Name: Former Secret Service agent shares tips on how to read people
Uploaded: 2024-03-04T01:25:19.000Z
Duration: 5 min 33 s
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In this morning's Tune-up Tuesday, we're going to learn about reading people, something our next guest is an expert in.

So Evy Poumpouras is a former secret service agent who protected presidents and also worked as an interrogator for the agency's elite polygraph unit.

Her book is called "Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly".

So you're going to teach us how to read people and you say the most important thing is to stop talking and listen.

Well, first we have to get a baseline, right?

I need to know who I have in front of me because everybody's different.

So when we do less talking and we do more of this, you can actually get a sense of who somebody is.

So the other thing you can do if you have somebody, let's say, that doesn't like to talk, TED;

tell me about that, explain this to me, describe what you're thinking and then you let them go, and they will tell you a story.

It's like talking to children. You can't ask them yes or no questions. - Correct.

So when you're trying to read someone is it because you don't believe them or, you know, why would you read someone?

It's for everything. One, it's yes, it's detecting deception. Of course, we want to know what people are thinking and especially if they're lying to us.

The other thing, it's going to help you have better relationships, build rapport, understand what's going on with the other person because we always want to see things from our lens but when you can connect with people, they reveal themselves to you.

You're creating space for people to show you what's going on.

So what about body language? How important is body language when you're trying to read somebody?

So if we're looking at somebody, let's say, we're talking to someone and they're fidgeting a lot, you have to ask yourself, "Well, why are they doing that? Are they nervous? Are they uncomfortable?"

A grooming. Grooming is I'm playing with my hair; men, I'm playing with my beard or even like ironing out my clothes with my hands.

Illustrators, which I love. I'm Greek, I can't help it, I talk like this. - I do too.

But if I'm lying, you might see me do this.

Because I'm so overwhelmed with trying to lie and talk at the same time, my body kind of shuts down.

And then eye movement. So this is tricky.

People may break eye contact if they're lying to you. We don't like to look at people and lie.

However, some people are very good at it. That's why you learn people's baseline.

Oh, "deer in headlights." You ask me a question and let's say I'm in shock or not sure, I will — they call it sanpaku, the three whites of the eyes. You'll see the three whites almost like eyes pop out.

And so again, when someone does that, why they just do that when I ask them that question?

So if you're asking somebody a question, maybe you're doing really good journalism and asking somebody a question they don't want to answer, you may see them do this.

The "I need some help. I need divine intervention."

And then shock and deer in headlights [are] kind of the same thing.

It's just that autonomic nervous system kicking in. We're caught in either a lie or really stressed out and again, you always have to say why did that just happen?

You maintain there's no one way to spot a liar but there are some verbal cues that might help you with one of those.

Okay, yes, because we're all so different, everybody's going to do different things.

But spotting a lie: changing verb tenses.

So if I say to you, "What did you do last night?" You would say, "I went to the store." Right?

But if you're making the lie up as you're talking, you could switch verb tenses and go into the present and say, " I go to the store."

Because you're creating the lie in that moment, so you go from past to present.

Insulting your intelligence, my favorite.

"That's a stupid question!" "I can't believe you just asked me that!" "Why did you this?"

This is somebody trying to shut you down by making you feel stupid, so you have to be aware of that.

"Who, me? Where did I go last night?" right? - My kids do that.

There you go. That's they're stalling tactic as they're trying to figure out what do I say to Dad.

"Evy would never do that," "Evy is an honest person," "Evy is this."

So I'm putting distance between present Evy and that Evy all the way over there.

So if you can spot a lie, can you also spot a truth?

Yes, actually it's easier to spot truth and the science actually proves this.

So how do know if somebody's telling you the truth?

If I'm telling you a story and as I'm telling you that story, I correct myself.

"You know when I was driving I saw Mom and then I talked to Dad. Oh, no, no, no, wait, I talked to Dad and then Mom."

That's a spontaneous correction. That's truthful.

"Do you know what he said to me? He said quote, 'I'm going to do this to you.' end quote."

That's a truthful indicator when people put things in quotes.

And complications. If I'm telling you a story, "You know this morning I got in the Uber, I was coming in, my heel broke as I was going down the stairs."

If I'm introducing a complication like that that really kind of doesn't make sense, it's probably truthful because I'm telling you a story.

And then feelings, my favorite, especially with kids.

We access our feelings usually after we're done telling you a story.

I'll walk you through what happened and then afterward, most people will kind of tell you, "You know, I felt really bad about that."

I just learned a lot really. There you go.

Practice on your family members.- I know. I want to watch that all. I'm going to go home and just judge my family.

"Becoming Bulletproof: Life Lessons From A Secret Service Agent" it is out today.