5 Psychological Tricks To READ ANYONE! | Evy Poumpouras & Chris Voss

Curiosity is wonderful. So let them tell you stuff, ask questions because you're curious, and then you'll get more information rather than.

I found out more about the guy sitting on the plane next to me than he's told anybody in 20 years with the same kind of an exercise.

If I walk into most rooms, like I had a show last night for 85 people in San Antonio, Texas, I knew every single person's name in that room, every single person's first name, how.

Do we all lie, all human beings, and is it okay to lie?

All people lie. The research varies. Some research says some people will lie 10 times within a conversation.

10 times? Like in one sentence or 30-minute conversation?

Hi, how are you? I'm great. How are you? Meanwhile, I just had a fight with my significant other. So that would be a lie. Then also, lying by omission is a big thing. People think that that I have to say the lie for it to be a lie, but I can tell you a story and leave something out that changes the context of the story. So now the story is not accurate. I mislead you. That is a lie. And actually the number one way people lie is by omission. Because most people don't like to lie. They're not comfortable with it. You know, it's not natural to us. It's work. It's a lot of work. It's very hard.

'Cause you gotta remember what you said too, right?

You gotta remember it. You have to stick to it because you may have to repeat that lie again later on. Oh my God. And it really is a credibility killer. It's just not worth doing. And so it's a lot of work to do cognitively. So it is actually easier to leave something out. I don't feel as bad. And then when you ask me, Louis, I say, oh, you know, I forgot to tell you that part.

And then you lose credibility.

If I lie like that, I may not lose as much. It's when people outright lie and then so you probably you did some outright lies. Did you do this?

Yes or no? No, I didn't do it.

Or how about this? No, I didn't do it. Yeah, right.

No.

That's like one of the indicators when people say their body doesn't match with doesn't match what they say. So they'll say no. Yes. Yeah. And so you'll see the body will do this. Like the body's in conflict with what they're seeing. It doesn't happen to everybody. It's everybody. Everyone is so unique and so different. And I think what popular culture likes to do is say, everybody will do this, everybody will do that. And that's just, it's false. And there's no easy way to read people. It's work. It's studying the person, understanding human behavior, knowing that person, paying attention to their mannerisms. So like when I speak, I use illustrators when I speak. So if I'm telling you a story, I went here last night, I did this, I saw that. Now you ask me something, you know, Evie, is this your favorite podcast? Which it is.

I don't know.

Right, but I start, you know, I put my hands down and I change my mannerisms. Now I'm stoic, I'm not moving. In fact, people who do lie tend to move less, actually. Because I'm working, I'm working, this is work. So I'm thinking, I'm focused, So there's all those indicators that do help you kind of filter out what's going on with the other person.

So using body language and being more expressive hides the lie if you are lying?

If you're usually, not all. I want to be, you know, because some people that don't use a lot of maneuvers, they're always stoic. Sure, sure, sure. And so that's just what they are all the time. But if you have someone who is illustrative, who's always talking with their hands, and now you ask them a question that they're uncomfortable with or they want to lie to you about, you'll see less movement in the body.

What would be three questions if you could only ask three questions to a human being to figure out if they're telling a lie or telling the truth? How would you start those three questions? What would they be?

TED. T-E-D. Tell me, explain, describe. Then I would fill in the rest. Tell me what you did last night. Rather than who did you out with last night or were you with Sam last night? So tell me what you did last night. Explain to me how important this relationship is to you. Describe to me what you want in this business partnership. Those questions allow people to tell a story. So if you really want to read someone out, read somebody, you want them to tell you a story. So the more I can get you to tell me a story, I hear you, I'm watching you, I'm getting your mannerisms down, everything, but then you're also telling me what is important to you, what is of value to you. And then when you do that, now I don't have to sit there and guess and figure out, oh, how should I start my business pitch with Louis? You already told me the things you like, and so I can come in and speak to you in an intelligent way rather than trying to guess what to say. So ideally, when you start a conversation, and this could be for anything, it's not just catching a lie. This is really just trying to start a conversation. TED, TED, tell me, explain, describe. You start big, you get people talking and telling you stuff, even though you're like, I want to know this specific thing. But if I ask this specific thing, this person's going to shut down on me. So I can't go straight for that. So what you do is you narrow it. You get closer, you go from vague to more accurate to more accurate to then in the end you get to that direct question because you've worked them to that point. So for example, if you had a case where somebody was murdered or killed, right? And you had a suspect, you wouldn't say, Did you kill her? You would never say that. In fact, you wouldn't get there till maybe two hours into the conversation. That's like you get there, it's over time. Because it's a serious thing. It's an ugly word. And I might not even say, did you kill her? Did you hurt her? Did you harm her? Did something happen? And I would get you-- so I would never ask it that way. You get the person to give you admissions. Like, for example, yes, I was there. I was at the house. Or yes, I did this. You know, you want them to give you a little bit, and then eventually you get more admissions, more admissions. Interesting. You start to paint a picture, and then you never actually have to ask them-- They tell you. Did you kill? They eventually tell you.

So you were at the scene. You were there at the same time. You were holding the knife.

They tell you all of it. But you walk them through that process. Interesting. And so when you watch these TV shows or when you ask somebody a direct question and you want a direct answer and you don't get it, this is why. It's work. It's a lot of work to connect with people, read people. And I think that's why, and I think society makes it seem like do these three tricks and you'll have people eating out of your hand in it. It doesn't work. It's not true. And this is why people struggle because they're looking for the easy way. when it's really about human behavior, the person across from you, like understanding them, being curious. Curiosity is wonderful. So let them tell you stuff, ask questions because you're curious, and then you'll get more information rather than trying to go for exactly what you want to know. And then the other thing too that helps with conversations is something called adaptability. which a lot of people don't have. Like, if I have a conversation with you and I specifically want to know one thing, but you want to tell me a whole other story around it, people don't have the patience. And so, like, no, no, no, no, no, we're talking about something else. Like, stick to the topic. And when you do that, you break rapport, you hurt the conversation. So a part of it is being patient. Let them take you a little bit on a journey, and then slowly you can bring them back to where you want. But sometimes we come in so rigid, no, no, I have to talk about this. This is the topic, and you're not able to adapt. So adaptability is being, is allowing a person to take you where they want to go, letting somebody sit in the driver's seat for a little bit.

So you're telling me when my girlfriend is arguing with me about one thing, but then doesn't want to address it and takes it around the The playground of all these other conversations, I get to listen to all those things to get it back to where I want to go to.

Perhaps.

As opposed to say, baby, let's just focus on the problem right here.

Well, it sounds actually like your girlfriend is actually more of an identity-based person.

What does that mean?

Okay, so there's instructional, there's identity. So if I'm talking to you and I want to tell you, you know, you want to tell me basically, Evy, if you stop talking to this person, your life will be easier, right? You know, cut this person out of your life, right? And I'm like, no, I want to tell you how I feel. No, this makes me feel this way. This makes me feel that way. But you don't know, and you're just.

Kind of like, all you have to.

Do- is cut them out of your life. Cut this person out of your life. Or all you have to do is this one thing, problem solved. You are instructional. Let's just get to the point. What do we got to do to fix it? One, two, three, done. Identity is, I don't want to hear that. I want to take you on the journey with me to tell you how I feel. This person or when we are in that space, this means this person just wants to tell you how they're feeling. They want to tell you about their identity. What's happening is about their identity. So, she doesn't want your solution. She doesn't want you to tell you what to do. She wants you to listen to her. And so, it's not even about solving it. And so I think that's another place where we get stuck. Like, here's the solution. And it's like, no, no, I don't want that. And you're like, but you're telling me you have this problem if you just do this. You're instructional, their identity. What are you? I'm typically instructional. I'm very like, just tell me what I need to know. I don't need to go through the circle. But when I speak to other people and I realize that their identity or in that moment, they want to tell me this whole story and I'm just like, dude, oh, we got to talk about this one little thing problem solved. I let them go. Wow. If you have the patience. It depends what the topic is, but she's identity-based. So I think every time you talk with her.