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 Navarro is a former FBI agent turned

world-renowned 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

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 is a way to blow my mind a little

bit. 53% of you that listen to this show

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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

um 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 far 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 a a few

shortcuts.

I should say the human brain.

They're called heuristics. 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 um 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 uh perceive

uh things way ahead of time because you

can read other people and circumstances

faster.

Most people see a behavior and have to

sit there and wonder, are they upset

with me? Are they uh 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 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?

Uh first, within yourself. Uh for

instance, being able to assess yourself.

So, if if

if let's say you you have uh anger

issues and and so forth, or you you're

quick to trigger.

Well, how 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.

Uh so, there's part of that, there's how

to communicate, for instance uh more

effectively with your children. A simple

thing that for instance and nobody

teaches this well, I do

is

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

face time you get from somebody else.

Let's say you only had 2 minutes and you

want to stretch that. By just tilting

your head we've demonstrably shown that

you can change the amount of face time

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

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 isn't 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

and you know and obviously like like you

you you basically study human behavior.

You are 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

we'll have to do some due diligence."

Well, that's the the brain only

recognizes fear.

And so once you understand that, it

gives you such amplitude

to

to then pursue whatever it is that

you're interested in in doing more

effectively. And

your career. Yeah. So you've been in you

were an FBI agent for more than 30

years?

Well, I was in law enforcement for 30

years. I was in the FBI for 25 years

principally working in the area of

counterintelligence, 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 uh

from uh from London.

And then I was in the um behavioral

analysis program. So, we use that skill

set to uh

to work on uh catching spies.

What is the behavioral analysis program?

In the '89-'90, 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 uh 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 uh look at the

threats, national security threats, and

then see how we can um use our knowledge

of human behavior to then uh attack

that. So, when you say you 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 call espionage.

So, it's nothing like television and 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 that

that goes on.

And so, every nation defends itself by

trying to identify, well, who is here

trying to spy.

So, that's what we do. That's That is

That's counterintelligence. That's

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

it's it's not as

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 and caught. 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 Roderick James

Ramsey,

he was an an individual who, in 1989, I

was asked to go interview

because we thought he was a witness um,

something that had happened in Germany.

He had a former army sergeant uh, 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 I I just mentioned uh, an

individual's name that had been at that

base, but who had been under

investigation

by German authorities. In fact, by the

Bundeskriminalamt, 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

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 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 the Clyde Conrad, that was

the name of the the person that had been

under suspicion.

Our the guy that I was interviewing, Rod

Ramsey, was was not. And so, I left that

interview, and then

I persuaded my supervisors to continue

to talk to Rod Ramsey, and that led to

a 10-year investigation and the arrest

of

three, four, five, six, seven additional

individuals. So, that Rod Rodrick 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

were stealing military secrets. From

from the US Army. They were 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

So, he was a traitor.

And that is often the biggest problem

for any nation-state is the traitors

from

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 35-mm 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 go codes 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 what's called a permissive

action link, which is like a last-minute

safety

lock on each device.

And then there is the

uh go code that says there is authority

to use this weapon.

And

was able to steal

the actual nuclear go code. 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

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

in if it's in a pyramid structure and

it's put high enough,

right? Let's let's say you control 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. Mhm.

Okay. So, maybe that helps your

conscience in in some way. Then you

basically, if it's a pyramid sort of

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 level.

Did they go to jail?

Oh, yes. Yeah. So, 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 3 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 where you caught

a man because of the way he held some

flowers.

Yeah, the you know, a lot of times it's

it's just based on

on on the behavior, you know, you you

see how how often somebody looks at

their watch, right? But maybe when

they're operational, they look at their

watch more often.

And they filmed this guy who we thought

was what we call an illegal and in in

the parlance of espionage, an illegal is

someone who magically appears in the

United States and pretends to be an

American and 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 someone

who you need to look at that is

pretending to be an American.

We're looking at the the the we bring

the the whole team together, all six of

us, and we're looking at the at the

movie and you know,

and it was filmed just serendipitously.

It was filmed

on Valentine's Day. And so we see him

entering a flower shop and leaving the

flower shop.

When he exited, I said,

"Definitely, he's not an American."

And everybody looked at me like,

"Excuse me?"

I said, "He's not from here."

And 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 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

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 a few hours of having a nice

really a 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 as an

illegal was to uh be in the United

States,

uh act as an American, and uh most

people don't understand, well, why would

a country, a nation-state, 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 giving 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, it uh he doesn't get punished

because he didn't commit any crime other

than immigration uh violation, but what

he was able to reveal to us was

nothing short of breathtaking.

Which nation was this? I cannot say.

Mhm.

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,

if 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

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 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

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.

Uh, we call that a clue in the FBI.

So, they'd be given like $150

for eating, but they would be given

thousands of dollars so that they could

copy as much they could from uh, the

libraries.

It is much easier for them for any

nation to send people here as students

and for instance go into engineering or

uh

uh any of those things.

Only some 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 colicky, 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 that is probably the cleanest word

that I can use about 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 not understanding. We had to evolve

that

precisely because we were always

surrounded by predators. For instance,

uh Steven, when you have doubts or you

want follow-up to questions that I ask,

you use your eyes exquisitely. You

furrow your glabella, one eye rises, the

other one lowers it.

You're an easy read. And so, I follow it

up with information. I You didn't have

to teach me that.

Now, what I would argue is, am I seeing

a 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 valenced or negatively

valenced?

Balance. You see? You're furrowing your

glabella. What What does it valence

mean? Valence really means it's balanced

uh or how much electricity goes this way

or this way. Is it What's the valence of

it? It's just

valenced, what does that mean?

Positively valenced, you're going to see

gravity-defying behaviors. You're going

to see emphasis. You're going to see uh

a lot of humor and alacrity and broad

gestures and so forth. If it's

negatively valenced,

it's, you know, restraint. You're going

to see the

uh the furrowing of the glabella. You're

going to see the

tightening, the the

of the the lips. You're going to see a

lot of facial touching. You know, I

don't know, right? All all all these uh

pacifiers.

And so, I would argue that uh stop

looking for uh

uh perfection. In fact, Dr. Ambady 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 auspices of looking for

what she called thin slice assessments.

Thin slice assessments, all of your

viewers should know because it it it

showed us that from as little as 3

milliseconds,

we actually get a pretty good assessment

of each other. And we're right 75% of

the time with 3 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 uh 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 incredulity

there.

You have to appreciate this experiment

was done over and over and over in many

areas. I was thinking as you said, it,

thinking, "Fucking 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 19, uh, '71,

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 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, uh, said, well, it's the

first 4 minutes.

Time out.

That's ancient information.

We now know that that assessment is made

in the first 3 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 your

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 utero 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, uh, mirroring the native tongue so

that as researchers found

a baby with a German mother will cry

differently, the lilt, lilt, the lilt of

that baby will be different than a

French baby.

What does that tell us? That we 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 the research that's been

done on the lilt of crying babies.

How does one synchronize?

So if if synchrony equals harmony Yeah.

I 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 "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 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

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 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

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 behavior. 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. Mhm. Yeah, yeah.

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 face time, and achieve more if

we can talk to each other this way

than 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 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

the the points on this are That's not

what they asked." That's a great way to

demonstrate that you're not uh

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 it. And anything negative

rises to prominence.

Uh that's one of the first things I

teach.

Uh 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 the 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 alacrity.

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 negativity that

has been accrued.

That's not how humans evolved.

That is absolutely not how our species

evolved. Our species evolved

to deconflict 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 attack 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 Jungian 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

deal with the the the the transactional,

the business and the and so forth.

You have you referenced a few times

different types of body language that

I've exhibited that help you understand

what I'm thinking going through. Um Yes.

I think you second to go you referenced

a glabella.

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

glabella. And the glabella is great

because at

at about well, we I've seen it in babies

as early as

three or four 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

glabella. Uh some people call it uh

eyebrow knitting because we are 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 glabella. 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

matching one of a 47-year-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. And

you said, "Hey Joe, can you help me move

this weekend?" Oh jeez, Steve.

Right? You You see a lot of that.

And I started to think about that

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

innervation 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,

you know, I postulated, I wrote for

Psychology Today that a lot of the

reasons why we touch our face and why

we

touch our eyes, oh no,

is because that pressure

immediately goes to 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 of its ability to Anytime

there's stress, we pacify ourselves. And

And by the way, it's very interesting.

1974,

I was 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 blow uh 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 uh Dr. David Givens 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 cuz I read very fast. I

turn with my left hand, but I pacify or

soothe myself by touching my my, you

know, an appendage of a 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 homeo- 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 did did 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 hmm,

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 show a

a lot of nervous emotion

when we're under stress. So they're

they're very much as is the jaw. Like

for instance, if you said something I

might not agree with,

my I probably shift my jaw because it

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

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 suprasternal notch.

So, the suprasternal notch, um it has

other names. Uh 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 1975,

'76. 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?

Rubbing that men tend to do it more

robustly because of testosterone, women

tend to more directly touch the

supersternal notch.

And what I found is when there's 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 who's confident is 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, so

when you say ventilate, you mean giving

yourself Yeah. So it could be

So to ventilating behaviors Okay. are

behaviors of weakness because your body

temperature has changed 1/250 of a

second. And what you're revealing is

something negative is getting to you. So

you

you don't do that. But here's the

behavior, the neck touching, neck

covering, covering of the supersternal

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 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 at 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 felids.

These are shortcuts. This is heuristics

that have prevailed. They 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 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 at the

lips and the

and the neck as as good places for

information.

I was 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've seen like a building

falling down in an earthquake, you

immediately I the other day, it was an

old car and it was and it 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. I'm

like

and I found myself I teach this stuff

with my hands up here.

And unfortunately, it was across the

street and I couldn't get to it fast

enough and it didn't do any damage, but

but you realize these uh, these

shortcuts

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 warned 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 it 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 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,

"Interviewing isn't about the

confession." And I looked at him like,

"What?

What do you mean?

Excuse me? What do you mean not about

the confession?" He says, "You'll get

the confession.

Interviewing is about face time.

If you can get people to talk to you for

2 hours, 3 hours, 4 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

that 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

the 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 to bring them

down to your position? Great question.

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

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 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 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 thinking

of one client in particular. You come

away with a nervous stomach. He get 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 uh our

exposure.

So we're not going to expose all of our

staff to that kind of negativity.

Uh we send in our best 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 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 very quickly.

Then we have to adjust 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 moment 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 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?

Your 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 at when that attorney uh 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 still face 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're

perceived as less trustworthy. You're

perceived as insignificant.

Corner of your mouth are down. Eye roll

to the to the right, Steven. 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 still face 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 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 unnerving.

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. Yeah, 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, "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, 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 didn't know that story.

What happened was there was a bank

robbery and in Stockholm and the bank

robbers went in, held the the the

victims hostage. Eventually, they were

rescued, but what they found was that in

a 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

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 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

conversation. So, when you think 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 what 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, "Oops, 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,

"Why don't you take a a seat right

there."

You know, people ask me, "Well, why you

know,

why are you being so nice to these

these criminals?" Well, first of all,

I go back to what that old-timer said. I

want face time. I don't care what it

takes to get face time.

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

so much for me. And then I always try to

sit in a in a way that

I sit higher. Now, in the case of

Ramsey, we'd literally get the room

ahead of time and we would change the

the the furniture so that I always sat

about an inch to 2 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 37 interviews. 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 sat 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's 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 cuz what you just said

was really interesting. And my partner,

Mrs. Terry Moody, I I I loved her. She

was a great partner. She looked at me

like, really? You're going to push it

that much further? Mhm. 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 chaz.

What what does height matter in this

context? Cuz I was thinking as well

about Zoom, and the interesting thing

about now about Zoom, and we talked

about this before we started recording,

and the fact that most of our

conversations are happening 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, suboptimal.

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 ft 2

in, 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 6'2.

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. Do a 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 Ramsey, what was the the

dividend by you making your character

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 mental your malignant

narcissist who overvalues themselves

and tends to devalue others. And in my

case with him, he had narcissistic

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 be flippant with the

knowledge that that he knew, especially

once we knew that he had compromised the

nuclear go codes. Do you mind if I pause

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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 at this

event and a lady came up to me and she

says, "You're getting ready to go on the

stage. 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 and collected. In negotiations,

um you don't want to

look 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 Asperger's, and so

he

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