Secret Service Agent: Never Label Someone A Narcissist! This Habit Makes People Hate Talking To You!

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/f03a1988c9d133eb

I've got a difficult conversation I want to have with someone. Yeah. And they might be a narcissist. So let's stop there, because if you just blatantly label somebody as being a narcissist, you're not going to be able to really understand who this person is and why they are the way they are. But when you need to go into a dark conversation, to make things simple, there are four things that you can do. Because we all have those conversations. We have a supervised.
Who we feel is overlooking us in a promotion, maybe our spouse we got in a fight with, maybe a friend who's betrayed us, and they're cloaked in so much emotion or so much tension that you don't know how to handle that.
But there's also three things that you should stop doing, such as stop telling people you understand. Telling you understand. Yep.
This is what we're gonna talk about. For over thirty years, former Secret Service agent Desmond O'Neill has used science-backed interrogation techniques against some of the world's biggest liars. He's trained elite teams from the FBI to the CIA. And now, in his first public conversation, he's laying out the frameworks you need to communicate effectively, how to lead, and how to get anyone to open up.
when it comes to being able to communicate with somebody. The victory lies in the little things that you do. So you need to have a plan. P is for purpose. So why are you there? What is the goal of the conversation? Because especially in emotional conversations, it becomes really easy to get distracted. And if you lose your cool
You lose control. And then there's an A is to ask. Because most of us think we know what our partner's thinking, right? But the research shows we're only accurate about 40% of the time. And if that conversation gets emotional, that 40% can go down as low as 15%. It's called empathy accuracy. And so the power of asking questions is important, but when you fail to do that, you are gonna have a really hard time having.
They did.
Honest relationship with somebody. And then there's the L and the N, which most people do wrong, and we'll go into that. And then what about body language? Can you tell if I'm being deceptive by how much I look at someone? So there's a few indicators of somebody telling the truth. And we'll talk about them. And what about leadership principles? So I learned the true essence of leadership when I was on a SWAT team from situations like when you're hunting someone and they're hunting you as well.
Well.
So let's get into the details.
Just give me thirty seconds of your time.
Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place.
But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started.
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Thank you.


Desmond O'Neill.
For those people that have just clicked onto this conversation.
What are they gonna walk away?
From our discussion.
With
So I've been a law enforcement for thirty years.
And I've served a lot of different roles in that.
And
Above everything else.
One thing that I've learned
Is
When
Stress is high.
When emotions are strong.
When it matters, how do you authentically connect?
And communicate with somebody else.
There's something to be said.
about when a conversation is easy.
Right? When it's fun.
when everybody wants to be there.
You can focus on your handshake, you can focus on the eye contact, how great your posture is.
What about the dark conversations?
What about those conversations that kinda
They live in the shadows of your mind because you don't want to face them. You don't want to have those.
Right. They're they're cloaked in so much emotion.
Or so much tension that you just
You don't know how to handle that.
We all have that, right? We have
A supervisor who we feel is
overlooking us in a promotion.
We have
you know, a family member who we feel that we're just no longer getting along with.
Maybe our spouse we got in a fight with.
Maybe a friend who's betrayed us.
So
How do you have that conversation?
Like what does it look like?
Because it comes from
You know, for the thirty years that I've been doing this, most of the people that I talk to.
Didn't want to talk to me.
And my job
was to connect with them.
to find a way to get them to open up, to find a way to have some type of understanding and get the information that I needed. So
This is not about interview and interrogation. This is
This is human connection.
If your audience cares.
To understand how to
Have
A dark conversation.
Where
You can deepen that relationship.
or at least come to some type of understanding.
Or
At the very least.
Not
Walk away.
Ruminated on everything you said.
trying to figure out what went wrong, what could you have done different.
If you've had that and you're interested in knowing, then this is this is where we're gonna talk about that.
And to summarise in I guess thirty seconds why you're the guy.
That is best place to deliver this information.
What is what are the reference points, the experiences, the the variety of experience you've had that
Feeds into
The answers and the actionable advice I'm gonna give my audience.
My initial career started as a corrections officer.
Became a police officer and I was a SWAT officer as well.
From there I went to the federal government, so I went to the secret service.
Uh with the secret service I also
Started a polygraph career?
So now I have people
That are giving me their deepest, darkest secrets.
And just for context, polygraphing is
A lie detection test. Polygraph is a lie detection test. So it gives you uh
psychological or physiological response
In terms of how somebody answers.
A particular question.
Where else did your career take you after that point?
I went
into internal affairs.
And so that is now policing the people within our organization.
So now I'm talking to men and women who have had some of my interrogation training.
They kinda know the questioning going on, they know the interaction, they've done themselves interviews and interrogations.
Oh okay, so this is
Law enforcement officers who have
committed a crime or some kind of miserable right issue or reported for something, and your job is to investigate them. Yes.
But
Think about that for a minute. Like you're now talking to somebody else who
you know, maybe a year ago you were out in the street doing work with and now you're asking them
These questions.
Or these for clarification on some type of alligation.
You gotta be you gotta be mindful with that. Like that's a big deal.
And the
The interview methods that were
prevalent at that time you felt were outdated.
They were. So there is in the US there's a very historical
Evolution of
Interview and interrogation.
You know, it started in the nineteen hundreds when policing came in.
In that circumstance it was physical abuse. They called it the third degree.
where you would go in and you know, people would grind down your teeth or they would cause pain for you to talk to them.
As we've evolved.
As a society that started to go away in
Blue of the U.S.
psychological manipulation. So it was less about hands on and more about
trying to get people to talk to you from a psychological perspective.
And right about
Two thousand fourteen when I went into
Internal affairs. I was like Steven, I was like I just
There's gotta be something different. Like we've had to evolve in some way.
In terms of what that is.
And so
You know, you have my thesis there, right?
Right about that time.
I was
accepted into the Naval Postgraduate School to pursue a master's.
And because I was looking for a better way to interview.
One of my thesis advisors said, Hey, have you ever heard of the
High value detainee interrogation group, which the acronym is HIG.
Had never heard of it.
But the Hig when it was created.
was was three prong, meaning that
It had a a a research department.
Right. And it had a practitioner department. So the people that would do the
the the interrogations. And then it had a trainer department.
The trainer department
We would do interviews, interrogations.
We also understood the science behind that.
The reason that's important is because you could be a really good practitioner.
and not understand why something is or isn't working.
And so being able to cross the bridge between
the the science and understanding that.
And being able to apply it in the room.
That hybrid, that connection, that sweet spot.
That is what I did.
So you did research and you continue to do research on how to get people to

information.
How to get information from people, how to get them to offer up information.
Is that the crux of it? Yeah.
So if I'm
You know, I've got a difficult conversation I want to have with someone.
This person is antagonistic, they often gaslight me.
They might be a narcissist.
And I'm walking into that conversation or I'm you know I'm overthinking it, I'm thinking, God, I need to have this conversation.
Where's the first place to start?
So the first place that I would start is don't label the people how you just label them.
Okay.
And that's a problem. So you just labeled somebody a narcissist. Why does that matter to you?
I think it allows me to blame them, I guess. But but tell me tell me in your perspective, what's a narcissist?
That they are they are low empathy, they are self centered, they are a little bit aggressive, maybe. Okay.
So let's stop there.
Do you think
Personally.
that there are times in your life where you lack empathy.
Yeah.
Okay. So empathy is very
situationally based.
So meaning that it's also subjective, meaning that if you feel this person is not giving you certain empathy.
Okay.
Maybe.
Um
A bit self centered, a bit aggressive. You uh the reason I ask you these things is because if you just blatantly
label somebody as being like this person's a narcissist, you've just you've just made it easy for yourself. You've just put blame on them.
And you're not going to be able to really understand
Who this person is and and why they are the way they are. So the first thing that I would do is I would take away the labels.
As how you
Define them.
As you're going into that. What was the other thing you said in terms of what they were? They were narcissists, they were something else? Um they

So second thing.
Uh, which is interesting because we actually within our training
uh program we just did a big class in gaslighting because it's important to understand
What is gaslighting?
And what when is it not gaslighting?
So for you,'cause you said this person gaslights you, what is what are they gaslighting you about?
Um when I bring something up they
Make me feel like
I'm to blame. When I when I bring up how I feel, maybe they make me feel like I'm to blame, like I did something wrong.
Okay.
Does that always happen?
More often than not. Okay. N more often than not. So it's something that it sounds like that when you go in and you're talking to this different person,
Whatever the circumstances is, they are are they trying to discredit you or make you feel like maybe you don't know really what happened? They're not listening. They're just
Always throwing it back on me, saying that I did something to deserve it.
And what was the third thing you said?
A little bit like aggressive, antagonistic. So their their their emotions go up and it kinda makes me shut down.
Okay. They kinda flood the zone.
So when you need to go into a dark conversation
Here are the four things.
That you can do.
to stay engaged and involved in in in what's about to happen.
Right, in and how this is going to hopefully go through.
And
What we say is
You need to have a plan.
And there's the acronym about that. P
Right.
L A N So the P is for purpose.
And the purpose is why are you there?
What's the reason?
What's the mission?
You have to understand it your mission because your mission is gonna drive your tactics. Your mission is going to determine
If things get off track.
If this person becomes aggressive, this person starts to be insulting.
If my mission
at that moment is to deepen my conversation with them, deepen my relationship in some way.
And this starts to get ugly in the middle.
your mission should keep you on track because you can get pulled from that very quickly.
There's something called multiple goals theory.
And multiple goals theory is
The understanding that at any given time
We will pursue simultaneous goals.
And typically those goals would be something task oriented.
you know, I wanna I wanna finish a tasking, I wanna get something done.
There's gonna be a component of identity in there.
meaning that how do I feel and what are my emotions going on during the course of this? And then there's gonna be relational. So it's gonna be
My relationship with this person at the time.
Now a lot of times
within multiple goals theory, those things can align.
So and I'll give you an example. Like if you're playing a sport, you're on a team.
Uh the team goal, your goal within that team, the task is to win, to put on more points than the other person. That's the task.
The
identity aspect of that is
Am I a good player?
Do I want the ball? Do I get the ball? Am I contributing? Am I the superstar? Is there some type of identity in how this makes me feel about myself being being a sports star in some capacity?
And the relationship part of that is
How do I
teammates feel about me? Am I in a good teammate in terms of what there was? Those things can align. You can see when that
Is misaligned when all of a sudden somebody what they would call a ball hog, somebody takes the shot all the time and they won't pass it around and you're like, Ronaldo, what are you doing?
Right. And it's one of these things where like you are more concerned about your identity
than you are about the team winning.
That's a problem.
That's when you can see there's a misalignment of goals.
Or something that's
Even
More simple.
Would be
Let's say you're in a meeting with
Uh
a boss or a colleague and it's a pretty important meeting you're you're trying to
Close a deal.
And
Your boss says something that's wrong.
Now
You have to make a decision.
You could either
Correct your boss.
In front of everybody.
Or you could preserve his or her dignity.
And address them at a later time. You have to decide which one of those is most important.
You have to understand your purpose.

Because
Maybe I could let this go. It's not that big of a deal.
Because if I correct my boss, this may affect my relationship with them at a later time.
This could
ruin my career in terms of
being transferred or or not being on a project.
So when you're looking at goals, you have to understand
what the overall objective is. It becomes, Stephen, it becomes, especially in emotional conversations.
It becomes really easy to
To get distracted.
Really easy.
So I go into that conversation with my colleague who is problematic.
My goal with them, let's say, is to get them to stop I'm actually thinking about
earlier in my career when I w used to work in call centers on the phone.
And um

lady that sat next to me that was always a little bit rude and always put me down a little bit, bit patronising. So
I I in hindsight wish I could have, you know
g taken her aside and had a conversation with her and said, Listen, the way you're speaking to me is very disrespectful or you're putting me down or patronising me, please can you stop doing that? My goal would have been to to get her to stop
It is to get her to do that, but the crux of that is to understand why she's doing it, because that's gonna allow me to
fix this in some way if it if it's fixable.
I'll I'll share the story with you.
In nineteen ninety one.
An eleven year old girl named JC Duguard.
was kidnapped.
By a man named Philip Garrito.
And his wife Nancy.
And Philip and Nancy
Kept.
J C Dugard.
For eighteen years.
He fathered two children with her.
One when she was fourteen and one when she was seventeen.
And in two thousand and nine.
They found her and him at Berkeley, and
They arrested him, rested his wife.
Two thousand eleven.
He was
You know, tried, convicted.
Three years prior to that.
There was a young girl named
Michaela Garrett.
Who had gone missing, never been found.
In a county over in West west of El Dorado, in a county named Alameda County.
There is a lot of s suspicion that Philip
was the one who did this as well.
And one of my one of my colleagues was the
prosecuting attorney for El Dorado County, California. His name is Vern Pearson.
And Vern said.
I'd like to close this or get some type of understanding.
Can you go?
And
Interview Philip.
So I looked at all the information on Philip. He had written a manifesto in terms of how to cure pedophilia.
And I went to Vern, I said, All right.
I'm let's go do this. And he goes.
What do you need, like a a day, a couple of hours? And I said I need four days.
And my goal was to do a a deep dive into
The things that he had done, he was a a a seri rapist.
Uh a seriper.
And to understand his life in the time frame by which
Michaela Garrett went missing.
And so this was the evolution of what I was trying to do.
So I show up, he walks in.
Says who are you?
I said, Well I'm special Agent O'Neill. I'd like to talk to you about
Um
Your history, I read your manifesto and I had some questions.
And he said.
You know?
Uh when they told me I had a visitor, he goes, I wasn't gonna come in. He goes, But the angels on my shoulder tell me that this would be a good good talk.
So
He said let's do it.
We talked in detail every day.
For probably eight to nine hours they brought him food.
And the end of each day, I would say, Philip
Um I will be here tomorrow.
If the
If the angels on your shoulder tell you to show up, please do. If not, then it was nice to meet you. And every day he showed up.
Why did you say that?
There there's a there's a depth of understanding in terms of the headspace that he is in.
And so when you can connect like genuinely connect with that.
you you truly try to understand other person and
There's power with that.
In the course of those thirty six hours.
Multiple times.
He was very aggressive.
He was very condescending.
He called me a liar?
Things he accused me of, you know, I don't believe you are who you say you are.
I don't believe you're here for the things you're saying you're here for.
Um I don't even know if you work for the federal government.
And
He's essentially questioned my integrity.
Now
My purpose.
Is not to make him feel
That I'm smarter than him?
is not to
belittle or berate him or or h or have a a question of, you know, integrity,'cause I could have said, You kidnapped
an eleven year old girl and kept her captive for eighteen years, father two children with her, the first one at the age of fourteen.
And your question of my integrity?
I didn't do that.
Because that's not why I was there.
And so
Despite the fact that he got upset, despite the fact that he called me and accused me of all these different things, I stayed on my purpose. I stayed on my mission.
And
When we were done, when we finished, I went back to the prosecuting attorney and said he's not your guy.
And he said, Are you sure?
And I said I bet my career on it.
How did you know?
There's a lot of things in regards to when you're looking at people from the
Perspective of
Telling the truth.
In terms of the way that they they talk and engage with you.
Our conversation on Tuesday.
And our conversation on Wednesday, and our conversation on Thursday, and our conversation on Friday
All stayed very consistent. If I'm asking him for further clarification, he's providing for for b further clarification. If I'm talking to him about
You know, something and there's some type of spontaneous correction where he's like, Okay, wait a minute.
This happened.
uh before this
Those are those are indicators of of truth.
And if there are things that
You know, he he talks about in terms of like things that are uh of complication.
Perfect.
And
You know, there were many times when he was telling me about the things he had done because
You know, he was
A Syril rapist, you know, and a serial, you know.
kidnapper and he would drive around and pick up women and hitchhiking and he would, you know, rape them and let them go. Oftentimes we would get into the details of like when those didn't go well.
Right, and when all of a sudden the the girl would would fight him off and run away. And so there was all these different complications and different things that he would talk about.
He handled the complications consistently, is what you were saying.
When complications are introduced to a story.
Right.
People who lie don't do that.
Right. It's truth tellers will often do that because it's just like this is just what happened.
Like these are the things that happened. This is my life in terms of where things were going to go.
Overall in terms of how that conversation went, there are those type of indicators that just made it.
trend more truthful than not. Like there wasn't this big gap or this big weird moment.
When we're talking about Michaela Garrett.
to where all of a sudden it's like missing pieces that I have to put in. There there are no cues to deception.
There are things that all of a sudden seem different and require you to do more
Questions more asking?
But that didn't occur around the time that we were looking for with that.
Okay. So
We finally when we finished and then they went back and they looked at the evidence, they found
A new fingerprint.
And we're able to
Um
Charge and convict.
Uh the person who did that.
The reason I bring all of that up is because for the purpose aspects of what we're talking about.
Not losing sight of what your mission is.
Being focused.
In terms of what that is.
The power of communication and staying online as it relates to
What you want to accomplish.
Is really
powerful because it keeps you on track and it keeps you engaged and reminds you of why you're there.
Not every relationship deserves that.
Like there's just some relationships you're like this just isn't worth it for me. If it matters to you, that mattered to me.
It mattered to me not because for me.
It mattered to me before that family.
And
There is a difference between having a profession and being a professional.
Having a profession is what you do. Being a professional is the culmination.
of everything that you've done at that moment at that time for a specific purpose.
That's what I had to bring in with that because that was what was at stake with this.
Um so you have
There's these four cards in front of you. We've done the P, which is staying focused on your purpose when you go into the conversation to to fend off the emotion which might distort you and take you off. And I'm so guilty of that.
Everybody is.
So guilty of that with especially with like, you know
conversations with with my partner where
There's emotion involved in this areas where, you know, blame might be
Prevalent.
So the L.
But you have the
So the L
Is
Listen.
This becomes the thing that people are
Worse that.
Because
It's a lot.
to do.
Think about right now.
Think about
my conversation with you at this moment.
I'm speaking.
So internally
my internal vocabulary and the conversation that I'm having in my head.
is running about eight hundred to a thousand words a minute.
I'm speaking to you in about a hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty words a minute.
There's a lot that's being edited. There's a lot of things that I think that I'm saying or I want to say I'm trying to engage with you.
There's also something called
Theory of mind.
Which is mi watching you.
And trying to understand
Is what I'm saying on point.
with what Steven wants to hear or wants to hear for his audience.
Do I need to change anything? Does this landing on him?
And then if your nonverbals change or your verbals changed.
Then I have to readjust maybe what I'm editing, and my theory of mind will readjust too, because I'm like, ooh, I just lost him here.
I have to I have to readjust.
Simultaneously,
You are listening to me.
And you're listening to the
120 to 150 words I'm giving you, but your brain can process this.
at like four to six hundred words per minute.
So you have too much cognitive bandwidth.
You have the ability to
listen to me and then do multiple other things, which is oftentimes why people will drift out, or you'll start thinking of something else, or you'll think of your your notepad because you got it. You got it figured out. And this is when it becomes really easy to be
Convinced and not curious because you're like I kinda know where this is going.
And so you check out.
So you actually have to do something called cognitive inhibition. You have to kind of narrow that bandwidth.
To stay fully engaged with me.
That's why when you hear people say like active listening, it's hard.
It's hard to do because you have to be attentive.
To the other person.
You have to listen, you have to look.
You have to pick up
Their verbal and their nonverbal behavior.
And you then you have to do something with that.
Steven Covey says
Most people
Don't listen with the intent.
To understand
They listen with the intent to reply.
And if you are simply just waiting for your turn to talk.
Then
You and I are not are not connecting.
Control in conversation comes from listening, not talking.
So if I'm trying to
I'm trying to get some information out of someone.
I should have a bias towards just letting them speak at me.
You should.
You know, y you hear about this like always let the other person talk more. That's great, but if both people are doing that, then the conversation's not progressing.
The conversation is an extension.
Of
what you and I are speaking with and
When we've gone from listening in terms of what that looks like, the next thing you have to do, which gets into this, is the A
Which is
Which is ask.
Right.
So
The A being this.
If you are paying attention to me.
And you're picking up on things that I'm saying.
The changes in my body language.
And there's something you don't understand.
You need to ask.
This is where you're gonna deepen the conversation. This is where you show somebody that you're active listening.
You're curious, and you're open, and you're trying to understand.
Them. If you look at empathy research.
We typically think that we can understand our significant other or different people at a much higher level than we actually do.
For a stranger.
It's called it's called empathy accuracy.
For a stranger.
Your ability to understand their headspace is like twenty percent.
for
A friend.
Somebody close to you is like thirty.
For your significant other?
It's no higher than forty percent.
Which means that
Despite you thinking that you know what she's thinking.
You got a four out of ten chance of being right.
And
If that conversation
Gets emotional.
That forty percent can go down as low as fifteen because you start to pull in.
To be like I I'm I'm guarding myself here, I'm guarding my ego. When your ego is on the line, your ears go offline.
Because you stop hearing what she's having to say.
And you start protecting yourself in terms of
what you're trying to do so your ability to be empathetic when things are hard
becomes harder.
And you have to be very mindful of that.
Let's say you come home from uh early morning workout.
And your spouse says
Hey Steven, uh how was it?
And you say
That's pretty tough.
It's a lot that you can do with that.
This is what she could do. She could say nothing.
So now maybe you understand that maybe she doesn't want to talk about this or she's not interested in it. That's one.
The second thing she could say to you would be like Well
Sweetheart, that's why you look the way you do.
She has now made the
assumption, right, her her empathy accuracy that she knows what you meant by the word tough.
And so if she says to you, Well, that's how you look and that's not what you meant, now you feel that there's a separation between what you're hoping she would pick up on and what she actually said.
The third thing she could say
Would be like
What do you mean by tough?
Because the ambiguity of that is the word tough. Who knows what that means. It could be a lot of different things.
She's now shown you I'm into you, I'm tuning in, in the power of something like that.
When you talk about
Deepening relationships and increasing that connection, that's how it happens.
The same thing with
your nonverbal behavior, right? You look at nonverbal behavior, 66% of of what we give is nonverbal. And so if I through the course of my conversation with you, if all of a sudden we're talking and you're this like,
Oh.
Folding my arms.
So folding your arms could be a sign of just your folding your arms. It could be a sign of
You not liking my question, if you roll your eyes.
So if I see that and it matters to me.
Then I'd need to say something to the effect of it seems like
Versus I think.
'Cause I think is the pronoun saying that's about me and it's just like I don't care what you think.
It seems like what you just did.
Maybe was because you didn't like what I had to say.
Because I saw you cross your arms and roll your eyes.
Do I have that right?
So now you have a choice where you can either say you're
Yes, you got that right for these reasons, or no, I just folded them because I was comfortable and
You know, whatever the case may be.
It is a matter if I see you and they're and it's and it's in harmony with the conversation.
that we were having that seems like it's a you know something that
Shows that it could be.
Potentially a problem.
I need to ask about it. You and I having a conversation right now and you folding your arms isn't going to be like a red flag that I'm like, Oh, I just saw you folded your arms when I said that. But if it's something that there's some emotional late around that and it's important.
And I'm trying to express something to you when I see you roll your eyes or cross your arms.
Hey hey Steven, I noticed when I brought up this thing about our family.
Um
you kinda lean back and crossed your arms and rolled your eyes.
It seems like you didn't approve of that, is is that
Do I have that right?
So now it's on you to explain that or not.
On this point of body language
Um as someone that sits here and
I guess interviews people for like
Uh you know.
four or five hours at a time sometimes.
Over the last five years I have come to learn certain body language um patterns in my guests.
Okay.
One of the most obvious ones is when I ask
The guest the question that is causing them some potential discomfort in some way. And when I say discomfort, I should probably define that as
Maybe
It's a difficult question for whatever reason. Sure.
What I tend to see is I tend to see them cross their arms.
Okay.
That's like a really consistent pattern. It's almost like a it's almost as if they're telling me that this is a little bit difficult.
And it's it holds to be true. Do you ask them?
I noticed when you crossed your arms, uh you know, when I asked you that question, is it something with this question that bothered you? Or do you just let it go?
I let it go, but it but it's
They've already told me. Okay.
So I've already they I don't need to ask them because I I know I now know that there's something there where
There's emotion.
Sure. It's kind of the way that I s I see it. It's what it is. More than likely it's what it is. And I think there's power to that because your perception, right? So it's uh you bring this back like
Your pattern recognition.
of all the guests that you've done and the association or the
the connection of that in terms of the question that you ask and they cross your arms, like that's where that comes from. That's where that all of a sudden that thing where you're just like, I feel it, but I don't really know it. It's just like you don't know that to be the case.
Because it could be a number of different things.
But because of the pattern recognition you've seen all the time, that gives you the chance to say and this is there's some emotion here.
So either engage it or tread lightly, depending on which way you want to go. I
Yeah. And that's what happened. So instead of saying, like, you know, why why did you cross your arms? I will
Ask them maybe potentially how
How that memory makes them feel they they feel about that and
And that tends to be it's just it's so you know,'cause people always talk, you know, they say does body language matter?
Does it count for anything? Can you interpret
Someone's body language to understand if they're telling you the truth.
Is any of this stuff true, in your in your view?
No.
You should you should look at body language because it it it it is a language.
in terms of what somebody is is showing you.
You look at body language.
And if you see something that
Is it change?
Just like the crossing your arms.
Then you need to be curious about it.
So it's really about a change in state. It's a change of it's a change of what somebody's doing and the timing of that.
So you just said like when I ask something that is
Personal or emotional.
They'll talk about it, they'll cross their arms because maybe it's just now like
The psychological thing where I wanna guard myself a little bit, maybe I wanna kinda close up a little bit.
Who knows?
But
If it's something where you're just like I noticed it and you don't need to use it.
Like you could ask them if you wanted to, but you're just like, Oh, they already
They already told me so I don't need it.
For anybody else, if you see that and you're talking and somebody crosses their arms
Don't just assume that's what it is, because if you assume and you're wrong, you're going down the wrong track.
Yeah.
And so throughout this
framework for having hard conversations. We've covered the P which is
Stick your purpose.
The L the lisp which is listen. The A which is to ask.
Is there anything else?
In the framework?
The N.
Which is the next steps.
So
To have a plan.
Means to understand all of these different things and the way that you approach that. And the next steps is how do you want to resolve this? Like what's the end goal with this?
Is there anything that I can do?
That we can
you know, further our relationship where both you and I can can be in alignment.
Do you ask them or do you propose? I would always ask them.
If I'm engaged, right, so perhaps let's go back to the
conversation that you may have with, you know, this this individual, you're just like this person's a narcissist and so forth.
If you're engaging them and you're the one who wants to really have this conversation
and you're hoping that you can find some type of resolution, you have to ask if there's resolution with that.
So f something to the effect of do you think that you and I can find an amical way forward where when I when you and I engage
you know, we can really enjoy each other's time and and this thing not go bad. Like do you see that in our future at all?
Yes or no. And then it's either yes, okay, what does that look like for us? Like how do we have that? Because I am I'm having this conversation with you because my relationship with you matters.
But there are things that happen within that are that are
Frustrating.
And that caused me not to really want to engage.
I do want to find a way to do that because that is most important to me.
How best do we do that?
There is no magic bullet by which makes everything every conversation go perfect. There's none.
You are you are part of that conversation.
The other person is part of the conversation, you have your perspective, they have their perspective.
You have what you think is right or or or think is fair.
Fairness is uh subjective.
Because what you think is fair is just means what you think is fair.
And so
the hardest part is to walk away and feeling like you should there should have done more you can do.
The power becomes
knowing how to address that. And if it doesn't go right, then you walk away and be like, you know what? It just didn't go right.
And I'm okay with that. What if they start insulting you in the conversation?
Okay. What's your purpose of being the conversation?
I'm trying to get them to s stop being so rude to me when we're at
On the same bank of
Telephones at the call center.
So it is a matter of
If she's being rude to you it it's it's addressing that at the moment, right?
You know, I I noticed that we're having this conversation that you're being
Really aggressive, really rude, and really condescending. So you call it out. Yeah.
Be very specific in terms of what it is. Like
I you know, if she if she calls you and she uses you know, she calls you a name or whatever the case may be, and like, you know what, you're being rude and she's just like, What did I do? And you're like, You're just being rude.
That's not helpful. Like give her the context by which you feel that she's being rude because
Maybe
She does something w outside of a name where you're like you're being rude and
Maybe to her that's not rudeness. Maybe it's her directness.
Right. But if she's like, you know what, you're
Stephen, you're just an asshole or whatever the case may be.
And I would say hey, it it seems like as right now, like
You know, you're very condescending, you've call me a name to include an asshole.
Can you explain to me specifically right now why that is?
And
Make her back it up.
Make her explain to you what it is that
Is there something about is there something about me you don't like? Is there something about my my work ethic that you don't like, or maybe the way that I'm doing this? You've been here longer than me, so is perhaps there's something else
That
I'm doing or not doing that you think is wrong because I am not understanding.
Your anger and your venom.
And your need to consult me?
And I would really try to understand what that is.
So you're having a very direct conversation with her, very specific to what she's saying.
It does not mean
That that's going to fix it.
She could just be an asshole.
And it's one of those things where you have to be like
I am going to address this. I'm not going to
Return in kind.
I don't have to turn into that person as well.
I can walk away from that conversation and be like, you know what, I handle that the best I could.
Doesn't mean it's going to fix it.
Are there any tactics that interrogators are taught or that you teach interrogators
For keeping your emotions in check.
Because you know, we we go into those conversations, someone calls you an asshole.
Your cortisol start spiking, you get into your amygdala, you get stressed, you get emotional, you end up calling them an asshole back. But is there I don't know, is there breath work? What what did interrogators get taught?
In the heat of the moment.
At the at that time.
You have no time to do breath work.
This is real time stuff in terms of what you're trying to do. If you go in and you understand your purpose, and again, I don't mean to go back to the plan, but what happens is you become you can be pulled out very quickly.
And all of a sudden, if you are trying to get
information from somebody.
And
One of their strategies.
because they'd maybe don't want to give you information. One of their strategies is to insult you.
And now you're insulting them back.
One, you're not gonna get anything. Two, you fell under their strategy.
So what you have to do is you have to address that. I am something to the effect of I see that
When I asked you that, or now all of a sudden, like it seems like there's a change in our relationship to where now you're being really aggressive. Why is that? So you're continually calling it out. Yes, because
I am asking you to back up your emotions.
If
BS.
If you're just doing that because you're trying to hide the ball someplace else.
I'm gonna call you out on it.
It's also showing me that I am not afraid.
to confront
this type of behavior and I'm seeing it and I am
I am really trying to engage with you in a very amicable, genuine way.
And if you're going to treat me a certain way, I'm going to understand what that is. You're also showing that you're not doing it in a kind.
Is part of this showing that you're strong.
It's less about being strong and more about being
Competent.
and confident in what you're doing. Because if you allow
In anybody.
Not just an interrogation room.
If you lose your cool
You lose control.
You have to be mindful of that.
I was overseeing a in internal affairs.
interview.
Uh and I was gonna go in and talk to this person at the end. I was thinking about doing a polygraph with them, but before that was going to happen,
the the case agent, the person who had the investigation, was talking to the subject.
It was a road rage incident.
Where this
Uh agent.
uh had been accused of road rage and pulling his gun out on a a civilian.
So this was the conversation they were that they were having. And I'm listening to this.
In an interview room, right? And in in terms of like a two way, two way mirror.
And
The subject
Is very aggressive. He's very angry.
And he's very angry to the point of like he's like I don't know why you don't believe me with this.
I keep telling you these things and you keep asking me the same questions.
I think this is a bunch of BS.
The investigator comes back and he's just like because I think you're a liar.
And
You're not telling me the truth in terms of what it is.
And you're causing us to be in this room a lot longer, and this is a problem.
So now they're both yelling at each other, like yelling at each other.
And it was one of these things where I'm watching this
Unfold.
And
It wasn't the subject's job.
To maintain his composure, it was the investigators.
Because his goal is not to belittle
This other
Agent.
His goal was to find out, did this or did this not happen?
And he lost sight of that. And he came out of the room.
To me, and he's like, What do you think? And I'm like, Well, I'm not gonna polygraph him. I mean, this guy's so emotional right now, like that's not gonna happen.
And he goes, You know what, this guy's just an asshole anyway and I'm like
I don't think he's the asshole in the room.
The other guy was the asshole in the room.
because he allowed himself to get pulled out of what he should have been doing.
Because now he wanted to have the game of
Who's the bigger who's the bigger jerk in the room?
You can do it.
And again, if you want to burn that bridge.
Burn it.
But if
If you wanna maintain a relationship or you want
to maintain your profession, or you were trying to get to some resolution.
You cannot lose your cool.
I guess that was what it comes down to is most of the time we're not clear on the goal going into the conversation. So
we we have nothing to be anchored to. So it just it's we it's just like getting into the washing machine. Absolutely what it is. We just spin around and around and around and walk away with a business relationship. And the the power really comes from
If
This person is insulting you and they're angry and they're doing these things and you're sitting there and you're asking good questions. You're keeping your composure. There is a lot of power with that.
And I mean power in a in a way that shows like I'm in
I'm in control of myself.
I am
Well aware of what's going on.
as this relationship and this conversation is is happening.
Uh I am not going to fall into this because this matters to me in terms of this other thing.
I've heard you say that you think people suffer from me, me, me syndrome.
What does that mean?
So the Mii syndrome is
Everything
Everything is about
Me, right? I mean it seems obvious with that, but
Like you can even look at things from like a cultural perspective.
You could look at like here, you know, in the in the US and Western civilizations, like we are primarily like a dignity culture. Well we are
It's all about us.
Right. It's all about that internal that internal feeling that that we have.
And so everything is predicated.
On
our job, our success, the things that we do. The external world doesn't really matter in terms of our our success or failure. So
A lot of it is
What is in your head space?
And how do you
Manage that because
The problem that I see.
And what I think
comes with in communication is
We do
A lot of
Self reflection.
We rarely do a lot of outward flexion on the other person.
Some of the best negotiators there will spend more than half of their time thinking about somebody else.
So a very personal story.
Um when I was
Twenty one my father passed away.
And he had been battling cancer for for three years.
And so when he passed away.
Uh, I have four siblings and my mom was there. So when he passed away, he passed away at home and all five of us were there.
Several years later.
Uh, I'm having this conversation on the day that my dad died about the day that my dad died. I'm having this with my
My sister and my three younger brothers.
And we're talking about where we were and so forth. And my sister says
Yeah, I I can't watch the Simpsons.
Without thinking of of that. And I said
What do you
What you mean? She's like Well the the
The T V was there and the Simpsons were on and she's like, I always just remember that.
And I was like
There's a there's a T V in the room?
She's like
You don't remember T V being the room and I'm like, I have
Absolutely not.
I have no idea that there's a T V in the room.
I didn't code it. That wasn't the thing that was important.
Her perspective.
And the way that she saw
That moment
affected her differently than everybody else in that room.
And so to go back to the me.
When you fail to take in consideration that other people have other experiences.
Based on
How they
Pick up the world.
How they do things in the world.
And you think that it's just about you
Your
you are gonna have a really hard time.

Honest.
Connective.
relationship with somebody. If it's just about you. You can do it.
And a lot of people do it.
You know, they're looking for that that way to
you know, make people drawn to them and make people connect to them. And and that's fine.
But if you are trying to
I guess Steven, if you just want to be like a genuine person and you wanna have a relationship, don't make it about you.
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I was thinking this earlier. I was thinking one of the things in the po this podcast that I've learned is
If I um
If I want to increase the probability that someone opens up and tells me something.
One of the things I do is I show myself.
Yeah. So you know, I might be asking someone about their childhood.
And it's quite clear to me now that one of the ways
Especially if they end up crossing their arms and get uncomfortable. Yeah. It's just to pause for a second and share my own childhood. Yeah.
So if I've identified that one of your values is I don't know.
You ought to be a good family man.
Might you mention that you're a family man yourself as a way to build a bridge.
So
If it's honest. So so that's a great question, but this becomes a thing where you have to look at things if you're trying to influence or manipulate somebody.
If it's honest.
And it fits within that conversation at that moment because this is what I based on a conversation, I think this person needs to hear.
Then sure.
If it's real.
If it's not
If I'm lying to him because I'm trying to say, Well, I'm a family man, you're a family man, like we're we're
Good. Now you're mali now you're manipulating the person.
And that's a whole different conversation. So to go back to what you said, if if I understand this guy's values and I understand that there is a sense of
Let's say a sense of honesty. Maybe if there's a a part of this person that's also honest, or there's also a sense of
He wants to be
I don't know. He wants his kids to see him as a as a
A as a man of integrity.
Right.
Let's just say that. So maybe maybe that starts to become a conversation that we have as it relates to
Um, you know, I can only imagine, you know, the the difficulty that this has with you as as you've told me.
You know, you're a family man. I'm not gonna say you're a family man, I'm gonna say as you told me you're a family man.
And one of the things that you said about being a family man was
How important is your kids to to kinda like lead by your mo your model, like your role model aspects of that.
Bye.
Honesty and openness.
And and and those type of things. So do you hear where I'm going? So I'm trending in the direction
by which that I am trying to bring online
Still his father, but a different value under what it means to be a father.
'Cause I don't wanna talk about being present because that's probably gonna go away.
But
If he is trying to teach his kids
To own your mistakes.
Then maybe that's the direction I go.
How am I gonna get that? I'm gonna get that because I'm gonna start off my conversation with him in a very honest, genuine way that I'm gonna try to understand.
Who is this person across from me?
And what's the difference between manipulation and influence?
Influence.
Is about nudging a person.
In a certain direction, at a certain time.
That's beneficial for both you.
And them.
That's influence.
Got it?
Mm-hmm.
Manipulation is you nudging a person in a specific direction.
Because it's good for you.
It's not good for them.
And so you'll lie, you'll you'll do whatever you need to do to to close the deal, to get them to do something, to give them to give you something.
That's manipulation.
Because it's often one of those things that it has
negative consequences to it in terms of the person who did it.
You know, maybe they never know, but you manipulated them.
Which is interrogations, no?
Because this guy's gonna go he's gonna get life in jail if he admits that he killed this child.
So I'm that's not in his interests, but it's in mine.
So I'm gonna manipulate him to give me the secrets. If that's what you want to do and that's the direction you think you need to do.
Then
By all means you can do it. And here in the US it is legal
That you can lie to.
Oh subject.
But So you're saying lying is the the the m moment where it becomes manipulation. Yes.
That becomes the shortcut.
And that becomes a way not just within the interrogation room. Like I think what becomes important, and I've seen this come up a lot.
People are all about like influence. Like you hear that come up quite a bit.
If you want to influence somebody, this is how you do it. You're honest with them.
You're clear and you're transparent.
Because influence is about how do I feel about you.
Not about all the things that you're doing in that moment, because if I don't if if trusted is the isn't even on the table.
If I don't trust you to begin with, or I think that to go back to what you had said, there's this pattern recognition where I'm like, I just think there's something wrong with this.
you're not going to be able to influence me.
If I am honest with you
In everything that I do, because that's how I carry myself.
Not only does it lower your cognitive load because you're not lying to somebody else.
But it underscores who you stand for and who you are as a person.
And with that, people are gonna see that and say
You know what?
Steven's very transparent.
He said this was a good deal, and I believe that for these reasons, it's a matter of you being honest with that. I
I always question that like I'cause I see it a lot.
And it came up in the in the questions that that I was talking to your team about. It's like
Why does everybody want to influence somebody? Like why
Why do they what is that?
Do you know?
Like why does it come up all the time?
Because
What are people trying to accomplish?
If they want to accomplish something, they have a goal. For who?
For themselves. Right. So is that is that influence?
But it gets the job done.
For some s for some people. Sure. It does. Thinking about that. Was it Carnegie? What's that book? It's probably behind me somewhere called Influence.
And it talks about the the
five pillars of influence, things like Yeah. So it's uh Robert Cialdini. Oh yeah. We teach that.
Right. It's one of those where you can understand why influence works.
the different strategies of influence, like what they all stand for and when they fit.
within the within the conversation
You can do it. I do it, but I can t
I can tell you, Steven.
Being a being a communications specialist.
I don't spend my day.
walking around trying to influence people.
I will be honest with people, I will be transparent.
I will answer their questions with the best information that I have.
And if people are inspired by that.
And and and that causes somebody to
Be influenced by the things that I said.
That's
That's what I want. Right. And I brought this up earlier, but the the training academy that that
you know that I instruct with
It is all about openness. It's all about honesty.
It's all about trying to help people based on why they've come to us.
And it's not about manipulating people to to come in and be a member.
It's about
Why are you here and how can we help you?
And this is the best way we can do that.
And that influences people and that inspires people.
To
to listen to what you have to say why why is your podcast
this successful.
The first time you and I met
You said something that I disagreed with.
And it was
You were talking about Flight Story and you're talking about the different things you s you, you know, with Flight Story and the success of the podcast.
And you said it's not because I'm a good interviewer.
It's because they're really good at marketing.
You're a good interviewer because of the vulnerabilities that you do.
Every time I've been surprised
On how vulnerable
And open you are in terms of sharing with yourself, like there's that story arc.
In terms of how that connection is, because of that.
You influence me.
Not because you're trying to, not because your team reached out.
But because of the way you carried yourself.
In your podcast.
And the questions that you ask, and the vulnerability that you're showing there is a level of trust.
That comes with that. And so you in you weren't trying to influence.
You're being you.
And there's a part of your self congruence.
Who you are, your ideal self.
Which is just like this is just what I do, and my life's not perfect, and I'll share the parts that are messy.
And I'm trying to use this as a platform to help millions of people.
That's a big deal.
And is this
How you build trust with people.
Or is trust a a different or adjacent point?
Trust is about being
Vulnerable.
Trust is about being open.
And
sharing a little bit about yourself.
So truly, Steven, the question becomes
Is what I've shared with you in good hands.
Because if it's not
That's a problem.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you have a secret?
That maybe you've never told anybody or you've told just one or two people. Yeah.
You do. You got one in mind? Yeah. What is it?

But w if these millions of people weren't watching, would you tell me?
Yeah.
Okay.
So
The reason that you're not telling me.
Or in front of these millions of people is why.
Why are you not
Why are you not telling us your secret?
Um because of consequence.
Okay.
Some someone's gonna clip it, someone's gonna put it on the internet, someone fuck me up.
There's a reason for it, right? There's a reason that you're not trusting it in terms of what it was. Maybe you trust me just because of the the relationship that we've built at this point.
Um, but there's probably other things that you wouldn't trust me with.
Вені так.
I if you look at concentric rings.
You know, in terms of the the the trust around you.
The the center ring should be self trust.
It should be you.
You should be able to trust yourself more than you trust anybody else. If you don't
You probably need to do a little bit of work.
Right.
What does that mean in reality of me trusting myself?
Do you trust that you will do the things that you
want to do or you ought to do or do do you keep yourself in that direction? Do you keep yourself accountable? Right? That becomes this thing where can you make decisions? Are you a person like I don't make any decisions, I let somebody else make decisions or I run everything by everybody else because I don't trust myself to make the right decision.
then you have to work on your decision making because you have to find a way to build your trust up.
Outside of that initial ring, it's
It should be a ring of
a handful of people that have unconditional trust.
Right. And these are the people that no matter what, like you've given them
That trust. You you believe in them.
And
It should be a small circle.
And this is where I think people go wrong. They're like, Ah, you know what, I I I share everything with people.
Then they then they're crushed.
When
One of those people that they've given on conditional trust with
Break it.
That's a problem.
I have probably
You know, my siblings are all really close to me, so I have them. There's four of them.
Um, outside of that, I have my you know, I have my wife and
A select few friends.
You know, that I know that if I call they're like the
We're good.
Um outside of that.
You should everybody else.
Should be
Conditional trust.
People should earn your trust.
Right. They should be honored to have it. Like don't give it away for free.
And if you have somebody's trust
You should respect that.
if they've given that to you.
And I've seen it. I people give away trust way too much.
because the person will be amazing in this one spot, and all of a sudden they get the halo effect and they're like, well, they're great here. They must be great here.
It's this it's this.
arc of they're awesome everywhere. And so I'm going to
Trust them with these other things.
Then when
Again.
They break it. They violate it.
The way you feel.
is just the this this violation of, you know, somebody took what you gave them and just destroyed it.
It's hard to come back from that. It's hard to once you reb once you lose trust.
Like if you lose somebody's trust, it's really, really hard to get back.
Is there anything you can do to get back, do you think?
What I know that you can do.
It doesn't always work.
You have to be accountable for why you lost it.
Whatever that is, very specific.
It's gonna take
Time.
And a lot of consistency.
To consistency meaning that you show them consistently time and time again.
that you are a person that you know can be trusted.
On him
On leadership principles.
Something I've had to talk about as well.
Um
Wha what do you think are the most important principles as it relates to leadership? Because we've talked about trust there and other things around communication and all these things. Is there is there anything we haven't covered as it relates to being a great leader in your perspective?
Somebody who's calm under chaos.
That would be
my definition of a leader. However, and I say that because
Leadership is a feeling.
Steven, how do you make these people feel as it relates to
my qualities as a leader. Do I do the things that register with you?
As leadership because I can tell you when I was on a a SWAT team, which is the special weapons and tactics, this is where I learned.
The true есенs of лідерші.
Because I had some amazing commanders.
and and team leaders on that team were under
High stress.
Under a stress like that.
If you have people around you that are keeping their composure,
That's leadership.
One of the elements there, I guess, as when you're in the SWAT as well as dealing with
Huge amounts of uncertainty when
Pressures on. Sure. When your life's at risk.
I was reading about a study which I think you mentioned
Some time ago.
Where they look at three groups of people doing the same exam and w were sort of trying to ascertain
How people make decisions.
With different degrees of certainty.
Information.
The study showed was
There were a group of students that, you know
We're taking a test in college.
And
they were told that, you know, they had either passed or failed, or they had no idea whether they passed or failed.
But prior to that they were asked if they would, you know.
Take a vacation.
And the people who passed and the people who failed.
there was a higher percentage of them who chose to take a vacation after getting
News
That they had either passed college or failed college.
The group that didn't know there was a third group that was just like
Yeah.
I'm un I'm unsure.
weren't able to really make a decision. And and so what the what to be clear then on that third group they didn't have their exam results back. So they didn't take the action to book the
There were some
malfunction inability to score their tests and they would get their results at a later time.
And so then they were asked to
you know, if they would also via a vacation and uh a farther fewer percentage, I don't remember what it was, but a farther uh much less percentage of them would take it.
than the people who both pass'cause I think there's like half the people who
passed or or were told they passed, like
Took the
Bought the vacation package. It was like a vacation trip to Hawaii.
around the same percentage, I believe, who failed the exam bought the vacation trip, but the people who
Couldn't decide.
just they didn't have the cognitive bandwidth to to really make a decision. So the ambiguity

really lessens our cognitive ability to to go in a certain direction.
And so when we don't know where to go, we often don't go anywhere.
That is a hallmark of great leaders that they're able to
decide even when there's very l low certainty. Sure. I would think that would come with
You know, the territory. I think if you're
If you're only a leader when it's calm.
then y you're not really a leader, you're somebody with a higher salary and a title.
Like leadership really shows up in in those type of circumstances when when things are uncertain.
And so
You know, having the ability
Two
manage things when not all the information's there.
doing the best you can with it because
You know, oftentimes the the best decision
to make is the right one and the worst one is to not make a decision at all.
And so if you have those type of leaders who just can't think through that problem, then that's not a leader.
I remember when I spoke in Sao Paulo many years ago, Barack Obama was on stage and he said that
As president like when he went and got
Bin Laden in that compound in Pakistan.
that they didn't know if bin Laden was there. They'd never visually properly ID him. So he had to make that decision to risk American lives with
as he said, fifty one percent certainty. Yeah. Or very low certainty. And he says that's the the thing about being
the president of the United States, you make huge calls with very little certainty. Yeah. And I've always thought about that in in terms of my day to day life and
It all has made me conclude that
the most successful people that I've met.
Do you have that ability to be low certainty and make big calls? Yeah.
um with the peace of mind that they've made that call with the best available information. And then the sort of
Inverse of that is
Some people listening right now.
with even small decisions are trying to get to a hundred percent certainty when
Obviously a hundred percent certainty only exists in hindsight.
Yeah. You know, and that that's that's a really good that's a really good point. I think that's a lot of people struggle with that when it comes to just just to own your decision.
Like like own it. Like whatever you choose to do.
If you if you make it
not under high emotion and you do the best you can with the information that you have at the time.
Make a decision. Like
You know, it's as they say, it's you know, if you make the wrong decision then it's experience. If you make the right decision, then it's confirmation.
I think about this a lot. I think about um how
Maybe everyone listening could have been a little bit more.
a conversation with themselves about their own relationship with uncertainty. Yeah. Like how good are you dealing with situations where you don't have much information? Yeah. Um are you the type of person that's able to make a decision and not like sit up sit in paralysis and
many people that come up to me in the street and say they want a new life or new this or new that
are um are choosing like the certain misery of their current life versus the
uncertainty they see as they look out into the void of like
quitting the job and going and playing violin in Peru or something.
And um
You know, I think it's a good thing.
I you you you bring up you bring up something that um
So in one of our one of our recent classes that we taught this month, we talked about owning decision.
Right.
And I shared the story with the community and it it had a pretty profound effect. And so
I was
Mm-hmm.
As a police officer was on patrol, it was late at night.
I'm
Driving down just this
Two lane road kind of in the middle of nowhere.
And I pull over to the side and I'm just kinda like watching from a from an angle.
Just people driving up and down this road.
This car flies by
Goes through a stop sign, doesn't stop. It's a very nice luxury sedan.
So I turn on my lights.
Pull'em over.
And I said.
How you doing? He's like
I'm all right.
I can know this guy's just like
He's flat drunk.
And I shine my light into
His passenger
Uh and he's just like he's passed out. Like he has he has
He's not even coherent that I'm probably standing there.
So I get his driver's license and I'm like, looking at you you're pretty bad off and he's like
Are you gonna call my dad?
And I said
Why would I do that? He goes, Man.
goes this is his car he's like he's gonna be upset.
I said all right, so
I go back to my patrol car and I I I look at this kid in terms of he's had no priors. He's sixteen.
He has no prior driving record.
So I'm making so what's my decision now?
I can call for
a D WI unit to come and and give this guy a feel sobriety test and he's going to fail.
Just because I could tell how drunk he was.
Or I could call his dad.
Now I have to make a decision'cause I have that type of discretion.
So I have to think do I take this kid to do I have this kid go to jail?
And tow his dad's car.
Or do I call his dad and hope?
That's the right decision because his dad will
Find a way to make sure this doesn't happen again.
So
I had our dispatch give me his phone his parents' phone number and I called his dad.
eleven o'clock at night. And
Mom answers and I'm like, you know.
Um
You know, Mrs. Smith.
This is, you know, Deputy O'Neill.
Um
I'm out here with your son.
Jacob.
Oh my God, how is he? I'm like, he's fine. And I'm like, I think he's been drinking too much.
And I wanna know if you wanna come get'em.
She's like, Can you talk to my husband? I said sure. He gets on the phone.
Same thing.
And he's like
Thank you.
I will make sure this doesn't happen again. I will be there in five minutes.
I have no idea what happens at the end of this, but I made that decision.
At that time.
The reason I'm sharing this is because when I told that story in our community.
I asked everybody uh on the platform because it's very engaging and I said
And Evi asked this question actually, and she said How many of you would do the same thing Desmond did?
Evie is your wife? Evi's my wife. Evie Pumpur's. Yes. A lot of people put it in the comments, like I would do the same thing, good for him. The kids shouldn't go to jail.
And Evi was just like
I would do the exact opposite thing.
I would have taken him to jail.
I would have towed the car.
Because I don't know.
Yeah.
the consequences of what his dad would do is is it gonna outweigh the fact that he's gonna go to jail. And she's like, What if I let him go and he does the same thing next week?
Because
He's not
You know he doesn't care what his father thinks.
And she's like, that to me was a decision that I would have made. So
I bring that up for this purpose.
We both
made a completely different decision.
I made it for the reasons I did.
She made it for the reasons that she did. Metaphorically, mine was true. This is just what she said she would have done.
The point was is that
We both owned it.
And
A lot of times I think what happens going back to what you just said is
People are so afraid to make a decision.
For a number of different reasons.
And so they just choose not to. Now, again, people could look at this, uh you know, your audience could look at this and be like he should have taken him to jail. I understand all of that.
I had the discretion and that's the decision I made and I would make that decision every time. But it's it's it's less about that story.
And more about
When you decide on something with the information you have at the moment, do you own it?
Or do you as you said, do you look back later and have hindsight bias and be like oh
I should have known. You can't do that.
So many people try to live their life in reverse like that and looking back.
It's impossible. It's impossible to know.
So I do think and kind of a to expand on what you said.
I do think when it talks about
Owning your decisions and and being
Yeah.
being thoughtful as it relates to
why you're doing and what you're doing.
And
Taking command of yourself and being
Being a self leader, decisions is making that is is what it is. To go back to the uncertainty aspects.
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Of that research you've done.
On communication.
Is there anything we haven't talked about today that really surprised you in the research?
That really caused a paradigm shift in what you thought communication was and now what you think it is.
Yeah.
The research showed that
Your ability to build rapport?
With the person?
Is what
gives you the most power in terms of that connection.
And how do you build rapport?
Most people think that this is one of those
Things where
You're just you're just you're overly kind, you're very complimentary.
Uh you're talking about the weather.
Now we've built rapport and then we're good. It's not how you build rapport.
Rebel rebuilding poor is understanding values in terms of a person. Rapor is understanding
You know, a person's presence and what they're needing from you.
If I'm paying attention to you.
And I'm engaged with you.
And I'm making you feel seen and heard and understood. And by proxy, by the reciprocity of doing that, you do the same thing for me.
That's rapport.
When it comes into
Building rapport with somebody.
Read the room.
If I came in
And I have a list of questions.
And
I see you that you're there's some emotional state that you're showing.
If I want to connect with you
I ask about that. I need to put my stuff aside before I
Can have the conversation I want to have.
I probably have to have the conversation you want to have.
And at that moment, it may be understanding what is going on in your head space.
I can say, Hey, Steven, you know, I'm
Desmond O'Neill.
You know, I know you're brought in this morning for th for these reasons.
It's obvious to me right now that you seem really upset.
Can you tell me what's going on right now?
And you could say, you know.
I don't know what's going on.
I'm super scared. I've never been in jail before.
My mom's sick at home, I don't know if there's anybody they'd take it to her.
Now how much information now do I have by the way that I can connect with you?
Because if you tell me
I am freaked out. I don't know what's going on.
What do I now do? Do I go back to be like, Well, that sucks and go back to my list of questions? Or do I say,
How best can I?
Help you with that. And this builds rapport. Yes.
Because what I'm doing is I'm showing empathy. I'm listening to you.
I'm I'm giving you what you want. I'm lessening your ambiguity.
I'm orienting you in terms of the direction that you're asking me to take you. You're asking me for clarity in terms of what's going to happen.
I'm gonna answer that.
I'm showing them that I am paying attention to them. I'm being authentic. I'm gonna follow up with the things that I do. Cause I'm gonna come back later and be like, Hey
We checked on your mom, she was good. We pulled your aunt in, your aunt came and took care of her.
If anything else comes up.
let me know. I do have some questions that I need to get to. This is an important part of the investigation.
But I I can only imagine that there's a lot on your mind and if things come up through our conversation, please please ask me.
And that's rapport.
In those situations I'm hearing.
Many of the things that I've read in that book influence by Robert
Caldini. Chaldini.
I'm hearing reciprocity. Yep. You've done them a favor, so now they're more likely to answer your questions.
Reciprocity is
Giving somebody something with the with the
The expectation that somewhere in the future they will give you something else.
It's not a transactional thing. It's not like the only reason I'm doing this.
Is because I want something from you in exchange.
That's
Transaction.
So when you
checked on that person's mum. That was reciprocity.
That was me following up with a commitment of saying that this is what I'm going to do for you. You can do with it what you want. But you know that doing that is going to increase the probability that they
Answer your questions. No, I do that regardless. I could have s he could've said, You know what, I I appreciate ya
Thank you for checking on my mom.
Um
I I want a lawyer. I don't want to talk to you.
You know what I'm gonna do?
I'm gonna check on his mom.
You know why?
'Cause that's what I said I was gonna do. You know why? Because that's my self congruence.
That's what I do as a person, when I give somebody my word, I'm gonna follow up with it. So in a situation like that, I will do those things because that's what he he's
That's what I've told him I'm going to do.
Is there anything else on um on the point of having difficult conversations that we haven't covered?
In your mind.
They want to get better at having those tricky conversations and also just dealing with
I think we see a lot is like
People
Very keen to deal with difficult people.
Is there anything there that we haven't touched on? We've got the
Plan framework, but just
No, I just think it was
I just think it was a plan framework and it's not about making things complicated. It's actually about
You know, there's there's things that you should take out.
You know, when it comes to
Communication as opposed to always adding things in.
You know, it really becomes like extinction before acquisition. So I can
I can tell you when it comes to better communication.
There are three things that you should stop doing right now.
One of them is to stop trying to be right.
One of them is to stop telling people you understand.
And the third one is
Stop giving people your unsolicited opinion.
Now, to break those down, stop stop trying to be right.
We talked about that one a little bit.
Is
Stop telling people you understand. This is what I mean by that. You can understand
You can understand a person's words.
You will never understand their head space.
In terms of the the specificity of that.
And so what you will see is
I if if you're sharing a story, like if you short shared a personal story with me, let's say you know let's say your father had passed away.
And I'm like, you know what, Steven, I completely understand.
Um
My dad passed away too when I was young.
So now we're connected.
I have just
I've just taken away.
A moment for you.
Because I made it about me. Cause I I thought that I understood.
Something that you had experienced. In fact
your experience of a death or your experience of your father at the moment is going to be completely different than mine. But for me to tell you that I understand
Is
is short sighted.
My girlfriend tells me sometimes that she wants me to say that I understand.
I think what she's saying is that
Maybe she wants to feel understood.
And so she might be explaining how she feels and then
If I say do you know I yeah, no, yeah, I I do understand.
But do you?
Sometimes I get to the point where I I do understand what she's saying.
You understand what she's saying, but do you understand how she truly feels? No.
Okay. But that becomes'cause I don't feel that. You don't feel but she just wants me to acknowledge. She wants you to acknowledge it. So the difference is in terms of it was being genuine, where you're like, look, I I really understand how you feel, you probably don't. How do I make her feel understood?
In that regard, then without telling her I understand.

To feel understood is to
is to listen to her to be like look it you know I I
It sounds it sounds tough.
Sounds, you know, like this is something really on your mind. Like
And it kinda goes into our other thing, where like stop giving people your opinion.
You know, if she's if she's expressing things to you and she's sharing how she wants to feel.
She's probably not looking for you to tell her what to do unless she's asked you for that.
The first thing that we always do, and it happens all the time, is like let me tell you what I think.
Try to fix it without having all of the
the emotions and the the complexities of of why it's not being done.
And so
go back to with your girlfriend, it really is just a matter of trying to understand, seeing where she's going with it, asking her
You know, if there are ways that that you know we can we can work to make it better or help you with this. But if Steven if she's just like I I want you to understand, I would just tell her I understand.
just because that's what she's looking for. You're not gonna have it in there.
But if you generally went to somebody and you're like, Oh, I understand, that's what I'm asked you not to do.
That's what you shouldn't do.
You shouldn't genuinely think that you truly understand another person because then you're going like you're convinced that you know and you're no longer curious in terms of how they actually feel.
Mm-hmm.
And on that last point about giving giving the opinion, a lot of time people
You know.
When the
Sharing something.
They
Just when you don't create the space. Simon Sinek said to me, he goes.
Most of the time people just want you to sit in the mud with them.
And like I I naturally show up with like my toolbox to try and fix the situation, but a lot of the time, especially with my my girlfriend, maybe she just wants me to
Listen.
Most people do, right? It becomes like this identity headspace where people just are looking for
the sounding board for you for your girlfriend, like you're the you're the guy, you're the person, and that's what she comes to you for. That's your job in a lot of ways. And I don't mean that in a negative thing, but it's just one of those things where if that's what she needs from you, then that's what you give her. And a lot of people just want as as as Simon Senec said when you said it, like just sit in the mud with them and that's what they're asking you. If she turns to you and says, Steven, what would you do here?
Then she's asking you.
But if not.
Then don't give it.
Something I need to work on.
Yeah, we all do.
Yeah,'cause you'cause you I don't know.
Something about maybe the male brain, but it's probably not just men.
Can I talk real quick just about our training community before we go? Is that okay with you? Yep.
Because it it is one of those where like now
Uh what I spend all my time with is is
I'm an instructor for Beyond Bulletproof, which is a training platform that that Evie and I
that Amy and I host. And it really comes down to
Three prongs of
How do people
Helping people think.
helping people act and helping people leave with purpose. And I know we talked about those things, but the reason I bring that up is because
There are so many people, Steven, that just as you had talked about, they're they're looking for
They're looking for some help, they're looking for some clarity.
They're looking for somebody to influence them in some way because they don't have good emotional regulation and they're trying to get better in their relationships.
We've been fortunate to to have that and that's kind of where
You know, I don't I don't do a lot of social media, you know, I don't do
Uh a lot of other other things because I spend my time here.
As you know, we have a closing tradition on the podcast, but the last guest leaves a question for the next.
And the question that's been left for you is
What decision?
Do you most regret
And would things have turned out better?
If you had made it differently.
Ouch, that's a spicy one.
So
I
Hm.
As much as this wants to be a spicy one, I can I can categorically tell you that there's not a decision that I've made that I wish I would have re made different. And I say that because it kinda goes back to
I own my decisions.
in terms of the things that I've done I w even when the story that I shared about you know when I was a police officer with the the kid who was drinking, like
I own those decisions and
In truth.
Like
All of those decisions have manifested itself for me to sit down here with you today and have this conversation. And so I can't tell you that there's something that I look back to that I regret because I think that there's things we learn from, but I think for the most part, I don't use hindsight bias. I don't look back to say I wish there was something else.
I use those things to
uh to grow and to learn and be better and
You know, had I made a different decision, maybe you and I wouldn't be sitting here, so
None.
But you still I mean, if someone asked me that I'd have loads of answers. Like what?
Just like the ways that I handled situations in my life as an employer. Okay, do you know I shouldn't shouldn't have said that. Shouldn't have done that. I do know when my girlfriend said that.
Do you know I should have just listened.
And I wish I had because I think our relationship would be better. Or

Some grudge I held or whatever, you know? Like
The the messiness of being a
But
Emotional human.
So let me let me ask this.
And I think uh you know
I I do question
At times that
That type of I wish and I regret.
I think that also changes
who you are as a person, if you're like I would have gone back and done div We we can all do that in some
And I don't mean that's petty, but in awesome petty way. When I was writing my my thesis
I would always come to my thesis advisor and she'd be like, No, this isn't good, this isn't good, this isn't good. And so when I was done
There was like I had like 30 p She's like, just put this in the parking lot. Like maybe we'll look at this, maybe we won't. So when I was done with my thesis, I had 30 pages.
That were in the parking lot. And I went to her and I go, I feel like this is
A lot of mistakes, and she goes, You had to have this.
To have this.
And so when when I hear
that when it's just like, Oh, I wish I would have done these things different, you would be a different person.
Right. It's all those perspectives. It's all those little things that you code and become a different person.
You would be a different person if you had done those things differently. I'm not saying better or worse, but I'm saying I don't
I don't think that's a reason to look back and regret things.
Yeah, I probably would still have those mistakes in my future if I hadn't made them in the past as well. So maybe
Maybe the very fact that I can identify them means that my self awareness
grew based on them.
I like I'm never gonna treat someone like that again or I'm never gonna say that thing again because
I learned the lesson, so I'm a better person.
Today because of that.
Yeah.
Desmond, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for doing what you do. And uh this is your you said this is your first podcast, which is
Exciting. It's my first podcast.
Thank you so much.

If anything we need.
It is connection, especially in the world we're living in today. And that is exactly why we created these conversation cards, because on this show, when I sit here with my guest and have those deep, intimate conversations, this remarkable thing happens time and time again. We feel
Deeply connected to each other. At the end of every episode, the guest I'm interviewing leaves a question for the next guest, and we've turned them into these.
conversation cards. And we've added these twist cards to make your conversations even more interesting. And there are so many more twists along the way with the conversation cards. This is the brand new addition and for the first time ever I've added to the pack this gold card, which is an exclusive question from me, but I'm only putting the gold cards in
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