Top SECRET Psychological Strategies To Read Anyone & Get What You Want! w/Chris Voss & Evy Poumpouras EP 1203

This is episode number 1203 on the psychological strategies to read anyone. Welcome to the school of greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back, my friend. Today's episode is all about understanding people, building rapport and trust with someone. And there's a way to always get what you want in this life. And it starts with being able to accurately read and understand people. Now, we as human beings are social creatures, which means understanding how we communicate is one of the most important parts of our lives. And that's why this week I wanted to bring together two extraordinary moments from interviews I've done with former Secret Service agent, Evie Pompeo, and former FBI negotiator Chris Voss. So in this breakdown, we discuss how to build rapport and trust with anyone, knowing the difference between someone who is lying or telling the truth, the formula to get people to do things for you because they feel like it and they want to, the hostage negotiation tactics you should be using on a daily basis, and so much more. Again, this is all about understanding people, human nature, human dynamics, and human psychology. If you are inspired by this and finding from this. Make sure to spread this message with someone that you think would be inspired as well. You can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this, share it over on social media. Make sure to tag me at Lewis house or text a few friends, email some friends, get the message out because it's all about spreading the message of greatness to more people. And I want to give a shout out to the fan of the week. This is from Pierre Schram who said, Lewis has shown such kindness and willingness to put himself out there in hopes of bringing value to others himself, along with the people he associates with, have made a major impact on my life. I believe that it's making an even greater impact for others. And I'm proud of the work that he and others do for the right reasons. 11 stars on a scale of five. Keep up the great work. So big shout out, Pierre, for being the fan of the week. And if you guys want to get a chance to be shouted out on the podcast, go to Apple podcast right now. Leave a review. Let me know at the end of this episode or during this what part of this episode you enjoyed the most, why you get value from this show, and it'll help us spread the message to more people as well. Okay, in just a moment, we'll dive into the top secret psychological strategies to read anyone and get what you want. I love the smell of the seasons.

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In this first section you'll hear from Chris Voss. During Chris's 24-year tenure in the FBI, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI but also Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He has used his many years of experience in international crisis and high stakes negotiations to develop a unique program and team that applies these globally proven techniques to the business world. In this section we discuss the formula to get people to do things for you because they feel like it. A role playing exercise that you can do with a friend to practice negotiation. The importance of intention before beginning a negotiation. How to not burn bridges when a negotiation goes wrong. goes south and which hostage negotiation tactics Chris uses on a daily basis?

What's the formula or process to get people to do things just because they feel like it?

Well, you know, it's really, it's gonna sound stupid.

Smiling.

Smiling.

Smiling. Neuroscience behind a smile. If you smile at somebody, you actually hit their mirror neurons, you start a smile in their brain. Smile is an involuntary response. A mirror neuron. Mirror neurons in their brain. It's the same as if the doctor hits your knee with a little hammer and your leg kicks forward. You didn't choose to have your leg kick forward. It's an involuntary response. So if somebody sees you and you smile, you've instantly hit their mirror neurons. You started a chemical change. Now they might Fight it and sometimes you gotta get them three smiles.

Right.

But by a third smile, you get them smiling too.

Yeah.

So you've already started the process. And then your inner voice betrays your outer voice. When you say, how are you? To somebody at Starbucks, your inner voice is saying, I'm trying to make your day better. I want you to be a happier person. They're gonna feel it. if your inner voice is saying like, how are you today? I need my Starbucks coffee and I need to get out of here and I hate this line and I hate how long you guys, if that's in your voice, they're gonna feel that they're gonna be pouring decaf in instead of the other kind. So your entire approach, the neuroscience shows us the person is picking it up and responding. And so your body language, your tone of voice, The greatest negotiators in the world really maximize that because it's an invisible skill.

But it's a skill you can teach, it sounds like.

And learn.

And learn.

You can teach it, you can learn it, you can practice it. All you gotta do is get your repetitions. John Foley's a Blue Angel pilot. I heard him speak about four years ago. He talked about how long does it take to build a habit, how much training do you need, he called it grooving a, putting a groove in your brain. The Blue Angels, you know, they gotta build their habits before they get up in the sky, otherwise the jets crash.

I was in a Blue Angel two years ago.

It was crazy, man.

That had to have been an adrenaline rush. I threw up twice in the plane. I was sick the whole time and sick for three days afterwards. I've got a weak stomach, but it.

Was unbelievable at the same time. They needed to know what they were doing.

Oh, for sure. They can't learn Up there, right? Amazing to watch them so close, just like feet away from each other.

At Mach 1 or however fast they were going.

Four or five, whatever. Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah.

All right, so Foley said, how do they get that good? They practice. He said 63 to 64 repetitions to put it in your brain. And another guy wrote the talent code, Daniel Coyle. He talked about perfect practice. you could go excruciatingly slow as long as you do it right. And the first time you try any skill, you probably go slow. You come to one of the training sessions that my company puts on. I'm going to say this word for word. Take your time. And then react in the moment. We have a, one of the negotiation tools is what we call a label. When I say something to you, I want you to label it. I don't care if you have to stare at me for 10 minutes.

Label it.

Label it. It seems like, it sounds like, it looks like. Label's a verbal observation. Okay. But I need you to use those exact words. And if I say, I love teaching negotiations. Now label my emotion.

Your emotion?

The emotion that I displayed when I said, I love teaching negotiations. Label that.

What did you say? The three things?

It seems like, it sounds like, or it looks like. Label.

Say all three of them.

Pick one of those three. Say, all right, I'm gonna say it again, and I want you to say word for word it sounds like, and then fill in the blank.

Okay.

I love teaching negotiation.

It sounds like you love teaching negotiation.

Yeah.

Now that's enough. Now to start with, what just happened is you demonstrated it perfectly. Okay, because the important part is you have to say the first three words. That actually fires the brain. And you did exactly what I thought you would do, which is you said, it sounds like you fired the brain, and then you opened yourself up to whatever your brain put in. That's why I wanted you to actually say the words, the actual specific words, because your brain will kick into gear and say something. Now, your first label, every time you fire the synapse, you get a little bit better. There's a substance called myelin. Your brain wraps a substance, it's an electrical synaptic connection in your brain, and if you know anything about electricity, every time you insulate it, it fires a little bit better. Fire it 63 to 64 times, according to the Blue Angel pilot, and you get a nice circuit belt, and it'll fire quickly. and then you'll start to hear it. So we'll fire it again.

Okay.

And I want you to label it again. I love teaching negotiation.

Sounds like you love teaching negotiation.

Alright, now dig a little bit deeper.

Explain it more.

No, no, no, just another label, but use another adjective. It sounds like X. I love teaching negotiation.

It sounds like you're passionate about teaching.

There you go. See, perfect. Now you came up with another word. Now it stumped you for a second. And you kicked in, you let that supercomputer come up with another word. And like, yeah, I am passionate about it. Now interestingly enough, this is a way in a business negotiation, because a great business deal is an alignment of core values. Just like a great personal relationship is an alignment of core values. I'm sitting on a plane flying in here. This morning I found out more about the guy sitting on a plane next to me than he's told anybody in 20 years with this same kind of an exercise. What do you do for a living? What do you love about it? And when he tells me, I now know the guy sitting next to you on a plane, he's got an adopted daughter. She was adopted when she was six months old from China. His mother struggled with bipolar manic depressive. She committed suicide at age 17. He was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather survived the depression. His grandfather, at one point in time, going into the depression, owned 11 banks that all went bankrupt. He had to start completely over again. His grandfather used to tell him, I lost 11 fortunes. his grandfather loved to live off the land. They love to. They love to make things by hand. This guy's a very successful contractor here in Los Angeles. And he's constantly, constantly, constantly working on improving himself. Married to his first wife. They're. They're business partners. They work together. They work in different aspects of the business. I mean, I've lost track of the number of things I've found out about this guy.

I know.

I know about this guy from when he was three years old. to now. Now, in the space of what sounded like a normal social conversation, I know this guy's incredibly loyal. He's very practical. He's very hard working. I just flew in from Vegas. He was in Vegas because he was in a competitive poker tournament. He likes reading people. He's a very hard worker. From what I know from this guy, from what this perceived social conversation, I know that we could do business together and if we run into trouble, I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from him and how to deal with those problems if we run into trouble.

Wow.

With the very sort of thing that you and I did just now.

Wow.

You know, you start-- so when he asks you stuff out.

So when you ask him a question and he says something, you would use one of those responses. It seems like-- I like it. It sounds like-- what was it, the one?

Yeah, it feels like. It looks like-- It looks like I might be reading your body language.

It looks like you're not that interested into it, even though you said you were. your body language tells me something different.

Exactly. And then see if you see that in somebody's body language, your point before about Starbucks, about actually seeing a person, the same thing is going on. And they might not even know it. Every now and then I get people go like, yeah, I've been struggling with this for a while. I'm really conflicted about it. And they find themselves opening up because most of the time, you see conflict in somebody, most people say, Ah, it'll be fine. Just keep working hard.

It'll be fine.

It's all part of the journey. Instead of actually being a great sounding board for somebody and helping them sound it out, consequently learning a lot about that person at the same time.

It sounds like you're going through a lot right now. It sounds like you're having a hard time with this. It sounds like.

Exactly. Or, it's exactly right. and you start to become a tremendous sounding board for people.

So what happens to that person when you respond in one of those three or four ways of it sounds like, feels like, looks like, what does that person feel on the other side when you're showing that type of compassion or empathy?

They feel connected with. They feel very connected with. They feel seen. You know, they feel like they're a person on the planet. They feel like suddenly they're not just another part of the thundering herd that nobody's paying attention to. They feel at least that. Last week we're doing a training with some pretty tough business people. And one of the guys in this exercise is saying, I found myself talking about stuff that happened when I was seven years old. He said, I gotta tell you something, I feel transformed right now. And so we stopped the group at that point in time and we said, all right, so now Based on Larry talking about that sort of a change, what kind of a guy is he to deal with? He's a pretty decent guy. You now have caught a glimpse into him as more as a total human being, which means if he does something that you perceive to be a negative move, he did it accidentally or you misinterpreted it. Which means it's okay to go back to him instead of, you know, letting the rage build up in you because you misinterpreted something or did it by accident. He's a decent guy. If he slighted you, he did it by accident. You can go back to him and bring it up and say, Hey, I gotta tell you, I got a problem with this. He's probably gonna open up because just based on this real, this three-minute exercise you found out about.

He opened up then, so you'd probably, yeah.

He's a decent human being. And every human being is gonna hurt you principally, inadvertently. So you go back to them and find out what's behind it and make them aware, 'cause they're gonna wanna know.

Yeah, every human being is gonna hurt you.

Everybody, one way or another, is going to do something accidentally or on purpose that's gonna hurt your feeling. We're gonna interpret it as negative the vast majority of the time.

Yeah.

When in fact it was probably a complete accident. There's a really good chance they got no idea they hurt your feelings.

Right.

You need to know which one it was. Did they do it on purpose? Do they know they did it? The numbers are that they did it by accident and other numbers are there's a really good chance they didn't know they did it.

Right.

You know, I went to, you know, Landmark Forum a couple of years ago.

Yeah.

Talk about making amends with people, talking to people who've hurt you. And so one of the young ladies.

Did you go through the whole program?

Yeah.

One of the young ladies in it was like, you know, when I was seven, this, a girl who's my cousin, you know, they bullied me. You know, they said something that hurt me. I, you know, it's 30 years. I haven't, like, go, wow. So we talked about it. They talked about it. And she said she went, she decided to go to the person and just. Because to forgive, to forgive is to let go. You know, not forgiving is like taking pause and hoping the other person dies, right? You've heard that. So she goes to this girl and she says, I want you to know I forgot. The girl didn't even remember. She got no memory. She was just being a stupid kid at the time.

She had, you know, they were- Stupid at seven, right?

Yeah, they're joking around and they're- Wow.

So how long into it for that long?

30 years, the other person doesn't even know it. So by nature, we're joking around with somebody and we accidentally say something that wounded them. If they don't feel they can talk to us, they're gonna carry it for 30 years. If I heard somebody, I wanna know. You know, I'm gonna be like, I'm an idiot. I had no idea I did that to you. I had no idea.

Was there anything from the emotional intelligence training at Landmark that added to your curriculum of negotiations? that you didn't already know or use before?

Well, not because it's all interwoven. The biggest thing that jumped out at me is it occurred to me that somebody heard somebody else without even knowing they did it. Like in a masterclass thing, you know, they did a great job. The masterclass people are phenomenal. So we're wandering to the very tail end of it, and they got me talking about this guy that bullied me when I was a kid.

You. Yeah.

You're talking about.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, and I hadn't, I hadn't, I had literally never told anybody about this.

Wow.

So, you know, it's, and it happened when I was a little kid.

Yeah.

I literally had never told anybody about it.

Not even through Landmark or anything else.

Nothing.

Wow.

And they get it out of me in master class. They catch me off guard over it, you know? And it's to, to this day, this is one of the reasons why I hate bullies. you know, I want to become an FBI agent because, you know, we want to go after the bad guys because the bad guys are bullies. And there's nothing I like better than getting a bully that's victimizing somebody else. And I think it was instilled in me in what happened when I was a kid. But then I started comparing that to this interaction I heard at Landmark where somebody bullied somebody else and they didn't even know they did it. And then I began thinking about like, how many people have I hurt that I didn't even know? Like if they would come up to me today and said, you, hurt me. I've carried this for 40 years. And I have to have done that to somebody.

Right.

I know I have. Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, you know, this forgiveness thing is a two-way street and also being, you know, who do I need to go back to that I could think of? That I, and say, look, Since I know that inadvertently I'm a jerk, what did I do? I'm sure I did something. I had to have done something. It's an interesting dilemma, all sort of part of being a better person anyway, which I know is what you're dedicated to.

It seems like it's really hard, especially if you're a public figure that has an audience, that you're gonna say something or do something that's going to offend or hurt someone. at all the times. It's like you're always going to be offending someone if you have a voice, if you're sharing something, your point of view. Your point of view is going to reach a certain audience's point of view, but not the rest of the world's point of view. So it's like you're always hurting people, aren't you?

Yeah.

At some level, you're like offending or hurting or frustrating people.

And their hurt's gonna be defensive in reaction. Or they misinterpret or you hit a button with them. that you didn't even, maybe you didn't hit the button, but you came close to a button that's been hurt before. Close. And, you know, and interestingly enough, we see this a lot with the procurement people that come to our training. I'm really careful to say, look, look, I know you guys fear procurement, and this is about dealing successfully with procurement. and we had one person in the training go, I work in procurement and you criticized, you said procurement people were bad. I said, as a matter of fact, that's not what I said. But I came so close to your hot button that it hit it anyway.

Yeah.

And I spent some time with this woman and she was afraid that that was what I meant and, but didn't know how to approach me.

Yeah.

And when it came up subsequently, I said, no, as a matter of fact, procurement has one of the most difficult jobs on the planet. You guys are both, you spend your days either hurting cats or getting chased by villagers with pitchforks.

Right.

It's one or the other.

Yeah.

And she was like, yeah, yeah, it's really tough. I was just afraid that that's what you meant. It was that amygdala that we were talking about before, the 75% negative.

Yeah.

We're all equipped with that. And when someone even comes close to a criticism, then we're afraid that that's what they mean and they're hurt.

How do you take criticism?

Not well.

I've never really been good at it until, I wouldn't say I've mastered it, I think I've gotten better. Over the last six years, I started to really like say, okay, let me not react to this criticism. Like they probably have some good intention they're trying to tell me and maybe there's some truth there. So let me start to listen to the feedback or the criticism. and say, okay, how can I be better? Is there any truth in there that really resonates, or they coming from a place of anger of their own thing?

Criticism is mostly fear driven.

By the person criticizing.

Right.

Yeah. And you criticize that an important fact. You've been hurt, you've been disappointed, you've been frustrated. You know, there's a lot of things that, you know, never take advice from anybody you wouldn't trade places with. Criticism is form of advice. But you're afraid to tell people how to do stuff. So you just criticize what they do. Some people, and then it becomes an addiction for some people. Criticism is not a great behavior. I know you've heard the phrase, nobody's doing better than you will ever criticize you. They'll mentor you. So first of all, how do I take criticism? I gotta take a step back and understand if somebody's coming at me with just a criticism, even if they ask permission to criticize, they got some, they got struggles that are worse than mine.

Right.

If they ask you to give you criticism?

I'd be, you know, they are an open wound at that point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I'm not gonna, I'm gonna say, yeah, sure, go ahead. Right. I'm gonna, they've already told me they're probably coming from a difficult place.

Gotcha, gotcha.

So what I'm gonna try to do is just kind of take it easy on them and understand where they're coming from. A blog I'm a big fan of, Eric Barker writes this great blog barking.

Up the wrong tree. Yeah, that's great.

Eric told me one time for every hater there's gonna be 10 people that are on your side. So when A critic comes up to me, I see that as there are 10 people, you're indicating to me that I'm successful with nine other people and I'm not going to get down on this person because it's very easy to get down on them because unfortunately they're coming from a negative place.

Yeah.

Gotcha. That's good to know. What's a role-playing exercise that anyone can do with a friend that would make them a better negotiator?

Try to get whoever you're talking to to say the magic two words, that's right. Which means you gotta summarize where they're coming from. If you, in any given interaction, if you got a point you wanna make, before you make it, your trigger, you're not allowed to make your point.

So give me an example. and you want the other person you're role playing with to say, that's right.

Okay, so you were telling me about critics.

Yeah.

You're a high profile guy. You're about helping other people, which means you get criticized a lot.

That's right.

And when you get criticized, I mean, I wouldn't say you're empathic, oh you are. I would say you're probably more compassionate. Those are two different things. Empathy is, you have to have empathy to be compassionate, but empathy is not compassion. Compassion is the next step. Empathy is a compassionate thing to do, genuinely in understanding somebody, but there's a real fine line there, they're distinct things. And I think you have a tremendous amount of compassion for people. So you know, that when someone criticizes you, they're attacking you. But you also know that they've been hurt and they're struggling. So you want to know how to respond to them and have them better as a result of the interaction instead of coming back and making them feel worse. And you struggle with that because you're under attack.

Mm-.

And you try not to fire back at them. Right.

Yeah.

That's right. So you wanna have a conversation with someone.

If you could summarize their point of view first. Summarize the other person's-- when you summarize what the other person's struggling with.

In any type of deal making.

In any type of deal.

Business deal, relationship, buying coffee, upgrading, whatever it is.

Right.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Then after that, you can make your point.

Make your point or make your proposal or whatever. So if you're trying to get an upgrade, if you're trying to get an upgrade on an airport, you know, on a plane or a hotel.

Right.

Or trying to get a super size me for free.

Right.

You're trying to get some type of upgrade for free. Right. Would you do the same thing? would you say, I know you're going through, it seems like it's been a long day for you.

Well, you can look at them and tell whether it's gonna be a long day. So right off the bat, you say, Long day?

Right.

And then as soon as you get ready to make your ask, what's there in this instinctive response, the knee-jerk reaction, what's that gonna be?

When I make an ask?

Once you've made your ask, what's there of somebody who's trying to get something for free?

Yeah.

What's a typical knee jerk reaction?

Oh, this person's just trying to get something for free from me.

Right.

Yeah.

And everyone does this or everyone...

There you go.

Everyone's doing this.

Yeah, so you walk up and you go like, Hey, look man, I know I'm gonna seem like just another jerk who's trying to get something for free. Somebody who treats you like you're their servant.

Oh man.

Somebody who doesn't care about you could care less whether you live or die. They only care that you're alive long enough to make my call. because that's what the other guy's thinking. How do you articulate what they're thinking, especially the negative stuff about you? When you say that they're going to.

Be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

But what you did was you just woke them up. You know, you snapped them out of the negative loop that's in their head because the last guy come in and.

Said, yeah.

I want it now. I hate waiting in line for Starbucks.

Do you do this all the time, all day long? Are you constantly in a game of negotiation with people?

It's that, you know, that I brushed my teeth today just because I brushed them yesterday. You know, I genuinely, I gotta keep my skills up. Yeah, because it's either stay even, decline or get better. I want to keep my skills up. The mercenary in me does it because I gotta keep my skills up. The missionary in me does it. because I actually care about people.

Yeah.

I just assumed that you had a good day.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, that you didn't. That my interaction with you didn't leave you worse. That my interaction with you left you better. Everybody we encounter should be left better by the interaction.

How important is the intention before you walk up to the coffee shop, before you go to the hotel, before you get on the phone with the other business owner to make a deal before you have a conversation with your partner about where you're going to dinner. Do you set an intention first? Like walking into the hotel, you're like, this is what I'm going to say. This is the result that I want to get out of this. This is the, the way I want to leave people feeling.

The.

Intention is, you know, I I I I want to, I want you to have fun with the interaction.

The other person.

Yeah.

I want you to have fun.

If I'm playful, if I'm intending for you to have fun, you know, I'm in a department store, I'm joking around with the guy behind the counter, and I go, I tell you what, you know what? How about if you give me the employee discount? Give me the employee discount. I'll say it like that. Give me the employee discount. The guy in the store says, if I give you the employee discount, I'm gonna have to pay for it myself.

Really?

And I go, I'll pay you back! I said it just like that. He went and he started walking around asking people how he could key it in and give me the same discount without having to pay it himself. He walked around the store for 10 minutes. Really? I saw him walk up to a manager. I said, Manager, shaking his head.

He's going to someone else.

And on his way back, another employee walked up to him on the side, whispered in his ear, and he went, And he walked up and I get 30% off.

Wow. But you didn't pay him back, it was just like a playful, I just.

You know, yeah, I just was being playful about it, just being silly about it.

And what's the best way to get an upgrade at a hotel for you?

All right, so a slightly different take on the approach. My son does this all the time. My son, Brandon, runs my business. He's our best negotiator. He prides himself when we all come into a hotel, he's got to be in a better room than me.

And I'm the boss.

That's hilarious. And as far as I'm concerned, I'm paying the bills.

Yeah, of course.

He got an upgrade in a hotel one time that I couldn't even get on the floor.

You need a special key code?

Yeah.

Me and the other guys were going.

Hey, we'll come up to your room. He goes, no, no, I got, he goes, I gotta come get you. I said, no, we'll just come knock on your door. He goes, no, you can't even get on the floor I'm on. He paid less for his room than I paid for mine. I'm the boss.

Wow.

But he'll walk up to somebody and say, I'm getting ready to make your day the most difficult day you ever worked here. And he says, Somebody works behind a counter at a hotel, I mean, God knows what they've seen. You know, have you got a head in the bag? Do you wanna, are you gonna have ritual sacrifice in a room?

Right.

You know, what have you done? You've done, 'cause in a hotel, they've seen every kind of sort of crazy thing you could imagine. And they just go, oh, God. What is it? He goes, I'm just gonna be another self-centered person looking for a free upgrade. They're like, oh, my God. That's it?

That's it? That's it?

Oh, yeah. And they immediately through the roof. And they start checking it in and listening, saying, Hey, you know what? Yeah, I tell you what, let me give you this room. It's on the exclusive floor, it's in a presidential suite. President ain't coming, so I'm gonna give you the president. I know the president ain't coming tonight. We're holding a suite for him just in case you can have it. He's not gonna be here.

Wow. I remember from our interview the last time, I think if my memory is right, you would say one of the strategies is leading with like being challenging in a certain way or I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be demanding a lot.

Isn't that something that you taught?

Well, to a little bit, yeah. You know, that way, right? I'm gonna, if I know you're gonna react negatively to my ask, I will give you a preview that makes it look worse than what it's gonna be.

Yeah. So what do you call that?

That framework? For lack of a better term, it's emotional anchoring.

Emotional anchoring.

You know, we don't do price anchoring. you know, but we'll do emotional anchoring. If, if, if you're not gonna like what I have to say, I'm gonna say, look, you're not gonna like this, right? That's what it is. And then I'm gonna shut up because your amygdala is going to kick into gear and you're gonna think that I'm gonna insult you, your parentage, your family, your genealogy, everything. Because the amygdala is going to go into overdrive. Wow. So whatever I ask for after that is going to be relief. And I'm doing that also because I need to keep an eye on how you feel when we're done. Not as much how you feel at the start, but how you feel when we're done.

So you want something to be, it's okay if they start off in a lower energetic or negative attitude as long as when you finish they feel like okay, it got better over time.

Yeah, you feel good at the end. The last impression is a lasting impression.

Interesting.

And that's unavoidable. It's what we refer to as a law of gravity. It doesn't, you know, we have gravity, we can't explain why gravity works, but you're still not gonna step off the balcony because gravity's there. The last impression is a lasting impression, no matter what. So, I need to more than anything else make sure that the last impression is positive or at least feels collaborative.

Let's say you've been in a negotiation with someone or you're a business partner with someone or you've been in a long negotiation for six months with someone, either one. You've been a business partner working together for a year or two or you've been trying to find a deal with someone else for a year or two.

Right.

And both.

It's taking too long.

Both options have taken too long that haven't you haven't been getting the results you want and you feel like you've been taken advantage of a little bit. Let's just say that. How do you and it's going, it started off good and it's going the opposite way.

Right.

It's getting worse and worse. How do you finalize it so that it goes back to a high or a higher mark leaving you feeling better and leaving the other person feeling better.

Or you get out of it.

Yeah, or you just get out of it. But you just say, okay, I'm done.

Bye.

I don't wanna talk to you. How do you not burn a bridge if you're in that situation?

I'd probably say some of the effective.

Look.

You'Re not gonna like this.

So you start with the emotional anchoring.

Right.

Interesting.

This isn't working for me. and I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't do it anymore. Now, my problem here has been that I like you. I've always liked you. And the stuff that we've done together successfully has been phenomenal. And I would like nothing better than at some point in time in the future for us to be able to get back to that. But for right now, in order to preserve the memories of the positive things we've done, I gotta be, I'm out now.

Wow.

How do I remember that so every time I'm in a situation, I can say that same thing?

Well, it's a little bit of a sequence. And the sequence is we need to stop what we're doing right now. But if we're gonna stop what we're doing right now, what everybody thinks of is, where is this going in the future? So I gotta create a point in time for the future that we're both happy with.

So there's still a bridge.

You know, there's still an opportunity for the future.

Yeah, maybe it's a year, maybe it's never going to happen, but you keep it open.

I'm open to it. I'm finishing positively, but I am finishing.

Interesting. Yeah.

Because the last words that I, the last two sentences, maybe even just the last sentence, are going to ring in your ears over and over and over and over. Because that's what your brain is always going to go back to, the last impression. How did I make you feel at the end? I make you feel valued and you're gonna appreciate the fact that I walked away without calling you names. Mmm. But I walked away.

Right.

It's hard to do.

Yeah. Well, it's hard to get your practicing.

You gotta do practice, yeah.

You know, you just, you work on it a few times. Most of the time what people have at the end is the battle for the last word is when the last word is a cheap shot.

Right.

That's when people- Screw you too, hang up.

Right.

And I'm gonna call you back to say screw you right back, and then I'm gonna hang up. Yeah. You know, there's a battle of the last words of problem and the last words of cheap shot. But when the last word is a.

Positive thing, it's not a problem. It's always end in a positive with positive words.

Right.

Even if you feel taken advantage of, even if they hurt you, even if they screwed you over, whatever, you should.

Always try to end in a positive way. Yeah, without question. If you're talking to them, then your goal was to resolve things and to have a great relationship. Now you might say that at the very beginning of the interaction, but it's more important to say it at the end. You know, my goal was always to have a great relationship with you. And if we can get out of this dynamic, that would be my goal again. But right now I'm out. But understand, that at any point in time, when we could go back to working collaboratively, I'd love to do it.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah.

So usually what it is, is take what you said at the beginning and at least say it again at the end.

That's good. Yeah, I like that. What is something that you did as a hostage negotiator with terrorists around the world that you used today in just common interactions? Is there something that you did at the height of like this intense conversation that you do on a daily basis.

Pretty much everything we've been talking about.

Yeah.

You know, I'm gonna make a verbal observation on how they're processing things. You know, it seems like-- It seems.

Like it sounds like it feels like you'll see all those things.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's the bread and butter of great hostage negotiation. Really? Yeah.

It's having them be seen or heard, feeling understood.

You know, people are taking actions to make a point. What happens if you can make the point without taking the action?

They're taking actions to make a point.

Right.

And you're saying you don't need to take that action because I hear you.

Yeah, let me see what happens if I can, if I can, if you, and it makes no sense at all. But I'm going to take probably 90% of a terrorist agenda away just by making them feel heard. making him or her feel hurt. Then I'll deal with whatever I have to afterwards. But let's say I could only take away 10% of their agenda by making them feel hurt. What if I could only take away 1% of their actions by making them feel hurt? That's worth the investment to me.

In this next session, you'll hear from Abby Pomprous, who is a member of the most prestigious protection force in the world for over 12 years. serving on the Secret Service's presidential protective division for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. She has also protected Presidents George Bush Jr., Bill Clinton, and George Bush Sr. Evie also worked complex criminal investigations, operated undercover, and was an interrogator for the agency's elite polygraph unit specially trained in the art of lie detection, human behavior, and cognitive influence. In this section, we discuss top-level characteristics Evie noticed from some of the past presidents she's worked how to read people now while wearing masks and with social distancing, knowing the difference between someone who is lying or telling the truth, and how she's able to get people to trust her during an interrogation.

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 not, 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. Like, 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, 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 get, you go from vague to, you know, more, you know, 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 you know, 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. You start to paint a picture, and then you never actually have to ask them-- 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 that. But you walk them through that process. 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 allowing a person to take you where they want to go, letting somebody sit in the driver's seat. for a little bit.

Tell me about a characteristic of a president that wowed you the most. Obviously, they're all inspiring in some way, I'm assuming, for you. But tell me about a characteristic or a belief, a mindset, an approach, a strategy that one of them used that wowed you.

I liked, there's a couple, there's like little things. I'll tell you, former President George Bush Sr. He used to write note cards to everybody. He had a little, he wrote note cards, thank you so much. He would just send little note cards to people. And I saw what an impact that made to people to receive a handwritten note. He hand wrote it from someone saying, thank you, I appreciate you. And to this day, I do that. And I took that from President George Bush, because I saw that and I was like, What a wonderful thing. And I saw how much of an impact that did. It was a very little thing, but I took that from him. So whenever I meet someone or if there's an exchange or something, I will write a handwritten note card. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. And it does a lot.

Did he write you a card?

He did not write me a card. He wasn't my full-time protectee, but I watched.

Yeah, you watched him actually write it for other people.

Yeah.

Or you saw other people get it.

Both. You would see them when they would work and you would know what they did or didn't do. But that's what he did. And another characteristic is I think I liked President Obama. I liked the way he spoke. And for me, that was very, I appreciated that because I, although I was an agent and an interviewer, I didn't know how to speak for myself. It's weird, right? I could speak on behalf of the government and the law and all that. But I never paid attention to the way I spoke to people and what I loved. You could hear him. You could hear him, usually you call Renegade, I could say it, it's public, it's in his book, Renegade on the Move, right? You could hear the agents say that. But you could hear him. You could hear him. You could, I love the way he echoed his voice and projected his voice and didn't hold it back and how he took his time to speak. where a lot of people speak very fast because we feel that we're not worthy of somebody's time. I don't want to take up too much of your time, so I'm going to speak fast. We do that. We feel like, let me just hurry up and say this. This person is probably busy. They have things to do. And then he really projected his voice. Like it boomed through the hallways. And that was a person who was not shy of Being present of taking a space and letting you know I'm here and my voice is relevant. I like that.

That's powerful.

Yes.

Any other characteristics from anyone else?

There's so many.

The ones that wowed you, that stood out.

They all did. They were all great. George Washington. Oh my God.

How old are you?

GW, President George Bush, I love going to the ranch with him. I'm from New York City, I go to Texas. I was just like, what? We were out in the wild. He's like, we're going, we're gonna make trails. I was like, why are we gonna make trails? There's a road right there. We'd cut trails and hike. And he was very authentic, who he was. on camera was who he was off camera and vice versa. He was very just real. And so you'd see these qualities with different people and, you know, it's kind of interesting. I just thought of it. I was almost like in my own school of greatness by being in the White House. And then over all the years of about you're around all these people, these influential leaders, despite forget politics. it still takes a person of some-- To get there. Yes, to get there. And so you watch them, and then not just them, they've got cabinet members, other individuals who, you know, you watch and you listen to, you see how they problem solve. And I was in my own school of greatness where I just got to be front row and you're doing your job. At the same time, you're like, you're listening, you're watching, you're absorbing. I loved it.

Were there any strategies you witnessed or watched or observed from them telling you or not telling you on how they commanded respect and authority in just their way of being, tonality, was it touching people, you know, in their hand, is it, you know, whatever it is, look, eye contact, what were the things that they did or that some of them did that really stood out to you?

So I'll tell you this, they didn't have to work as hard.

Because they're already the authority.

They're already the authority. So you don't, so I want to say that. like they don't, the president can look at you and be like, Hey, how you doing? And then like blow you off and you're like, oh my God, I got like a whole solid second. Whereas when they're talking to me or you, it's just like, you only give me a second, right? So they don't have to work as hard so even the little attention they give you lands on you. However though, eye contact is huge. When you talk to someone and you want to convey, you want to convey, Hey, trust me. and rapport, this is huge. In fact, if you go to the supermarket and you look at cereal boxes, they have cartoon, the characters on the cereal boxes. They're looking at you.

You know where a lot of them look down?

They're looking down. You know who they're looking down? You'll see cereal boxes where the character looks down.

At the cereal.

No, I'm a cereal box, right? I'm the Trix rabbit or whatever, right? Now, you go shopping, I'm not looking at you, I'm looking down.

Why am I looking down? The rabbit's looking down.

Right, the rabbit's looking down. Thank you.

Wow.

'Cause the kid's the consumer.

Yeah, not the adult. No, the kid's gonna say, Mom, come grab me.

Mom, buy that for me. Oh my God. So they designed them to actually look down and they also put them at a certain level. And so maybe in adult cereal, they'll have the person looking at higher up 'cause they're looking at the adult. Eye contact is huge. It conveys, Trust me. Talk to me. I'm here. I'm connected with you. Even when you want to listen to people. Normally, we do break eye contact, but good communicators will lock in. They're not uncomfortable. They're there. I'm with you. I'm connected with you. That is huge. But you touched on literally touching people. And you would see a tactic. I don't want to say a tactic, but a-- no, it's a tactic. It's a strategy. It's a strategy. is, you know, hey, you know, Louis, and you know, and maybe I like to touch your forearm.

Yeah.

You can do that. But I will say today-- you- can't do that. Today is very different. You know, they would teach us that. They're like, hey, you can touch the top of a person's knee and just be like, hey, and I could be like, whoa, unwanted touch. So now, I would actually go against that. I would actually encourage people not to do that just simply because you don't know how it's going to be received. And now today, You gotta be a little bit less is more with that.

Yeah, I mean, shaking your hand maybe, that's it. I think so. Second hand on the top, like a.

Genuine heartfelt for two seconds and then let it go. Yeah, I think so. I think so. You wanna respect people's space. It's a little bit different. I think we have more, well, we do have more social space now. And it's interesting how that's gonna change.

The dynamics of how we interact in the future.

Interesting.

How do you build that trust without.

Being present and more connected and touching and Right, and you have a mask, you can't even see the lower portion of a person's face, which conceals their expressions, their gestures, so it's even harder to read them.

So how do we read people like that? Is it more body language then of.

Like shoulders down as opposed to- It's harder. In person is always better. And obviously if you're on Zoom, you can see the person, but the tone, inflection of the voice, does it change? Does it not? The body posture. Again, sometimes it's just as simple as how they say something. the way they deliver a story. For example, when I worked cases, sometimes I did interviews and interrogations and I would be asked to help local police departments sometimes. And they'd say, look, we have this case and we've got three suspects, but we can't figure out who it is. And I'd always want to interview the person I thought it was. And so I would say, send me, do you have statements? And they say, yes. And I'd say, send me the statements that they wrote.

Written statements.

Written statements.

About what they said, their story is.

Their story is, correct. Because these are people typically that had been already interviewed by local police. They got nothing, they have no proof. So they would reach out and they say, look, you guys are polygraph examiners. You have a bit more expertise in this. Will you help us out? It's an important case. And so I'd say, Send me their statements. And so I'd look at their statements, and based on their statements, I would be able sometimes, most of the time, to tell who likely did it. And it was those statements that, and this also happens when we tell a story, when we speak, when you ask somebody, what did you do yesterday? Will they deliver you a beautiful story to you that has a beginning, middle, and an end? It's an arc. When it's a story, it's an arc. It's typically manufactured. That's a lie, usually. Yes, because we don't typically talk about our stuff like that. And so when I would read a story, I would read a statement, and if I read like a story, because the person's like the liar is like, oh, I got to write a story. I got to tell them what I did here, then did here. They're manufacturing it. A truthful person is going to write how their day went. And a truthful person also makes spontaneous corrections. So it contradicts what a lot of people think in that if I correct myself as I'm telling you something.

Then it looks like I'm hiding something.

And I'm, it looks like I'm, yes, I'm correcting myself because I'm hiding something I can't remember my lie. And it's actually not true.

Those were the honest ones. Yes, actually that was a mistake.

It's a spontaneous correction. When it's unsolicited and somebody you're speaking to, or even in writing, you'll see a scribble. It's okay. If it's a spontaneous correction, meaning they're correcting themselves as they're speaking to you, it indicates truthfulness.

That's an interesting little...

Yes.

And also too, like a little one, when somebody uses quotes, when they talk to you, they'll say, oh, he said, and quote, you know, they'll tell you something somebody said in quotes, like he said, you know, this in quotes, that's also truthful.

The air quotes. The air quotes. When someone uses that, not on the.

Written paper quotes, but Or even both, yes.

If someone uses quotes and I read this said this, that means they're telling more likely the truth.

Yes, truth.

Why is that?

Because they're being very specific. We also know based on the research, people who lie lie vaguely. Remember I said, it's work, it's hard work, it's you're trying to create a lie, tell a lie, remember the lie, listen to the person speaking to you. Think about what you want to say. There's so much going on. And so what they do is they lie vaguely because it's too hard for me to remember all these details, create all these details. It's just too much. It's a heavy cognitive load.

I heard one time in one of these books or somewhere that when you say, I did not, as opposed to, I didn't do it. When you're more specific of, I did not do this, Is that generally speaking more untruthful? I'm thinking of a famous president that said, I did not commit these sexual relations.

Well, we know he was dishonest. But okay, so you said that statement, I did not. And so it is true most people like when, Allah, did you have pizza this morning for breakfast?

No.

You're not gonna be like, Evie, I did not have pizza this morning for breakfast. Right? You're not gonna work so hard. So when people lie, they work very hard sometimes to sell you the lie.

Telling the full story.

Think of a car salesman. How hard do they work you? Like, oh, you gotta get this. This is great. So when people work that hard, it's likely that there's some deception there. But if I'm just like, no, and go pound sand, I didn't do it. And I don't, you know, the truth is typically simple.

No.

But if that person, though, in their everyday speech always speaks like that, that's where you want to be careful. Because maybe I'm that person who does that. Or another thing that people say are to be weary of is like when people start off a sentence saying, honestly, honestly, I would never do that.

Truthfully, this would never happen.

Right.

But if I use that In my conversation, I sprinkle that all the time into the way I speak. If it's part of my language, then I'm not lying. It's just the way I color my language.

That's why it's good to use the TED approach to talk for 20, 30 minutes to see how they normally talk.

Their expression, their mannerisms.

What are their mannerisms? And you can ask them truthful questions about, you know, something where maybe they have to remember something. tell you something like that you know is truthful rather than just how they feel. And that'll give you indication of like, so you know for sure they're telling me the truth here. Oh, tell us about how it was coming in this morning. Or something very simple. You can ask questions that are benign. They don't evoke anything.

It's not a yes or no answer.

No, they don't evoke anything. However, though, invocation so we're rolling into all these techniques. It's very good when you have someone who's reluctant to speak with you, when you want to evoke emotion. So when you have somebody that's shut down on you, I may call you a liar because I want you to give me something because you're giving me nothing. And so this is why it's so important to tag people or to know the person you have across from you, because if I have a resistant person, I'm going to speak a certain way. If I have a high conflict person, I'm going to speak a certain way. If I have a business relationship and they're amicable, I'm going to speak a different way. If I have someone who's identity based, this is why really paying attention to the human being across from you matters. Once you do this, and then you're going to know, you're going to start picking people like, up, identity, up, instrumental, up, high conflict, and then you know how to maneuver.

Interesting.

What could you test on me right now to see whether I'm lying or telling the truth? But something maybe not some crazy thing.

But just-- I can't.

It won't work because you're telling me to do it, you're prepared for it. That's where we went.

Interesting.

Yes, it's interesting.

It won't work, it never works.

Never works.

Interesting.

No, because you know you're ready. You're gonna lie, you're gonna lock in, you're gonna do everything I just taught you.

Well, my goal would be to tell the truth and to see if you actually believe it or not.

It has to be organic.

Yeah, that's true.

And it can't be manufactured. And I wouldn't go straight for it. I would, you know, maybe if I wanted to know about your past criminal history when you were younger, and there was something that you were, maybe one of those things you really didn't want to talk about and I knew it, then I would try to build rapport and get you to speak about it, or I'd ask you, why don't you want to speak about it? Because sometimes I would have someone and they're like, Look, I don't want to talk about this. And I would say, okay, why don't you want to talk about this? It's okay, you don't have to tell me what it is, but why don't you? And sometimes that was a great way for me to open the door. So if I had somebody who would not confess to a crime, or whatever, and I would say, Could you just tell me why you don't want to talk about this? Or what are you so worried about if this gets out? And I remember one case, one person said, I don't want my wife to find out. And that moment, I was like, he did it, he did it, he did it, he did it. Because he just told me, why? If he didn't do it or she didn't do it, that wouldn't be in their mind. And so people can tell you, so you can start there, why don't you want to talk about this? Why do you feel this way? What are you worried about? And so that's a different angle from, instead of being like, tell me this, go back to how they feel. go to identity. Tell me what it is you're afraid of. Tell me what you're so worried about. Why do you feel that you can't share this? You don't have to tell me anything. Just tell me what's going on with you. As long as I could keep somebody talking, that's it. You just got to keep them doing this.

What was your biggest fear as a. As an agent?

If we're talking interviews, there's two. If we're talking interviews, I never wanted an innocent person to confess to a crime they never committed.

Oh, man, that's sad.

And I was always very, very, very careful. I actually erred on the side. I actually erred more so on the side. I gave more people benefit than the other way around. Because to me, it was worse to.

Have someone in jail who didn't do it. That is the worst thing. It's got to be the horrible for that person.

That was something that I was very, very, very aware of.

How many people do you think are in prison or jail for something they didn't do right now?

I think quite a few. And I think we see it when you look at now the DNA testing that we do, the scientific testing that we do, to see who gave false confessions, to see how people were manipulated and maneuvered. And it's not always because the interviewer is bad. is because they tend to think, again, law enforcement tends to think most people are deceptive. You come in, Lewis is my guy. No, Lewis is my guy. So now no matter what you say, even when you are saying things that are showing your innocence, I'm still focused on you did it. So it's confirmation bias. No matter what you say, I'm gonna make it fit the narrative I want, which is, you did it. So that was a very important thing because I had seen it, I knew, how you could do it. And I had people in the room, if they're young, if they're mental health issues, or sometimes you get people in weak moments, or sometimes people see you, you're law enforcement, you're the authority, you're police, I'm supposed to trust you, and they do. And they don't realize that the law allows for police and law enforcement to use deception in the room to get you to confess. It is legal. So I could say to you, what if I told you I have fingerprints?

Oh.

I got no fingerprints. What if I told you I have fingerprints? What if I told you that, what would you say? I'm lying. I'm using manipulation. And so some of that stuff, it's not, you know, there's a lot of research and science on this now. It's not good. You don't want to lie to people. You want to try to stay, you really want to try to read them, understand them, and just get them to talk to you. And that's also important, not just with solving cases, but when you interview victims and witnesses. Sometimes the inability to interview somebody properly affects whether a case gets solved or not. So if I don't know how to effectively interview a witness or a victim, I can get bad information.

How tall are you?

5'2.

5'2. Mighty 5'2. When you went into the.

When you.

Went to be an agent, I'm assuming it was a lot of men when you were there in the start. Is that correct? Much taller, bigger in general, right? More than 5'2. Did you ever feel insecure or intimidated or a lack of self-confidence? being in the position you were in?

No, and I don't know if it was maybe my dad, like, even though my parents, like, I had certain issues, but I don't know, like, I never thought about that. I never went in thinking, I shouldn't be here. I never went in, oh, I'm a woman. I went in, I'm like, oh, man, I'm the only woman good for me. I really had a different mindset. I was proud that, oh my God, there's only, like, there's no other women. I'm like, good for me. If I went to a meeting. Yes. I was proud of that fact. so I never looked at it as a negative. Why? I'm the only woman. I was just like, I was just like, good job. So that's how I took it and I was proud of that. And so that kept me going. I didn't think about my gender. I just did my job. And look, will people treat you differently? Will that stuff happen? Yes, it will. Whether it's gender, race, that stuff happens. I don't care what anyone says, it happens. But I cannot alter myself and I cannot let you, who I know you're wrong anyway, impact me and not do my job well because now psychologically you're in my head. I remember I went to, I usually don't share these stories, but I went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado. President Obama was going to go speak. And I was the agent in charge of the outside perimeter of the stadium. And then I was there with several other agents and we're meeting the head person that he was a colonel, lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, I don't remember. So it's me, all male agents, there's about several of us. And you were in charge.

I was in charge of the outer perimeter.

Yes, I was one of the two people in charge. There was the other agent was in charge of the inner perimeter and then everybody else worked for us. Not worked for us. They were supporting us. And so the colonel comes and he comes in and so let's say, you know, here's everybody, here are all the agents, I'm in the middle. And the colonel comes and he's like, Nice to meet you, nice to meet you, nice to meet you. It was legit happened.

I'm right here and it's like- no, he did not.

Nice to meet you.

He skipped me.

And you were in charge. And he was, you know, it shouldn't have even mattered. Right. And so it took everything in me to not be like, to not blow up.

He went over your head.

He skipped me. He skipped me.

The guy next to you, you and.

Then the-- He assumed I was either a secretary or staff or something. Because he's like, Hey, let me talk to the other.

Oh, wow.

I remember that. And I was just like, Does this just guy do this? I'm like, this guy just did this. You know, I'm having an internal dialogue with me. I said nothing. I said nothing. I was like, Doesn't matter. I was like, He's gonna find out who's in charge in a couple hours. And he did. Hi, I'm the agent in charge of your outer perimeter. Who's my counterpart and who do I speak to?

So you didn't take it personally?

I didn't look dumb. He looked dumb. I think, why would I take it personally if somebody is ignorant enough to do that? And why would I want that person's attention or respect? In my mind, I was just like, you can keep all of that. I'm gonna go do my job.

Do my job, yeah.

That's exactly. So you can't, at least for me, I never let it get in my head because it's like I have a job to do, I have a mission to do. And if I get people, if I allow somebody to get in my head, people will die. I'm not doing that.

Were you ever nervous in interviews or interrogations?

In the beginning, I was worried about not being respected. I was worried about, 'cause I didn't wanna be an interrogator. I did not want to be one.

Not being respected by the- Perpetrator. Perpetrator, not the team.

Yeah, you're interviewing, oh, the team.

Not your team, Secret Service team.

No, because at that point, when I became an interrogator, I went to specialized training. They were scared of me. Because then I started doing the polygraphs for new recruits. And so they would tell me all their personal bad stuff that they did. I had it all. I had all the goods. And then six months later they see me in the hallway and I'm like, hey, how you doing? And they're just like, oh my God, she knows all my dirty stuff. So no, after that people were kind of like, hey, good to see you almost like repel people. Yeah, yeah. But you know, you never speak about that stuff when people expose themselves like that to you. you don't do that. Right.

So you got nervous a couple times in the beginning?

In the beginning, I didn't want to be an interviewer or an interrogator because I thought nobody would respect me.

I was like, these guys are gonna.

See me and they're gonna be like... The perpetrators. Yes, the perpetrators. Because you're dealing with sometimes really hardened people. And they see you coming in, they're like, this girl? Yeah. And I was like, you, I really had in my head the image of something else and what you see on television. I didn't know. And afterward, I realized that the idea that I didn't look intimidating and that they were not expecting me, they're like, oh, this is a piece of cake. And they sit back, like, what do you want to talk about? Let's talk about anything you want. And then sure enough, admission after admission after admission to the point like, Hey, do you mind just writing all that down for me here? Right here. Thank you. You have a confession.

You probably did it. I mean, you're probably easier. You're less intimidating to look at maybe in terms of like this big man that you'd see on TV, like in your face.

That stuff doesn't work, by the way. None of that works. It looks great for TV. In real life, male or female, when you impose yourself on someone like that to that extent, they shut down, they get nervous, they're intimidated, they may tell you anything just to get you to leave them alone. Those are not good tactics. I'm not saying that they're not used by a lot of interviewers and Law enforcement, I think they are. Because there was moments where I'd do an interview with someone from another department, I'd sit there and I'm like, that's.

Not the way to do it.

It was rough sometimes, but you can't tell somebody, hey, don't do this, I'm in your house. But there were moments where sometimes it was harder. So I usually would do them with either an experienced interrogator from my own agency because we knew how to work together. It's only like 30 of us. So you would, you know, I would say, I want this person for this. if it was like a child pedophile case, we had one guy who I knew was great. I'm like, I want that guy. If it was terrorism, I'd say, I want this guy because he's really good. And I say guy because they're mostly guys, not all, but even the female interrogators, we had some good ones.

Yeah.

And so what was the time where you felt like, oh, I'm in trouble. I said the wrong thing. I messed up. Like it's about to go down the wrong way. Was there ever a time like that, or were you always pretty much in control?

I never felt like that because it's a conversation. I let it flow. It wasn't very rigid. If I have just an agenda and I have to go from here to here to here to here, that's where adaptability comes in. I didn't go in saying, here's my plan, here's my agenda, and I have to follow this. Because I have to allow the person to go where they want to go. So I may ask them, what did you do last night? Tell me about your night. And now they're telling me about you know, how every night they go to karate and oh, let me tell you, I started doing karate. And they're telling me this whole other story and I'm thinking, I don't want to know about how you started karate. I want to know about last night, but I would allow them that ability to do that. Or sometimes you have somebody who's worried about it, who's maybe angry that they're there, and I would have to allow them to talk about what they wanted, to get off their chest why they were angry, why they were there, what they were scared of, so that they could get it off their chest and then talk to people. Interesting.

Were the people that were angry mostly innocent or no?

Mix. It was a mix. It would go where sometimes usually innocent people would be like, I'm done, I'm leaving. But then sometimes you'd have innocent people be like, no, if I keep talking and I tell the truth, They'll see it. So I can't say it was one or the other, but guilty people tend to like to stay in the room.

Why?

Because I gotta convince you. I gotta get you off my back because you're not gonna go away. So you can get up and leave the room, but the investigation is still open. Yeah, yeah. I'm still looking at you, so their goal is to get you-- Interesting.

To convince you.

Don't look at me anymore. Go look at this other guy. Let me throw some other people your way. And so that's the goal. So they would stay in the room. It's like the car salesman. Always think of the car salesman. Working hard, working hard, working hard. I don't want you to look at me anymore. I want you to look at someone else because you're going to keep on coming back. If I could get you to look at this other person, now I'm good. So that's why they usually stayed. They usually would not leave. Guilty people would stay.

And how would you influence people to trust you and believe you and like you?

I would be genuine. I would tell them the truth, look, this isn't my case and often, usually it wasn't, it's not my case. I was like, if you didn't do anything, you didn't do anything. If you did do something, I get it, we'll work through it. And I was like, I'm here to help in any way I can and to help facilitate. And so, you know, if you did do something and you're forthcoming and you tell me, I will talk to the prosecutors, I will talk to the investigators, and I will tell them that you were cooperative. And I would do that. I would keep my word. It doesn't hurt me. Like, it wasn't, it's not personal. None of my cases were personal. Because sometimes people would ask me, when you were done interviewing someone, did you follow that case afterward? No.

Done. Moving on.

You don't, I never invested myself personally because it's, I'm not supposed to, I'm supposed to be, and I really like this because they taught us this in the service, you are an objective seeker of the truth. And I walked into every interview room saying, I am an objective seeker of the truth. So I don't care that everybody here is telling me he did it, you know, I'm going to give this person a chance. And I'm gonna look at the evidence, of course. And if I have evidence, like my.

Guy in the hat.

The hat. Who's like, oh, no, that's not me. I mean, he looks like me. What do you do with that? Where did you go? That was my heavy. And I dropped it early, too. You're not supposed to drop evidence so early. You're supposed to hold it. That was my heavy. After that, I had nowhere to go. No, yes, it's you. No, it's not. But yes, it's you. No, it's not.

There's nowhere to go.

I lost that one.

That one I lost.

You seem like an extremely confident person from a scale from one to ten, ten being very confident in general of your life. What are you?

It fluctuates. In certain moments, I feel very confident and centered. In other moments, I'm like, what the f***? You know? It fluctuates. I think it depends on what it is, what you're going through, what you're dealing with. if it's family, like those scales, when it's family, all these composure things go out the window, right? We're all like a whole other thing. I think it depends on the situation, but there are moments where, sure, I may lack confidence, but sometimes I would go in and think maybe because I was in such a life or death type of job, where I would be like, no one's holding a gun to my head. I'm not gonna die. I'm gonna go home after this. I don't fuckin' care.

Yeah.

And that's helped me more than anything. And my ability to curse usually internally, cursing has actually given, gives me a lot of strength.

Really?

There's actually science behind it that when you curse, whether outwardly or inwardly, it actually makes you, it empowers you. you know, so I'd rather be, I'd rather be like, you know, I've always, and I've always had that, not that it's a good thing, but I always use, try to use my inside voice instead of being like, what is me? This person's picking on me. These people are doing this to me instead of like inside me and be like them.

Right.

You feel more confidence.

It, it shifts it.

Yeah.

Instead of me feeling like I'm a victim and I'm being preyed upon, it's just like, who do, you know, screw that.

Yeah.

I think having that part of yourself and the ability to do that, not to intentionally actually hurt someone, but having that part of you inside, you know, my colonel, right, when he did that, that's exactly what echoed inside my head. You know, I made sure I'm like inside voice, inside voice, inside voice. But I was like, it doesn't matter. Instead of me being like, if I let that impact me, then the rest of my assignment Every time I see him, I'd feel smaller, I'd be affected. And it was just like, who's this guy? Who's this guy? And that allowed me to do my job. So I think for me, that's helped me quite a bit.

If someone listening or watching feels like they lack confidence in most areas of their life, what would you say is the way to overcome self-doubt and build confidence? Some things they could do.

Stop doing things that you're only comfortable with. Take risks, make decisions. I think I've noticed that with people who lack confidence, they're quite indecisive. Indecisiveness is a big thing and what they will do is they will go take a survey and ask everybody around them, what do you think I should do? What do you think I should do? And you're asking a person who has no ability to, you're asking someone with no expertise, about something. It'd be like, love mom, but it'd be like me asking my mom, hey mom, do you think I should do this TV show? And she'd be like, what did you say? What TV show? Oh, you're gonna be on TV? You know, like, I can't ask my mom about a TV business decision. She doesn't have the experience. I can ask her about something else, you know, that she does have experience in, but indecisiveness is key.

How does someone build the size of this?

You gotta start, you gotta stop asking people what to do and just do it. And then when you make a mistake, own it, fall on your face. The more you fail, the more confident you become. You can't fear failure. I have failed, Louis, I don't even know. I feel so much. And I look at it, I'm like, all right. And once that happens, once the worst thing that could happen to you happens, and you are still standing, you are still there, you are still breathing, like that. That builds resilience. Indecisiveness, knock that out. The minute you're like, let me ask people, stop. Choose. Don't worry about it, whether you're right or wrong, just do it. Thank you so much for listening.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links.

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