know, I came up with this beta testing thing because that's exactly what we did with the. My behavioral team. If we had a, you know, a strategy that we had to give a case agent for how they're going to, you know, talk to and engage this other human being, the first thing we do is, all right, is tell them exactly what the strategy is and then have someone do it to them first to see what it felt like. So we actually, we told them, do a lot of role playing and see, you know, one practice on your own delivering, you know, this great communication strategy, but at the same time have someone do it to you so you know exactly what it feels like. And we actually told them to try to live a day in the life of the person that you want to have this engagement with. So, you know, exactly when would be most opportune, you know, when they're most open, you know, you know, in other words, how do you make it about them? Best way is to try to be them first to see how it feels.

Robin, thank you so much. This has been really a delight and a joy to talk with you and just get to know you better. Thank you so much for being here and where can listeners find you if they want to keep in touch?

First of all, thanks for being such a glorious person. This was like one of the funnest, fast moving chats I've had in a long time.

For me too.

For me too. We gotta do this again.

I agree.

Anyway, yeah, so my easy to get ahold of me is people formula, which is my website, peopleformula, all one word dot com. There. There's links to my books. You can get my books on Amazon, you know, sizing people ups on everywhere. But there's also I have podcasts like yours on there keynote speeches I call Death by Robin. If you didn't get enough here, you can have more there. And I do have a free online course on the 10 techniques to quick report. Probably take you about 30 minutes. And if you want to upsell, I got other ones being released later too.

Amazing. I love it. You have so much great work for people to dive into. And thank you for the kind words. I feel the exact same way. So we'll definitely do this again. And thank you for the impetus to have such a fun conversation. And that like little extra twist made it amazing. So thank you Robin.

I really appreciate it. Jenny thank you so much.

Have a goodbye everybody. Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter. Enny Blake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.