Former FBI Agent: If They Do This Please RUN! Narcissists Favourite Trick To Control You!

I was in the FBI for 25 years. I have sat with spies and enemies of this

country and I learned a lot about human behaviors. Imagine being able to read other people and circumstances faster.

It gives you a tremendous advantage in your life. I want to hear everything. So, one of the first things I teach is

Joe Navaro is a former FBI agent turned worldrenowned body language expert. He helps people decode body language to

improve communication, trust, and influence. One of the things that I found in negotiations is we as humans

communicate quite a lot with our faces. For instance, we push this together when we don't understand something and then

the minute we hear something we don't like, blood actually begins to leave the lips and then we begin to tighten them.

Another behavior is that when there's a lack of confidence, insecurities, people immediately. So once we understand these

behaviors, you can take command of any situation. Confidence. Is this something that you're born with or do you think

confidence can be trained? It can absolutely be trained. So the FBI actually teach confidence and there's a

lot of strategies. One of them is the most powerful gesture that we can use and you see Musk do this a lot. But what

I tell people is that the easiest way to learn confidence is to Joe. We actually

videoed my interaction with you when I met you. And I've got the video here. So, one of the things you immediately

did was, "Don't do that. It's a no." No. This has always blown my mind a little

bit. 53% of you that listen to the show regularly haven't yet subscribe to the show. So, could I ask you for a favor

before we start? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you want to support us, the free simple way that you can do just that is by hitting

the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team,

to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback. We'll find the guest

that you want me to speak to and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so

much. Joe, zooming out. If someone asked you in the street and they wanted a two

sentence answer, who are you and what have you spent your life doing? How

would you answer that question? With one word, teaching.

I think I've spent my whole life teaching. Even even when I was in the FBI,

uh, starting in 1984, a lot of my job was obviously

being an FBI agent, investigating crimes, uh, chasing after spies and so

forth. But, uh, you know, I hired on in 1978, but as early as 84, I was already

teaching. And um I love it when when people get it and they they see a

behavior, they understand the uh underpinnings, the foundation of why we

do certain things. I'll give you an example. Sometimes you'll come to a horrible uh scene and uh people

immediately gasp. They take in air and then they cover their their their mouths or there's one point uh difference on

the scoreboard and people are like this and they don't understand. This is this is back where we were surrounded by

lions and tigers and we learned to cover our mouths so as not to broadcast our

breath so that they couldn't see where we were or find us. And uh and so the

human body has uh a few shortcuts. I should say the human brain, they're

called huristics. And so one of them is to freeze. Uh so when we hear a loud

sound or we see a predator or a dog, we we we freeze. Obviously, whoever ran

300,000 years ago uh was bitten. Um, and so we have these shortcuts and

uh, and it's always fascinating to me to share why we have these behaviors and

why we and you realize he just inhaled so you can hold your breath and then we cover our breath so we don't broadcast

for the the predators to to smell us. You spend your time writing books. You spend your time teaching in various

different contexts these days, whether it's on stage or in other environments on the internet.

What is it that you're giving people?

That's a profound question that I don't think I've been asked. I think the simplest answer is

knowledge. Knowledge that perhaps they didn't have time to acquire. I

uh I grew up very poor. I was a refugee from Cuba and um and I lived in an area

of Miami which was mostly elderly people. So I was by myself a lot. So I

would go through uh garbage bins collecting things uh to read. It's that

knowledge uh that that I was fortunate enough to acquire the love of uh of

reading. And uh I run into a lot of people who haven't had that benefit. Maybe they don't have a love of of

reading and of learning. I see myself as okay. I have this knowledge. I I I have

sat with terrorists, spies, bazooka yielding enemies of this

country. And other people never had that opportunity. And I learned a lot uh from

that and from my reading. So why not share it? Make their life uh a little

easier. When you say make their life a little easier, if I am to receive your knowledge, how would my life be better?

How would I be more productive? That's a great question. Imagine being able to app perceive

uh things way ahead of time because you can read other people and circumstances

faster. Most people see a behavior and they have to sit there and wonder, are

they upset with me? Are they, as the Brits would say, my wife is a a Brit. Are they taking the piss or something?

Just uh any number of of things. But imagine being able to look at something

and decipher it infinitely faster so that you can devote yourself to to other

things where most of us break down the the face into the forehead, the eyes,

the ears, and so forth. And uh but imagine being able to assess the whole face, the shoulders, the hands,

everything all at once and draw inferences from that

information. It gives you a a a tremendous advantage. And also in

negotiations being able to read others and uh at the same time we forget that

others are reading us and what is the perception that we want to uh convey.

And if I were to attain all of the knowledge that you have to offer and I were to implement it, what areas of my

life do you believe would improve? First within yourself, uh, for

instance, being able to assess yourself. So, if if if let's say you you have

anger issues and and so forth or you you're quick to trigger, well, h how do I deal with that? Well, first you

assess, you know, uh, what is going on? Your stomach gets upset, chest tightens,

your emotions, uh, get up. So, what do I do then? Most people aren't taught that.

So, there's part of that. There's how to communicate for instance uh, more effectively with your children. The

simple thing that for instance uh and nobody teaches this uh well I do is uh

that you know if you stand in front of your child like a drill instructor with your neck stiff you're going to get a

very different reaction than if you stand at an angle slightly further away

from the child and tilt your head that the communication you will experience

with that child is so much different just by tilting your head than if you

are standing directly in front of them that you can enhance communication. And

then you say, well, what application is that for real life? Well, you can

actually change the amount of facetime you get from somebody else. Let's say

you only had two minutes and you want to stretch that by just tilting your head.

We've demonstrabably shown that you can change the amount of facetime that somebody's willing to give to you just

because we show that we're relaxed and that we're not coming at you with an

agenda that we're willing to um to to listen. It can be transformative if you apply that

knowledge. Now some people look at knowledge and they don't do much with it but you can you can use it at home you

can use it at work you can use it in in negotiations for instance one of the

things that I teach is is the the value of time and time is actually can be used

as a nonverbal. So when I talk about nonverbals I'm really talking about anything that communicates but is not a

word. Well, you can use time as a nonverbal to say I'm in charge. Whoever

dominates and controls time controls. And so even if I change the

delivery of my message to slow things down, you're already taking charge in

that negotiation. It's a beautiful thing to

to to witness when you execute it properly. So there are a lot of

applications um and you know and obviously like like you you you basically study human

behavior you are a business person but you're actually really in in the people

business and once we understand the the the needs and some are biological the

wants the desires the preferences

uh the preferences of others how do they like that information delivered? How do

they like their coffee? All of that. But then what do they fear? Most people don't tell you I have

fears. They say, well, you know, I'm concerned about that or that I don't know if that's a good investment or uh

we'll have to do some due dil. That's the the brain only recognizes fear. And

so once you understand that, it gives you such amplitude to uh to then uh pursue

whatever it is that you're interested in in doing more effectively. And your

career. Yeah. So you've been an you were an FBI agent for more than 30 years.

Well, I was in law enforcement for 30 years. I was in the FBI uh for 25 years

principally working in the area of counter intelligence but you know in the FBI you never wear one hat. Um I was

also a pilot so I flew surveillance. I was a SWAT team commander so I uh did

SWAT stuff and actually worked with the SAS from uh from London. And then I was

in the um behavioral analysis program. So we use uh that skill set to

uh to work on uh catching spies. What is the behavioral analysis program? In the

uh 8990, the FBI developed a very secret program to analyze not uh people that

were dead, but actually how do we use human behavior to catch spies, to catch

terrorists, and then once we catch them, how do we get into their heads? How do

we get them to tell us what what they're up to, what their purpose is, and and uh

and so forth? So we created this uh this program uh I along with five other agents out of

12,000 were selected from the FBI to u to become the uh part of this

new behavioral analysis program which was supposed to be classified except it it was accidentally leaked and our job

was to look at the threats national security threats and then see how we can

um use our knowledge of human behavior to then attack that. So when you say your much of your work was to catch

spies, right? Most of us have only ever heard of spies from watching James Bond and other things like that. So we don't

actually understand the sort of reality of spies. So if I just play completely

dumb for a second, other countries send people into other countries like the

United States or the UK or Australia, Canada, right? To do what? So every

nation state has uh has interests. A lot of it is obtained through diplomacy. A

lot of it is now uh obtained through what we called espionage. So uh it's

nothing like television in the movies. Uh some nations, especially hostile nations, send what we call hostile

intelligence officers, usually masquerading as a diplomat, but often

masquerading as students or scientists or businessmen. And their job is to acquire

knowledge in in specific areas, military knowledge, science and

research, intentions and plans, military intentions and plans. or they may have

interest in for instance what is going to be the wheat production in Argentina this year because it may affect the

price of grain across the world. So there's commercial espionage that uh

that that goes on and so and every nation uh defends itself by trying to

identify well who is here uh trying to spy. So that's what we do. That's that

is that's counter intelligence. That's uh espionage. And it's nothing like the

movies. We don't we don't we don't jump from buildings. And although we do that

sometimes, but uh it's it's not as uh as glamorous as as the James Bond stuff.

So, have you caught spies before? I have. I've arrested spies. Multiple spies. Yeah. Give me the the most

interesting example of a spy that you identified in court and what were they here doing and which country did they

come from? Well, as it turns out, it was an American because we also have what we call turncoats.

So in the case of Rodrik James Ramsay, he was in the an individual who in 1989

I was asked to go interview because we thought he was a witness um to something

that had happened in Germany. He had a former army sergeant had been kicked out

of the army. The military wanted to find out if he knew anything about some

missing documents, if he had seen anything. During my interview of him,

which again, I thought he was a witness. He was smoking a cigarette at his house.

And uh I I just mentioned uh an individual's name that had been at that base, but who had been under

investigation by German authorities. uh in fact by the uh Bundas Criminal which

is the equivalent of the FBI. There's no reason why he should

react to that. It's just a name. But when I mentioned the name, his cigarette

shook. And um and I knew enough about human behaviors to know that that

physiological change had to be caused by something significant. Why would a name

affect him? And uh and so scientific method talked to him for 20 more minutes

about something else and then I mentioned that name again and sure enough his cigarette shook again. And at

that point I was convinced that there was something nefarious there. As it turns out the Germans arrested Conrad

Conrad was there Clyde Conrad. That was the name of the the person that had been

under suspicion. our our guy that I was interviewing, Rod Ramsay, was uh was not. And so I left

that interview and then um I persuaded my supervisors to continue to talk to

Rod Ramsey and that led to a 10-year investigation and the arrest of uh

three, four, five, six, seven additional individuals. So that Rodri Ramsey guy

with the shaking cigarette was a he was spying on America. what that he was

doing. And that's a good question and forgive me for not explaining. While he was in the army, he and Clyde Lee Conrad

were they were stealing military secrets from from the US Army. They they were

taking US Army secrets and then selling it to the Soviet Union through the

Hungarian intelligence service. So he was a traitor of the United States. So he was a traitor and that is often the

biggest problem for any nation state is the traitors from uh from from within

and they had elevated espionage to an industrial level. I mean to to the point

where they actually no longer even use 35mm cameras to photograph the

documents. They were actually videotaping them so that they could expedite the thousands of pages. It was

the most damaging espionage case in the history of the United

States because they had compromised the United States nuclear gods in

Germany and that left all of Western Europe exposed.

Nuclear GO codes. Yes. What is that? All of our

nuclear assets around the world are controlled by two

things. There is a uh what's called a permissive action link which is like a

lastm minute safety lock on each device. And then there is the uh go code

that says there is authority to use this

weapon. Ramsay was able to steal the

actual nuclear goat. It's a it's a card. It's made out of a special material

which I cannot describe. It's made out of special metals and plastics and other

things. And um the inherent danger in what they did was that not that they

could initiate a launch that can only be initiated at the national command

authority level but if this were compromised and given to let's say the

Russians at the time the Soviet Union this is before

1989 then a foreign a foreign hostile intelligence service could take that and

replicate it but put the wrong numbers in there. And by putting the wrong numbers

in there, if it's in a uh in if it's in a pyramid structure and it's put high

enough, right? Let's let's say you controlled the all of the East Coast.

Maybe you don't want to spy for for Russia, but for $100,000, let's say you were willing to

slip this in there and take the one that's there out. Okay. So maybe that helps your

conscience in some way, then you basically if it's a pyramid uh sort of

uh schema, you can paralyze everything below that. Okay? So someone could have

changed the codes, put a fake one in, which meant that it wouldn't work anymore. that at the highest level then

nothing would work if you if you had it access at the highest uh level. Did they

go to jail? Oh yes. Yeah. The shaking cigarette guy went to jail 33

years. Let me just finish it by saying this. This was this case put of all of

Western Europe in danger as well as the United States. The general who testified

in this case said that had hostilities broken out, the defeat of the west would

have been assured within three days. That's how devastating this

was. Yeah, let that sink in. Those are his words. The defeat of the West would

have been assured because of the damage these individuals had done.

Not all cases are as significant in terms of catching spies. I was reading about another one where you caught a man

because of the way he held some flowers. Yeah. The uh you know, a lot of times

it's it's just based on uh on on the behavior. You know, you you see how uh

how often somebody looks at their watch, right? But maybe when they're operational, they look at their watch

more often. And uh they filmed this guy who we thought was uh what we call an

illegal. And in in the parliament of espionage, an illegal is someone who

magically appears in the United States and pretends to be an American, has

always been an American, like the series, The Americans. But we had some clues from one of our sister services

from another country and said we think this individual may be uh someone who

you need to look at that is uh pretending to be an American. We're looking at the the the unit we bring the

the whole team together all six of us and we're looking at the at the movie and um you know and it was filmed uh

just serendipitously. It was filmed on Valentine's Day and uh so we see him

entering a flower shop and leaving the flower shop when he exited. I said um

definitely he's not an American. You know, everybody looked at me like, "Excuse me?" I said, "He he's not

from here." And um he said, "How?" And he says, "Look how he's carrying the the

bouquet. Americans carry the bouquet bouquet up. Eastern Europeans carry it

bouquet down and uh and continued to carry it

that way. So I I did what's called a presumptive. So we stopped him one day

and and I said, you know, I'm with the FBI and um and I said, "Do you want to know how

we know?" And that was the the the first trigger I

was looking for to see how he reacts to it. And he fell for it. And he said, "Go on." Most people

would say, "Get out of here. Go away." And uh and I said, "It was how

you carried the flowers." His chin came down. His

eyelids went heavy. as he was evaluating everything he had done, you

know, they he had practiced everything. His his English was immaculate. You know, he sounded like a Midwesterner and

all that. After a few hours of having a nice

really a nice chat, he agreed to work with us and admitted everything. What

did he admit? That he had been sent here by a foreign government. that his job as

a as an illegal was to be in the United States uh act as an American. And most

people don't understand, well, why would a country, a nation states spend so much

money training these people to be like an American? And what they don't understand is their purpose here is for

when hostilities break out. They can report on for instance uh train traffic,

what trains are carrying munitions, what airports are being used for what

purposes. Um many times, as he later told us, they're given caches of

explosives so that they can then blow up certain things that no missile would be

able to uh uh to do. So, uh, that's their role in in in hiding in America.

It's not to commit espionage. It's to be here in, uh, in case hostilities break

out. So, you flipped him to working with the FBI. Correct. And does that mean he

doesn't get punished? Well, he doesn't get punished because he

didn't commit any crime other than immigration uh uh violation, but what he

was able to reveal to us was nothing short of breathtaking.

Which nation was this? I cannot say. But obviously, they would have to have

enough money and enough interest to uh carry out an operation like this. If you

had to hazard a guess how many people that live amongst us have been sent from a foreign nation and are

spies, how many do you think it is? Well, let's let's define that. you know,

I if if they're if they're hostile intelligence officers, um it can be anywhere from uh 3% of the

diplomatic staff to as many as at one time the Soviet Union

85% of their staff were uh were conducting

espionage. Um I think numbers So you have those. Now, if you're referring to like how many illegals, I would say at

least you would have at least two two dozen in the UK, uh maybe a dozen in

France, and you know, you would have a whole host, a constellation of them in the

United States be simply because we span five time zones. I believe the UK only

spans one. I think I asked this in part because I was I was reading something that said much of the the um illegal

immigrants that had come across the southern border of the United States, many of them were were Chinese. And

there was an article about questioning whether that was potentially an an intentional act to get illegal Chinese

um people into the United States for some future purpose. Yeah. You know, big

claims require big evidence, and I haven't seen that. In my experience, the

Chinese Intelligence Service uh prefers to use students and scientists. We have

approximately 80,000 Chinese students here at any one time. Um I know that for

instance in the early 80s and early

90s, they would be given allowances. It always impressed me that they were given

small allowances for meals but large allowances for uh photocopying in the

library. U we call that a clue in the FBI. So they'd be given like $150 for

for eating, but they would be given thousands of dollars so that they could copy as much as they could from uh from

the libraries. It is much easier for them for any nation to send people here students and

for instance go into engineering or uh any of those things. On this um

subject of body language, it's it's highly contested because some people say body language

does give us clues, some people say it doesn't give us clues because there's cultural differences. Is body language important?

Well, let me address what you just asked. Well, number one, body language is is is supremely important because we

we are born without the capacity to talk and so we have to read the baby in front

of us. to argue that body language a doesn't matter or it's subject to

interpretation. I would argue that uh that would be a

minuscule sentiment around the world amongst people who really have studied

this and I'll and I'll say why. So a baby is born without the capacity to to

speak. But the mother quickly learns through nonverbals whether that child is

calicky, whether or not that child needs just to be reassured,

uh whether they're cold or hot and so forth. There's a lot of junk out there.

And um that is probably the cleanest word that I can use about uh body

language that this means that or whatever. But we're exquisitely prepared

to communicate at any time whether or not we're comfortable or

uncomfortable, whether we're confident or uh not understanding. We had to

evolve that precisely because we were always surrounded uh by predators. For

instance, Stephen, when you have doubts or you want followup to questions that I

ask, you use your eyes exquisitly. You furrow your gloella, one eye rises, the

other one lowers it. You're an easy read. And so I follow it up with information. Now, you didn't have to

teach me that. Now, what I would argue is, am I seeing uh constraint? Am I

seeing um contempt or disdain? Well, that's a silly argument. We didn't

evolve to have perfect answers. Evolution is about

approximation for success. In other words, if I can be

accurate, 75 to 80% of the time, that's actually good enough. It's good enough. And so, you

know what I teach is, do you see comfort or discomfort? psychological, physical

and so forth. Do I see as in psychology we say um is it positively veanced or

negatively balanced? Balanced. You see deferrowing your globella. What what does a veilance

mean? Veilance really means is balanced or how much electricity goes this way or

this way. Is it what's the veilance of it? So positively veance. What does that mean? positively veence. You're going to

see gravitydefying behaviors. You're going to see emphasis. You're going to see uh a lot of humor and elacrity and

broad gesture so forth. If it's negatively balanced, it's, you know,

restraint. You're going to see the uh the furrowing of the gloella. You're going to see the tightening dim the

diminition of the the lips. You're going to see a lot of facial touching. I don't know right all all these uh

pacifiers and so I would argue that stop looking for uh perfection in fact Dr.

Ambati at Harvard unfortunately she passed away she found that we as humans are

going to be accurate 75% of the time in our assessment of each other.

That's an extraordinary number. Her research is is ample. You can look up

her research. It's it's uh it was all done on the the opaces of looking for

what she called thin slice assessments. Thin slice assessments. All

of your viewers should know because th it it it showed us that from as little

as three milliseconds, we actually get a pretty good assessment of each other. And we're

right 75% of the time with three milliseconds. Yes. So they did several experiments.

They had people go in and watch a teacher, for instance, by just opening

the door to the classroom, watching her for a few seconds and closing the door. They rated that teacher the same as

people who had sat in that classroom all semester long in terms of

are they a nice teacher? Are they a warm teacher? Are they an an empathetic

teacher? Are they a competent teacher? and so forth. It's as you rub your face

because there's a lot of incredility there, you have to appreciate this

experiment was done over and over and over in many areas. I was thinking as

you said it, I was thinking hell. Like I was thinking um if someone reads you that quickly, I was thinking

about how easy it is to leave a bad first impression. Yeah. Well, you know,

when I started in studying body language, which was formally in

1971, had no appreciation for uh for school work. So, I created my own uh

study program. So, when I started taking a look at at body language in

1971, I remember people saying, you know, the first 20 minutes are the most

important for making an impression. Then years later was 15 minutes. By the

1980s, somebody had said, "Well, it's the first four minutes." Well, time

out. That's ancient information. We now know that that assessment is made in the

first three milliseconds. That's faster than your blink rate. And you can begin

to do things uh poorly and badly and begin to negatively affect

others in that amount of of time because the subconscious is assessing others uh

more quickly. And by the way, I didn't mention this. We are even before we're

born, we are assessing the world around us to the point that for survival

purposes, a baby in udo begins to assess the world around by the amount of noises

and by the cadence and manner of speech of the mother. So that when that baby is

born and you can look up the research, the baby will be born

uh mirroring the native tongue. So that as researchers found a baby with a

German mother will cry differently. The lilt l i lt t the lilt of that baby will

be different than a French baby. What does that tell us? that we are already

programmed to adapt to that which dominates so that we can

fit better. And this goes right from from that to business because synchrony

is harmony. The the the faster we can synchronize, the faster we can

harmonize. And so we are pre-programmed. So if your viewers are interested in that, they they can look at the uh the

research that's been done on the uh lilt of crying babies. How does one

synchronize? So if synchrony equals harmony, yeah, i.e. if we synchronize with each other,

then we're going to be harmonious in business or in life or whatever, right? How do I synchronize with somebody when

I meet them? The first thing is at a distance. Um, if I saw you walking down

the hallway and and you say, "Hey, Joe." You know, and I say, "Steve, how are you?"

Right? I'm mirroring you. You know, this goes back to the work of Carl Rogers in

the early 1960s. And he found that synchrony puts us in sort of locks us in

into this binding, psychological binding of where you greet with your hand and

arch your eyebrows. Hey, well that sends powerful messages. So if I do it, can

you imagine if you greeted me like this? And I went, "Yeah, how you doing?" Yeah.

It's like we're totally out of out of harmony. We're totally out of synchrony. So um we begin with uh with the

non-verbals. We begin, for instance, with the clothing. you know, if you go to a meeting, you know, we would

probably dress the same way or approximate e each other. Um, we would

probably have this, look at us right now with our hand gestures. We're literally mirroring each other's hand gestures to

to the point where our thumbs are precisely uh the same way. Why? Because we're comfortable with each other. We

would lean in if we are um in in in good synchrony. our speech pattern uh would

would synchronize and um and to the point where you can actually work with

individuals to calm them down or to see things your way or to appreciate let's

say in negotiations to begin to be more receptive. People are more receptive if

they can mirror your uh behaviors. So people are more receptive if they can

mirror your behaviors. So if I let you mirror my behavior, then you're going to

be more receptive to what I have to say. Is that what you're saying? In general, we cannot be mimicking each

other like it's a game. It becomes ridiculous. But there's no way we can

negotiate if you're screaming and I'm stoic. Yeah. it it just it doesn't

happen. For instance, you and I probably are doing a pretty good job of

just mirroring each other in the in the in the conversation. We are likely more

likely to be successful, have more facetime, and achieve more. If we can

talk to each other this way, then if all of a sudden I decide to sit

sideways, kick my feet up and lean on my and my and my elbow, that gesture alone,

even though it's a comfort display, doesn't put us in synchrony. And

everything that I have ever found was even when I was talking to terrorists,

even when talking to terrorists who absolutely hated me, hated a lot of other

things, if I could just get them grounded to the point where we are

talking basically the same way and using the same words. If if they say my

family, don't say wife and kids. Use family. Don't use terms of

art. You know, if they say, "Well, what's the price?" Don't come back and say, "Well, the the the the uh the the

points on this are that that's not what they asked." That's a great way to demonstrate that you're not um that

you're not uh listening. And and the other thing I I always emphasize is that

for years people said well try to reduce everything that's emotional

uh so that it doesn't interfere. That's not how we evolved.

That is absolutely not how we evolved. We evolved to deal with emotions because

emotions keep us alive. When our amygdala uh senses a threat, it is there

to uh deal with that. And anything negative rises to

prominence. That's one of the first things I teach. If if it's really negative, it's it rises to prominence.

We assess for it first. We deal with that first. And often in business, what

we see is, you know, somebody had a hard time uh finding your location. They had

a hard time parking. Then they had to go to your receptionist who was on the

phone and took about 7 minutes to even say good morning. And when they did,

they did it with no elacrity. Then they have to go through security. Then they have to take the elevator that's crowded

and then finally get to your office. And you want them to jump right into the

meeting without all that ne negativity that has been

acred. That's not how humans evolved. That is absolutely not how our species

evolved. Our species evolved to deconlict that to diminish that by first

dealing with that. That's where storytelling in part came from where we came and said you know I chased it I was

able to he attacked me then I attacked back and you know and then we we go through that whole storytelling which

has mythical proportions and mythical aspects as archetypes and if you

subscribe to Yungian psychology one of the arguments that I

always use is this. How many of you have been in an argument and then 30 minutes

later you remember all the clever lines you should have said? We all have. And

that's because the emotional brain hijacks neural activity. If you want the best out of

people, if you want the best out of a relationship, vent that. Get that

out. Give it time. Okay? And yes, you're going to have to invest that time. and

then move forward so that you can uh uh deal with the the the the transactional

the business and uh and so forth. You um you've referenced a few times different types of body language that

I've exhibited that help you understand what I'm thinking and going through. Um I think a second ago you referenced

glabula and this brings me to something I read in your work about eyebrow knitting. Yeah. What is eyebrow

knitting? So this little area uh between your eyes is called the gloella. And the gloella

is great because at at about well we I've seen it in babies as early as 3 or

4 days. But uh very early on we begin to furrow. In other words, we push this

together when we have doubts or we don't like something or we don't understand

something. So we we furrow the gloella. Uh some people call it uh eyebrow

knitting because we are uh we have nicer eyebrows nowadays, not bushy like the

old days. They don't come together like they used to. Um so we uh a lot of those

expressions of I don't understand we we use with the squinted eyes

um the the furrowed gloella. You know sometimes we'll we'll touch our face or

or scratch our face babies at 47 seconds

which I have directly observed uh if you shine a light at a newborn baby it will

furrow the chin that they don't like it and uh in my presentations I have a m a

matching one of a 47y old man and a 47 second old baby both doing the same

thing when they hear things they don't they don't like. So we we begin to

communicate quite a lot uh actually with with our faces. What about eyelid touching?

Yeah. So for a long time including in some of my writing um the theory was a

lot of people cover their eyes, touch their eyes when they hear bad news. If you said, "Hey Joe, can you help me move

this weekend?" Oh geez, Steve. uh right you you see a lot of that and I started

to think about that uh uh about five or six years ago and so I took some classes

in anatomy human anatomy and I'm I'm pretty much convinced now that a lot of

the facial touching including the you know touching of the eyes and so forth

has to do with the intervation of the fifth cranial nerve and the seventh

cranial nerve. Now, some of your viewers may find this interesting. That nerve

which goes to our forehead and actually goes into our eyelids and so forth. And

the seventh which is the facial is very short in distance to that

part of the brain where it is received. And so I think and you know I've

postulated I wrote for psychology today that a lot of the reasons why we touch our face and why we uh touch our eyes oh

no uh is because that pressure uh immediately goes to uh the brain and

helps to relieve stress and because the nerve is so short right we could massage our feet and achieve the same but it's

very far away. So I think a lot of facial touching including eye touching we do because of uh of its ability to

anytime there's stress we pacify ourselves and and by the way it's very interesting in

1974 I was uh bored at the university so there was a lab where you could actually

watch children and study them at play and they had some children there that were born blind so they had never seen

and I was just blown away the first time I I saw a blind child who had never seen

heard some news that was not very good and immediately covered their eyes

having never seen. And that's when I realized okay we are 2.4 million years

old. This is uh hardwired in our DNA. This is part of our paleo circuits as

Dr. David Given later taught me and it has to do with how it feels and that's

why we touch our faces so much. So, it's typically a negative emotion and a form of self soothing for that negative

emotion. I think that's a good synopsis. But also keep in mind how often we touch our faces when we're having a nice time.

Like when I'm reading, I find myself turning pages. Uh because I read very

fast. I turn with my left hand, but I pacify or soothe myself by touching my

my, you know, it's a pens of uh pose. Women will play with their hair all day

long. our brain is asking us to do things to contribute uh to that. But

when there's something stressful then for instance we go from like in negotiations when somebody throws a

number we don't like we'll go from touching our face to scratching our face because the brain is saying hey do

something more powerful that will keep me in what we call homeost uh stasis.

So, um, to answer your question, yes, but it also applies to when we're really enjoying a moment. What about our lips?

You talked a second ago about like pursed lips and stuff. What kind of clues does do the lips give away? Yeah. So, for me, the lips are the

um the seismograph. The the lips are like the emotional seismograph of the

body. When we are comfortable and confident, our lips

are full of blood. their color changes. The minute we hear something we don't

like, blood actually begins to leave the lips and they become narrower and then

we begin to tighten them. You know, if somebody says something I don't like, I might

go right or we begin to bite the lip

because we're stressed or we pluck it, pull on it, do all all sorts of of

things to to soothe it. But the lips get very uh show a a lot of nervous emotion

when we're under stress. So they're they're very much re as is the jaw. Like for instance, if you said something I

might not agree with my I probably shift my jaw because when you shift your jaw,

it puts pressure on the TMJ and that alone says to the brain go somewhere

else. Don't don't uh you know don't struggle too much with that. So um we're

always doing something physical to counter anything that the brain might be undergoing.

Tell me about the supernal notch. What the hell? So the supernal notch um it

has other names. You could call it the little neck dimple. Uh this little area

right at the bottom of your your throat. It's a a deep uh

indentation. This is the most vulnerable part of the human body. All air, food,

nutrients, blood, electricity, oxygen, everything goes through there. And what happens is, and

one of the things that I found was that there was nothing in the literature in 197576. I'm looking and I'm noticing

that when people are nervous, they immediately cover their neck. They touch their neck. You know, in the literature

you hear about, oh, she um, you know, clutched her pearls, right? Um, rubbing

that men tend to do it more robustly because of testosterone. Women tend to

more directly touch the superernal notch. And what I found is when there's

a lack of confidence, insecurities, fear, apprehensions, or concerns that people will go, "Oh my god, did you see

that?" Right? Oh, it's gone. It's back. And you know, why is it all directed at

this little area of the neck? And why do men clutch their necks and massage their

necks when they're It's the worst thing you can do in negotiations, by the way, is touch your neck. Because what you're

transmitting is weakness. Somebody whose confidence just never touches the neck.

You just don't you don't go anywhere near the neck and you don't ventilate because you're what you're saying is

you're you're getting to me. Ventilating behaviors. Wait, sorry. When you say ventilate, you mean giving yourself air?

Yeah. So it could be so to ventilating behaviors, okay, are behaviors of

weakness because your body temperature has changed at 1 250th of a second and

what you're revealing is something negative is getting to you. So you you you don't do that. But here's the

behavior, the neck touching, neck covering covering of the supernal notch. And there's another behavior. You know

earlier we talked about we were surrounded by predators and one of the behaviors we did was to cover our mouths

or hold still when we hear a noise. The third behavior is to cover the neck. To

cover the neck because large felines always go for the neck. And so the the

brain didn't doesn't have a closet full of ties. It has about four

choices. And those four behaviors are exquisite. It's proven over time that if

we cover our mouth, cover the neck, don't move, they work pretty well. So, we

don't have to choose a lot of colors. And the other thing sometimes you'll see people do is when um you see this here

in Florida and we certainly saw it in November after the hurricane, people come to see their house and they cover

their their head. Hands are up here. Oh my god. You know why? Why? Why do we do

that? Again, large felines. These are shortcuts. This is huristics that have

prevailed and say, "Oh no, right. And you and and you say, 'Well, we're no

longer surrounded by them. Well, go to India. There were 238 attacks last

year. It is in our DNA. It is performed out of necessity to uh to to keep us

alive. So, we have these um these reactions. But um so, I look at the I

certainly I look at the uh at the lips and the and the neck as uh as good

places for information. I was just thinking then about why yeah you hold your head but you also hold your head

when you see something that's fallen over. So if like you seen like a building falling down in an earthquake you immediately the other day it was an

old car and it was and was parked at an angle on a road that was at an angle and

they forgot to set the the brake and I'm watching it slowly slide.

And I found myself I teach this stuff with my hands up here and uh

unfortunately it was across the street and I couldn't get to it uh fast enough and it didn't do any damage. But but you

realize these uh these shortcuts uh are with us for a purpose. Much of the work

you do as an FBI agent is some form of negotiation and you spend a lot of time teaching people how to be good

negotiators as well. You mentioned negotiation a second ago. I'm a business person. I do lots of

negotiations, whether it's with clients or suppliers or interviews. You know, I'm interviewing people all the time,

which I consider to be a negotiation. How do I improve my negotiation skills? What are the things I should be thinking

about as I go into the negotiation? Well, uh, you know, they warn me. You ask profound questions.

Um, and you're right in in the FBI. I mean, when you're trying to convince someone to tell us the truth and put

themselves in jeopardy, that is nothing but negotiations. you may look at as

interviewing but like you said even a conversation you know I look at

negotiations in the same way that I look at interviewing it's in in in the simplest

form it's effective communication with a

purpose. So you say well that's highly simplistic. I've never heard that. Well think of it. Well what is the purpose?

Okay. Well, we'll get to that in a minute. Either you have something I need or want or that, but there has to be

communication and there has to be an understanding of of what I mean and what

I uh intend and and so forth. So, for me, it's a reminder when I first came

into the FBI, an old-timer said to me, "Intering

isn't about the confession." And I looked at him like, "What? What do you

excuse me? What do you mean not about the confession? He says you'll get the confession. Interviewing is about

facetime. If you can get people to talk to you for two hours, three hours, four

hours, in one case, I I interviewed an individual for for 12 hours. We, you

know, they'll tell you everything you need to know, but you got to keep them in the room. And so I always view

negotiations of number one is how do I communicate with you in a way that

you'll want to talk to me for however long it takes to get to

that purpose which is the transaction. Now,

you know, if if I'm evaluating you to for your services or if I'm negotiating

for for for prices, you know, I want to hear what you have to say and I want to

lay out what um I'm interested in achieving and then reconciling or

working around whatever discrepancies or issues they there may

be. I think when we look at negotiations that way, we can say, well, that means I

got to do a lot of stuff up front, which is who am I communicating with? Who am I

going to negotiate with? What's their negotiating style? Are they stoic? Do they come in? Are they do they throw

things down? I mean, I've I've been I've been in negotiations where opposing counsel came in and literally walked

into the room, didn't even say good morning, just threw the things down and said, "I want to hear the

numbers." Okay, then how do we begin to deal with that? Because someone that

comes in and is aggressive and so forth, you've got to deal with. What do you do? Do you rise to their aggression or do

you try and bring them down to your position? Great question that the worst thing you can do is rise rise to that.

You begin to dominate them by taking control of

time. Whoever controls time controls. And so they come in, they

throw the things down. So usually, you know, we'll start with Well, good

morning to you, too. Uh yeah. Yeah. Let's let's let's cut to the

chase. And then the whole team I'm working with knows we're going to slow things down. We are not going to be

working at that pace because if you work at that pace, they're taking control.

And so we slow things down. And there's several strategies.

you can become all of a sudden you can become very visual and say all right

we're going to you know write this down and we're going to put this here we're going to put you know and then this is

this is the difference of you know there's a lot of strategies but the first thing is you we've got to get that

person to understand that we negotiate hopefully as

equals but if the perception is always that that person is negotiating as the

bully or is always in charge, you're never going to have uh equity. Now, I've

had a lot of clients that that have said, "Hey, you know, I've tried all your strategies and you know, this this

guy I'm dealing with is is just he's crass. He's just a bully. he comes in

and he stuff like and I and so one of the questions I always ask is is he the

only source? Is is he or she the only source? Number one. And number two is

how long are you willing to tolerate this person? Because we failed

to to look at that. He gives you headaches. You don't sleep well every time you go to this. I'm thinking of one

client in particular. You come away with a nervous stomach. He and you know how

long are you willing to tolerate that? If you're willing to tolerate it, then you know he's not going to change his

style. Then you come in and we we change our exposure. So we're not going to

expose all of our staff to that kind of negativity. Uh we send in our first

person and say, "Look, here are the numbers." And we work with that. But there are ways to to to to dealing with

the with the very toxic. uh but we don't allow them to get away

with everything nor think that uh they're in charge and we do it in in in subtle ways and we uh sort of derail

their agenda. Maybe their agenda based on past meetings was to come in and just

throw these things at us uh very quickly. Then we have to adjust uh to

that. So there has to be rehearsed strategies for for dealing with that.

One of the things your work made me think about is how important it is to literally like write down the goal of my

negotiation before I go into the negotiation. Or else you might get swept up in the emotion of it and the the sort of heat of the m the moment. Yeah. You

you wouldn't be the first one to find yourself in a meeting negotiating and all of a sudden you're you know it's

like what are what are we actually negotiating for? And um and so that's why I like the the

simplicity of um effective communication with a purpose as a form of uh

negotiations but to also understand what is my role. What is my role and what is

my purpose in being there? Because many times we go into negotiations and the chief financial officer is there. Ding.

Uh sometimes we go in there and you know your first assistant is always uh there

also but you also have uh in office counsel that is in attendance. What's

their role? And what is my role? You know something so simple as what are you

going to do? Look straight ahead the whole time um your c you know your

attorney is speaking or are you going to look at him? Well, we know from the research that by looking at uh the

person who's actually talking on your side actually potentiates the gravity of

what he's saying that uh at the most emphatic points that when that attorney

makes um and you did this earlier, you want to steeple because steeple is the

most powerful gesture that we have to convey confidence. steepling is in this

sort of hand is this is is this former German chancellor Angela Merkel did this a lot. You see uh Musk do this a lot.

You see uh Steve Jobs used to a lot of pictures of Steve Jobs doing that. But

you know you reserve that for that point in time when you want to

emphasize and so the worst thing you can do is just to sit there uh dormant. And

in fact, we have research and it's called the stillface experiments. And

that is that the worst thing you can do is sit at a meeting and hold a still

face. You're perceived as a threat. You are perceived as less trustworthy.

You're perceived as insignificant. Corner of your mouths are down. I roll to the to the right,

Stephen. That's how you're perceived. And that's and that's what

happens. uh the experiments which were done first with babies found that if you

take a baby and it's called the stillface experiments. If you take a baby and uh you look away and look back

and uh and smile the baby's content. You can do that several times but on the last one you turn around and you hold

very still. The babies become incontrollable. They they they

have fits. They're really troubled by that. So the experimenters said, "Well, yeah, but at what age does that uh leave

us?" So they decided to do it with adults. Adults do the same thing. If you

and I are talking and we're exchanging faces, the worst thing I can do is then sit there.

It is. You see, you you find it disconcerting. Yeah. and what the brain perceives is a

threat and you lose trustworthiness because you can't read what this person's thinking either way. I'd rather

you be up unhappy then at least I can put that in a box. Well, that's one way to to look at it. I'm not sure that

anybody knows the the precise reason for it. But what we do understand is that

the still face which if you're in a virtual call you want to nod you want to

tilt your head you want to make uh different gestures but the the worst thing you can do is hold still and then

in negotiations when you're talking to the team and saying look when we're going in there you know I don't want

anybody to just sit there I want expressions uh and I and when someone is

speaking you know you're looking at them uh in the same way that the other side would do. But you have to plan. Now, the

other thing I find with negotiators, uh, one thing I did in the FBI is I

always planned my interviews in exquisite detail. Who would enter the

room first, who would say what, where I would sit, who gets offered water, and

when, because I need to be in control. Who's going to say what?

These are things people don't think about. But at the levels with the people that I deal with, you have to have a

certain amount of advantage. You have to have a certain amount of psychological leverage to say,

"Look, you may be the world's largest manufacturer of this, and I'm just

starting out, but I am not down here."

And so I would appreciate if you would begin to value me and I do that by doing

certain things in the manner that I walk in. Who walks in first? Where do I

sit? What gestures do I use to point? Right? So you never use your finger. You

always use the full hand in the vertical position. You take command of the

situation and it looks aesthetically pleasing. Oh, isn't it nice? He's

offering me something to drink. Or the assistant or someone says, "Uh, what

would you would you like some tea? How would you like it?" And so forth. And what we're actually witnessing is the

transformation of I you have now become the dominant person by

becoming the archetypal the father or mother figure because you're offering

something because you're offering it and you're in control of of of the food and and the brain. You know, people often

wondered, well, why, you know, why was it in Stockholm uh Sweden back in the 70s that the Stockholm syndrome took

hold so fast with those bank robbers where they had such an effect on their

victims that within hours the the the victims were defending the the bank

robbers. It was very simple. They became the father figure and the hostages

became the children. So, I actually don't know that story. What happened was there was a bank robbery and in

Stockholm and uh the bank robbers went in held the the the victims hostage.

Eventually uh they were rescued but what they found was that in in a matter of

hours the victims were rising to the defense of the criminals and it became

known as the Stockholm syndrome. And what it showed us was the robbers became

the archetype of the parent and the hostages became the children and in an

instant they became uh sub subservient. Is that what happens in domestic abuse

cases as well? Yes, you nailed it. You nailed it beautifully. Yeah, you're the

the first person to get that right away. And and that's why you often see this in

domestic abuse cases and you say, "How can she just got beat up? How can she

defend him, usually the the case, and you realize, oh my god, we have a like a

Stockholm syndrome where he's the provider, he's the only one working or this or that." But, you know, getting

back to negotiations, I think it's it's one of those things that I insist that

if you go into negotiations that you be treated at least as an equal and that

the minute people start to look down on you, it makes for a very difficult uh

conversation. So, when you're thinking about walking into the room and all these where you sit, if you're walking

into the room to interview a terrorist, right, are you trying to walk into the room first or are you trying to walk

into the room last? Do you send your team in to walk in first, then you show up last? And where what are you thinking

about seating positions? Right. So, one of the things that I always insisted is

I would walk into the room first. So, they would already be in there. No,

no, no. I we would we would walk to the room with them with them and then I

would just make them wait there a minute. I'd open it. I'd take a look and I'd say just want to make sure the room

is safe and there's nobody in here. You know, I've walked into people before. That begins to establish my

dominance. And then I would say, um, why don't you take a a seat uh right there?

You know, people ask me, "Well, why, you know, why are you being so nice to these

uh the these criminals?" Well, first of all, I go back to what that old-timer

said. I want facetime. I don't care what it takes to get facetime, but I also

want to be in charge. And if by being nice to him and pointing to the nice

chair there achieves that, then uh so much for me. And then I

always try to sit in in a in a way that uh I sit higher. Now, in the case of

Ramsay, we'd literally get the room ahead of time and we would change the the the furniture so that I always set

an about an inch to two inches higher than he did. He never noticed that. Ramsey was the the guy whose cigarette

was quivering was quivering. In the end, we ended up doing uh 37 interviews and

they were all done in hotel rooms mostly in the Orlando area and we would go in

ahead of time and uh we would just uh arrange the furniture or bring in

furniture, but I always sat higher than him. He never understood that. He always sat on the couch, which um somehow uh

about an about that much was shaved from the couch. so that it always set um a

little lower. And so um he was always literally slightly looking up to us and

then we controlled when we would take breaks and I I you know and I was always attentive and I would say you know would

you like something to drink now? I said, "Well, this is such a good subject. Why

don't we take the break now and you you have the drink now and then we'll so we

can uh continue." What he didn't realize was that um I was establishing uh

control over him by sort of dictating. Uh it it's it it would be no, you know,

I'm sure your listeners might be saying, "Boy, that's manipulative." Yeah, but in in the transactional phase, it's no

different than you you saying to your crew, I need to take a break right now and go to the restroom. Okay, take a

break. I don't I don't think that much of it. But over time, what happens is he

begins to relinquish a lot of that forcefulness that he'd love to exhibit.

He'd love to be in charge, but I'm not permitting it. And sometimes he he he

would say, "Well, I could use a smoke break right now." And I'd say, "Hang on a second because what you just said was

really interesting." And my partner, Mrs. Terry Moody, I I loved her. She was

a great partner. She'd looked at me like, "Really? You're going to push it that much further?"

But it worked uh to the point where um I mean here's a guy who had his attorney's

phone number on him at all times and he never used that. You mentioned the height of the chairs.

What what does height matter in this context? Because I was thinking as well about Zoom and the interesting thing

about now about Zoom and we were talking about this before we started recording and the fact that most of our conversations are happen happening

digitally now is we don't often think about height and I I'm sometimes on a

call uh with one of my colleagues or partners and I'll often ask them before

the client or whoever we're doing business with joins the call to adjust the height because they are like they're

like looking down into the lens or they're looking up into the lens which I think is also Suboptimal. Good term,

suboptimum. There's a lot to be said about height. Just as there is a beauty

dividend, right? So, the beauty dividend, and you can look this up, the beauty dividend, well researched,

basically says you're going to earn 8% per year the rest of your life just if you

are good-looking. That's the beauty dividend. You can go online and look at all the studies and the statistics that

go with it. There's also a height dividend and it is universal.

If you look at Americans that are 6'2 inches, so a little taller than me,

accounts for about 3% of the population, unless you go to the Fortune

500 companies and then they account for 39% of all CEOs at

62. Whoa. That my friend is an order

of increase. And you say, are taller people

smarter? Uh, no. No. It has to do with the benefit of

of being tall. There is a dividend. And so we

tend to see that across the world. The word dividend, for anyone that doesn't

know, basically means a like a benefit or a reward. One could think of it as an advantage. You you have an advantage. So

with Ramsay, what was the the dividend by you making your chair just an inch taller? What were you doing, Tim? You're

taking away his power a little bit, making you more powerful. I had to because he had all the cards. He was the

spy. He had all the evidence in his head or in his

possession or the Russians had it. The Russians weren't going to give it to us. They're the enemy. They said, "Too bad,

mates. We've got all your secrets." They had so many secrets that they measured it in weight, not just in pages. The

other problem I was dealing with was is his IQ. He had the second highest IQ in the

that the army ever recorded since World War II. He could talk on any subject,

quantum physics to whatever. when you have a superior

intellect in his case which was true or you're dealing with someone let's say

who is malignant narcissist so they account for about 2% of the population

but about 20% of CEOs so your m your malignant narcissist

who overvalues themselves and tends to devalue others

and in my case with him he had narcissist istic traits which I could I could deal with but his superior

intellect was breathtaking and he had perfect recall. Uh so in a way it was

frightening because all he had to do was transport himself to another country and

he could sell all the secrets that he had memorized. So I had to play a a

certain role, but I also couldn't let him take charge of the investigation and

not one that had put England, Germany, all of Western Europe in

jeopardy as well as Canada and the United States. I could not afford, the

United States government couldn't afford to have him uh be flippant with the

knowledge that um that he knew, especially once we knew that he had compromised the nuclear go- codes. Do

you mind if I pause this conversation for a moment? I want to talk about our show sponsor today, which is Shopify.

I've always believed that the biggest cost in business isn't failure. It's the time you waste trying to make decisions.

Time spent hesitating, overthinking, or waiting for the right moment. When I started my first company at 20 years

old, I had no experience and no money. What I did have was an idea and the willingness to move fast, and that made

all the difference. If you've been thinking about starting your own business, Shopify makes this entire process so much easier. With thousands

of customizable templates, you don't need coding or design skills. You just need a willingness to start. Shopify

connects all your sales channels from your website to social media. and it handles the back-end payments, shipping,

and taxes, too, so that you can stay focused on moving forward and growing your business. If you're ready to start,

visit shopify.com/bartlet and sign up for a£1 per month trial period. That's

shopify.com/bartlet. What about posture? Because that's kind of one way to make yourself taller.

Yeah. Um, are there any clues in someone's posture? And how important is sort of playing with our posture to

create a different impression? Yeah, absolutely. Not just not just posture

but uh territory. So I look at posture as you know when we when we look

confident shoulders back our breathing to me posture starts with the brain how

calm we are in our breathing. I was again in Valencia at this uh this event

and and uh a lady came up to me and she says, "You're getting ready to go on the stage. H how can you not be nervous?"

And I said, "Well, I am nervous. I'm just hiding it. I'm acting like uh I'm

I'm in control." But I've I've learned to do that because you don't want to look like a nervous FBI agent. Trust me,

you want to look cool, calm, and collected in negotiations.

um you don't want to uh look uh needy. You don't want to

look desperate. Um and at the same time, you don't want to come across

as you're indifferent. And sometimes that demeanor, that posture,

those gestures, the the totality of it has a lot of meaning. Now, you have to keep in mind a lot of successful

businessmen I'm running into are actually on the spectrum, right? So, the autism spectrum and so they don't make

as much eye contact. They may have behaviors that are irregular. I have one I deal with who has aspberers and so he

uh sometimes jerks and so there's a lot of uh discomfort I find from others in

reading him. I don't have any problem. I just see it. Okay, this is his uh normal behaviors and we get around. But you can

tell a lot uh about a a a person. When you've invested in things, you're doing

your diligence and you're talking to people. Yeah, you can look at the numbers all day long, but you also are

looking at the non-verbals and saying, you know, uh are they communicating

confidence or are they communicating uh desire or need or um or any kind of

frailty? I I was just reflecting on a few of the interviews I've had recently. We've been interviewing for one

particular very very senior role. Yeah. And there were two final stage candidates and I was just reflecting as you were saying how one of the final

stage candidates was extremely calm and sat back in their chair and the other one was very much leaning forward. And

upon reflection the second candidate wanted the job a lot more. But the first candidate was probably more experienced,

more confident and had higher selfworth. and their ability to be so relaxed in that environment and kind of own the

chair in in my boardroom was actually it actually made me kind of want them more

because they were signaling to me that they had lots of options. They weren't intimidated. They weren't scared. They

weren't nervous about this opportunity. You know, that's an interesting observation, Stephen. And it's and it's

a it's very good that you observe the the discrepancy. One of the things that

I look for is what is their role going to be? I I don't mind that somebody is

nervous. Um I myself early on coming from a humble background was often

nervous. I tend to focus on the things that most

organizations don't put into their plan to look for.

One of them is problem solving. Give me a list of the problems

you have solved. Most qu most people when they

hire they never ask that question. They tell you know I can do Excel. I I know

Microsoft I that's great. Please tell me what problems you have

solved at at at your last uh job and and you know how efficiently did

you do it? How do you know if they solved the problem or they were on a team where someone else solved the problem? Because one of the things that

I said, you know, look for is is how many instances they tell and how they

describe it. Because here's what's interesting. The person who solves the

problem goes into the detail and feels the emotion of the person that's telling

the story only conveys it but doesn't know the emotion that is attached to solving

it. Mhm. So when you when that little child finally figures out how to, you

know, you give them a trick lock where wood things have to go this way or this

way and then the little thing opens. When they come back and tell you that, you see the gravitydefying behavior, the

arching of the eyebrows, the bright eyes and saying, "I solved it. I solved it. I got in there." Yeah. Right. The problem

the person that's just telling you this story doesn't know the emotion that goes with it. The other thing that you know I

I I look for is and they may be nervous or whatever is how good are are they at

observing. This is the one question that um has uh actually saved a lot of

companies when I say make sure that from now on you ask how good are you observing and they'll say well observing

what everything that matters people events

opportunities right if you come to me and say well I can code this okay that's

great but in the position that you're going to be in you're going be managing people. How good are you at observing

people? The great thing about companies that that seek this is all right. So

when you go and you business your you go see your subsidiary, what are you what are you

looking for? What are you observing? Well, when I look at the books, how about the attitude of the

people? Are people content? Are they happy? Or do they all look like they're constipated? I mean, I've been into

companies that the minute I walk in, I go, "Oh, geez, you got management problems here." And the guy goes, "Who

did somebody tell you?" I I I said, "Well, you know, I'd have to be clinically stupid not to recognize that

all these people are walking around with their heads hung low, that they make no eye contact, nobody they pass each other

in the subway and they don't talk to each other. You got management issues here." M

and you know and it's like they hired for this

skill but is that really what you need when you actually need somebody that is

a great observer? What about confidence? Is this something that you're born with

or do you think confidence can be trained into somebody? I think confidence can absolutely be

trained. coming from Cuba where we lost everything arriving as a refugee having

nothing and then all of a sudden uh the FBI asked me to become I mean I didn't

apply to the FBI the FBI actually came to me and asked me to apply and then all

of a sudden I said are are you guys serious is like I'm 23 years old you

know I'm barely learning how to shave and with no confidence whatsoever

and they teach you to be confident. You can teach confidence. And

what I tell people is the easiest way to learn confidence is to be confident

about one thing. I don't care if it's you stack

papers better than anybody else. I don't care if it's the way you make

your your bed, any small

thing. Show me that you're confident. Show me that that's better than anybody

else's. And the minute you can be confident about one thing, now you can

be confident about two things and then you can be confident about three things.

this nonsense that I often see people say, "Well, just come in and be confident." Uh, I think that's nonsense.

I think you have to learn and your your physiology has to learn to be confident

about one thing. You know, with me, I was confident in uh playing football.

Okay? I was fast. I could do certain things. I was confident about that. I I

knew that in basketball I could shoot a three-pointer. Okay, confident about

that, but not confident about a a a host of other things. To be in a room full of

executives, I remember when I had no confidence. So, how do I work on that?

You you cannot unless you're a worldclass actor, you cannot walk into a

place and all of a sudden pretend you're you're confident. I tell people learn to

be confident about one thing. And sometimes it's knowledge. I always there is no meeting

I go into that I am not well read on that subject. If you want to achieve

confidence, know everything that you can about a particular subject. And that

gives you so much great confidence. And I've seen young people come right out of college and they're sitting there, you

know, they're they're they're elbows are in. They're they're almost mousy

looking. They're nervous. They're looking about constantly. They don't know where to look. And you know, and I

and I tell them, "Know your subject. Know your subject." because the minute

they begin to talk about that they begin to flower and and and change. So So it's

competence in a particular area or vertical creates confidence which then

kind of permeates. Yes. And and that's what the milit in the you know the military you know like

the British military that's what they they take young people 17 18 19 years

old and they say you know we're going to change you into a warrior. Well, how's

that? By running, by by getting you to climb up that rope, by doing any number

of things where you come can come away and feel uh that confidence. You talked

in a video that I watched um for Wired about a variety of different ways we can exhibit and be more confidence and show

confidence. One of them is really looking at the leaders in your life who are confident and trying to sort of

replicate some of those confident behaviors, right? Um the other one was about your voice. Use a deeper voice and

do not rise at the end of the sentence as if it's a question. Right? So let me talk about those. Don't try to reinvent

what's successful. A confident person doesn't have to talk fast and doesn't talk high.

Right? I remember the first arrest I made and I said, "Stop. This is the FBI." My voice was Nobody was gonna

stop. Nobody. Nobody. And the guys that were with me said, "Joe, you got to work

on your voice. You have to have a command voice." Well, a command voice is down. Like, like, stop right there. I

I'll give you an example. You talk to most executives and you say, "Um, no,

that's not acceptable. It's too high." No is always said down. No. Are

we are we gonna No, that sounds like a complete sentence.

Do you get you you get them to practice saying no? Absolutely. I I did it at you know for 10 years every every February

the guy that uh Brian Hall who encouraged me to write my one of my books called Louderder Than Words

invited me to go to Harvard and I I'll never forget I had a a complete Harvard class. I think there were 76 students

and and I had them all saying the word no no going going lower. He had stepped out

of the room for to to take a call. When he came back he he he thought I had a

cult going. I said no Brian I just I'm teaching them the right way because

these are going to be future executives that you don't say no no no no.

Now, that sounds like a complete sentence. No, no, that's not how it's gonna work. And and it's always uh

lower. So, we work on the words. More importantly, uh we work on the on the gestures, how

much territory you occupy because the territory that you occupy, if you're

here sort of like shriveled and tight, you're shriveled. Uh you want to you don't want to be excessive. You don't

want to look like a clown, but you you you want to have the the space that you're entitled to. And then I think

it's very important to learn to speak in cadence. When you speak in cadence, and

I do it, is people listen. They have time to process what you're saying, but

they can also attach the emotion that goes with it. Who spoke in cadence?

Churchill. Uh Martin Luther King, I have a dream that one day one day

this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its

creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created

equal. Powerful. Imagine if he stood up there say I have one dream that one day might

it's like who would listen to that? But he was a preacher and he knew how to command an audience. And when Churchill

said, "We will fight them in the air. We will fight on the beaches. We shall

fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.

We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender." The cadence is uh not just seductive, it

is powerful. And a lot of executives don't know how to use it. They just I I

I've been to presentations where people just let go. They're not

even listening to what's being said. And yet somebody begins to talk to them in

cadence and says, "This is our offer. It is not

final, but for the moment, it is our best offer." Now you're paying attention.

you're paying attention not just to what I said but the emotion behind it. That's a lot better to say, well, this is not

our last offer, but uh you know, we there's a real authority when you

slow things down just that little bit and provide the gaps, which goes back to what I said, who controls time controls.

You're establishing control over the theater of the negotiations. They don't teach that.

Your hand gestures as well. You've got very complimentary hand gestures to what

you're saying. Even as you're speaking to me, you just went who controls time controls controls and and so it's I'm

wondering how I and my fingers are spread out establishing how much we care

about something. When we fear, our fingers come together. And when we fear a lot, our thumbs tuck in. I' I've seen

people in negotiations give up a lot of information because all of a sudden they they tuck their thumbs in. I Okay,

they're scared because dogs tuck their ears in, humans tuck their the hands, no

matter how dark you are, your hands, the palm of the hands are very

visible. that evolved with us because they're

expressive. So even in low light, we can use our hands to

communicate. The more confident we are, the further our fingers are. I care.

Imagine if I said I care about you versus I care about you. There's a big

difference. So in the first example, you kind of had your fingers together. In the second, you spread them out. this, I care about

this. And so they potentiate the message. Um, and the human brain evolved

also to look for the hands because the hands number one can be used as a

weapon, but number two, they are also emblematic of the emotions that um that

we feel and eye contact. Yes, lots been said about eye contact and the importance of it. What should I

understand about eye contact confidence? Eye contact in some ways is uh I mean we

could spend about 40 minutes on it because and I as a teacher I can tell

you because you want to have good eye contact. For instance, if you're dealing with a woman, you don't want it to go,

you know, normal eye contact is here. You don't want it going down to here to the breasts. Okay? So, you want to stay

looking at the face, right? So you want to keep it uh in in the face, but you also don't want to intimidate unless you

want to intimidate. Um so you have to uh employ things like eye gaze behavior.

You have to employ things such as looking away. Now you and I both look away as we're thinking about examples

and and and different things. You can use eye contact for uh

emphasizing. Look how often we use eye contact or our eyes to communicate

opinions. Maybe with your partner, you said, "What do you think?" And and immediately they'll look he or she may

may look at your partner, not yours specifically, but somebody you live with and they go, "No." Right? So with our

eyes, with our eyes, we often give our opinions. So in negotiations, it's uh

it's an important area. One of the things I think a lot about is about rapport building very very quickly. You

know, someone that does this podcast a lot. I sometimes I overthink it a little

bit, especially when I'm meeting people like you because I'm like, "Oh my god, this guy's going to be reading everything about me and d So, so

sometimes I'm like I think I overthink it when I meet someone like you, a body language expert, someone who's good at behavioral science." Um, I want to talk

about rapport building. We actually videoed our interaction today. So when when I walked in Yeah. and I've got the

video here. Let me have a look at this. See if there's We'll put it on the screen for anyone that's watching. But I just want you to analyze my interaction

with you when I met you and tell me how it could have been better. All right. Hello. So first of all, you were waiting

for me with arms of Kimbo, which is I'm in charge. I'm the big guy. And so your

arms were here. Yeah, I got it. Okay. Okay. But you know, I actually do remember that. I remember thinking, get

your hands off your hips. No, no, no. But but but it's fine. This is your domain. I expect this from you in

your domain. But one of the things you immediately did was you immediately went

around the table and you went forward to shake my hand. Right? So one of the

things that I say is how much people matter to us is determined by how fast

we act. Okay. So the fact that you actually went from there to here and you

did it immediately, it demonstrates that you care. As early as 11 months, a baby

will recognize individuals or even inanimate objects that care just based on how

quickly they move towards them or towards them to do something for them.

Okay? It's called a pro-social act. and babies as young as 11 months recognize

that. So, this is something that uh I it doesn't surprise me because you've been

successful. You know, the the success is for me is measured on how well people uh

get along with others. Thank you for the work. Appreciate you. Thank you. You're very very smart. You

look like someone who uh who worked in the FBI. I uh it's the FBI uniform. This

is the Well, uh will I be miked or is it just this? Just that one. Just Just that one. Perfect. Okay. You said something

charming about how I I I was dressed, which I uh appreciated. Uh this is

always a good reminder to me of how old I look now. And uh and uh the only note

that I would I would add is I would have remained standing a little longer. Ah

okay. and then made sure that you know as I'm sitting then you sit at the same

time. Okay. So invite you to sit and sit with you at at the same at the same time

rather than allow me to all now if you can see in that instance I'm actually

still over you while you're already uh seated that is in

negotiations that would be as we say contraindicated. What does that mean? It is. It's a no

no. It's a big word. It's a big word for Steve. Don't do that. Okay. What about

taking notes? This is something that I've started doing actually in the last six months when I'm in meetings in my

companies in the UK. Um is I have an iPad now and when someone's speaking it

actually helps me because of the way that I think and process and learn and it helps me also to not be listening to

speak i.e. if they say something and I immediately have an idea that I'm worried I'm going to lose instead of,

you know, that kind of behavior, I can write down what I'm about to say and it gives me more time to listen. But but

one of the things I noticed in your work is you say that in terms of showing someone you care, taking notes is a

really effective way to do that. Well, what I what I would say to you is what I

would tell the therapists, one of the biggest mistakes therapists have started making is they sit there and because a

lot of them are earning a lot less money and they don't have a secretarial pool like they used to, they now

type their observations as they're talking to their client. I think that's a big mistake.

And from my the studies that my company did in surveying uh not the therapists

but their clients, the ones that were willing to talk. It's terrible. What I tried to emphasize is

um have material in front of you and if there's a particular note uh

write a little something or if you have somebody with you that's uh going to be the the notetaker.

I don't want to miss anything. If you're writing, you're not observing. And observing is actually more important

than writing. Now, if you started talking and mentioned, if you had mentioned the uh supernal notch, I I

might have, okay, is that super or supra sternal notch? Okay, that's a worthy

note. And then I come back and revisit. But if I'm writing all the time, I you

know, I I have young people tell me, "Well, you're just an old-timer. This is how we've grown up." I can tell you that

from an evolutionary standpoint, we cannot outdo our DNA. We just cannot

simply, for instance, schools come in and say, you know, well, you can't hug the students anymore. Okay?

don't expect you know why you know why do we have depressed students why do we I

there's any number of things but I can tell you this we evolved to hug to touch

to greet each other you know your best mate all that stuff when we used to wrestle with our buddies right uh that

that play that play wrestling all that is is is covert

touching it's because our species needs it. Humans need to touch. There are

certain things that humans need and that one of them is this facial interactions.

When you're focused on writing, you're actually taking away from that. How do

you think about handshakes then? Because handshakes are how we kind of touch strangers in a socially acceptable way.

Is there a good way to handshake? There is. Um and and there's bad ones. So I

always say when you shake hands the fingers are down right a lot of people

put their finger up and so when they shake hand let's see if we can reach each other and so when they go like this

now you have their finger in this er this is an erogenous area of your body

this is what you kiss yeah well the the the inside of the wrist uh is an erogenous area and so now

you have this man's finger here and it's and it's just weird. So the fingers are low and the pressure is applied equally.

So you don't try to Donald Trump hit the squeeze. Yeah. Don't don't don't do a Donald Trump handshake or don't don't

jerk the hand. Don't squeeze it too tight. Don't play jujitsu. Uh people my

age have arthritis. Uh I'm never impressed. I've had, you know, men come in and they're big and burly and they

squeeze my hand and it's like, are you serious? What about the cupping where they they cup with so cupping of the

hand is okay with really people you know but uh most people don't like to have

their hands engulfed if you want to touch somebody else's hand so you shake the hand and then you touch the upper

arm and all of that for anybody that likes matcha for anybody that likes lattes one of my companies has just

launched canned matcha lattes and I was speaking with the founder Marissa and she said that creating this product has

been no easy feat. They tried launching in 2021, but as is often the case in

business, the development process turned out to be extremely complex. So, they've spent the last 4 years testing and

refining every single detail to create this, which is a perfect Ted matcha vanilla latte and a perfect Ted matcha

strawberry latte. So, what we have here in these cans is barista quality matcha straight from the can and it tastes like

it's just been made from your favorite cafe. naturally sweet and naturally creamy in a can. And the reason why I've

invested in this company and I drink matcha is because matcha as an energy source gives me lasting energy without the big crashes that I get from other

products. Grab their ready to drink canned matcha lattes at Waitros, Tesco's, and Holland and Barrett and

Perfect.com where you can use code Steven40 for 40% off your first order.

I've got another video for you here. So, he starts out with an arm down, but he's

he's touching his neck, covering his neck. He's crimping the left side of his face, and he's massaging his forehead

and his neck. So, I mean, we look at and we say, "Okay, these are all emblematic of psychological discomfort." Now, why

that is, uh, we see his blink or eyelid flutter, uh, he's touching his face. Why

is that? I I don't know. It's not now there's a cathartic exhale. Looks like

he's reading one of my books. What I would tell you is is these are all the behaviors you wouldn't want from a

leader. You would certainly you see that from a follower but not a leader. You'll

never see a general do any of that. Certainly not in the US Army or the the

uh the British army. All the behaviors that he's doing which are pacifyings or

indicators of uh some sort of psychological discomfort are also all

the behaviors that we equate with lack of confidence.

Leaders are often exceptional and you say that exceptional individuals are made not born and that's a good thing

because that puts this level of excellence within reach of you and me and you've identified several traits

that make someone an exceptional person. Yeah. Um one of those is selfmastery. self-mastery whether it was

Alexander the Great who sought the the learnings of let's see Socrates taught

Plato who taught Aristotle who Alexander so Aristotle taught Alexander the great

and he pursued the knowledge Thomas Edison one of the greatest inventors in America 1300

patents left school at age six sought the knowledge I mean as humble as I came

from we were so poor I literally had to go to garbage cans to steal books and

magazines to to to learn. You can create your own apprenticeship program and you

can learn to master a skill or a knowledge or an athletic move whatever.

Someone who is selfmastered what have they accomplished?

They have accomplished something that nobody can take from them. Nobody can take that from me. What is

it? All that knowledge, all that skill, all that experience, nobody can can take from me.

Why is the word self in there? Selfmastery because so much of it nobody, you know,

we were talking earlier and I said I I try to read two books a week so that way I can have read about a thousand books

every decade. Nobody's telling me to do that. And so it's self uh why because I

wanted to know because you know why did why did uh Leonardo da Vinci want to know the eddies water eddies in the

water or the length of a woodpecker's tongue? Who cares? It doesn't matter. It

was self-imposed. And we we in this world are the beneficiaries of Leonardo de

Vishi's interest in water eddies which then helped him to draw hair of the Mona

Lisa were the beneficiaries of that. I think

selfmastery is more important than uh I think what a university can teach you.

It can a university can teach you how to think but it doesn't teach you mastery.

So is this because I'm I'm hearing like obviously learning and the pursuit of knowledge and then there's this other part of selfmastery which feels like

self-awareness being aware of oneself like well I think you're an example of of of selfmastery there it's the only

word around the in the universe of languages that

encapsulates being able to take what is available

and making it a part of your life. And so whether it was my grandmother teaching me how to talk to people or my

mother or my father, my mother showing me how to actually shake hands, my sister showing me how to how to dance.

This is all part of selfmastery. Now, I could have rejected all of that, and a

lot of people do. A lot of people reject science or reject, oh, I I don't want to learn how to dance. I don't want to

learn to do that. Okay, that's your option. But there's there's an exquisite

elegance in being able to look at the world around you and learn from it,

which you have done and say, I'm going to put that to work. Why should I re reinvent what other people have

experienced? I'm going to adopt that which I like and prefer and then I'm going to put it uh to good use. The

second one is observation which I think we've talked about observation you know I the the great

example is uh a parent who can observe uh the the immediate needs of children

and and and so forth and I see people now that they're so I was at the airport

yesterday coming here and there was a family that the whole time they were

waiting not once talked to each other nor were they aware of what the others

were doing. I find that difficult because when my daughter was growing up,

I never took my eyes off of her. I see people on their devices as this whole family

was and they're missing out on uh a lot of things, a lot of in information. The

great inventions are made through observation. The the Velcro, do you know

the story of Velcro? No. In the middle of World War II, a Swiss guy goes up in

the mountains and comes back hiking, right? And he looks at his socks and he

says, "Man, these chiggers, these little uh Is it a plant?" Yeah, it's just the

little seedlings that they give off that stick to things. We here in America, we call them

stickers. There's all sorts of names. And he looks at it under a microscope and he notices that they they don't just

stick out, they're actually curved. and in in curving they get stuck on everything. So he

says I'll just invent this. Now what's interesting we talk about observation is

he had seen this one time. How many millions of people had seen it but it's the

observer that can can capitalize on it. And that's why I tell executives when

you hire hire good observers because they're going to save you. They're the guy ones that are going to say, "Hey,

I'm seeing some trends here that are bad." So, observation is is key. And then we transition right into the next

one is most people think communication is just about words

and communication is principally most effectively and most influential a

non-verbal across every culture. and the the misconception that words

triumph over uh nonverbals. Go to a

funeral. Go to a funeral and see how word how well words work versus putting

your arm around somebody and let them sob on your shoulder. It's the primary

means by which we communicate. It's the primary means by which we show we care and it's the primary means by which we

show empathy. The fourth one is action. And it for me it really links to both the second point

which was observation but also to your story about velcro because there must have been many people that thought oh my

god that thing's sticking to me and they did nothing. Maybe even they maybe even some people who thought oh that could be

useful but then the the hard part often is doing something about it's the action is doing is doing something as I talk in

the book be exceptional do something that is pro-social or beneficial but

don't wait right the the the the worst thing we can do if you want to let people know

that you don't care take your time and this happens all the time you you go to a counter you walk up to a counter

and say, "Hey, you know, I' I'd love some help with this. I, you know," and

then they just, "Well, I don't know. Um, let me check in the back." And they take

their time walking to the back. And then they take time walking back. You might

as well be shouting, "I don't care." What I tell managers is that's your

responsibility. Why did you hire someone who can't move at the speed of light?

Because movement is equated with caring. So, if that's their attitude, you might

as well have a sign that says, "I don't care." Now, you could say, "Well, you know, maybe they have a mobility

problem." Fine. Fronted. I'd say, "You know what? It's going to take me a

minute because I just had my hip replaced, but I'm going to address it right now.

We're we we can forgive but when we when we don't show we care

by action that is so immediate. And the fifth one is psychological comfort. And

you write in the book that this is the most powerful strength humans possess.

Absolutely. What's interesting about humans in the years that I've studied them is that humans don't seek

perfection. the the a baby doesn't care if it's

sucking its own thumb or the or the the twin sister's thumb. They

interchangeable is like humans don't seek perfection. What we seek is

psychological comfort and whoever provides that is the soonest winner. It

is as simple as that. if you can. Um, you're too young, but I remember when

computers came out and they were in ugly boxes and they were in ugly stores and

they were behind the counter and they were ugly. Steve Jobs comes around and

says, "No, we're going to put them on these lab tables like we have and we're

going to make them accessible." So this mysterious device that is such a ugly

word that you forget that people hated computers so much they used to come in at night and cut the cords. That's how

scared people were of of of computing. And he went from 4% shares of the

computer market to whatever it is now 67 or what whatever the number is. Why?

Psychological comfort. And I tell this to businessmen. When you're negotiating, what you're

negotiating for is can you create enough psychological comfort that the other person can live

with that so that I can feel okay maybe I

didn't get everything I wanted but for this period in time I can live with that

psychological comfort. I can go back to the board and report that this was the

best that I can do and so forth. Aim for psychological comfort. And how does one

go about creating psychological comfort in in any context?

You started it today. You welcome me in and then you said, "What would you like to drink? Would you like some water?

Would you like some tea? Would you like some coffee?" That begins the process of psychological

comfort. We're in a quiet environment. Less noise, more

psychological comfort, less lighting. It doesn't hurt the eyes. Anything that

starts at a biological, physical, physiological, and then

cognitive level. So, psychological comfort, we're negotiating. So, you want

to offer 3,000. I think I'm worth 6,000. So, how do we achieve that? Well, I'm

going to let you tell me your side of why you you can only provide 3,000 and I'm

going to provide you my side. Okay? The fact that we actually get to tell our

story begins the process of psychological comfort. Now, in the end,

I may have to abide by that because there's only so much money

And if it's not in the budget, it's not in the budget. But there may be some things that you can add to say, look,

this is all we have at this time, but we're going to re-evaluate this in three

months. And if we can then, depending on earnings, get you another $500 a month,

we will do it. Then we do it incrementally, but always thinking about

what provides psychological comfort. being harsh, being indignant, not being

attentive to needs, wants, desires, and even preferences create psychological

discomfort. In um in 2009, you wrote a book called Narcissists Among Us. Yes.

And earlier on you said that roughly 2% of people are narcissists, but then 25% of CEOs are 22% as high as 22% of CEOs

have narcissistic traits. Yes. Okay. And if someone's dealing with a narcissist,

what do they have to do in order to manage that situation?

Because according to those numbers, roughly like 98% of people um aren't narcissists, but probably will deal with

them in their lifetime. And then you know a significant amount of people work with them. Yeah. Even though they account for 2% of the population,

we will work with or for somebody like that. So what we have to keep in mind,

well, what do we mean by narcissist? We're not talking about the person that looks in the mirror and likes to uh

splash on cologne and comb their hair. This is a person that overvalues

themselves but has to devalue others. This is the person who um only thinks

about themselves and doesn't care of what uh suffering or what's going on through your life. Wants you to be loyal

but is not loyal to you. Is disinterested in your personal affairs

but wants you to be interested in theirs. There is your malignant

narcissist. Oh, and by the way, they inherently tell lies, but expect you to

tell the the truth to them. Now, the effect is, well, if if they're only 2%

of the population, but we see them in a lot of corporations, we're going to work

for them, then, you know, how do we get along? Or first is recognizing that

they're going to devalue us. Now, sometimes they devour you by not inviting you to meetings or sharing

information, but many times it's by the way they treat you, yelling at you, uh,

being disparaging. I mean, I have some things that are horrific. So, what do we do when we have people like that? Number

one is recognize what you're dealing with. And that's why I wrote be the um

dangerous personalities because um I have uh these robust checklists in there

which have been tested many times. So you can see oh wow out of 125 things

this person is has 75 of these traits you've you've got a problem. But

now here's the thing. When we live with somebody like this, let's say you you

you know they can be very charming, but then they turn on you and they become

who they really are. Um then how do you how do you deal with that? What I can

tell you is that the arc of the trajectory does not favor you. That

these individuals are so costic. They're so toxic that eventually uh they will

victimize you physically, mentally, emotionally, uh physiologically or financially.

You'll be victimized. The question then is, and I tell this to a lot of executives who work for these

individuals who they're bullied and this stuff is, how long are you willing to tolerate it? If you can set a number and

say 6 months or a year, okay, but then do something because you will pay a

price. You know, there's a great book called the the the body keeps the score. The body will definitely keeps the

score. you will pay a price for being in the proximity of a toxic individual. And

if you become that person's chew toy, you will suffer uh

immensely. Um and so I say, you know, there's no pill to cure them. There is

nothing you can do to make them like you. They expect no loyalty. Try to get

out as soon as you can. And that's the only advice that uh you know obviously I'm not a clinician u but I think most

clinicians if they're honest will say you got to get out of there. It's this is not tolerable. So don't try and win

in any respect. Don't try and I don't think you can win. First of all these individuals are severely flawed of

character. They have no introspection. They see themselves as perfect. They

don't see any imperfection in in in themselves. And so because they're

flawed of character, you cannot expect normal behaviors uh from them. And so

why expose yourself to them? Um they're they will be like that all their lives.

There's a particular chapter where you say um one is bad, two is terrible, three is lethal.

Oh, you know, people I get this question all the time. Well, can you have multiple traits? Yes, you can have you

can be pathologically narcissistic. So you overvalue yourself and you can also

have traits of the paranoid personality where that um you are very

rigid in your thinking and you're always suspicious of everybody's intentions. In

history you look at Hitler. Hitler was pathologically he was a malignant

narcissist. He was clinically paranoid. Who did he fear? Uh uh minorities, the

the the Roma, the what was then called the gypsies, and of course uh the Jewish

people. That's that is clinical paranoia. And he was a psychopath. Okay,

let's just lay that out there. Uh what is psychopathy? Psychopathy is where you

have no remorse, no empathy, no conscience. You can do whatever you want

and you sleep well at night there. That's your Robert Hair the researcher

is the best one that defines psychopathy. Hitler had it all. There's

a thin line probably there between like narcissism and self-belief because when you're describing narcissism, you're

talking about like overimportance, like really believing one's important. And it sounds somewhat like someone who is extremely self-believing.

Well, narcissism, by the way, narcissism, which has been studied since the 1950s, we now have a narcissistic

society like we we never did before. We see it in the way we talk about ourselves more than anything. We get on

Tik Tok and other forms and we espouse all sorts of things. And so, we're way

more narcissistic now than in the 1950s. They look at even the words we use. Now,

we use the word me and I more than we did in the 1950s. We used to say we and

ours. Now we say me and I. And the true narcissist

um has a belief system that is so corrupt. Um they're truly flawed of

character and they not only have the traits of narcissism, but they truly believe how

they see themselves as infallible as I only have the answers. I'm the person

that can make us great again. And I know what you're gonna ask me next. No, I'm not gonna ask you that. Thank you. Thank

you. But if the traits fit, then you know what I tell people is as you

whether you're going into an organization or if you're looking at who's leading your country, ask

yourself, do they have these traits? And if they have the the the traits, then

it's not a difficult equation. psychology is in especially when it comes to people flawed of character is

not that difficult is do I want to work for somebody that values me or someone

that devalues others and you start with that in all these decades of you doing

all these incredible things hunting terrorist spies aerial surveillance working in partnership with the SAS um

interviewing people chasing down terrorists how has it changed you as a human being how has it shifted your

perception of human behavior and what it is to be a human and meaning and all of these bigger questions of life. I've

never been asked that question. So, thank you for asking a most profound

question. I guess the best answer is that I learned a peace meal and I'm glad

I learned peace meal. And by that I mean that my first homicide was just a

regular homicide that I responded to. My first suicide was which was a police officer was uh you know it was in

increments. I think if I had been presented with everything that I had been presented with all at once I think

I would have had a mental breakdown. I'm glad that it was episodic that I was

able to learn from each. And what I have learned is number

one that who were most of the people that I talked to, the majority were

witnesses or victims. And these were nice people.

They were kind people. Some of the nicest people were these poor farmers out in Arizona. They grow cotton. They

they don't earn very much. They're good people. you you learn that everything

you're doing in law enforcement is really for them. Um you know later on when I got

into counter espionage and now you're dealing with nation states and the equities of different nations and yeah

each country has their own priorities but you realize that when you're dealing

with uh extremists and they have their own belief system and there's nothing

really you can do to change them. But we also have our belief systems. And you

have to realize, okay, I can't fix all the problems. As a

law enforcement agent, I can only attend to that which I can help or resolve or

so forth. I couldn't find all the suspects that either raped or killed or

bombed. I was at Brigham Y Young University when she was uh one a girl

was uh abducted by uh a serial

killer and to this day I am in pain that I was on duty that night when she was

abducted. I still feel it. And these things they weigh on you.

But I'm also very h you know when I get with

students I mentor people. I mentor a lot of executives but I also mentor young people who are

curious and I see the eagerness in which they pursue life and knowledge and that

gives me great hope. Why are you still in pain about being on duty that night? Because you can't get it out of you. I

can't get the smell of. Sometimes you go to a crime scene

and the smell is so bad that you can't wash the smell away. You have to burn your clothes. Forensic examiners know

this. There's just some things that you can, you know, the the first person I saw uh

killed was in Kuwa and you just can't

there's, you know, biologically you have the hippoampi. You have two of them and

that retains everything negative you ever experience. That's why you can't take a pill for post-traumatic stress

because the hippoampi makes sure that the first time you burn yourself

touching that stove doesn't occur again. So all things negative are retained

sometimes forever but usually around a decade. But I'm also enlightened by the

fact that people still pursue good things. You know, I hear from people who

work with dogs or who work with the handicapped with no expectation of of any reward. And I

think most people have a a good heart, a kind heart. And so I tried to focus on

those people that I met which gave me the examples for

uh be exceptional. That woman in Brazil who at the age of six was became blind.

She went on to have 12 children. She had more, but only 12 survived. And who

could still do needle work blind by feeling. I will never forget that

experience either. To sit in her presence was a a a bestowed pleasure upon me. to

understand a woman who has who could sense people moving in and around her

just by how the hairs on her hand moved as they interacted with with this with

the the space around her. It it was a great experience. So, what day of your

career are you most proud of or were you most happy?

Oh, wow. Well, I was uh I'll tell you, I was I

was really happy when I graduated from the FBI Academy. Imagine at any time at any one

time there's 27,000 applicants to the FBI and they

will only accept uh 220 maybe or so a year. Um so I was I was elated. I was

also uh very happy the day I

uh left the FBI because at that point I had done it all and I wanted to do other

things. I wanted to write uh which is very difficult to do when you're in the

bureau and I wanted to uh continue teaching. Yeah. So I think those two

events were uh when it comes to career was uh good times in my life. Joe, my

audience are very much people that want to learn um that love stories that want to change their life, improve their life

so that they can achieve the objectives they have. So you've written a lot of books. I think it's 15 in total. Well,

14 published uh the 15th comes out next year. Y. So my my last question then is

of everything in the 14 pending 15 books that you've written and everything

you've learned, what is the most important thing that I didn't ask you

about that would be helpful to somebody who's looking to improve their life, their communication skills, their body

language to be more effective in the pursuit of their goals that I should have asked you about?

Well, I uh I hate to ruin this for you, but I think you asked really in however

many minutes or hours we've been doing this uh a lot of great questions. And I

think in your questions, the the essence is what is the importance of connecting?

You know, your audience is are all in the people business. I mean unless

they're working as a they write code but even they we're all in the people

business and the the what your questions really circled around is what's the

importance of connecting what's the importance of connecting properly and then how do we make maintain those

connections and we we've talked about this the importance of nonverbals to

communicate I trust you I value you I care about you and all that, but then

creating that psychological comfort that allows us to then have this long time

together that relationships are uh are are invaluable. I think that's the

greatest lesson. Every time I go anywhere, I say we are in the people business. And I think you are exemplary

um in demonstrating what what you can achieve if only you have

that. That's a great compliment. Thank you so much. We have a closing tradition where the last guest

leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question that's been left for you is

H interesting. What do people say that

they like about you? I think that one is easy. And it's

easy because I hear it so often and they say, "You're so approachable."

I think they see pictures of me, you know, where I'm looking sternly or they think an FBI agent and and wherever I go

around the world, they say, "Well, you look so average. You look approachable."

And I've always tried to make myself approachable. Um whether you're a a

student, whether you are the security guard or whatever, I am always

accessible. I'm always approachable and uh and I treat everybody the same. Joe,

thank you. Um it's a really interesting time that we're living in. We talked about it a bit before we started rolling. Um we're more digital than ever

before. We're living behind screens and connection is somewhat of a lost art.

And that's why people are so in so

misunderstood and how to communicate how they truly feel because it's not something that now comes naturally to

this digital from birth generation. Right. And that's something that I think your work does so profoundly. It kind of brings us back to what it is to be

human. That that throughine of anthropology and understanding our evolution and where it all came from as well is the reinforcer of everything

that you say. And um it's incredibly important and it's and so incredibly resonant. I've seen it across the videos

that you've you've been in and the interviews that you've done. They're just so unbelievably resonant. And

that's because people are so thirsty for this information. And many of the problems I think we often find in our

lives stem from um being ineffective at communicating to someone else how we feel and what we truly think. Maybe

because we haven't learned, but also maybe we're learning another behavior and maybe we're becoming more individualistic and more withdrawn and

more um trapped behind screens. So, I really applaud you for the work that you're doing and I highly recommend people go and read these books. There's

a lot of them, but um I'm going to link them all below and with a little synopsis so you can decide which one

best suits you. I read a few of them. One of my favorites is the Be Exceptional One. It's so accessible, but

they're all very good at different things depending on what it is you're looking for in your life. whether it's body language, whether you just you're

the type of person that wants to hear more about um hunting terrorists or understanding psychopaths or um

generally more things about the FBI and the life that you've lived. So, I'll link them all

below. Is there anything we've missed? Well, my wife would tell me, "Please be

nice and say that uh if they can mention my uh I now have a YouTube channel to

address a lot of these things, just go to Joe Navaro.net and uh there's a link there

to my uh my YouTube channel, which you would think I would know, but uh we'll link it below. I don't know." But um I

want to thank you for what you do. You're going to realize one day as I

realize that you're helping to change lives even though that wasn't your

intention. Your intention was probably to educate. But 10 years on, 20 years on, or as I

recently found from 40 years on, somebody will write to you and said

something you said or your example uh affected me and it changed my life. And

you'll go, "Wow, I never thought about that." And that's what you've done. And