Secret Agent (Evy Poumpouras): Never Be Yourself At Work! Authenticity Is Quietly Sabotaging You! - Evy Poumpouras

Don't bring your authentic self to work.

I want your professional self.

You can bring your authentic self to Thanksgiving meal with your family if you'd like to.

Your authentic self is about who?

Me, me, me, me, me.

Everything is what's happening to me.

What's in it for me?

Do you know that you impact other people?

You affect other people's lives.

You make the work environment easier or more taxing?

Can someone learn to be a better self-regulator of their emotions?

Yeah.

So I've been around former SEALs, U.S.

Secret Service, presidents, and I learned a lot about communication, reading people, confidence, and I'll share these things.

So, first of all, Ebby Pumporas is the former U.S.

Secret Service agent.

From guarding presidents to reading liars, she now reveals the strategies she used to make anyone respect you, trust you, and give you what you want.

I've been around very confident people, and they had a really good circle around them, inner circle, because if you're exposing yourself to people and environments that are not good for you, that will actually impact your life negatively.

You know, I always say be careful who you try to save.

Some people will drown you.

And then the other thing I would see presidents do is they were very good at delegating.

So they didn't need to know everything because confident people are okay with not knowing all the information.

So your brain is like a bathtub.

The bathtub can only hold so much water.

If you keep putting water in the bathtub, it's going to overflow.

That's your cognitive load.

My bathtub only holds the water and needs to hold in.

And another thing that the Secret Service taught us is that it's really important to use your hands because when people don't see hands, it's a sign of untrustworthiness.

Like you can't trust them.

So when you see hands, open hands, I'm no threat.

and then there's communication skills manipulation tactics and a strategy to make good decisions and I will go through them but the two most important things are

just give me 30 seconds of your time two things I wanted to say the first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week means the world to all of us and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started.

And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app.

Here's a promise I'm going to make to you.

I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future.

We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to, and we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show.

Thank you.

What is the overarching theme of why people you think are drawn to your particular message and what part of that message are they drawn to?

I get bombarded on all social media platforms and in email, and it's always like, Evie, I have this problem, please help me.

And it can range from

I have a problem communicating to I'm in an abusive relationship to my brother was murdered and they're saying it's a suicide, it's not.

So I get everything, and I think what I'm seeing is

there are a lot of people that are not doing well.

It seems to me that people are tired of being told that they have no control over the outcome of their lives and no control over the relationships.

Because when you tell people it's not your fault, this happened to you and it's okay that you're this way, which it is,

I think people don't want to stay there anymore.

And so

People look to I don't have to

I don't have to be weak all the time or I don't have to feel weak.

You can have a weak moment.

It's not the same thing with feeling fundamentally weak or insecure or insignificant all the time.

And then looking at a moment or a situation or moments in your life and saying, I'm this way now because of all these things that happened.

And I think for a while that worked.

I think for a while people were buying it.

Because it's like, it's not your fault like you're like this.

Now this happened to you here.

It's not your fault that you don't trust trust people this happened to you here and so

because that theme's been going on for so long what it does is it renders you powerless because it's saying you're this way because of all this other stuff and it's not your fault and that translates to i have no power over it i'm

i'm a result of what's happened to me and that's a powerless state to be which all it does is keep suppressing you down so you just stay there instead of saying you know it happened to you Okay, now where do we go from here?

And it's wild because I did consultations and mentor sessions for a window of time.

And I would only do either one or three.

I wouldn't do more than that.

Because what the most important thing, I didn't want people to rely on me.

It's like, I'll come in and I'll give you some guide posts.

But my goal is not to make you reliant on me to keep coming back to me.

Three was the max I would do with someone.

No more than that.

Three sessions.

Three sessions.

Three sessions.

Because my goal is if I keep you coming back to me, then I'm not helping you.

All I'm doing is reorienting you to come to me.

I'm going to fix it for you.

My goal was always no, you have the ability.

I might need to kind of shift things around or shake things up a little bit in your mindset, but in the end, you are very well capable.

And most people are.

They just don't learn.

They just don't know how to trust themselves.

You talked about how using the past to diagnose your current self by saying this happened to me, so I'm this way, is almost, it's like a short-term friend in the moment because it kind of helps you feel heard and understood and it justifies the way that you are but it ends up being a long-term enemy in the context that you're then stuck with the results of who you are for better or for worse and I was thinking about myself I was thinking all the ways that I've like justified who I am today using something that happened in the past and actually whenever I do that it makes that behavior even if it's the byproduct of it is making me unhappy really hard to change like it's very hard to change like if i say this happened when I was a kid and my

dad was unorganized or whatever and messy, so I'm a messy person.

It's almost like etching it into cement or something.

Can I ask you a question?

Why does it matter?

I don't understand why we have to psychoanalyze everything we do.

I feel we waste so much time.

and trying to figure out I'm like this today because of this, this, and this.

Sometimes I have found there's no clear reason why.

There's no, there's nothing to make sense of.

Even sometimes, when people try to assess, like, why does this person treat me this way?

Why that?

What did I do?

Why this?

Sometimes there are reasons.

And sometimes that person's just an asshole.

There's nothing to analyze.

There's nothing to figure out.

There's nothing that I dive deep on.

That person, you just happen to fall in an asshole.

And that's okay.

Let's move on.

So there's moments where that exists too, but I feel like we try so hard to figure it out that we do more damage.

And, you know, like

your brain is like a bathtub.

Your cognitive load is like a bathtub.

Think of this as a bathtub.

If you have a bathtub, the bathtub can only hold so much water.

If you keep putting water in the bathtub, right?

It's going to overflow.

That's your cognitive load.

So if I have my cognitive load, my bathtub, and I keep putting water, water, water, it's going to overflow.

It's the same thing when you put stuff in there.

I'm going to add more stuff and more stuff and more stuff.

Your cognitive load is overflowing.

It's maxed.

You're inefficient.

You're sloppy.

You're not getting things done right.

If you are, you're just barely getting there.

You're everywhere.

You're stressed out.

You're frazzled because you're maxed out.

You're beyond maxed out.

So everything I do, and I will tell you, I learned this from watching Presidents, I keep my load light.

My bathtub only holds the water it needs to hold in.

So it protects you from overextending yourself, stressing yourself, and it also keeps you from making bad decisions.

You make good decisions.

There's something called decision fatigue, where the more stuff I add, we think the busier I am, the better I am.

I'm moving, I'm hustling, I'm doing all this stuff.

Look how maxed out I am.

Just because you're busy, it doesn't mean you're being productive.

Those two things are not synonymous.

So often people think leaders keep adding, adding.

No, you know what good leaders do, and this is what, again, I've learned, they take out of that bathtub.

They take out what I can do less of so I can be exceptional at the other things I do.

Really great example.

This is public knowledge, so I can share it.

President Barack Obama, he had 30 of the same suits.

Why?

Why do you think?

30 of the same exact suits.

So he didn't have to make so many decisions every day?

Yeah.

He didn't want to sit and figure out what he's going to wear.

It's a decision he didn't have to make.

That keeps his bathtub light.

Think about all the decisions he had to make every single day.

I want a light bathtub.

Boop.

Take that thing out.

Lighten your bathtub.

So when you're overthinking and overanalyzing and trying to process all the stuff, you are maxing out that bathtub.

So, how can you perform?

You don't have infinite resources.

You do not have an infinite cognitive load and you do not have an infinite emotional load.

Don't keep adding.

Your job is to take out so that the things you do do, you do exceptionally well and you're much more emotionally stable.

I think maybe one of the reasons why people are tempted to go back is they think that if they go back into their history and understand things,

then they can change something in the present that's going to change their future.

So they think, you know, if I can figure out why I'm low confidence, what happened to me, then I can do something today which is going to change tomorrow.

So I guess I would say, and again, I would see this from, I've done hundreds of mentor sessions.

I would tell them, where are you right now?

What do you do now?

And what do you want to change now?

So I'm low confidence.

I move through the world as if I'm trying to not take up too much space.

I feel like people are rude to me.

And I just have bad luck.

I have bad luck with men.

I'm pretending I'm a woman.

I have bad luck with men.

And I just feel like people don't respect me enough.

And also, I just feel like I don't get the credit I deserve.

I see everyone around me, Evie, getting more credit for doing less work.

Okay, so this is great.

So, this is probably a person that you cannot help, number one.

Because, because everything's bad,

everything is bad.

And you'll get those from time to time.

You'll get those.

Everything's a problem.

And if everything's a problem, right now, if you get that persona, which it does exist,

you get them.

That person doesn't want a solution.

Really?

Nope.

What do they want?

They want me to validate how they feel.

That's what they want.

They don't want a solution.

If everything's the problem, think of it this way.

If every bar I go to, I get into fight, into a fight,

it's not the bar.

So when someone's like, I have this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem,

they're so set in who and how they are.

They want to stay there.

Often people do want an audience.

Often people do want to be told, I'm so sorry.

I feel so bad that happened to you.

Sometimes too, when bad things happen to us, we get a lot of attention as a result.

Let's say something really horrific happens, and I've seen it with somebody, maybe you had a severe illness or lost a loved one.

When you're dealing with something like that, what happens, right?

Immediately, people come to you.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

They're there to support you.

So you get this bombardment of attention.

You feel good, but then eventually people move on with their lives.

And then you get addicted to, where did all that attention go?

I want some of it, so what do I do?

I look for something else to be a problem so I can get more empathy, more sympathy, more attention.

And so there are people that get stuck in that cycle.

Good people.

I know good people who get stuck in that cycle, but I'm also aware of them because every time I speak to them, something's not right.

I can't help them.

I don't even bother trying to help them.

One, they don't really ask me.

And so I'm very aware.

I don't give unsolicited advice.

It's wrong.

It's not my place.

And if they want it, they'll ask.

And then even then, I'm always very aware.

Is this even going to land on this person?

Because I'm coming back to me.

My bathtub's full.

So I can't really invest all that energy in you if it's, I don't mean it to be cold, but if it's a waste of time.

There's two personas that I'm thinking about.

One of them is personal to me and then one of them is personal to one of my friends.

And before we started, you said one of the things you like is very specific examples.

So here's a specific example.

There's someone I know very well, extremely well.

I've known them pretty much my whole life.

And

when they came to the UK, they experienced a lot of racial abuse because they came to the UK in like 1994.

They lived in an area that was all white and the abuse they experienced was very, very real.

The UK, the part of the UK they lived in, became more diverse over the years.

They've been there for 20, 30 years.

And now the racial abuse has pretty much gone away.

But you wouldn't think it because if you met this person who did go through this abuse, so much of their identity became formed around that abuse.

So even though they now live in an area where there's no abuse, they still find

a perpetrator.

They find perpetrators everywhere.

And actually, I've come to believe with this particular person who I know very well that that identity depends upon it.

And that's kind of what I was hearing in what you were saying is there's, I don't think this person could survive if they didn't have a perpetrator anymore.

And so much so that they've started finding perpetrators in their own family.

And their whole family has now almost cut this person off because, you know, their identity is being a survivor and a

heroic survivor.

And now that the enemy has gone, so much depends on that identity that,

you know, this person's at war at home.

And they don't speak to their kids, their grandkids, and they've lost all of their family because they're now convinced that the stepmother's racist and the other step, you know, the other daughter-in-law is racist.

And this person said this thing, which is racist or is abusive towards me.

And you see this in a lot of people that, you know, maybe they did go through something, but now they need that thing to hold their identity in place.

So you reminded me of a story which I'll tell you, but here's the thing.

If you're looking for a problem, you will always find one.

You will always find a problem.

And that's the thing.

So it's the mindset.

What do I do about that person if I'm a bystander?

Nothing.

Really?

Nothing.

I don't try and help them change them.

No, because

did he or she ask you?

No.

Don't do it.

why

because they're not they don't want it and you might end up upsetting them anyway they might get even angrier from um from it because they're in a space where they're so emotional and self-focused and they want to live there do you know too when you sit and you ruminate like you you it activates parts of the brain that make you feel alive think of it this way you get like you get hits you know how you get dopamine hits i feel good from certain things well you get a hit When you even when you're angry or upset you ever get so upset or angry and you get worked up?

What do you adrenaline hit your cortisol is going up.

What do you do?

I feel alive.

I'm here.

I'm there.

That feels good too.

It's a different type of feel, but I feel present.

I feel this.

I feel like I feel something.

So unless somebody comes to you and I've learned this lesson and says, Stephen, I want your advice.

I wouldn't give it.

One, you're going to be exhausted.

You're doing so many things.

You don't have that ability.

Two, the person's not, they're not there to hear it.

So, you also have to have someone who wants your guidance or advice.

So, even when I did mentor sessions or consultations, there were probably like several times where I knew, I was like, this is a waste of my time.

I'm like, you know what?

I'm going to give you a full refund.

I'm not for you because I understood.

I'm like, this person isn't, they're not registering.

There's, you did remind me of a story.

I remember once I was doing a news story,

and I went and I interviewed somebody who was part of the cleanup efforts for 9-11, right?

September 11th cleanup efforts.

And he was doing all this stuff

present day to help victims of 9-11 today.

So I go with my camera person or the producer, I can't remember.

We go to set up to interview this person.

So I have my own, I've had my own experience with 9-11.

I worked at the World Trade Center.

That's where New York field office was.

I was there on that day.

I lost colleagues and friends, but this person knows nothing about this.

So I show up and I'm getting them ready.

and we're talking.

And there's this big

tower tattoo, the towers, 9-11 tattoo as I'm micing up the person, the towers.

There was a room in the home that had all this 9-11 memorabilia, like a whole room.

And I remember being there thinking, okay, this person must have had some

really serious trauma exposure.

And I'm not trying to minimize.

So I spoke to them, this person,

and he had some kind of injury as well.

And I said, oh, tell me about it.

Well, I was there and I was injured when I was welding.

Something kind of fell on my foot.

And as a result, I had to go on some kind of disability.

And I said, what happened to your foot?

And it was, I think he had lost like his toe or something, his pinky.

And I said, okay.

And I said, how long were you there?

Three days.

I said, were you there for the day of the event?

No.

So you weren't there for the day of the event.

So your exposure to 9-11 was three days.

And then you got injured.

Yes.

Okay.

So I'm clocking this internally to myself.

His whole life was centered about

the drama,

the trauma, the overcoming 9-11.

Everything was 9-11, 9-11, 9-11.

And it was such an identity space.

He was so, it was all like such a horrible thing for him.

And I'm thinking,

it wasn't to minimize, but I'm thinking,

how

did you build your whole livelihood present day around that small event?

But that was his identity.

I remember thinking, I'm like, I did the interview and I had to go.

I was like, I can't be around this

because he was just so self-focused on

how bad that experience was, that everything he did and who he was to the point where you have tattoos on your body of the World Trade Center.

And I'm thinking,

how is this

helping you move forward?

There's this concept in psychology called secondary gain that I was writing a book about.

I'm writing this book at the moment.

So I wrote a chapter about secondary gain, and it basically says exactly what you're describing, which is there's always a secondary gain from pain.

Typically, there's like something you benefit from it.

And the problem is people can get addicted to that.

And sometimes it's like safety or comfort that you get from it.

Sometimes it's identity, and sometimes it's remuneration, you know, might be money or other rewards.

The other example that I was going to say, in terms of personas that i'm aware of is the kid who is in his bedroom and can't leave his bedroom because he says you know there's something wrong with him he might be clinically obese or have some kind of other issue and his family around him are his support network and i actually know someone in this situation where they just don't leave their bedroom and the mother i think she's also getting her identity from being the mother with that child who she's propping up.

And it was it was interesting that in this particular case with one of my best friends who lives in the middle east when she stopped doing that when she actually heard something on this podcast and stopped propping this person up enabling enabling them this person got better

very very quickly got better because she basically said i'm not gonna i can't help anymore and also don't talk to me about this i don't have the as you say like the cognitive energy anymore this person got better and it made me realize that you know sometimes two people can keep one person trapped they can i'm the mother, I'm the savior that is protecting my child who is unwell, and the child is being the cared for,

and both of them are getting love and attention and affection from that sort of abusive, unhealthy relationship.

A lot of people find themselves there.

Well, think about sometimes the attention you get.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry that happened to you.

That's so sad.

That can become addicting because you're constantly looking for it.

But again, I've come to accept people as they are.

I also look at it, who am I to tell you to be different?

If this is where you like to live and how you like to live, live it.

I think where it becomes a problem for folks is when it bleeds into your own life.

So like with the mom where she had that moment where she's like, I don't want to do this anymore because it's impacting my life.

Then I can understand that because she's like, I don't want to participate in this.

But I just have found like,

I want you to think of it this way.

Like it's like, think of a, an iceberg.

Think of an iceberg.

You see the top of the iceberg, the little blip at the top of the water, and then

the big part underneath, which is the vast majority of what makes an iceberg.

We're like that.

When you see another human being, I want you to think of like got this huge bottom portion of this iceberg that you don't see.

And it's who makes them what they are.

So one, the things that make you who you are today are all the things that have accumulated over the entire time span of your life.

Family is a huge one.

Did you have family?

Were they good family?

Did you have one parent, both parents?

Did you have any parents, right?

A friend, who were your friends growing up?

Who are your friends now?

Your experiences, your dramas, your traumas, all those things make you who you are, your values, your belief systems, your personality.

Do you know that personality in a human being forms in infancy?

So all these things make you up.

Even your age, who you are today is probably vastly different, Stephen, than who you were five years ago versus 10 years ago versus 15 years ago.

That's somebody's iceberg.

So when you take all of that, you have that iceberg, do you think you're going to roll in?

And within what?

a couple hours or a couple conversations you're gonna get them to what shift that's what you're up against so often people become very upset because they can't change other people and that's why i'm like accept what you had i gave a keynote literally this week and a woman came to me in tears at the end this was at a business conference so this was for business for communication and a very different thing but she she came up to me afterward

She says, I really want a guidance from you.

I said, sure, what is it?

Are you okay?

She said, I have a husband and he's very overweight.

And I've done everything I can

to try to get him to change.

And I want to try to use these influence strategies on him to change him that you talked about.

Could you help guide me?

I said, how long have you been dealing with this?

She's like, oh, a long time, years.

I said, does he want to change?

No.

She's like, but I try and I don't want to give up.

I said, did you see that part where I taught the part where I talked about the iceberg?

Remember, I showed you the iceberg and I said, accept people as they are?

I said,

he's the iceberg.

I said, it's not him that's the issue now, it's you.

You're not accepting what you have in front of you.

That's what he is.

Unless you accept, you can't adapt.

So, what you're doing is you're not living in truth.

You're living in what I hope he would be, what he has a potential to be, but not where he actually is now.

When you accept where he is now, this is who he is, this is who he wants to be.

The next question is: can you adapt to that?

Meaning, are you okay with that?

Adapting to his lifestyle and staying with him?

That's the thing.

What she's trying to do is change him, make him fit, so that she can have what she wants.

Wrong, she's trying to solve the wrong problem.

He's not changing.

This is it.

This is what you've got.

The question now is: I accept my problem.

I live in truth.

This is how my husband wants to be.

Can I adapt my lifestyle so that I can still stay with him?

Or is that a big of a deal breaker where I have to pull away?

She was asking the wrong question.

Because she's scared of the potential answer?

or

because she's not seeing the truth in her problem meaning this is who he is fundamentally you've been trying for years to change him and you're trying to make your life better to the point where you're emotionally upset like she was so upset about it and i said but you're trying to solve something that you can't solve this is a whole other person this iceberg this bottom part he's not he doesn't want it He's fixed.

What's happening is

this is called adaptability.

We want to adapt to our problems.

She's not adapting to her problem.

She's not accepting what her problem is.

The problem is, this is my husband, this is who he is, and this is who he wants to be.

But I might be worried that he's going to die or something.

He very well will.

And, you know, if you see someone that's about to die, one should intervene, no?

But can you intervene?

And does he want you to intervene?

He doesn't want her to intervene.

And so what matters to you most?

Do you want to keep doing this all day long?

Because that's what she's doing to the point where she's crying when I'm coming off stage.

Or do you accept, this is him?

This is him.

I love him.

I can't change him.

I accept him as he is.

Now, am I willing to adapt to the truth of what my relationship is and stay married and be okay?

Or not?

She's the one who needed to adapt, but she couldn't adapt because she wasn't living in truth.

It's like look at it this way.

Your partner's cheating on you and you don't want to know.

You don't want to hear it, right?

And, but you're unhappy.

You're having all these issues.

Part of the reason you're having these issues is because you can't accept the truth.

The majority of people struggle.

99.9% of people are not adaptable because they don't live in truth.

What's the true problem you have?

Accept it, then decide, okay, now where do I go from here?

But people don't accept the truth.

It's how I wish it could be, how I would like it to be, how it was, how it could be.

No, what am I dealing with right now?

Doesn't mean you have to like it.

And this is not agreement.

She doesn't have to agree with his lifestyle, but it's accepting this is who he is.

Now my choice is, do I stay or do I go?

How much of a pain is this for you?

So you think you should never try and change someone?

I think it's wrong

to do that to people.

Especially if they're showing you repeatedly, I don't want you to do this.

Leave me alone.

And you also, too, Stephen, whether you agree with people's lifestyle choices or not, it is their life.

It is not yours.

And so I think that there's also something a bit arrogant when we think we're going to roll in and let me tell you how I should live.

My values and your values could be vastly different.

So who am I to impose how I think you should be?

Who says I'm right?

Who says I'm right?

I say I'm right based on my own value system.

but people are vastly different.

How people see things and what they think is right or wrong,

it's not the same.

So

I accept people as they are and I respect them.

I may not want to hang out with them because it's just not the circle of people I want to be, but I also,

how narcissistic is it of me to think I'm going to roll in and change you?

It's kind of like I did interviews and interrogations on terrorists.

And

when I walked into an interview or interrogation, I I was not delusional to think that I'm going to walk in and I'm going to tell this person, hey, I'm part of the good guys.

I just want to protect people and America.

We're really just trying to do the right thing.

This is a person, his iceberg that was set for years.

He's thought a certain way.

He developed who he was, 30, 40 years old, whatever it is.

This is who he is.

And I'm going to roll in what?

And get you to change your whole mindset.

I knew who I had.

I accepted who I had.

I didn't try to change the narrative.

Oh no, I'm this.

Oh no, I'm that.

I didn't do any of that.

But my goal was, what am I trying to get to?

I was like, well, I need information on the next attack.

I need to know where the next weapons are coming in.

I need to thwart this.

So I need to get him talking.

And that's what I'm looking for.

I'm not trying to change his value system.

I'd be there all day and all night, weeks.

It would never work.

That's what we do.

We try to fundamentally change who people are.

I have people I care about very much and love, and I have tried too.

There are times where you love somebody so deeply and you're like, please, especially if it's something that harms them.

But I've also learned they don't want it.

And the ironic is sometimes the more you try, the angrier they become with you.

Who are you?

Right?

You're imposing yourself and your beliefs on somebody else.

And they're right.

Who am I?

Just because I think life should be lived this way, it does not mean that they believe life should be lived this way.

They're probably thinking, what's wrong with this?

Nothing's wrong with this.

It's interesting.

When I was going through our previous conversations, Evie, and I was looking at the moments that people replayed the most or enjoyed the most or cut the most or sent to their friends the most, the overarching thing I learned is that there's a lot of people out there who don't feel very strong.

They don't feel seen.

They don't feel respected.

They themselves, I think, feel like they're low confidence and they look into a world full of other people who seem to be more confident and have everything figured out and they can't relate.

And they feel at some level, some of them, a little bit unappreciated.

But I think the bigger point here is about confidence and strength and feeling like,

yeah, feeling like I can get what I want from life.

Okay, we're going to break this down, but I want to ask you a question if it's okay.

Yeah.

How do you build your confidence or what's something you do that builds your confidence?

Oh, that's a great question.

Do you know what's really interesting?

When I was 20 years old, I think I thought I was confident, but I don't think I was.

And I only kind of figured this out in hindsight because this is a, I don't think I've said this before, but between the age of 18 and 20, every girl that I was interested in and would get some way down the line with would eventually reject me.

And then from about, I know people go, yeah, because you made a million dollars.

No, listen, it wasn't that.

Even when I had the money, I was still having, I was still being rejected by women.

And then at some point around like 25 to 30,

everything changed.

And so I always say to my friends, I said to one of my friends the other day, I was like, I don't know why, I don't know the science of this, but what I do know is that it's very, very hard to fake confidence because I think it lives in a thousand micro expressions.

I was doing everything the book said and I still wasn't getting the results in terms of romantic context.

It was like these women could just like figure out at some deeper level that I wasn't it.

And I never knew what I was doing because I guess I can't see myself.

Maybe I was texting back too fast.

That's kind of what you think.

Maybe the way I was standing.

But it taught me over time that actually you should aim at real confidence.

And the real confidence came when the story in my head about myself was that I was of high value.

And I'll share a story.

So the reason I said this to my friend literally two weeks ago was because he was dating someone.

And she turned around to him.

She's a very young girl.

He's 35.

She was 25.

She turned turned around and said you know what i don't think i want to have kids they'd known each other four months and his response to that was like really really insecure it was like i really want to have kids i want to have kids and she ended up dumping him a week later and i remember i said to him do you know my current girlfriend said the same to me when i was 30.

she turned around to me and said i'm not sure if i want to have kids and in my head the first thought that came in was

if i'm being completely honest was

I'm not sure I want to have kids with you yet either.

You're still on trial.

Like, I'm still dating you to figure out if you're the right person.

So, my response, even though I didn't say anything out loud, because I just kind of shoulder rolled it, was

because I valued myself,

my immediate response wasn't to be insecure.

It was to think, doesn't matter, I'm still trying to figure out if I want to have kids with you.

And I didn't say anything.

I just carried on with the, you know, carried on with my day.

And it made me think that like, yeah, it's a thousand tiny things.

Confidence is a thousand tiny things, but it exists.

It like comes out of this central source of who you think you are.

And I think the, to answer your question, the reason why thing that gave me confidence in my life was

I did some things that convinced myself that I was someone worth respecting.

I'm going to get to the confidence thing in a moment.

I'm actually curious, because you said something and I'm wondering, do you think

these women, like your girlfriend and his, the girl he was dating, do you think they genuinely meant it when they said it?

No.

My girlfriend's literally told me, I've been with her for seven years now, and we're planning on having kids right now.

She was test, she didn't know she was yes this is what i said to him on the fucking plane if we were flying on a plane she didn't know she was

it was a test she didn't know she was testing me though and when people hear it was a test people will think it was a conscious thing that she'd written down and she planned it no she'd been through a bunch of stuff with a bunch of guys who had taken away her freedom and so she was her subconscious was testing whether i was one of those guys that was also going to try and restrict her or control her but throughout her whole relationship i was aware of this so when she those moments where she said you know what, I think I might want to fly back to Bali, I said, babe, at any time when you feel like you want to go back to Bali, you go, and I'll help you.

I'll help you go back to Bali.

You don't have to be in London.

You go wherever makes you happy.

I'd say it to her all the time.

I'd say, you go wherever makes you happy.

And you know what?

I would mean it.

Because why would I want to be with someone that wasn't happy?

And this is ultimately what meant that she felt safe, secure, free, and then it flipped.

But that would never have happened if I was like my friend who literally feels like

he's up against a clock to find a woman and he needs to find one, ASAP, because

he's actually 30s,

he's nearly 40 now, and he's single.

He's like, Steve, you don't understand.

I don't have the time.

So he's trying to rush people down the aisle.

Yeah.

So it's always when you said that and his circumstance, but you always wonder why would, and some people truly don't want to have kids and there's nothing wrong with it.

Yeah.

But I have found because I've seen it too, when somebody says it, why are you saying it?

And do you genuinely mean it?

Or are you saying it to see the other person's reaction?

Are you saying it because you want to feel better?

Because I know some people who maybe did want or do want to have kids and they can't or they can't find a good partner.

And so a way that they make peace with it too is they say that.

And everybody makes peace with

things their own way.

Or some have had past relationships where the other people, you know, their potential partners were turned off by, especially there's like this thing, and I don't know if it exists now, but where some guys may be turned off because they think women want a guy who just wants to have kids.

So I don't want to put off that vibe.

So I'm going to say this to you so you don't think that I'm that way.

So that's why I always wonder when people say it,

what are they really saying?

So in her case, her sisters have never been able to leave their hometown, her six sisters, because all of them had kids super young.

And he actually told me this a couple of months earlier that she's a little bit unsure about the kids thing because she thinks it will hurt her freedom.

So six months into their relationship, when she comes out with a statement like that, honestly, what I said to him was like, bro, like, you're six months in.

Just let it ride.

Just bloody hell.

Just carry on, like, whatever you were doing in that moment, just carry on doing it.

And say, that's interesting, keep it moving.

Because, you know, but going back to the point, because there's this internal insecurity in him,

as much as you could coach someone like that, or they could read the books, et cetera, they're going to be tested in a thousand ways.

So he's fear-based.

So his decisions are being made because he's afraid he won't find someone.

So he's dealing with something.

It's not confidence he's dealing with.

He's insecure, but

his decision is, I need to find somebody now because I'm afraid I won't find somebody, or I'm afraid I won't get married, or I'm afraid I won't have kids.

So everything is fear-based with him.

It's like when you make a decision, you know,

I can't quit my job because I'm afraid I won't find another job.

I can't leave this bad relationship because I'm afraid I won't find somebody else.

Those are fear-based decisions.

So everything he's doing is pushed and promoted by fear.

So him dating, trying to find someone, it's not because he truly, does he want to find somebody?

Yes.

But the bigger drive is I'm afraid I'm not going to find somebody.

So I'm trying so hard.

So all his decisions are fear-based.

So that's why his response were fear-based.

Being fear-based is not a great place to be.

We all visit it.

And it's okay to have fear.

Fear is an emotion, but when it becomes your identity and it sticks around a lot, that means every decision you're made is throttled by fear.

And so, his dating

is throttled by the fear that I won't find somebody fast enough.

People can tell, can't they?

You feel it, you feel, you feel it, you feel that energy, right?

And it does it, does it repel people?

Yeah, so he had this very emotional reaction.

And what did she do?

She's like, I don't want any part of it.

She disappeared because his fear, which he couldn't control, and that was more self-regulation on his part, not confidence.

Self-regulation.

self-regulation is: I control my emotions.

So, he felt something, he felt panic,

and he couldn't manage that.

He couldn't like his governor.

We all have a governor who manages our emotions.

His governor was out to lunch.

Yeah.

And so he completely released.

So, self-regulation is your ability to regulate your emotions.

So, even though you're panicking, you're afraid, you're angry, you're sad, there has to be a governor that says, I know you're there, keep it quiet.

That's how you regulate your emotions.

That's self-regulation.

So, because he's so highly fear-based, he's very poor at the moment at self-regulating his emotions.

Can someone learn to be a better self-regulator of their emotions so that they don't ruin their life by reacting to things all the time?

I did.

I was very hot-headed growing up.

I was just like my father.

I'm Greek, I'm New York.

I mean, it was, I just had nothing going for me.

I had to learn, and I learned in the NYPD.

I was very young, and I was very fortunate to be around very premier people.

We were talking about your hiring process before, how it's slow and drawn out.

That hiring process is very slow and drawn out.

They pluck you because the idea is if we put you in here, you better fit well because just one person is going to muck up the whole thing.

We don't want, we want efficiency.

And so

with that, I was around very highly regulated people, highly intelligent people.

And so

because I was around very highly regulated people and instructors who kept me in check,

I clacked it in.

So that's how I was able to manage myself.

So who's around you?

If everybody around you is a loose screw.

Do you still have the

amygdala explosion?

Do you still have the mental

surge of emotion, but you just on the outside sort of have learned to keep it in?

Externally, I can do it very well.

Sometimes at home with my husband, who's also, he's also Homeland Security Special Agent, U.S.

Secret Service,

sometimes it's nice to put it down because it's hard to be on all the time.

It's hard to self-regulate all the time.

And so there's moments where he'll be like, somebody's a little emotional right now.

And so I'll check myself.

But there are those safe people that once in a while you, I think it's important to have.

But even with him, you know, you don't want to do that to people because then you make people your doormat.

Someone came up to me actually the other day and talked about a previous conversation, which is somewhat linked to what we're talking talking about now.

They said,

hi, Stevie, you had that incredible woman on your podcast and she talked about how you shouldn't bring your authentic self to work.

And she asked me about that.

And that's kind of what you're describing there, which is you're going to be a different person at home.

Don't bring your authentic self to work.

I don't want your authentic self to work.

I want your professional self.

I want your respectful self.

I want your empathetic self.

I want your competent self.

You can bring your authentic self to Thanksgiving meal with your family if you'd like to.

Does that make sense?

You and Secret Service are like, come in, everybody, be your authentic self.

You don't get high performers.

You get sloppiness.

Everybody's doing their own thing.

That's not a team.

If you're team-oriented, you leave your authentic self here and you bring your genuine self who genuinely cares about the mission, who genuinely cares to do a good job, who genuinely knows that it's not about you, it's about the collective team.

That's who you bring.

Your authentic self is about who?

Me, me, me, me, me.

I'm all about me.

In teams, nobody cares about, I don't mean in a mean way, they don't care about you personally.

Who, who are you, what are you bringing?

Are you bringing value?

Are you bringing solutions?

Are you getting things done?

My authentic self.

Could you imagine if I brought my authentic New York self to every interrogation I did?

I would interview people who committed crimes against children.

I had one case, three-year-old little girl, she says about the person who was babysitting her, which was a 16-year-old young man.

Young man, he touched me down there, three-year-old little girl.

So they call me in to do this interview

on this young man.

This little girl saying he touched her down there.

They're three.

They're not really able to communicate.

Can you talk to him?

So I'm sitting talking to him this interview and I'm trying to find out what happened.

Well, as I'm talking to him, he starts to reveal more and more.

He did touch her down there and he did other things to the point where he confessed he had full-on sex with this little girl between the ages of three to four of her age.

He's 16.

Could you imagine if I brought my authentic self into that room?

What would my authentic self say?

What are you thinking?

How could you?

It's a three-year-old.

No, I brought my professional self.

Okay, tell me what happened.

Tell me more.

Non-judgment, poker face.

You know why?

Because what I think, my authentic self, is irrelevant.

What mattered?

Getting information, getting a confession so I can find out what happened so that investigators could figure out what to do so this little girl wouldn't be victimized again.

That's what I mean by your authentic self.

Don't come in and be phony.

Nobody wants a phony, but authentic self has become me, me, me, me, me.

Everybody check me out.

It's me, me, me.

I was irrelevant personally.

It was what I was contributing, what was my goal, my task.

That's what I mean by authentic self.

So when you show up to work, wherever you work, what are you bringing to bring value to the whole team?

Because your authentic self could be, I'm bringing my problems, I'm bringing my opinions, I'm bringing my judgments.

Honestly, nobody cares.

I

have lots of different leaders across my different companies.

And when I look at the best leaders, one of the things they have in common is you do feel like they are being honest with you.

Are they bringing their full authentic self and all their baggage to work?

No, but you feel like you're dealing with the honest version of them.

And I think some of the worst leaders, the ones that really, really struggle, you can see that the team that they're leading

just feel like maybe they're manipulating them a little bit or they're not being straight with them or there's something going on.

They're acting.

You can kind of feel it.

So I'm wondering how this kind of sits with everything you've just said there.

Because you're going into these interrogations and you're winning them over to some degree because

you're building trust, but you're not acting.

That's the different thing.

I'm not being disingenuous.

How do you square all of that?

You're like, no, are you acting?

You're not acting?

I'm listening because I'm not there for me and I'm not there to pass judgment.

The quickest way to shut people down, even in business, you want to know what's going on around you all the time.

If people are too afraid to say things, or don't tell Steven, oh, you don't know how he's going to react, or he's going to get mad, he's this.

That's a problem.

The problem is they're going to be too afraid to tell you things.

You want people to come to you and to give you the bad news, to tell you when things aren't going right, because you want to collect intelligence.

You're collecting intelligence.

Because when you have the right intelligence, then you can make the right decisions.

But you must need to know what's going on around you.

So when you pass judgment and you're telling everybody your opinion and you're bringing your authentic self, people filter information

because they're bringing versions of themselves that they think you want to hear.

We don't want that.

I was very neutral.

I'm a neutral slate.

Even to this day, I try to be neutral in that I allow people to come to me and people are very open and they share and it works well for me because I get a good read on people and situations so I can make good decisions.

But I don't do a lot of the talking.

A good interviewer doesn't say anything.

Good interviewer says less.

Don't make it about you.

Don't try to guess where people's headspace is.

Ask them.

You seem like you're something I said before is upsetting to you.

Could you tell me a little bit about that?

Explain to me what it is that you're worried about right now.

Describe to me what you're concerned in.

We used to call it TED.

Tell me, explain, describe.

It's just a great way to get people people talking.

Just get them talking.

But

going back to what you're saying, it's just everything is very about me, me, me.

We become so identity-based that we don't really,

we're not connected to the community around us and how we impact others.

Everything is what's happening to me.

What's in it for me?

Me, me, me.

It's like, do you know that you impact other people?

You touch other people.

You affect other people's lives.

You make other people's day better or worse, you make the work environment easier or more taxing.

You do that, but everything has become

myself.

And we've lost that balance of

the world does to me, but I also do to the world.

To be effective when you're dealing with these monstrous people that you dealt with, whether it's terrorists or people that hurt children or whoever else it might be,

did you have to kind of step outside of

like, do you have have to detach at some deeper level?

And do you have to see everybody as

just a human being?

Because I'm wondering how you navigate this spaces when these people have done horrific things.

Did you teach yourself to just be more empathetic, dare I say?

You could be empathetic.

So all different crimes have different types of

characteristics.

So somebody who's a terrorist, let's say, that's more of an ideology.

And they were typically raised from being very young to feel a certain way so i understood coming into a room that i'm dealing with someone who's been groomed from a very young age to see the world a certain way so that's why i did not bother wasting my time trying to change the that that that that person's viewpoint but what about that kid that hurt that little girl so with him that specific one i spent a lot of time speaking to him and i did bring empathy so empathy does not mean i agree with you i'm trying to understand you and what turned out with him is he he had been sexually abused himself when he was young.

And so all that stuff came out.

And it did not excuse his behavior or what he did, but

it was genuine.

I was genuinely curious.

I was genuinely asking him.

And at the same time, I needed to find out the truth.

Look, there were sometimes I would have somebody across from me and I'm thinking, they did it.

And then afterward, I'm like, they didn't do it.

There's times where you clear people and that's really important.

So that's why when you would, at least when you talk to people, and even to this day,

we're all biased, but I try not to come in and project that.

I really try to give people a fair chance to show me what's happening instead of coming in with prejudgments.

And so you're better at reading their behavior too

when you're talking to people.

So with him, he revealed a whole bunch what had happened to him.

It was sad.

It was empathetic.

It did not clear him from what he did.

They eventually, actually, with the confession I got, he was was eventually tried as an adult.

And, you know, that was very detrimental, obviously, to his life, right?

It impacted his life.

But, but I, I could have genuine empathy in that moment.

Empathy is like, I'm just trying to understand where you are and how you feel.

That's not sympathy.

Who's better at spotting lies, women or men?

There's no research that shows one is better than the other.

Because women seem to have a sixth sense.

And people joke about it in like relationship contexts, but I genuinely feel like, i feel like women have a high heightened sensitivity and actually when you look at some of the studies for example

women can smell i think it's testosterone but men can't smell certain the same or certain hormones on women so like from a physiological standpoint women do seem to be more sensitive

to especially to like pair um to men there was that study they did where they got um

t-shirts off men after they'd been for a run and the women went down and smelt them and then they I think they had to guess which one was the most attractive and they all pointed the one that had the highest testosterone in it.

So there's things that are going on that we can't see and feel.

So I just wondered if your experience, men or women were.

In my experience, no.

And I will say this is just

a lot of men were very good at assessing.

One of the reasons, look, the vast majority of polygraph examiners were male.

There were some women and they were very good too.

The vast were male.

Males, men are good at being more rational.

It's actually,

they were trying to figure out if there's a difference in the brain between men's brains and women's brains.

And there's not much.

The one thing that they saw is that women have more discernment.

So a female brain tends to activate a little bit more and they tend to think about something more than the male brain.

A male brain may be a bit more impulsive.

Right, more action-based.

And the female brain may be a bit more, let me talk to you, let me try to understand.

And actually, if you look at the data for female cops versus male cops, female cops have less complaints against them, made against them.

And they tend to think because they're better communicators.

They have less complaints.

Because when you're a cop, you're going to get a complaint.

There's no way.

You're going to get them like, you're going to just get them.

But women tend to have less, female officers tend to have less complaints.

And they think that they're just better at dialoguing and de-escalating.

On this point about confidence, then you said it didn't sound like my friend had a confidence issue.

Do you think confidence is the thing that the people who do feel like they're not respected in the world need to be aiming at?

And in your experience, what can one do to build their confidence?

Let me say this first.

I've been around very

steady people, confident people, I suppose.

I've never seen anyone or heard anybody talk about it.

Ever.

I've never heard anybody in the circle of where I was, whether it's former SEALs, U.S.

Secret Service,

I've never heard anyone talk about it.

And I think one of the secrets is they don't talk about it.

They don't think about it.

They don't give it that much life.

They just, I just am.

I just are.

So I think that's one secret where people try to, they think about it so much.

And I think it goes back to what we're saying initially, like, stop overanalyzing.

Just be, just be you.

Just do.

But now, if you're, you're, if you're looking at confident people with things that I notice traits amongst confident people or steady people,

they have a good circle around them, meaning they're very aware and meticulous of who's around them and who they associate with.

Because if you're not,

if you're around insecure people, it bleeds on you.

Like you're going to absorb what other people are.

And if you know, if you're the most confident person in the room,

it's probably not a good thing.

It's not a good thing.

You want to be around people you learn from.

It can't just be you're at the top and everybody's looking to you.

Your bathtub's going to crack, number one.

The other thing I learned about confidence, research shows people in law enforcement are perceived to be highly confident.

And one of the reasons they believe it is because they're decision makers.

You make decisions on the spot every day, life and death decisions.

And there's nobody to turn around to be like, hey, can I ask you your opinion on this?

What do you think I should do with this guy wielding this knife?

Should I shoot?

Should I not?

Should I pull out the pepper spray?

I mean, what would you do in this moment?

You'd be dead.

So when you're used to making decisions, whether right or wrong, but when you're used to making those decisions and believing in yourself and trusting in yourself that you're making the best decision you can with the information you have at that moment, that builds confidence.

Be a decision maker.

I think those are the two most important things, having awareness.

And honestly, just show up.

Just show up.

Don't worry about being confident.

Worry about simple things.

Show up on time.

I was reading this study about confidence in the victim mindset.

It was a study done by YouGov in 2025 in the United States.

And it said women rated themselves much higher on trustworthiness, honesty, and empathy, but men rated themselves higher on self-awareness, sense of humor, and confidence.

And the gap between self-reported confidence between men and women was quite significant.

It's about 50% of men consider themselves confident, where it's only about 35% of women that consider themselves confident.

I'll tell you this,

I've never heard anybody like from the field of work I came first, came from say, I feel like I'm an imposter.

You know, that whole imposter syndrome, I've never heard that.

Again, I didn't hear it till after I left the service.

Like it's wild because all these things, I had no awareness of them because they were never discussed in the circle that we were in.

So I also think sometimes when we sit and discuss these things to such extent that they actually start to plant seeds of doubt.

I'm not saying we shouldn't study and have self-awareness, but I think when we overevaluate to such a degree,

we never did that.

And you know,

how do you build confidence in, I think about training.

Training, there was nobody cheering you on.

There was nobody like, hey, Paul Purris, good job.

Good job, girl.

Good job.

They were trying to get me sent home.

You had to fight.

You had to claw

your way.

You had to claw your way to get that job and then prove that you should be there.

They did everything they could to wean you out, to kick you out.

And so I think when you're determined, like you stick, you just stick it out.

And you're just, there's days where I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to get through today.

Or even runs.

We would do runs.

And one of the things they would do, just to mess with you, they take you on a run.

for miles and miles and you never knew when it was going to end.

That's the worst.

At least if you know, hey, we're going to run from here to here.

It's going to be two miles, three miles, five miles, ten miles, whatever.

Tell me what I'm looking at.

But it wouldn't tell you.

So you'd start running and then you'd hit a point like, and you'd think, at least I would, I think, oh my God, how am I going to do this?

And you know what I would do?

I would go and I'd be like, just make it to that tree, which is five feet ahead of me.

I made it to the tree.

Make it to that mailbox.

I made it to the mailbox.

Just make it to the next tree.

And that's how you do it.

What's right in front of me?

But if you look at that whole picture of how am I going to be all of this,

it's so overwhelming and so

it's just so hard.

It's just going to, it's going to kill your confidence, whether it's like, I want to do this.

What's the first thing I need to do?

Then the second thing.

I would think, and I'm asking you, when you build your businesses, right, or your company, did you just put one foot in front of the other and just try to do it?

Or did you stop and say, you know what?

Stephen, let's have a conversation.

I need to be confident before I do this.

I need to build my confidence.

Did you sit and do that?

And once you checked off that confidence bit, then you're like, okay, now I'm ready to do this.

Yeah, one of the most incredible things is I actually didn't know what the word entrepreneur was.

I had no idea what it was.

So I had this idea and I started

trying to figure out.

how to make the idea happen, which looked like three months on Google, scrolling down, searching the word web developer, clicking onto people's links and then emailing them saying, hey, can you build websites?

So it was this long, drawn out process of stumbling forward.

And had I known, I think a lot of entrepreneurs and founders say this, had I known what it would have taken, had I known how difficult it was, had I not been so ignorant and naive, maybe I would have been demotivated or demoralized to do it.

But I was 18, left university, had an idea, didn't know what the word entrepreneur was, didn't really even know how you established a company and tried to use the internet to make that idea happen.

In like three to four months, trying to figure out how you name a company just by like googling stuff.

So very much one foot in front of the other.

What did you just say?

I was ignorant and naive.

Yeah, it was useful.

It was phenomenally useful.

Cause I think if I was informed, it would have been like standing at the foot of Mount Everest, but I couldn't see the mountains in front of me.

So it felt much more easy to climb.

And this is in part why people get, you know, I spoke to Nir IL, who's an author of a book called Undistractable.

And he said a phrase to me, which I've always remembered.

He said,

procrastination,

is

the avoidance of psychological discomfort.

So when you have that big essay to do, what you end up doing is taking the path of least resistance, which might be, I'll just clean the house.

And the house gets really tidy.

Because psychologically, that essay feels like Mount Everest.

You don't know where to start, you're not well researched on it, so you clean the house instead.

And so, procrastination is the avoidance of psychological discomfort.

And so, had I known how big that mountain was when I was 18, I probably wouldn't have done it because the psychological discomfort associated with the knowledge would have been so overwhelming, I would have just cleaned my house.

And so sometimes, yeah, it does help.

It goes back to a lot of the stuff that we're saying that sometimes overanalyzing and trying to make sense of things does you a disservice, where sometimes if you just let things be and you just move forward to try to execute, the goal is to execute and do.

Because if you sit and try to analyze everything, how should this be done or that be done?

Or if you look at the bigger picture of what it's going to be like,

it can kill you.

It can kill your confidence.

Training, I had no idea what training was going to be like.

like absolutely none i went in there completely blind completely clueless i actually thought it was going to be like college haha i learned my lesson the hard way but this i think we need to be a bit more present and focused and just start executing and making progress progress no matter how small is progress as long as you're moving in that direction but thinking about something ruminating over something playing that cd over and over again procrastinating just start just go i spoke to sir david brelsford who's the guy that turned the British cycling team around, and he told me that when he went in there and those players, those cyclists were like down and out and depressed and winning nothing, one of the first things he did was ban them from thinking about the podium.

And so I always came up with this phrase called pedals over podium, based on everything he said to me, which is he got his riders to think about the pedals in front of him, just the rotation of the pedals, and not whether they were cycling fast enough to win the gold or needed to speed up.

And he said to me, when he did that, it was almost like the riders would get to the end of the track and they would get off the bike bike and they could not recall the cycle because they were so present.

They'd almost been in like this hypnotic state, but they ended up producing their best times.

Because what they'd done is they removed the amygdala, all the emotion, the fear, the you know, which burns a lot of energy as a cyclist, I imagine, if you're thinking too much.

And that produced their best times.

They went on to become the most successful cycling team of all time, I believe, and won five out of the six Tour de Francis.

And that whole idea of like, yeah, just be present, just focus on the next, as you say, step along the way.

I think it's difficult for people because

sometimes that first step is so small

so small that it's it's sometimes a little bit embarrassing you know the first step to change your life the first step to confront an issue in your life is so sometimes so small that it feels like that can't possibly be the right step to take because it's hard because it's uncomfortable

what's that like they call it exposure therapy it was jordan peterson that said to me he was like dealing with a guy in there who wouldn't leave his bedroom and instead of getting him to like go outside and stuff he just got him him to move the hoover 10 centimeters closer today and that was today done and then the next day he got him to like turn the hoover on but then turn it off that was that day done and jordan said to me he said the problem with people with change is the first step is often so embarrassingly and shame shamefully small that people like don't want to do it that's like embarrassing to do something so small Because it's a myth.

We've been fed a myth that to make big change in your life, you have to make do big decisions.

You have to make big movement.

And the big change you create in life it's through the small movement you just reminded me of a story my buddy don saladino he's like the he does training um for all you ever watch a lot of those marvel movies or the dc movies uh with all those characters he trains a lot of them to get them physically fit for the movies and he was telling me he had a story of a i think he was telling me he had a client and who he was just trying to get him to work out and the client was overweight and having all these issues and what what the client did with what they they did is the client just tried to create progress so the first day, what he did was he took his sneakers and he just put them in front of his bed.

And that was it.

And then the next day, he took his shoes and put them outside the door of his bedroom.

And then the day after that, he took the shoes and put them in the kitchen.

And then the next day, he took the shoes and just put them on.

And then the day after that, he took the shoes, he walked outside and put them on outside.

Then the day after that, he took the shoes and just went to the corner and then came back.

And then he went from being severely obese and having

being very unhealthy to running marathons.

And that's how he did it.

You've seen some of the most consequential people ever make decisions, these presidents.

Maybe you can't answer this question.

I don't know if you can, but who were the best decision makers and why that you observed?

I'm going to say this, to be the president of the United States, it's no small thing.

So for you to get to that place,

you

are exceptional.

I just, I say this in a neutral way.

People get very personal or biased, and I don't just because I served under various presidencies.

It didn't matter what the party was.

And I learned so much from all of them.

But as far as making decisions, there are a couple of things.

One, they had a really good circle around them, inner circle.

Like everybody didn't have access to the president.

There were layers around the president.

So everybody didn't have access to them.

That was really important.

But the circle around them was a circle that was there to support them.

Everybody around them was steady.

I never saw, I never saw anybody go cry at the White House.

I never saw anybody lose their mind.

I never saw anybody get emotionally dysregulated.

I never saw this.

And that was important because that kept them steady.

The other thing was they were very good at delegating.

So they didn't need to know everything, but they would find people who knew more than they did to give them advisement to help make decisions.

And they would just make decisions.

The other thing I saw and I witnessed, they worked very hard.

They worked.

I would see presidents sit up.

I mean, I think it's okay to say this.

I really don't talk about the people I protected out of respect.

You know, there's a Greek saying, everybody loves the

oligopa,

everybody loves the treason, nobody loves the traitor.

And so I'm just always careful not to say, but I would see presidents.

Like, I remember President Bill Clinton, he'd be up till very late hours of the night, studying, reading, preparing, just reading.

President Barack Obama, I mean, I'd work midnight shifts sometimes, and he was up studying, sitting at his desk, reading, preparing.

They would study.

They would spend time studying.

So all those things collectively help you feel like I'm as informed as I can be

by studying myself, by surrounding myself with people who are informing me, who are also steady.

And then I make the best decisions I can with the moment, the information I have in front of me now.

One of the things we do, and we all do this we do a disservice to us when things don't go or work out the way we thought they would we beat up on ourselves i should have known this i should have this i should have that and anytime i start to do that or i have somebody and i always say i'm like my husband used to say this too he's like you made the best decision you could with what you knew in that moment don't go back and make yourself feel like shit because you feel you should have chose differently i've heard obama say that so

just like i said it pretty much close he i i heard him talk about this whole idea of making decisions at 51% certainty when he spoke at this conference I was speaking at in Sao Paulo a couple of years ago.

And he's talking about the big decisions in his career, like going in and getting Osama bin Laden, didn't have 100% certainty.

And he said, sometimes in life, you have to make

a decision with the information you have and be at peace with the fact that you made the best available decision with the information you had and move on.

Confident people are okay with not knowing all the information.

Yeah.

They're okay.

I don't need to know.

It doesn't have to be 100% right.

Because, and here's the other thing, because we're so scared of making the wrong decision.

And unless you're the president of the United States or you're in law enforcement and you may shoot the wrong human being, which I get, but overall, most decisions, not life or death.

Make a decision and then feel okay with it being wrong.

If you're so insecure that you're terrified, you're going to make the wrong decision.

Why?

Because you're going to look dumb.

You're going to feel dumb.

Confidence, you don't care how you look or how you eat.

You're not sit and you're not quantifying.

He's gonna think I'm done, she's gonna think I look stupid, they're gonna think this.

And even for yourself,

like you don't tally that, you're okay with making the wrong decision.

It's like I'm gonna make my choice, I hope it's the right one.

I did the best I could, but I'm comfortable with that.

But if you're so worried about it's the wrong decision,

then don't make one.

And that's that in and of itself, that confident people don't do that.

So, the other thing I would see presidents do,

they had time to themselves.

Meaning, like you would see them, they would have time where they would be alone and they would think.

They weren't always exposed or surrounded by people.

George W.

Bush, he would go to Waco to the ranch.

That was his roots.

That was his place to like,

I need to kind of find my roots.

President Barack Obama, I spent every holiday in Hawaii.

He went home.

George Bush Sr., he would split his time between Kenny Bunkport

and Texas, Houston.

So that was another thing.

They'd all go

home.

They'd all go home.

I hear from a lot of very successful people that I interview that they all have some kind of meditation practice.

And even when I looked at the life of someone like Steve Jobs and how he was able to continually see round corners and remove the keyboard and remove the stylus and remove the iPhone jack and remove Java from our phones and do all of these things that at the time were like crazy talk that

someone who was motivated by money today would not have done but someone that could see the future tomorrow could have done and um you come to learn that he was basically like a yogic like he was he was a meditator and what you described there made me think of that which is okay all these successful people seem to be have some kind of practice where they get out of the trenches and like into their intuition or into

the clouds alone so they have space to stand back from the the painting so they can see the full picture do Do you know what they would all also do?

I can't speak for all of them, but a lot of them worked out.

Like their workout was built into their schedule.

President George Bush Jr., he would bike.

He used to actually be a runner.

He was a very fast runner because they would ask for agents to run with him.

And

when you would run, you have to run with your gear on.

President Clinton was a runner.

Then Bush started biking.

So you had to be a good biker.

Where can they run?

Well, President Bush would run the trails when we'd go to Texas or Waco.

You're not going to run the streets of Washington, D.C.

So they have, the White House has its own internal gym, but they did, they did run.

They were very athletic.

President Barack Obama, every morning, gym.

So the part of integrating the body into the mind is key.

I saw them all do it.

And I think that plays a role.

It can't just be we separate the mind and body.

You,

when you physically take, I've just seen them all do it.

And I learned it also as an agent.

Like you're, you had to work out and you had to use your body because

also when you use your body and you're moving it and you're, you're working it out, you're taking care of it, you feel good.

You feel like you're doing something powerful and positive for yourself.

And that in and of itself builds confidence and strength.

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I was trying to understand what it feels like to have a true lack of confidence.

Like, how does it feel inside your body?

And the research I did showed there's really four areas that you feel it.

The first area is in your body, physically, like the tightness in your body, which could be clenched jaw, it could be like that fidgeting you see, heart racing, all the like fight or flight responses.

The second way you feel it is in the mind, self-doubt, asking yourself always, am I good enough?

Kind of double-guessing yourself, running through worst-case scenarios, ruminating on your past mistakes.

The third way is in your emotions, which is this feeling, this insecurity that you might be exposed at some point, avoiding speaking out too much or holding yourself back.

And the last way is in behavior, which is speaking softly, rushing your words, avoiding eye contact, and apologizing.

I don't too much.

I feel that's such a waste of time.

Like to spend, to sit and analyze yourself.

Now, if you're not a good speaker, I look at it as I want to work on my speech.

It's paralinguistics, it's called, right?

I want to try from my

the best tone tone I can so that I can speak with authority.

Research shows that it's not what you say.

People sometimes sit and memorize like what they're going to say, the words they're going to use, when in fact, the research shows

what you, how you say it impacts people more than what you say.

So, the way that you speak is clearly resonant with people.

Are you aware of what it is about the way you speak that is making my viewers show up every time you come here in the tens of millions to hear you speak?

When I speak, I own my voice.

So there's paralinguistics there.

And I learned this from doing the news because if I don't sound like I know what I'm talking about, then it does not matter what I say.

It's what I sound like.

So

if, you know, even using the

the right part of my voice, my deeper tone, my authentic tone, you know, it's very different.

Hi, I'm Evie.

How are we doing?

Okay.

One of the things I really make sure in front of my daughter, not to go in a really high-pitched voice, because I don't want her growing up talking like this.

I want her to grow up having a stronger, deeper-toned voice because the research shows when you own your voice, people respect you and they see you as an authority.

And so I just don't want to inadvertently give her that high-pitched voice, which doesn't mean it's her natural voice.

It's the voice that I've helped cultivate and groom for her to have.

So let's just just put that right there.

So those are little things that I also have awareness of.

I don't want to tell her, hey, speak, speak this way.

I'm going to show how to speak and she's going to, she's going to mimic that.

So when you look at how you present yourself to others, so as far as like when I come here, I come here and I look at it this way.

This interview is not about me.

You've invited me here, what, third time?

Thank you.

I'm super humbled.

But this isn't about me.

It is about them, the audience, right?

I don't matter.

I'm irrelevant.

You're irrelevant.

We're two people who are trying to share information that maybe hopefully make the world a better, more wise, more just place.

Maybe it helps make people's lives a little bit better.

That's what matters.

They matter.

We don't.

And so when you bring that in and you put all your energy on the person you are speaking to because they want to hear it,

and if you put that there, then they feel it.

As you said all of that, I was analyzing the way that you were speaking.

And you do a bunch of really interesting things.

One of them is that you take silences that that most people would not take.

Okay, I'm going to, don't be offended.

I'm going to try and

try and show what I mean.

Are you there for you?

Or are you there for them?

Most people wouldn't have taken that silence.

There's a certain selfish, because silence is taking something from

someone

in an interesting way.

It's like you've taken some time from someone.

And people, you know, as it says in these studies that are low confidence, they rush because they know that.

I don't want to waste your time.

I'm not that important.

So let me hurry through this.

Yeah.

So I don't, I don't, because you, because you're more important than I am.

100% right.

So you, I will give kudos to this.

I watched presidents speak.

Barack Obama, again, this is something I shared publicly and I think it's okay.

He was brilliant at this.

He would watch his speeches.

He would speak and he would take his time.

He would do emergency, you know how they would interrupt TV shows or something, emergency, you know, message or breaking news from the White House, whatever.

I never saw him rush through anything.

I never saw him, you you know, say to himself or think, I better hurry up through this.

You know, I'm disrupting Gray's anatomy.

People want to get back to the show.

No, I'm the president of the United States.

I have something relevant to say, and I'm going to say it.

I'm going to own my time and my voice.

I'm not going to waste your time.

I'm going to get to the point.

I'm not going to belabor the point.

That's different.

But I'm going to get to the point and I'm going to pause.

I'm going to own my time.

So when you speak, again, this is, it's how you say it, not what you say.

You also want to give people time to absorb what you're saying, to feel what you're saying.

When you slow down, also as a presenter, I am less likely to make mistakes.

I am less slightly, less likely to say the wrong thing live on camera when I do the news.

I'm less likely to do these things and I'm more likely to be able to think, process, and share.

And you're right.

How many times do people do presentations?

And when I do communication for companies, I always tell them when you're doing your presentations, please don't do this.

All right, guys, just one other thing.

Let me put this in here.

I don't want to waste anybody's more time or take up any more time.

Just really quickly.

What did I just do?

I just told you what I'm about to tell you really isn't that important.

So don't even listen.

Why do we do that?

I'm here.

I'm speaking.

What I have to say, if I'm saying something of value, if I know I'm saying something of value because I'm trying to share and make the whole system, the process better, then pause.

I'm going to pause.

I'm going to speak.

I'm going to share.

But if I'm talking for myself, because I'm insecure, I want people to see me.

everybody needs to know you're sitting at that table, right?

Make yourself known, make sure they can hear you, make sure they see you at that meeting.

You just made that about you.

You shouldn't be at that table.

That's the difference.

Command your voice.

Also,

the science and research says, because I know you like science and research, the more we speak,

meaning if we talk a lot and we use a lot of words and we don't get to the point,

we are seen as less trustworthy.

And people value, value,

people will assess how competent and confident you are in the way you speak.

Get to the point.

Say it with less words.

And be impactful.

Command what you say.

So I think what we're trying to say is, I command what I say.

I'm not as worried in my head, am I wrong?

Am I right?

Am I going to say the wrong thing from time to time?

Sure.

Who isn't?

But I'm owning my voice.

And I think people are so afraid to own their voice.

Own your voice.

And if you're wrong

if your intention is right and you've prepared and you're doing your best and you're being genuine not authentic you're being genuine and you genuinely care about the people you're speaking to the audience then it's all okay

you use your hands a lot as well which is I think is a trait of someone who is

feels like they deserve your attention and space and respect

because it takes up room to and as you were doing that you were using a good you know 50 centimeters either side of you to make the point but it's also just more engaging to watch because you went

and most people wouldn't a lot of people you know it's kind of like

it's so there's a couple of things that's what's really good that you brought that up one i'm greek so that plays a role so i try not to be so they're called illustrators when people use their hands but yes there is a strategy to it one i learned it from what doing television when i first began doing the news, which I knew nothing about, again, I went from a job where you were supposed to be not in front of the camera, actually out of the camera, because the camera was supposed to catch the president, never you, to being in front of the camera.

And the producer I worked with, the very first day said, let me give you a secret.

When you're on camera, just so you know, the camera sucks like 25% of your energy away.

It takes immediately 25% of your energy out.

So when the person is watching,

you look flatter.

You ever watch Zooms?

You ever do a Zoom and it it looks like everybody's bored out of their mind and you're thinking, what's going on?

It's not them, it's the camera.

It takes energy.

So if you're trying to engage people, one of the things you can do, first of all, when you speak, people hear 49% of what you say.

So when you're talking, if you're able to keep their attention, they're hearing half of what you say.

And that's if they're connected to you.

So think about that.

Now, I'm trying to speak.

And when you speak, you're also telling a story.

So I can sit like this, which side note, when you sit on your hands, it's considered, some people say it's a considered sign of deceit.

I'm hiding my hands.

I'm a liar.

So when people don't see hands, it's a sign of

untrustworthiness.

Like you can't trust them.

When you see hands, open hands, I'm no threat.

It's kind of like a psychological thing for...

prehistoric time prehistoric times.

I see no weapons in your hand.

I can trust you.

So that's something I learned as a technique as well in the polygraph room.

Always have your hands hands out.

Always be open.

I'm open.

I'm here for you.

And so I've learned to roll that into how I present because I learned it's really important to use your hands and you are storytelling and you are commanding your voice.

So all those things combined,

you're trying to keep also people's attention.

So I also look at it, I'm trying to keep you engaged in the conversations.

So I can't be lazy and not, I have to work hard to keep you engaged.

You're, you're, also people kind of like they ping-pong.

Even if somebody, you ever go to a conference and you're like, I'm really gonna pay attention, I'm gonna really focus, and five, ten minutes you're in there and you lose people.

It's not their fault.

What am I gonna eat later?

Where am I gonna go for lunch?

Did I send that email?

Oh, I have to pick up my dry cleaning later.

People ping-pong.

So it's especially today where you're competing with all this noise and there's so much noise out there.

You really are trying hard to keep people engaged.

So you don't have to be long-winded.

Speak, engage, show them that you're there, own your space, and command your words.

One of the things I learned from watching Mr.

Beast make content, but also from doing this podcast and sitting with guests that get really high retention, because, like, the audience don't know this, but when every guest comes on the show, we get a graph back from YouTube and the other places that the podcast appears that shows how many minutes people listened for.

And sometimes there's like big swings.

Between the lowest performing guest and the highest performing guest on YouTube, there's a 100% gain in retention.

So, like, thinking back over the last month, the lowest performing guest on the diaries here in terms of how long people listened for is, let's say, just an arbitrary number.

People listened for one hour.

The highest performing, they listened for two hours.

And that's the range that we see.

And when I look at why that is, it's often because,

it's always because of the way that they speak.

You're one of the people that has extremely high retention because of the way that you speak.

And Morgan Hausel's another one.

And I was watching Morgan Hausel the way he delivers his message.

And he basically always starts it with a

curiosity gap or a promise.

And Mr.

Beast does the same.

Mr.

Beast's videos don't start with, Hey, hi, I'm Mr.

Beast.

Welcome back to my channel.

He immediately shouts a promise in your face, which is like, I've put a thousand people in that circle.

The last one to leave wins $5 million.

And immediately there's this curiosity gap, like, I want to see the answer.

I just noticed that in great speakers, even on stage when I go to conferences, is they leave me hanging on something that they haven't yet given me.

Somebody once, when I began doing keynotes or speaking, there was this other speaker and he said to me, he's like, let me give you some advice, kid.

And I was like, sure, I'll take it.

I don't mind.

And he hadn't heard me speak yet.

It was just, he was just trying to impart wisdom.

He said, just because you're an expert doesn't mean you're interesting.

And it always stuck with me.

Because there's people, Steven, that are probably smarter than I am, have more years or time or experience in the U.S.

Secret Service than I do.

There's always somebody that's better, smarter, faster, whatever.

But a big part of what plays a role is how you present and how are you sharing that information and are you doing an effective job?

Right?

It's not about, let me tell you how smart I think I am.

It's about being able to relay that information in a way that people can understand and that it's digestible.

It's how they, it's how they process information.

Do you know I even learned to do that in the interview room when I would Mirandize people.

I was trying to assess where they were linguistically.

And so I could speak to them in a way that resonated with them.

So one of the things I would do is I had Miranda.

I never read Miranda verbally.

The Miranda writes in the United States, before you interview anybody, and I would do this, whether they're an applicant, a suspect, a victim, because you never knew how things were going to go.

I would Mirandize everybody.

You know, you have the right to remain silent, all that.

So I had a piece of paper and I would hand it to them and I would say, please read each sentence out loud.

So the first sentence would be, and I would have them hold it, they would read out loud, I have the right to remain silent.

And I would ask them, do you understand that?

I wouldn't read it.

They would say it.

I would listen to them.

And I wanted to hear their speech, how they, you know, like how it resonated,

their language skills.

And they would sign it.

Then we'd finish it.

And then I would ask them questions that I already knew the answer to.

What's your name?

What's your date of birth?

Where are you from?

I had all of this.

I did not need it.

But it was a way for me to assess their speech.

And then based on that, I would meet them where they were.

I'm not going to speak the way I normally speak.

I'm going to adapt my speech.

There's adaptability in a way that's going to resonate with you the most.

So using big, hefty words, speaking super fast, especially I'm from New York.

Like I said, I'd go to the South.

They speak slower.

I would have to slow down so I could meet them where they were, so I could speak to them in a way that resonated with them.

It's the listener that matters.

I am irrelevant.

We don't matter.

They matter.

Where is that person?

I'm going to meet you there.

Also, even when you write, one of the things I learned in journalism school, New York Times writes at an eighth grade level

to keep it simple so that people can actually finish the article or even a book, my book.

Do you know how hard it was to write the book?

Not for the content, but to write it in a way that was easy for people to read, not for people to read a chapter and be like, I need a nap.

Because it's too cognitive heavy.

You want to do things that people can absorb and they don't have to use

all their brainpower.

If it's too hard, if we speak too smart or too complicated, people get tired.

So the delivery mechanism in which you give information really matters.

You're talking so that they can understand, so that it's not hard for them to follow you, so that they can follow you easily, they can stay connected with you and they're not needing a nap after you're done

you speak for them not for you

a lot of people especially i think podcasters sometimes

like to use bigger words because it makes you sound smarter the research shows that actually people see you as less competent when you use simpler words and you get to the point and you lose you use less words in the vocabulary, it actually shows that you are deemed as more competent, more confident, and more trustworthy.

I realized this a couple of years ago when I was running my New York office for my old company.

And there was this

young lady in the team who I'll call my name to Sarah.

I'll call her Sarah.

And Sarah in meetings would,

when we were doing like creative brainstorms for clients, we had Uber as a client.

I remember being sat in the Uber brainstorm.

She would kind of think out loud.

And so she'd say, what about if we did, I don't know, maybe we could do something like,

maybe we could do like a pop-up and then we could, and she was thinking out loud.

And then there was this other guy who I can name called Cahol, Katie, he's a friend of mine still to this day.

And he would never speak, but the minute he started speaking, it was like the room fell silent.

Because he spoke so infrequently, we all knew that he was taking the time to think about what he was saying.

And what he was saying was about to be really, really valuable.

And I would witness with Sarah, people literally cut her off.

They would, even

before she had said a word, like the first two words out of her mouth, they would immediately assume that it was not worth paying attention to because she had developed what I would later call a bad contribution score, which is kind of like your credit score, but you hurt it when you contribute beyond value, if that makes sense.

Yeah, but she's not, you notice she's so engrossed, and it's not to make to throw you know judgment at her, but that's what happens when you're so engrossed in what you're thinking that that you lose, you lose sight of there's 10 other people in this room.

And

this is when, if you're going to open your mouth, open your mouth, use your pauses, use your silences so that you can make sure your message is impactful and you're not running through, you know, you're not vomiting everything out, which also makes you look nervous and lacking confidence.

But if you're going to speak, then

command what you say.

Speak with conviction and don't waste people's time.

You can think of people in your life, right?

If you think about all the people you work with, there's ones that overtalk and there's ones that definitely under talk and then there's ones that like hit the balance just right.

And what is the

can you like tell me about these people and how and if that's even true, what I just said?

It is true.

I think it depends who it is.

If it's someone I'm working with, I'm always kind of like, can we just, you know, in my head, I'm like, land the plane, land the plane.

Like, I just, I don't, I have to have like 10 more conversations like these.

It's not to be mean, you know, but as you go higher up or as you're doing more, you have less empathy, ironically.

It's not because you become meaner.

It's just I don't have the ability.

And

I'm going to, can I ask you a question, actually?

Do you tend to draw people that want to work with you who think they see the persona Steven here

and you're guiding people, you're helping people, you're in some way mentoring people.

Do you find that people want to come to work for you because they think you will do that for them?

Do you tend to draw those personalities?

Of course.

How do you know you have that?

This is a good question.

Usually in the interview process, their orientation towards why they're here will be too much about Steve, too much about me.

And it'll be highlighted when they meet my executives, my team, my chief of staff, my CEOs, whatever.

They'll say, they'll always come to me and say, I think this one's a little bit too interested in you and not the role.

And so when I get to meet this person, I'll ask them a very simple question, which is explain to me exactly why this job appealed to you.

And they should be able, and in that moment, all their answers should be about the work at hand, not I read your book and I thought, loved your podcast.

You know, it should never be that.

Because as you know, from working with very interesting people, that stuff will fade.

And when we go into the trenches, it won't matter whether you liked my book.

Like, we're here to do work and you have to like love the work.

It has to be the work has to be the thing you're thinking about in the shower, not my podcast.

And if that, if that's the case, then you'll be fine here.

When I did the hiring for the U.S.

Secret Service, I did the polygraphs.

Now, I know you can't polygraph people, but

we would polygraph people.

So I was like the last line of defense.

They go through the whole hiring process, right?

Interviews,

panel interviews, exams.

There's

tests you would have to take.

Anyway, so you pass all this stuff, right?

And then you get to me.

And so I was kind of the last line of defense.

And one of the things I would ask them during the interview, I would ask them kind of like what you said, why do you want to be a U.S.

Secret Service Special Agent?

And I typically get two types of answers: oh, I think it'd be a really interesting challenge.

I want to see if I can do it.

You know, it'd be really, you know, I want to see what, you know, if I'm able to do it.

And then the other answer I would get typically would be, you know, I want to serve my country.

I want to help protect people.

I want to do something bigger than me.

Do you know who made it through the hiring process?

These guys.

These guys who are, I, me, I want to learn.

I want to challenge.

I want to see I can do it.

Because they were so self-focused,

not only were they not making through the hiring process, they want to make it through training.

Yeah.

Because these guys were focused on the bigger thing, the role.

And then these guys were focused on themselves, what they could get out of it.

So when people are interviewing with you, what can they get out of it?

I get to be around Stephen.

Me, me, me.

There it is.

Yeah.

This is also just a really good piece of advice for what to aim at in your life, which is not to aim at the labels, the flashy things, the ephemeral, the things that will fade after a week, a month.

Actually, this goes back to what a problem my friend has: he goes for people that look really good on the outside.

That's part of the reason he's still single.

He really cares about what it looks like.

And I remember one day him saying to me, you know, I've just started dating this girl, Stephen, but I'm not sure because, you know, I just think if I walked into a restaurant with her on my arm then I just don't know how it would look and I remember thinking to him bro you're so like if that's what you you care about

you are you're gonna struggle and people care too much about how it looks how they look how the job makes them look how the situation makes them look yes yes although I will say to my husband sometimes I'm like you're lucky you're hot when we fight

you're lucky you're a good looking hot man because I don't know if we would have survived so there's moments Stephen truth be told when I'm looking at him like, you're lucky you're a good-looking man.

Otherwise, I don't know.

So there's moments where that'll save the relationship.

But I digress.

I forgot what you asked me because I took you in a different direction because I was really just curious to see,

you know, because I would see it with like high

presidents and I would see it with certain people.

And I experience it myself too.

Sometimes you get this.

Yeah.

And I would think you would get it a lot.

And that's a really tough thing, I would think.

I would say, though, some people that have been extremely successful in my company, they were also

big followers of the show.

I'm thinking of you, Christiana.

Christiana, who is our chief revenue officer, she told me she's listening to every episode ever.

Actually, in her application, she used

in the subject line, like chapter 19 of my book.

And then in the email, there were several things that I'd written in my books.

She's an unbelievable performer because actually her career and her life and her passion is also the work.

So it can be both, but it can't be just,

as you said, it can't just be, oh, I just want to see what the challenge is like.

You know what I mean?

It can't just be a surface level.

Is there anything else that is really pertinent on the point of, you know, that guy backstage that said to you, that gave you that advice, which was kind of a little bit patronizing?

It sounded like that.

You said it wasn't, but it kind of didn't take it like that.

But I'm also,

I also don't get easily offended.

To me, I looked at it like, like,

you have to really say something pretty offensive to me to be offended.

So, I think, I think my offensive levelness is probably my tolerance is higher than others.

Is that a good thing?

Yes, because

in the job that I came from, you couldn't get,

you just couldn't get impacted with people

as easy.

Like, you have to think of it this way, like, it would be something stupid, Steven.

Like, I probably, here in New York once, President Barack Obama, he went out to dinner and I had to tell somebody standing by the restaurant, ma'am, you know, sir, could you please just cross the street and stand there?

Cause we have to clear the area.

And people lose their minds.

You're violating my rights.

Phones come out.

They're yelling at you in your face.

Now,

the New York me or the

Evie me wants to just like punch them in the throat, go across the street.

Like, I don't have time for this.

But you can't do that.

So when

you have a job where people

dislike you because you're law enforcement,

And they're in your face and when you're telling them to do something, they automatically, you have something called reactants.

Nobody likes to be told anything.

Nobody likes to feel like they don't have control over their lives, their lives.

So they have reactants, which means immediately they're going to push back.

A really good example is COVID.

People losing their minds, you know, when they were forced to wear masks.

And a big reason, it wasn't really the mask.

It was that they felt that they had no autonomy.

You're telling me what I have to do.

And I feel like I have no control.

So in law enforcement, you're typically dealing with this often, where you can't offer people a choice typically.

It's I need you to do this.

So when you have people really escalating and getting in your face and in many situations wanting an altercation,

they want to put it on YouTube.

They want to put it on social media.

You have to manage yourself.

Also, in my mind, I'm like, you're not going to get that from me.

So you do have a higher threshold

to tolerate a lot more nonsense.

So if I was someone who was really disrespecting you when you were doing your job and I was shouting in your face, you told me to get across the the street and I started cussing you out and being very personal and trying to sort of exacerbate the situation.

What would be going through your head at that exact moment?

I'm now screaming in your face.

I've got my phone out.

I'm telling you, you're live on Instagram.

What is actually going through your head versus what you're displaying externally?

What I would say is, ma'am or sir, whoever it was, was like, I appreciate you frustrated.

However, I'm not able to have you stand here.

Could you please go across the street?

What's going on up here?

How How many times am I going to say this before I force this person across the street before I put handcuffs on them?

That's what's happening in my head.

So, in my head, I am doing a mathematical equation.

How many chances do I give this person before I throw on handcuffs?

Have you ever had someone insult you

in a really vicious, just like horrible way?

Dits, dummy, Barbie.

You know, and does it offend inside, even if you don't show it?

I don't want to say you get used to it, but you don't take it personally because they don't know me.

Also, when you're in law enforcement,

you're seeing people at their worst.

You are seeing the worst of humanity.

That is one of the toughest jobs.

Even with military, military, they go to war, that's atrocious, but you go, you do your tour, and you're out.

And then maybe you go back, but you get reprieve.

Law enforcement,

you're doing this for your entire career.

Every single day, you are seeing the worst in humanity.

People are lying to you.

They're committing crimes.

Like, you really could lose a lot of faith.

You really could become really cynical.

It's actually a common trait in law enforcement.

You have to be really careful to not become overly cynical because you're seeing the worst of people.

And they're also bringing out their worst behavior.

For whatever reason, people are not

the best version of themselves.

And again, you're also typically not dealing with the good citizen.

You're dealing with people who are consistently committing crimes.

If you look at crime in general, the vast majority of crime, it's committed by the same group of people.

And the majority of arrests, if you look at the arrests, they're misdemeanors, meaning driving while intoxicated.

They're smaller things, felonies, really serious crimes.

These are people who typically violate the law consistently.

So when this is happening,

we would memorize what the U.S.

Secret Service did is they taught us to fight with facts.

I fight with facts.

So we actually memorized the title codes, like 18, Title 18, USC, was it 3056?

That gave me the right to do what I needed to do to secure and protect the president of the United States.

And if you were interfering fearing with that, then the law gave me the right to arrest you if I needed to.

I didn't want to arrest anybody.

I didn't care.

But the law gave me that right because now you're impeding in my ability to do my job.

So one of the things I would do is I would say, ma'am,

you are right now impeding with Title 18, 3056, and I would say the title of what it was, which says that I have to do X, Y, and D.

So here's the thing: I don't want to arrest you, but you do need to move across the street.

You can move across the street and I can get somebody to come talk to you, or, you know, it's going to escalate.

It's up to you.

Most people, Stephen, most listen, but a lot of people like theatrics.

You said it's up to you.

That's giving them an element of control, which is good.

It's up to me.

Look, at the end, they have to do it because I have to do my job, right?

But the majority of time.

But you've given them the choice because you've said you can either

scrape or this.

Yes, but sometimes you have to repeat it like 15 times to people before you actually do it.

Here's the thing.

Once you put hands on people, the last thing you want to do is put hands on people.

The minute you put hands on people,

everything breaks bad.

They're going to freak out.

Somebody's going to get hurt.

It's not a good thing.

The majority of people I would arrest, after I would arrest them, I'd have to take them to the hospital.

Not because I did anything to hurt them, but my heart hurts.

I'm stressed.

I have, I don't know what's happening.

I have a headache.

I don't want them to die on me.

And the majority of the time, I would take them to the hospital or they were faking it.

I've had people fake heart attacks because they thought I'd feel bad and take the cuffs off.

And I'm like, okay, are you having a heart attack?

Let me put the cuffs on.

We're going straight to the hospital.

And I would take them to the hospital.

So there's a lot of tactics people would use to also get you to stop.

manipulators, which people can do the average person, not in this way, but ways people can manipulate you to stop whatever it it is you're doing.

Let's say you're trying to find out the truth of something, or you're in

asking questions, and a person doesn't like it, they may start crying.

People would cry when I would arrest them as a way for me to feel sorry to stop.

So, often people will use things to get you to feel bad to leave them alone.

Let's say you're going to fire somebody because for something they did, and you're asking them questions, and they start crying in the office instead of asking the questions, right?

That's a way to deflect to get you to feel bad, to stop your line of fire of questions, to get you to stop.

Very common, very common crying.

It's a manipulation tactic.

And there's other things people can do.

So people will use certain things to get you to stop what you're doing.

And sometimes people fall for it.

Or they'll say things to you.

You're only doing this to me because I'm a woman or because I'm this.

And those sometimes.

Not that they're not true, but a lot of times it can be used as manipulators to get you to back off.

In that scenario, you're being met with emotion and it appears that you're returning logic because you're talking about the title code and you could i guess return emotion but it no no you own your emotion nobody should provoke you nobody

you're stephen bartlett director ceo nobody provokes you you own your response you can go in that back room and motherfuck somebody to you know like do it in the mirror But nobody nobody owns that nobody should take that from you who are they to take that from you and who are you to surrender it?

That's the way I look at it.

You're going to be dealing with people.

People are a revolving door of all their stuff.

And I do think we see a really heightened

emotional state with people.

Like people can't post stuff on social media.

Like everybody has to give their opinion on something.

And sometimes I'm like, stop.

Like everybody doesn't need to know what you're thinking.

Like stop posting.

We put so much noise out there because we think people care.

They don't.

It's like, even when you speak, I look at social media the same way.

What are you contributing to the world?

Are you?

Post it.

If you're not, don't post it.

Don't put more noise.

Your contribution points, even in your posts and the things you share with the world.

But I look at it this way: you're at a point, I understand when you're young.

Up until you're 25 years old, I give you a free pass because that frontal cortex of yours is not developed.

You're not emotionally regulated.

But then there comes a point where you have to own your emotions.

I had to because I would lose my job.

How do I become unprovocable?

Is there a way?

Or is it just by repetitions?

It's repetition.

If enough people get in your face, over time, you learn to manage your emotions.

But if you spent the whole time avoiding people getting in your face, I'm not telling you to go look for problems, but you shouldn't go out of your way to avoid conflict to such a degree.

where you're willing to do anything and whatever because you don't want conflict.

I don't want conflict.

I don't like it.

But if it shows up in my face, I'm going to be there.

Yet you can also handle handle people non-emotionally with facts.

Okay, earlier on you said X, Y, and Z.

Could you explain that to me?

Even sometimes when people tell me, you know, I feel like I'm not valued at work or I think my boss doesn't care about me or I believe this and I want to go talk to my boss.

And I'll tell them, I'm fine with you going talk to your boss when they would ask me for advice because I never give unsolicited advice.

I'm fine with you going in there.

But do not go in there and say, I think, I feel, I believe.

Go in there and say, hey, I did this project.

I spent X amount of hours on it and I made X amount of money for this company.

You know, I'd like to put in for a higher position or I'd like to put in for this other project.

Go in with the facts.

Facts win because it's harder for people to refute facts.

I think I should get this.

Well, I think you shouldn't.

I believe, you know, you're treating me this way.

Well, I believe I'm not.

But if you say, We had this meeting, during this meeting, you said this and this, could you explain that to me?

Because it seemed as though you didn't trust me in that meeting, or it seemed as though you were upset with me in that meeting.

But I'm telling you specifically what I did.

So I'm bringing you back to that specific fact a moment versus now I feel that you treat me this way.

It's so vague and ambiguous.

When you go in with very specific things, that's harder to argue.

You want to, not that I want you to win an argument, but you really want to make your point and get results.

Be very clear and specific.

And you know what?

If you're nervous, write it down.

I always tell people, write your stuff down.

Walk into a meeting.

If you're having it with your supervisor, sir, boss, I don't know if people say sir anymore.

I guess I have to say, sir.

Sir, I just, I took some notes down.

So I hope you don't mind.

I'm just going to look to it just to make sure

I speak clearly and I don't make any mistakes.

And then go through the points.

I actually asked a colleague of mine who was in a similar situation, who wanted to have a conversation with me.

And they're a slightly younger colleague of mine

in their early 20s, they said they wanted to speak to me about something.

And

my advice to them was actually to write it down in a memo as if you were writing a story, because I love narrative memos.

And

I did that because I wanted them to properly think about what they wanted to say, because I knew what would happen is they'd come in, they'd start sort of like falling over their words a little bit, they might not not fully give me all the context.

And I often do that now, which is in all my meetings that we do, we kind of stole this from Jeff Bezos Amazon, is I'll have someone write it into, even if it's a two-page memo, which which says, like, this is the situation.

This is why I'm bringing you this thing in this meeting.

This is my proposed solution.

This is the decision I need.

You know, super, super clear.

Because in business, you often find what, you know, whether you have two kind of sides of things.

Either someone walks in in freestyles with their voice and they stumble in the moment, they don't get things out properly, or someone comes in with like a hundred-page PowerPoint presentation, which is like vague pictures of things and bullet points.

And I hate a fucking bullet point because a bullet point is open to interpretation.

So is a picture.

Whereas these narrative memos, which is what Amazon and Jeff Bezos figured out,

they leave no room for ambiguity and all the context is there.

And actually, sometimes it actually means that they can just send it as an in an email.

And then you don't have to talk about it.

And then I don't have to do the hour and a half.

Dude, what's funny you say that when I did cases, I would always ask, and again, not because I knew to do this, I was trained to do this, but really good interviewers.

get people to write not a memo, but a statement before you even interview them.

You know, and if it was like the date of the crime, for example, tell me what you did from the time you woke up on this date to the time you went to sleep.

And it would be a memo of what they did that day, or tell me what you know about blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I would read those statements, and I would know often who was my suspect, who wasn't.

I had one case where baby was a few months old, baby had a broken arm, and it was between the dad and the nanny.

that police were looking at.

And police weren't sure which one it was.

We think it's either the nanny or the dad.

Now, in a criminal case, you always want to talk to the most likely suspect.

You don't build your way up.

I go to the person who I likely think did it.

I'm going straight to the person, right?

I don't want to go to the person I think maybe did it and then build my way there.

I want the person that I truly believe is my suspect, my offender.

So I get the statements and I read them both.

I read dad's.

And I read nanny's.

I read dad's and I'm like, it's not dad.

I knew from the statement it wasn't dad.

I read nanny's.

And I knew right away after I read Nanny's statement, she did it.

Now you're going to say, how did you know?

The nanny opened up her statement by telling me about her morning, how frustrated it was, how she was running late.

She had two little kids of her own.

She was trying to get them out.

She was a single mom.

She was stressed out.

Then she shows up to work to

take care of this baby.

The baby's fussing.

The baby's crying.

I did this.

It didn't work.

I did that.

It didn't work.

So as she's telling me the story, she's telling me how hard her day was.

And then she turns into how frustrated she was with this baby.

I did everything I could to get this baby to stop crying.

I think the baby was either three or six months old.

I'm just, I can't remember.

And the baby was this, and the baby was that.

And then she gets to a part

where it says,

Then I gave the baby Tylenol and it went quiet.

And I was like, There it is.

That's when she broke the baby's arm.

Who says I gave the baby Tylenol and it went quiet?

In that moment, her language had changed so much, I was like, that's the moment she snapped that baby's arm and the baby passed out from the pain.

And so when I get the statement, I call up

the law enforcement entity, which is state police, because they were the ones that asked me to come up.

And I said, I want to talk to Nanny, not to dad.

And sure enough, Nanny comes in, hour and a half later, had a confession.

I didn't even have to give her a polygraph.

What was interesting is in her statement, it sounded like she was actually self-justifying her behavior.

She was.

She absolutely was.

I was reading about this thing called cognitive dissonance that you just mentioned and this idea that we don't like the gap between the way we're behaving and who we think we are or want to be.

And when I think about myself and, you know, bad habits that I have or bad habits that my friends have, we all like justify.

justify I'm too busy so I couldn't go to the gym or there was nothing else that I that I could grab, so I ate the cookie in the mini bar.

Like we have to find a way to justify it.

And then some of us, I think we like build our lives around kind of believing our own justifications.

Of course we do.

And then we're trapped.

Because in the presence of these crazy justifications, what we're doing makes sense and it's okay.

I think sometimes it's

I'm not telling people to feel permanently bad for what they do because you don't want to, like we said, you don't want to live in the past and beat yourself up and man, I messed up and I did this you will but i do think it's important to say i did something and i shouldn't have done this at least to yourself how'd you stop believing you're in bullshit

well do you

i think

so i'm very lucky i have a husband who makes sure that i don't

he is um but he's a very steady good soundboard but he's also former special agent and both in U.S.

Secret Service and Homeland Security.

And he was SWAT.

So this is a super steady person, lost his father when he was young.

I'm only sharing this because you're asking.

I guess what I'm saying is, so I have someone in my very inner circle who will tell me, hey,

chucklehead, you might want to think this through.

He may not say it like that, but he will call me out on things.

People that

care about you will typically call things out on you.

Now, there's ways to do it and ways not to do it.

And there's maybe times where I'm not really keen on the way he does it.

But because he has good contribution points, good credibility with me, I know if he's saying something, that there's validity to it.

If he's going to pause and say, hey, I would like you to think about this, it's coming from somewhere.

So he's built enough trust.

I've built enough trust to know that he does that.

Now, if you have someone who's always critiquing you, because that does exist, everything you do is wrong, then that person's not going to, you know,

they're not going to resonate.

So I think having people

that actually call you out on your stuff or help point it out

that can do it, and that you also have to be okay with listening it.

So I'm mature enough and I hope to be, I try to be humble enough to say, look, tell me the truth.

Or there are times too, where as much as a strategic decision maker, I like to be, there's times where, Stephen, I'm seeing red.

Someone will do something and all I see is red.

And I will go to someone that can either, either I trust or can help me make a decision with something.

And I'll say, you know, it could be my agent.

It could be a work thing.

I'm like, hey, this happened.

I'm seeing red.

How would you handle this scenario?

Because I'm in an emotional state.

I'm not going to make a good decision.

Can I have your guidance advice?

And so I will go to people I trust who will guide me.

So that's the biggest thing.

I think call yourself out on your bullshit.

The minute you start getting emotional.

And I think there's a pattern.

If everything offends you, if everything upsets you, if you're getting triggered all the time, if you're upset with people or angry with people, or you feel the need to let everybody know through social media or posts or texting, you know, what's going on in your life, I want you to pause and say, why am I doing all of this?

What is going on within me that I am feeling that I need to, that I see the world this way?

It always starts with us.

It's always within.

So I think that's the thing.

It's like, what's going on within me?

And if you have the ability and the maturity and you're you're in a space where you can do that and you want that you can call yourself out on your own

do you have a lot of friends

no

i did growing up i was my social butterfly

um no and just so you know the research shows stephen that as we age our inner circle gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

I have a lot of acquaintances and I'm friendly with a lot of people and I network with a lot of people, and I like these people.

But when I hear the word friends, I could count my friends on one hand.

Do you have a lot of friends?

You might, because you might still be at an age where you're kind of in the middle there.

For me, I've got like five best friends, but then I've got all these other people who I've become friends with predominantly through work.

Okay, so I define friends as people you would give pretty much unconditional trust to.

Unconditional.

I trust you, I'll tell you whatever, More or less.

How many would those be?

I reckon 10.

10.

Unconditional trust.

Okay.

Jack's one of them.

Jack over there is one of them.

Known him for seven years now.

There's nothing I wouldn't trust him with.

So that would be

a legitimate.

Yes, that would be a friend, right?

Consistency, length of time, trust, no betrayal.

That would be a friend.

And is this a quality versus quantity game, do you think?

The inner circle?

Yeah.

okay why do you need all those people it's it's it's one thing to have connections and and network and and meet people and hang out but who you bring into that inner circle

i think and i would think even for you

you want to be selective and careful because you also want to make sure people if stephen wasn't steven

Like what quality friend would they still be?

Because sometimes it's also what the package is and and people are drawn to us.

And that's okay.

But I guess what I'm saying is it's quality.

Are they genuinely good friends?

Like if something bad happens and you're like, I need your help, and they're like, let me, would they be like, let me go get my shovel?

Where are we meeting?

You know, I think that would be

the gauge of a friend.

But I think sometimes people think a lot of friends are good and a lot of friends are noise.

You can have acquaintances, but you're like, your friend is really somebody who influences you.

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You've used this term low vibration before.

Yeah.

What does that mean to you to be low vibration?

You can think of it this way.

Like there's some people, I think, look at low vibration as when you're around people and it's just, you don't want to be around them.

They make you feel bad, not because they said something necessarily to you, but they're maybe in a victim mindset.

They're always bringing problems.

They're always bringing drama.

Everything is wrong.

Nothing is right.

They're all low vibration.

Can you be live vibration because you're

around live vibration people?

Yes, because you adopt their habits.

You adopt and are influenced by people.

It doesn't matter who you are.

You can be Stephen Bartlett, Diarrhea CEO.

If you surround yourself with low vibration people,

eventually, slowly, it's going to bring down your vibration.

It's easier for, if you're up here, let's say higher vibration, I'm doing really well.

I'm excelling in the way I think, emotionally stable.

You're kind of doing really well in life and you're up here and you're around people like down here and you're thinking, oh, I'm going to help pull this person up, right?

It is actually easier for them to pull you down than it is for you to pull people up.

You know, I always say, be careful who you try to save.

Some people will drown you.

It's like when we would do rescue, search and rescue, they would tell you when you go out in the water, the most dangerous thing isn't the water.

It's the person who's panicking in the water who could kill you.

Because as you get closer to them to save them, what are they doing, Stephen?

They're panicking, they're flailing.

Then they see you.

What do they do?

They grab onto you so they can stay afloat.

And you know what they do?

They push you down.

You're there to save them.

But in their panic and then their loss and then their chaos, what do they do?

They push you down.

People are the same way just in relationships.

So all I'm saying is I'm not telling you not to be a person who's going out there to help others, but be selective in how you do it and who you help.

Because then you fall into that

space of, I'm such a, I'm just trying to be a good person.

I'm trying to do this.

I'm trying to do that.

No, you're exposing yourself to people in environments that are not good for you and that actually impact your life negatively.

And so it's not on them.

It's also we have a responsibility to ourselves, Stephen, to make good decisions on where we go, what relationships we enter, who we're dealing with, and what we're doing.

We have a responsibility.

So if somebody screws us over, I get it.

Every once in a while, you come across across an asshole and it happens.

But if it's a consistent thing,

it's also what did I do?

What did I allow myself to do that exposed me to this volatility, that exposed me to this stuff?

It's like crime.

If I walk home every night in a sketchy area with the lights are dark and there's no lighting and I know there's high crime and it's an abandoned area.

That choice I'm making to walk through that neighborhood versus taking a taxi,

that will make me more likely to be what?

A victim of crime.

But if I take a taxi, I'm less likely to be a victim of crime.

I avoid this bad neighborhood.

I avoid this bad area.

I guess what I'm saying is you also have a responsibility.

We have a responsibility to navigate the environment we're in and how we engage with people.

And it can't just be he or she screwed me over.

It's like, what decision did you make?

It's not blame, but what decision did you make that exposed you and made you more vulnerable to getting screwed over?

Because there was, because typically, maybe not all but the majority of times there are signs that we choose to ignore or we think everybody's our friend and we give them unconditional trust and then something happens and we think why did that happen well you gave unconditional trust like it was nothing your trust should be something people earn

you don't have to tell them you need to earn my trust you don't have to say it but internally it's kind of like you need to earn this because it means something to give people trust you shouldn't you shouldn't just automatically surrender it to you so jack what's up jack jack over seven years,

earned trust consistently and over time.

And that's why that relationship's the same way.

But you are responsible.

We are each responsible for ourselves.

So, if you keep exposing yourself to low vibration, to chaotic areas, chaotic people, then you are playing a role in the problems that you have.

We live in a culture, though, where people do complain a lot.

They complain that things aren't fair, that they're not equal, that they're not

being treated like they should be treated, et etc.

And there's a lot of that in the corporate world.

Because it's allowed.

I think it's okay to meet people where they are sometimes and listen to them.

I think it's valid, but it's also when you bend so much,

you're also doing a disservice to them because you're helping make excuses for them.

They're not delivering and it hurts the work culture.

And I think you really have to be careful because a person who comes in with poor performance can really impact the rest of the team.

And I've had it, like, I don't have as many employees as you have, but when I have people that work with me, I'm very aware of how their vibration comes in and impacts the other team.

I want high performance.

And if you're coming in with your low vibration and your problems and your dramas, it doesn't belong at work.

What is the defining sort of attitude trait of a low performer?

Just if you just had to pick one, the first thing that comes to mind that pisses you off.

It doesn't piss me off, but when people start telling me about their personal affairs,

and it's not that I'm an insensitive person, there's a time and place.

So if you start telling me about how your weekend was with your grandmother or whoever, and I'm sitting there, I'm like, it's not that I'm insensitive, but it's

we're at work.

Like I asked you about something specific and you're telling me about this whole story about, so you're making it about you.

And I think that there's a little bit like, did you not pause to think?

Like,

I'm talking to to my supervisor or my boss.

She's super busy.

She's

expecting something from me.

Let me share it with her.

You know, when you do that to another person, you take from them all the time.

How's that fair to them?

At the start of that, you said they would come and talk about themselves, et cetera.

And it reminded me of something you were talking about in your TED talk where one of the key ideas is that

you're not that special.

What do you mean when you say you're not that special?

You're not that special is

when we make ourselves so self-important, which in Western culture we have, it's very much about the person, the identity of the person.

You can do anything.

You can this.

It's you, you, you.

I think that's great.

But what happens is when we get so focused on the singular person and we forget other people, is that we think that we are so special that it's just us and then the rest of the world revolves around us.

We're the sun and that everybody else revolves around us.

And when you think you're special, it's not that you become a narcissist or anything like that.

That's not how I mean it.

What I mean by that is, if I'm special, then what also that says is my problems are special, my pain is special, what I'm going through is special.

And you meet those people where it's like, oh, no, no, no, this is, this is just happening to me, that mindset.

And when you are there,

You are alone, and there's nothing that anybody can do to help you, even when they give you advice, because you are the exception to everything.

When you have that mindset, at least when I had that mindset, all my problems faded away.

As bad as they were, or whatever hardship I was going through, I'm like, I'm not that special.

There's other people going through it far worse than I am.

It doesn't minimize what I'm going through, but it reorients you.

You also talk about walking with conviction because predators can spot prey.

Yes.

Did you see that through your career that predators, narcissists would go for certain people?

Yes, but even yes, but even in regular relationships, why do some people end up with a bad partner all the time or an abusive partner all the time?

Why?

Don't throw me under the bus.

You say that.

But why?

Because we tend to draw to us those folks because we look like we're easier targets.

We look like they're people they can then mold or manipulate.

And we trust too easily.

I'm not telling you not to to give trust, but there's certain traits that they look at.

They're not going to go after an alpha type personality.

You know,

it's if you look like you're an easy target, if you look like you're easy to take down, if you look like you're easily going to be thrown off,

people see that.

They pay attention.

But if they look like you're a competitor, if they look like you're a counter predator, and you don't even have to be that extreme, but if they look like, hey, this person's going to push you back, I'm going to be careful.

Even with some people you talk to, I bet employees, there's some employees that you're probably more comfortable telling something to because they're more easily, they're easier to tell it to.

They're softer in tone.

Maybe they're not going to push back.

They're easier.

And then there are other employees where you're like, I have to think about how I say this because this person's a strong alpha personality.

And so I have to approach them a little bit differently.

Now,

people are the same way.

We give off cues, we give off vibes.

And to some people, we can look like easier targets.

Even in crime, crime, they pick their targets.

They don't want fair fights.

They want, I want someone who's going to go down easy.

Kids are the most

overly abused population.

Why?

Because they're kids.

They're the easiest to target.

They're the most vulnerable.

Why?

So if I'm such a strong predator, why am I going for kids?

Or next, elderly.

Why am I going for elderly?

Because they're easy for me to conquer.

They're easy for me to take down.

Predators are not what you think they are.

Even if you look at recent events, if you look at recent shootings we've had,

when you look at the people that have carried out some of these shootings, it was one recently this week with Charlie Kirk.

Look at that shooter.

Does he look like a predator to you?

I don't mean it in a cold way.

I just does he look it.

There was one before that here in the United States.

It was the Minneapolis school shooting.

Did you see that shooter?

Does that look like a predator to you?

These predators that we envision in our head that we think are these ruthless, scary-looking people,

they tend to not be that.

They themselves are not strong.

They look for weaker targets because it's

easier to take out and manipulate.

Predators are not these, it's not like what you see in the movie.

The movies.

Like you think you're going to see the scary-looking dude.

And I'm not saying you're not going to see that from time to time.

But these people who do certain things, who take advantage, they don't look like predators.

And you have to be careful because you inadvertently attract people who look at you and think, I can manage her.

I can do that.

I can mold that.

I can shape that.

And in the context of work or relationships, if there's my

boss is shouting at me and constantly berating me, or my partner is shouting at me and berating me, and I just feel small.

I can't necessarily call for backup.

So is it as simple as saying, my choice, I just should just leave?

Or is there, what if it's a situation where I can't leave?

Like it's like family, or sometimes in work, you know, you have to stay because you need to pay your bills,

or

there's, you know, kids involved, and I'm married to this person.

So, okay, so you're saying you cannot leave.

Yeah, if I couldn't leave.

I always feel like there's a choice.

It may not be the choice you want to make, but you always have a choice.

Because in those scenarios, if you've got, let's say, and I've had a lot of people come to me and they're truly abusive relationships, there is no advice I can give you to fix that.

That person is just going to abuse you, let alone from you assaulting them back.

And then now you're having like, God forbid, like somebody's dead, which does happen.

I can't fix that.

What I can do is for a person like that, and most people don't leave abusive relationships.

The research, I've talked to a lot of people that work with abuse victims, they find that even when they do leave, the vast majority go back so i think that's a scenario if you have someone like that in your life the best thing you could do for them is listen and just try to keep them as safe as you can i don't think there is nothing i can do what are you gonna do get a gun and then what you're gonna use it people i think effie they they they almost want you to help them

stay in that situation, but change the situation.

No, change the person.

It's the iceberg we talked about.

They're not accepting the truth of who they have in front of them.

We don't accept the truth.

I have this person and this person is horrible to me.

They're abusive to me.

They're vile to me.

And I think if I could just get them to not be like that, everything would be okay.

Okay, of course it would, but that's not the truth.

You're not living in truth.

You have somebody who's horrible to you.

Now, if it's an intimate personal relationship, like a companion, that's a big thing because you live with that person.

There's no getting away from them.

Typically, like if you have a companion or you get married, like you're what?

Typically, unless you're divorced, you're tied to that person.

That's really rough.

Now, let's say it's a parent or a kid, because kids can be just as abusive to parents.

Actually, you know, the research shows, at least here in the United States, I can't remember the most recent year I looked at, it was a uniform crime report, I believe.

It showed there was more abuse from child to parent than parent to child, relationship-wise.

I don't mean a five-year-old hitting their parent.

I mean it can be an adult child being abusive to a parent.

But let's say you have a scenario scenario like that.

Now,

there is a point at some degree where you can remove yourself either from the parents' house.

Let's say you live with your parents.

I get this sometimes a lot.

My parents are like this or they're like that to me.

And I'm like, how old are you?

If you're over the age of 18 and you can work, you have the ability.

to find ways to remove yourself.

You don't have to cut them out of your life because sometimes for people, it's really, really hard.

They love their family.

As messed up as they are, you can love your family, but you don't have to like them.

Those are two different things.

I had a scenario like that where there was a certain member of my extended family who was being inappropriate.

And

I was the first, this was when I was younger, I was like 18.

I said to my siblings, I said, I know you guys are going to stay and tolerate it and you're going to justify it in your own way.

That's not the approach I'm going to take.

I'm going to cut them off.

And funnily enough, this person treats me the best.

They treat me the best.

And I think it's because they realize that my tolerance is so low and I'm willing to walk away.

And that I don't think family means that you are bound to this person for life.

I do think you still get to choose.

I think, like all relationships in your life, there should be a certain standard that they have to meet, whether they're family, friends, a stranger, or a team member, whoever it is, that they have to meet like a minimum standard.

And family, for me, just don't get a pass on that.

And funnily, it meant that my relationship, I've never fallen out with this person.

The only reason I said that was because I see them falling out with everybody else.

But, and this was again before the podcast and whatever else, like before my businesses, I was a broke student.

But I just, I, for whatever reason, probably some trauma-related reason, felt no obligation to keep you in my life just because we have the same genes.

I didn't, for me, that's like not, not a, not a high enough bar.

And they treated me so well.

That's so interesting because you stood your ground.

Yeah.

And this is where, and this is where sometimes we talk about the bad, you know, how we're talking about the bad things that have happened to us and we carry them through.

It's one thing to go through something bad and then you move through it, right?

You moved on.

But when you stay in something bad, so like if you, if you're in a relationship and there's continual trauma there's no you can't move through that because you're staying there it's not it's not it happened to you and you're staying in this victim mindset it's like you're still in it

chronic abuse chronic trauma chronic what however you want to define it and abuse can look in differently or chronically having somebody bully you that's really bad that's really bad there's no strategies there's no skills and i would get those folks and they're like can you help me be more confident be more this and it would come out in the discussions i would have that they had somebody that was in their life that he was bully or abusive.

I would tell them, there are no skills I can give you

that can help you

be more confident because

I can't counter that.

You have someone who is consistently demolishing you.

And so you think, what?

I'm going to tell you to what, do a power pose?

And that's going to fix it.

Do you feel like you have, and I don't know, I'm asking out of humbleness.

I don't know.

Do you feel that growing up, you had a lot of people that around you that were either, you know, had a lot of issues or struggles and like that it was something that you had to push through or climb out to get to where you are?

Yeah, I think, I think it really only takes like one person.

That's close enough, especially if they're above you

to basically

in my case, to make my tolerance level extremely low.

I think people can relate to that because I hear people say this all the time.

Like, it only takes one parent that did X or one parent that did this or, you know, an uncle or an auntie or whatever, that you go, I'm going to tolerate zero of that.

So another thing in my relationship with my partner is neither of us shout.

And I grew up in a house where shouting was the background noise of every day, like from morning till night.

And so with me and my partner, I've been together for seven years, we talk like this.

It's not to say we don't argue or we don't have disagreements and we don't get upset or whatever, but there's never shouting because I just have zero tolerance for that.

I would just, frankly, in my previous relationship, when the shouting began, I would literally just disappear from the space and I'd be in my car driving on the motorway.

That was my response.

Because I just, because I grew up in a house where that was, and my siblings are all the same, none of them shout or very, very calm or very softly spoken because we grew up in an environment which was the opposite.

Funnily, sorry.

But that's, that's interesting too, because it could have gone the other way.

Yeah, and it sometimes does for people.

It does.

You talked about the abuse.

Violence often comes from violence, but sometimes like peace comes from violence.

That's true.

This is also why, when you said earlier, that looking back at your past and trying to figure out what happened is not necessarily useful because two kids in the same environment can turn out entirely different.

And you see that across siblings.

There's something interesting you were saying a second ago about we were talking about like gradual small exposure therapy to change your life for the better, moving the shoes closer to the bed.

But then you also just talked about the gradual exposure therapy of someone breaching your boundaries and becoming an abuser, and how it's like, it's like they just every day just move the shoes a little bit closer to the bed.

Yes, yes.

That's interesting.

It goes both ways in that regard.

When I, you know, with my inner circle, like even with people I work with, if I start, I really pay attention to behavior.

If, if, like, this is something small, and I don't know if you're the same way, but like, if you work with me, or it, well, you work for me, and I send you an email and you don't respond till four days later.

Massive red flag for me.

And I won't say anything to you.

I'll wait.

And then I'll test it out again with something else and again.

And as soon as I see that in my head, I'm like, we're done.

I may not tell you anything, but I'll find a way to let you go.

So there's a certain things because, and that's a little bit like the moving the shoes closer away from the bed, where you'll see people, you'll see, I'll see somebody do something and I'm like, is it a fluke?

Did they truly miss it?

Or is this kind of this relaxed attitude?

Oh, it's Ebby.

She's so, well, I don't know if they think I'm nice, but,

you know, after I do these podcasts, I'm like, oh, she's so scary.

But, but, you know, sometimes people will get too relaxed and comfortable.

And so it's in a different way.

And so I'll test it out.

And when I see that, I'm like, no, no, I'm not, you know, if it's someone I really want to work with, I may address it.

But sometimes.

I don't want to say I don't invest the time and energy and effort, but sometimes I know,

I know when to invest that time, energy, and effort, and when to say no, and I pull out

earlier on, we talked about Charlie Kirk this week.

Uh, what week are we in?

We're on Sunday, so yeah, this week he was assassinated while on a college campus as part of a tour that he was doing called Prove Me Wrong, where he went out onto college campuses and debated his ideas with the college campus students and a shooter who has now been

found and I believe is in prison, currently awaiting

jail, yeah.

Their first appearance, I think, in court on Tuesday of this week,

shot him in the neck from several hundred yards away.

As a former Secret Service agent whose very job was to ensure that didn't happen to someone, to ensure that someone didn't assassinate them, harm them, to keep them safe, et cetera,

what did you think and feel when you heard the news?

So I have been covering the Charlie Kirk assassination from the news perspective.

So you're asking me, like, what assessment can I give you as a former Secret Service?

So I'll give you something.

I'll share with you what I've been covering.

And if you have a specific question, feel free to ask.

So here's the thing.

This is truly unique and exceptional.

And this is why people calling it a political assassination, right?

It is and it isn't.

Here's the difference.

A president of the United States is a politician.

It's understood that things like this will happen, right?

And he has protection.

A political appointee, like a member of Congress, correct?

Because right now, members of Congress in the United States, and I think in many parts of the world, are very afraid right now because their threats have also increased.

So even here in the United States, they're looking to increase the budget on people

in Congress for safety and protection.

It is to some degree understood that these things will happen over time.

to people who are political elected figures.

Charlie is uniquely different.

He talked about things, but he wasn't a political figure.

Nobody voted for him.

He was honestly, he had his own, didn't he have his own podcast?

He had a podcast.

He was out there.

He spoke.

He did talks.

He shared his opinion.

So he is no different in a sense than you and I, in a sense.

And so what that assassination means is it is fair game now on anybody who has a platform.

That's the difference here.

So it's different.

You're not dealing with presidents now, heads of states, or people in Congress.

You're dealing now with people who, if they share an opinion that you don't like and I perceive it as a threat, then now

I have the ability to retaliate and take a shot.

This is going to open up the door to copycat because to try to get certain people like a president of the United States or a member of Congress or a politician or certain people, those are hard targets.

Those are hard to get.

They're secure.

But now this means anybody who's out there that I don't like and I don't agree with, I can take that target

and

cause harm to those people.

We're moving into a space now where everybody is fair game, where I have a voice.

Even on social media, I would actually sit and go through X before I would go on air just to get the news update, see what else was happening.

And I would have to sit and filter through.

all the hateful comments people were writing, everybody, to each other.

And then every other five comments was, I'm getting death threats, people are threatening me because people were expressing their opinions online, and other people were threatening them.

This means that it means you can go after anybody.

And what I'm not saying I would like this to happen, but to me, this is a massive red flag because it means now everybody is extremely vulnerable.

And now we're looking to targeting people who have shows, who have platforms, who maybe do the dues, who share opinions.

That is why this is a bother.

This is why people should be concerned.

You said copycats.

Is that something that you actually saw when you're in the secret service?

That if one incident happened, it would 100%.

All it takes is one person to do it, another person be like, oh, he can do it.

I can do it.

He executed his mission.

I'm not agreeing with the mission, but that shooter was able to do what he needed to do.

And he was successful, sadly, right?

So someone else is going to see it and they're going to get that idea.

I'm speaking at a university on Tuesday.

So maybe somebody hears something I say on a podcast, they don't like it.

They might get that idea.

But also, there's a lot of people out there that are just not well.

I mean, no, they're not well.

I'm going to be very transparent.

People are not well.

So in the U.S.

Secret Service, we had a unit.

It was called the Protective Intelligence Unit.

In that unit is where we would track people who were presumed to be threats against people who were protected.

So how did they get on your radar?

They would write letters.

They would show up at multiple events.

They would make phone calls, right?

There was ways to do that.

Then you have the introduction of social media.

So now people are more,

they're able to now make threats and say things from the safety of their own home.

And that is afraid.

It's a more detached way to attack somebody.

And now you have to follow those leads.

And now there's thousands of these things that come in.

And even if they even hit your radar.

And so everyone's inundated with tracking people.

Now, at the time, initially, those who were looking to cause harm to our protectees

typically had severe mental health issues.

And from time to time, it wasn't often the Secret Service would work with the courts to involuntarily commit somebody if they thought they were that much harm.

With social media now,

the playing field has changed.

One, it allows people to say things that they would never say to your face.

It

allows people now when you absorb the content online, the majority is very negative, even though we're talking about this event.

Everything is typically very ugly online.

And so people escalate.

And

we've also noticed that there's a lack of empathy.

We are less empathetic the more we have exposure to online stuff because when people text hateful things, it doesn't become as big of a deal anymore.

Whereas if somebody said it to you, it's a bigger deal.

So

there is a severe

mental

issue with

people.

And there's also, when you look at behavior, typically the things that keep you in check seem to be a little bit more absent today, which also causes people to behave a little bit more inappropriately.

So like, and this is again just for the research, not based on my personal opinion, family.

When you have strong social bonds to certain structures, you're less likely to cause harm to others.

So, family is one social bond that keeps you kind of like in place.

Like, I'm not going to do this because it would embarrass my family or hurt my family.

Faith or religion, religious institutions, whatever that religion is, that typically keeps people kind of steady.

Certain institutions, like having a strong bond to what may be a school or certain institutions, there are certain things that keep you less likely from behaving this way.

And we do see a little bit of an erosion in those areas, and I think that leaks into people's mental cognitive issues.

One of the things that I don't think people realize as well when they're on the internet is that they are in an algorithm, and the algorithm isn't the real world, but it's actually just the things.

The way that the algorithm works is it shows you more of the things that you've expressed interest in before.

So, my first sort of 10 years of my career was working in social media.

So, all of the major social platforms, we bought one of the most disruptive social media companies at the time.

So, I have a deep understanding of how the algorithm works.

In fact, much of our job was to figure out how it works to help our big clients globally reach more people.

And I think about like my, my,

my, my grandfather.

My grandfather will like look at his phone and he'll think what he's seeing is the world, but he doesn't know that dwell time is a huge factor in what he's going to be shown tomorrow.

So if he dwells a little bit more on a particular post, the algorithm will go, ooh,

Mr.

Bartlett, grandfather Bartlett is interested.

So next time you log in, we're going to show him more of that.

And I learned this really starkly when one of my older relatives downloaded TikTok.

And

I got like an emergency call from their partner saying,

we need your help.

She's downloaded TikTok and it's like making her crazy.

Like it's making her insane because she's seeing now all of this like vitriol and hate and racist stuff.

And she thinks the world is like that and she's like preparing to protest.

So I had to fucking get her password off her partner and hit this button in the back end of TikTok, which refreshes your algorithm, just wipes out all of your history.

And what I would do is I'd hit that button every single week.

And eventually she stopped using TikTok.

She found it boring because it was all now like X Factor.

America's got talent videos, people singing, people dancing.

And I'd go on her phone and I'd watch these like music videos and I'd like like them and bookmark them and save them because I knew that that's what she would see next time she logged in.

I know this sounds crazy, but that's like people don't realize that what they're seeing is they're pulling something towards them.

And that's how the algorithms work.

You pull towards you what you've been historically interested in.

So if you're scared about brown people crossing the border in dinghies, that's all it's going to show you.

And you're going to start thinking that the world is X, Y, or Z.

And yeah.

The other thing, too, when it shows you that stuff, it's almost like being how I said when you're in law enforcement, you're exposed to the worst of people and you have to be really cared not to become cynical.

And one of the ways you're also protected is because you're with other officers.

So there's that team camaraderie.

Everybody helps helps each other.

So, now this is the same way.

I'm on my phone and I'm exposed to the worst of the worst and I'm consuming it.

Here's the difference: I'm by myself.

Yeah.

And there's nobody there to tether me to be like, Hey, so I look at this stuff, and whatever it is I'm looking at, that I'm afraid, because it depends who I am and what I resonate with.

Is it, am I afraid of people crossing the border?

Am I afraid of school shootings?

Am I afraid of this other group?

Right?

It's just what, and everything is fear-based.

They're tapping into your fear, and they make you afraid this other thing is going to harm me.

And there's no ability either.

I've noticed through social media, there's no middle ground.

It's either you're all the way over here and you're all the way over here.

And they feed on people's fears, these algorithms.

So this is a graph I found, which shows the rise in

school shootings.

But it's rising.

It's increasing.

One of the things to keep in mind with this, with the school shooting, and we don't know this based on this one, are these mass shootings or just shootings in general?

So, school shooting is, I show up to school, I don't like you, Stephen, I pull up my gun, I shoot you.

Technically, that's a school shooting.

A mass shooting is like what we saw the week before, Minneapolis.

Um, and we had that person who showed up to school and who just started shooting randomly.

So, there's two.

So, when we look at shootings,

let's look at mass.

Let's look at mass because if you look at school shootings one-on-one, those are a bit different and they have to do with the city.

But if you look at mass shootings, what can we tell from mass shootings?

So, some of the data shows us typically

that person tends to have some kind of association to the place they go to, the school they went to.

Typically, there's some type of connection.

Usually, at that point where they commit to shooting, something in their life happened, right?

There's some type of moment.

Maybe they broke up with a partner, they lost their job, something that offset that moment.

Now, over time, historically, they were building up to having all these issues.

Those issues don't go away, but something typically happens where they decide, I'm going to do this.

The other thing is they're planned.

So they either sit down and they decide to plan this out and they communicate it to somebody in some way or they do it through social media.

Another thing that's really interesting, they happen typically in the mornings.

They typically happen in the mornings.

That person wakes up and says, okay, today's the day I'm going to do it.

I've got my plan in place.

And they execute it earlier on in the day.

The other thing with mass shootings, mass shootings, not just regular school shootings, in almost all of them, if dare I say all of them, all those individuals had a history of mental health issues or mental illness.

The other thing, too, that we see is they had access to weapons.

So they were either able to go get a weapon, they knew somebody who had a weapon, and they were able to get that weapon.

One of the things you said a second ago about how this might become more.

frequent, sadly, had me thinking about why that would be and what's changed in the world.

And one of the things that has changed in the world is that media is now increasingly people, people like us,

that have microphones in our kitchens.

I mean, we're sat in what used to be my kitchen recording this conversation.

And once upon a time, to reach this many people, you had to be CNN.

CNN's a logo.

It's hard to shoot at.

But in a world where much of the media is like creator-led or host-led media, it's much easier to have a target.

And it just made me think about it.

I was like, oh, yeah, of course.

Of course, you know.

But sometimes, too, the target, if you're looking at mass shootings, now, if you're looking at a target like this Charlie Kirk thing we were talking about, right?

Sometimes it's done because they want notoriety.

It's a big thing.

So with

this specific shooting, Charlie Kirk, it's come out now that the individual was actually on Discord after he did the shot.

talking about it with other members on discord according to what law enforcement said again i'm just updating as i know it it could change but he was saying he was basically talking with other people and basically saying like he did it and laughing about it.

He was admitting to doing it.

Yeah, they were like, we think you did this.

He's like, oh, maybe I did it.

Ha ha ha ha.

So there's, it's become for whatever reason in that world,

it's seen as a

way to create significance.

Yes, I want attention.

I want to create significance.

And also, here's the other thing.

What's happening is

we are villainizing people very easily.

We are calling people names.

We are villainizing them.

And it goes back to social media, clips people are making, even, even

things that are,

our words are our most powerful weapon.

And we don't realize that when you open your mouth and you say something, and it's what's happening is people aren't saying something because most people are cowards.

They text it and they post it

because they would never say it to your face.

And they post it.

and then what that does is all these these negative things these these attacks we make towards people become commonplace so if all I see is negative stuff this guy's bad this guy's this this guy's that I start to think it's true and if you villainize somebody to such a degree I think well I I'm gonna be a hero if I do something about this.

Look what a horrible person this is.

I heard this quote once, the bigger the hero, the bigger the villain.

I have to make you such a villain so I can feel feel like a hero and this is what happens when you villainize people to such a degree you create a justification

I had to do this look at how horrible this human being was look at all the horrible things people are saying about them I am doing the right thing you just justified it and sold it to yourself it's the right thing to do but today with social media

I can't solely blame them because social media posts and the things people are creating and putting out there is giving justification to other people to do this stuff.

Did you say that your husband was a sniper?

He was counter-assault.

So you and him are both former Secret Service agents.

Correct.

So when you see something like the Charlie Kirk assassination happen,

I'm so curious as to the conversations in your house about that because

you must be looking at this from so many different perspectives from like how that person could have been more protected, I guess, or how that setup could have been to mitigate the chances of something like that happening.

So, with Charlie Kirk, there's nothing they could have done, let alone put snipers on the rooftop to prevent that, or counter snipers, rather.

Is that what they would have had to do?

That's what they would have had to do.

Okay.

And there's no way anybody would have done it.

That's what I said.

Like, if you're a president or person of Congress or some VIP like that, you're going to get those assets.

A person like Charlie Kirk, like you or me, we're not going to get those.

Who's going to pay for that?

So he had security, but it was on the ground with him.

Their thinking, their type of security thinking, and this is private security.

And again, it's not to knock them because this is something new.

This is new.

They're thinking, I need to protect Charlie from the guy standing at the podium asking a question.

All these people pushing up against the rope line who want to talk to Charlie.

So they're looking at it from this physical sense.

It's like, it sounds terrible, but it's almost like a meat shield.

I'm the meat shield between you and them.

They're not thinking high ground problems.

Nobody thought, who would have thought, maybe a Secret Service agent would have, but who would have thought, I need to have snipers on the rooftops or counter snipers on the rooftops to protect from a sniper shooting Charlie Kirk?

He was wearing a bulletproof vest, wasn't he?

That's what I've been told.

I'm not sure.

I don't know if it's 100% true, so I don't want to say yes or no.

I say that because in several of the videos when he's on campus, you see that there's clearly, when he's wearing a t-shirt, you see

vest marks here.

And I noticed this many weeks, many, many times.

It might be true.

Just because it's never confirmed, I'm hesitant, so I don't know.

know it's very possible and uh again it's not a so a vest like that it's gonna

it's gonna stop a round from a pistol typically and maybe a shotgun round rifle rounds usually like our counter assault teams in the secret service they actually had an extra ceramic plate to help prevent those so you really need like a different type of exposure to protect from a rifle round.

Now, in this scenario with him, the shot, you see it go straight to his neck.

And that's the thing with vests.

They protect you here, right?

They protect your vital organs.

And even when I would wear mine, it was, you lived in the reality of if I get one to the head,

I'm done.

Is that your worst nightmare as a Secret Service agent that something like that happens to the person you're protecting?

Correct.

It is the worst because it means you failed.

It's horrible.

It's horrible.

I mean, when you would do protection stuff and the person you're protecting, whoever it was, because you would protect, I've protected everybody from the president of the United States to former presidents to first ladies to their kids.

I had Barbara Pierce Bush, which was President Bush's daughter.

I had her for a while, to the Secretary of Treasury, to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

These are all USS protectees and foreign heads of state.

When the Prime Minister of the UK comes to the United States,

he gets protection.

We work with the team because you don't want anybody getting assassinated on U.S.

soil.

So you protect Russia when he comes, Putin.

You got to take a bullet for him, too.

So it's more the mission.

But the thing is, it's your responsibility.

And so

the whole time, I don't want to say you're on edge, but the whole time you're on, you're aware, your mind's moving.

Where's my threat?

Where's my threat?

Where's my threat?

Where's my problem?

And then we would have, sometimes it would have what they call like wheels up parties, which means your protectee is up, they're wheels up in the plane.

And that's when people were just like,

because the stress is so high, you're so on, you're always looking for the threat.

There's no, we work in shifts, but there's days where I work 16, 17 hour days, 18 hour hour days, depending on what my assignment was.

It's a lot.

What is the most important thing for the person who clicked on this podcast because they are looking for something in their life?

They want to be more effective in the pursuit of their goals, whatever their goals might be.

It could be professionally, personally,

could be, you know, maybe they want to be an entrepreneur or something.

What is the most important thing that we should have talked about in that regard that we didn't talk about, Avi?

I don't know what that to say to that.

I guess what I would say to them is, I think the message is that they are extremely capable.

And no matter what society is telling, no matter what's happened to them, no matter what excuses people make for them, or maybe they make for themselves, they are much more capable.

And so that maybe when they see someone like you or myself and they think, oh, look, they've got it all figured out.

It's like, we figured it out the same way everybody else

figures it out.

So I think, Stephen, the most important thing is like, we're not that special.

And that means that they can do and achieve what they want.

I think that's the biggest thing.

Like, you're absolutely capable, even if you feel inadequate, even if you lack confidence, even if you've had horrible trauma in your life, whatever it is, despite all that, you are absolutely capable and it is your choice.

Evie, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for.

And the question left for you is: what brings you the most most joy in life?

And what are you the most scared of?

The most joy in life is my daughter.

I think the biggest joy in my life is her because I think that was something I always wanted to do and to be a mom.

And so that's the biggest joy.

And then at the same time, it's my biggest fear because I want her to be well and healthy and okay.

And I think

a consequence of the work I did and even still do because I'm in media and news and I cover crime,

I have seen what humanity can do.

I've seen the good in humanity, but I also have seen the bad things people can do.

And so it's hard sometimes.

You want to protect your child, but I also know that

I can't always shield her.

I won't be able to shield her in life from everything.

That's scary.

Thank you, Evie.

I was saying to you before we started recording that everywhere I go, people come up to me and they talk about you.

In a way, that's atypical.

So, like, you know, obviously, I do a lot of episodes, meet a lot of great people.

Is that really true?

I swear I'm, I don't want to surrender anyone's life because that's, I probably shouldn't do that.

But I swear to you, the amount of times I've used you as a case study for

what do I use you as a case study for?

For

how important

it is,

effective communication is.

Because people come up to me all the time and mention you.

So obviously I then do that.

I'm like, why are people always mentioning Evie?

Like, I get it.

You know, you're very, very successful.

You've lived this incredible career.

But obviously, I speak to lots of people that are successful.

But also, why are they always coming up to me and talking about you and asking, you know, me to speak to you again, etc.?

I think it's all the things you said.

I think you meet them where they are.

And I think you do that in both your communication style.

I think the nuance of your

message is spot on while also being high conviction in certain areas.

And you're relatable.

They think you're a badass.

And I guess that's it.

It's something you learn from doing these podcasts.

You just have certain people who people just

click with that you book on the show.

And even as the host, you can't, in hindsight, you're trying to figure it out.

But there's something.

And much of the questions I asked you today are orientated towards finding out what that something is.

But listen, a lot of it exists in your book as well.

You talk so eloquently and so accessibly in this book, Bulletproof about the nature of the human condition and what we need to understand about the human condition to be more effective in our lives and our relationships and our work.

So I highly recommend everybody goes and checks out this incredible book, Becoming Bulletproof, Life Lessons from a Secret Service Agent.

Incredible.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you, Stephen.

We launched these conversation cards and they sold out.

And we launched them again and they sold out again.

We launched them again and they sold out again because people love playing these with colleagues at work, with friends at home, and also with family.

And we've also got a big audience that use them as journal prompts.

Every single time a guest comes on the diary of a CEO, they leave a question for the next guest in the diary.

And I've sat here with some of the most incredible people in the world, and they've left all of these questions in the diary.

And I've ranked them from one to three in terms of the depth.

One being a starter question, and level three, if you look on the back here, this is a level three, becomes a much deeper question that builds even more connection.

If you turn the cards over and you scan that QR code, you can see who answered the card and watch the video of them answering it in real time.

So if you would like to get your hands on some of these conversation cards, go to thediary.com or look at the link in the description below.

This has always blown my mind a little bit.

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