SECRET SERVICE AGENT Reveals The 3 QUESTIONS To Get The TRUTH OUT OF ANYONE! | Evy Poumpouras

it's good to get other people's opinions but you have to know whose opinion to listen to and when so when someone gives me their opinion solicited or unsolicited i ask myself two things i think you gotta have a dream the school of greatness yeah please welcome as a recovering liar cheater stealer uh but a human being that always wanted to be a good at growing up but for some reason i found my self in situations of lying cheating and stealing my way through a lot of life school shoplifting all these things lying to my parents all this stuff i'm curious if i would have had the secrets growing up on how to lie better where i didn't get caught what would i need to have done better because i got caught a lot lying to my dad and my mom all the time what would i needed to do better or should i just not try to ever lie and just be completely honest and not worry about it i think some lying to some degree is healthy really well if somebody's calling you and you don't want to answer the phone and they're very a taxing person or emotionally you know those emotional vampires are just someone that's not unhealthy for you voicemail sorry i was busy i think in some situations it's okay um but as far as like lying it's interesting you say that because we would to become a special agent there was a polygraph that you would have to take and these things would come up as far as like do you steal do you cheat do you lie but often people were worried about telling the truth and what they do is they wouldn't tell the truth you know yes i stole yes i did this and they would hold it in they'd fail their polygraph or fail that part of the interview and had they told the truth they probably would have been fine because it was more of an integrity thing it's more like tell the truth and and not pass the test but at least you're telling the truth you'll pass the test if you tell the truth here's the thing it's like the thought process is if you're going to lie about this a polygraph you know then you're going to lie about everything all right and so it's a big part of the job is trust because you get so much power so much authority you're around the president of the united states you're really around you know secret environments so to speak and so they really need to know that you can just be dropped anywhere and it's okay so it's really about the integrity of it how many how many polygraph tests did you take to study doing this process as an agent i didn't take a lot but i had to take them and then pass them myself because you have to get in so i would be polygraphed are you you know about my background or you know and i can't get into the the details i'm kind of filtering now in my head but basically you know you're trustworthy are you looking to cause harm have i convicted any felonies that have not shared drugs tended to be a big disqualifier for a lot of folks drugs have you done drugs or if you've been drug use or drug experimentation so they would allow hey when you were 16 if you did it for a few months they allow they have criteria i think today it's a lot more lenient when i went in it was extremely strict um but i think what they found is like we can't we can't find people yeah everyone's tried something right we can't find people everybody's failing the you know the exam and you know there's this understanding of that when people are young they make mistakes and it's you know should something that you did when you were 16 17 18 19 and now you're 30 preclude you from getting a job somewhere else so there has to be a little bit of that logic in there where you know when it it was a bit so severe but i think there is a lot more experimentation today but as far as your first question about your parents i think that they just knew you well and so they knew you could just feel it i'm just like no i didn't do it well they know you so they know your towels they know your demeanor they know how you shift when you do lie and so sometimes with people that we know very well we can see it um they're probably very intuitive to you um they probably also didn't want to believe your lies because sometimes you'll have people say well i was married to someone or i was close to someone and i didn't see it and sometimes we intuitively see it we know it's there but we ignore it and so we'll listen to somebody's excuses or explanations and because we're invested in that person and we want to believe in that person we want to believe the lie and so sometimes that's what happens when we get caught up in something and then you look back you're like i saw this i saw that and all those nickels will start dropping because but when you're invested in someone you want to believe in them you want to believe when they tell you oh no no no i was actually doing this because it's not to your benefit it's a to your benefit to believe i know what they tell you 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 cent or it can be a 30 minute conversation hi how are you i'm great how are you me while 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 it's a lot of work it's very hard because 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 in time 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 did some outright lies did you do this yes or no uh no i didn't oh how about this no i didn't do it oh no that's like one of the indicators um when people say um their body doesn't match up with doesn't match what they say so they'll say no yes and so you'll see the body will do this like the body's in conflict with what they're saying 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 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 i said right but i start you know i put my hands down and i i change my mannerisms now i'm stoic i'm not moving i'm 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 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 they 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 and then i would fill in the rest tell me 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 uh 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 a 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 you know 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 the specific thing this person person's gonna 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 so 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 that would you wouldn't get there till like maybe two hours into the conversation that's like the you you you get there it's over time because it's it's 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 the picture and then you you never actually have to ask them did you kill they eventually tell you 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 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 try trying to go for like 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 con 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 we're talking about something else like stick stick to the topic and when you do that you you break a rapport you hurt the conversation so it 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 uh the playground of all these other conversations i i get to listen to all those things to get it back to where i want to go to perhaps as opposed to 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 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 evie 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 wanna hear that i wanna take you on the journey with me to tell you how i feel this person or when we are in that space this 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 they don't want she doesn't want your solution no she doesn't want you to tell you what to do she wants you to listen to her and so just it's not even about solving it right and so i think that's another place where we get stuck like here 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 your 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 per 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 all we got to talk about this is 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 if you see that she's like not wanting to get to the point and figure out the solution where she just wants to tell you about her feelings how this makes her feel or how this hurts her or you know if it's about her her identity and that's what she's doing it's not about the solution whether you were in a secret service doing an interview or an interrogation or in the real world now i guess that is the world but after now yeah what are the social cues or psychological behaviors body language responses that people have before you take the polygraph test to know whether or not they're actually telling the truth what are those few things that you would see we talked about the body language uh are there other things that would happen social cues or behavior it was interesting everybody would assume that the polygraph the the lie detector like you just asked the question come on in have a seat louis let's hook you up did you steal when you were a kid you know did you steal that gum or did you steal that and then it just tells me everything and it doesn't really work that way like typically the the lie detector is the person so you sit across from a person you have a conversation and as we're discussing something let's say you're applying the u.s secret service we'll make you a request okay give it to me and so we're asking you all these questions about your education your background um drugs whatever it is and let's say we get to i say to you louis did you ever steal anything and so now i look at are there any shifts or any changes do you change the direction no people are usually not that obvious you know they're but you can see you can see something you can feel it it's also feeling people i think that gets dismissed quite a bit that it's not just see here you know it's like it's also you can feel another human being yeah you can you and it's intuitive and you we should allow that and listen to that more rather than shut that down but it would be you know if i would ask you that i would hear the way you responded did you respond similarly to all the other questions the same way is your you know ins let's say if i said louis did you ever you know i asked you all these other historical questions and you're like no no no and then i say louis did you have you ever stolen anything absolutely not so now something like that as small as that i may mark that i was like okay he said no no no for everything else but here he said absolutely not interesting why is it a bit more emphatic he cares more about either protecting something or that it actually isn't the truth he doesn't want that to be out but i will notice that it's different that you did something different even if you um no it could be a very subtle thing or you might not give me anything there are some people and i've had those people where it's just like poker face all the way through some people but they'll i don't want to say they're professional liars but some people you know would come in especially if it was a criminal case and they're guarding their the truth really hard and you have to try to figure out what that is or some people come in and it's i swear to god god god knows i would never do such a thing those are usually red flags unless it's a culture or a person who typically does it if so if they always say i swear to god i swear to my mom then it would be like look this is part of this person's natural language or maybe in their culture they refer to god quite a bit but if it's not and then you start doing that then again that's a red flag so that's what you're really looking for rather than we have some of these cookie cutter things it's like everybody does this everybody does that now are these things i'm talking about indicators they they are but you may do them and i may not i may do something else what do you do when you lie what do i do when i lie because we all lie at something right we do i do i do small or big my husband's like did you you know have a doughnut this morning no what do you lie about the most professional or personal and what in each each category maybe like if i'm mad because i haven't i have a pretty i have a pretty bad temper so it's like oh no i'm fine you know and i i'll because sometimes i'll know i'm like you know i have a temper and sometimes i know i'm being irrational and i don't want to open up a whole conversation so i'll just be like no i'm i'm okay i'll leave it because i'll know it's me i'm trying to think what do i i lie about maybe work if it's a project i don't want to do but usually that's what you have agents and managers for because they do it for you sure they shut it down for you um i'm trying to think i mean we all lie but i try to keep it like usually for me it's like because i'm like uh you know i like donuts and i like things cookies i like things so my husband's like a health fanatic so like how'd you eat today you know i was like oh this was okay i was pretty solid you know oh okay so he'll know what i'm trying to say is there such a thing as person being radically honest all the time no i don't i've never i've not come across that but i think here's the thing it's okay to lie because have you ever been very very very honest maybe with a person and then felt afterward you know i don't you feel a bit exposed and you feel like you know i wish i didn't share this much with this person afterward you kind of have that remorse because we feel like it's a it's a protection mechanism i don't want to tell you everything about me i don't want to be an open book and so i may and it may not be a lie so by omission so in the meeting if somebody's pitching me a project or i'm talking talking about something i don't like it or i don't like the direction it's going i may not say i don't like this i might say thank you you know let me think about that meanwhile i want to say no way i'm not doing it that's terrible so that that technically would be a lie i'm like you know what thank you and let me think about that but i know i can't respond the first way shuts people down that's why i feel like we hear people say say no you know being able to say no to people more so because a lot of us have to protect your time your space energy yeah that's wonderful but don't say no find other ways to say no no is ugly no is mean no is hurtful so i can say thank you so much i'll let you know um i'm not really sure if i'm able to let me think on that find alternative ways to let people down why is that to preserve the relationship because when you say no to someone even as a friend they might take it personally it stings right why are you saying no to me why do you have to stay like that you can say you can reject people in a thoughtful way in a professional way it just it depends like do you care about the relationship and if you do your no your hard no can hurt people's feelings people become sensitive because you're rejecting them and so i'm going to think of a different way to say no that's not going to impact you as much it's really using language thoughtfully so for example you brought up lying i love that and you said you know when i was a kid i lied so i would never say to you louis you're a liar or louis no lewis you're lying to me i would say louis i know you're not being truthful with me louis you're holding something back from me sounds different so it's the same way with language we don't we throw our words out and we don't realize that they land on someone and so then we scratch our heads heads wondering why did this conversation not go well it's this person's the problem when we don't have the ability to think about how did i deliver this so if it's a business relationship that's important to you but you want to say no to this you want to think of a great way to say no do we want to think about how do we let people down without hurting their identity going back to identity was there ever a time when you were interviewing or interrogating someone and you didn't believe them ever but they were telling 100 the truth oh my god you just reminded me of this case you're just like i know this person's lying to me but at the end of the day everything said was pretty true or almost 100. this was this was i've never i had it was such a simple case and it was even it was not even for a lot of money it was an atm scam this man was going to atms and he was taking stealing money somebody would go in use their credit card he'd come from behind take money very simple on the atm with like a gun or something no no no no no just follow them in there's these little skimmers that they put on top of the machine so when you scan your card that it would pick up your information as well and then you could go there's all these different scams so but when you go to the atm there's a camera there it's got your full picture so i have a picture of this guy my my perpetrator it's a picture of him i see him his face he's wearing a hat he's wearing a new york knicks hat and i was like here's my guy all right you know i've got it all i gotta do is lay the picture on so he shows up for his interview wearing the same new york knicks hat wow so i start speaking to him i don't take out my evidence right because i'm i'm saving that because i'm that's my new this is a slam dunk this is a slam dunk i was like and he didn't even steal a lot 500 it was something small i don't know how it landed in my lap but it did and sir you took the money no no miss i swear to god i would never do that sir we have this so i'm go doing this with him for like 15 minutes and this is a mistake on my evidence we have proof we have you know video footage of the name no never me never me and i pull out i'm i think i'm being slick and i pull out my photo of him boom right on the table who's that sir right now i'm sitting down i'm all smug i'm like i got this guy and he takes it and he looks at it he's like looks like me yeah he looks like me he's not me i was like what that's you he's like it looks like me that's not me same hat new york knicks hat the guy's wearing the hat right now yeah no and now it was a crazy interview and i remember it was for money was not for a lot of money in fact when it came to financial crimes crimes that had to do with money it was actually harder to get people to confess to those why less guilt less guilt they didn't hurt someone physically yes they might have hurt them financially yes i'm at home i'm sitting behind my computer i'm in my fuzzy slippers yeah or even if i'm doing it at the atm i'm not stealing from you i'm stealing from the bank yeah but it's different when i walk by you and actually put my hand in your pocket it's different when i go into your home and i assault you so there's there's that level of guilt when it's money and especially if you steal it from an institution yeah who cares zero guilt those were the hardest to get but yeah that was my guy i will never forget when i started live was it him or was it not it was him we arrested him anyway because we had the proof but it's always great to get it's always helpful to have a confession because it really just kind of seals everything you've got the evidence you've got this the person said it but he never agreed to it no no he said it looks like me but it's not me no same new york snake hat yeah i don't know i guess he's from new york who doesn't like the knicks he just nothing and you could see his face looks like me i got nothing from him really yeah so he never actually told the truth but it was in fact him who was him i mean we had evidence we had parents all that stuff but yeah no he you know to the end no not me could you tell like i couldn't tell you couldn't tell he was lying or not i couldn't tell no he was so believable um but i knew going in that he was my guy right so that's why i was like i know it's him but it was just like stoic and there's a moment i'm like is it not him right there they're so good you're like am i seeing this right turn the photo around i'm like no no it's him it's him it's him no no this is you so some people aren't that good some people are that good they will some people and i think this is look this was also somebody who committed a lot of crimes and he was used to it so certain people who are who lie a lot usually become better at it or they or they don't feel bad it becomes become better at masking it you obviously have a great conscience and so it bothered you and so all your towels were shown you can do this if your heart is bumping like your chest is tight like your throat is clenching you're like it bothered you yeah which is a healthy thing it's actually a healthy thing when it bothers you we tend to see in people who are who have sociopathic tendencies or anti-social tendencies those people don't tend to be bothered and so they can lie and can be quite calm about it because they don't feel that guilt the majority of people will feel guilt so the majority of people will feel the way you feel because you know it's wrong you feel it whereas those individuals with those tendencies they don't care what about um a situation that you lied your way through where someone believed you is there a situation like that in the last three to five years where you lied about something you're not proud of maybe or that people believe that people believed you and more than just oh i'm having a good day why you know what i did i could probably confess that this is just so long ago i went and got it was back in the day i got a money order from um western union the post office post office and you know i was like young i was a kid i wasn't making a lot of money i was in college and so i asked for a money order for like 3.99 i pay i get it and then as i'm leaving i see 4.99 and i'm like oh 100 bucks 100 bucks and i took it and to this day i remember it it bothered me really yeah it bothered me did it bother that you didn't tell the truth right then and say hey you guys no i took the money yeah i took the money it bothers you that you lied about your limitations i think i'm okay i took the money it bothered me afterward because i knew it was um i knew it was wrong i will tell you this one story we went did that come up in the secret service interview did you ever steal something like money when you're younger you know what i did lie about and did come up in my secret service interview i'll tell you that i when i applied for the job when i went to um when i went to college my parents and i love my family they weren't very supportive they weren't very supportive of my decisions my dad was a bit difficult like they didn't really want me to go and so when you apply for college you need their paperwork their tax paperwork i needed aid they couldn't afford it right and so my dad was so upset with me he wouldn't give me his tax paperwork to go to college yeah he didn't agree with my decisions because i was going to private school that um they could not afford and i was like i'll figure it out on my own but either way and so i lied when i went to the school i said i can't get this tax paperwork you know the main person was there is like well you think you can't get aid and so i went back to the school later on and i said i'm not living at home i'm alone can i get aid i can't get access to this tax paperwork and then i got aid so i flat out i yup i lied and i spilled the beans in my polygraph i was like i told them this is what happened i said i lied to get financial aid i could because i couldn't qualify for her aid and so i was like you know they didn't care that i was like look my dad my mom they won't give me their tax paperwork they're so upset with me they don't agree with my decision to go to this school to do this and they're like no unless you don't have your parents in your life i was just like i was like i'm going to college yeah and i lied but in my polygraph i was like i have to tell you something actually i said it before they hooked me up and i said look i did i lied about this i did this you know like why did you do it i was like i wanted to go to college i couldn't get money to go to school so i was okay i got the job wow how many things did you tell did you confess to before you took the polygraph that was my biggest thing yeah that was my thing drugs like i didn't i never had i despite growing up in new york i never had any issues i i always stayed away from it i think because i saw so much around it of that around me and the more people kind of put it in my face the more i was kind of like i'm not doing that but probably would have been the opposite if nobody did it i'd be the one to be like oh i'm going to try this um but i think that was the biggest thing away the heaviest with me because i was like i did this bad thing i lied on my financial aid paperwork to get aid i'm hoping the statute of limitations is expired on that i paid back all my i'm sure it's fine yeah i pay back all my loans when you're when you're in an interrogation or an interview or you're on a first date or you're at a a job interview in your career or any type of first interview with any situation what's the best way to build command authority and credibility yeah so you can do very simple things like when you greet someone hi how are you come on in why don't you use the bathroom before we get started so i'm not asking you would you like to use the bathroom i'm telling you why don't you go use the bathroom why don't you have something to drink what what can i bring you right so i'm i'm in this subtle way i'm telling you to go to the bathroom and you're gonna go because of the way i said why don't you go to the bathroom no no go before we get started right you just said authority um why don't you have something to drink oh no i'm good no have something to drink so we're gonna be here for a little bit [Laughter] so now i'm i'm planting these little seeds telling you i'm in control i'm not telling you but i'm doing it subtly have a seat there you know you can show me where where to sit or on the flip side you could also practice something called autonomy where you let somebody choose their own seat and that's a different tactic so there's two tactics where would you like to sit yeah where would you like to sit so you may use that on me if you want to talk about a topic that i don't want to talk about and so autonomy makes me feel like i have a choice you let me choose where i'm going to sit because you're going to let me have it later you're going to try to push me on something later so i gave you something now the law of reciprocity means you give me something later exactly but also autonomy though it's not it's actually also not reciprocity it's actually more of i feel in control because we don't like to feel like we're not in control so if you want to talk about something where i'm really uncomfortable i don't feel like i'm in control i will give you control elsewhere so i will give you control in picking where you want to meet i will give you control in what time i will give you control where you want to sit little things like that you can do where that person has autonomy to choose we can do it we can do it here we can talk about this or we can talk about this which would you prefer that's um nobody likes to feel like they don't have control so a way that you can deal with a resistant person is by giving them some level of control when you're going on a first date how is it and you've been maybe in an abusive relationship in the past where you were a doormat you were walked on you had no control no authority the person that you were in a relationship with walked over your boundaries took advantage of all that and you've had time to heal and now you're getting back out there yeah how can that person create a great dating experience and that first date to put themselves more in the driver's seat with some authority and not a doormat mentality all right so there's two things i think the first thing is don't take out on that person what was done to you by somebody that's the worst they're just you know because we've all been victims of things to some degree right and let's say even if it was it was abusive it was horrible it was that it was also not fair to take that out on an innocent person like to take your trauma out to someone else and sometimes we can feel trauma elsewhere and then project it on to someone else who didn't cause that to us so i would say that's the most important because most important thing because it will allow you to connect the other thing i will say is the majority of people tend to trust when we have relationships with people we tend to go and trust people so when someone says something to you you tend to believe it the average person we're just engineered that way and i don't even know why that is but we tend to to to sway towards trusting the person in law enforcement actually it's the opposite law enforcement officials are notorious for thinking people are deceitful so the average person believes people are honest law enforcement believes people are deceitful because they deal with more people who lie but that causes a problem elsewhere because when you do have innocent people or tell the truth they're telling you the truth and then you get false confessions you get problems you're looking at the wrong person because you're confirmation bias that's a whole other animal over there but knowing that we tend to give people um we tend to believe people automatically just hold a little bit of that back don't believe less just be more reserved and how much you trust discerning about it yes just don't put it all out on the table oh my god this guy's great or gal's great i just connected with them and then we do we go no's in and so you don't want to give unconditional trust so unconditional trust is like i give you now trust across the board i trust you in everything when you start dating someone or any new relationship even in business always conditional trust i'm not going to trust you all the way i'm going to trust you part of the way so now here's the thing we love to trust unconditionally which is probably why we tend to just want to give people trust it's less work i could just turn my brain off i can trust you great story always ask me anything you want because you're asking the beginning is there anything off the table i'm like no let's go ahead and ask her but you give that person unconditional trust and i don't have to think so hard i don't have to worry if you're going to manipulate me i don't have to be on my guard it's easy it's easier that relationship conditional trust means i have to be a bit more careful so it's like me going to buy a car i know i'm dealing with a car salesman i know i should be careful it's just understood that they try to get you to buy certain things they use certain language so when i go in i go in with conditional trust and so i'm better protected that's why there you're less likely to get hurt in those situations where you understand i can't fully give everything to this person i can't fully trust them conditionally i can um so i excuse me unconditionally so i have to just be careful the thing is that's work it's a lot of work we get tired we access a specific part of the brain when we do that a more complex part of the brain so that's why unconditional trust you don't want to give it right away and that is why when we get betrayed by people close to us that's why it hurts yeah it's usually by people who betrayed us on uh who we give unconditional trust to yeah that's my advice for dating that's when it stings would you use the same approach if let's say you're you know i haven't been on a first date in forever but let's say you're on a date your first date with someone would you say hey why don't you have some water why don't you use the restroom first where would you like to sit would you do the same approach there i would not because i don't want to establish authority there that's not if you're looking to have a relationship i would not do that that's not that's that's creepy that's a controlling understanding what should you establish trust i think we're poor and trust and i think probably the best thing you can do is just not talk about yourself and listen to that other person just ask about them what would be the the you did that to me when i walked in yeah well it was like heavy boom boom boom boom i was like what would be the three questions three most fascinating questions someone could ask on a first date that would not be interrogational but be uh connecting questions ted tell me tell me about yourself explain to me what your dreams are describe to me what your you know what your hopes are don't don't create a question because you may ask a question that you think is fascinating and they're going to look at you like that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard right you don't write because we you don't know what they think like what they what their what their aspirations are what they're we're on a hypothetical first date what would you say to me using the tell me about your podcast i'd love to hear all about it okay explain to me how you got into that describe to me like what it's like when you interview all these different people i'm going to shut up and i'll let you go lewis because now i get to hear you i get to see what you you're like your values your beliefs what excites you what doesn't excite you excite you you're going to tell me about why you started it you're going to tell me about your background what got you into it any uh growing pains or heartaches or how this happened you're gonna tell me about your favorite guests you're not favorite guest you're gonna tell me about the amazing things you learned or maybe some of the things that you were like i can't believe i brought this guest on and so now you just opened up this world and i had to do no work and i can just listen these are more indirect questions is that right or open-ended questions so don't ask a direct question who is your favorite guest don't say that i would tell me about tell me about your guests and then i would allow you to naturally tell me on your own because you feel like you're in control and it's more likely that you will tell me on your own but if i ask you directly and if you want to protect the integrity of the people you interview because you don't want to say this is my favorite guest to make it public because then that's it's going to hurt the people that come on the show right your clientele so to speak your guests so i would you're not going to answer it you're going to be reluctant oh evie i love everybody it's like my kids you know you can't say your favorite kid it's all your kids you're going to say that it's like when people ask me who's your favorite president i always say i love them all they're all they i love protecting all of them but if somebody says tell me about the people you protected or tell me about the president's you protected now i feel comfortable i'm in control i'm talking the more we talk the more we leak i'm less guarded it's less direct i don't even know you're trying to find that and i may naturally on my own get there tell me about a characteristic of a president that wowed you the most hmm you know you like that opener you like that on me a characteristic from one of the presidents that you're just like obviously that they're all inspiring in some way i'm assuming for you but tell me about a characteristic or a 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 president former president george bush senior he used to write note cards to everybody he had a little he wrote no 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 right and i took that i took that from george uh 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 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 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 wouldn't know what they did or didn't do but that's what he did another characteristics 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 um 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 you could hear the agent 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 you 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 taking us 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 hmm there's so many the ones that wowed you that they all did like they were all great george washington george washington oh my god all right how old are you um gw president george bush he like i love going to the ranch with him i'm from new york city i go to texas i was just like what did you know it was like we were out in the wild he's like we're going we couldn't make trails i was like why are we gonna make trails there's a road right there you know 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 to yes to get there and so you watch them and they're not just them they've got cabinet members other individuals who you know you watch and you listen to you see how they problem solved and i was in my own school of greatness where i just get 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 there because they're already the authority so you don't so i want to say that like they don't president can look at you 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 gave me a second yeah 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 like 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 looking at you you know whether 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 because 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 gosh 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 because 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 it's you know hey you know louis and you know maybe i like it 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 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 it's you got to be a little bit less is more with that shaking your hand maybe that's it for i think a second hand on the top like a genuine heart felt for two seconds and then let it go yeah i think so i think so you want to 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 going to 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 than of like shoulders down harder in person is always better and obviously if you're on zoom you can see the person but the tone and flexion of the voice does it change does it not the body posture again sometimes it's just as simple as how they say something you know the way they deliver a story for example when i worked cases sometimes i did 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 it we've got three suspects but we can't figure out who it is and i would you know 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 say send me the statements that they wrote written statements written statements about what they said they 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're you have a bit more expertise in this will you help us out it's an important case and so i 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 when they deliver you deliver a beautiful story to you that has a beginning every two minutes yeah and an end it's an arc when it's a story it's an arc it's typically manufactured it'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 that here they're 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 it looks like i'm hiding something and i'm um i um 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 are the honest ones yes oh 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 and someone uses that not on the written paper quotes but even in both yes someone uses quotes yes and i read they said this that means they're telling more likely the truth yes why is that because they're they're um they're being very specific uh 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 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 like more specific of like i did not do this is that generally speaking more untruthful so again it depends on the famous president that said i did not commit these sexual relations well he he we know he was dishonest but okay so you said that statement i did not and so it is true most people like when did you have pizza this morning for breakfast no you're not gonna be like evie i did not have a 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 life kind of 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 um 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 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 wary 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 tedx the ted approach yeah to talk for 20 30 minutes to see how they normally talk their expression what are their mannerisms and you can ask them truthful truthful questions about oh 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's you know that'll give you indication of like so you know for sure they're telling me the truth here you know 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 they don't evoke anything it's not a yes or no answer no they don't evoke anything however though vocation so we're rolling into all these techniques is very good one you have someone who is 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 hmm and so this is why it's so important to tad 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 gonna you're gonna know you're gonna start ticking people like up identity up instrumental up high conflict and then you and then you know how to maneuver interesting what um what could you test on me right now to see whether i'm lying or telling the truth about 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 it went interesting yes it won't work it never works never works interesting no because you know you're ready yeah 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 and it can't be manufactured and it's and i wouldn't go straight for it i would you know maybe if i wanted to know about your past criminal history sure when you were younger sure 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 you know or whatever and i might 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 yeah 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 that's sad and i was always very very very careful i actually aired on the side this is i actually aired 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 yes that is like the worst thing it's got to be the horrible for that person that was like something that i was very very very aware of how many people 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 um to see how people were manipulated and maneuvered and it's not 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 i know lewis is my guy so now no matter what you say my even when you're trying even when you are saying things that are are showing your innocence i'm still focused on you did it so it's confirmation bias no matter what you say i'm going to make it fit the narrative i want which is you did it so that was a a very important thing because i had seen it i knew that's tough how you could do it and i had people in the room if they're young if their mental health issues or sometimes you get people in weak moments or sometimes people see you you're law enforcement you're 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 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 like it's not good you don't 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 five two two mighty 5-2 when you went into the uh 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 is that correct much taller bigger in general right more than more than five too yeah 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 wouldn't 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 i was proud of that and so that kept me going i i didn't think about my gender i i just did my job and if 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 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 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 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 here's everybody here 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 this legit happened i'm right here and it's like no he did not nice to meet you nice he skipped me and you were in charge and he was he did you know it shouldn't have even mattered and so it took everything in me to not be like tonight over here he went he skipped me he skipped the guy next to you you and then 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 did 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 going to 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 up 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 i in my mind i was just like you can keep all of that right i'm gonna go get do my job i'll do my job yeah that's exactly so i 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 yeah i'm not doing that right were you ever nervous in uh interviews or interrogations in the beginning i was worried about i was worried about not being respected i was worried about because i didn't want to be an interrogator i did not want to be one not being respected by the perpetrator perpetrator 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 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 you almost like repel people yeah yeah um 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 going to see me and they're going to be like i'll probably try this yes the perpetrators because you're dealing with sometimes really hardened people and they see you come in and 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 and you have a good 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 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 um by a lot of interviewers and law enforcement i think they are because those moments where i'd do an interview with someone from another department i'd sit there and i'm like this is not the way to do it it was rough sometimes but you can't 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 i you know i would say i want this person for this or 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 mostly guys not all but even the female interrogators we had some good ones yeah so what was the time where you felt like oh i'm in 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 right i let it flow it wasn't very rigid if i have just an agenda 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 may i ask them what did you do last night tell me about your night and now they're telling you be 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 me were there people that were angry mostly innocent or no mixed mixed yeah 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 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 why because i gotta convince you i gotta get you off my back because i'm not because you're not going to 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 to convince you don't look at me anymore go look at this other guy let me 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 i don't want you to look at me anymore i want you to look at someone else because you're going to keep them coming back if i could get you to look at this other person now i'm good so that's why they usually stay 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 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 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 when you were done interviewing someone did you follow that case afterward no i was 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 surface 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 going to i'm going to look at the evidence of course and if i have evidence like my guy who's like oh no that's not me i'm sorry he looks like me what do you can what do you do with that where did you go that was my heavy right and i dropped it early too you know 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 1 to 10 10 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 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 like fit when it's family like all these composure things go go out the window right or like a whole other thing i think it depends on the situation but there are moments where sure i may lack confidence but sometimes like 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 going to go home after this i'm here 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 there's actually science behind it that when you curse whether outwardly or inwardly it actually makes you imp 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 it but try to use my inside voice instead of being like what was 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 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 this guy you know i made sure i'm like inside voice inside your eyes inside 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 this guy who's this guy and that allowed me to 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 and how does someone build the size of this you got to 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 i you can't fear failure i have failed louis i don't even know i feel it i feel so much and every you know and i look at it 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 so yeah take risks make decisions fail often choose anything else an overcoming self-doubt that you've seen the way you talk to yourself in your head mm-hmm watch the language you use watch your mouth with yourself so for example i work out and so there are moments where it happens where i'm sitting on the sofa and i'm just like i don't want to do this i don't want to go run outside i don't want to go to jiu jitsu i'm tired i want to sit i want to eat popcorn i don't want to do anything i want to watch netflix i will never say to myself don't be lazy get up i'm not lazy there's nothing about me that is lazy why would i ever say that to me but i will say if you move get up go and i may be bitching as i'm putting on my sneakers i don't want to do this whatever but i will be putting them on and doing it and then go but i will never call myself names and that's something i had to learn over time man this is my entire childhood was calling myself names you're never gonna mount anything you're stupid you suck why did you do that idiot you know all these things even something as simple as like i'm such an idiot what did i do why did i put that there and i catch myself i'm like don't say that about yourself you're not an idiot i wouldn't want another human i wouldn't want somebody else to call me an idiot why would i call myself an idiot yeah we get pissed at other people when they call us that stuff but we don't know we should get mad at ourselves for calling us that's how yeah what'd you say are the three greatest skills that you have as an interrogator as an interrogator i can listen i can listen and have a person completely shred me and not say a word what does that mean shred you like you can have somebody be like i hate you you're this you're that you know you don't react in the interview room especially with the job i would i would sit and take it because it wasn't my ego personal too it's not it was less personal yeah but i've been able to not always successfully but even in my personal life um maybe without with my husband so much he's probably like yeah that's but he's an interrogator too so it's all right but typically with friendships relationships i'm better at not like i can i you know i can have people say hurtful or cruel things and not respond really i'm not saying it hurt it doesn't hurt and there's moments you know you have those moments where maybe a business relationship doesn't go well or you have a friend or even a distant family member and like they send you a horrible email that you know so crushing and you just want to point out like just the the you know the lies or the inadequacies and what they wrote and i have learned to not respond or to try not to respond i have my moments too but i really think to myself is this person worth responding to sometimes it's hard because it's like i hear what this person person's saying i see what they're doing and you want to respond and i think it takes so much discipline to not be mean to someone who's being mean to you or hurtful to you yeah that's tough because we all go through that yeah every each one of us has people in our lives who give us hate and you're like how's this happening why is this happening and you want to give it back especially when you've trusted them unconditionally you you access the primitive part of your brain and you gave them all that trust you didn't give them conditional you know trust you gave it all up and then that relationship goes south and you're you're just you can be distraught that's that's hard how do we learn how did you learn to respond in an empowering way or not respond at all when someone attacks you that to be fair i learned that in the interrogation room in the interview room when we were were you always like that you so you weren't always like that no just like screw you i was bad that was bad i was pretty bad yeah i took after my father i did in that part you know and look and i give my dad kudos than that like even you know i talked about the cursing thing and i realized where i got it when i'd go home as a kid sometimes and i'm like dad this person picked on me and this that this is his advice did you say you he never taught me to be a victim never and i remember so my dad passed and i remember this is hard he was it was we were at home and i couldn't handle his pain anymore he had pancreatic cancer and i was managing his treatment at home and i i couldn't manage it with the drugs he had to go into hospice and then the hospice people came and we're sitting at this table it was the round kitchen table and she's like we have to take him you you can't manage it anymore he has to go to hospice and i knew in that moment when he left that was it he was not coming home and like the tears are coming down and i'm sitting there and he's like he's like hey he's dying he's like hey and he says it to me in greek you know he says to me in greek and i'll say it in english she's like how are we going to win the war if you're like this oh man he's like how are we going to fight if you're like this stop and so i i appreciate that because he never taught me to feel like a victim and so too to the point where he died and that stayed with me i'm like he's dying he's going to hospice he knows he's never coming back wow and he's just hey knock it off so he still wasn't a victim then he's like hey to me he's like stop how are we going to win the war if you act like this how are you going to win in life i was just like sorry yeah what was the greatest lesson he taught you that you know he's you know too and he had a temper he was worse like he would actually vocalize the the stuff and i learned not to do that he taught me not to be a victim he taught me not to let even though people heard us he'd be you know he'd say to me does this person feed you do they clothe you do they do they pay do they pay your bills and i'd say no he's like what are you upset about and you you have this moment you're like yeah why am i upset you're right it kind of like knocks out quite a few people and that that helped me i mean it could also be traumatizing when you're young you want a little bit of the hey yeah i didn't get any of that but i appreciate that and i think that that also intuitively gave me that i'm not i'm not your victim and i don't even like that word yeah no i don't like that word because i think when we think like that we intuitively fall into that role and so sometimes being able to like say hey fu he gives you power back to say like i'm not going to take this i'm not going to do this yeah so number one was listen you're a great listener oh my god i forgot the questions i want to learn about your other skills too that was a powerful response what was the question the three greatest skills you have as an interrogator listen i think being able to take it when people are cruel and i think we touched on that yeah it's so hard but you were going to say how you learned that in the training people would how did you learn that would they just like constantly come at you in training you know when i first learned that i was in the nypd i started the nypd first as a recruit and they used to run us there's it's called the fdr highway the fdr and we'd run in in ranks of four we'd run in these ugly cargo shorts and please change the uniform and these you know i am a little bit of a you know i was just like wait does this know is this not a matching outfit it doesn't look good i was like if i'm gonna arrest people i wanna at least look good you know sure i'm gonna get shot today i want to look good as i'm going down you know but so we're running in the fdr uh four cross and ranks and the fdr is a highway so there's a service area where you run and people are driving by doing like 40 50 60s the highway and back then kind of similar to where we are they hated police it was before 9 11. they didn't like law enforcement and you they flipped the bird they'd spit at you while they're doing 50 60 miles and i remember we're running and i didn't understand i got in quite young and somebody like spit our way and gave us the finger and i'm like hey and i turn around and the instructor just like grabbed me like what are you doing i was like did you not see what that guy did he's like i was gonna give him a piece of my mind and he's like no you don't do that here he's like you are not like them he's like you control that he's like if you can't control what people do he's like you're never going to make it out there nor should you be out there wow and that was the first time i thought i was being tough defending yourself defending myself and that's the first time i learned like you don't tough people don't need to do that the real toughness is letting it go it takes it takes more self-control and more self-discipline to be able to not say something and say something there's this great quote i'm gonna butcher it aristotle said it i believe and it's like it's to get angry is an easy thing but to be angry with the right person for the right reason and in the right way and for the right situation is not easy and not within everybody's power you know and so for me i work on that just because i naturally gravitate to that but i think for other people who don't i think they need a little bit more of that that part of them that doesn't let them i'm a victim i'm this i'm that a little bit more of that fire like maybe a little bit of crazy yeah yeah you gotta have that there's good crazy and you gotta have that so if you're if you have a victim mentality a lot maybe step it up and defend yourself a little more yeah or you know put yourself in uncomfortable places and when people say things to you don't you don't want don't you can't let it crush you you gotta have a little bit of that who are you yeah some thick skin yeah but but not even thick skin but the ability to say like you're wrong i know you're wrong i don't even need to tell you you're wrong yeah because sometimes you ever have that louis where you're dealing with somebody and you know they're wrong but they lay out all the reasons why they think they're right and you want to point them out and sometimes you do but it doesn't matter the energy's not worth it but it's not like you can get across to them they've already made up their mind so even if you you refute each thing they say they're just going to come up with something else exactly yeah the energy of reacting is not even worth it to them at that point no then you end up leaving frustrated and i think the third thing would be what i learned is when you try to say something to someone and when you're going to explain something to someone you have to ask yourself does this person sitting across from me have the ability to understand the perspective i'm about to share with them right they may not and if they don't just sit there and just like okay okay oh my god look at that look at the time i gotta go and so i think not wasting your time banging down a door that it's not even a door it's like letting that go yeah i think i heard in another interview you did where you said you know it's our responsibility as leaders in the world to actually be a more adaptive and understand where the other person's coming from and not expect them to understand us where we're coming from yes and be like emotionally flexible with where they're at yes so with interviewing and with most almost everything i try to do um so we have a conversation i'm 50 of it you're 50 of it but what happens is i get most people get focused on me what am i going to say to louis how am i going to be with lewis how am i going to interact with lewis me me me i i i get nervous i'm insecure how do i look how do i sound and what i've done is given zero uh thought to louis it's all been about me and so when i live in this space i become nervous i become insecure i have i'm self-conscious but when i leave that aside and i'm like this is about louis i want to hear about louis louis tell me about yourself i want to know about you i want to absorb everything about you i put my energy into you and then i listen to you how does lewis speak what's his demeanor if every time he likes something i says he does i do a lot you know so i'm like oh that's his that's his posture that's how he he's showing you he's connecting with you um but i have to see the world through lewis's eyes how he sees it how he experiences it so when you say to me you're like look i lied i did this when i was growing up i did that and if i was just like who does that why would you do that this interview is going south but my ability to connect with you and allow you to be you and not judge you that was big with people who committed crimes i somebody told me that they did a horrible thing and usually with a violent crime or with the child if i sat and i told that person you're wrong oh disgusting i'm not seeing from their perspective they're not going to talk i'm not going to get information i'm not learning anything that is work and i think when we do especially like in business or when you're nervous or if you're like i'm nervous interviewing i'm nervous speaking if you can take the attention you create off of yourself and put it all on that person now you're distracted by them but we're nervous we're uncomfortable when all we're thinking about is me me me i i how do i sound how am i going to do this how am i going to say that and i'm not it sounds like it sounds like one of our greatest fears is the opinions of what someone else thinks about us how do we stop thinking about the judgment of other people the opinions of other people about the way we look act think i think once you have haters haters are good because you get them you're like i've got haters yeah okay i have to keep going and you keep going so you'll see that i guess you have to catch yourself somebody is criticizing something you're doing do you keep doing it or do you change the course of your actions because they said something to you if you change the course of your actions because this person said something to you shared their opinion now you you're being maneuvered by them and you are being impacted by them but if you still are like no this is what i need to do despite the hate or the criticism or the venom that you receive you still stay on that path that's how you know so i think pay attention as an individual am i doing this because i believe this to be the right thing or am i doing this because outside people are putting pressure on me to change my path and change who i am look it's it's good to get other people's opinions but you have to know whose opinion to listen to and when so when someone gives me their opinion solicited or unsolicited i ask myself two things who is this person um and why should i listen to that and so if i can't come up with that then i'm like i shouldn't listen to this person so i you know it but it's it's having a conversation with yourself and practice these are these are all habits you don't change overnight so if you've been a person who has your habits always been to let other people opinions affect you you talk negatively about yourself you're intimidated by the things around you you're not a risk risk taker you're indecisive you can't change overnight but what you can do you can say this month i'm not going to ask anybody for their opinion i'm just going to spend like a month just making my own decisions and you create and cultivate that habit and then you move on to the next thing and the next thing so that was not reacting that was number two was there a third one that you shared there i think i gave you like five okay let's make a shout out i want to miss something there um i'm curious about the thing that you're most proud of that most people don't know about proud is it bad to say that i don't have anything huh i don't i don't know how to answer that i don't have i don't have anything like i guess i i don't know and i don't know if it's baby i came from a place where it's about the team and it's more about humility and you're not supposed to stand out even though now i'm on tv right huge contradiction i'm an author i'm a book i have a book i don't know i mean something you've done with your team too or something in the past or something more recent what am i proud maybe i don't know if maybe proud is like not the right word for me because i'm i'm happy maybe because i don't let other people affect me especially when i know they're wrong that's good that i will do i will i'm able to recognize and have a conversation and say is there truth to what they're saying and if there is what role did i play or is there no truth to what they're saying and what they're saying entirely about them their world their inadequacies because sometimes if you go back to asking people their opinion most people will be like don't do that don't quit your job don't this and what they're doing is they are imposing on you their fears their beliefs and all that stuff so how can i ask someone else to tell me how to what job to take how to live my life sure who to date who to marry when i'm hello i'm gonna be the one stuck with them they're gonna choose differently than i would like with my mom this is terrible example but like she'd be like isn't he cute i'm like oh who are you looking at you know when she was trying to get me to get married i'm like oh he's good looking she's like what's wrong with you look at it [Laughter] so i could never ask her to tell me who i it's weird like because i had such a different belief system my mom grew poor in the village she my grandmother was illiterate they were they were dirt poor poverty in greece and i can't ask my mom certain things because she doesn't have the context to answer some of the questions that i have that are i grew up in a different environment in a different place a more complex world and so she can't she can't connect with that mm-hmm she couldn't connect with me going into the police department i might i should have just told i was gonna go sell drugs she would that would have been at least more like oh okay i can see that um she couldn't connect with me going to become a secret service agent when i left that to go into tv she couldn't connect with that she's like what are you doing why are you doing all these things you know she didn't understand your perspective yeah she couldn't understand but she also grew up very fear-based poor hungry you have something great don't mess this up and then i'm like but there's something how did you shift that mindset if you grew up in an environment of a fear-based more protective maybe fear-based mother how did you shift from that and not have that it made me angrier i think it does one of two things you either become more afraid or the opposite or the opposite and i became the opposite i became more infuriated by it and i fought it harder and the more i was told no no the more i was like no one's i'm not gonna tell me no let the world tell me no and then i'm okay with it i'm gonna apply for this and let them laugh at me let whatever is gonna happen happen i wanna i want someone else to tell me no it can't come it can't come from me first it just can't because i i won't be able to live with myself because i had done that before yeah i think we all have to some degree and we're like why didn't i listen to myself and i think that hurts more at least for me it hurt more yeah from the police department to secret service to tv media book world yeah what were the habits that you learned along the way from being around the presidents and in that space maybe the three or four habits for ultimate success fulfillment and happiness that you've seen that you've applied or maybe you'd like to do more of based on everything you've witnessed do you know what i'm actually going to answer the opposite because it just intuitively came to me i actually it was hard for me because i had never been in the business of me and i was always speaking up for i was i represented the people i represented the government i represented right and wrong that was different and then when i went into the business of me a whole other ball game and tv enter entertainment oh my goodness i found myself using my interviewing assessing human behavior skills more in like my meetings with producers and yeah what are they really telling me the truth or not yet oh totally i'm like oh he scratched his head when i asked that question i was like sir did you so did you like me on that show oh yeah it was great you were good you're good so i found i had a hard time shifting and i think it's because you go from because look even though you're you're taught to be decisive and a free thinker you're also there's a hierarchy and chain of command the orders come from the top down and now what i found myself doing is thinking my agents and my managers were like my supervisors and i i i i kind of got stuck in that place so i had to learn and be like no i need to speak up for myself and i need to say no i don't want this no i don't agree with this even though i always had it but i don't know lewis i had a hard time i don't know you did you i mean you're in this industry was it hard for you when you went from playing football to being the business of you well in the sports world i was really good at learning how to set goals for myself and i worked on me to become a better athlete every day so it was always physical mental uh visualizing and i was practicing different habits to improve and to gain you know the success i wanted as an athlete so i felt like i had an advantage going into the business world because i was very coachable i was already like let me find the best mentors and coaches because they have the answers i don't know what i'm doing tell me what to do i'm going to go work really hard for six months and i'll come back and show you what i did and then give me some feedback and let me figure out you want me to read this book you want to do this okay i'll learn learn learn develop skills follow routines and see what works for me so i would try and try and try a lot of things and if it got me the results great did it also bring me fulfillment no okay what do i need to do for that um but sports really helped me develop habits and a mindset because it was an environment of failure every moment you're dropping a ball you're missing a shot you someone steals the ball from you whatever you're you're failing so you have to learn constantly if you want to improve i think you know now that you said that i think what habit i took then was my ability to not get my feelings hurt that's a good habit so in the service like they didn't sugarcoat anything like hey you know that last that last advance you did you know that part where the president got knocked down yeah you know we just appreciate if you just put better bike racks up and secure it a little better it'd be like why wasn't that secure that's not gonna happen again you're demoted you've got a week of midnight or whatever or you know give me 50 push-ups if it was training and so i liked that it was very direct clear which is why i think we're both instrumental it's just like tell me what i need i don't need the whole story i don't need the sugar coating tell me what i need to do to be better and in fact even with the only thing i do with any project i have any um my agents my executive producers any project i'm on my editor for my book or my agent i don't need you to you're not going to hurt my feelings right is it good or not yeah tell me just tell me if it's good if it sucks say evie it sucks but just tell me why so i can fix it this sucks this is why you did not do a good job at this this is why i can't be better if you're so worried about hurting my feelings which i think in this industry people don't give it to you like i remember i started doing the news and i after every news thing it's like you were great you were great i was like i can't be great yeah exactly give it some feedback so i had to pull one of the producers aside and i said please tell me what i can do better i don't want you to tell me i'm great i'm not going to get better if you don't tell me stop using your hands so much on camera or you know don't curse i don't know sure whatever give me good feedback yeah give me feedback so i definitely got that i don't nothing hurts my feelings when it comes to that tell me i suck tell me why so i can fix it yeah but maybe your husband said that it might hurt your feelings he does that he does that he's just like let me sit you down and he goes straight to it he's like really actually when i began doing television he would you know i had a great support system he would text me during commercial break sit up you're slouching fix your hair who did your makeup today oh man he's like i don't like it that eyeliner is crazy what are you wearing too many stripes i mean he would critique me so that i could be better and i was never pissed never i'm like watch me you know tell me what i'm doing right oh yeah that outfit didn't work oh who did your hair don't do that again but that was because he wanted me to be better because you asked for it too i asked for it i don't know if i always ask for it sometimes it's unsolicited but i but i knew what he was doing and why whereas i think a lot of folks get their feelings hurt so i think with our backgrounds that there's no time for that and i think some results let's go yeah and i think it's like yo i just tell me how to be great i don't need you to my feelings are fine my feelings will hurt when i don't when i fail at this and i don't get the job or they replace me with somebody else to host or whatever produce or whatever yes that's good i love this uh you've got an amazing book called becoming bulletproof protect yourself read people influence situations and live fearlessly that i want people to check out i believe that life is a game of enrollment and we're either enrolling people and something or they're enrolling us and it's all about influencing persuasion in an ethical way but we're always in an enrollment environment let's convincing people in something or unconvincing them in something and so this book is going to help people protect themselves if someone's doing something harmful it's going to help them read people and understand people and influence people in a more positive way and i love all the strategies and techniques you've given today this is really inspiring i can follow you also all over social media twitter instagram facebook where you hang out the most new york city although i love which social media you hang out the most which which platform are you on the most i think instagram i'm on instagram but i'm trying to get into tic tac i'm struggling oh all right are you on it of course i'm watching i gotta learn i gotta i need help you do great you do great on that i don't know how to use i need help i'll show you a couple of accounts that have blown up kind of in your space um that i think we do really well at if you just look at some of the stuff they do i'll text you some of those accounts i'd love that i'd love that but instagram right instagram twitter facebook and it's all your name uh that's all my name comments spelling gotcha there we go um i've got a couple final questions for you yes this is called the three truths it's a hypothetical question oh i'm nervous imagine imagine your last day on earth many years away from now okay and you've got to accomplish everything you want to accomplish all your dreams come true everything you want to do it happens okay but for whatever reason you've got to take all of your work with you your written work your books your audio this interview it's all going to go with you to the next place wherever you go you got to take everything with you so no one has access to your content anymore or a recording of you anymore or your information okay but you get a piece of paper in a pen and you get to write down three lessons you've learned from your life that you'd want to share with the world i'd call it the three truths what would you say would be your three truths that you would share with everyone do the right thing even when it's not the most popular thing to do that would be it that would be a huge because sometimes you're doing the right thing and everybody around you is telling you you're wrong you're this you're that and it's like if you know it to be the right thing do it that's not easy three things that i would leave behind right i would number two say it again i want to hear it again this is all you have to leave behind lessons that you've learned from your life lessons i call them three truths do the right thing even when it's not popular make your own decisions fail as much as possible because if you're the more you fail it means the more you're doing and the more you're putting yourself out there when you don't fail it means you're not doing anything that's true yeah oh that was deep it's good i like this i want to acknowledge you for a moment uh the fact that you've gone through these different stages of your life and done the right thing even when it's not popular try you're trying you've tried i don't wanna try to i might have had a little bit of lewis in me too growing up i'm not gonna i'm far from perf perfect i will say that well i acknowledge you for being in the industry and the level of service that you've had for trying to do the right thing trying to help people make better decisions get having justice where justice is needed and being a force for good you've shown as a force for good for many many years in your level of service so i really acknowledge you for showing up and then also moving into the next stage of your life and showing up in a different way to serve people with this type of information to help people to spread the knowledge that you've learned in these different environments so i really acknowledge you for the gift that you are for showing up for learning for failing for growing and all the stuff you're doing it's really inspiring thank you i appreciate you saying that of course yes i feel the same way i walked in i saw school of greatness i was like oh i am in the right place i'd say it's not the school of average um okay final question for you i want people to get the book follow you on social media but the final is there anything else we want to mention oh man you've hit me hard i feel like i've never been interviewed it's a friendly interview you know friendly interrogation no i love it this is it's nice because you're if i can flip it on you now you're a thoughtful interviewer it's a conversation it's not an interview you're not just like banging the questions out like you really put your thought and you're really trying to get into something deep we're not it's not often like that yeah and i i appreciate what you do it's like trying to teach people and it's like what i tried to do with the book i was like what can i share with people that i learned that will be helpful to them and how can you package it and deliver it in a way to people so it's digestible like how do you help try to make people's lives and i love your honesty in that you're like i'm not perfect and i'm not preaching because it's like and that's what you want to make sure i'm not preaching i just this is what i've learned i hope it helps you because it helped me it's still helping me right right love it uh final question what's your definition of greatness trying to help people and protect people yeah helping them protect people i think we we are very like mind my own business me me me just me and we've lost that ability to to protect and i think maybe it goes back to what i did like i will protect you i may not know you but i will i will protect you i will try to help you i think that's greatness helping people even maybe when it's not to your benefit sometimes abby you so much appreciate it thank you amazing if you're looking for more greatness in your life make sure to check out this video right here and also check out our free pdf the three secrets to unlock the power of your mind to help you change your life download it right here for most people that burn them with their argument here's why you should make this deep and they've got that memorized and they're not going to listen to what you say until they get it out

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 439,811

Rating: 4.8406401 out of 5

Keywords: Lewis Howes, Lewis Howes interview, school of greatness, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, success habits, success, wealth, motivation, inspiration, inspirational video, motivational video, success principles, millionaire success habits, how to become successful, success motivation, evy poumpouras, evy poumpouras women of impact, evy poumpouras ted talk, evy poumpouras husband, evy poumpouras interview, get the truth out of anyone, life advice

Id: h4jyYsruVvY

Length: 111min 42sec (6702 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021