Former Spy: If You’re Easily Offended, You’re Easily Manipulated! Psychological Trick That Makes People Respect You! This 1 Trick Catches A Lie In Seconds!

If I'm easily offended, I'm easily manipulated.

So if you are that person where you are reactive, reactive, reactive, you're number one. Shut the f*** up.
Because if you're looking to be respected, you need to manage yourself. But there are times that people are going to cross you and disrespect you.
How do you deal with it? So there was a guidepost that's talked to the intelligence communities and it really, really helps when you're dealing with people. And so one of the ways you deal with that kind of behavior is...
Andy from Polis turned human behavior expert from protecting presidents to interrogating the world's most dangerous men. She now teaches people how to develop mental strength and persuasive communication skills.
How did they train you as a secret service agent to have that strong mental foundation that you have? There's a lot of things. So first, one of the biggest things that holds people back is the idea that I'm special.
You're not that special. For example, I was one of the first responders at 9-11.
I watched thousands of people die. And one of the things that got me through it was understanding I wasn't alone in it.
And when you learn that, you can get through anything. When you tell yourself, nobody knows what I'm going through, nobody can help you because it's just you going through it.
Now, the next thing, what's most important is this tool that we don't pay attention to our body and there's a study where they started recording people walking then they laid it to convicted felons and they said to them who would you pick as prey they all pick the same people they were so there are simple things you can do with your hands your voice how you sit and i will tell you everything but also the other thing that's actually interesting which you didn't ask but i will volunteer this information are the strategies to tell if somebody's being truthful or not and it's that's lie detection 101. I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels the majority of people that watch this podcast haven't yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button wherever you're listening to this I would like to make a deal with you if you could do me a huge favor and hit that subscribe button I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make the show better and better and better and better I can't tell you how much it helps when you hit that subscribe button the show gets bigger which means we can expand the production bring in all the guests you want to see and continue to doing this thing we love if you could do me that small favor and hit the follow button wherever you're listening to this that would that would mean the world to me.
That is the only favor I will ever ask you. Thank you so much for your time.
Back to this episode. Evie Pompouris, when you think about the books that you've written, the content you produce and all that you're fundamentally doing for people, in your own words, how do you summarize or define that? What is it that you think you're doing for people with the content, the books you've written, et cetera? It's a great question.
And I don't know if I have a clear answer. I think always, I think about how am I serving other people? I always go back to that.
I remember even when I wrote my book, Becoming Bulletproof, actually my book was supposed to launch right at the height of COVID. I mean, it's when the world was shutting down.
And I remember I had a PR person, my agent, the publishers, everyone's like, hey, you know, this COVID thing is happening. All the media tour glitz went away.
Why don't we postpone the launch of the book? And nobody was advising me to launch the book. Nobody.
Everyone's like, don't do it, don't do it. And I remember I was like, all right, I need to kind of tune everybody out.
And I paused and I thought to myself, why did I write this book? I wrote this book to help people. Okay, so if the goal is to help people,

make them more resilient, help them live less fearlessly, the world right now is in a state

of fear. So if I follow that principle, then right now I should launch the book.

And I remember against everybody's advisement, I launched it.

And when you get DMs from people in private messages, what is it the essence of what they're coming to you for? So I was surprised with my book where people began writing in, I'm dealing with this problem. Your book helped me find a way out.
Or I'm dealing with this. Can you give me guidance on how to deal with it? What is the essence of what they're struggling with? It's always themselves.
It's not the world around you. I get it to some extent, but it's almost always we're the problem.
We either sabotage ourselves, we get in the way, we make decisions, or we think, I didn't do anything. Everything's cause and effect.
Anytime you say, do, act, or don't act, it has a consequence or an effect to it. And I think sometimes we're so blasé about it.
In the Western world, the science shows that we actually downplay our faults. When we make a mistake, it's not that big of a deal.
We downplay our stuff, and we actually lift up our positive attributes. It's okay, but to a point, because when you downplay things and you downplay your involvement, you downplay your choices, you downplay what role you play in your life, then you can't, you really are essentially powerless and you're blaming the world.
And I'm not saying that other people can't harm you. They will.
They just will. I think if people made peace with the fact that there are bad actors out there, some I know, some I don't know, and in pursuit of their self-interest, people are going to make choices that hurt me.
Period. Bar none in the end.
If you can live with that and understand that, you will be okay. Because you just have more awareness.
In fact, when I did polygraphs, the interview room, after I interviewed so many people, and typically I would interview suspects, people that we suspected committing a crime. Lie detector tests.
Lie detector tests. But I was a lie detector, not the machine.
A lot of people think you hook that thing up. Oh, ping, they're lying.
No. Like you sit there, you assess people, you read people.
What the polygraph does is it tells you when you ask a series of questions to this person. I hook Steven up.
I ask him a series of several questions. I look to see what Steven's autonomic nervous system is doing.
Heartbeat, right? Does that change? Your electrodermal activity, how much you sweat, your breathing, the way you breathe. So that's why you have the blood pressure cuff.
You have the electrodermal plates, which actually look at sweating. You won't, it's imperceptible to you, but the plates will pick up sweating, the sweating activity, the change in breathing.
So if I'm asking you a series of questions, I'm looking at how your body deviates during those questions. You even have sensors because sometimes people try to beat the polygraph.
And so there's sensor pads that we have to see if they're doing certain movements or not. I personally don't think you can beat it.
But again, the test itself means nothing. You can't take it to court.
You can't say, judge, they failed their polygraph. That's not what it's there for.
It's there to get more information. And look, who are you, if you're lying, who are you really in judgment of? Yourself.
That's why your body's reacting. Second ago, you talked about how victims stay victims.
And this whole idea of becoming a bulletproof person, because regardless of what we do in our lives, bad things are going to happen. We're going to encounter narcissists and people that are looking to take advantage of us.
There's a certain mental fortitude that you exude. You exude a certain type of mental resilience and strength.
is the foundation and I think that's really critical because if you have that strong internal foundation then everything else we're probably going to talk about today becomes much easier and possible but without that strong foundation when the wind blows house falls over. So if we think about step one in building that strong mental fortitude foundation that you have, where does one begin? And especially if we're beginning from a very, very bad place, we're beginning from a place of victimhood, bad things have happened, we're not the most confident person.
It starts with who's around you. That's where it starts.
If you have people around you, anybody can break victimhood. Like anybody can.
You can. So I want to put that out there.
Just because you're locked in a place doesn't mean you have to stay in there. You can.
But usually if you're locked in somewhere, it's because the system you have around you that you also helped create and perpetuate to some degree. We're not completely innocent.
We play a role. The system that is built around you keeps you.
Think of it this way. It keeps you in jail.
So you have to look at your environment and say, what about my environment is keeping me here? Usually it's

a person or people. Hopefully it's one and you're not dealing with multiple.
Now it can be family and that's where, you know, some, when you deal with children and you deal with certain, you know, crimes and abuse. I, I, you know, I always feel like the one population of people that truly have, I don't want to say excuse, but it's really not their fault, are kids.
Because they're just so vulnerable and they rely on you for their livelihood. They need somebody to feed them, clothe them, take care of them, or they can't survive.
However, as you age, as you mature, it's looking at your environment, who's around me and who is keeping me here.

And you know what becomes hard? It becomes hard because you'll have a, let's say, I'm going to use this term bad actor in your life. That bad actor can be mom, dad, sibling, brother, it can be anybody.
You can love that bad actor, but the choices and the things that that person does impacts you. It makes you more vulnerable.
Even if you just look at crime, they've done a lot of different studies. And what they found is even, let's say, if I don't commit crime, but I'm around other people who commit crime, I am more likely to be shot than any other population of people.
I could not be involved in any nefarious activity at all. I could be clean.
But simply because of who I associate with, that makes me more vulnerable to becoming a victim.

So that's where you start.

Who's around you?

Now, other really important things,

whoever you pick for your companion, if you have one, it's huge.

That companion's either going to raise you up or they're going to sink your ship down.

And is that in the real world, best friends, husbands, wives?

If we're talking, I would say first intimate partner,

whatever that is to you, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend,

Thank you. And is that in the real world, best friends, husbands, wives? If we're talking, I would say first intimate partner, whatever that is to you, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever that is, companion.
That's number one because that's the person. Here's the difference between like a partner and a friend.
Your friend goes home to their home. You go to your home.
A companion or partner, you probably live with them. That means you are so overly exposed to that person and you need to make damn well sure that that person is not contaminating your life.
You can still love them, but you can step back and look at, there's a problem here that this person's stuff is contaminating my life. And it's a hard thing to do for folks because this is why you're with someone.
It's like, okay, I'm with Evie, but you know, Evie is this and Evie is that. And so you start to blend my identity with my behavior.
And then over the time too, you normalize the things I do if I'm a bad actor. Well, Evie didn't mean it.
She's always hotheaded. You know, she's this, but she did all these nice things for me here.
And then what we do is we miss stuff. That's why it's easier for you to look at somebody else's relationship and be like, hey, problem here, problem here, problem here.
Because you are not tainted by the emotional aspect of being tied to that person. You're able to look at them objectively.
This is why by or not it's easy to give other people advice. I can see the red flags and the issues in this person.
When you're in it, you can't. It's hard.
So I would also venture to say, people may not like this. If you're with someone and there are people around you that you know legitimately care and love you, and they're telling you, hey, not the best thing for you, I would say, please listen.
Because they are seeing something that you might not be seeing. Do you think people just tend to know? Like in their gut, they tend to know, but they justify the person's behavior and they almost kind of gaslight themselves to some degree.
They say, well, maybe not. Maybe that's fine.
Maybe they are a friend. Maybe they're just doing that for my best interest.
Whereas really that bad actor is acting in their interests and kind of gaslighting you and then you're gaslighting yourself. I think it's, one thing is you don't, you don't go from zero to a hundred overnight.
When you're in a relationship where you're with around people who are like that, in the beginning, you don't see it, right? Everyone's got their best behavior. But over time, you'll start to see little like sneak peeks, little previews.
And it's those previews you want to pay attention to. We like to give people the benefit of the doubt.
We listen to the excuses that they give us.

And you know, there's this ancient Greek saying that says, don't listen to your opponent. Look at them.
It will tell you everything. And when I say look at them, look at what people do.
I need

you to drum out what they're telling you. I need you to drum out their I am sorry's because they

probably are. They've hurt you and they are probably genuinely sorry.
That's not the point. The point is, when do you want to learn your lesson? In the beginning or at the end? And at the end, sometimes it's very, very, very hard.
You know, I have a community and I started after I did the book. And when people started writing in, I said, you know what, let me do this community.
I'll call it Beyond the Bulletproof, and whoever signs up, and, you know, two years in, I have 800 members, and a lot of people come in with different scenarios, and they'll come in with, and it's almost always the scenario they come in with, if they's something like this, it's somebody that they're

tied to that's just sinking them, sinking them. And sometimes they're the sinker and they think it's the other person.
So sometimes you're the bad actor and you don't even realize it. So you need to figure out two things.
Am I the one doing things that's not just hurting myself, but other people,

but I've justified it to myself in pursuit of whatever self-interest I have? Or am I tied to someone who's pulling me down? I'm going to tell you something, Stephen. I sat across people who did a lot of different things, some serious crimes, some not so serious.
Every single person sold it to themselves, why they did what they did.

We're sellers.

I can justify anything to myself if I want to. They were turning themselves into, I guess, victims of situations.
Why did I do that? Well, you know, good people make bad choices. Good people make mistakes.
The problem is sometimes the consequences of those mistakes, they last. But you can't vouch for anybody because you don't know who people are behind closed doors.
You don't. And two, anybody is capable of anything at any given moment in time if given the opportunity.
If you understand that, you will not be surprised or shocked by anything or anyone. It's not that it's a morbid view of people.
It's understanding people are malleable. They're susceptible, some more than others.
Some may have either stronger integrity or more. I don't even think it's integrity.
It's just a stronger hold on themselves to say, yes, I won't do this. No, I won't do this.
And then some people are a bit more malleable. Like it's easier to get to them.
It's easier to manipulate them. It's easier to mold them to do other things.
It's easier to get them to sway in a direction. But if you understand that, then you understand human behavior.
There's so many things of interest there. I remember if we go back to the top of your point around your environment and people having a huge impact on your life, I remember reading a study by a guy called Michael Hausman and another study done at Harvard University where they showed that even if at work you sit next to someone who is toxic and does bad practice at work, your chance of doing bad practice yourself radically increases.
And in some cases, that's by 25%. In other environments, that's up to 100%.
Your probability of then getting a disciplinary against you just because you sat next to that person radically increases. And this is, I think, reinforces the case that your environment has such a powerful and profound impact on you, for better or for worse.
And I think the for better part is also worth pausing on. Because if you're sitting with and you're around people that are lifting you and elevating you and making you believe that the world is malleable and you can do anything, as I've experienced in my own life at times, it's crazy that that almost like rewires the neurons in your brain to some degree.
How do you pick people? Like how do you differentiate on your own who's good and who's not for you?

Do you know what?

This is a really interesting question.

Vibes.

And everything else in my life, I'll tell you data science or this or here's my framework.

But there's some things in life which I think your intuition and your vibes, if you've developed the skill of tuning in enough, is the best indicator.

and if you look back through my career

at 18

dropping out of university

even at 16

not going to school

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and and and and and and and and and the skill of tuning in enough is the best indicator. And if you look back through my career, at 18, dropping out of university, even at 16, not going to school, 20, leaving a business that was going really well, and then at 27, quitting a business that was all over the world and about to do this major second IPO, all this stuff.
In all of those moments, the most important thing wasn't my prefrontal cortex. It wasn't logic or facts or figures or the money.
It was purely this feeling inside me that I no longer wanted to do this thing because it didn't feel good anymore. And in the moment you look insane, but when you zoom out on a person's life who's driven by that voice inside, like really driven by it, you go, oh my God, what a life that they have.
Amazing. Look at the girlfriend they have and the place they live and the stuff they have and the job they have they're so lucky but I actually think it starts with that like courage to tune into that voice inside so that's my answer it's just pure vibes people for me are just don't feel good don't want to go and then careers I've had as CEO where I go I don't like doing this anymore that's that's me done and there's another part which is on the other end of that is uncertainty.
Because in all those situations, there was really no plan B. There was no good plan B.
That's so interesting. So when you talk about vibes, it's your intuition.
Yeah. It's your instinct, bar none.
And it's when I'm around people, like anybody around, they give off something. And what we don't do is we don't listen to what we feel.
You can still do business or talk to someone, but when you feel that, and I do too, I feel my way. Even honestly, even whose podcast I'm going to do.
I'm like, I don't know if I like this vibe or I don't know if I like this. I just feel it feel it I feel like who do I want to be around and even something like whose podcast do I want to be on because it's I'm bringing myself into a space right that person's space it's like it's all it's all interconnected so it's like I'm choosing what spaces to go into and if you're right if it you don't have to articulate it to yourself and that's's where we go wrong often.
Because it's like somebody comes in, they say hi to you, and immediately you're like, I just, I don't like this. But they didn't say anything to you.
They didn't do anything to you. You can't articulate why.
And you know what we do? We dismiss it. We dismiss it.
Oh, it's me. Oh, I shouldn't this.
No. It's, you know what? It's, you've got two brains, right? this one and the gut.
That's what they call it. Oh, it's me.
Oh, I shouldn't this. No, it's, you know what? It's your, you've got two brains, right? This one and the gut.
That's why they call it your gut instincts. Listen to it always.
And I think going back to people who are steady, you're talking about what makes you steady. I think a big part of what helps make you steady is trusting in yourself.
You have to trust in yourself, like believe in yourself. And when I say that, I mean, trust that what you're feeling is, is, is true.
Like listen to it and not let other people talk you out of things or being able to say, I feel this way. I don't know why, but I'm going to trust it.
And almost, if not all the time, you look back and it's like, I knew better. I felt this.
I kind of sensed this. I didn't listen to myself.
And if you're wrong, so you're wrong. And that goes back to uncertainty.
People are afraid to be wrong. Why? Because of what other people might say about me, because how I will look to the world.
And, you know, from there, from that conclusion, you then jump to, and then they will reject me, and then I'll be alone, and then I'll be lonely, then I'll die. That's kind of like the logical downward step.
I always find that interesting. I had this conversation with my girlfriend yesterday, which is, it's interesting how one belief is actually connected to like a string of downstream beliefs that then go to he doesn't love me.
And this is such a random tangent, but me and my girlfriend were like scheduling our calendar for the future that we're going to be apart for a little while. So she wanted to like schedule the dates and I was like really busy with something.
And so I wasn't like paying as much attention to the scheduling conversation and she got a little bit upset. And I found it so interesting because the fact that I was half paying attention to the scheduling conversation actually told her that I'm not interested in her, which means I don't love her.
And so afterwards I turned to her and I said, can you explain to me like how I made you feel in that situation? And I went, why? Why? Every time she answered him, why? Why? And we got right down there. You don't love me.
And it all started with this little thing at the top. And I think the same here, where if I do something and it goes wrong, there's like a downstream consequence in someone's subconscious that leads them to think, then I'm going to be exiled from the tribe.
Do you know what I mean? That's like at the root of it. That's why I think fear, you know, when you talk so much about fear and becoming fearless.
Living fearlessly, because I don't think you can be fearless. Okay, living fearlessly.
What's the distinction? Fearlessly means I see things, despite being afraid, I'm going to try. I'm going to do my best to like live in it, right? and embrace it to some degree.
Whatever you're afraid of, if it's something you want to do, follow it and then figure out a way to do it. But it's okay to be afraid and uncertain during the process.
I don't know. When I'm uncertain too, I'm thinking, all right, I can figure this out.
You don't fail until you stop. I look at it that way.
Like even if you're failing incrementally, overall, you won't fail until you're just like, all right, I'm done. And as long as you're done, cause you want to be done, that's cool.
But you don't want to be done because you keep failing or you're confused or you're leaving because other people are telling you

you shouldn't be doing it.

It's just because you decided, I don't want to be on this path anymore.

I think it always has come back to you.

I've always been in the school of thought, and I love my family,

but they were always telling me, do this,

and especially because my parents were immigrant.

Everything was job security.

Get a good job.

Get a good job.

Nine to five, get a good job. Don't try to do anything else, you know, because they struggled so much.
And so when I tried to do things outside of that element, they were afraid, they were confused, they thought I was nuts. Even when I started in the NYPD, they were not, they were not happy at all.
They're like, what is this? Girls don't do these types of jobs. Even in my community, you know, I was laughed at.
You know, people kind of were like, oh, look at Yanni was my dad's name. Look at Yanni's daughter.
Look how silly she is. You know, so this is kind of like those moments where you, going back to you just have to do what you feel.
Because afterward, you're going to be pissed off as hell because you listen to other people. And on that point of gut instinct, which you mentioned a second ago, is there a way, do you think, to train and develop your gut instinct? Because you strike me as someone that has a pretty astute gut instinct that you trust, but some people don't.
And what ends up happening is they just end up living in regret that they didn't listen to their gut instinct. And they, you know, like, they only find out after the fact, after they've been mistreated.
So I'm wondering if there's a way to like cultivate a better relationship with one's intuition and gut instinct. Yeah.
Stop asking everybody what they think. When I have a really big decision to make, like really big, I don't tally people.
In fact, the bigger it is, the bigger the consequences or the bigger the pain or the trauma, whatever it is, I go in because they're going to confuse me. That's what you do.
You stop asking people. And if you're going to ask somebody, let's say it's a health decision.
You're going to go to a doctor or you're going to go to someone who has specific knowledge about a decision you are trying to make. You're not going to go to mom.
You're not going to go to dad. You're not going to go to your brother.
You're not going to go to people who don't have that, who, although they love you, their opinions are going to send you like a ping pong ball. That's how you become unsteady.
And you can start small. You can start small.
And when I say start small is start making decisions without running them by anybody. What to eat, where to go, where to vacation.
You can start small. It's just allow yourself to be the decision maker.
Allow yourself to be in the driver's seat. But what we do is we invite people in the car.
We're like, yeah, yeah, you could drive my car. No problem.
They get in the driver's seat. We put them in the driver's seat.
Then we're in the passenger seat, or we might even get kicked to the back seat. And then we're all pissed off.
Like, why are you driving like that? Why are you going that way? That's not really where I want to go. Then drive the car and stop inviting everybody in to drive it for you.
And then be pissed off when they don't take it the direction you want to go. If you're going to be pissed off, always be pissed off at yourself.
Because it's like, I chose, I chose wrong, but I chose. That is how you build confidence.
And, you know, going back to law enforcement, because I teach it, one of the predominant traits that people in law enforcement have is they have high confidence because of one reason. They make decisions.
they're good decision makers because when you're out on the street and you're dealing with somebody

or a situation, there's nobody to look over to and say, hey, how should I handle this? You have to make a choice and you have to go. Making decisions is going to increase your confidence and your ability in yourself, even if they're the wrong decisions.
That's not the point. Be a decision maker in your life.
That is going to move you forward. That is going to increase your belief in yourself and your trust in yourself.
And you're going to get comfortable too. Huh, I read that wrong.
You know what I learned here? I should have read it this way. And so this is when you bring in the vibes and a little bit of tactical strategy because you're less emotional.

That's another hindrance.

When you are emotional, you are a bad decision maker.

When you are in a space of emotion, make no decision.

Avoid, don't text, don't call.

I always say just remove yourself and go in, go quiet.

When you can go quiet and be in that stillness of you, it will come to you over time. And you know what's another great thing? When you look at resilient people, they don't have all the answers and they don't need to have all the answers.
I don't have all the answers, but I don't need them to be okay. And this is where you embrace that uncertainty.
You don't have to have all the answers. And that by itself is powerful.
Like you don't need to figure it out. You don't need to know what to do right away.
Leave it, sit in it, be in it. Then when it's time, you move through.
You're going to end up getting a lot of unsolicited advice though. You know, this is, we all do.
We get, when we're making, trying to make those big life decisions, we'll have someone who, we didn't even ask them, but people will be chipping in, telling you what to think of yourself. And there's an element almost, I guess, of being able to develop stronger boundaries in your life so that you can keep the outside world outside.
Okay. So then how about you stop telling everybody your business? Why do they need to know what you're thinking about doing here or there? Why? Because when you open your mouth to share things, you're going to get advice.
So this goes back to you. Do I open my mouth or do I stay quiet? Because if I open my mouth and I start talking, people are going to start sharing.
And so when people are like, oh, they don't respect my boundaries, you're the one who offered it. If you want to create boundaries, you start with them.
I don't share. Or like if I'm like, for example, I'm working on a project or a deal, nobody knows until my deal is done.
Why? I don't know how it's going to go. I don't want other people's opinions.
I'll have the opinions of whoever I'm dealing with specifically in a deal, if it's a project, right? I'm going to talk to them. But I don't want other people confusing me.
People confuse you. Good intentions.
But when you've got too many voices in your head, that's why you can't trust yourself because you've got all these other voices. You can't hear your own.
So I know if I share something with someone, they're going to share their thoughts and maybe I don't want them. I will tell you, I usually stay quiet until I'm ready to reveal something.
Also, I'll stay quiet until it's either done, like it's happened. Because so many times you'll do something and it falls through.
And you're like, you don't want to have to explain it to other people. It's like, why do I need to put myself in that situation where I'm always talking? I think talking, talking, talking, talking, although I think communication is good.
But sometimes it's oversharing and overputting our stuff out there. How are you going to have boundaries when you yourself violate those boundaries? Like you just make yourself like open borders, everybody come in.
If you're a bit more methodical with who you share what with and why, I think that that's okay. But when you're like literally like tallying everybody,

even if it's like what job to do, like for example, there's a woman in the community I have,

and she's trying to figure out what career to do. And she was kind of like, my mom says this,

my dad says this, grown woman. And it was coming from a genuine place.
And I like this, but I don't

like that. And she was ping-ponging everywhere.
She's like, Evie, can you share something with me? I was like, stop. I was like, stop talking to everybody.
Why are you telling everybody to give you advice? I was like, I want you to think about how insane what you're doing is. You are going to another human being to ask them what job, what career you should do, a job that you're going to wake up every morning to get out of bed to go do day after day after day.
And you're tallying and pulling other people who are not going to be doing that. You're going to be doing that on what you should do.
Do you see a little bit of the ridiculousness of how you are asking somebody else, you're the one who has to get up every morning and go do it. If you say that to her and you ask her to justify why she's doing that, she might say, well, I'm just not sure.
I just wanted to hear other people's opinions. I just don't know.
You can. She can.
You can do that. But if the question is, how do I learn to trust myself? You trust yourself more by listening to yourself more and asking other people less.
That is how you get there. Clearly she doesn't trust herself though.
No. And then maybe just the circle around you.
It's also too, you know, and I don't know if you've been able to do this.

Over the years, slowly, I've also accumulated people around me.

It takes time where they're trusted people where I can go to for specific things if I need to because I like the way they move through life. I think that they handle themselves well.
Maybe they do well in business. They're thoughtful.
I like their character. And so over time, you can also, I don't want to say accumulate, but you can kind of start to pull folks like that in.
It takes time because people are going to come into your life in different moments. And when you find those precious gems, keep them a bit close.
And then you can start to accumulate a circle. And it's not people you go to every day.

It's just people that you can pick up the phone and say, hey, Stephen, it's Evie.

Can I run something by you?

Sure, Evie, no problem.

What do you want to run by me?

You can create those too.

And at least for me, I've been able over time slowly because it's not going to happen overnight.

And then sometimes people come into that space and sometimes you say, hmm, I'm going to push you a little further out. It's not working out anymore.
That woman in that example, what does she ultimately need to do? Because I can imagine in her world, she's not certain about any path. So she's got 20% certainty about going in this direction, 30% certainty about going in that direction, apparently, and maybe 40% about going in that direction, and then the rest is just a little bit of confusion and procrastination and fear.
What does she actually have to do? She just has to make a choice and do it. Pick one and do it.
There's no perfect choice, Evie. But there isn't.
There's no way to know how it's going to pan out. There's no way to know.
Just choose. Choose something.
Choose something. And even if it's wrong, you know, find peace and like, I chose, it was wrong.
But you know what? I'm not stuck here. That's the other thing.
Like, you know, you can change your decisions. Just because you choose something, it doesn't mean you're stuck there.
We have the ability to get out. You do.
You can find ways to get out and say, I made a wrong choice. It's okay.
You also have to be okay with it. The interesting thing within our personal lives that I think causes such procrastination versus business is in business, especially if you're in a startup, if you don't make a choice, or even like I imagine in the Secret Service, like if you don't make a choice, there is an immediate consequence.
Whereas in your life, you can kind of meander for a year, three years, five years, and just sit and procrastinate. Whereas like in a Secret Service situation, when Trump is being shot at, meandering for five years as a Secret Service agent, I imagine isn't possible.
So that is something, what will help with that is, it's something called, it's called instrumental. It's called sense-making.
It's understanding a person's motivational mindset. An instrumental person in certain jobs can yield more instrumental people.
This is where I am doing something where I am task-oriented. This just happened, so I have to respond this way.
I'm going to do that. I'm going to do this.
Like I'm looking at the overall, what is my next step? Then my next step, then my next step. When you are instrumental, you are non-emotional.
I'm not in the emotion of it. So although like if you bring up a protectee getting shot, right? Although it can seem emotional.
yes, it is. But in that moment, at least through training,

it's shots being fired, jump in front,

cover, shield, evacuate.

You run through those things.

That's being instrumental, right?

Which is having like a framework

for what to do next.

You're functioning.

You're being tasked.

You're task-oriented.

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do this.

You have a business decision to make.

Let's say something bad's happening in the business.

of the questioning. You're being tasked.
You're task-oriented. I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this.
You have a business decision to make. Let's say something bad's happening in the business.
Okay, how do I stop this hemorrhaging? I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this.
That's instrumental. On the flip side of that is

something called identity. When I am identity, I am, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening.

This is horrible. I don't know what to do.
I'm confused. I'm really upset about this.

I can't believe this is happening. This is horrible.
I don't know what to do. I'm confused.
I'm really upset about this. I can't believe I'm finding myself here.
Now I'm in that purgatory space of not doing anything. I'm also emotional.
So I can't think clearly and I'm not able to make moves. So how did they train you as a secret service agent to be, have that instrumental mindset? You do.
Action, action. Everything's action.
Make a choice, make a choice, make a choice, move, go, go, go. Do you know what's interesting? Everything was about movement.
Don't be still. Even when you're getting shot at, don't be still.
They actually teach you to run in zigzags. It's actually really hard to shoot someone.
If they're not perfectly still, I mean, we would shoot paper targets. You'd miss.
You're stressed out. You're motion.
You're looking at this guy shooting, that person shooting, am I shooting like shit? Because everyone's looking at each other's scores. And if you don't shoot well, they're going to be like, oh, I don't want to take you out on the next raid with me.
Right? So you've got that adrenaline rush. It's a hard thing to do.
But they teach you like, hey, if you're getting shot at, don't sit there like a dummy. Move, run.
And while you're running, run like zigzag. Throw people off, move.
And I've taken that premise of always being kinesis. Kinesis is a Greek move.
Kinesis, move, move. Always move.
Create momentum no matter how stuck you feel. And I follow this actually in my own life.
Just move. Don't sit still.
I'm not saying don't grieve, don't be sad, don't feel. It's okay.
But don't put yourself in a place where you're completely stagnant because that's where you get stuck and you don't move and you get comfortable and you become afraid. If you can just create movement, I'm going to create a little bit of movement.
I'm going to make a decision here. And then another one, another one.
If you can just stay in kinesis, movement, you'll be able to move through whatever it is you're going through. I remember I interviewed Jocko Willick, and he said pretty much a very similar thing to me.

He said in the SAS or the Navy SEALs,

when you're lost, you're not going to get any new information if you just stay where you are.

So you have to just move, even if you don't know which direction.

Movement generates information,

which then can inform a better decision.

And you're kind of saying the same thing there,

which is if you're stuck, you need to just get into kinesis, make a decision, start moving, and then you'll learn at least something. You'll learn something.
Even if it means reaching out to someone, it's just do something that's helping you create some type of progress. When you don't move, when we don't have kinesis, this is where you get stuck in that emotional depravity of like, I feel horrible.
This is happening. Like if you can find ways to move out of your problem as bad as it feels, don't bathe in it.
Like don't take a bath in it. Feel it.
But like to a point. And you know what else too? You also don't have to figure it out.
You don't have to figure out why did this happen or why did this person do it. Sometimes there's nothing to figure out.
Sometimes it just is. Sometimes there's brilliance and freedom and just letting go and saying, this happened.
I don't know why it happened and I don't need to know why, but I can figure out how I need to move forward. Kinesis.
How am I going to move out of this?

What do I go to next?

Sometimes the more you sit and you analyze this stuff, the more pain you put yourself through.

You're rethinking.

You're retelling.

You're reliving.

And especially if you're reliving things that somebody else did to you, like the pain.

And you know, you ever have those moments where you start to relive, I should have done this.

I should have said this.

Do you know it actually activates the same part of the brain that's activated when you do cocaine? So it becomes addictive. Yeah.
It makes you high. Think about that.
As even though it's negative feelings, you're like, yeah, you're having this whole thing happen. And it's like, I always look at, you know, I always look at is what I'm doing leading me to the path I want to go to.

If it's not, then I try to relinquish.

I'm like, listen, it's okay to feel bad, but you will feel less bad if you can keep that momentum going.

Being stuck and in that place of victimhood or fear or procrastination, do you think that victimhood is addictive?

I think it becomes a habit. I don't think most people want to be there.
If you ask anybody, nobody's going to say, yeah, I love it. But what happens is it becomes a habit.
And it's a pattern of behavior and a pattern and a way of thinking that you become used to. What's the reward in that habit cycle then? I don't know if there's a reward and I don't know if people think about it.
They just get stuck and they repeat the same thing because they're afraid and uncertain of if they change it, what will happen? You know, you'll see this in relationships where, you know, and it's not just domestic violence, but you'll see it in these really imbalanced relationships where you will see one person who's very dominant, and one person, the dominant person that will be somebody who's very high power, in control, setting the agenda, but not in a good way. And then you'll see another person who's very low power, weak, submissive, avoidant.
The reason why that relationship works is one is here, so the other has to be here. They both can't be high power because they'll clash.
And so that's why when you see a lot of these imbalanced relationships or severely imbalanced when it's domestic violence, and it can be man towards woman, woman towards man or same sex, you will see that it's one person who's up here, high control, and then the other person goes submissive, avoidant. This person down here is just trying to keep the peace.
I don't want conflict. I don't want to upset them.
I don't want to set them off. But what you do is you go deeper and deeper and deeper.
And the more you try to keep the peace, the more you're submissive and avoidant and uncertain, what does the other person do? The higher up they go because you just help create this imbalance, this further spread of power in the relationship. They become louder, stronger, dogmatic, demanding, rigid.
And then, but that happens over time. And then you find yourself in this space where like, how did I end up here? And this person's here.

And then that's one of those examples of where another person keeps you literally suppressed. So how are you going to trust yourself and your voice and make good decisions if you have such an individual around you? And that's another thing that keeps a person pushed down and suppressed.
As a woman secret service agent, when you first went into service, I imagine there was a sort of institutional sexism. Just thinking about that era, that time, where people would look at you and think, well, as a woman, there wasn't as many women in the secret service.
So maybe she's someone that I can push down. Maybe she's someone who I can make the odd comment to.
Maybe I could create a power dynamic where I'm above her. Did that ever happen? And if it did happen, how did you deal with it? So that's like, it's the truth is that stuff does happen, right? And it could happen.
I remember Barbara Pierce Bush went to Tanzania. I'm the assistant detail leader, which means I was like the head person.
And then my boss from headquarters came, but he wasn't there yet. And we were having a briefing.
And you were protecting the Bush family? I was protecting. I was the assistant detail leader for Barbara Pierce Bush.
So George Bush Jr.'s daughter, one of the twins. It's Jenna and Barbara.
I had Barbara. So she went there to do philanthropic work, aid, and we were going to some really not safe areas, right? A lot of vulnerabilities, a lot of concerns.
So I set up the briefing. I'm the person in charge.
And agents are coming from different parts of the country to help supplement. Some agents I've never met.
So I remember one guy walks in and he's like, oh, hey, hi. So this is in the hotel room.
We're having the briefing. And no one's there yet.
It's just him and I. Hi, how are you? OK.
He's like, hey, you know, the intern staff room is down the hall if you want to go find it. I can show you.
So when he saw me, he made an assumption I was staff. You know, I was part of the entourage, but not an actual agent.
And so I'm like, actually, no, I'm the assistant detail leader here. You know, thank you for joining.
What office are you from? So now, could I be pissed off? Sure. Did he make an assumption based on what he saw? Sure.
Those are moments where like, I don't care. Really? No.
Zero percent? No. Who looked like a big dummy afterward? He did, not me.
It does become annoying, but this is like where you got to be like, this is where you have to pick your battles. You can't fight everybody.
Oh my God, Steven, imagine how exhausted you'd be if you fought every buffoon that came your way. I mean, some people literally have designed their life to fight buffoons.
Right. I'm busy.
I have things to do. Think about how much time and energy they take and waste from you.
And that's talk about a life of being stagnant and doing nothing because you're too busy fighting everybody. Choose and fight strategically.
So if it's something I need to fight, fight. I'll give you another example.
After September 11th, the U.S. Secret Service field office was in the World Trade Center 7.
So when the towers collapsed, we lost our whole office. So immediately the Secret Service New York office, they were trying to find a new home.
So they found the office space in Brooklyn. And, you know, obviously in a place like that, like the office space needs to be designed a specific way for like what we're doing.
Again, nondescript. Nobody needs to know we're there, but you're designing it to look and feel a certain way to get things done.
I'm an agent now. I get called into the SACS office, which is the head boss, and he says,

I need you to design this office for me.

Work with headquarters.

Get us nice photos.

Make this look like our new home.

You know, we have a lot of briefings here.

I'm going to put you in charge of this. Can you do this? Okay.
Yes, sir. There's 250 agents in the office.
I get pulled for interior design duty, HGTV. Here we go.
So I said, all right, no problem. So I did.
I'm like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to own it.
And I remember some of the women were like, aren't you? I'm like, no worries. I was like, I'm going to do the best damn job I can.
So I did. Took me months.
I made a nice office. I was done with it.
Fast forward. That same boss puts out an open bid.
New polygraph position. There's only two polygraph examiners in the New York office, 30 throughout the whole US Secret Service.
A spot comes open, which is rare. Everybody puts your name in whoever wants it.
Everybody puts their name in. People senior to me put their name in.
And then one of the senior polygraph guys was like, why don't you put your name in? I'm like, dude, no way. No one's going to confess to me.
They're going to see me. They're going to high five each other.
I'm never putting my name in. He's like, put your name in.
He said, you don't know. I wait till like the last half hour before they call it a bid closes.
And I threw my name in. I'm like, it's not going to happen.
Guess what? Week later, I get a phone call. Come to my office.
Same boss. Sits me down.
He's like, I had X amount of people put in, maybe 30 or so people. He's like, I picked you.
And he said, do you know why? I said, no, sir. He's like, I gave you that assignment to design the office and fix it.
And at no point did you bitch or complain or say anything to me. And in fact, you did a great job.
Thank you. This is your assignment.
Put in. I need to understand here something, which is on one hand, I've got to be protecting my boundaries, right? Don't let people fuck with me.
On the other hand, don't make someone's prejudice my problem and don't bitch and complain. Are these mutually exclusive, are these like two separate ideas or is it like context dependent? Because, you know, if I'm protecting my boundaries, my boss calls me in and tells me that I'm going to be doing the interior design job, potentially because I'm a woman, is not protecting my boundaries in that situation going, fuck you, and calling him out? I could have.
I could have. But I assure you, I would not have gotten that position.
I also knew somebody has to do it. So he happened to pick me.
Maybe he likes my sense of style. Maybe not.
Maybe because of the way I look. Maybe because I'm a woman.
I don't know. You know what's funny? He didn't know this.
I actually studied fine art in college. So I wasn't that appalled.
And I also looked at, you know what, too? I also looked at the opportunity because now I got to work with people in headquarters that I never would have gotten exposed to and like all the historic archive stuff. So there was a part of it.
I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. Now, could I have argued it? I could have, but then I guess you choose.
I chose not to. Long-term, it worked out for me.
There's also times where, I don't know, Stephen, like you can't care so hard. People are going to slight you.
And like you choose how much you're going to care about how much they slighted you. And I have noticed that the more I care, the more of a detriment it is to me.
And the less I care, the better I perform overall. All I'm saying is just choose strategically.
Don't choose just because you're pissed. Because if you're doing it because you're pissed, now you're being ruled by emotion.
And anytime you make choices by emotion, you're going to make bad choices, bar none the end. For a lot of people, the action they take following a situation like that is so quick and almost like so automatic.
It's emotion. Yeah, that they just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then they might like relax later and go, fucking hell, why did I say that? I've ruined my life. But that's why I said it.
That's why you're easily manipulated. If you are the person, and please know that I was that person.
If you are that person where you are just reactive, reactive, reactive, you're going to sink your ship completely.

It means you're not thinking through things.

It means you have no self-regulation.

I self-regulate.

Don't get me wrong.

There's times where I'm like, I'm going to burn this bridge down all the way and I don't care.

I'm good with it so long as I am choosing clear-headedly, I'm going to burn this bridge down.

But I'm choosing to do it.

Thank you. care.
I'm good with it so long as I am choosing clear-headedly I'm going to burn this bridge down. But I'm choosing to do it.
I'm not doing it reactively. I'm not doing it because I've lost control.
I'm doing it because I made that choice. I'm going to burn this bridge and this relationship and I'm 100% okay with it.
Do it. But make sure you're doing it.
Not the monkey inside your brain. Exactly.
How do I train the monkey inside my brain over time? Because you said you didn't, you used to be less regulated, right? You used to make more emotional decisions. And over time, you've come to be able to make those very rational, like, prefrontal cortex decisions.
And vibes. Okay.
And vibes. I started to shut up.
I just started to be quiet. When I'm pissed, I go quiet.
I don't say anything. I think that's the biggest thing.
I learned to be quiet. I just learned to shut my mouth.
Not to reveal your upcoming book, but I know that one of the 100 principles in that book is called... 100 Rules of Engagement.
Shut the fuck up. Rule number one.
And the reason why is not to be vulgar. It's because it helped me so much.
Because the more you talk, just when you talk in general, the more you talk, the more you reveal, the more people know, the more you solicit, the more people share with you, the more you get confused, the more indecisive you are, the more, the more, the more, the more. And when I learned to stop, self-regulate, not to shoot my mouth off because I was offended, you can only get offended first of all if you allow yourself to get offended.
There are times that people are going to cross you and disrespect you. Yes, yes.
But like, how often can you be offended? And also, there's times like, who cares? Like, I don't have to have everybody's respect. That's another exhausting thing.
I have to, you need to respect me and you need to disrespect me. He disrespected me and I'm greek It's a big thing like oh but That that's gonna wear you out and you don't need it There were times where maybe I worked with people Who I could tell I was not wanted.
I remember once NYPD and I started off in the nypd nypd queen's narcotics unit. Sorry guys.
This is true story and um I was sent to partner up with Queens Narcotics to take down this guy who was doing child porn and counterfeit money in addition to drugs. So I get sent to the task force.
This is a hardcore task force within the NYPD. I show up with agents.
I'm the lead agent in charge. And I show up and they were not happy to see me.
Not at all. And I remember walking in.
I don't know how it is now. I'm sure it's not.
But you know, women, calendars, centerfolds, all over the place. I walked in.
Personally, I didn't care. But I was just like, I think it's going to be a problem.
Not me, them, them for me. And I could tell that they didn't want me there.
They started leaving information out of briefings. They would ignore me when we were at doing the search warrants, like really tactical things that they were doing that were wrong.
And this was a ring of people that we were trying to take down. So the first time, and then plus my team seeing this.
So I don't say anything. My team doesn't say anything.
My team's all guys. And thankfully, I had like really respectful agents with me.
But these guys are seeing it. They're seeing how they're treating me by proxy, them.
No one's saying anything. They're disregarding us.
And the reason why we were asked to be there is because we're experts in counterfeit. We're also experts in child porn.
So we do the arrest, it's done, but then there's a subsequent arrest that happens. And we show up for that, same thing, like literally ignoring you, like you're not even there.
We do the arrest, we do the prints. And at one point they even leave the precinct and we're like, where did they go? They just completely ditched us.
And I remember going back to my group leader, Carl. And I go to Carl.
I said, hey, listen, if these guys call again, because there were more arrests, I was like, don't send me out there. And he's like, why? I'm like, it's very clear.
They don't want me there. I said, I don't want to fight, but I'm not also going to sit and stand my ground and put myself somewhere I don't want to be.
I don't like the way it feels. I don't want to be there.
It's bad for the team. Send a dude.
Send a dude. Don't send me back out there.
I won't go. Is that letting them win, though? No.
Because they'll be at the office with their posters up with these women, and they'll be like, yeah, we got rid of her. Knock yourselves out.
This is also where you choose what circles you want to be in. It was a circle I chose I didn't want to be in.
You can't change a mindset and culture of people. Like if that's also, also think about it.
It wasn't one person I was up against. It was the whole group.
So now I'm going to come in and bulldoze my way into this what group mentality. I think this is where I really learned to navigate.
And you have to be good at it, like where to fight, where to walk away from. And I was like, I don't need to be here.
I don't need to prove anything to anybody. I've earned it.
I'm like, half of you yahoos couldn't become a special agent if you applied. Like it's a hard thing to become, to go from a cop to do that.
So with that, I was like, no, I don't need to. And it's actually the only time I ever did that because it was that egregious.
It was egregious and I thought it was a danger to me and also a danger to the other special agents. Like I felt like I had a responsibility and I'm like, if I'm working with the Queens Narcotics Task Force and they're not communicating, they're withholding information, someone's going to get shot.
I was like, and that's on them, not on me, but I'm also not going to partake. A lot of people will listen to this and they'll relate to the feeling of being subtly disrespected on a recurring basis by individuals in their life, whether it's their romantic partner, whether it's a colleague at work, whether it's someone else that they interact with.
And so many people, I've seen this in some of the questions I get sent in, are keen to understand how to deal with someone that is disrespecting you. You know, because I guess there's a train of thought that would say, when they disrespect you, you kind of argue and engage and try and shout them down and try and win.
But if you are being subtly disrespected in your own life by someone, what do you recommend that they do? Okay. Who is it? So if it's my partner, so I'm married, I have a husband.
He's another special agent. If he does something where I feel disrespected because I care so deeply about that relationship and the integrity of that relationship, him, I might argue it, not to argue, but because I want to keep a good, healthy relationship.
Now, don't get me wrong, being in a relationship, you also let a lot of things go, right? So it's, again, what am I willing to let go? What's, I don't want to say silly, but what's like really not important and where, you know, what's like, hey, I want to dress this with you and this is why. So for me, that takes hierarchy.
Who your partner is, we talked about that before, bar none, that is really such a crux of how well you're going to do in life. They're either going to raise you up or they're going to sink you down.
So that matters. And I will do my best not to be belligerent when I'm having that discussion, right? Now, everybody else falls to the side for me because I understand the value of being with a person and you're with that person 90% of the time, and that's an investment in that relationship.
But aside from everybody else, mostly everybody else, I can let it go. I always look at, are you worth my time and energy? I'm busy.
So do I need to stop? And do I need to address you? Okay, so let's play out a scenario. Okay.
And in this scenario, I'm going to make us peers. So we work together, right? We work together in a call center.
This is actually something that happened to me when I was in the early sort of phase of my career where I was working in call centers. So I was like answering phones and doing that kind of thing and selling things on the phone, et cetera.
And I remember being sat next to someone who was like subtly disrespecting me all the time. And at this point in my life, I wasn't in any position of authority to do anything about it.
It's funny because that one instance has completely shaped my leadership perspective and my real deep belief that I have a responsibility as the founder of the company or CEO to go in search of and clamp out all disrespect in an organization that is happening beneath me. Because you're often powerless at work to do anything about it.
And I felt that I couldn't stop this lady that sat next to me disrespecting me because I wasn't her boss. So now that I have the responsibility, it's a big thing for me that we don't employ assholes and dickheads.
And there's actually a recent example where someone was in our business for a total of a couple of hours. And actually my previous company, there was a guy that walked in during his initiation.
He went like this and walked off day one of his job. He put both middle fingers up after his like initiation where initiation, we basically ask them questions, ask them what they're into, who they are, put both middle fingers up and walked off.
It was the last time anyone saw him in the building. And because it was a sign of a character issue that would lead to further disrespect.
So if I'm sat next to you at work, Evie, we're colleagues, and you come in in the morning and I go, oh, first time you've been on time. And then you do some work and I go, not bad considering your standard.
And then you're in a meeting and you're talking and I just interrupt you. And you submit a piece of work and I look at it and I turn my nose up.
And you hear me talking shit about you behind your back when people aren't there, me criticizing your work and how you are and your delivery. How are you going to deal with that situation? So I would deal with a specific situation, not the whole thing.
I would pick a moment where I have tangible facts and I would say, can I speak to you for a moment? Okay, so we're in a group. We're all on the calls, in my call center.
I'm not going to do in front of other people. Okay, fine.
So this is what happens. This is not actually what happened in my life.
Did you do this? No, no, no, no, no. Fuck me, I didn't do anything.
I just wanted the money. I was trying to just survive.
I couldn't feed myself. I wasn't going to open my mouth.
But we're in a call center and I've disrespected you for a while now. And then I turn to you and I go, and you've just come off a call and I go, you know what, you could have done that better.
You didn't close that properly, Evie. And I, you know, next time you do a call and you get stuck like that, just speak to me and I'll take the call off you.
Just tell them that your colleague will handle it. And I carry on with my day.
What are you going to do in that moment? I might not do anything. But it also depends because you said I didn't do anything.
I was trying to feed myself. And that plays a role like, where are you? I think part of it is also is I was very young and I didn't have the tools to address that situation.
The problem is the situation made coming to work a misery. And this version of myself, irrespective of my financial situation, would have, and even today, because even today, okay, I have money, I have security, but I'm still playing at a certain level where there's disrespect, potential.
I actually have a really good example that I could never share as someone that I work with who's extremely successful. We work on a particular project together and I found out that this was happening and they were basically threatened by me because for a variety of reasons this is what I was told by an intermediary and I chose a moment when I heard that they had just disrespected me within a short period of time and I I walked in in front of a group of people.
And I said to them, I said, I heard what you did out there in the hallway when I wasn't there. And in the future, if you want to say something to me, I'd really appreciate it.
You said it to my face instead of behind my back. And it's crazy what happened.
It's crazy what happened. This really big, tough, powerful individual turned into a toddler in front of my eyes.
Oh, what? No, I didn't say. And I left the room.
And then it never happened again. But I think that that's okay too.
But you also came to that place. It's like I think each person has to choose.
And if you choose to do it, you can do it. Now, the fact that you did in front of people, but what you did that was smart is you were able to speak.
As upset as you were, you were able to speak and articulate yourself clearly. Yeah.
And it had just happened. And you were able to say, what just specifically happened here? That's the difference.
Because sometimes it's like, I feel like you treat me this way, or I think you did this, or it seems like that. Those are very ambiguous.
So if you're going to confront someone like you did, you did it the smart way because you picked a specific moment. You said specifically out in the hallway, you just did this.
You said X, Y, and Z. If you want to say something to me, always feel free to come say it to me.
That's why I also think it worked. And you're also in a place where you feel like you can do that.
I think that that's okay too. But you also took a risk and you're like, uncertainty, like I'll burn this down.
Yeah, because on that project, I'm not the one that's got the power. I can still be fired from that particular project.
But you chose, you're like, let it burn. Yeah, because I don't want to be anywhere where I'm miserable.
Exactly. But you made a a choice you're like let it burn so you understood you at some point understood like these there's a consequence here and it's interesting because bullies they're not they they flex they're not very powerful you know i had oh gosh we're like swapping stories here i had one scenario where i inherit a case you know every john.
He went to the president's detail. You are now taking John's case.
Okay. So there were some things that were incomplete in John's case with regard to evidence.
It was admin stuff. The admin paperwork for evidence hadn't been filled out yet.
I got the case. I pushed it to the side.
I worked on it. I would update it, but I hadn't done the admin thing with it.

Fast forward, I'm leaving because I just got bumped to a different position.

And so the new agent that got it, I'm like, hey, here's the case.

I said, there's one thing that I didn't get to do.

It's the admin thing for the evidence.

I'm like, I can help you go through it, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, the group leader I had at the time, which was a peer, in front of the whole group, one day he's like, hey, you didn't do this admin. You didn't file the evidence for whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he's doing this in front of everybody. You know, you need to take care of that and that's on you.
And I don't care that you inherited the case and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm watching this happen and I assure you all I wanted to do was like reach over and lunge him by the neck.
But I didn't. I left.
I was pissed. I let it ride, my anger ride.
And later that day, I went and I found him after I calmed down. And his name was Jeff.
I'm like, hey, Jeff, come here. Let me talk to you.
And I took him into the stairwell because we had these secure stairwells. I said, listen, earlier on you brought up this case.
You're 100% right. I didn't finish the admin paperwork for the evidence.
I will take care of it, and I will help the new agent do it. I said, however, I was like, if you ever want to address me, because he was very insulting when he did it, he did it in front of the whole group to flex.
I said, if you ever want to address me, don't ever do it like that again. I go, because I'm addressing you and I'm actually giving you more respect than you showed me in there before by pulling you into this stairwell.
I said, so if you want to address me, feel free to pull me to the side and speak to me. But what you did out there, there's no need.
We're peers. And that's it.
You may be the group leader, but there's no need to talk to me like that. I go have the decency to address me the way and with the courtesy that I'm giving you.
Because I could have easily tore your head off in there. And he was a peer.
He was a peer slash group leader. So we were the same, but he happened to be a group leader, which meant he oversaw me.
I said, so next time, there's not going to be a next time. It was immediately, I'm sorry, you're right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Now for that scenario, I wanted to have long-term good relationships because this person was in my squad. And so that's why I handled it like that.
Never happened again. So I guess, like, there's different ways to do it.
With Jeff, I preserved his dignity. Because if I would have shot back, he would have shot back at me.
I would have shot back at him. And there's a point, too, where I'm like, I don't want to sit and fight and look stupid.
I want to be in control of, like, how I manage an environment. And me yelling back or confronting someone sometimes may not be it, especially if I think I can't keep myself composed.
And in that moment, there was no way I was going to be composed. I think you're right.
Now I reflect on the incident that I described to you. I don't actually think I was that composed.
I didn't shout. I was very articulate, looked to them in the eyes without breaking eye contact.
But actually, if I was really composed, I would have done what you did, which is I would have said, please can I have a private chat with you? And I actually think it would have been more effective and would have shown more of my sort of fortitude to have that conversation privately. The other thing that you said, which I thought was so important in the context of what we're saying is you do have to point at a specific incident because these individuals, they are masters of gaslighting you.
So if you don't have specifics that just happened in that location and it made me feel like this and you said this, if you let it ride and you'd come to them with vibes, they will so easily twist it. What are you talking about? I don't know what you mean.
No, that's not what I meant. That's why you have to come with very specific stuff.
But, you know, even if you said you were pissed when you did it, if you were still able to articulate yourself, you were. I think it's okay to own it.
Listen, I'm not saying I've always flown, like, up top. Like, there's times where I'm like, I shouldn't have done that or said it.
But I also run hot and I know myself. And so I have to police myself.
And then there's times like we learn our lesson. It's just, I think whatever you do, just own it.
Whether, if it was the wrong thing to do, just say, I won't do that next time. But I feel like you are okay.
You said something a second ago, which, about bullies, right? And there's this fascinating thing I've come to learn about bullies and people that are like this type of disrespect, is they're actually going in search of the weakest link. And the incredible thing that happened in the scenario that I'm describing is once this individual realized that I would literally call it out and I was off the table, they never treated me like that again, but they moved on.
They moved on to someone else that I work with.

And that person, as we sit here today, is thinking of leaving that environment because of the same

person who was making the little slight comments about me is now doing it about them. And I say

to this person, I say, why don't you just do what I did? Because she saw me confront. I say to her, why don't you go just

do what I did? And she just says, I haven't got it.

I don't want conflict.

So what is she doing, actually? She's becoming?

Suppressing herself. Yes.

Yeah, and she's going to leave.

Something that she loves doing, purely,

she called me the other day, purely because

this person's making her feel

a certain way.

I think that that's okay, too,

though. Like, she can, it reminds

me of that narcotics story. It's like, she's just like,

Thank you. This person's making her feel a certain way.
I think that that's okay too, though. Like she can, it reminds me of that narcotics story.
It's like, she's just like, I just don't want to be here anymore. But at the same time too, if she keeps going, when you go small, small, small, they go higher, higher.
It's, you know, speaking of Billy's, I'm going to bring it back to crime. When I started interviewing suspects, right, you watch TV shows, and in your head you think these predators, right,

are like these really intimidating, scary predators, the way they behave,

and you think like I'm going to get these like savages in the room.

Nope.

And you know what's interesting?

When you look at the populations of people being victimized the most,

first it's children, then it's women, and then it's elderly.

Why?

Because they're the easiest to victimize.

So when you look at predators, they pick easy prey or what they perceive as easy prey.

They don't want fair fights.

I would sit across people in the room who did really horrific crimes against kids, and you would look at them and you're like, you? I could eat you for lunch. A lot of times too, we build up people in our heads and we think like they're these like high apex individuals.
They're not. They prey on people weaker than themselves.
And why? It makes them feel stronger and better, more powerful. Why do you need to do that? Because you feel weak.
That's why you do that. That's why you bully.
That's why you push. Because you feel a void and you look to fill that void by taking from other people.
And that's what makes you feel strong. All these predators, I never sat across from anybody, to include terrorists, I never sat across anyone and I was just like, oh, this guy's scary.
Never. I'm shocked actually as I say it.
I have never to this day sat across someone where I'm like, oof, not once. Everybody, I'd walk in and I'm like, you? In my head, of course, the inside voice.
I'm like, you did this this? And so I guess like bullies, like I think sometimes we unfortunately give them more weight and gravitas than they really are. Weak.
Weakness all the way through. With that in mind, how do I stop myself becoming prey to a predator? You stop acting like prey.
So the one thing you're not going to be is, it depends who it is. First of all, if it's personal relationships, you have to set the intention of the relationship from the beginning how you want it to go.
So let's do work. Work is an easy one.
I'm not there to be your friend. I can be friendly, but'm not going to be your friend I'm, not there to be super nice to you or super sweet or super kind Like I can be warm.
I can be respectful. I can be compassionate I can be those things but I got to bring the right version of me to a work environment because then I just get Because then I set the tone of like well, is that being my friend or is that being boss? Like, what am I dealing with here? Like, always keep that level of professionalism.
Always. And I make a point to do it because then it just becomes really awkward if people are your friends.
Can you balance a relationship like that? You just got to be really, really, really, really good. But like, don't come in and like, literally like, make yourself a doormat.
Or like, overextend to the point point because the more you overextend, even a good person is going to be like, oh, that's just how she is. That's how he is.
They get used to being like that. And people like being catered to.
They like feeling like they're above. And so now you create this role dynamic of I'm subservient and you're here.
So you want to make sure that no matter how excited you are to work with someone or be with someone, that you don't create this disproportionate thing. You want to keep the seesaw level.
It'll go up and down, but you want to make sure that you, because you will do it, everybody assesses everybody. Everybody sizes people up.
They do it intuitively. People meet you, they size you up.
Oh, he seems like this. She seems like that.
She seems like she's going to be this way. Project what you want them to feel.
I'm here. I'm warm.
I'm open. I'm happy to be here again.
Thank you for having me. Let's talk.
But at the same time, you can also think about how you sit, how you carry yourself, your voice, your tone. All these things play alone together.
I know people talk about body language. It does play a role in the fact that, look, something as simple as when you go to meetings, are you in the meeting and you're like this? You're small.
Maybe you got your phone out, right? What am I doing? I'm making myself small. My hands aren't on the table because I don't think I'm worth putting my hands on the table, right? I want to literally make myself disappear.
I'm not going to ask any questions. I'm going to maybe sit like this with my thing here, right? So this is telling you a story about me.
It is. So it's a really subtle way to be like, why don't I sit with purpose? I'm going to sit like this.
I'm going to have my arms out. I'm going to have my shoulders back.
Something as simple as just my posture means something. There's a study actually done.
New York City, they put up cameras years ago and they started recording people walking in New York City. Then they took the footage and they played it to convicted felons in prison.
And they said to them, who would you pick as prey? They all picked the same people to prey on. All the same people, just by walk.
There were three types of walk they found out. One walk was, I'm walking, I'm sloppy, I'm not paying attention, I'm just like in my own space.
I have really no deliberate purpose in the way I'm moving my body. Target.
Easy pray. Other easy pray.
My walk is small, I'm more timid, I'm kind of like not comfortable, I'm like paying attention. Easy pray.
Those two, bar none, were picked. You know who they didn't pick? The walk wasn't too sloppy big.
It wasn't too small. It was right in the middle.
And it's deliberate. I'm in control of my body.
I'm looking around. I'm present.
I own my space. That person I want nothing to do with.
Those group of people were not picked to be targets. So we exude vibes, energy, all that stuff.
But even this, this tool that we don't pay attention to, our body, think about how you use it to portray yourself when you're out there. Am I commanding myself or am I just not paying attention at all? So even subtle things like that, your voice, it's called paralinguistics.
And I wrote about it a lot in Becoming Bulletproof. Your voice, do I talk like this? Hi, I'm Evie.
So nice to meet you. I'm so glad to be here.
Hi guys. Love it.
Right? What kind of guess am I going to be? Right? But when I find my true voice and I own it, I slow down my speech. I bring down my tone and pitch to my true voice, to at least the most powerful voice, and I'm grounded and I take my time.
And I'm also, when I speak and I take my time, I'm letting you know I deserve to be here.

What I'm saying deserves to be heard.

And I deserve to take time for you to listen to me.

As opposed to when I speak really, really fast because, hey, guys, look really quick.

I don't want to take up anybody's time anymore.

I know you're all busy.

What did I just tell everybody?

Don't listen to me.

What I'm about to say isn't really relevant.

And you're more important than what I'm about to say really isn't. I just killed it.
How many times do people finish meetings like that? Why are you saying that? You just told them, don't listen to me. These are subtle things that if we just pay attention to, you don't have to do a lot.
You don't have to do a lot. There's no magic pill.
There's no secret to this other than really own yourself and think about what am I exuding with my energy, with my body, with my voice. Even your voice, your voice captures like so many things.
Like your voice, it's like, you have to think of it like over your time in your life, your voice captures the things you've been through with. You were told to be quiet, be a good girl, be a good boy.
Don't talk loud. Don't do this.
Don't do that. And you have to think like over time, this voice has become a bit mangled because other people around you were telling you how to use it.
And often we're actually not using our true voice. It's the voice that we've sort of somehow manufactured and created based off of what everybody else told us it should sound like.
And so you want to pay attention to that. Like, how do I sound? And I even noticed when I, my husband pointed this out, because he's kind of got the same background.
He said to me once, he's like, you ever noticed that when you talk to your mom, your voice goes high? And I was like, it does? He's like, yeah, it does.

Because she's my mom.

She's an authority.

And also, she has a higher voice because she talks with a very high voice.

And I'm like, you're right.

And so even with my daughter, because I have a little one,

I try very hard to make sure that I don't do

like the baby babbling voice and like the high-pitched voice

because I don't want her to grow

up thinking that because she's a girl, she has to talk like this all the time. Hi, mom! Because I want her to have a strong, commanding presence.
And where's she going to learn that from? Her mom. In fact, even in, there are studies done that even in scenarios where a child maybe favor the opposite-sex parent,

they imitate the same-sex parent.

So my daughter, whether she likes me or not growing up,

will imitate my behavior more so because I'm the one she's learning from.

And so I have awareness with that.

Do you think your life would have gone differently and you would be sat here now if you spoke differently in the high-pitch, fast way that— I wouldn't be doing news. Who's going to listen to anything I say? Hi, everybody.
Welcome. Today we had a mass shooting.
Do I sound like I know what I'm talking about? I don't. Even if what I'm saying is correct, do I believe in the words that I'm saying? Do I own the words I'm saying? If I don't believe in them and I don't sound like I know what I'm talking about, you won't either.
In fact, when you watch any news anchor, you will hear they've got a strong anchored voice. Because even with breaking news, stuff changes all the time.
I remember I was covering the recent shooting in New Orleans. It's breaking news.
I'm getting information as it's coming in, and I'm doing a breakdown the best I can with the information that's coming in. But I still have to convey it in a way where people can trust and believe in what I'm saying.
But if I don't sound like I believe in what I'm saying, it's not going to land. The way you sound has more impact than the words you actually say.
That's a big thing. I learned this later on.
I learned this as an agent and then even more so when I began doing TV because there were times where I'm like, man, this is what I sound like?

I don't know if you've ever had that.

Maybe when you first started off. Oh, yeah, of course.

Where you play yourself and you hear yourself and you're just like, oh.

Yeah, of course.

And then you're like, you know, I need to fix that.

I don't need to sound like that.

I need to sound a certain way.

I'm the host of a podcast.

I'm asking these questions.

I'm sitting across from these people.

I need to match them to some degree. To that like, please listen to my show.
I deserve to be here. I'm giving you good information.
I'm credible. We take our time when it comes to hiring at Flight Story because I fundamentally believe the success of a business is directly linked to how good you are at hiring and better hiring starts with smarter insights.
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Your hands, you use your hands a lot as well. Yeah, it's probably because I'm Greek.
No, but it's interesting because it's part of the delivery. When you're saying something a second ago, you were going and you were doing slow hand movements that are almost illustrating the point you're making.
And it is persuasive because it almost is adding another layer of emphasis to what you're saying. Whereas if your hands were just tucked under the table, I actually might think you were less confident or sure in what you're saying.
But because you're like, again, it goes to what you were saying. You're taking more space up.
So don't hide your hands. Just for anybody listening, 101, if you're sitting in a meeting, don't hide your hands.
Don't sit on them. Don't hide them.

Just one, it doesn't look good.

It doesn't send a good message.

It sounds like you're kind of insecure.

You don't want to be there.

Hands out.

I'm here.

I'm present.

And yes, these are called illustrators.

When you do this with your hands, it's called illustrators.

Now, there's a couple of things with illustrators.

One, it can make it more interesting to watch someone speaking when you use an illustrator.

It adds more emphasis. You said it.
It adds another layer aside from me just sitting still, right? It engages people and pulls in the viewer a bit more. It's more engaging.
That's one. The other thing with illustrators is it can be a cultural thing.
I'm Greek. I'm from New York.
So I've got massive problem with these things. I actually work very hard to put them away.
The other thing that's actually interesting, which you didn't ask, but I will volunteer this information, it's another way I would use to tell if somebody is being truthful or not. Again, everybody is different.
Everybody's body language is different. But when you're speaking to someone and they use illustrators when they normally talk, typically when we see illustrators, it's truthful, right? They're telling you a story.
Yesterday, yes, I went out with my friends. We went and we had burgers.
And then afterward, we went to the store. So when you see somebody doing that, it is very likely they are reliving the event and you can see the body reliving it with them.
So when you see that positive sign, typically, that they're being truthful. Now, if you're talking to someone who uses illustrators and all of a sudden they do this.
They put their hands away. During a certain part of the story.
So tell me who you went out and had dinner with, Evie. Oh, you know, it was just some people from the office.
In that moment, what you're going to do is say, okay, Evie's used illustrators this whole time. I shifted the conversation.
I asked her something else. Now her hand's been away.
Why? That's it. Why? That's lie detection 101.
Now, it doesn't mean I am lying because everybody lies different. Everybody's behavior is different.
We're not going to put people in a box because that's just dumb. However, what you're noticing is a deviation.
Whenever you tell stories, she uses her hands. And then for whatever reason, I asked a question.
That question prompted something in Evie, and Evie put her hands away. She did a shift.
And now you, having caught that, you're going to ask me more questions. You're not going to move on to the next topic.
You're going to find a way to say, I need to get Evie to talk more about who she went out with last night because clearly something just happened. And is that because they're going from their natural state of flow and whatever to more calculated and they're overthinking? Part of with lying, right, if we're just using lying, or if you ask me something for whatever reason, let's say I don't want to tell you who I had dinner with last night, right? When I feel that, I'm overwhelmed.
I'm inundating. Lying is hard.
Lying is hard. You have to think of what you're saying.
How am I going to say it? Is it going to be believable? I want to move the topic on. I don't want to get caught because who wants to be a liar? Although everybody lies to some degree, right? So it's overwhelming.
It's actually a heavy cognitive load. That's why one of the things, it doesn't mean it's the only thing, but one of the things we were taught to pay attention to body language to people, like if you read them well, you'll know what to look for and look for the deviations because everybody is uniquely different.
But you would look at body language to see what are they doing with their body because lying is hard and usually you want to go still. And because you're putting so much of a cognitive load here, all this stuff goes away.
So that free-flowing Evie telling you the story about, I went out, I had dinner, I had a burger, it was great, goes away the moment you're like, well, who'd you go have dinner with, Evie? And now if in that moment I don't want to tell you, I'm having that, oh, shit factor. What am I going to say? How am I going to say it? I'm overloaded.
And so I stop moving. The body does less in that moment, in this specific scenario.
A second ago, when you were talking about the study in New York, where they examined how people walk and tried to figure out who walks like prey, I was wondering, as you said that, I was thinking, can you fake it? Because presumably how we walk is quite a subconscious thing. And it comes from, as you said, like the things we've been through in our life and who we've come to believe that we are.
So after I heard that, do I just go out on the street and start walking with a bit more status and with my shoulders back? Or am I still going to fail at some point? This is, I think, when I remember when I was younger and I started learning about psychology and human behavior and stuff, even though I knew the information, I think there was probably 990 other things that I was getting wrong that were projecting low value or come disrespect me, or I actually don't have a high sense of self-esteem that I couldn't see. So if I can control this one little thing, it doesn't necessarily mean the other 999 things that matter in non-verbal communication are going to be aligned if I'm not truly believing that I'm confident and high value in myself.
So fake it till you make it or do you have to do some inner work? I don't believe in fake it till you make it. And I actually don't like that term.
You know why? There's nothing fake about me or you. I don't need to be a fake version of myself.
But what I can be is a more aware version of myself. And something as simple as just doing one thing, Stephen, just that one thing.
It's like, you know what? I'm just not going to make myself small. When I walk, I'm going to take up space.
That's it. That's all I'm going to do.
I'm not there to solve like a whole puzzle about why I am the way I am and why psychologically I walk this way, but I'm going to do one small thing that's going to make one small difference and it's going to lessen slightly whether somebody decides to pray on me or not. That's it.
And so you know what happens? Habit. You're going to break the habit of walking like this and being invisible to just creating a very simple habit of, I just walk with my shoulders back now.
Shoulders back, shoulders back. When you go down the street.
In fact, when I started doing the news and pay attention to my posture and I would sit and do the news, I'm like, shoulders back. Like in my head, I'm like, shoulders back, shoulders back, shoulders back.
Because there were times where I watched myself or even during commercial break, my husband would send me a text. He's like, Jesus Christ.
He's like, sit up straight. You look terrible.
He's like, no one's going to believe. He's like, stop slouching.
And I'm like, oh, you're right. It's just, what am I projecting? So there are simple things you can do.
So it's not one big thing we do over time. It's like, and I follow this too.
It's like over life, it's like one small thing for me to change a habit of something that I do. Just start small and then conquer that thing and then move to the next thing and then move to the next thing.
But at the same time, be kind to yourself. Like we can't just beat ourselves up.
I'm not this. I'm not that.
I'm not confident. Like that narrative just takes you down, down, down, down.
And you can literally, I'm also not telling you to be like, I'm fantastic. I'm great.
I'm not this. I'm not that.
I'm not confident. That narrative just takes you down, down, down,

down. And you can literally, I'm also not telling you to be like, I'm fantastic.
I'm great. I'm this.
It's just, just be here. Just be like somewhere in the middle.
And speaking of which, it reminds me of, and this is kind of something a little bit different, but we talked about steadiness earlier. Like, how do you stay steady? And the one thing I also learned about steadiness and just kind of finding that space where you're in control, it's something called neutrality mindset.
Actually, the person who brought it more to my attention, you've had her on, Gabrielle Lyon, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon.
She's married to a SEAL. Now, Gabrielle, who's actually my doctor.
A Navy SEAL. She's married to a Navy SEAL, Dr.
Lyon. When her book was coming out, she was asking me all these questions.
She's like, you know, my book's coming out. She was asking me questions, smart woman, because I had a book come out.
So she's like, let me ask Evie, who's had a book come out out her opinion on a couple of things. And at one point she said to me, you know, were you nervous about whether it would perform well or not, or how it would do? And I said, no.
And she's like, no. She's like, you weren't worried it would make this list or that list? I was like, no, I didn't think about it.
And she laughed. I said, why are you laughing? She's like, because you're all the same.
You, my husband, all these Navy SEALs.

She's like, you're all in the middle.

And what she was talking about is we have a neutrality mindset,

which means we don't celebrate high highs,

but we also don't fall down on low lows.

We're always in the middle.

So going back to my book, if my book did well, it would do well because it was a good book and people liked it. That was it.
And if it didn't do well, it didn't resonate. I wasn't tied to the fact that, oh my God, it's doing great.
It's selling. I didn't celebrate that.
Now you would look at it like, why wouldn't you celebrate a high? I can, but what I start to do is I cultivate a habit where I'm tied to the external world. And when the external world is giving me this thing that I want, I'm happy.

But the flip side is that when the external world is going to give me things I don't want,

I'm also going to be tethered to that and I'm going to sink down.

But if I'm in the middle, I don't have high highs, I don't have low lows, I'm always somewhere here. Neutrality mindset, which means emotionally I'm always stable, more than likely, 99% of the time, whatever.
That's neutrality mindset. I don't have high highs, I don't have low lows.
Nothing destabilizes me to that point. How do we get there? How did you get there? It's just, it's, well, you don't get, it sounds terrible, but one, you don't get overly excited when something happens outside.
I'm not saying not to celebrate, but I'm also not going to be tethered like I can only be happy now because this thing outside of me happened. Because now I'm training myself and my mind to be when external things happen, then I can be truly, truly happy.
Or when external things happen, I'm going to be truly, truly sad. But when these external things happen, they don't pull me all the way up and they don't pull me all the way down, I won't have those highs and lows that other people will have.
I can stay here. So I make sure

that when something great is happening, very small example, I won't go out and tell everybody.

I allow it to happen, right? And then if people congratulate me or give me good news, I say,

thank you. But I don't like that to be the source of my happiness because it comes from here.
Because let's say I did my book and it bombed. So what? So now, according to that theory, I should what? I should plummet and be like, oh my God, I'm a failure.
I wrote a book. It was the only chance I had.
It tanked it. Who am I? I'm this.
So now my value is tied to what? My emotional state is tied to what? How well or not well my book did. That's the problem.
So the more stressful situations you can put in, the more places of uncertainty, the more you can manage these highs and lows, the more you're going to live here. And you know what else? Going back to who is in your inner circle.
I don't like to be around people who lose their shit when things break bad. I don't.
As steady as I am, they will destabilize me. They just will.
So I do my very best to try to keep a circle of people around me as much as possible of people that I know are steady. So going back to partners, I happen to have a partner, a husband, who's like that.
Something can blow up and he'd be like, all right, let's go. He's not going to destabilize.
So that is infectious on me. Now, can we have people around us that are severely impacted? My mom, love you, mom, sorry.
But my mom, who's like very, at times can be emotionally impacted by the outside world. Yes.
So I have to work very hard to compensate for that, to not let that impact me where I go high, high and low lows. It's just awareness, but it's just, it's the external world.
The external environment cannot be the thing that either brings you up or brings you down. I completely agree.
I mean, like, obviously running businesses and stuff is prime example where you're just getting fucking great news or bad news all the time. And even try and move emotionally with whatever the news is today in your inbox would just be, I'd be like keeled over on the floor dead.
However, there's so many people that are listening that would say, Evie, I agree. But my nervous system just seems to run the shop.
Like I just seem to just get dragged around by good things and bad things. And I catastrophize when something bad goes wrong.
And I just, I know what you're saying is true, Evie, but like, how do I get there? What's like, what's step one in becoming that person that isn't swung up and down on the rollercoaster of life? Do you know, like, I wish people gave themselves more credit. Like they, I think sometimes people are like, I'm not, it's like you are, like you have so much more authority and regulation of yourself than you realize.
And I, I think sometimes too, the narrative out there is like, oh, this happened to you. It's not your fault.
Or that happened to you. It's not your fault.
Or this person did this to you. It's not your fault.
And so what happens is the narrative that we hear right now is this external world is fluctuating you. It's not your fault.
And so if it's not my fault, how can I stabilize it? So that's one thing. So I'm not saying it's your fault, but I'm saying you have the ability

to self-regulate. Please stop listening to everybody else that's telling you it's not your fault.
It's out of your hands. It's this, it's that.
No, everything always starts and ends with you. If you can just keep that, it starts and ends with me, one, you're right there.
Two, in those moments when you start to catastrophize or you start to feel yourself go that way, stop.

Literally just say out loud to yourself, stop it.

Stop it.

Talk to yourself.

Like interrupt that thought.

Just interrupt it.

Don't let it finish.

Even if you're having a high high with something great happening, I'm not telling you not to be happy.

But also don't over sensationalize it. Don't go tell everybody because then you're pulling yourself up.
You're being tethered by that, right? I'm trying to, what I'm saying is don't be this up down yo-yo. Cut it.
Just be like, oh, no. Like literally just tell yourself.
There's moments where I, like I talk to myself all the time. I like, I'm, I'm my voice.
And so if there's moments where I think my voice is drowning out, I will say, hey, no,

this is what we're going to do now. Talk yourself through it.
It's such a powerful thing to really just stop the thoughts, just stop them and take ownership and say, stop thinking that. No.
There's this person who used to tell me that one of the things that she used to say to herself was cancel, cancel. And it was a negative thought or something bad.
She would say to herself, cancel, cancel. I'm canceling that thought out loud.
So find something that interrupts it. That's where you just start.
Like we're not trying to do the whole feat. We're just trying to break these habitual patterns.
And also sometimes I quite honestly, this nonsense stuff that we're fed that really keeps us like just, it just keeps us from being able to take ownership over ourselves. I think what's really interesting as well in that cancel-cancel example is you're almost talking to someone and that person is yourself.
And as you were saying, I was thinking, yeah, I think the fundamental underlying belief that you demonstrate and that that person's demonstrating is that they are not their thoughts. It's like there's talking to someone else.
Whereas most of us go through our life thinking that our thoughts are us. So if my brain starts going, oh my God, this is going to go so badly and then it's going to happen like this and then I'm going to lose my job.
And you think that's yourself. And you don't think you could have a conversation with that voice.
You know what I'm saying? But you can interrupt that voice. Like you have the ability to say stop.
I remember speaking to Mo Gord out on the podcast and he says that he's named his brain Becky so that he can do that. So that he can kind of detach from the thoughts.
And so he'll say Becky and have a conversation with Becky. Which I think is kind of smart now I think about it.
It's not a bad way of detaching from your toxic thoughts. Talking yourself through things is actually good.
Even in, you know, going back, even in training, when we've been put in scenarios, like they would, they would simplify things like in some scenarios, like, hey, step one, this, step two, this, step three, this, or they would create acronyms. Like, you know, I'm going to make one up because I can't think of one, but like stop, target, move, shift.
And they would teach you, just say that to yourself as you're, as you're in this stressful situation. Like if they created, like they would create scenarios where there would be explosions, attacks.
All right. Talk yourself.
And like literally when you, we would do, let's say a scenario in Beltsville and we do an ambush on, they create a system where we, they do ambushes on us. All right.
Fight yourself out of it there too. Because you're so overloaded with the stress of what's happening.
Um, and even though, you know, it's training, you don't want to look like, you don't want to look bad in front of your peers. You don't want to look like you don't know what you're doing.
You want to do a good job.

And sometimes, even though it's training, the body doesn't know it's training and it thinks it's real life.

There's moments.

And literally, like you'd be in these tactical scenarios and you would talk to yourself in

your head.

And sometimes you could do it even out loud.

Stop, shift, move, target, move, target, take, you know.

So I'm giving like a hypothetical example, but this ability to talk yourself through movements is also a very powerful thing. It can, it can stop like this, this, this mass amount of like the muck in your head and kind of clear it out.
So I, I actually learned that in training and they taught us like just tactical words, sentences,

things to say to ourselves that would just help us habitually move through problems. Kinesis, just keep moving, keep moving through the problem.
There's an element of what you just said there though, that raises another question, which is there's a reason why they were doing explosions in training because they are trying to fully simulate and put you through the real world examples that you're going to go through so that you develop some resilience. And I was thinking then, you know, we can talk about tactics and tricks and tips to do this all we like, but you've literally had to go through it in order to be able to deal with it.
That's like the essence of the training you described. So is there not an element of this, everything we're saying here, where unfortunately you're just going to have to go through some shit in life to develop the thick skin? Because even when I think about my career in business, I think if I had heard on a podcast someone telling me, oh, when bad shit happens, just fucking, you know, like stay in the middle.
I don't think it would have been enough to prepare me for the reality of the situation when you've got say 500 employees and you've got to pay them all tomorrow and you look at the bank and it says zero and you've got clients emailing you, giving you shit for this or this, whatever, how you, how you when our company got hacked in the early days and all of my clients, my biggest clients in the world, biggest brands in the world, all got personalized abusive emails about their appearance at 3am in the morning. That was apparently from my business partner's email.
It was apparently meant to go to my peer, but accidentally got sent to them. And waking up on that morning as a 23, 24 year old, there's really no words that can prepare me for that.
But because I've been through it, I could go through it again. And I wonder how much of this is actually in life.
You're just going to have to go through some difficult shit because you've been through difficult shit. You have to go through it.
There's no exception. The harder you work, you're going to work so hard to avoid it, which actually just makes you more afraid and weaker.
Where it's like, it's just going to happen and being okay. We mitigate as much as we can through the circle of people, what we choose to do, what we choose to surround ourselves with.
We understand that, right? The vest, the bulletproof vest can only cover so much of our body. And then we understand that we are vulnerable in other areas and you're going to have to go through it.
Even as a mom, like one of the things is I want to give my daughter the best tool so that she can problem solve. And it's not just being able to feel the stress.
It's being able to, when you're dealing with a scenario like that, you can't just sit and be paralyzed by it. You're like, I have to respond to this.
And you learn to cope. You learn coping skills and strategies.
You're learning to problem solve. The only way you learn to problem solve is when you're dealing with a problem.
If everything's problem free, you don't know how to problem solve. So one of the things I make sure with my daughter, even though she's still very young, is I will look at moments where she's frustrated.
Let's say she's trying to climb onto the bed. I will let her, as long as it's safe, I'll let her be frustrated and cry and scream till she gets up on the bed.
I've seen her do it. I know she can do it.
So I will tell her, like, I will say, work out the problem.

There's incremental things we can do in our lives to allow ourselves to learn how to problem solve.

There's no escaping problems for anyone. There's no escaping hardship for anybody.
There's no

escaping trauma or tragedy for anybody. There just isn't.
I think when you come to terms with that, you're okay. But it's when you can't come to terms with it and you think like, life's just bad for me.
Life's picking on me. My life is hard.
My life is this. My life is that.
You're not that special. I just did my second Talk, and I talked about the six inhibitors that hold us back, hold people back.
And it was based off of all the mentors I did, like hundreds, which happened after I wrote my book when people were writing in. And one of the biggest things that holds people back is the idea that I'm special.
I'm special in that my problems are special, my pain is special. I'm so unique.
Nobody knows what I'm going through. So when everything around me, if I'm that special, why I can't figure my stuff out? Because I'm not like everybody else.
And when you do that, when you have that narrative, like that you think of yourself in that way, you are telling yourself I'm alone in the world because I'm special. Nobody can know what I'm going through or struggling with or dealing with.
And it's actually kind of when I would talk with people and like you'd give them solutions and they're like, no, no, no, but that won't work for me because of this or this and that. It was always like, and I would tell them, I'm like, I say this with all the love of my heart, you're not that special.
If you recognize that, then you're going to realize that you're not alone in this world going through all this stuff. This stuff isn't just happening to you and there's solace.
You know, after 9-11, you know, I survived 9-11. I was one of the first responders there.
I don't even like to use the word survive. I was there.
I lived through it.

People ask me, you know, how did you deal with the aftermath?

Because, you know, you're watching thousands of people die.

You almost die yourself.

Sorry, just to pause there because that was an important point for me.

Why don't you like to use the word survive?

I like lived through.

Why?

Survive to me has a negative connotation.

It's not as powerful.

I don't like it.

To me, like, I live through.

Survive is this thing happened and I, this is how it feels.

Because I'm trying to articulate it.

It feels like I survived through it.

It's like, no, I thrive through that. I live through that.
I thrive through it. Survive makes me think I barely made it.
It feels like I survived through it. It's like, no, I thrive through that.
I lived through that. I thrive through it.
Survive makes me think I barely made it, which technically I kind of did, but I don't care. But one of the things that helped me get through it, when people like, you know, there's trauma, like you're watching, truly, you're watching, I watched thousands, like thousands of people died, people jumping.
And you can't do anything.

You tried.

I tried.

And then after that, we had search, cleanup, and rescue efforts.

And I will tell you, one of the things that got me through it to the point where I barely dealt with any type of real aftermath, like PTSD or anything like that.

I'm not saying I didn't get anything.

But what helped me through is I wasn't that special. I wasn't alone in it.
When you know you're not alone in the world, like you can get through anything. But when you tell yourself that you are that unique and that what is happening to you is just happening to you, then all your pain is special.
All your problems are special. Your trauma is special.
And then nobody can help you because it's just you going through it. How alone is that? And it's that mental shift of when you can hear other people's stories or see what other people are going through.
And then that helps pull you through your stuff.

I will tell you that I'm not that special has gotten me through so much.

I can see it in your face as you talk.

And it's making me curious as to why this is so personal.

Because I'm not special.

And I think, I don't know, I think it's a detriment.

When people think that they're that special, I think it takes you down. There's a story here you're not telling me, I feel like.
I don't think it's a story. We all think we're the sun, right? And everything moves around us.
And when you're on that space, when you think you're that special, you self-analyze, you go in a lot more. And you would probably say, well, that's good, Evie.
Is it really that good for me to sit and analyze everything going on in my life? Or when I overanalyze, I overassess. I'm overtly critiquing.
I'm so focused on myself. Do you know what that actually does? It actually, you have higher rates of and higher rates of depression.
Because I am so self-focused. Now, I'm not saying, when I say you're not that special, I don't mean that you're arrogant or narcissistic or self-absorbed.
I mean that you are so self-focused that the outside world fades and it's just you and whatever it is you're dealing with. How can you get out of that? That's a very hard headspace to get out of.
Why do they stay in that space, in your opinion? I don't think that they realize that they're in that space. They're not listening.
Like sometimes you can even talk to people, they're not listening to you. Why don't they want to listen? Like why aren't they listening? Because they don't think anything's wrong.
Or sometimes they'll look to you and be like, oh, you're you. Like, you don't know what I'm going through.
Or you don't realize it. Here's the thing.
You and I talking about stuff from a place where we're trying to understand it objectively. We're looking to not live that way.
We're looking to understand it. And so we can share it with others.
But the only people that are going to receive it are the people that watch this podcast and want to. And even then, when they watch this, they're going to pick and choose the parts that work for them or the parts of this podcast that fit the narrative that they tell themselves.
Yes. And I was reading something over Christmas, which is really front of mind.
And I think it's part of why I'm so interested in this subject. It was called The Courage to be Disliked.
And in the opening chapter of the book, it confronts this, it's this kid basically arguing with this philosopher. And kid is saying to the philosopher, kind of exactly what we've said, no, I'm a victim of my life, the things that happened to me, my trauma, this is the way that I am and I don't believe I can change.
And the philosopher is making the case to the kid that you can in fact change. And really the like insight, the thing the philosopher ends up saying to this kid, which spun my brain for a while and is still spinning my brain a little bit, is this idea that what happened to us doesn't determine our lives, but we use what happened to us to achieve a goal that we have today.
Now, to put this into like a practical real example, if I am a kid that is 27 years old and I'm still in my mum's basement and I'm not going out there and getting a job, I might say, yeah, I want a job. But actually being in my mum's basement is actually serving me in some way.
And it might seem to be self-destructive to someone looking in, but my mum's bringing me my food. They finally show me attention.
If I change, I lose the sympathy. If I change, I lose the attention.
And actually, this attention has gotten a little bit addictive. This sympathy, this place of victimhood has gotten a little bit addictive to me in a way that I don't even know, in a way that's actually self-destructive in the near term and the long term.
But at some subconscious level, I'm actually addicted to my pain and suffering. And it's funny because when I was, so I read the book and then I started writing because I like to read things and try and write them into my own language.
And I started thinking about someone in my own life. And it's just, I finally figured out this individual in my life that's been in my life for a long time, who, when you look at the actions, you go, they're ruining their own life.
But when you dig deeper into their identity, being a heroic victim is everything to them. And actually, if this person walked into this room now and introduced themselves, it would take 60 seconds for them to get to a story of how they've been hard done by and how they've overcome it.
But this means that help aid good decisions have had to always be secondary to protecting this narrative that they're a victim. And actually, sorry to be on a bit of a rant here, at one point they were a victim.
At one point, objectively, they went through some really horrific, horrible things. But the predator's gone now.
So now they're looking for a predator. And it's ruined their entire life.
It's ruined their home, their family, their financials. Because even when good things come by, good people come by, they find a way to make this person a predator.
And they find a way to make them the heroic victim. And so it really shifted my brain about like even my own trauma and the narratives and this hero story I tell about myself.
I'm like, maybe I'm using what happened to me to serve a goal I have today of projecting to the world that I am filling the gap, whatever gives me validation and you know, reinforcement from people. So mean.
You know, it reminds me a little bit of histrionic disorder or where you pretend you're sick. It's like one of the disorders, you pretend either you're sick or your child is sick because when you do that, you get a lot of attention.
And so if I'm a victim of something or I'm going through something, are you okay? Are you all right? Do you need something? And it does cultivate this attention. Whereas if everything's okay, that all goes away.
And so I think all of it, it's people. I think it's so many different things.
People get comfortable. They don't want to get out of it.
They don't think anything is wrong. It serves them.
Nothing's wrong with my life. Who are you to tell me? It's like all these different layers.
And when it's people close to us, it's hard. And I just have surrendered that.
Two things. Who am I to tell somebody else how to live? So if they think that that's the way their life needs to be, I do have a little bit, I'm not that special.
So who am I to tell you that you should live this way? There's a little bit of, or a lot of rather, let people live how they want to live. It reminds me of what you were saying earlier about identity.
And I was thinking of something I read recently that said,

words to the effect of people would go to great lengths to destroy things,

including themselves, before they dare edit their own identity.

There's a real element of truth in that.

You're talking about identity and instrumental mindsets.

And I wonder if there's a real risk to developing an identity,

because you've got an identity now.

Secret Service agent, NYpd strong woman doesn't take shit says it how it is well you know so in the context of identity the identity mindset if we go back it's it's that i'm special mindset i'm in an emotional state i'm special that's identity mindset. That's how you know when you're talking to someone, if they're instrumental or identity.
If they're instrumental, they're task-oriented, they're moving, they're trying to solve problems. If they're identity, they're stuck, they're emotional, I can't believe this, I can't believe this is happening to me.
So with that, when you can figure out what mindset somebody is in, then you can talk to them, but you talk to them in the mindset that they're in. If somebody is instrumental, I'm going to know this is a person that's just like, tell me what to do.
Just get to the point. I just wanted this, this, and this, and this.
There's no feelings. There's no stuff involved.
There's no emotions. Somebody's identity, right? They are, it's about them.
It's how it's affecting them. Typically, again, when we're very self-focused, higher depression, higher anxiety, because we're overanalyzing things, we're in an emotional state.
So when someone's there, it's good for you to know because you know in that moment, they're not listening to what I'm saying. They are stuck in their space.
Now, if I'm looking to progress the conversation, let's say they work for me, I'm going to sit and listen to them, let them offload to a point to get them where I need them to be or to get them to get to this instrumental space. Like an agency like the U.S.
Secret Service, it was very instrumental. Nobody wants to hear you complaining, get it done, fix this, do this, because they didn't really have the luxury of being like that.
Because if you are like that, people die. It's just like, you got to move on.
But if your identity and where it's like, you're really wanting other people to understand you, I'm not saying that we don't visit identity land once in a while, but it's not a great place to live either because you're so self-focused that you can't function. It's me, me, me, me, me.
But if you can master this, which you can easily do when you talk to people, you'll know that person's instrumental. They just need X, Y, and Z, that person's identity.
Your friend is identity. The thing with them is their identity almost all the time.
Yeah. That's when it becomes a problem.
And I've got great empathy and sympathy because defense can become someone's personality, especially if at a younger age, that defense was their survival. Do you know what's interesting? And the Harvard Business Review did a study on this.
They wrote about this. Do you know that the more you go through, the less empathy you have? So you would think, let's say you've been through your hardships, you would think that because you've been through that stuff, you would have more empathy.
But as you rise through the ranks, you actually have less empathy because you've been through it, you've overcome it, and you kind of look at people like, can you please get it together? So, yes. And if you think about it, it makes sense because it's like, get through this.
I've gotten through this. Whereas if you're dealing with someone who hasn't gone through it or is in the lower ranks at work, they've got more empathy.
Because also think of it too, as you're going up in business, you're dealing with so many more people. You don't have the cognitive space or load to deal with everybody's stuff.

So sometimes when people come to me, my boss, my boss, and my response is, do you know how much your boss is probably juggling? It's not that they're a jerk. They're instrumental.
They're just trying to get stuff done. And you being where you are kind of lower in the hierarchy, you're not dealing with as much, trying to juggle as much.
And so you're looking for more empathy. You have more space, more time.
This person's up here. They're trying to keep that ship from sinking.
So that's where a lot of people sometimes get lost with their supervisors. So it's interesting too, because, you know, I even noticed that for myself, I try to have empathy, but there's moments where you're like, man, I'm, you know I even noticed that for myself I try to have empathy but there's moments where you're like man I'm you know it can be you want to control it on the inside but be like there's times where you're like can we please just get it together like it's it's not that big of a deal I've invested more than a million pounds into this company Perfect Ted and they're also a sponsor of this podcast I switched over to using Matcha as my dominant energy source, and that's where Perfect Ted comes in.
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That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash steven for $1,000 off. On our previous conversation, funnily enough, the most replayed moment in the conversation was where you talk about the dangers of victimhood.
Stop, really? Yes. Yeah, the most replayed moment.
Wow. I was quite surprised.
I think people don't, I think most people don't want to be there anymore. You know, because it's not working out for them.
It's not. That's why I think most people, most people, they're trying really hard.
Most people who will watch this podcast or watch things similar to this, they're really trying hard and they're trying to do better. I do believe that.
And I think that's why a moment like that, because they're like, I don't want to be here anymore. Just help me get the fuck out.
You know, I respect that because they're trying. Like they're trying really hard as opposed to somebody who's just like, I'm checked out.
And that really speaks to people just saying like, I know this isn't working. This isn't where I want to live.
This isn't where I want to be. And it's not getting me ahead in life.
You know, I always, again, I live by this credence. If I go tomorrow, am I okay to go? And it always set things right for me.
If you've lived in a way where you're like, I've done or tried to do these things, then you've lived a full life. But being a victim prevents you from living a full life.
If everyone is hurting you, if everyone's out to get you, if everyone's doing something to you, if everybody is sliding you, if this person and that person, how are you living a full life? If you're fighting everybody or pissed off at everybody because they disrespected you, they're not giving you what you need. They didn't validate this or validate that.
How will you ever get anything done? How will you ever be instrumental? It doesn't mean you need to be a CEO or a secret service agent. It doesn't mean you need to be anything like that.
Whatever your journey is, how will you ever achieve that if you're so easily distracted by all this nonsense? Who says you have to have respect by everybody? It's nice. I welcome it, but I'm not always going to get respect.
I can sit and check every single box off. I'll be respectful to you.
I'll be kind to you. I'll hand my things in our time.
I'll show up on time. I'll do all these things.
Check all those boxes. There are still no guarantees you'll give it to me.
I know. I was a former cop, former agent.
I didn't always get it. I was like, I hope I get it, but I don't need it.
But we tell people, you need this. Who says who? Who says I need everybody's respect? Who? And who am I to demand it? Who says I need everybody to like me? I don't want people to dislike me.
I'm not going to do things to make people dislike me, but I'm also like, I can't navigate my ship like that. And then at the same time, if you stop and think about it, when people are like, oh, get everyone to like you, be charismatic, pause.
Who are you making that about? You. You don't really care about the other person.
It's me. I want you to like me.
I want you to think I'm charismatic. Comes back to me.
Me, me, me, me, me. How about there's a little less me and more of how can I be of service to this person? How can I help this person? How can I be more generous to others? How can I give more instead of take so that I can feel fulfilled? It's all about me and my fulfillment, my identity.
Where am I going? Me, me, me. I think we need a little less of that.
And how about us, us, us? How about how can I help other people? How can I be of service? How can I be genuine? And that rig, this whole thing, give me tips so everybody likes me. Give me tips so I'm the smartest person in the room.
If I'm the smartest person in the room, Stephen, I'm in trouble. I want to be the biggest dummy.
Because I'm not learning anything from other people. And who am I to think I'm the smartest? Why would you want that? You see this marketing stuff come up and we feed people garbage.
And then we wonder why everybody is confused, why everybody has a void. Because we're telling them, you need more, you need more.
You are enough. You are steady, you are good.
Stop listening to all that. Be a genuine human being.
Try to do the right thing by people. Be careful.
Because not everyone's out to do the best thing for you. Because people in pursuit of their own self-interest, they will screw you over.
And that's okay. Just don't be shocked when it happens.
It happens. But move through steady and focus on being of service to others.
Everything, like bring it back. And it's like, stop thinking about you.
I promise you, you will have a better life. It'll be calmer.
It'll be quiet. You'll be less depressed, less anxious, less just because it's not all you.
You're in it with everybody else. There's something really interesting.
I mean, there's so many interesting things you said there. I mean, the two kind of highlight points for me were this idea of play the long game of just trying to serve other people and you'll achieve your objectives versus trying to do the short-term game of maybe being nicey and caring too much about how you appear, which might help you maybe in the moment, but it's almost a form of long-term sabotage.
And I guess this brings me to the question, which is like, should we try and make people like us? No, because it's fake. Because it's manipulation.
That's why I'm, who am I doing it for? If I'm trying to get you to like me, is that who you want? Or do you want the person who's going to come on this podcast and just have a genuine conversation and do her best to give you some valuable information to help people? Who do you want? You want me to be like, I hope Steven likes me.

I hope he thinks I'm smart.

I hope Steven thinks I'm a good guest.

I hope Steven invites me back.

Is that what you want?

And who did I just make all that about?

Do I give a shit about you and your podcast?

No.

Clearly, I just care about Evie.

That's the problem.

Because I'm manipulating you to fulfill myself.

That's where it goes wrong. If somebody likes you, it'll be genuine.
We don't manufacture it. It's disingenuous.
People feel it. And trying to be charming and charismatic.
First of all, major red flag for narcissistic personality disorder, number one. Really? Sure.
A lot of them are. In fact, when you see that, always ask yourself, what is motivating this person? I always think, what is motivating this person? So as I sit across from you, what's motivating you is you want to do a good podcast.
You have millions of people who listen. You want to give them good content.
Period. The end.
You seem to be a big fan of being authentic, right? As a person. I just want to be genuine and I don't want to be a bullshit artist.
Nobody wants to be bullshitted. I've experienced it.
Nobody likes it. And it's not being authentic.
It's just being genuine because also like you can't just walk into a room I'm like, I'm going to be me and whoever likes it, likes it. Like, good luck with that, right? You want to adapt to the environment and to people you're with and what mindset that they have and talking to them in a way that they understand, not you.
So that's a bit more adaptability and connecting with people. Even when I talk to businesses, a lot of times one of the big things is, and they're learning this, a lot of businesses are moving away from being transactional, making the sale, and just trying to get these short-term goals.
And what they're shifting toward, which is smart, is long-term relationships with people. Because if you have a long-term relationship with a, and they genuinely like you, not because you charm them or you trick them, but because they genuinely like you, they're genuinely going to want to stay with you and they're not going to want to leave and go do business somewhere else.
That's why being genuine works. And you can be genuine and disagree with someone too.
That holds better. People vibe other people quite a bit.
And they feel it. And if they feel your nonsense and they feel like you're tricking them or, you know, using tactics.
Even when I, sometimes I give keynotes and I'll tell them, I'm like, I'm not here to give you tips, tricks, or techniques. I'm not here for that.
I was like, can I ask you a question?

Do you like it when people use techniques on you? No. Do you like it when people use tricks on you?

No. So why would you do that? And why would you think that's going to take you places?

It'll take you somewhere short-term, long-term, people are going to drop you. I was watching your BBC Maestro recording, which, by the way, is fantastic.
And I highly recommend to anybody who hasn't seen it to go and check it out. It's basically like a, it takes everything you're saying, it kind of turns it into a bit of a course.
And there was a line you said in it, which I thought was quite interesting, which is, I wish you as much rejection as possible, because that will increase your self-confidence. You're also saying that in the BBC Maestro piece, that confidence is the number one thing you get asked about.
I wish you as much rejection as possible. That kind of goes back to what we were saying earlier about how like going through difficult shit is the best way to build a thicker skin.
But who on earth wants to go through rejection? Who on earth, what kind of psychopath is going to self-elect to go through rejection? Person who wants to build their resilience. because when you deal with it, so the BBC Maestro course is the art of influence, how to influence others.
So going back to the ethos of that course was, and I say it at the beginning, I'm not here to give you tips, tricks, or techniques, because that's not going to influence people. We're not trying to trick people or manipulate people to get things out of them, because that's not going to help anybody in the long term.
It won't help you in the long term. Influence is having the ability to have people to want to be around us, to have people to want to work with us, to have people who want to talk to us.
That's what influence is, genuine influence, like how we push that out there. Also in the class where I talk about rejection because we split it up into certain parts.
And one of the parts was your ability to understand yourself, kind of like you can't influence other people if you don't understand yourself. And so part of that is how resilient are you? How steady are you? And you don't build those things unless you deal with rejection, unless you deal with people pushing back.
Maybe be a psychopath and embrace the things that everybody else is too terrified to embrace. Everyone's so scared of being rejected.
So why don't you be the deviant? Don't be like everybody else and be like, I'm ready for it. I'm good with it.
Because the more you deal with it, the better you are at dealing with it. And you're going to get it anyway.
On that point of better understanding yourself, the other thing I found was this thing you talk about, which is the animal wheel, which is a framework that helps people understand themselves by finding out what their communication style is. I'll put this animal wheel on the screen for people that are watching on video, but for people that can't see because they're listening on Spotify or Apple or somewhere else, what can you explain to me what this animal wheel is? So that was created by researchers, Dr.
Lawrence and Emily Allison. They're actually in the UK and they created a way to break behavior down, behavior of people.
They actually watched thousands of hours of interview tapes, law enforcement, intelligence, and they were coding people's behavior. So basically, they were like, what behavior is this person? So there's two important things.
One is we don't label people. We label behavior.
You label behavior because people change. People are fluid.
For the most part, people are fluid. So I need to look at who do I have across from me in this moment.
So how they identified behavior of people, they gave them four animal archetypes. Lion, monkey, mouse, T-Rex.
Lion is someone who's in charge, setting the agenda. I'm in control.
That's lion. When you have your meetings with your team and you're the one talking and your team's sitting listening, you're lion in that moment.
He's in charge, setting the agenda. Mouse is a person who is patient, looking to learn.
They're trying to get information. They're eager.
They're humble, seeking guidance. It can be the people on your team who are sitting quietly because they're trying to learn.
Probably in some sense right now, you and I switch back and forth from lying, and then our viewers, they're all mouse. They're all here, humble, seeking guidance.
What can I learn? That's that, But it's fluid. Now, a person who is monkey, monkey is an animal where you're social, you're warm, you're talking to people.
Hi, how are you? Good. How are you? That's what that is, right? And then they're probably going to be that back to you, right? Bad monkey, which you probably get a lot, is, hey, Steve, I got a great idea.
Can I just share it with you? Hey, let me just pitch you something real quick. That's pleading.
That's desperate. That's really wanting something.
Now, the other animal is T-Rex. T-Rex, which is something I tend to lean a little bit more towards, which I work very hard not to be, but that's a person who is direct, frank, and forthright.
It's also a person who sounds just like the animal. You're more ready to fight.
Like something happens and you're like, let's go. There's a good version of that.
There's a bad version of that. All of these have a good and bad version, but that's T-Rex.
The key to people is not for you to dominate. The key to people is for you to identify the person in front of you in that moment and then adapt to that behavior.
So if I've got, for example, if you're a lion and I'm trying to be a lion, we're both competing. Nothing's going to happen.
Like, you're going to be talking and I'm going to be trying to talk over you. It doesn't work.
But if I see, okay, right now Stephen's lying. He's the one talking.
He's guiding the conversation. He's doing this meeting.
I'm going to go mouse. I'm going to be humble seeking guidance.
Yes, Stephen, I'm listening. I want to learn.
So the wheel actually helps you identify who you have in front and then where do you go based on what you have in front. Now, if I'm dealing with someone who's monkey, I go to this event.
You're going to this event. People are talking to you.
When you have monkey, you also display monkey, which is warm, social, respectful. However you want to be aware of, like when people are the bad version of that, which is they're trying to sell you something, they want something from you.
You maintain that warm, social, respectful, but you realize I've got bad monkey in front of me. I need to keep distance.
And T-Rex is, if I've got someone who's T-Rex, it just means being direct, frank, and forthright. But it also teaches you how to deal with another T-Rex.
That story you told me earlier, that guy that you checked, that you had checked, he was being T-Rex. He was attacking you behind your back.
He's still attacking you because you can attack somebody, not to their face, but behind their back. You gossip, you slander, you hurt their reputation.
That's T-Rex. That's bad T-Rex, by the way.
So you had bad T-Rex and then you came in. I don't think you were bad T-Rex.
You came in as good T-Rex, but you were frank, forthright, and direct. You said, hey, I heard about that stuff you just said outside to this person.
If you have something to say, please say it to me. You're actually good T-Rex.
You address them. And what happens is when you have T-Rex, you have to be T-Rex too.
You just can't be bad T-Rex where you're patronizing, sarcastic, and insulting people. But you come in and you be direct, frank, and forthright, and you address the person.
It's okay to address people. It's okay not to let stuff slide, so long as you are regulating your behavior.
But the way you do this is these animals help you realize, who do I have in front of me? It also helps you realize, who am I more? I know when I see this, I'm T-Rex, hands down. I have to work on it.
But some people, when we talked about people who are very subservient or weak or dismissive or avoidant, for them, they're mouse, bad mouse. And when you realize like I go mouse a lot, then that tells you, you know what? I need to be a little bit more lying in my life.
So on this wheel, the reason why it's a wheel is because the behavior that I'm getting is on the outside and the response that I should give them is the thing on the inside. Is that right? There's four animals.
Each animal has a good version and a bad version. Good version lion is I'm in charge.
I'm setting the agenda. I'm a boss who's really just trying to guide and lead his team.
Bad version of lion, which is outside that outer perimeter. Dogmatic, demanding, rigid.
This is the way I want it. This is the way it's going to be done because I want it like this.
So how do I know using this wheel, which response I should give? So you're telling me that on the outside of the wheel is the bad version of that animal. And on the inside of the wheel is the good version of that animal.
How do I find which response to give based on the behavior? So first, you always want to stay in the good wheel. You always want to stay as a good animal.
Like you don't want people to pull you out. And that's where it talks about self-regulation because it's very easy for people to pull you into their bad wheel, their bad animal.

Okay. And so that's one.
So you always want to stay in that center part. Okay? So if I've got – it works two ways.
If I've got line in front of me, I have to be mouse because the conversation won't work. We'll flip.
So if I've got line in front of me, you're setting the agenda, you're controlling the conversation.

I have to allow it to happen to you. Here's why.
If I try to talk or cut you off, you're not listening. In fact, it's going to piss you off even more.
In fact, there was a big beverage company, I won't say which, a coffee company, a very well-known one, that came to me and said, we have a problem with clients. They come in, we give them the wrong version of what they asked for, and sometimes they lose their mind.
They had one client that came in, customer, and the manager said, I thought they were going to assault the person behind the register. We actually fixed their drink, and they were still just being very belligerent.
According to that wheel, that person was T-Rex. T-Rex, so attacking.
Punitive. Sarcastic.
And they would flow back and forth between T-Rex and lying because they were trying to control the conversation. They were like, we fixed the order, we apologized, but it kept escalating.
What did I do? What did we do wrong? What they did wrong was they kept interrupting and trying to stop the behavior of that person. That person was in this aggressive state, lion slash T-Rex.
And when you have somebody there, you have to let them go. Because by interrupting the person and telling them, calm down, we're going to this, what does that do? It aggravates people more.
Let me vent. Let me say what I need to say.
One of the ways you deal with that kind of behavior is let them go. So long as you're not in danger or someone's trying to hurt you, let it go.
When they are done, then you can talk, but they're not listening to you.

That's why the wheel helps, because if I've got a lion and he's trying to control, he's being dogmatic, trying to control the conversation,

then I come in and say, hey, look, calm down.

I got you another drink.

I'm not letting you talk.

I'm competing with you.

It doesn't work.

That's why it escalates. Let people go.

Be mouse.

It's hard to be mouse because people's ego won't let them be mouse.

It's hard to sit there and take it.

But if you can put your ego to the side, which you should put to the side.

In fact, we had a saying in the interview room.

Check your ego at the door.

Because if you bring your ego in, you're done.

So you want to put yourself aside and be able to manage the behavior.

That requires your ability to be like, I know what I'm seeing. And this always goes back to, I don't need to address every little thing because I feel I'm being slighted.
I see what I have. I've got a line in front of me.
Let him finish or her. I'm going to be mouse.
I'm going to sit and listen, humble seeking guidance. And then when they're done, now I talk.
Because also they're ready to listen. But when you keep interrupting people, they're not ready to hear you.
I mean, you see that a lot with bad cops, right? So they pull someone over to arrest them and the person becomes a T-Rex that they're trying to arrest. They start insulting them.
And then the cop ends up getting a disciplinary case because they react like a T-Rex. They take the bait.
If the person's calling you F, Y, Z, whatever, they then start doing it back and elbowing them and are getting aggressive. And then you see these other examples of really exceptional police where they're being verbally insulted and they have total composure.

Yeah.

And it's like they're unfazed.

It's because of their ego.

And they really try hard.

In the U.S., in the U.K., you have a national police force.

That means it's one hiring process, one police commissioner,

you know, one person of authority.

In the United States, there's 17,000 law enforcement entities.

They all have their own leader.

The problem is their training is different. So, for example, when I went into the NYPD, they gave me a psychology test to take.
It's something similar, if not the MMPI-2, which is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. What they try to see is what behaviors I have.
Am I narcissistic? Am I hypochondriac? What issues are going on within me to avoid scenarios like that? You have to be steady because people are going to pull you into their nonsense. People, you can't sit there in law enforcement and be baited.
If you get baited, it's a problem. You shouldn't be wearing the uniform.
You shouldn't be wearing the badge. I'm not saying you need to sit there and be hurt by someone or take physical abuse.
But you need to be able to control your mouth and your behavior. Even if your mouth is...
You said something earlier, which I think is an important point of nuance here, which is it doesn't mean you have to be passive. It just means that when you, as you said, decide to burn it down, you're doing it intentionally, not being controlled by some emotional puppet master.
If you're in law enforcement, and I was like, nobody was, first of all, nobody's happy to see you. Firemen, they're happy to see them.
No one's happy to see law enforcement. I've never been greeted in the interview room or even anywhere out there where they're like, hey, special agent, come on in.
So glad you're here. They're not happy to see you because A, somebody's getting arrested.
B, something bad happened. C, you're about to arrest somebody that they care about.
It's all bad news. So you have to go in there understanding that.
But if you're offended, you're looking to be respected, that badge is not for that. You are there to be a peacekeeper, and you have to manage your behavior.
I remember NYPD Academy, they would take us to the FDR highway and the FDR runs around the east side of Manhattan by the East River. And sometimes they take you there and we'd go running and they'd have us run like long distances.
People are driving by, you're doing 50, 60 miles an hour. When I say they're blowing past you, they're blowing past you.
And this was pre-9-11 when I was going through the academy. They're spitting on you or trying to spit on you, cursing you, giving you the finger, calling you a pig, calling you all sorts of names.
So the first time I experienced this, I'm young, we're running and somebody hollered something at us. I said something.
I actually stopped running and turned around and started yelling back. And my instructor, the PT instructor, the police officer grabbed me.
He's like, you don't do that. He's like, this isn't for you if you're going to do that.
You have to manage yourself. Because when you go out onto the street, people will hate you.
And if you can't control yourself, you're not going to be able to manage this. That was the first time I learned, like, that is not the way you earn respect.
You need to manage yourself. So controlling others starts with self-control.

Yeah. Also, what does that say about me, that I'm quick to respond to something like that?

In the study you referenced about the animals, I read that the interviewers who were most successful at getting information

were able to switch between different communication styles.

Interviewers who were most successful understood the suspect's communication style as well as their own.

And it made me think, to be successful, do I then need to be able to adopt all of these communication styles context-dependent?

Because I can think of a lot of people in my life that basically don't have a line or a T-Rex in them. They just give mouse everywhere they go.
I can think of some people who I could just never imagine a world where they were demanding, dogmatic, rigid, in charge, guiding, leading, frank, forthright, direct, attacking, sarcastic. They are just like, nice, nice.
Okay. So when you're dealing with them, you're going to look at, if we're going to use the animals.
I mean more, how do those people be successful? They're not. They're not successful.
They're going to have a hard time because they've made themselves, they've suppressed themselves so much for whatever reason, they can't lead. No one, I'm going to tell you this.
There's nothing wrong with mouse. Actually, if you had to default to any one of those animals, mouse would be it.
Mouse is king. I love mice.
I think everybody loves mice. They're the most likable people.
They are. And monkeys.
Yes. But mouse is good because you're humble seeking guidance.
It means that you're saying less. It means you're listening.
You're also gathering information. So if I'm trying to figure Steven out, I'm going to get more information from Steven when I'm not talking and when I ask good questions rather than me talking.
A lot of people think I need to be lying, in charge, setting the agenda. You can be, and there's times for that.
Like if you're a leader, you need to be lying from time to time. You do.
But mouse overall is the one who gets the most. It's the one who gets the most information, so long as you're good mouse.
Good mouse is humble, seeking guidance. Stephen, tell me what you're looking for in a partnership.
Okay? Help me understand what matters to you most. And I shut the fuck up and I'm going

to let Steven show me everything he cares about, his values, his beliefs. I'm going to understand Steven and I'm going to learn a lot about him so that I can speak more intelligently to Steven about what Steven cares about.
Not what I care about, what you care about. However, you also don't want to be the bad version of mouse.

And that's where it's weak submissive avoidant and this is where you become that and this is where people pray and victimize you i can be mouse i can ask questions i can learn but i want to make sure that i don't cross over to the malignant part of that,

which is I'm so conflict-averse and so afraid of it that I will make myself completely small

to the point where other people will just steamroll me.

Can mice be leaders? Because I know some mice. And if I was employing those people,

I would absolutely never make someone a leader who hasn't got a little bit of line in them.

It would be irresponsible.

It would frankly be irresponsible.

It would be unfair on them because they're going to be challenged by the people that they are leading.

And in order for them to withstand those challenges in a calm, composed, as it says on this little wheel,

in charge, guiding and leading way like a lion does,

Thank you. And in order for them to withstand those challenges in a calm, composed, as it says on this little wheel, in charge, guiding and leading way like a lion does, they're going to need to have a bit of lion in them.
You want to be all of those animals. You want a balance of all of them.
That's what you want to strive for. You want a balance of all those in the good sense, right? The good version of those animals.
But you need to know when am I supposed to be lying? So if I'm a leader, if I'm a business person, if you're selecting someone to put in charge of a group, they have to have some lying in them. They can't all be a mouse because no one's going to listen.
What if I'm negotiating a pay rise? If you're negotiating a pay raise, first of all, you're going to come in with all your homework done. You're not going to come in and go, I think I deserve a raise.
I feel like I deserve a raise. You know, I've been here for a long time.
You're going to come in with a list of facts and you're going to say, I closed this deal and made this much money. I closed this account with this person.
I made this much money. I did this in a year.
I generated this amount of money. I'm going to list the facts so I can articulate to you why you should give me that raise.
That's on you. I think, I feel, I believe.
And then your boss can turn around and be like, well, I think, I feel, I believe that you shouldn't get one. It's so ambiguous.
When you come in with facts, it's a hard thing to fight. Now, when you're going into that meeting, if I'm the one asking for the raise, I'm going to go in as lion.
I'm in charge. I'm setting the agenda because I'm the one asking for a raise.
So I'm going to come in with my facts methodical. I'm going to be good lion.
Sir, hi, Stephen. I just wanted to talk to you.
I'm looking to increase my compensation here well now you're just bad lying you want to let the guy even if it here's the thing let's assume it's no you're like in your head you're like there's no way you're going to let the person talk you're going to let the person feel heard even if it's like a no. Because what's most important is to let them feel like you actually listen.

But what if I say no to you, then what do you do?

Who do you become?

Do you become mouse?

I just said absolutely not. So I would say, okay, I'd say, could you explain to me why?

I don't want to give you a pay raise.

I think, you know, when I think about who I'd rather have that money, me or you, I think me.

Well, so you've got actually T-Rex right there.

How do you deal with it?

So if it's T-Rex, if it's a person who's trying to kind of push back and fight you,

you have to deal with T-Rex.

One of the things that they teach you with the animal wheels,

the only time you swap is mouse and lion because two people can't be in charge. So that's the only time.
But when you have T-Rex, one of the things they teach you with the animal wheels the only time you swap is mouse and line because two people can't be in charge so that's the only time but when you have t-rex one of the things they teach you is you have to deal with t-rex so you have to be the good t-rex which is frank okay so you said that you prefer the money go to you and not to me okay so bad t-rex to remind people is attacking sarcastic etc yeah bad t-rex would be like well you're an idiot You're ridiculous. You're a jerk.
And good T-Rex is frank, forthastic, et cetera. Yeah.
Bad T-Rex would be like, well, you're an idiot. You're ridiculous.
Well, you're a jerk. And good T-Rex is frank, forthright, and direct.
Yeah. So you're saying you're not going to give me a raise because you want to keep all the money for yourself.
Correct. And not for me.
Okay. Well, I don't know if I can continue to stay here if that's going to be the case.
Right? You can, I've been here for X amount of years. I've generated X amount of dollars.
And so that's going to be an issue for me and my ability to stay and work here. I'm being direct, frank, and forthright.
Address people. You can address people and it doesn't have to be ugly.
Now, again, you can't control their behavior, but you can control yours. So you just want to make sure that a person who's behaving like that, that you don't get pulled into that behavior.
You just want to stay on the good wheel of it. It's all self-regulation, but you also don't want to be afraid to deal with people.
That's why dealing with rejection and tough personalities and hard people, it's good practice. Every time somebody like that comes along, I want you to think, I'm practicing, I'm practicing, I'm practicing.
Don't be afraid of it. And then it also allows you to work on your T-Rex.
Because if you have a hard time with it, it allows you to work that muscle. It allows you to learn how to deal with people who get in your face while managing yourself.
You're going to have folks like that. I think it's what, I was listening to one researcher, one in every 25 people are either going to be a psycho, they're going to have antisocial personality disorder, which is like psychopath, sociopath type of behavior, or narcissistic personality disorder.
One of these extreme behaviors which lack empathy. One in 25

people, that means one out of every 25 people you meet are going to be trying to slap you around. Buckle up.
We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for. And the question that has been left for you in the diary of a CEO is,

on your deathbed,

what do you want your legacy to be?

I want to have given something to the world.

I want to have added value to the world rather than taken from it. That's what I would like on my deathbed.
And I think also I just wanted to have lived a good life. When I say good, I don't mean problem-free or anything like that.
I mean just I've lived it to my fullest, and I can leave the world with that piece. Everybody needs to go listen to your BBC Maestro course.
It's really fantastic. There's a lot of courses on there, but I think yours stands out for so many reasons.
You actually pull in some experts who have trained you on various things in the past to be part of that course. So I'll link that below.
But also, this book has been an absolute revelation to so many people. I think in part because it's so unbelievably easy to read for everyone.
You don't need to be a super advanced psychologist or a professor like you are to understand all of these strategies and tactics. And it has everything.
I think if I was in the contents page, and just to give people a flavor of the subjects that you talk about, it's everything from overcoming fear, mental resilience, if you must fight, then fight, things we've talked about today, the parts about how to influence people, the subjects about everybody lying, all the stuff we've talked about and so, so much more is in this book. So I recommend if you haven't read it, I know a lot of people have because they tag me in it all over the place.
I highly recommend you read the book, Becoming Bulletproof, Life Lessons from a Secret Service Agent. Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me. You're so full of wisdom and you remind me of so many things that I seem to quickly forget every time we speak and you're helping so many people and the legacy that you aspire to have is most certainly the legacy that you're on course to create by everything that you do, by the millions of people that you've served and there's something about you that's very, very special.
There's some sort of relatability, there's a wisdom, there's a frankness and a no bullshitness but then there's also the balance and the nuance and the

understanding that the truth is often somewhere in the middle, which I think is incredibly important

for people. So thank you for being who you are and doing all that you do.
It's a privilege to

speak to you once again. And I hope we speak again in the future.
I appreciate you. Thank you.