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!

26:12That's what you do. You stop asking people. And if you're gonna ask somebody, let's say it's a health decision. You're gonna go to a doctor or you're gonna go to someone who has specific knowledge about a decision you are trying to make. You're not gonna go to mom, you're not gonna go to dad, you're not gonna go to your brother, you're not gonna 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, it's start making decisions without running them by anybody.

26:48What to eat, where to go, where to vacation. Just 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, 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's seat Or we might even get kicked to the back seat and then we'll piss off like why are you driving like that? Why are you going that way? That's not really where I want to go and 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 gonna 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.

27:34Going 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 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 validity in yourself, even if they're the wrong decisions. That's not the point. Be a decision maker in your life.

28:17That 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 fall. 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 though I always say just remove yourself and go in go quiet when you can go quiet and being that stillness of you, it will come to you over time.

29:01And you know what's another great thing? And 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. Okay, 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.

29:45And 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 gonna get advice so this goes back to you Do I open my mouth? What do I stay quiet because if I open my mouth and I start talking people are gonna start sharing and So when people 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.

30:27I 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 what's gonna 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 gonna 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.

31:07I stay, I will tell you I usually stay quiet until I'm ready to It's either done, like it's happened because so many times you'll do something and it falls through and it 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 we're always talking. I think talking talking talking talking although I think communication is good But sometimes it's over sharing and over putting our stuff out there How are you gonna have boundaries when you yourself violate those boundaries? Like you just make yourself like open borders, everybody come in.

31:48If you're a bit more methodical with who you share what with and why, I think that's okay. But when you're like literally like tallying everybody, even if it's like what drop 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, girl 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, every what's, you know, can you can you share something with me? I was like, stop. I was like, stop talking to everybody.

32:25Why 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 gonna be doing that, you're gonna be doing that on what you should do. Do you see a little bit of the ridiculousness of how you aren't 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.

33:07I 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. Kili, she doesn't trust herself, though. No. And then maybe just a 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 over 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.

33:48I think that they 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. Say, hey, Steve, in this heavy, can I run something by you? Sure, Evie, no problem.

34:25What do you want to run by me? You can create those two. 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 of procrastination and fear.

35:04What does she actually have to do? She just has to make a choice and do it. Pick one and do it. There's no there's no perfect choice, Evie. But there isn't. There's no there's no there's no way to know how it's going to pan out. There's no way to know. Just choose 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.

35:43It'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 as a secret service agent, I imagine, isn't possible.

36:17So 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? than my next step, than 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 a protecti -getting shot, all the way can seem emotionally as 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.

37:06That'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 is 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.

37:38I'm confused. I'm really upset about this. I can't believe I'm finding myself here. Now I'm in that purgatory space. I'm 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.

38:17If they're not perfectly still, I mean we would shoot paper targets. You miss. You're stressed out, you're motion, you're looking at this guy shooting, that person shooting, am I shooting like shit? You know, because everyone's looking at each other scores and you know, if you don't shoot well, they're gonna 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.

38:47And 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've followed 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.

39:26If you can just stay in Ginesis movement you'll be able to move through whatever it is you're going through. I remember interview he's 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 about a 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.

40:02You'll learn something, even if it means something, 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. 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 to? 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.

40:41Sometimes 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? Where do I go to next? There's 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.

41:16Do you know it actually activates the same part of the brain that's activated when you do cocaine? So it becomes addictive. Yeah, 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, I always look at is what I am doing leading me to the path I wanna 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 victim herd or fear or procrastination, do you think that victim herd is addictive?

41:55I think it becomes a habit. I don't think most people want to be there. If you ask anybody, you know what he'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 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.

42:52Week submissive avoid it. 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're a 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 mentored 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 and go submissive, avoidant. This person down here is just trying to keep the peace. I don't want conflict, I don't want to set them off. But what you do is you go deeper and deeper and deeper.

43:30And 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 and the relationship. They become louder, stronger, dogmatic, demanding, rigid. And then that happens over time. 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?

44:11And 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 the truth is that stuff does happen, right?

44:52And 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 Jen and Barbara. I had Barbara. So she went there to do like philanthropic work aid and we were going to some really like not safe areas, right? A lot of vulnerabilities, a lot of concerns.

45:27So I set up the briefing on the person in charge and agents are coming from different parts of the country to help supplement. Some agents I've never met. I remember one guy who walks in. And he's like, oh, hey, hi. So this isn't the whole tell room we're having the briefing. No one's there yet. Just him and I, hi. How are you? Okay. 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 intern. I was part of the entourage, but not an actual agent. And so I'm like, actually, no, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the assistant detail leader here.

46:10You know, thank you for joining. What off to you, for? 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 doesn't become annoying, but this is like where you gotta be like, it's where you You have to pick your battles. You can't fight everybody. Oh my God, Stephen, imagine how exhausted you'd be if you fought every buffoon you came your way. Some people literally have designed their life to fight buffoons. Right. And I'm busy.

46:46I 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 US Secret Service Field Office was in the World Trade Center, seven. 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 obviously in a place like that, the office space needs to be designed a specific way for what we're doing.

47:28Again, non -descript, 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. HDTV. Here we go. So I said, all right, no problem. So I did. I'm like, I'm gonna do it.

48:13I'm gonna own it. And I remember some of the women were like, aren't you? I'm like, no worries. I was like, I'm gonna 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 put your name and 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 like dude, no way.

48:49No one's going to confess to me. They're going to see me. They're going I five each other. I'm never putting my name in. He's like, put your name in. You don't know. I wait till like the last Half hour before they call it a bid closes and I throw my name in. I'm like, it's not gonna 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 said, 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?

49:26And 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, 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 them out.

50:06I 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 was in that fault. And I also looked at, you know what, too? I also looked at the opportunity because now I got to work with people and headquarters that I never would have gotten exposed to. And like all the historic archive stuff. So there was a part of it.

50:42I 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. In 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 slided you. And I have noticed that the more I care, the more of a detriment it is to me. And that less I care, the better I perform overall. All I'm saying is just choose strategically. Don't choose just cause you're pissed. Cause if you're doing it cause you're pissed, now you're being ruled by emotion.

51:25And anytime you make choices by emotion, you're gonna 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. That's the end of the motion. Yeah, they just, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. And then they might like relax later on your fucking, oh, 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 gonna sink your ship completely.

52:00I mean, you're not thinking through things. I mean, you are just, you have no self -regulation. I self -regulate. Don't get me wrong. There's times where I'm like, I'm gonna 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 gonna 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 gonna 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.

52:38Exactly. 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 showed it. I started to shut up. But I just started to be quiet. When I'm pissed, I go quiet. I don't say anything. Like when you, I think that's the biggest thing. I learn to be quiet. I just learn to shut my mouth. Not to reveal your upcoming book, but I know that one of the 100 principles in that book is called...

53:20100 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 in decisive you are, the more, the more, the more, 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.

53:55There 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 great. It's a big thing. Like, oh, but that's going to 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 Queens Narcotics Unit. Sorry guys, this is a true story.

54:34And 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 showed up and they were not happy to see me. Not at all. And I remember walking in. I don't know if I would have done it 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.

55:17And 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 old 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 just regarding us.

55:51And 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 they were more arrests, I was like, don't send me out there.

56:27And 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.

56:46Send a and win that? 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. My girl sells 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 gonna come in and build those 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.

57:22And 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, Yahoo's couldn't become a special agent if you're, you know, 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. Cause it was that egregious. It was egregious and I thought it was a danger to me. and also 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 Nortotics, Narchotics Task Force, and they're not communicating, they're withholding information, someone's gonna get shot.

57:55I was like, and that's on them, not on me, but I'm also not gonna 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.

58:34But 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? I don't want to say silly, but what's really not important and where, you know, what's like, hey, I want to dress this with you and this is why.

59:19So for me, that takes hierarchy. Who your partner is? I talked about that before. Bar none. That is really such a crux of how well you're going to do in life. They're going to raise you up. Are they going to sink you down? So that matters. 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?

1:00:04I'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 her spears. 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 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, etc. 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.

1:00:37I've actually, 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's that next to me, disrespecting me because I wasn't her boss. So now that I have this responsibility, it's a big thing for me that we don't employ ourselves in decades. And there's actually a recent example where someone was in our business for a total of a couple of hours.

1:01:18And actually in my previous company, there was a guy that walked in during his initiation. He went like this and walked off. They won of his job. He put both middle fingers up after his initiation, where initiation we basically ask them questions, ask them what they're into, who they are, but both middle fingers up and walked off. There's a last time anyone's swimming the building. And it was a sign of a characteristic that would lead to further disrespect. So if I'm sat next to you at work, Evy, 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.

1:01:55And 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? OK, 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.

1:02:30Okay, fine. So this is what happens. This is not actually what happened in my life. Do you do this? I do. No, no, no, no. In fact, 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 up for call and I go, you know what, you should 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.

1:02:58Just tell them that you're calling with a handle it and I carry on with my day. What are you gonna do in that moment? I might not do anything. What 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 as 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. Yeah. 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.

1:03:33I 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 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.

1:04:08You 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. 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. 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.

1:04:46Yeah. 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 gonna confront someone like you did, you did it the smart way because you picked a specific moment. You said specifically, out on the hallway, you just did this. You said, X, Y, and Z. If you wanna say something to me, feel always feel free to come say it to me. That's why I also think it worked. When you're also in a place where you feel like you can do that.

1:05:18I 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, cuz I don't I don't be anywhere where I'm miserable Exactly you made it, but you made 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 cuz bullies they're not They flex. They're not very powerful. I had, oh gosh, we're like swapping stories here.

1:05:52I had one scenario where I inherited a case. Every John's gone, 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 had been filled out. But 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 bummed 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.

1:06:27It's the admin thing for the evidence. I'm like, I can help you go through it. Oh, blah, blah, blah. Well, the group leader I had at the time, which was a peer. In front of the whole group, one day is like, hey, you didn't do this admin. You didn't file the evidence for whatever blah, 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. So I'm watching this happen. And I assure you, all I wanted to do was like reach over and lunge by the neck, but I didn't.

1:07:02I left. I was pissed. I let it ride, my anger ride, and later that day, I went and I found them after I calmed down. And his name was Jeff. And my K -Jeff, come here. Let me talk to you. And I took him into the stairwell, because we had these secure stairwells. And 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 dress me because he was very insulting when he didn't, he didn't in front of the whole group to flex.

1:07:40I said, if you ever want to dress 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 terrible. I said, so if you want to dress me, feel free to pull me to the side and speak to me. But what you did out there, there's no need. were 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 easily tore your head off in there. And he was a peer.

1:08:12He 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 gonna be a next time. It was immediately, I'm sorry, you're right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Now for that, so Nariya, I wanted to have long -term good relationships because it's a person with it's 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 were to shot back, he would have shot back at me, I would have shot back at him.

1:08:46And there's a point to where I'm like, I don't want to look like an, I don't want to sit and fight and look stupid. I want to be in control of 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 tickly at looking at 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, gonna have a private chat with you.

1:09:22And 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? What are you talking about?

1:09:52I don't know what you mean. No, it'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.

1:10:27But I feel like you were 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 there actually going in search of the weakest link? And the incredible thing that happened in this scenario that I'm describing is, once this individual realise 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.

1:11:10And I say to this person, I say, why don't you just do what I did? Why, because she saw me confront. I say, well, why don't you go just do what I did and she just haven't got in. I don't want conflict. So what is she doing, actually? She's becoming. So pressing herself. Yes. Yeah, 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 narcotic story. It's like, she says, 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.

1:11:49Speaking of billies, I'm gonna bring it back to crime. When I started interviewing suspects, you watch TV shows, and in your head, you think these predators are really intimidating, scary predators, the way they behave, and you think, I'm gonna get these 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.

1:12:32I would sit across people in a room who did like really horrific crimes against kids, and you 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 high apex individuals, they're not. They pray 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 avoid and you look to fill that void by taking from other people. And that's what makes you feel strong.

1:13:11All 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, oh, not once. Everybody I'd walk in and I'm like, you? In my head, of course, the inside voice. Like, you do this? And so I guess like bullies like I think sometimes we Unfortunately give them more weight And gravitas Then they really are weak weakness all the way through With that in mind, how do I stoke myself becoming prey to a predator? You stop acting like prey.

1:13:56So the one thing you're not gonna be is and 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. I'm not going to be your friend. I'm 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. But because then I set the tone of like, well, is every my friend or is every my boss?

1:14:36What am I dealing with here? 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 stuff relationship like that? You just got to be really, really, really, really good. But don't come in and literally make yourself a dormant or overextend to the point because the more you overextend even a good person, it's 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.

1:15:15So 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 like the sea, you want to keep the sea saw level. They don't 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.

1:15:52Let'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.

1:16:27I'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.

1:17:08All 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 barnun were picked. You know, 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.

1:17:57That 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 parallel linguistics, and I wrote about it a lot of being coming, bulletproof, your voice. Do I talk like this? Hi, maybe 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?

1:18:38But when I find my true voice and I own it, I slow down my speech. I bring down my petonan 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 wanna take up anybody's time anymore. I know you're all busy. What 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.

1:19:16I 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 your 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.

1:20:01And 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 wanna 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.

1:20:34He's like, yeah, it does. Cause she's my mom. She's an authority. And also she has a higher voice. Cause she talks with a very high voice. And I'm like, you're right. And so even with my daughter, cause 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 pitch 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, mama! Because I want her to have a strong commanding presence. And where's she gonna learn that from? Her mom. In fact, even in their studies done that even in scenarios where a child may be favored the opposite sex parent, they imitate the same sex parent.

1:21:21So 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'm not talking about, you won't either.

1:22:07In fact, when you watch any news anchor, like you will hear, like they've got a strong anchored voice, because even with breaking news, stuff changes all the time. You know, I remember I was covering the recent shoes and 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. This, the way you sound has more impact than the words you actually say.

1:22:45That's a big thing. I didn't really, 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 when I'm like, man, that's what I sound like. I don't know if you've ever had that. Maybe when you first started on... Oh, yeah, of course. ...when 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.

1:23:18To show 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. LinkedIn, who's a sponsor of this podcast to some of the strongest hiring dates are available to help you identify the best candidates for your business. their platform will even pair you with those who match what you're looking for, which might lie outside of the job description and more in their unique skills and interests.

1:23:52Because these days hiring isn't just about finding the most qualified person, but also finding the one whose experience abilities and interests align with your company's mission. And it goes beyond candidates who are applying for jobs too. In any given week, 171 million members who aren't actively seeking jobs are open to new opportunities. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn and start today by posting your job for free just by visiting linkdin .com slash D O A C. Your hands, you use your hand a lot as well. Yes, probably go them 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.

1:24:36And it is persuasive because it almost is adding another layer of emphasis to what you're saying. Whereas if your hands were just tucked into the table, I actually might think you're less confident or sure in what you're saying. But because you're like, again, it goes to what you're saying, you're taking more space up. So don't hide your hands. Like just for anybody listening, 101, if you're sitting in a meeting, don't do it. 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 sends like your kind of insecure, you don't want to be there.

1:25:03Hands out, I'm here, I'm present. And yes, with the, 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. That's more emphasis. You said it. It adds another layer aside from me just sitting still, right? It engages people and pulls in the you were a bit more. It's more engaging. That's one. The other thing with illustrators is it can be a cultural cultural thing. I'm Greek, I'm from New York, so I've got massive problem with these things.

1:25:38I 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's 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 after 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.

1:26:19So 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 the 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, OK, Evie's used illustrators this whole time. I shifted the conversation. I asked her something else. Not her handsman 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 behaviors different, we're not going to put people in a box because that's just dumb.

1:27:02However, what you're noticing is a deviation. Whenever you tell stories, you use your hands. And then for whatever reason, I asked a question that question prompted something in an every and every 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 it's not because they're going from their natural state of flow and whatever to more calculated and they're thinking, they're like over thinking.

1:27:37Part 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, like, 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.

1:28:23But 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, every 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. When I'm 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.

1:28:59A 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? Yeah, 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.

1:29:57I can be aligned if I'm not truly believing that I'm confident and high value in myself. So fake it to your make it or do you have to do some in a work? I don't believe in fake it to your 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. Steven 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.

1:30:35I'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 prayer and 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, I'd pay attention to my posture.

1:31:08And I would sit and do the news of my shoulders back, like in my head. I'm like, shoulders back, shoulders back, shoulders back. Because there were times where you watch myself or even during commercial break, my husband was sending me a text, he's like, Jesus, he's like, sit up straight. You look terrible. He's like, no, he'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 you, 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.

1:31:39Just 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 this. It's just, just be here. Just be like somewhere in the middle. You know, and it is speaking of which it reminds me of, and this is kind of something a little bit different, but we talked about steadiness earlier.

1:32:15Like 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, a person who brought it more to my attention, you had her on Gabrielle Lion, Dr. Gabrielle Lion. She's married to a CEO. Now Gabrielle, who's actually my doctor. And Navy Seal. She's married to Navy Seal, Dr. Lion. When her book was coming out, she was asking me all these questions. She's like, you know, my book's coming out, you know, when she was asking me questions, smart woman because I had a book come out.

1:32:53So she's like, let me ask Evie, who's had a book come 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 wouldn't 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 and 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.

1:33:33We'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. But it's doing great. It's selling. I didn't celebrate that. Now you would look at 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, this thing that I want, I'm happy. But the flip side is that when the external world is gonna give me things I don't want, I'm also gonna be tethered to that and I'm gonna sink down.

1:34:15But if I'm in the middle, I don't have high highs. I don't have low lows. I'm always somewhere here. Nutrality 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, I'd sound 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.

1:35:07Or when external things happen, I'm going to be truly, truly sad. But if the, 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. And then people, 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.

1:35:44So 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 gonna 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.

1:36:20I 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 or a husband who's like that. Something can blow up and he'd be like, all right, let's go. He's not gonna 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.

1:37:04to 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, killed over on the floor dead. However, there's so many people that are listening that would say, every I agree. But my nervous system just seems to run the shop.

1:37:44Like, I just seem to just get dragged around by good things and bad things and I could testrify as when something bad goes wrong and I just, I know what you're saying is true, 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 think sometimes people are like, I'm not, it's like, you are. Like, you have so much more authority and regulation of yourself and you realize, and I think sometimes, to 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.

1:38:21And 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. Know everything always starts and ends with you. If you can just keep that, it starts and ends with me. One, you're right there. 2. In those moments when you start to catastrophize or you start to feel yourself go that way.

1:38:56Stop. Literally just say it out loud to yourself. Stop it. Stop it. Talk to yourself. Interrupt. That's thought. Just interrupt. 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 oversunstabilize 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. Literally just tell yourself. There's moments where I talk to myself all the time. 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.

1:39:38Talk 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 feet We're just trying to break these habitual patterns and also sometimes quite honestly this nonsense stuff that were fed that really keeps us like just, it just keeps us from being able to take ownership of ourselves.

1:40:21I think what's really interesting as well in that cancel, cancel examples, you're almost talking to someone and that person is yourself. And as you were saying that 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 on, 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.

1:40:51And 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, I have a conversation with Becky, which I think is kind of smart. Now I think about it. It's not that bad way of detaching from your toxic thoughts. Talking yourself through things is actually good. Even in going back, even in training, when we put in scenarios, they would simplify things like in some scenarios, like, hey, step one, this, step two, this, step three, this, or they would create acronyms.

1:41:34like, you know, I'm gonna make one up because I can't think of one. Like, stop target, move shift. And they would teach you to say that to yourself 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'd do an ambush on the creative system where they do ambushes on us. All right, fight yourself out of it. But because you're so overloaded with the stress of what's happening, even though you know it's training, 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.

1:42:15You want to do 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, 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, mood, target, move, target. take. So I'm giving like a hypothetical example, but this ability to talk yourself through movements is also a very powerful thing. It can stop this mass amount of the muck in your head and kind of clear it out. So I actually learned that in training. And they taught us just tactical word sentences, things to say to ourselves, that would just help us habitually move through problems.

1:43:03Can you 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 and 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 or 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.

1:43:37So 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, when badger happens just back in, 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 or whatever.

1:44:12How you at all 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 gonna have to go through some difficult shit because you've been through difficult shit.

1:44:44You have to go through it. There's no exception. The harder you work, you're gonna work so hard to avoid it, which actually just makes you more afraid and weaker. Where it's like, it's just gonna 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 sort of surround ourselves with. We understand that, right? The best, 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 gonna have to go through it. Even as a mom, like one of the things is, I wanna give my daughter the best tool so that she can problem solve.

1:45:17And 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 that I make sure with my daughter, not 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.

1:45:50I will let her, as long as it's safe, I will let her be frustrated and cry and scream until 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. Either 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. but it is notes keeping trauma or tragedy for anybody. They're just isn't. When you, I think when you come to terms with that, like 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 know, you're not that special.

1:46:35I just did my second TED Talk and I talked about the six inhibitors that hold us back, hold people back. It was based off of all the mentors I did, like hundreds, like which happened after I wrote my book when people 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, where 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.

1:47:19Because 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 say this with all the love in my heart, you're not that special. If you recognize that, then you're gonna realize that you're not alone in this world going through all this stuff. This stuff isn't just happening to you and they're solace. After 9 -11, I survived 9 -11. I was one of the first responders there.

1:47:53I don't even like to use a word survive. I was there, I lived through it. People ask me, how did you deal with the aftermath? Because 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 to live through. Why? Survive to me has a negative connotation. It's not as powerful. I don't like it. To me, I live through. Survive is this thing happened, and 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.

1:48:36I live 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, we're doing this trauma, like you're watching truly, you're watching, I watched thousands of people die, people jumping, and like you can't do anything. Like you tried, we tried, I tried. So, and then after that we had search cleanup or 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.

1:49:14I'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.

1:49:58I 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 are on that space, when you think you're that special, you self -analys, you go in a lot more, and you would probably say, well, that's good, Evie.

1:50:39Is it really that good for me to sit and analyze everything going on in my life? or when I over and analyze, I over -assess, I'm overtly critiquing, I'm so focused on myself. Do you know what that actually does? It actually, you have higher rates of anxiety 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 -absorb. 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.

1:51:18Why 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. Sometimes you can even talk to people they're not listening to you. Why don't they want to listen? Why aren't they listening? Because they don't think anything's wrong. Or sometimes they'll look to you and be like, like, oh, you're you. Like, you don't know what I'm going through. Oh, you don't realize, here's a 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.

1:51:56And 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 kid basically arguing with this philosopher.

1:52:37And the kid is saying to the philosopher, kind of exactly what you'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's 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 it's 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.

1:53:24But 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 showed 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 long term, but at some subconscious level, I'm actually like addicted to my pain and suffering.

1:54:03And it's funny because when I was, so I read the book and then I started writing because I like to read things and then try to 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. When you look at the actions, you go there, riveting their own life. But when you dig deep into their identity, being a heroic victim is everything to them. And actually, if this person walked into this room 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.

1:54:41But this means that help aid good decisions have had to always be secondary to protecting the narrative that they're a victim. And actually, so I have 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.

1:55:17And so it really shifted my brain about like even my own trauma and the narratives and is 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 reinforcement from people. So I mean, it reminds me a little bit of a histrantic disorder, or where you pretend you're sick. It's like one of the disorders, you pretend either you're sick or you're 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?

1:56:01Are you alright? Do you need something? And it does cultivate this attention, whereas everything's okay, that all goes away. And so I think all of it is 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.

1:56:43I'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 it's a swedged 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 identity because you've got an identity, you know?

1:57:16Secret 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 that I'm special mindset. I'm in an emotional state, I'm special. That's like 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. Their identity, their stock, their emotional. I can't believe this. I can't believe this happened to me. So with that, when you can figure out what mindset somebody is, and then you can talk to them, but you talk to them in the mindset that they're in.

1:58:01If 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 over -analysing 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.

1:58:33They 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 US 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 you're 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 you, it's not a great place to live either.

1:59:19Because you're so self focused that you can't function. It's, it's 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. 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 young age, that defense was their survival. Do you know what's interesting? And the Harvard Business Review did a study on this.

2:00:06They 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, 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.

2:00:50Because 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.

2:01:24they'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, 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 perfected and they're also a sponsor of this podcast. I switched over to using matcha as my dominant energy source and that's where perfected comes in.

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2:02:31But now you can make it yourself at home. So give it a try and we'll see if you still don't like matcha. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you 40 % off our matcha if you try it today. Head to perfect Ted .com and use codiary 40 at checkout. Or if you're in a supermarket, you can get it at Tesco's or Holland and Barrett or in the Netherlands at Albert Hain. And those of you in the US, you can get it on Amazon. I want to talk about something we all need to take seriously, which is cybersecurity. Whether you're a first -time founder facing your very first audit or a seasoned professional who's been through it all, staying compliant is getting more critical than ever and more complicated, I have to say.

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2:03:48That's v -a -n -t -a .com slash Stephen for one thousand dollars 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.

2:04:32I 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. Now, 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 to my own mic, 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.

2:05:16But 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 lighting 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, 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.

2:05:49Whatever 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 don'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.

2:06:24Who says who? Who says I need? 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. How about this little less me and more of how can I be of service to this person?

2:07:05How can I help this person? How can I be more generous? Generous 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 for everybody likes me. Give me tips from 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. Like, because I'm not learning anything from other people.

2:07:41And who might have think I'm on this? 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. It's 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.

2:08:20But 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 commer, 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 that. I mean, 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 messy 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.

2:09:07And 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 gonna 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?

2:09:45Do 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, why is it... What is motivating this person? I always think like, what is motivating this person? So if I sit across from you, what's motivating you is, you want to do a good podcast.

2:10:30You 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 a genuine and I don't want to be a bullshit artist. Nobody wants to be bullshit. I've experienced it. Nobody likes it.

2:10:51And it's not being authentic. It's just being genuine because also like you can just walk into a room and 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 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.

2:11:33Because if you have a long -term relationship with a client 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 you're nonsense, and they feel like you're tricking them, or 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.

2:12:19I'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 going to drop you. I was watching your BBC My Stro recording, which by the way is fantastic. I highly recommend that 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.

2:13:04You're also saying that in the BBC Mystery 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 path is gonna self -elect to go through rejection. Person who wants to build their resilience, because when you deal with it, so the BBC MicroCourse is the art of influence, how to influence others. So going back to the ethos of that course was, and I say at the beginning, I'm here to give you tips, tricks or techniques, because that's not gonna influence people.

2:13:55We'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, and 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.

2:14:33And 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, I've better understanding yourself. The other thing I found was this thing you talk about, which is the animal will, which is a framework that helps people understand themselves by finding out what their communication style is.

2:15:17I'll put this animal will on the screen for people that are watching on video. But for people that can't see, because they're listening to point of fire 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, like what behavior is this person? So there's two important things.

2:15:51One is we don't label people with label behavior. You label behavior because people change. People are fluent for the most part. People are fluent. 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 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.

2:16:35They'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 lion 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?

2:17:10Bad monkey, which you probably, you probably get a lot is, hey Steve, I got a great idea. Can I just share it with you? Hey, let me just put 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 should work very hard not to be. But that's a person who is direct, frank, and forth, right? 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.

2:17:43All 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 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 Steven's lying, he's in 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.

2:18:21Yes, Steven, 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.

2:18:51I need to keep distance. And T -Rex is, if I've got someone who's T -Rex, it just means being direct frank and forth, right? 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 hit 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.

2:19:32You 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 were actually good T -Rex. You addressed 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.

2:20:10It 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 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? Right? There's four animals.

2:20:45Each 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. Okay. Bad version of lion, which is outside that outer perimeter. Okay. 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?

2:21:23So 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 one 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.

2:22:02Here'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. They 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 they sometimes they lose their mind. They had one client that came in, customer, and the manager said, I thought they were going to salt 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.

2:22:42T -Rex, so attacking... Punitive, aggressive. And they would flow back and forth between T -Rex and Lyne 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 him, calm down, we're going to this, what is that? You do. It aggravates people more.

2:23:19Let 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 lot 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 out 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 But that requires your ability to be like, I know what I'm seeing.

2:24:23And this always goes back to, I don't need to address every little thing because I feel I'm being slided. 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.

2:25:01They take the bait. The person's calling you at FYZ, whatever, they then start doing it back and elbowing them and then 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. Kind of like they're unfazed. It's because they're ego. And they really try hard. In the US, in the UK, 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 police department law enforcement entities. They all have their own leader.

2:25:34The 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 Multifasic Personality Inventory. What they try to see is what behaviors I have in my narcissistic, my hypokondriac. 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.

2:26:13I'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.

2:26:48I'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, be something bad happened. See, 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 it would, the FDR runs around the east side of Manhattan by the East River.

2:27:23And sometimes they take you there and we go running and they have us run like long distances. People are driving by you 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 that said something, I actually stopped running and turned around and started yelling back.

2:27:58And my instructor, the PT instructor, the police officer grabbed me, he said, 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 on to the street, people will hate you. If you can't control yourself, you're not going to be able to manage this. That was the first time I learned. 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 suspects communication style as well as their own.

2:28:47And 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 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 make some people who I could just never imagine a world where they were demanding dogmatic, rigid, incharge guiding leading Frankforth, right 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?

2:29:24if I'm if they're not successful. They're gonna have a hard time because they've made themselves they suppress themselves so much for whatever reason they can't lead no one they're I'm gonna 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 likeable people. They are and monkeys but 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 Stephen out, I'm going to get more information from Stephen when I'm not talking and when I ask good questions, rather than me talking.

2:30:10A 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 Stephen show me everything he cares about. His values, his beliefs, I'm going to understand Stephen.

2:30:43And I'm going to learn a lot about him so that I can speak more intelligently to Stephen about what Stephen cares about. Now 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, avoided. 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 am so conflict diverse and so afraid of it that I will make myself completely small to the point where other people will just steam real meat.

2:31:27Can 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. but it would 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, they're going to need to have a bit of a lion in them. You want to be all of those animals. You want to balance up all of them.

2:32:09That'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 a deserve a raise. I feel like a deserve a raise You know, I've been here for a long time.

2:32:46You'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 fax, 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.

2:33:21I'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 fax methodical. I'm going to be good lion. Sir, hi, Steven. I just wanted to talk to you. I made a, I'm looking to increase my compensation here. Well now you're just bad -line. He 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 hard no. Because what's most important is to let them feel like you actually listen.

2:34:00But what if I say no to you then what do you do? Who do you become? Do you become a mouse? I just said absolutely. So I would say, okay, I'll say, could you explain to me why? I don't want to give you a pay raise. I think, I think, you know, when I think about who I'd rather have that money in me or you, I think me. Well, so you've got actually T -Rex right there. But 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 line, because two people can't be in charge.

2:34:37That'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 fine. This is for your good T -Rex, 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, et cetera. Yeah, bad T -Rex would be like, you're an idiot, you're ridiculous, or you're a jerk. and Goods erects is Frank, fourth frightened 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.

2:35:08OK, 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 in my ability to stay and work here. I'm being direct, frank, and forthright. address people. There's, 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.

2:35:42It'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 like, 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 gonna 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 anti -social personality disorder which is like psychopath, sociopath type of behavior, or narcissistic personality disorder.

2:36:33One 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 Diorevacio 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.

2:37:30When 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 peace. Everybody needs to go listen to your BBC Myster Courses. 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 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.

2:38:40So I recommend if you haven't read it. I know a lot of people have because they tagged 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 the full of wisdom. You remind me of so many things that I seem to quickly forget every time we speak and you're helping so many people in 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 very special. There's some sort of relatability, there's a wisdom, there's a frankness and a noble shitness, 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.

2:39:21So thank you for being here. You are 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, Stephen.

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