Transcript: Former Secret Agent Evy Poumpouras on DOAC Podcast

It’s the same thing when you put stuff, stuff in there. I’m going to add more stuff and more stuff and more stuff. Your cognitive load is overflowing. It’s maxed. You’re inefficient, you’re sloppy. You’re not getting things done right. If you are, you’re just barely getting there. You’re everywhere. You’re stressed out, you’re frazzled because you’re maxed out. You’re beyond maxed out.

So everything I do, and I will tell you, I learned this from watching presidents. I keep my load light. My bathtub only holds the water it needs to hold in. So it protects you from overextending yourself, stressing yourself, and it also keeps you from making bad decisions. You make good decisions. There’s something called decision fatigue, where the more stuff I add, we think the busier I am, the better I am. “I’m moving, I’m hustling, I’m doing all this stuff. Look how maxed out I am.” Just because you’re busy, it doesn’t mean you’re being productive. Those two things are not synonymous.

So often people think leaders keep adding, adding, no. You know what good leaders do? And this is what, again, I’ve learned. They take out of that bathtub, they take out. “What can I do less of? So I can be exceptional at the other things I do.”

Really great example. This is public knowledge. So I can share it. President Barack Obama, he had 30 of the same suits. Why? Why do you think? 30 of the same exact suits?

STEVEN BARTLETT: So he didn’t have to make so many decisions every day.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yeah. He didn’t want to sit and figure out what he’s going to wear. It’s a decision he didn’t have to make that keeps his bathtub light. Think about all the decisions he had to make every single day. “I want a light bathtub. Boop. Take that thing out. Lighten your bathtub.”

So when you’re overthinking and overanalyzing and trying to process all this stuff, you are maxing out that bathtub. So how can you perform? You don’t have infinite resources. You do not have an infinite cognitive load, and you do not have an infinite emotional load. Don’t keep adding. Your job is to take out so that the things you do do, you do exceptionally well, and you’re much more emotionally stable.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I think maybe one of the reasons why people are tempted to go back is they think that if they go back into their history and understand things, then they can change something in the present that’s going to change their future. So they think, you know, if I can figure out why I’m low confidence, what happened to me, then I can do something today which is going to change tomorrow.

EVY POUMPOURAS: So I guess I would say. And again, I would see this from – I’ve done hundreds of mentor sessions. I would tell them, “Where are you right now? What do you do now? And what do you want to change now?”

Identifying Problem-Seekers vs. Solution-Seekers

STEVEN BARTLETT: So I’m low confidence. I move through the world as if I’m trying to not take up too much space. I feel like people are rude to me, and I just have bad luck. I have bad luck with men. I’m pretending I’m a woman. I have bad luck with men. And I just feel like people don’t respect me enough. And also, I just feel like I don’t get the credit I deserve. I see everyone around me, Evy, getting more credit for doing less work.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Okay, so this is great. So this is probably a person that you cannot help, number one, because everything’s bad. Everything is bad. And you’ll get those. From time to time, you get those. Everything’s a problem. And if everything’s a problem right now, if you get that persona, which it does exist, it’s – you get them. That person doesn’t want a solution.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Really?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Nope.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What do they want?

EVY POUMPOURAS: They want me to validate how they feel. That’s what they want. They don’t want a solution. If everything’s a problem, think of it this way. If every bar I go to, I go to, I get into fight. Into a fight. It’s not – it’s not the bar. So when someone’s like, “I have this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem,” they’re so set in who and how they are, they want to stay there.

Often people do want an audience. Often people do want to be told, “I’m so sorry. I feel so bad that happened to you” sometimes too. When bad things happen to us, we get a lot of attention as a result. Let’s say something really horrific happens, and I’ve seen it with somebody. Maybe you had a severe illness or lost a loved one. When you’re dealing with something like that, what happens? Right? Immediately people come to you. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” They’re there to support you, so you get this bombardment of attention. You feel good, but then eventually people move on with their lives, and then you get addicted to. “Where did all that attention go? I want some of it.”

So what do I do? I look for something else to be a problem so I can get more empathy, more sympathy, more attention. And so there are people that get stuck in that cycle, good people. I know good people who get stuck in that cycle, but I’m also aware of them, because every time I speak to them, something’s not right. I can’t help them. I don’t even bother trying to help them. One, they don’t really ask me. And so I’m very aware. I don’t give unsolicited advice. It’s wrong. It’s not my place. And if they want it, they’ll ask. And then, even then, I’m always very aware. “Is this even going to land on this person?” Because I’m coming back to me. My bathtub’s full, so I can’t really invest all that energy in you if it’s – I don’t mean it to be cold, but if it’s a waste of time.

When Victim Identity Becomes Self-Destructive

STEVEN BARTLETT: There’s two personas that I’m thinking about. One of them’s personal to me, and then one of them is personal to one of my friends. And before we started, you said one of the things you like is very specific examples. So here’s a specific example. There’s someone I know very well, extremely well. I’ve known them pretty much my whole life.

And when they came to the UK, they experienced a lot of racial abuse because they came to the UK in like 1994, they lived in an area that was all white and the abuse they experienced was very, very real. The UK, the part of the UK they lived in became more diverse over the years. They’ve been there for 20, 30 years and now the racial abuse has pretty much gone away.

But you wouldn’t think it because when you, if you met this person who did go through this abuse, so much of their identity became formed around that abuse. So even though they now live in an area where there’s no abuse, they still find a perpetrator. They find perpetrators everywhere. And actually I’ve come to believe with this particular person who I know very well, that that identity depends upon it.

And that’s kind of what I was hearing in what you’re saying is there’s, I don’t think this person could survive if they didn’t have a perpetrator anymore. And so much so that they’ve started finding perpetrators in their own family and their whole family has now almost cut this person off because, you know, their identity is being a survivor and like a heroic survivor. And now that the enemy has gone, so much depends on that identity that, you know, this person’s at war at home and they don’t speak to their kids, their grandkids, and they’ve lost all of their family because they’re now convinced that the stepmother’s racist. And the other step, you know, the other daughter in law is racist. And this person said this thing which is racist or is abusive towards me.

And you see this in a lot of people that, you know, maybe they did go through something, but now they need that thing to hold their identity in place.

EVY POUMPOURAS: So you reminded me of a story which I’ll tell you, but here’s the thing. If you’re looking for a problem, you will always find one. You will always find a problem. And that’s the thing. So it’s the mindset, what do I –

STEVEN BARTLETT: What do I do about that person if I’m a bystander?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Nothing.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Really?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Nothing.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I don’t try and help them, change them.

EVY POUMPOURAS: No, because. Did he or she ask you? No, don’t do it.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Why?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Because they’re not, they don’t want it and you might end up upsetting them anyway. They might get even angrier from it because they’re in a space where they’re so emotional and self focused and they want to live there.

You know too, when you sit and you ruminate, it activates parts of the brain that make you feel alive. Think of it this way. You get hits. You know how you get dopamine hits? I feel good from certain things. Well, you get a hit when you’re even when you’re angry or upset. You ever get so upset or angry and you get worked up, what do you get? Adrenaline hit, your cortisol’s going up. What do you do? I feel alive here. I’m there. That feels good, too. It’s a different type of feel, but I feel present. I feel this. I feel like I feel something.

So unless somebody comes to you and I’ve learned this lesson and says, “Steven, I want your advice,” I wouldn’t give it. One, you’re going to be exhausted. You’re doing so many things. You don’t have that ability. Two, the person’s not, they’re not there to hear it. So you also have to have someone who wants your guidance or advice.

So even when I did mentor sessions or consultations, there were probably several times where I knew. I was like, “This is a waste of my time. I’m going to give you a full refund. I’m not for you.” Because I understood. I’m like, this person isn’t, they’re not registering.

The 9/11 Story: When Trauma Becomes Identity

You did remind me of a story. I remember once I was doing a news story and I went and I interviewed somebody who was part of the cleanup efforts for 9/11, right? September 11th cleanup efforts. And he was doing all this stuff, you know, present day, to help victims of 9/11 today.

So I go with my camera person or the producer, I can’t remember. We go to set up to interview this person. So now I have my own. I’ve had my own experience with 9/11. I worked in the World Trade Center. That’s where New York field office was. I was there on that day. I lost colleagues and friends. But this person knows nothing about this.

So I show up and I’m getting them ready, and we’re talking, and there’s this big tower tattoo, the Towers 9/11 tattoo. As I’m micing up the person, the towers, there was a room in the home that had all this 9/11 memorabilia, like a whole room. And I remember being there thinking, “Okay, this person must have had some really serious trauma exposure.” And I’m not trying to minimize.

So I spoke to them, this person, and he had some kind of injury as well. And I said, “Oh, tell me about it.” “Well, I was there and I was injured when I was welding, something kind of fell on my foot.” And as a result, I had to go on some kind of disability. And I said, “What happened to your foot?” And it was, I think he had lost his toe or something, his pinky. And I said, “Okay.” And I said, “How long were you there?” “Three days.” I said, “Were you there for the day of the event?” “No.” So you were there for the day of the event. So your exposure to 9/11 was three days and then you got injured? “Yes.”

Okay. So I’m clocking this internally to myself. His whole life was centered about, around the drama, the trauma, the overcoming 9/11. Everything was 9/11, 9/11, 9/11. And it was such an identity space. He was so it was all such a horrible thing for him. And I’m thinking it wasn’t to minimize, but I’m thinking, “How did you build your whole livelihood present day around that small event?” But that was his identity.

I thought, I remember thinking, I’m like, I did the interview and I had to go. I was like, “I can’t be around this.” Because he was just so self focused on how bad that experience was that everything he did and who he was to the point where you have tattoos on your body of the World Trade Center. And I’m thinking, “How is this helping you move forward?”

Secondary Gain: The Hidden Benefits of Pain

STEVEN BARTLETT: There’s this concept in psychology called secondary gain that I was writing a book about. I’m writing this book at the moment. So I wrote a chapter about secondary gain and it basically says exactly what you’re describing, which is there’s always a secondary gain from pain. Typically there’s something, you benefit from it. And the problem is people can get addicted to that.

And sometimes it’s safety or comfort that you get from it. Sometimes it’s identity and sometimes it’s remuneration, you know, might be money or other rewards. The other example that I was going to say in terms of personas that I’m aware of is the kid who is in his bedroom and can’t leave his bedroom because he says, you know, there’s something wrong with him. He might be clinically obese or have some kind of other issue. And his family around him are his support network.

And I actually know someone in this situation where they just don’t leave their bedroom. And the mother, I think she’s also getting her identity from being the mother with that child who she’s propping up. And it was interesting that in this particular case with one of my best friends who lives in the Middle East, when she stopped doing that, when she actually heard something on this podcast and stopped propping this person up.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Enabling.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Enabling them. This person got better very, very quickly. Got better because she basically said, “I’m not going to. I can’t help anymore. And also, don’t talk to me about this. I don’t have that, as you say, the cognitive energy anymore.” This person got better. And it made me realize that, you know, sometimes two people can keep one person trapped.

EVY POUMPOURAS: They can.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I’m the mother. I’m the savior that is protecting my child who is unwell. And the child is being the cared for and both of them are getting love and attention and affection from that sort of abusive, unhealthy relationship. A lot of people find themselves there.

The Iceberg Theory: Understanding Human Complexity

EVY POUMPOURAS: Well, think about sometimes the attention you get. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that happened to you. That’s so sad.” That can become addicting because you’re constantly looking for it. But again, I’ve come to accept people as they are. I also look at it. Who am I to tell you to be different? If this is where you want to live and how you want to live, live it.

I think where it becomes a problem for folks is when it bleeds into your own life. So with the mom where she had that moment where she’s like, “I don’t want to do this anymore” because it’s impacting my life, then I can understand that because she’s like, “I don’t want to participate in this,” but I just have found, I want you to think of it this way.

Think of an iceberg. Think of an iceberg. You see the top of the iceberg, the little blip at the top of the water and then the big part underneath, which is the vast majority of what makes an iceberg. We’re like that. When you see another human being, I want you to think of this huge bottom portion of this iceberg that you don’t see. And it’s who makes them what they are.

So the things that make you who you are today are all the things that have accumulated over the entire time span of your life. Family is a huge one. Did you have family? Were they good family? Did you have one parent? Both parents? Did you have any parents? Right. A friend? Who are your friends growing up? Who are your friends now? Your experiences, your dramas, your traumas, all those things make you who you are. Your values, your belief systems, your personality. Do you know that personality in a human being forms in infancy?

So all these things make you up, even your age. Who you are today is probably vastly different, Steven, than who you were five years ago versus 10 years ago versus 15 years ago. That’s somebody’s iceberg. So when you take all of that, you have that iceberg. Do you think you’re going to roll in and within, what, a couple hours, a couple conversations, you’re going to get them to shift? That’s what you’re up against.

So often people become very upset because they can’t change other people. And that’s where I’m like, accept what you had.

The Overweight Husband: A Case Study in Acceptance

I give a keynote literally this week, and a woman came to me in tears at the end. This was at a business conference. So this was for business, for communication and a very different thing. But she came up to me afterward. She said, “I really want guidance from you.” I said, “Sure, what is it? Are you okay?” She said, “I have a husband and he’s very overweight, and I’ve done everything I can to try to get him to change, and I want to try to use these influence strategies on him to change him that you talked about. Could you help guide me?”

I said, “How long have you been dealing with this?” She’s like, “A long time, years.” I said, “Does he want to change?” “No.” She’s like, “But I try and I don’t want to give up.” I said, “Did you see that part where I talked. The part where I talked about the iceberg? Remember, I showed you the iceberg and I said, accept people as they are.” I said, “He’s the iceberg. I said, it’s not him that’s the issue now. It’s you. You’re not accepting what you have in front of you. That’s what he is. Unless you accept, you can’t adapt.”

So what you’re doing is you’re not living in truth. You’re living in what I hope he would be, what he has the potential to be, but not where he actually is now. When you accept where he is now, this is who he is. This is who he wants to be. The next question is, can you adapt to that? Meaning, are you okay with that? Adapting to his lifestyle and staying with him? That’s the thing.

What she’s trying to do is change him, make him fit so that she can have what she wants. Wrong. She’s trying to solve the wrong problem. He’s not changing. This is it. This is what you’ve got. The question now is, I accept my problem. I live in truth. This is how my husband wants to be. Can I adapt my lifestyle so that I can still stay with him? Or is that a big of a deal breaker where I have to pull away. She was asking the wrong question because.

STEVEN BARTLETT: She’s scared of the potential answer or.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Because she’s not seeing the truth in her problem. Meaning this is who he is. Fundamentally. You’ve been trying for years to change him, and you’re trying to make your life better to the point where you’re emotionally upset, she was so upset about it. And I said, “But you’re trying to solve something that you can’t solve. This is a whole other person. This iceberg, this bottom part. He’s not. He doesn’t want it. He’s fixed.”

What’s happening is this is called adaptability. We want to adapt to our problems. She’s not adapting to her problem. She’s not accepting what her problem is. The problem is, this is my husband. This is who he is, and this is who he wants to be.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But I might be worried that he’s going to die or something, if he.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Very well will.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And, you know, if you see someone that’s about to die, one should intervene.

EVY POUMPOURAS: No, but can you intervene? And does he want you to intervene? He doesn’t want her to intervene. And so what matters to you most? Do you want to keep doing this all day long because that’s what she’s doing to the point where she’s crying when I’m coming off stage? Or do you accept this is him? This is him. I love him. I can’t change him. I accept him as he is now. Am I willing to adapt to the truth of what my relationship is and stay married and be okay or not?

She’s the one who needed to adapt, but she couldn’t adapt because she wasn’t living in truth. It’s like, look at it this way. Your partner’s cheating on you, and you don’t want to know, you don’t want to hear it, right? But you’re unhappy. You’re having all these issues. Part of the reason you’re having these issues is because you can’t accept the truth.

The majority of people struggle. 99.9% of people are not adaptable because they don’t live in truth. What’s the true problem you have? Accept it, then decide. Okay, now, where do I go from here? But people don’t accept the truth. It’s how I wish it could be, how I would like it to be, how it was, how it could be. No. What am I dealing with right now?

Doesn’t mean you have to like it. And this is not agreement. She doesn’t have to agree with his lifestyle, but it’s accepting this is who he is. Now my choice is do I stay or do I go? How much of a pain is this for you?

STEVEN BARTLETT: So you think you should never try and change someone?

Understanding Personal Boundaries and Values

EVY POUMPOURAS: I think it’s wrong to do that to people, especially if they’re showing you repeatedly, “I don’t want you to do this. Leave me alone.” And you also, to Steven, whether you agree with people’s lifestyle choices or not, it is their life. It is not yours.

And so I think that there’s also something a bit arrogant when we think we’re going to roll in. And let me tell you how I should live my values and your values could be vastly different to who am I to impose how I think you should be? Who says I’m right? Who says I’m right? I say I’m right based on my own value system. But people are vastly different. How people see things and what they think is right or wrong, it’s not the same.

So I accept people as they are and I respect them. I may not want to hang out with them because it’s just not the circle of people I want to be, but I also. How narcissistic is it of me to think I’m going to roll in and change you?

It’s kind of like I did interviews, interrogations on terrorists, and when I walked into an interview or interrogation I did was not delusional. To think that I’m going to walk in and I’m going to tell this person, “Hey, I’m part of the good guys. I just want, you know, to protect people and America. You know, we’re really just trying to do the right thing.” This is a person. His iceberg is that was set for years. He thought a certain way. He’s developed who he was 30, 40 years old, whatever it is, this is who he is.

And I’m going to roll in, what, and get you to change your whole mindset? I knew who I had. I accepted who I had. I didn’t try to change the narrative. “Oh, no, I’m this, oh, no, I’m that.” I didn’t do any of that. But my goal was, what am I trying to get to? I was like, “Well, I need information on the next attack. I need to know where the next weapons are coming in. I need to thwart this. So I need to get talking.” And that’s what I’m looking for. I’m not trying to change his value system. I’d be there all day and all night, weeks. It would never work.

That’s what we do. We try to fundamentally change who people are. I have people I care about very much and love. And I have tried, too. There are times where you love somebody so deeply, and you’re like, “Please.” Especially if it’s something that harms them. But I’ve also learned they don’t want it. And the ironic is sometimes the more you try, the angrier they become with you. “Who are you?” Right. You’re imposing yourself and your beliefs on somebody else. And they’re right, who am I? Just because I think life should be lived this way, it does not mean that they believe life should be lived this way. They’re probably thinking, “What’s wrong with this? Nothing’s wrong with this.”

The Search for Confidence and Strength

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s interesting. When I was going through our previous conversations, Evy, and I was looking at the moments that people replayed the most or enjoyed the most or cut the most or sent to their friends the most. The overarching thing I learned is that there’s a lot of people out there who don’t feel very strong. They don’t feel seen. They don’t feel respected. They themselves, I think, feel like they’re low confidence, and they look into a world full of other people who seem to be more confident and have everything figured out, and they can’t relate, and they feel, at some level, some of them, a little bit unappreciated.

But I think the bigger point here is about confidence and strength and feeling like. Yeah. Feeling like I can get what I want from life.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Okay, we’re break this down, but I want to ask you a question, if it’s okay.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

EVY POUMPOURAS: How do you build your confidence? Or what’s something you do that builds your confidence?

The Evolution of Real Confidence

STEVEN BARTLETT: That’s a great question. Do you know what’s really interesting? When I was 20 years old, I think I thought I was confident, but I don’t think I was. And I only kind of figured this out in hindsight because this is a. I don’t think I’ve said this before, but between the age of 18 and 20, every girl that I was interested in and would get some way down the line with would eventually reject me.

And then from about. I know people go, “Yeah, because you made a million dollars.” No, listen, it wasn’t that. Even when I had the money, I was still having, I was still being rejected by women. And then some point around, like, 25 to 30, everything changed.

And so I always say to my friends, I said to one of my friends the other day, I was like, “I don’t know why I don’t know the science of this, but what I do know is that it’s very, very hard to fake confidence because I think it lives in a thousand micro expressions.” I was doing everything the book said and I still wasn’t getting the results in terms of romantic context. It was like these women could just like figure out at some deeper level that I wasn’t it. And I never knew what I was doing because I guess I can’t see myself. Maybe I was texting back too fast. That’s kind of what you think, maybe the way I was standing.

But it taught me over time that actually you should aim at real confidence. And the real confidence came when the story in my head about myself was that I was of high value. And I’ll share a story. So the reason I said this to my friend literally two weeks ago was because he was dating someone and she turned around to him, she’s a very young girl, he’s 35, she was 25. She turned around and said, “You know what? I don’t think I want to have kids.” They’d known each other four months.

And his response to that was like, really, really insecure. It was like, “I really want to have kids. I want to have kids.” And she ended up dumping him a week later. And I remember I said to him, “You know, my current girlfriend said the same to me when I was 30. She turned around to me and said, ‘I’m not sure if I want to have kids.’ And in my head, the first thought that came in was, if I’m being completely honest, was, ‘I’m not sure I want to have kids with you yet either you’re still on trial, like, I’m still dating you to figure out if you’re the right person.'”

So my response, even though I didn’t say anything out loud because I just kind of shoulder rolled it, was because I valued myself. My immediate response wasn’t to be insecure. It was to think, “Doesn’t matter. I’m still trying to figure out if I want to have kids with you.” And I didn’t say anything. I just carried on with the, you know, carried on with my day.

And it made me think that, like, yeah, it’s a thousand tiny things. Confidence is a thousand tiny things, but it exists. It like, comes out of this central source of who you think you are. And I think, to answer your question, the reason why thing that gave me confidence in my life was I did some things that convinced myself that I was someone worth respecting.

Testing and Subconscious Behavior

EVY POUMPOURAS: I’m going to get to the confidence thing in a moment. I’m actually curious because you said something and I’m wondering, do you think these women like your girlfriend and his. The girl he was dating? Do you think they genuinely meant it when they said it?

STEVEN BARTLETT: No. My girlfriend’s literally told me. I’ve been with her for seven years now, and we’re. We’re planning on having kids right now. She was test. She didn’t know she was. Yes. This is what I said to him on the plane. We were flying on a plane. She didn’t know she was.

EVY POUMPOURAS: It was a test.

STEVEN BARTLETT: She didn’t know she was testing me, though. And when people hear it was a test, people will think it was a conscious thing that she’d written down and she planned it. No, she had been through a bunch of stuff with a bunch of guys who had taken away her freedom. And so she was. Her subconscious was testing whether I was one of those guys that was also going to try and restrict her or control her.

But throughout her whole relationship, I was aware of this. So when she. Those moments where she said, “You know what? I think I might want to fly back to Bali,” I said, “Babe, at any time when you feel like you want to go back to Bali, you go, and I’ll help you. I’ll help you go back to Bali. You don’t have to be in London. You go wherever makes you happy.” I’d say it all the time. I’d say, “You go, whatever makes you happy.”

And you know what? I would need it, because why would I want to be with someone that wasn’t happy? And this is ultimately what meant that she felt safe, secure, free, and then it flipped. But that would never have happened if I was like, my friend who literally feels like he’s up against a clock to find a woman and he needs to find one ASAP because he’s. He’s actually 30. He’s nearly 40 now, and he’s single. He’s like, “Steve, you don’t understand. I don’t have the time.” So he’s trying to rush people down the aisle.

Understanding Hidden Motivations

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yeah. So it’s always. When you said that and his circumstance. But you always wonder, why would. And some people truly don’t want to have kids. And there’s nothing wrong with it. But I have found. Because I’ve seen it, too, when somebody says it, why are you saying it? And do you genuinely mean it? Or are you saying it to see the other person’s reaction?

Are you saying it because you want to feel better? Because I know some people who maybe did want or do want to have kids and they can’t or they can’t find a good partner. And so a way that they make peace with it too is they say that and everybody makes peace with things their own way.

Or some have had past relationships where the other people, you know, their potential partners were turned off by especially there’s like this thing, and I don’t know if it exists now, but where some guys may be turned off because they think women want a guy who just wants to have kids. So I don’t want to put off that vibe. So I’m going to say this to you so you don’t think that I’m that way. So that’s why I always wonder when people say it, what are they really saying?

STEVEN BARTLETT: So in her case, her sisters have never been able to leave their hometown. Her six sisters, because all of them had kids super young. And he actually told me this a couple of months earlier that she’s a little bit unsure about the kids thing because she thinks it’ll hurt her freedom. So six months into their relationship when she comes out with a statement like that, honestly, what I said to him, I was like, “Bro, like you’re six months in, say nothing, just let it ride. Just bloody hell, just carry on like whatever you were doing in that moment, just carry on doing it and say, ‘That’s interesting,’ keep it moving because you know, but, but going back to the point, because there’s this internal insecurity in him. As much as you could coach someone like that or they could read the books, etc. They’re going to be tested in a thousand ways.”

Fear-Based Decision Making

EVY POUMPOURAS: So he’s fear based. So he’s, his decisions are being made because he’s afraid he won’t find someone. So he’s dealing with something. It’s not confidence he’s dealing with, he’s insecure. But his decision is “I need to find somebody now because I’m afraid I won’t find somebody or I’m afraid I won’t get married or I’m afraid I won’t have kids.” So everything is fear based with him.

It’s like when you make a decision, you know, “I can’t quit my job because I’m afraid I won’t find another job. I can’t leave this bad relationship because I’m afraid I won’t find somebody else.” Those are fear based decisions. So everything he’s doing is fear pushed and promoted by fear. So him dating, trying to find someone, it’s not that he truly, does he want to find somebody? Yes. But the bigger drive is “I’m afraid I’m not going to find somebody.” So I’m trying so hard.

So all his decisions are fear based. So that’s why his response was fear based. Being fear based is not a great place to be. We all visit it and it’s okay to have fear. Fear is an emotion, but when it becomes your identity and it sticks around a lot, that means every decision you’re made is throttled by fear. And so his dating is throttled by the fear that I won’t find somebody fast enough.

STEVEN BARTLETT: People can tell, can’t they?

Self-Regulation and Emotional Control

EVY POUMPOURAS: You feel it. You feel it. You feel that energy, right? And does it repel people? Yeah. So he had this very emotional reaction. And what did she do? She’s like, “I don’t want any part of it.” She disappeared because his fear, which he couldn’t control and that was more self regulation on his part, not confidence, self regulation.

Self regulation is I control my emotions. So he felt something, he felt panic and he couldn’t manage that. He couldn’t. Like his governor. We all have a governor who manages our emotions. His governor was out to lunch and so he completely released.

So self regulation is your ability to regulate your emotions. So even though you’re panicking, you’re afraid, you’re angry, you’re sad, there has to be a governor that says, “I know you’re there, keep it quiet.” That’s how you regulate your emotions. That’s self regulation. So because he’s so highly fear based, he’s very poor at the moment at self regulating his emotions.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Can someone learn to be a better self regulator of their emotions so that they don’t ruin their life by reacting to things all the time?

EVY POUMPOURAS: I did. I was very hot headed growing up. I was just like my father. I’m Greek, I’m New York. I mean, it was. I just had nothing going for me. I had to learn and I learned in the NYPD. I was very young and I was very fortunate to be around very premier people.

We were talking about your hiring process before, how it’s slow and drawn out. That hiring process is very slow and drawn out. They pluck you because the idea is if we put you in here, you better fit well, because just one person’s going to muck up the whole thing. We don’t want, we want efficiency.

And so with that, I was around very highly regulated people, highly intelligent people. And so because I was around very highly regulated people and instructors who kept me in check, I clocked it in. So that’s how I was able to manage myself. So who’s around you? If everybody around you is a loose screw?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Do you still have the amygdala, like explosion? Do you still have the mental surge of emotion, but you just, on the outside, sort of have learned to keep it in externally?

EVY POUMPOURAS: I can do it very well sometimes at home with my husband, who’s also, he’s also Homeland Security Special Agent, U.S. Secret Service. I sometimes it’s nice to put it down because it’s hard to be on all the time. It’s hard to self regulate all the time.

And so there’s moments where he’ll be like, “Somebody’s a little emotional right now.” And so I’ll check myself. But you, there are those safe people that once in a while you, I think it’s important to have. But even with him, you know, you don’t want to do that to people because then you make people your doormat.

Authentic Self vs. Professional Self

STEVEN BARTLETT: Someone came up to me actually the other day and talked about our previous conversation, which is somewhat linked to what we’re talking about now. They said, “Hi, Stevie, you had that incredible woman on your podcast, and she talked about how you shouldn’t bring your authentic self to work.” And she asked me about that. And that’s kind of what you’re describing there, which is you’re going to be a different person at home.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Don’t bring your authentic self to work. I don’t want your authentic self to work. I want your professional self. I want your respectful self. I want your empathetic self. I want your competent self. You can bring your authentic self to Thanksgiving meal with your family if you’d like to. Does that make sense?

Your Secret Service is like, “Come in, everybody. Be your authentic selves.” You don’t get high performers, you get sloppiness. Everybody’s doing their own thing. That’s not a team. If you’re team oriented, you leave your authentic self here and you bring your genuine self who genuinely cares about the mission, who genuinely cares to do a good job, who genuinely knows that it’s not about you, it’s about the collective team. That’s who you bring.

Your authentic self is about who? Me, me, me, me, me. I’m all about me in teams. Nobody cares about. I don’t mean in any way. They don’t care about you personally. Who, who, what are you bringing? Are you bringing value? Are you bringing. Are you bringing solutions? Are you getting things done?

My authentic self. Could you imagine if I brought my authentic New York self to every interrogation I did? I would interview people who committed crimes against children. I had one case, three year old little girl, she says about the person who was babysitting her, which was a 16 year old young man. Young man, “He touched me down there,” three year old little girl.

So they call me in to do this interview on this young man, this little girl saying he touched her down there. They’re three, they’re not really able to communicate. “Can you talk to him?” So I’m sitting, talking to him, this interview and I’m trying to find out what happened.

Well, as I’m talking to him, he starts to reveal more and more he did touch him down there and he did other things to the point where he confessed he had full on sex with this little girl between the ages of 3 to 4 of her age. He’s 16.

Could you imagine if I brought my authentic self into that room? What would my authentic self say? “What are you thinking? How could you? It’s a three year old.” No, I brought my professional self. “Okay, tell me what happened. Tell me more” non judgment poker face. You know why? Because what I think my authentic self is irrelevant.

What mattered. Getting information, getting a confession so I can find out what happened so that investigators could figure out what to do so this little girl wouldn’t be victimized again. That’s what I mean by your authentic self.

Don’t come in and be phony. Nobody wants a phony. But authentic self has become me, me, me, me, me. Everybody check me out, it’s me, me, me. I was irrelevant personally, it was what I was contributing, what was my goal, my task. That’s what I mean by authentic self.

So when you show up to work, wherever you work, what are you bringing to bring value to the whole team? Because your authentic self could be. “I’m bringing my problems, I’m bringing my opinions, I’m bringing my judgments.” Honestly, nobody cares.

Building Trust Through Genuine Leadership

STEVEN BARTLETT: I have lots of different leaders across my different companies. And when I look at the best leaders, one of the things they have in common is you do feel like they are being honest with you. Are they bringing their full authentic self and all their baggage to work? No. But you feel like you’re dealing with the honest version of them.

And I think some of the worst leaders, the ones that really, really struggle, you can see that the team that they’re leading just feel like maybe they’re manipulating them a little bit or that they’re not being straight with them or there’s something going on. They’re acting, you can kind of feel it. So I’m wondering how this kind of sits with everything you’ve just said there. Because you’re going into these interrogations and you’re winning them over to some degree.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Because building trust.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You’re building trust, but you’re not acting. That’s a different thing.

EVY POUMPOURAS: I’m not being disingenuous.

STEVEN BARTLETT: How do you square all of that? You’re like, not you. Are you acting? You’re not acting.

EVY POUMPOURAS: I’m listening. Because I’m not there for me and I’m not there to pass judgment. The quickest way to shut people down, even in business, you want to know what’s going on around you all the time. If people are too afraid to say things or don’t tell Stephen, “Well, you don’t know how he’s going to react or he’s going to get mad.” Is this. That’s a problem.

The problem is they’re going to be too afraid to tell you things. You want people to come to you and to give you the bad news, to tell you when things aren’t going right. Because you want to collect intelligence. You’re collecting intelligence because when you have the right intelligence, then you can make the right decisions. But you must know what’s going on around you.

So when you pass judgment and you’re telling everybody your opinion or you’re bringing your authentic self, people filter information because they’re bringing versions of themselves that they think you want to hear. We don’t want that.

I was very neutral. I’m a neutral slate even to this day. I try to be neutral in that I allow people to come to me and people are very open and they share. And it works well for me because I get a good read on people and situations. So I can make good decisions, but I don’t do a lot of the talking.

A good interviewer doesn’t say anything. Good interviewer says less. Don’t make it about you. Don’t try to guess where people headspace is. Ask them. “You seem like you’re. Something I said before is upsetting to you. Could you tell me a little bit about that? Explain to me what it is that you’re worried about right now. Describe to me what you’re concerned in.”

We used to call it TED. Tell me, explain, describe. It’s just a great way to get people talking. Just get them talking.

But going back to what you’re saying, it’s just everything is very about me, me, me. We become so identity based that we don’t really. We’re not connected to the community around us and how we impact others. Everything is “What’s happening to me? What’s in it for me? Me, me, me.”

It’s like, do you know that you impact other people? You touch other people, you affect other people’s lives. You make other people’s day better or worse. You make the work environment easier or more taxing. You do that. But everything has become myself, and we’ve lost that balance of the world. Does to me, but I also do to the world.

Dealing with Difficult Cases Through Empathy

STEVEN BARTLETT: To be effective, when you’re dealing with these monstrous people that you dealt with, whether it’s terrorists or people that hurt children or whoever else it might be, did you have to kind of step outside of, do you have to detach at some deeper level? And do you have to see everybody as just a human being? Because I’m wondering how you navigate these spaces when these people have done horrific things. Did you teach yourself to just be more empathetic?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Dare I say you could be empathetic. So all different crimes have different types of characteristics. So somebody who’s a terrorist, let’s say that’s more of an ideology. And they were typically raised from being very young to feel a certain way. So I understood, coming into a room that I’m dealing with someone who’s been groomed from a very young age to see the world a certain way. So that’s why I did not bother wasting my time trying to change that person’s viewpoint.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But what about that kid that hurt, that little girl?

EVY POUMPOURAS: So with him, that specific one, I spent a lot of time speaking to him, and I did bring empathy. So empathy does not mean I agree with you. I’m trying to understand you. And what turned out with him is he had been sexually abused himself when he was young. And so all that stuff came out, and it did not excuse his behavior or what he did, but it was genuine. I was genuinely curious. I was genuinely asking him. And at the same time, I needed to find out the truth.

Look, there were some times I would have somebody across from me, and I’m thinking they did it. And then afterward I’m like, they didn’t do it. There’s times where you clear people, and that’s really important. So that’s why when you would. At least when you talk to people, and even to this day, we’re all biased, but I try not to come in and project that. I really try to give people a fair chance to show me what’s happening instead of coming in with prejudgments. And so you’re better at reading their behavior too, when you’re talking to people.

So with him he revealed a whole bunch what had happened to him. It was sad, it was empathetic. It did not clear him from what he did. Eventually actually with the confession I got, he was eventually tried as an adult and you know, that was very detrimental obviously to his life. Right. It impacted his life. But I could have genuine empathy in that moment. Empathy is like I’m just trying to understand where you are and how you feel. That’s not sympathy.

Gender Differences in Detecting Deception

STEVEN BARTLETT: Who’s better at spotting lies, women or men?

EVY POUMPOURAS: There’s no research that shows one is.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Better than the other because women seem to have a sixth sense and people joke about it in relationship context. But I genuinely feel like, I feel like women have a heightened sensitivity and actually when you look at some of the studies, for example, women can smell, I think it’s testosterone but men can’t smell certain the same or certain hormones on women. So from a physiological standpoint, women do seem to be more sensitive to especially to men.

There was that study they did where they got T shirts off men after they’d been for a run and the women went down and smelt them and then they, I think they had to guess which one was the most attractive and they all pointed the one that had the highest testosterone in it. So there’s things that are going on that we can’t see and feel. So I just wondered if your experience, men or women were in my experience.

Building Confidence Through Action

EVY POUMPOURAS: No, I will say this – a lot of men were very good at assessing. One of the reasons, look, the vast majority of polygraph examiners were male. There were some women and they were very good too, but the vast majority were male.

Men are good at being more rational. Actually, they were trying to figure out if there’s a difference in the brain between men’s brains and women’s brains. And there’s not much. The one thing that they saw is that women have more discernment. So a female brain tends to activate a little bit more and they tend to think about something more than the male brain.

A male brain may be a bit more impulsive, more action-based, and the female brain may be a bit more “let me talk to you, let me try to understand.” And actually, if you look at the data for female cops versus male cops, female cops have less complaints against them. They tend to think it’s because they’re better communicators. They have less complaints because when you’re a cop, you’re going to get a complaint – there’s no way around it, you’re just going to get them. But women tend to have less. Female officers tend to have less complaints, and they think that they’re just better at dialoguing and de-escalating.

STEVEN BARTLETT: On this point about confidence, then – you said it didn’t sound like my friend had a confidence issue. Do you think confidence is the thing that the people who do feel like they’re not respected in the world need to be aiming at? And in your experience, what can one do to build their confidence?

The Secret of Not Talking About Confidence

EVY POUMPOURAS: Let me say this first. I’ve been around very steady people, confident people, and I’ve never seen anyone or heard anybody talk about it ever. I’ve never heard anybody in the circle of where I was – whether it’s former SEALs, US Secret Service – I’ve never heard anyone talk about it.

And I think one of the secrets is they don’t talk about it, they don’t think about it, they don’t give it that much life. They just… I just am. I just are. So I think that’s one secret where people try to… they think about it so much. And I think it goes back to what we’re saying initially – stop overanalyzing. Just be. Just be. You just do.

But now, if you’re looking at confident people, things that I notice – traits amongst confident people or steady people – they have a good circle around them, meaning they’re very aware and meticulous of who’s around them and who they associate with. Because if you’re around insecure people, it bleeds on you. You’re going to absorb what other people are. And if you’re the most confident person in the room, it’s probably not a good thing. You want to be around people you learn from. It can’t just be you’re at the top and everybody’s looking to you. Your bathtub’s going to crack.

Decision-Making Builds Confidence

The other thing I learned about confidence – research shows people in law enforcement are perceived to be highly confident. And one of the reasons they believe it is because they’re decision makers. You make decisions on the spot every day, life and death decisions. And there’s nobody to turn around to be like, “Hey, can I ask you your opinion on this? What do you think I should do with this guy with this knife? Should I shoot? Should I not? Should I pull out the pepper spray? What would you do in this moment?” You’d be dead.

So when you’re used to making decisions, whether right or wrong, but when you’re used to making those decisions and believing in yourself and trusting in yourself that you’re making the best decision you can with the information you have at that moment, that builds confidence. Be a decision maker. I think those are the two most important things. Having awareness and honestly, just show up. Just show up. Don’t worry about being confident. Worry about simple things. Show up on time.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I was reading this study about confidence and the victim mindset. It was a study done by YouGov in 2025 in the United States. And it said women rated themselves much higher on trustworthiness, honesty and empathy. But men rated themselves higher on self-awareness, sense of humor and confidence. And the gap between self-reported confidence between men and women was quite significant. It’s about 50% of men consider themselves confident where it’s only about 35% of women that consider themselves confident.

The Problem with Over-Analyzing

EVY POUMPOURAS: I’ll tell you this – I’ve never heard anybody from the field of work I came from say “I feel like I’m an imposter,” the whole imposter syndrome. I’ve never had that. Again, I didn’t hear it till after I left the service. It’s wild because all these things, I had no awareness of them because they were never discussed in the circle that we were in.

So I also think sometimes when we sit and discuss these things to such extent that they actually start to plant seeds of doubt. I’m not saying we shouldn’t study and have self-awareness, but I think when we over-evaluate to such a degree… we never did that.

And how do you build confidence? I think about training. There was nobody cheering you on. There was nobody like, “Hey, Evy, good job. Good job girl. Good job.” They were trying to get me sent home. You had to fight, you had to claw your way to get that job and then prove that you should be there. They did everything they could to wean you out, to kick you out.

And so I think when you’re determined, you stick, you just stick it out. There were days where I’m like, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through today.” Or even runs – we would do runs and one of the things they would do just to mess with you, they’d take you on a run for miles and miles and you never knew when it was going to end. That’s the worst. At least if you know, “Hey, we’re going to run from here to here. It’s going to be 2 miles, 3 miles, 5 miles, 10 miles, whatever.” Tell me what I’m looking at. But they wouldn’t tell you.

One Step at a Time

So you’d start running and then you’d hit a point and you’d think, at least I would think, “Oh my God, how am I going to do this?” And you know what I would do? I would go and I’d be like, “Just make it to that tree,” which is five feet ahead of me. I made it to the tree. “Make it to that mailbox.” I made it to the mailbox. “Just make it to the next tree.” And that’s how you do it. What’s right in front of me.

But if you look at that whole picture of “how am I going to be all of this?” It’s so overwhelming and so hard. It’s just going to kill your confidence. Whether it’s like, “I want to do this,” what’s the first thing I need to do? Then the second thing I need to do?

And I’m asking you, when you built your businesses, right, or your company, did you just put one foot in front of the other and just try to do it? Or did you stop and say, “You know what, Steven, let’s have a conversation. I need to be confident before I do this. I need to build my confidence.” Did you sit and do that? And once you checked off that confidence bit, then you’re like, “Okay, now I’m ready to do this.”

The Power of Ignorance and Naivety

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah. One of the most incredible things is I actually didn’t know what the word entrepreneur was. I had no idea what it was. So I had this idea and I started trying to figure out how to make the idea happen, which looked like three months on Google, scrolling down, searching the word “web developer,” clicking onto people’s links and then emailing them saying, “Hey, can you build websites?”

So it was this long, drawn-out process of stumbling forward. And had I known, I think a lot of entrepreneurs and founders say this, had I known what it would have taken, had I known how difficult it was, had I not been so ignorant and naive, maybe I would have been demotivated or demoralized to do it. But I was 18, left university, had an idea, didn’t know what the word entrepreneur was, didn’t really even know how you established a company and tried to use the Internet to make that idea happen. In like three to four months trying to figure out how you name a company just by googling stuff. So very much one foot in front of the other.

EVY POUMPOURAS: What did you just say? “I was ignorant and naive.”

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah, it was useful. It was phenomenally useful. Because I think if I was informed, it would have been like standing at the foot of Mount Everest. But I couldn’t see the mountain in front of me, so it felt much more easy to climb.

And this is in part why people get… I spoke to Nir Eyal, who’s an author of a book called “Undistractable.” And he said a phrase to me which I’ve always remembered. He said, “Procrastination is the avoidance of psychological discomfort.” So when you have that big essay to do, what you end up doing is taking the path of least resistance, which might be, “I’ll just clean the house.” And the house gets really tidy. Because psychologically, that essay feels like Mount Everest. You don’t know where to start. You’re not well researched on it, so you clean the house instead.

And so procrastination is the avoidance of psychological discomfort. And so had I known how big that mountain was when I was 18, I probably wouldn’t have done it because the psychological discomfort associated with the knowledge would have been so overwhelming. I would have just cleaned my house. And so sometimes, yeah, it does help.

Execute, Don’t Analyze

EVY POUMPOURAS: It goes back to a lot of the stuff that we’re saying, that sometimes overanalyzing and trying to make sense of things does you a disservice, where sometimes if you just let things be and you just move forward to try to execute, the goal is to execute and do. Because if you sit and try to analyze everything – “how should this be done or that be done,” or if you look at the bigger picture of what it’s going to be like – it can kill you. It can kill your confidence.

Training – I had no idea what training was going to be like. Absolutely none. I went in there completely blind, completely clueless. I thought it was going to be like college. Ha, ha. I learned my lesson the hard way. But I think we need to be a bit more present and focused and just start executing and making progress. Progress, no matter how small, is progress, as long as you’re moving in that direction. But thinking about something, ruminating over something, playing that CD over and over again, procrastinating… just start, just go.

Pedals Over Podium

STEVEN BARTLETT: I spoke to Sir David Brailsford, who’s the guy that turned the British cycling team around, and he told me that when he went in there and those players, those cyclists were down and out and depressed and winning nothing, one of the first things he did was ban them from thinking about the podium.

And so I always came up with this phrase called “pedals over podium” based on everything he said to me, which is he got his riders to think about the pedals in front of him, just the rotation of the pedals, and not whether they were cycling fast enough to win the gold or needed to speed up.

And he said to me, when he did that, it was almost like the riders would get to the end of the track and they would get off the bike and they could not recall the cycle because they were so present. They’d almost been in like this hypnotic state. But they ended up producing their best times because what they’d done is they removed the amygdala, all the emotion, the fear, which burned a lot of energy as a cyclist, I imagine, if you’re thinking too much.

And that produced their best times. They went on to become the most successful cycling team of all time, I believe, and won five out of the six Tour de Frances. And that whole idea of just be present, just focus on the next, as you say, step along the way. I think it’s difficult for people because sometimes that first step is so small that it’s sometimes a little bit embarrassing. You know, the first step to change your life, the first step to confront an issue in your life is sometimes so small that it feels like that can’t possibly be the right step to take.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Because it’s hard, because it’s uncomfortable.

The Embarrassingly Small First Step

STEVEN BARTLETT: What’s that like? They call it exposure therapy. It was Jordan Peterson that said to me, he was dealing with a guy who wouldn’t leave his bedroom. And instead of getting him to go outside and stuff, he just got him to move the Hoover 10cm closer today. And that was today done. And then the next day, he got him to turn the Hoover on, but then turn it off. That was that day done.

And Jordan said to me, he said, “The problem with people with change is the first step is often so embarrassingly and shamefully small that people don’t want to do it. That’s embarrassing to do something so small.”

The Power of Small Changes

EVY POUMPOURAS: Because it’s a myth. We’ve been fed a myth that to make big change in your life, you have to make big decisions. You have to make big movement. And the big change you create in life, it’s through the small movement.

You just reminded me of a story. My buddy, Don Saladino, he’s like the – he does training for all. You ever watch a lot of those Marvel movies, the DC movies, with all those characters? He trains a lot of them to get them physically fit for the movies.

And he was telling me he had a story about – I think he was telling me he had a client who he was just trying to get him to work out. And the client was overweight and having all these issues. And what the client did – what they did is the client just tried to create progress.

So the first day, what he did was he took his sneakers and he just put them in front of his bed, and that was it. And then the next day, he took his shoes and put them outside the door of his bedroom. And then the day after that, he took the shoes and put them in the kitchen. And then the next day, he took the shoes and just put them on. And then the day after that, he took the shoes, he walked outside and put them on outside. Then the day after that, he took the shoes and just went to the corner and then came back.

And then he went from being severely obese and having – being very unhealthy to running marathons. And that’s how he did it.

Presidential Decision-Making

STEVEN BARTLETT: You’ve seen some of the most consequential people ever make decisions. These presidents. Maybe you can’t answer this question. I don’t know if you can, but who were the best decision makers and why that you observed?

EVY POUMPOURAS: I’m going to say this – to be the President of the United States, it’s no small thing. So for you to get to that place, you are exceptional. I just – I say this in a neutral way. People get very personal or biased, and I don’t just because I served under various presidencies, didn’t matter what the party was. And I learned so much from all of them.

But as far as making decisions, there are a couple of things. One, they had a really good circle around them. Inner circle. Like, everybody didn’t have access to the president. There were layers around the president, so everybody didn’t have access to them. That was really important. But the circle around them was a circle that was there to support them.

Everybody around them was steady. I never saw – I never saw anybody go cry at the White House. I never saw anybody lose their mind. I never saw anybody get emotionally dysregulated. I never saw this. And that was important because that kept them steady.

The other thing was they were very good at delegating, so they didn’t need to know everything, but they would find people who knew more than they did to give them advisement to help make decisions, and they would just make decisions.

The other thing I saw and I witnessed, they worked very hard. They worked – I would see presidents sit up. I mean, I think it’s okay to say this. I really don’t talk about the people are protected out of respect. You know, there’s a Greek saying, “Everybody loves the treason. Nobody loves the traitor.” And so I’m just always careful not to say.

But I would see presidents, like, I remember President Bill Clinton. He’d be up till very late hours of the night studying, reading, preparing, just reading. President Barack Obama – I mean, I’d work midnight shifts sometimes, and he was up studying, sitting at his desk, reading, preparing. They would study. They would spend time studying.

So all those things collectively help you feel like I’m as informed as I can be by studying myself, by surrounding myself with people who are informing me, who are also steady. And then I make the best decisions I can with the moment, the information I have in front of me.

Now, one of the things we do, and we all do this, we do a disservice to us when things don’t go or work out the way we thought they would. We beat up on ourselves. “I should have known this. I should have this, I should have that.” And anytime I start to do that or I have somebody, and I always say, I’m like, my husband used to say this too. He’s like, “You made the best decision you could with what you knew in that moment. Don’t go back and make yourself feel like shit because you feel you should have chose differently.”

Making Decisions with Incomplete Information

STEVEN BARTLETT: I’ve heard Obama say that. So just like I said it pretty much close. I heard him talk about this whole idea of making decisions at 51% certainty when he spoke at this conference I was speaking at in Sao Paulo a couple of years ago. And he’s talking about the big decisions in his career, like going in and getting Osama bin Laden – didn’t have 100% certainty. And he said, sometimes in life you have to make a decision with the information you have and be at peace with the fact that you made the best available decision with the information you had and move on.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Confident people are okay with not knowing all the information. Yeah, they’re okay. I don’t need to know. It doesn’t have to be 100% right. Because – and here’s the other thing, because we’re so scared of making the wrong decision.

And unless you’re the President of the United States or you’re in law enforcement and you may shoot the wrong human being, which I get. But overall, most decisions, not life or death, make a decision and then feel okay with it being wrong.

If you’re so insecure that you’re terrified you’re going to make the wrong decision. Why? Because you’re going to look dumb. You’re going to feel dumb. Confidence – you don’t care how you look or how you – you’re not sit and you’re not quantifying. “He’s going to think I’m done. She’s going to think I look stupid. They’re going to think this.” And even for yourself, you don’t tally that you’re okay with making the wrong decision.

It’s like, “I’m going to make my choice. I hope it’s the right one. I did the best I could, but I’m comfortable with that.” But if you’re so worried about it’s the wrong decision, then don’t make one. And that’s that in and of itself, that confident people don’t do that.

So the other thing I would see presidents do, they had – they had time to themselves. Meaning, you would see them – they would have time where they would be alone and they would think they weren’t always exposed or surrounded by people.

George W. Bush, he would go to Waco, to the ranch. That was his roots. That was his place to, “I need to kind of find my roots.” President Barack Obama, I spent every holiday in Hawaii. He went home. George Bush Sr. He would split his time between Kenny Bunkport and Texas Houston. So that was another thing. They’d all go home. They don’t go home.

The Importance of Solitude and Physical Fitness

STEVEN BARTLETT: I hear from a lot of very successful people that I interview that they all have some kind of meditation practice. And even when I look to the life of someone like Steve Jobs and how he was able to continually see round corners and remove the keyboard and remove the stylus and remove the iPhone jack and remove Java from our phones and do all of these things that at the time were crazy talk that someone who was motivated by money today would not have done, but someone that could see the future tomorrow could have done.

And you come to learn that he was basically a yogic. He was a meditator. And what you described there made me think of that, which is, okay, all these successful people seem to have some kind of practice where they get out of the trenches and into their intuition or into the clouds alone so they have space to stand back from the painting so they can see the full picture.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Do you know what they would all also do? I can’t speak for all of them, but a lot of them worked out – their workout was built into their schedule. President George Bush Jr. He would bike. He used to actually be a runner. He was a very fast runner because they would ask for agents to run with him. And when you run, when you would run, you have to run with your gear on. President Clinton was a runner. Then Bush started biking. So you had to be a good biker.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Where can they run?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Well, President Bush would run the trails. When we’d go to Texas or Waco. You’re not going to run the streets of Washington, D.C. so they have – The White House has its own internal gym, but they did run. They were very athletic. President Barack Obama every morning gym.

So the part of integrating the body into the mind is key. I saw them all do it, and I think that plays a role. It can’t just be – we separate the mind and body. When you physically take – I’ve just seen them all do it, and I learned it also as an agent, you had to work out and you had to use your body.

Because also when you use your body and you’re moving it and you’re working it out, you’re taking care of it, you feel good. You feel like you’re doing something powerful and positive for yourself. And that in and of itself builds confidence and strength.

Understanding Lack of Confidence

STEVEN BARTLETT: I was trying to understand what it feels like to have true – a true lack of confidence, how does it feel inside your body? And the research I did showed there’s really four areas that you feel it.

The first area is in your body physically – the tightness in your body which could be clenched jaw. It could be that fidgeting you see heart racing, all the fight or flight responses.

The second way you feel it is in the mind – self doubt, asking yourself always “am I good enough?” kind of double guessing yourself, running through worst case scenarios, ruminating on your past mistakes.

The third way is your emotions which is this feeling, this insecurity that you might be exposed at some point. Avoiding speaking out too much or holding yourself back.

And the last way is in behavior which is speaking softly, rushing your words, avoiding eye contact and apologizing.

The Power of How You Speak

EVY POUMPOURAS: I don’t too much. I feel that’s such a waste of time to spend to sit and analyze yourself. Now if you’re not a good speaker, I look at it as I want to work on my speech. It’s paralinguistics. It’s called right. I want to try from my the best tone I can so that I can speak with authority.

Research shows that it’s not what you say. People sometimes sit and memorize what they’re going to say, the words they’re going to use, when in fact the research shows how you say it impacts people more than what you say.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So the way that you speak is clearly resonant with people. Are you aware of what it is about the way you speak that is making my viewers show up every time you come here in the tens of millions to hear you speak?

The Power of Voice and Presence

EVY POUMPOURAS: When I speak, I own my voice. So there’s paralinguistics there. And I learned this from doing the news. Because if I don’t sound like I know what I’m talking about, then it doesn’t matter what I say, it’s what I sound like.

So if you know, even using the right part of my voice, my deeper tone, my authentic tone, you know, it’s very different. “Hi, I’m Evie. How are you doing?” Okay. One of the things that really makes me conscious in front of my daughter is not to go in a really high pitched voice because I don’t want her growing up talking like this. I want her to grow up having a stronger, deeper tone voice.

Because the research shows when you own your voice, people respect you and they see you as an authority. And so I just don’t want to inadvertently give her that high pitched voice, which doesn’t mean it’s her natural voice. It’s the voice that I’ve helped cultivate and groom for her to have. So let’s just put that right there. So those are little things that I also have awareness of. I don’t want to tell her, “Hey, speak this way.” I’m going to show her how to speak, and she’s going to mimic that.

So when you look at how you present yourself to others. So when I come here, I come here, and I look at it this way – this interview is not about me. You’ve invited me here. What? Third time. Thank you. I’m super humbled. But this isn’t about me. It is about them, the audience. Right. I don’t matter. I’m irrelevant. You’re irrelevant. We’re two people who are trying to share information that maybe hopefully make the world a better, more wise, more just place. Maybe it helps make people’s lives a little bit better. That’s what matters. They matter. We don’t.

And so when you bring that in and you put all your energy on the person you are speaking to, because they want to hear it, and if you put that there, then they feel it.

The Strategic Use of Silence

STEVEN BARTLETT: As you said all of that, I was analyzing the way that you were speaking. And you do a bunch of really interesting things. One of them is that you take silences that most people would not take. Okay, I’m going to – don’t be offended. I’m going to try and show what I mean.

“Are you there for you or are you there for them?”

Most people wouldn’t have taken that silence. There’s a certain selfishness. Because silence is taking something from someone in an interesting way. It’s like you’ve taken some time from someone. And people, you know, as it says in these studies that are low confidence, they rush because they know that.

EVY POUMPOURAS: I don’t want to waste your time. I’m not that important. So let me hurry through this.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

EVY POUMPOURAS: So I don’t. I don’t. Because you’re more important than I am. 100%. Right.

So I will give kudos to this. I watch presidents speak. Barack Obama again. This is something I shared publicly. And I think it’s okay. He was brilliant at this. He would watch his speeches, he would speak, and he would take his time. He would do emergency – you know how they would interrupt TV shows or something. Emergency message or breaking news from the White House, whatever. I never saw him rush through anything. I never saw him say to himself or think, “I better hurry up through this. I’m disrupting Grey’s Anatomy. People want to get back to the show.”

No, I’m the President of the United States. I have something relevant to say, and I’m going to say it. I’m going to own my time and my voice. I’m not going to waste your time. I’m going to get to the point. I’m not going to belabor the point. That’s different. But I’m getting to the point and I’m going to pause. I’m going to own my time.

The Science of Effective Communication

So when you speak again, this is – it’s how you say it, not what you say. You also want to give people time to absorb what you’re saying, to feel what you’re saying when you slow down. Also, as a presenter, I am less likely to make mistakes. I am less likely to say the wrong thing live on camera when I do the news. I am less likely to do these things and I’m more likely to be able to think, process and share.

And you’re right. How many times do people do presentations and when I do communication for companies, I always tell them, when you’re doing your presentations, please don’t do this: “All right, guys, just one other thing. Let me put this in here. I don’t want to waste anybody’s more time or take up any more time. Just really quickly…”

What did I just do? I just told you what I’m about to tell you really isn’t that important. So don’t even listen. Why do we do that? I’m here, I’m speaking, what I have to say. If I’m saying something of value, if I know I’m saying something of value because I’m trying to share and make the whole system, the process, better, then pause. I’m going to pause. I’m going to speak, I’m going to share.

But if I’m talking for myself because I’m insecure, I want people to see me. “Everybody needs to know you’re sitting at that table, right? Make yourself known, make sure they can hear you. Make sure they see you at that meeting.” You just made that about you. You shouldn’t be at that table. That’s the difference. Command your voice.

Also the science and research shows, because I know you like science and research. The more we speak, meaning if we talk a lot and we use a lot of words and we don’t get to the point, we are seen as less trustworthy and people value. People will assess how competent and confident you are in the way you speak. Get to the point, say it with less words and be impactful. Command what you say.

So I think what we’re trying to say is I command what I say. I’m not worried in my head. Am I wrong? Am I right? Am I going to say the wrong thing from time to time? Sure. Who isn’t? But I’m owning my voice. And I think people are so afraid to own their voice, own your voice. And if you’re wrong, if your intention is right and you’ve prepared and you’re doing your best and you’re being genuine, not authentic, you’re being genuine and you genuinely care about the people you’re speaking to, the audience, then it’s all okay.

Body Language and Physical Presence

STEVEN BARTLETT: You use your hands a lot as well, which is, I think, a trait of someone who feels like they deserve your attention and space and respect because it takes up room to. And as you were doing that, you were using a good, you know, 50 centimeters either side of you to make the point. But it’s also just more engaging to watch because you went. And most people wouldn’t. A lot of people, you know, it’s kind of like.

EVY POUMPOURAS: So there’s a couple of things. So it’s really good that you brought that up. One, I’m Greek, so that plays a role. So I try not to be. So they’re called illustrators when people use their hand. But yes, there is a strategy to it.

One, I learned it from doing television. When I first began doing the news, which I knew nothing about, again, I went from a job where you were supposed to be not in front of the camera, actually out of the camera, because the camera is supposed to catch the president, never you, to being in front of the camera. And the producer I worked with the very first day said, “Let me give you a secret. When you’re on camera, just so you know, the camera sucks like 25% of your energy away. It takes immediately 25% of your energy out.”

So when the person is watching you look flatter. You ever watch Zooms? You ever do a Zoom and it looks like everybody’s bored out of their mind and you’re thinking, “What’s going on?” It’s not them, it’s the camera. It takes energy. So if you’re trying to engage people, one of the things you can do, first of all, when you speak, people hear 49% of what you say. So when you’re talking, if you’re able to keep their attention, they’re hearing half of what you say. And that’s if they’re connected to you. So think about that.

The Psychology of Trust and Engagement

Now I’m trying to speak. And when you speak, you’re also telling a story. So I can sit like this. Which – side note, when you sit on your hands, it’s considered, some people say it’s a considered sign of deceit. I’m hiding my hands. I’m a liar. So when people don’t see hands, it’s a sign of untrustworthiness. Like you can’t trust them when you see hands. Open hands, I’m no threat. It’s kind of like a psychological thing for prehistoric times. I see no weapons in your hand. I can trust you.

So that’s something I learned as a technique as well in the polygraph room. Always have your hands out, always be open. I’m open. I’m here for you. And so I’ve learned to roll that into how I present because I learned it’s really important to use your hands and you are storytelling and you are commanding your voice. So all those things combined, you’re trying to keep also people’s attention.

So I also look at it, I’m trying to keep you engaged in the conversations so I can’t be lazy and I have to work hard to keep you engaged. Also, people kind of like they ping pong. Even if somebody, you ever go to a conference and like, “I’m really going to pay attention, I’m going to really focus” and 5, 10 minutes you’re in there and you lose people. It’s not their fault. “What am I going to eat later? Where am I to go for lunch? Did I send that email? Oh, I have to pick up my dry cleaning later.” People ping pong.

So it’s especially today where you’re competing with all this noise and there is so much noise out there. You really are trying hard to keep people engaged so you don’t have to be long winded. Speak, engage, show them that you’re there, own your space and command your words.

The Retention Formula

STEVEN BARTLETT: One of the things I learned from watching MrBeast make content, but also from doing this podcast and sitting with guests that get really high retention because the audience don’t know this, but when every guest comes on the show, we get a graph back from YouTube and the other places that the podcast appears that shows how many minutes people listened for.

And sometimes there’s big swings between the lowest performing guest and the highest performing guests on YouTube, there’s a 100% gain in retention. So thinking back over the last month, the lowest performing guest on the Diary of a CEO, in terms of how long people listened for is, let’s say just get an arbitrary number. People listen for one hour. The highest performing, they listened for two hours. And that’s the range that we see.

And when I look at why that is, it’s often because it’s – well, it’s always because of the way that they speak. You’re one of the people that has extremely high retention because of the way that you speak. And Morgan Housel’s another one. And I was watching Morgan Housel, the way he delivers his message, and he basically always starts it with a curiosity gap or a promise.

And MrBeast does the same. MrBeast’s videos don’t start with, “Hey, hi, I’m MrBeast. Welcome back to my channel.” He immediately shouts a promise in your face. Which is like, “I’ve put a thousand people in that circle. The last one to leave wins $5 million.” And immediately there’s this curiosity gap. Like, I want to see the answer. I just noticed that in great speakers, even on stage, when I go to conferences is they leave me hanging on something that they haven’t yet given me.

The Art of Effective Communication

EVY POUMPOURAS: Somebody once when I began doing keynotes or speaking, there was this other speaker, and he said to me, “Let me give you some advice, kid.” I was like, sure, I’ll take it. I didn’t mind. And he hadn’t heard me speak yet. It was just – he was just trying to impart wisdom.

He said, “Just because you’re an expert doesn’t mean you’re interesting.” And it always stuck with me because there’s people, Steven, that are probably smarter than I am, have more years or time or experience in the U.S. Secret Service than I do. There’s always somebody that’s better, smarter, faster, whatever.

But a big part of what plays a role is how you present and how are you sharing that information and are you doing an effective job. It’s not about “Let me tell you how smart I think I am.” It’s about being able to relay that information in a way that people can understand and that it’s digestible. It’s how they process information.

Adapting Your Communication Style

I even learned to do that in the interview room when I would Mirandize people. I was trying to assess where they were linguistically so I could speak to them in a way that resonated with them.

So one of the things I would do is I had Miranda – I never read Miranda verbally. The Miranda rights in the United States. Before you interview anybody. And I would do this, whether they’re an applicant, a suspect, a victim, because you never knew how things were going to go. I would Mirandize everybody. You know, “You have the right to remain silent.” All that.

So I had a piece of paper and I would hand it to them and I would say, “Please read each sentence out loud.” So the first sentence would be – and I would have them hold it. They would read out loud, “I have the right to remain silent.” And I would ask them, “Do you understand that?” I wouldn’t read it. They would say it. I would listen to them and I wanted to hear their speech, how they resonated their language skills. And they would sign it, then we’d finish it.

And then I would ask them questions that I already knew the answer to. “What’s your name? What’s your date of birth? Where are you from?” I had all of this. I did not need it, but it was a way for me to assess their speech. And then based on that, I would meet them where they were.

I’m not going to speak the way I normally speak. I’m going to adapt my speech. There’s adaptability in a way that’s going to resonate with you the most. So using big, hefty words, speaking super fast, especially, I’m from New York, I go to the south. They speak slower. I would have to slow down so I could meet them where they were, so I could speak to them in a way that resonated with them.

It’s the listener that matters. I am irrelevant. We don’t matter. They matter. Where is that person? I’m going to meet you there.

Writing for Your Audience

Also, even when you write, one of the things I learned in journalism school, New York Times writes at an eighth grade level to keep it simple so that people can actually finish the article or even a book, my book. Do you know how hard it was to write the book? Not for the content, but to write it in a way that was easy for people to read. Not for people to read a chapter and be like, “I need a nap,” because it’s too cognitive heavy.

You want to do things that people can absorb and they don’t have to use all their brain power. If it’s too hard, if we speak too smart or too complicated, people get tired. So the delivery mechanism in which you give information really matters. You’re talking so that they can understand, so that it’s not hard for them to follow you, so that they can follow you easily, they can stay connected with you, and they’re not needing a nap after you’re done. You speak for them, not for you.

STEVEN BARTLETT: A lot of people, especially, I think podcasters, sometimes want to use bigger words because it makes you sound smarter.

EVY POUMPOURAS: The research shows that actually people see you as less competent when you use simpler words and you get to the point and you use less words in the vocabulary, it actually shows that you are deemed as more competent, more confident and more trustworthy.

The Power of Strategic Silence

STEVEN BARTLETT: I realized this a couple of years ago when I was running my New York office for my old company and there was this young lady in the team who I’ll call Sarah. And Sarah in meetings would – when we were doing creative brainstorms for clients, we had Uber as a client. I remember being sat in the Uber brainstorm. She would kind of think out loud.

And so she’d say, “What about if we did? I don’t know, maybe we could do something like, maybe we could do a pop up. And then we could…” And she was thinking out loud.

And then there was this other guy who I can name called Cahol Kati. He’s a friend of mine still to this day. And he would never speak. But the minute he started speaking, it was like the room fell silent because he spoke so infrequently. We all knew that he was taking the time to think about what he was saying and what he was saying was about to be really, really valuable.

And I would witness with Sarah, people literally cut her off. They would, even before she had said a word – the first two words out of her mouth, they would immediately assume that it was not worth paying attention to because she had developed what I would later call a bad contribution score, which is kind of like your credit score, but you hurt it when you contribute beyond value, if that makes sense.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yeah, well, she’s not – you notice she’s so engrossed and it’s not to throw judgment at her. But that’s what happens when you’re so engrossed in what you’re thinking that you lose sight of – there’s 10 other people in this room.

And this is when, if you’re going to open your mouth, open your mouth, use your pauses, use your silences so that you can make sure your message is impactful and you’re not running through, you’re not vomiting everything out, which also makes you look nervous and lacking confidence. But if you’re going to speak, then command what you say, speak with conviction and don’t waste people’s time.

Finding the Right Balance

STEVEN BARTLETT: You can think of people in your life, right? If you think about all the people you work with, there’s ones that over talk and there’s ones that definitely under talk and then there’s ones that hit the balance just right. And what is the – can you tell me about these people and how and if that’s even true, what I just said?

EVY POUMPOURAS: It is true. I think it depends who it is. If it’s someone I’m working with, I’m always kind of like, can we just – you know, in my head, I’m like, “Land the plane. Land the plane.” I just don’t – I have to have 10 more conversations like these. It’s not to be mean, you know, but as you go higher up or as you’re doing more, you have less empathy. Ironically, it’s not because you become meaner. It’s just, I don’t have the ability.

Can I ask you a question, actually? Do you tend to draw people that want to work with you, who think they see the persona Steven here, and you’re guiding people, you’re helping people, you’re in some way mentoring people? Do you find that people want to come to work for you because they think you will do that for them? Do you tend to draw those personalities?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Of course.

EVY POUMPOURAS: How do you know you have that?

Identifying the Right Motivations

STEVEN BARTLETT: This is a good question. Usually in the interview process, the orientation towards why they’re here will be too much about Steve, too much about me. And it’ll be highlighted when they meet my executives, my team, my chief of staff, my CEOs, whatever they’ll say, they’ll always come to me and say, “I think this one’s a little bit too interested in you and not the role.”

And so when I get to meet this person, I’ll ask them a very simple question, which is, “Explain to me exactly why this job appealed to you.” And they should be able – and in that moment, all their answers should be about the work at hand, not, “I read your book and I thought, loved your podcast.” You know, it should never be that, because as you know from working with very interesting people, that stuff will fade.

And when we go into the trenches, it won’t matter whether you liked my book. We’re here to do work, and you have to love the work. It has to be the work has to be the thing you’re thinking about in the shower, not my podcast. And if that’s the case, then you’ll be fine here.

The Secret Service Hiring Process

EVY POUMPOURAS: When I did the hiring for the US Secret Service, I did the polygraphs, and I know you can’t polygraph people, but we would polygraph people. So I was the last line of defense. They go through the whole hiring process, right? Interviews, panel interviews, exams. There’s tests you would have to take anyway. So you pass all this stuff, right? And then you get to me. And so I was kind of the last line of defense.

And one of the things I would ask them during the interview, I would ask them kind of what you said, “Why do you want to be a U.S. Secret Service special agent?” And I typically get two types of answers.

“Oh, I think it’d be really interesting. Challenge, I want to see if I can do it. You know, it’d be really, you know, I want to see what, you know, if I’m able to do it.”

And then the other answer I would get typically would be, “You know, I want to serve my country. I want to help protect people. I want to do something bigger than me.”

Do you know who made it through the hiring process? These guys. These guys who are “I, me. I want to learn, I want to challenge, I want to see I can do it.” Because they were so self focused, not only were they not making through the hiring process, they want to make it through training. Because these guys were focused on the bigger thing, the role. And then these guys were focused on themselves, what they could get out of it.

So when people are interviewing with you, what can they get out of it? “I get to be around Steven.” Me, me, me. There it is.

Focus on Substance Over Appearance

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah. This is also just a really good piece of advice for what to aim at in your life, which is not to aim at the labels, the flashy things, the ephemeral, the things that will fade after a week, a month.

Actually, this goes back to a problem my friend has with – he goes for people that look really good on the outside. That’s part of the reason he’s still single. He really cares about what it looks like. I remember one day him saying to me, “You know, I’ve just started dating this girl, Stephen. But I’m not sure because, you know, I just think if I walked into a restaurant with her on my arm, then I just don’t know how it would look.”

And I remember thinking to him, “Bro, you’re so – if that’s what you care about, you are going to struggle.” And people care too much about how it looks, how they look, how the job makes them look, how the situation makes them look.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yes, yes. Although I will say to my husband, sometimes I’m like, “You’re lucky you’re hot.” When we fight, “You’re lucky, you’re a good looking hot man.” Because I don’t know if we would have survived. So there’s moments, Stephen – truth be told, when I’m looking, I’m like, “You’re lucky you’re a good looking man. Otherwise, I don’t know.”

So there’s moments where that’ll save the relationship. But I digress. I forgot what you asked because I took you in a different direction because I was really just curious to see, you know, because I would see it with presidents and I would see it with certain people. And I experienced it myself too. Sometimes you get this.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

EVY POUMPOURAS: And I would think you would get it a lot. And that’s a really tough thing. I would think.

When Both Passion and Admiration Align

STEVEN BARTLETT: I would say, though, some people that have been extremely successful in my company, they were also big followers of the show. I’m thinking of you, Christiana. Christiana, who is our chief revenue officer, she told me she’s listened to every episode ever, actually in her application, she used in the subject line, chapter 19 of my book. And then in the email, there were several things that I’d written in my books.

She’s an unbelievable performer because actually her career and her life and her passion is also the work. So it can be both, but it can’t be just as you said, it can’t just be “I just want to see what the challenge is like,” you know what I mean? It can’t just be a surface level any.

Is there anything else that is really pertinent on the point of, you know that guy backstage that said to you that gave you that advice, which was kind of a little bit patronizing. It sounded like that you said it wasn’t, but it kind of…

Developing Higher Tolerance for Offense

EVY POUMPOURAS: It didn’t take it like that. But I’m also – I also don’t get easily offended. To me, I looked at it like you have to really say something pretty offensive to me to be offended. So I think my offensive level is probably – my tolerance is higher than others.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is that a good thing?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yes, because in the job that I came from, you couldn’t get – you just couldn’t get impacted with people as easy. Like you have to think of it this way, it would be something stupid, Steven, like probably here in New York once, President Barack Obama, he went out to dinner and I had to tell somebody standing by the restaurant, “Ma’am, sir, could you please just cross the street and stand there?” Because we had to clear the area and people lose their minds. “You’re violating my rights.” Phones come out, they’re yelling at you in your face.

Now the New York me or the Evy me wants to just like punch him in the throat, “go across the street like I don’t have time for this.” She can’t do that. So when you have a job where people dislike you because you’re law enforcement and they’re in your face, and when you’re telling them to do something, they automatically – you have something called reactance. Nobody likes to be told anything. Nobody likes to feel like they don’t have control over their lives. So they have reactance, which means immediately they’re going to push back.

A really good example is Covid, people losing their minds, you know, when they were forced to wear masks. And a big reason, it wasn’t really the mask. It was that they felt that they had no autonomy. “You’re telling me what I have to do, and I feel like I have no control.”

So in law enforcement, you’re typically dealing with this often where you can’t offer people a choice, typically, it’s, “I need you to do this.” So when you have people really escalating and getting in your face and in many situations wanting an altercation, they want to put on you, they want to put on YouTube, they want to put on social media, you have to manage yourself. Also, in my mind, I’m like, you’re not going to get that from me. So you do have a higher threshold to tolerate a lot more nonsense.

Handling Confrontational Situations

STEVEN BARTLETT: So if I was someone who was really disrespecting you when you were doing your job and I was shouting in your face, you told me to get across the street, and I started cussing you out and being very personal and trying to sort of exacerbate the situation, what would be going through your head at that exact moment? I’m now screaming in your face, I’ve got my phone out. I’m telling you, you’re live on Instagram. What is actually going through your head versus what you’re displaying externally?

EVY POUMPOURAS: What I would say is, “Ma’am or sir, whoever it was, like, I appreciate you frustrated. However, I’m not able to have you stand here. Could you please go across the street.”

STEVEN BARTLETT: And what’s going on up here?

EVY POUMPOURAS: How many times I’m going to say this before I force this person across the street, before I put handcuffs on them? That’s what’s happening in my head. So in my head, I am doing mathematical equation. How many chances do I give this person before I throw on handcuffs?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Have you ever had someone insult you? Yeah, in a really vicious, just, like, horrible way.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Tits, dummy, Barbie, you know, and does.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It offend inside, even if you don’t show it?

Dealing with Personal Attacks and Insults

EVY POUMPOURAS: I don’t want to say you get used to it, but you don’t take it personally because they don’t know me. Also, when you’re in law enforcement, you’re seeing people at their worst. You are seeing the worst of humanity. That is one of the toughest jobs, even with military. Military, they go to war. That’s atrocious. But you go, you do your tour and you’re out. And then maybe you go back, but you get reprieve.

Law enforcement, you’re doing this for your entire career. Every single day. You are seeing the worst in humanity. People are lying to you. They’re committing crimes. You really could lose a lot of faith. You really could become really cynical. It’s actually a common trait in law enforcement. So you have to be really careful to not become overly cynical, because you’re seeing the worst of people, and they’re also bringing out their worst behavior.

For whatever reason, people are not the best version of themselves. And again, you’re also typically not dealing with the good citizen. You’re dealing with people who are consistently committing crimes. If you look at crime in general, the vast majority of crime, it’s committed by the same group of people. And the majority of arrests, if you look at the arrests, they’re misdemeanors, meaning driving while intoxicated. They’re smaller things, felonies, really serious crimes. These are people who typically violate the law consistently.

Fighting with Facts

So when this is happening, we would memorize. What the US Secret Service did is they taught us to fight with facts. I fight with facts. So we actually memorized the title codes, like 18. Title 18, USC was it 3056. That gave me the right to do what I needed to do to secure and protect the President of the United States. And if you were interfering with that, then the law gave me the right to arrest you if I needed to.

I didn’t want to arrest anybody. I didn’t care. But the law gave me that right because now you’re impeding in my ability to do my job. So one of the things I would do is I would say, “Ma’am, you are right now impeding with title 18, 3056.” And I would say the title of what it was, which says that I have to do X, Y, and Z. So here’s the thing. I don’t want to arrest you, but you do need to move across the street. You can move across the street and I can get somebody to come talk to you, or, you know, it’s going to escalate. It’s up to you.

Most people, Steven, most listen. But a lot of people like theatrics.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You said “it’s up to you.” That’s giving them an element of control, which is good.

EVY POUMPOURAS: It’s up to me. Look, at the end, they have to do it because I have to do my job. Right. But the majority of time.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But you’ve given them the choice because you’ve said you can either screen or this.

The Reality of Physical Confrontation

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yes, but sometimes you have to repeat it like 15 times to people before you actually do it. Here’s the thing. Once you put hands on people, the last thing you want to do is put hands on people. The minute you put hands on people, everything breaks bad. They’re going to freak out, somebody’s going to get hurt. It’s not a good thing.

The majority of people I would arrest, after I would arrest them, I’d have to take them to the hospital. Not because I did anything to hurt them, but “my heart hurts. I’m stressed, I don’t know what’s happening. I have a headache.” I don’t want them to die on me. And the majority of the time, I would take them to the hospital or they were faking it. I’ve had people fake heart attacks because they thought I’d feel bad and take the cuffs off. And I’m like, “okay, are you having a heart attack? Let me put the cuffs on. We’re going straight to the hospital.” And I would take them to the hospital.

Recognizing Manipulation Tactics

So there’s a lot of tactics people would use to also get you to stop manipulators, which people can do, the average person, not in this way, but ways people can manipulate you to stop whatever it is you’re doing. Let’s say you’re trying to find out the truth of something, or you’re trying to get to – you’re asking questions and the person doesn’t like it, they may start crying. People would cry when I would arrest them as a way for me to feel sorry to stop.

So often people will use things to get you to feel bad, to leave them alone. Let’s say you’re going to fire somebody for something they did and you’re asking them questions, and they start crying in the office instead of asking the questions. Right. That’s a way to deflect, to get you to feel bad, to stop your line of fire, of questions, to get you to stop. Very common, very common crying. It’s a manipulation tactic.

And there’s other things people can do. So people will use certain things to get you to stop what you’re doing. And sometimes people fall for it or they’ll say things to you. “You’re only doing this to me because I’m a woman or because I’m this” and those, sometimes not that. They’re not true. But a lot of times it can be used as manipulators to get you to back off.

STEVEN BARTLETT: In that scenario, you’re being met with emotion and it appears that you’re returning logic because you’re talking about the title code. And you could, I guess, return emotion. But it.

Owning Your Emotional Response

EVY POUMPOURAS: No, no, you own your emotion. Nobody should provoke you. Nobody. You’re Steven Bartlett, daughter of CEO. Nobody provokes you. You own your response. You can go in that back room and motherfuck somebody to, you know, like, do it in the mirror. But nobody, nobody owns that. Nobody should take that from you. Who are they to take that from you? And who are you to surrender it? That’s the way I look at it.

You’re going to be dealing with people. People are revolving door of all their stuff. And I do think we see a really heightened emotional state with people. Like, people can’t not post stuff on social media. Like, everybody has to give their opinion on something. And sometimes I’m like, stop. Like, everybody doesn’t need to know what you’re thinking. Like, stop posting. We put so much noise out there because we think people care. They don’t.

It’s like, even though when you speak, I look at social media the same way, what are you contributing to the world? Are you post it? If you’re not, don’t post it. Don’t put more noise. Your contribution points even in your posts and the things you share with the world.

But I look at it this way. You’re at a point I understand. When you’re young, up until you’re 25 years old, I give you a free pass because that frontal cortex of yours is not developed. You’re not emotionally regulated. But then there comes a point where you have to own your emotions. I had to because I would lose my job.

Becoming Unprovokable

STEVEN BARTLETT: How do I become unprovokable? Is there a way or is it just by repetitions?

EVY POUMPOURAS: It’s repetition. If enough people get in your face, over time, you learn to manage your emotions. But if you spent the whole time avoiding people getting in your face, I’m not telling you to go look for problems, but you shouldn’t go out of your way to avoid conflict to such a degree where you’re willing to do anything or whatever because you don’t want conflict. I don’t want conflict. I don’t like it. But if it shows up in my face, I’m going to be there.

You can also handle people non emotionally with facts. Okay. Earlier on you said X, Y and Z. Could you explain that to me? Even sometimes when people tell me, you know, “I feel like I’m not valued at work” or “I think my boss doesn’t care about me” or “I believe this and I want to go talk to my boss” and I’ll tell them I’m fine with you going talk to your boss when they would ask me for advice because I never give unsolicited advice.

Using Facts in Professional Situations

I’m fine with you going in there, but do not go in there and say “I think, I feel, I believe.” Go in there and say, “hey, I did this project, I spent X amount of hours on it and I made X amount of money for this company. You know, I’d like to put in for a higher position or I’d like to put in for this other project.” Go in with the facts.

Facts win because it’s harder for people to refute facts. “I think I should get this.” “Well, I think you shouldn’t.” “I believe, you know, you’re treating me this way.” “Well, I believe I’m not.” But if you say “we had this meeting, during this meeting, you said this and this. Could you explain that to me? Because it seemed as though you didn’t trust me in that meeting or it seemed as though you were upset with me in that meeting.” But I’m telling you specifically what I did, so I’m bringing back to that specific fact.

Moment versus now. “I feel that you treat me this way.” It’s so vague and ambiguous. When you go in with very specific things, that’s harder to argue. You want to – not that I want you to win an argument, but you really want to make your point and get results. Be very clear and specific.

And you know what, if you’re nervous, write it down. I always tell people, write your stuff down. Walk into a meeting if you’re having it with your supervisor. “Sir. Boss. I don’t know if people say sir anymore. I just have to say sir. Sir. I just, I took some notes down, so I hope you don’t mind. I’m just going to look to it just to make sure I speak clearly and I don’t make any mistakes” and then go through the points.

The Power of Written Communication

STEVEN BARTLETT: I actually asked a colleague of mine who was in a similar situation who wanted to have a conversation with me and they’re slightly younger colleague of mine in their early 20s. They said they wanted to speak to me about something and my advice to them was actually to write it down in a memo as if you were writing a story. Because I love narrative memos.

And I did that because I wanted them to properly think about what they wanted to say. Because I knew what would happen is they’d come in, they’d start sort of like falling over their words a little bit. They might not fully give me all the context.

And I often do that now, which is in all my meetings that we do. We kind of stole this from Jeff Bezos. Amazon is, I’ll have someone write it into. Even if it’s a two page memo which says like, “this is the situation. This is why I’m bringing you this thing in this meeting. This is my proposed solution. This is the decision I need,” you know, super, super clear.

Because in business you often find what you know, whether you have two kind of sides of things. Either someone walks in and freestyles with their voice and they stumble in the moment they don’t get things out properly, or someone comes in with like 100 page PowerPoint presentation which is like vague pictures of things and bullet points.

And I hate a fucking bullet point because the bullet point is open to interpretation, so is a picture. Whereas these narrative memos, which is what Amazon and Jeff Bezos figured out, they leave no room for ambiguity and all the context is there. And actually sometimes it actually means that they can just send it in an…

EVY POUMPOURAS: Email and then you don’t have to talk to them and then I don’t…

STEVEN BARTLETT: Have to do the hour and a half.

Reading Between the Lines: How Written Statements Reveal Truth

EVY POUMPOURAS: Do you know, it’s funny you say that when I did cases, I would always ask, and again, not because I knew to do this, I was trained to do this. But really good interview is get people to write not a memo but a statement before you even interview them.

You know, and if it was like the date of the crime, for example, “tell me what you did from the time you woke up on this date to the time you went to sleep.” And it would be a memo of what they did that day or “tell me what you know about,” blah, blah, blah, blah. And I would read those statements and I would know often who was my suspect, who wasn’t.

I had one case where baby was a few months old, baby had a broken arm, and it was between the dad and the nanny that police were looking at and police weren’t sure which one it was. We think it’s either the nanny or their dad.

Now, in a criminal case, you always want to talk to the most likely suspect. You don’t build your way up. I go to the person who I likely think did it. I’m going straight to the person, right? I don’t want to go to the person I think maybe did it and then build my way there. I want the one. I want the person that I truly believe is my suspect, my offender.

So I get the statements and I read them both. I read dad’s and I read nannies, I read dads and I’m like, it’s not dad. I knew from the statement it wasn’t dad. I read nannies and I knew right away after I read nanny’s statement, she did it.

Now you’re going to say, how did you know? The nanny opened up her statement by telling me about her morning, how frustrated it was, how she was running late, she had to two little kids of her own, she was trying to get them out. She was a single mom, she was stressed out.

Then she shows up to work to take care of this baby. The baby’s fussing, the baby’s crying. “I did this. It didn’t work. I did that. It didn’t work.” So as she’s telling me this story, she’s telling me how hard her day was. And then she turns into how frustrated she was with this baby. “I did everything I could to get this baby to stop crying.”

I think the baby was. He’s either three or six months old. I’m just. I can’t remember. And the baby was this and the baby was that. And then she gets to a part where it says, “then I gave the baby Tylenol and it went quiet.”

And I was like, there it is. That’s when she broke the baby’s arm. Who says, “I gave the baby Tylenol and it went quiet.” In that moment, her language had changed so much. I was like, that’s the moment she snapped that baby’s arm and the baby passed out from the pain.

And so when I get the statement, I call up the law enforcement entity was the state police, because they were the ones that asked me to come up. And I said, “I want to talk to nanny, not to dad.” And sure enough, Nanny comes in, hour and a half later, had a confession. I didn’t even have to give her a polygraph.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What was interesting is in her statement, it sounded like she was actually self justifying her behavior.

EVY POUMPOURAS: She was. She absolutely was.

The Psychology of Self-Justification

STEVEN BARTLETT: I was reading about this thing called cognitive dissonance that you just mentioned. And this idea that we don’t like the gap between the way we’re behaving and who we think we are or want to be.

And when I think about myself and, you know, bad habits that I have or bad habits that my friends have. We all, like, justify, justify. “I’m too busy, so I couldn’t go to the gym” or “there was nothing else that I could grab, so I ate the cookie in the minibar.”

Like, we have to find a way to justify it. And then some of us, I think we, like, build our lives around kind of believing our own justifications.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Of course we do.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And then we’re trapped because in the presence of these crazy justifications, what we’re doing makes sense. And it’s okay.

EVY POUMPOURAS: I think sometimes it’s. I’m not telling people to feel permanently bad for what they do because you don’t want to. Like we said, you don’t want to live in the past and beat yourself up. And, man, “I messed up and I did this.” You will. But I do think it’s important to say “I did something and I shouldn’t have done this,” at least to yourself.

STEVEN BARTLETT: How do you stop believing you’re in bullshit? Or do you?

Having Trusted People Who Call You Out

EVY POUMPOURAS: I think so. I’m very lucky. I have a husband who makes sure that I don’t. He is, but he’s a very steady, good soundboard. But he’s also former special agent, both in U.S. secret Service and Homeland Security, and he was SWAT, so this is a super steady person. Lost his father when he was young.

I’m only sharing this because you’re asking. I guess what I’m saying is, so I have someone in my very inner circle who will tell me, “hey, chucklehead, you might want to think this through.” He may not say it like that, but he will call me out on things.

People that care about you will typically call things out on you. Now, there’s ways to do it and ways not to do it. And there’s maybe times where I’m not really keen on the way he does it, but because he has good contribution points, good credibility with me, I know if he’s saying something that there’s validity to it.

If he’s going to pause and say, “hey, I would like you to think about this.” It’s coming from somewhere. So he’s built enough trust. I’ve built enough trust to know that he does that.

Now, if you have someone who’s always critiquing you, because that does exist, everything you do is wrong, then that person’s not going to, you know, they’re not going to resonate.

So I think having people that actually call you out on your stuff or help point it out, that can do it, and that you also have to be okay with listening it. So I’m mature enough and I hope to be. I try to be humble enough to say, “look, tell me the truth.”

Or there are times too, where as much as they strategic decision maker I like to be, there’s times where, Stephen, I’m seeing red. Someone will do something and all I see is red. And I will go to someone that can either either I trust or can help me make a decision with something.

And I’ll say, you know, it could be my agent, it could be a work thing. I’m like, “hey, this happened. I’m seeing red. How would you handle this scenario?” Because I’m in an emotional state. I’m not going to make a good decision. Can I have your guidance, advice? And so I will go to people I trust who will guide me.

So that’s the biggest thing, I think. Call yourself out on your bullshit the minute you start getting emotional. And I think there’s a pattern. If everything offend you, if everything upsets you, if you’re getting triggered all the time, if you’re upset with people or angry with people, or you feel the need to let everybody know through social media or posts or texting, you know what’s going on in your life, I want you to pause and say, “why am I doing all of this? What is going on within me that I am feeling that I need to, that I see the world this way?”

It always starts with us. It’s always within. So I think that’s the thing. It’s like, what’s going on within me? And if you have the ability, the maturity, and you’re in a space where you can do that and you want that, you can call yourself out on your own bullshit.

The Quality vs Quantity of Friendships

STEVEN BARTLETT: Do you have a lot of friends?

EVY POUMPOURAS: No. I did. Growing up, I was Miss Social Butterfly. No. And just so you know, the research shows, Steven, that as we age, our inner circle gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

I have a lot of acquaintances and I’m friendly with a lot of people and I network with a lot of people and I like these people. But when I hear the word friends, I could count my friends on one hand. Do you have a lot of friends? Mmm, you might, because you might still be at an age where you’re kind of in the middle there.

STEVEN BARTLETT: For me, I’ve got like five best friends, but then I’ve got all these other people who I’ve become friends with predominantly through work.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Okay. So I define friends as people you would give pretty much unconditional trust to. Unconditional I trust You, I’ll tell you, whatever, more or less. How many would those be?

STEVEN BARTLETT: I reckon 10.

EVY POUMPOURAS: 10. Unconditional trust. Okay.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Jack’s one of them. Jack over there is one of them. Known him for seven years now. There’s nothing I wouldn’t trust him with.

EVY POUMPOURAS: So that would be a legitimate. Yes, that would be a friend. Right. Consistency, length of time, trust, no betrayal. That would be a friend.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And is this a quality versus quantity game, do you think? The inner circle.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yeah. Why do you need all those people? It’s one thing to have connections and network and meet people and hang out, but who you bring into that inner circle, I think, and I would think even for you, you want to be selective and careful because you also want to make sure people.

If Stephen wasn’t Steven, like, what quality friends would they still be? Because sometimes it’s also what the package is and people are drawn to us, and that’s okay. But I guess what I’m saying is it’s quality. Are they genuinely good friends?

Like, if something bad happens and you’re like, “I need your help,” and they’re like, “let me.” Would they be like, “let me go get my shovel. Where are we meeting?” You know, I think that would be the gauge of a friend.

But I think sometimes people think a lot of friends are good and a lot of friends are noise. You can have acquaintances, but, like, your friend is really somebody who influences you.

Understanding Low Vibration People

STEVEN BARTLETT: You’ve used this term low vibration before.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What does that mean to you to be low vibration?

EVY POUMPOURAS: You can think of it this way, like there’s some people, I look at low vibration as when you’re around people and it’s just you don’t want to be around them, they make you feel bad, not because they said something necessarily to you, but they’re maybe in a victim mindset. They’re always bringing problems, they’re always bringing drama. Everything is wrong, nothing is right. They’re all low vibration.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Can you be low vibration around because you’re around low vibration people?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yes, because you adopt their habits. You adopt and are influenced by people. Doesn’t matter who you are, you can be Steven Bartlett Diary CEO. If you surround yourself with low vibration people, eventually slowly it’s going to bring down your vibration.

It’s easier for if you’re up here, let’s say higher vibration. I’m doing really well. I’m excelling in the way, I think emotionally stable. You’re kind of doing really well in life and you’re up here and you’re around people like down here and you’re thinking, “Oh, I’m going to help pull this person up.” Right. It is actually easier for them to pull you down than it is for you to pull people up.

You know, I always say, be careful who you try to save. Some people will drown you. It’s like when we would do rescue, search and rescue. They would tell you when you go out in the water, the most dangerous thing isn’t the water. It’s the person who’s panicking in the water who could kill you.

Because as you get closer to them to save them. What are they doing, Steven? They’re panicking. They’re flailing. Then they see you, what do they do? They grab onto you so they can stay afloat. You know what they do? They push you down. You’re there to save them. But in their panic and in their loss and in their chaos, what do they do? They push you down.

People are the same way, just in relationships. So all I’m saying is I’m not telling you not to be a person who’s going out there to help others, but be selective in how you do it and who you help.

Taking Responsibility for Your Environment

Because then you fall into that space of, “I’m such a good person. I’m trying to do this, I’m trying to do that.” No, you’re exposing yourself to people in an environment that are not good for you and that actually impact your life negatively.

And so it’s not on them. It’s also, we have a responsibility to ourselves, Steven, to make good decisions on where we go, what relationships we enter, who we’re dealing with and what we’re doing. We have a responsibility.

So if somebody screws us over, I get it. Every once in a while you come across an asshole and it happens. But if it’s a consistent thing, it’s also, what did I do? What did I allow myself to do that exposed me to this volatility, that exposed me to this stuff?

It’s like crime. If I walk home every night in a sketchy area with the lights are dark and there’s no lighting and I know there’s high crime and it’s an abandoned area, that choice I’m making to walk through that neighborhood versus taking a taxi, that will make me more likely to be, what? A victim of crime. But if I take a taxi, I’m less likely to be a victim of crime. I avoid this bad neighborhood. I avoid this bad area.

I guess what I’m saying is you also have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to navigate the environment we’re in and how we engage with people. And it can’t just “he or she screwed me over.” It’s like, what decision did you make? Not blame, but what decision did you make that exposed you and made you more vulnerable to getting screwed over?

Because typically, maybe not all, but the majority of times there are signs that we choose to ignore, or we think everybody’s our friend and we give them unconditional trust and then something happens and we think, “Why did that happen?” Well, you gave unconditional trust like it was nothing.

Your trust should be something people earn. You don’t have to tell them, “You need to earn my trust.” You don’t have to say it. But internally, it’s kind of like, you need to earn this because it means something to give people trust. You shouldn’t just automatically surrender it to you.

So, Jack, what’s up, Jack? Jack, over seven years earned trust consistently and over time. And that’s why that relationship’s the same way. But you are responsible. We are each responsible for ourselves. So if you keep exposing yourself to low vibration, to chaotic areas, chaotic people, then you are playing a role in the problems that you have.

Dealing with Workplace Complaints

STEVEN BARTLETT: We live in a culture, though, where people do complain a lot. They complain that things aren’t fair, that they’re not equal, that they’re not being treated like they should be treated, etc. And there’s a lot of that in the corporate world because it’s allowed.

EVY POUMPOURAS: I think it’s okay to meet people where they are sometimes and listen to them. I think it’s valid. But it’s also, when you bend so much, you’re also doing a disservice to them because you’re helping make excuses for them. They’re not delivering and it hurts the work culture.

And I think you really have to be careful because a person who comes in with poor performance can really impact the rest of the team. And I’ve had it like, I don’t have as many employees as you have, but when I have people that work with me, I’m very aware of how their vibration comes in and impacts the other team. I want high performers. And if you’re coming in with your low vibration and your problems and your dramas, it doesn’t belong at work.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What is the defining sort of attitude trait of a low performer? Just if you just had to pick one, the first thing that comes to mind that pisses you off.

EVY POUMPOURAS: It doesn’t piss me off, but when people start telling me about their personal affairs, and it’s not that I’m insensitive person, there’s a time and place. So if you start telling me about how your weekend was with your grandmother or whoever, and I’m sitting there, I’m like, it’s not that I’m insensitive, but it’s we’re at work.

I asked you about something specific and you’re telling me about this whole story about, so you’re making it about you. And I think that there’s a little bit like, did you not pause to think? I’m talking to my supervisor or my boss, she’s super busy, she’s expecting something from me. Let me share it with her. You know, when you do that to another person, you take from them all the time. How’s that fair to them?

You’re Not That Special

STEVEN BARTLETT: At the start of that, you said they’d come and talk about themselves, etc. And it reminded me of something you were talking about in your TED Talk, where one of the key ideas is that you’re not that special. What do you mean when you say you’re not that special?

EVY POUMPOURAS: “You’re not that special” is when we make ourselves so self important, which in Western culture we have, it’s very much about the person, the identity of the person. “You can do anything, you can this,” it’s you, you, you. I think that’s great.

But what happens is when we get so focused on the singular person and we forget other people is that we think that we are so special that it’s just us. And then the rest of the world revolves around us. We’re the sun. And then everybody else revolves around us.

And when you think you’re special, it’s not that you become a narcissist or anything like that. That’s not how I mean it. What I mean by that is, if I’m special, then what also that says is, my problems are special, my pain is special, what I’m going through is special.

And you meet those people where it’s like, “Oh, no, no, no. This is just happening to me,” that mindset. And when you are there, you are alone. And there’s nothing that anybody can do to help you, even when they give you advice, because you are the exception to everything when you have that mindset.

At least when I had that mindset, all my problems faded away. As bad as they were, or whatever hardship I was going through, I’m like, “I’m not that special. There’s other people going through it far worse than I am.” It doesn’t minimize what I’m going through, but it reorients you.

Predators and Prey

STEVEN BARTLETT: You also talk about walking with conviction. Because predators can spot prey.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yes.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Did you see that through your career? That predators, narcissists, would go for certain people?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yes, but even in regular relationships, why do some people end up with a bad partner all the time or an abusive partner all the time? Why?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Don’t throw me under the bus, you say.

Understanding Predator Psychology and Target Selection

EVY POUMPOURAS: But why? Because we tend to draw to us those folks because we look like we’re easier targets. We look like they’re people they can then mold or manipulate and we trust too easily. I’m not telling you not to give trust, but there are certain traits that they look at.

They’re not going to go after an alpha type personality. If you look like you’re an easy target, if you look like you’re easy to take down, if you look like you’re easily going to be thrown off, people see that, they pay attention. But if they look like you’re a competitor, if they look like you’re a counter predator and you don’t even have to be that extreme, but if they look like, “Hey, this person’s going to push back,” I’m going to be careful.

Even with some people you talk to, I bet employees, there’s some employees that you’re probably more comfortable talking about telling something to because they’re more easily, they’re easier to tell it to, they’re softer in tone. Maybe they’re not going to push back, they’re easier. And then there are other employees where you’re like, “I have to think about how I say this because this person’s a strong alpha personality and so I have to approach them a little bit differently now.”

People are the same way. We give off cues, we give off vibes. And to some people, we can look like easier targets. Even in crime, they pick their targets. They don’t want fair fights. They want, “I want someone who’s going to go down easy.”

Kids are the most overly abused population. Why? Because they’re kids. They’re the easiest to target. They’re the most vulnerable. So if I’m such a strong predator, why am I going for kids or next, elderly? Why am I going for elderly? Because they’re easy for me to conquer, they’re easy for me to take down.

Predators are not what you think they are. Even if you look at recent events, if you look at recent shootings we’ve had, when you look at the people that have carried out some of these shootings, there was one recently, this week with Charlie Kirk. Look at that shooter. Does he look like a predator to you? I don’t mean it in a cold way. Just as you look at it, there was one before that here in the United States. It was the Minneapolis school shooting. Did you see that shooter? Does that look like a predator to you?

These predators that we envision in our head that we think are these ruthless, scary looking people, they tend to not be that. They themselves are not strong. They look for weaker targets because it’s easier to take out and manipulate. Predators are not these… It’s not like what you see in the movie. The movies, like you think you’re going to see this scary looking dude. And I’m not saying you’re not going to see that from time to time. But these people who do certain things, who take advantage, they don’t look like predators.

And you have to be careful because you inadvertently attract people who look at you and think, “I can manage her, I can do that, I can mold that, I can shape that.”

When You Can’t Just Leave

STEVEN BARTLETT: And in the context of work or relationships, if my boss is shouting at me and constantly berating me or my partner is shouting at me and berating me and I just feel small, I can’t necessarily call for backup. So is it as simple as saying my choice, I just should just leave or is there… what if it’s a situation where I can’t leave? Like it’s family or sometimes in work, you know, you have to stay because you need to pay your bills or there’s kids involved and I’m married to this person.

EVY POUMPOURAS: So… Okay, so you’re saying you cannot leave.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah, if I couldn’t leave.

EVY POUMPOURAS: I always feel like there’s a choice. It may not be the choice you want to make, but you always have a choice. Because in those scenarios, if you’ve got, let’s say, and I’ve had a lot of people come to me and they’re truly abusive relationships, there is no advice I can give you to fix that. That person is just going to abuse you, let alone from you assaulting them back. And then now you’re having like, God forbid, like somebody’s dead, which does happen. I can’t fix that.

What I can do is for a person like that, and most people don’t leave abusive relationships. The research… I’ve talked to a lot of people that work with abuse victims. They find that even when they do leave, the vast majority go back. So I think that’s a scenario. If you have someone like that in your life, the best thing you could do for them is listen and just try to keep them as safe as you can. I don’t think there is nothing I can do. What are you going to do? Get a gun? And then what? You’re going to use it?

The Desire to Change Others

STEVEN BARTLETT: People, I think, Evy, they almost want you to help them stay in that situation. But change the situation.

EVY POUMPOURAS: No, change the person. It’s the iceberg we talked about. They’re not accepting the truth of who they have in front of them. We don’t accept the truth. I have this person and this person is horrible to me. They’re abusive to me, they’re vile to me. And I think if I could just get them to not be like that, everything would be okay. Okay, of course it would. But that’s not the truth. You’re not living in truth. You have somebody who’s horrible to you.

Now, if it’s an intimate, personal relationship, like a companion, that’s a big thing. Because you live with that person, there’s no getting away from them. They’re typically like, if you have a companion or you get married, like you’re what? Typically unless you divorce, you’re tied to that person. That’s really rough.

Now let’s say it’s a parent or a kid. Because kids can be just as abusive to parents. Actually, you know, the research shows, at least here in the United States. I can’t remember the most recent year I looked at it was the Uniform Crime Report. I believe it showed there was more abuse from child to parent than parent to child, relationship wise. I don’t mean a five year old hitting their parent. I mean it can be an adult child being abusive to a parent.

But let’s say you have a scenario like that. Now there is a point at some degree where you can remove yourself either from the parent’s house. Let’s say you live with your parents. I get this sometimes a lot. “My parents are like this or they’re like that to me.” And I’m like, “How old are you?” If you’re over the age of 18 and you can work, you have the ability to find ways to remove yourself. You don’t have to cut them out of your life. Because sometimes for people it’s really, really hard. They love their family as messed up as they are. You can love your family, but you don’t have to like them. Those are two different things.

Setting Boundaries with Family

STEVEN BARTLETT: I had a scenario like that where there was a certain member of my extended family who was being inappropriate. And I was the first. This was when I was younger. I was like 18. I said to my siblings, “I know you guys are going to stay and tolerate it and you’re going to justify it in your own way. That’s not the approach I’m going to take. I’m going to cut them off.”

And funnily enough, this person treats me the best. They treat me the best. And I think it’s because they realize that my tolerance is so low and I’m willing to walk away and that I don’t think family means that you are bound to this person for life. I do think you still get to choose. I think like all relationships in your life, there should be a certain standard that they have to meet, whether they’re family, friends, a stranger, or a team of whoever it is that they have to meet like a minimum standard. And family, for me, just don’t get a pass on that.

And funnily it meant that my relationship, I’ve never fallen out with this person. The only reason I said that was because I see them falling out with everybody else. But, and this was again, before the podcast and whatever else. Like before my businesses, I was a broke student. But I just, I, for whatever reason, probably some trauma related reason, felt no obligation to keep you in my life. Just because we have the same genes. I didn’t. For me, that’s like not a high enough bar. And they treated me so well.

EVY POUMPOURAS: That’s so interesting. Because you stood your ground.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

The Impact of Chronic Trauma

EVY POUMPOURAS: And this is where, and this is where sometimes we talk about the bad, you know, how we’re talking about the bad things that happened to us and we carry them through. It’s one thing to go through something bad and then you move through it. Right. You moved on. But when you stay in something bad. So like if you’re in a relationship and there’s continual trauma, there’s no, you can’t move through that because you’re staying there. It’s not… it happened to you and you’re staying in this victim mindset. It’s like you’re still in it.

Chronic abuse, chronic trauma, chronic, however you want to define it. And abuse can look differently or chronically having somebody bully you, that’s really bad. That’s really bad. There’s no strategies, there’s no skills. And I would get those folks and they’re like, “Can you help me be more confident, be more this.” And it would come out in the discussions I would have that they had somebody that was in their life that was bully or abusive. I would tell them, “There are no skills I can give you that can help you be more confident. Because I can’t counter that. You have someone who is consistently demolishing you. And so you think what I’m going to tell you to what, do a power pose and that’s going to fix it?”

Do you feel like you have and… I don’t know, I’m asking out of humbleness, I don’t know. Do you feel that growing up you had a lot of people that around you that were either, you know, had a lot of issues or struggles and like that it was something that you had to push through or climb out to get to where you are?

Zero Tolerance Approach

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah, I think it really only takes, like, one person that’s close enough, especially if they’re above you, to basically, in my case, to make my tolerance level extremely low. I think people can relate to that because I hear people say this all the time. Like, “It only takes one parent that did X or one parent that did this, or, you know, an uncle or an auntie or whatever” that you go, “I’m going to tolerate zero of that.”

So another thing in my relationship with my partner is neither of us shout. And I grew up in a house where shouting was the background noise of every day, like from morning till night. And so with me and my partner, been together for seven years, we talk like this. It’s not to say we don’t argue or we don’t have disagreements, we don’t get upset or whatever, but there’s never shouting because I just have zero tolerance for that.

I would just… Frankly, my previous relationship, when the shouting began, I would literally just disappear from the space and I’d be in my car driving down the motorway. That was my response because I just… Because I grew up in a house where that was. And my siblings are all the same. None of them shout or very, very calm or very softly spoken, because we grew up in an environment which was the opposite, funnily.

EVY POUMPOURAS: But that’s interesting too, because it could have gone the other way.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah. And it sometimes does for people.

EVY POUMPOURAS: It does.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You talked about the abuse. Violence often comes from violence, but sometimes, like, peace comes from violence.

EVY POUMPOURAS: That’s true.

The Double-Edged Nature of Gradual Change

STEVEN BARTLETT: This is also why when you said earlier that looking back at your past and trying to figure out what happened is not necessarily useful because two kids in the same environment can turn out entirely different. And you see that across siblings. There’s something interesting you were saying a second ago about. We were talking about, like, gradual small exposure therapy to change your life for the better. Moving the shoes closer to the bed. But then you also just talked about the gradual exposure therapy of someone breaching your boundaries and becoming an abuser and how it’s like… It’s like they just every day, just move the shoes a little bit closer to the bed.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yes, yes.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It goes both ways in that regard.

The Importance of Behavioral Testing in Professional Relationships

EVY POUMPOURAS: When I, you know, with my inner circle, like, even with people I work with, if I start, I really pay attention to behavior. If, like, this is something small. And I don’t know if you’re the same way, but, like, if you work with me or it. Well, you work for me, and I send you an email and you don’t respond till four days later, massive red flag for me.

And I won’t say anything to you. I’ll wait, and then I’ll test it out again with something else and again. And as soon as I see that in my head, I’m like, we’re done. I may not tell you anything, but I’ll find a way to let you go.

So there’s a certain things because. And that’s a little bit like the moving the shoes closer, away from the bed, where you’ll see people. You’ll see. I’ll see somebody do something. And I’m like, is it a fluke? Did they truly miss it, or is this kind of this relaxed attitude? Oh, it’s Evie. She’s so. I don’t know if they think I’m nice, but, you know, after I do these podcasts, like, oh, she’s so scary.

But, you know, sometimes people will get too relaxed and comfortable, and so it’s in a different way. And so I’ll test it out. And when I see that, I’m like, no, no, I’m not. You know, if it’s someone I really want to work with, I may address it. But sometimes I don’t want to say. I don’t invest the time and energy and effort, but sometimes I know. I know when to invest that time, energy, and effort and when to say no. And I pull out.

The Charlie Kirk Assassination: A New Threat Landscape

STEVEN BARTLETT: Earlier on, we talked about Charlie Kirk this week. What week are we in? We’re on Sunday. So, yeah, this week, he was assassinated while on a college campus as part of a tour that he was doing called “Prove Me Wrong,” where he went out onto college campuses and debated his ideas with the college campus students and a shooter who has now been found and I believe is in prison currently awaiting jail. Their first appearance, I think, in court on Tuesday of this week shot him in the neck from several hundred yards away as a former Secret Service agent whose very job was to ensure that didn’t happen. To someone to ensure that someone didn’t assassinate them, harm them, to keep them safe, et cetera. What did you think and feel when you heard the news?

EVY POUMPOURAS: So I have been covering the Charlie Kirk assassination from the news perspective. So you’re asking me, like, what assessment can I give you as a former Secret Service? So I’ll give you something. I’ll share with you what I’ve been covering. And if you have a specific question, feel free to ask.

So here’s the thing. This is truly unique and exceptional. And this is why people calling it a political assassination, right? It is and it isn’t. Here’s the difference. A president of the United States is a politician. It’s understood that things like this will happen, right? And he has protection, a political appointee like a member of Congress. Because right now, members of Congress in the United States, and I think in many parts of the world, are very afraid right now because their threats have also increased. So even here in the United States, they’re looking to increase the budget on people in Congress for safety and protection. It is to some degree understood that these things will happen over time to people who are political elected figures.

Charlie is uniquely different. He talked about things, but he wasn’t a political figure. Nobody voted for him. He was. Honestly. He had his own. Didn’t he have his own podcast? He had a podcast. He was out there. He spoke. He did talks. He shared his opinion. So he’s no different in a sense than you and I, in a sense.

And so what that assassination means is it is fair game now on anybody who has a platform. That’s the difference here. So it’s different. You’re not dealing with presidents now, heads of states, or people in Congress. You’re dealing now with people who, if they share an opinion that you don’t like and I perceive it as a threat, then now I have the ability to retaliate and take a shot.

This is going to open up the door to copycat, because to try to get certain people, like a President of the United States or a member of Congress or politician or certain people, those are hard targets. Those are hard to get. They’re secure. But now this means anybody who’s out there that I don’t like and I don’t agree with, I can take that target and cause harm to those people.

We’re moving into a space now where everybody is fair game, where I have a voice. Even on social media, I would actually sit and go through X before I would go on air just to get the news updates, see what else was happening? And I would have to sit and filter through all the hateful comments. People were writing everybody to each other. And then every other five comments was, I’m getting death threats. People are threatening me. Because people were expressing their opinions online and other people were threatening them.

This means that. It means you can go after anybody. And what. I’m not saying I would like this to happen, but to me, this is a massive red flag because it means now everybody is extremely vulnerable. And now we’re looking to targeting people who have shows, who have platforms, who maybe do the dues, who share opinions. That is why this is a bother. This is why people should be concerned.

The Copycat Effect in Violent Incidents

STEVEN BARTLETT: You said copycats. Is that something that you actually saw when you were in the Secret Service, that if one incident happened, it would…

EVY POUMPOURAS: One hundred percent. All it takes is one person to do it, another person to be like, oh, he can do it, I can do it. He executed his mission. I’m not agreeing with the mission, but that shooter was able to do what he needed to do, and he was successful, sadly. Right? So someone else is going to see it and they’re going to get that idea. I’m speaking at a university on Tuesday, so maybe somebody hears something I say on a podcast, they don’t like it, they might get that idea.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But also, there’s a lot of people out there that are just not well.

Mental Health and the Evolution of Threats

EVY POUMPOURAS: I mean, no, they’re not well. I’m going to be very transparent. People are not well. When. So in the US Secret Service, we had a unit, it was called the Protective Intelligence Unit. In that unit is where we would track people who were presumed to be threatened against people we protected. So how did they get on your radar? They would write letters, they would show up at multiple events, they would make phone calls. Right. There was ways to do that.

Then you have the introduction of social media. So now people are more. They’re able to now make threats and say things from the safety of their own home. And that is afraid. It’s a more detached way to attack somebody. And now you have to follow those leads. And now there’s thousands of these things that come in, and if they even hit your radar. And so everyone’s inundated with tracking people now.

At the time, initially, those who were looking to cause harm to our protectees typically had severe mental health issues. And from time to time, it wasn’t often the Secret Service would work with the courts to involuntarily commit somebody if they thought they were that much harm.

With social media now, the playing field has changed. One, it allows people to say things that they would never say to your face. It allows people. Now, when you absorb the content online, the majority is very negative. Even though we’re talking about this event, everything is typically very ugly online. And so people escalate.

And we’ve also noticed that there’s a lack of empathy. We are less empathetic the more we have exposure to online stuff, because when people text hateful things, it doesn’t become as big of a deal anymore. Whereas if somebody said it to you, it’s a bigger deal. So there is a severe mental issue with people.

And there’s also, when you look at behavior, typically the things that keep you in check seem to be a little bit more absent today, which also causes people to behave a little bit more inappropriately. So, like, and this is again, just for the research, not based on my personal opinion, family, when you have strong social bonds to certain structures, you’re less likely to cause harm to others. So family is one social bond that keeps you kind of like, in place. Like, I’m not going to do this because it would embarrass my family or hurt my family.

Faith or religion, religious institutions, whatever that religion is, that typically keeps people kind of steady. Certain institutions, like having a strong bond to maybe a school or a. Certain institutions, there are certain things that keep you less likely from behaving this way. And we do see a little bit of an erosion in those areas. And I think that leaks into people’s mental cognitive issues.

The Algorithm Trap: How Social Media Distorts Reality

STEVEN BARTLETT: One of the things that I don’t think people realize as well when they’re on the Internet is that they are in an algorithm. And the algorithm isn’t the real world, but it’s actually just the things. The way that the algorithm works is it shows you more of the things that you’ve expressed interest in before.

So my first sort of 10 years of my career was working in social media. So all of the major social platforms, we built one of the most disruptive social media companies at the time. So I have a deep understanding of how the algorithm works. In fact, much of our job was to figure out how it works to help our big clients globally reach more people.

And I think about my grandfather. My grandfather will look at his phone and he’ll think what he’s seeing is the world. But he doesn’t know that dwell time is a huge factor in what he’s going to be shown tomorrow. So if he dwells a little bit more on a particular post, the algorithm will go, oh, Mr. Bartlett, Grandfather Bartlett is interested. So next time you log in, we’re going to show more of that.

And I learned this really starkly when one of my older relatives downloaded TikTok, and I got, like, an emergency call from their partner saying, we need your help. She’s downloaded TikTok, and it’s, like, making her crazy. Like, it’s making her insane because she’s seeing now all of this, like, vitriol and hate and racist stuff, and she thinks the world is like that, and she’s, like, preparing to protest.

So I had to, funnily enough, get her password of her partner and hit this button in the back end of TikTok, which refreshes your algorithm, just wipes out all of your history. And what I would do is I’d hit that button every single week. And eventually she stopped using TikTok. She found it boring because it was all now like, X Factor, America’s Got Talent videos, People singing, people dancing.

And I’d go on her phone and I’d watch these, like, music videos, and I’d like, like them and bookmark them and save them, because I knew that that’s what she would see next time she logged in. I know this sounds crazy, but that’s like, people don’t realize that what they’re seeing is they’re pulling something towards them. And that’s how the algorithms work. You pull towards you what you’ve been historically interested in. So if you’re scared about brown people crossing the the border in dinghies, that’s…

EVY POUMPOURAS: All it’s going to show.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You pull you more of that stuff, and you’re going to start thinking that the world is X, Y, or Z. And, yeah.

The Isolation Factor in Digital Consumption

EVY POUMPOURAS: The other thing, too, when it shows you that stuff, it’s almost like being how I said. When you’re in law enforcement, you’re exposed to the worst of people. You have to be really cared not to become cynical.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

EVY POUMPOURAS: And one of the ways that you’re also protected is because you’re with other officers. So there’s that team camaraderie. Everybody helps each other. So now this is the same way. I’m on my phone and I am exposed to the worst of the worst, and I’m consuming it. Here’s the difference. I’m by myself.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

EVY POUMPOURAS: And there’s nobody there to tether me to be like, hey. So I look at this stuff, and whatever it is, I’m looking at that I’m afraid. Because it depends who I am and what I resonate with. Is it, am I afraid of people crossing the border. Am I afraid of school shootings? Am I afraid of this other group? Right. It’s just what. And everything is fear based. They’re tapping into your fear and they make you afraid this other thing is going to harm me.

And there’s no ability either. I’ve noticed through social media, there’s no middle ground. It’s either you’re all the way over here and you’re all the way over here, and they feed on people’s fears, these algorithms.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So this is a graph I found which shows the rise in school shootings, but it’s rising, it’s increasing.

Mass Shootings vs. School Shootings: Understanding the Difference

EVY POUMPOURAS: One of the things to keep in mind with this, with the school shooting, and we don’t know this based on this one, are these mass shootings or just shootings in general? So school shooting is I show up to school, I don’t like you, Steven. I pull out my gun, I shoot you. Technically, that’s a school shooting.

A mass shooting is like what we saw the week before Minneapolis. And we had that person who showed up to school and he just started shooting randomly. So there’s two. So when we look at shootings, let’s look at mass, let’s look at mass. Because if you look at school shootings, one on one, those are a bit different and they have to do with the city.

But if you look at mass shootings, what can we tell from mass shootings? So some of the data shows us, typically that person tends to have some kind of association to the place they go to, the school they went to. Typically there’s some type of connection.

Usually at that point where they commit to shooting, something in their life happened, right? There’s some type of moment, maybe they broke up with a partner, they lost their job, something that offset that moment. Now, over time, historically, they were building up to having all these issues. Those issues don’t go away. But something typically happens where they decide, “I’m going to do this.”

The other thing is they’re planned. So they either sit down and they decide to plan this out and they communicate it to somebody in some way, or they do it through social media. Another thing that’s really interesting, they happen typically in the mornings. They typically happen in the mornings. That person wakes up and says, “Okay, today’s the day I’m going to do it. I’ve got my plan in place,” and they execute it earlier on in the day.

The other thing with mass shootings, mass shootings, not just regular school shootings, in almost all of them, dare I say all of them, all those individuals had a history of mental health issues or mental illness. The other thing too that we see is they had access to weapons. So they were either able to go get a weapon, they knew somebody who had a weapon, and they were able to get that weapon.

The Changing Media Landscape and Its Impact

STEVEN BARTLETT: One of the things you said a second ago about how this is might become more frequent, sadly had me thinking about why that would be and what’s changed in the world. And one of the things that has changed in the world is that media is now increasingly people, people like us that have microphones in our kitchens. I mean, we’re sat in what used to be my kitchen recording this conversation.

And once upon a time, to reach this many people, you had to be CNN. CNN’s a logo. It’s hard to shoot at. But in a world where much of the media is like creator led or host led media, it’s much easier to have a target. And it just made me think about it.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Oh yeah, of course, of course. You know, but sometimes to the target. If you’re looking at mass shootings now, if you’re looking at a target, like this Charlie Kirk thing we were talking about, right. Sometimes it’s done because they want notoriety. It’s a big thing.

So with this specific shooting, Charlie Kirk, it’s come out now that the individual was actually on Discord after he did the shot, talking about it with other members on Discord according to what law enforcement said. Again, I’m just updating as I know it, it could change. But he was saying, he was basically talking with other people and basically saying like he did it and laughing about it.

STEVEN BARTLETT: He was admitting to doing it.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yeah. They were like, “We think you did this.” He’s like, “Oh, maybe I did it. Ha ha ha ha.” So there’s, it’s become, for whatever reason in that world, it’s seen as an acceptable thing to do.

STEVEN BARTLETT: A way to create significance.

The Villainization Problem

EVY POUMPOURAS: Yes, I want attention. I want to create significance. And also here’s the other thing. What’s happening is we are villainizing people very easily. We are calling people names, we are villainizing them. And it goes back to social media clips. People are making even, even things that are our words are our most powerful weapon.

And we don’t realize that when you open your mouth and you say something and it’s. What’s happening is people aren’t saying something because most people are cowards. They text it and they post it because they would never say it to your face. And they post it. And that what that does is all these negative things. These attacks we make towards people become commonplace.

So if all I see is negative stuff, “This guy’s bad, this guy’s this, this guy’s that.” I start to think it’s true. And if you villainize somebody to such a degree, I think, “Well, I’m going to be a hero if I do something about this. Look what a horrible person this is.”

I heard this quote once. “The bigger the hero, the bigger the villain.” I have to make you such a villain so I can feel like a hero. And this is what happens when you villainize people to such a degree. You create a justification. “I had to do this. Look at how horrible this human being was. Look at all the horrible things people are saying about them. I am doing the right thing.”

You just justified it and sold it to yourself. It’s the right thing to do. But today with social media, I can’t solely blame them because social media posts and the things people are creating and putting out there is giving justification to other people to do this stuff.

Secret Service Perspective on Protection

STEVEN BARTLETT: Did you say that your husband was a sniper?

EVY POUMPOURAS: He was counter assault.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So you and him are both former Secret Service agents?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Correct.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So when you see something like the Charlie Kirk assassination happen, I’m so curious as to the conversations in your house about that, because you must be looking at this from so many different perspectives from, like, how that person could have been more protected, I guess, or how that setup could have been to mitigate the chances of something like that happening.

EVY POUMPOURAS: So with Charlie Kirk, there’s nothing they could have done, let alone put snipers on the rooftop to prevent that, or counter snipers, rather.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is that what they would have had to do?

EVY POUMPOURAS: That’s what they would have had to do.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Okay.

EVY POUMPOURAS: There’s no. And there’s no way anybody would have done it. That’s what I said. Like, if you’re a president or person of Congress or some VIP like that, you’re going to get those assets. A person like Charlie Kirk, like you or me, we’re not going to get those. Who’s going to pay for that?

So he had security, but it was on the ground with him. They’re thinking their type of security, thinking. And this is private security. And again, it’s not to knock them because it’s something new. This is new. They’re thinking, “I need to protect Charlie from the guy standing at the podium asking a question. All these people pushing up against the rope line who want to talk to Charlie.”

So they’re looking at it from this physical sense. It sounds terrible, but it’s almost like a meat shield. I’m the meat shield between you and them. They’re not thinking high ground problems. Nobody thought. Who would have thought maybe a Secret Service agent would have. But who would have thought “I need to have snipers on the rooftops or counter snipers on the rooftops to protect from a sniper shooting.”

Body Armor and Protection Limitations

STEVEN BARTLETT: Charlie Kirk, he was wearing a bulletproof vest, wasn’t he? That’s what I’ve been told.

EVY POUMPOURAS: I’m not sure. I don’t know if it’s 100% true. So I don’t want to say yes or no.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I say that because in several of the videos when he’s on campus, you see that there’s. Clearly, when he’s wearing a T shirt, you see vest marks here. And I noticed this many weeks, many, many.

EVY POUMPOURAS: It might be true.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Just because it’s never confirmed. I’m hesitant, so I don’t know. It’s very possible. And again, it’s not a. So a vest like that, it’s going to. It’s going to stop a round from a pistol, typically, and maybe a shotgun round, rifle rounds, usually.

Like our counter assault teams in the Secret Service, they actually had an extra ceramic plate to help prevent those. So you really need, like a different type of exposure to protect from a rifle round. Now, in this scenario with him, the shot you see it go straight to his neck. And that’s the thing with vests. They protect you here, right? They protect your vital organs. And even when I would wear mine, you lived in the reality of, “If I get one to the head, I’m done.”

The Weight of Responsibility

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is that your worst nightmare as a Secret Service agent, that something like that happens to the person you’re protecting?

EVY POUMPOURAS: Correct. It is the worst because it means you failed. It’s horrible. It’s horrible. I mean, when you would do protection stuff and the person you’re protecting, whoever it was because you would protect. I protected everybody from the President of the United States to former presidents, to first ladies, to their kids. I had Barbara Pierce Bush, which was President Bush’s daughter. I had her for a while. To the Secretary of Treasury, to the Secretary of Homeland Security. These are all USS protectees and foreign heads of state.

When the Prime Minister of the UK comes to the United States, he gets protection. We work with the team because you don’t want anybody getting assassinated on US soil. So you protect Russia when he comes. Putin, you got to take a bullet for him too. So it’s more the mission, but the thing is, it’s your responsibility.

And so the whole time, I don’t want to say you’re on edge, but the whole time you’re on, you’re aware, your mind’s moving. “Where’s my threat? Where’s my threat? Where’s my threat? Where’s my problem?” And then we would have. Sometimes it would have what they call, like wheels up parties, which means your protectee is up. They’re wheels up in the plane. And that’s when people are just like. Because the stress is so high, you’re so on. You’re always looking for the threat.

There’s no. We work in shifts, but there’s days where I work 16, 17, 18 hour days. 18 hour days, depending on what my assignment was. It’s a lot.

You Are More Capable Than You Think

STEVEN BARTLETT: What is the most important thing for the person who clicked on this podcast? Because they are looking for something in their life, they want to be more effective in the pursuit of their goals. Whatever their goals might be. Could be professionally, personally, could be, you know, maybe they want to be an entrepreneur or something. What is the most important thing that we should have talked about in that regard that we didn’t talk about?

EVY POUMPOURAS: I don’t know what to say to that. I guess what I would say to them is I think the message is that they are extremely capable. And no matter what society is telling, no matter what’s happened to them, no matter what excuses people make for them or maybe they make for themselves, they are much more capable.

And so that maybe when they see someone like you or myself and they think, “Oh, look, they’ve got it all figured out.” It’s like, we figured it out the same way everybody else figures it out. So I think, Steven, the most important thing is, like, we’re not that special. And that means that they can do and achieve what they want. I think that’s the biggest thing.

Like, you’re absolutely capable, even if you feel inadequate, even if you lack confidence, even if you’ve had horrible trauma in your life, whatever it is, despite all that, you are absolutely capable and it is your choice.

Joy and Fear: A Mother’s Perspective

STEVEN BARTLETT: Evie. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they’re leaving it for. And the question left for you is, what brings you the most joy in life and what are you the most scared of?

EVY POUMPOURAS: The most joy in life is my daughter. I think the biggest joy in my life is her, because I think that was something I always wanted to do and to be a mom. And so that’s the biggest joy.

And then at the same time, it’s my biggest fear because I want her to be well and healthy and okay. And I think a consequence of the work I did and even still do because I’m in media and news and I cover crime. I have seen what humanity can do. I’ve seen the good in humanity, but I also have seen the bad things people can do.

And so it’s hard sometimes I feel you want to protect your child, but I also know that I can’t always shield her. I won’t be able to shield her in life from everything that’s scary.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Thank you, Evie. I was saying to you before we started recording that everywhere I go, people come up to me and they talk about you in a way that’s atypical. So, like, you know, obviously I do a lot of episodes, meet a lot of great people.

EVY POUMPOURAS: Is that really true?

The Power of Effective Communication

STEVEN BARTLETT: I swear I don’t want to analyze anyone’s life because that’s probably something I shouldn’t do. But I swear to you, the amount of times I’ve used you as a case study for – what do I use you as a case study for? For how important effective communication is.

Because people come up to me all the time and mention you. So obviously I then do that. I’m like, why are people always mentioning Evy? Like, I get it, you know, you’re very, very successful. You’ve had this incredible career. But obviously I speak to lots of people that are successful, but why are they always coming up to me and talking about you and asking me to speak to you again?

I think it’s all the things you said. I think you meet them where they are, and I think you do that in both your communication style. I think the nuance of your message is spot on while also being high conviction in certain areas. And you’re relatable. They think you’re a badass.

And I guess that’s it. It’s something you learn from doing these podcasts. You just have certain people who – people just click with people on the show. And even as the host, you can’t – in hindsight, you’re trying to figure it out. But there’s something.

Becoming Bulletproof: Life Lessons from a Secret Service Agent

Much of the questions I asked you today were orientated towards finding out what that something is. But listen, a lot of it exists in your book as well. You talk so eloquently and so extensively in this book, Bulletproof, about the nature of the human condition and what we need to understand about the human condition to be more effective in our lives and our relationships. In our work.

So I highly recommend everybody goes and checks out this incredible book, “Becoming Bulletproof: Life Lessons from a Secret Service Agent.” Incredible. Thank you so much.

EVY POUMPOURAS: I appreciate you, Steve.

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