By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.

BigDeal by Codie Sanchez

Secret Agent: How to Read Anyone and Never Get Taken Advantage Of: Evy Poumpouras

My new book Own Or Be Owned is out now! I wrote Own or Be Owned to answer one question: How do you make more money, less miserably?

Evy PoumpourasguestCodie Sanchezhost

Jun 27, 20251h 21mWatch on YouTube

Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.

Great conversations run long. Their best ideas don't have to.

uListen is free on iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, and Claude.

CHAPTERS

Jump to publisher timestamps

Chapter summaries

Lessons from Protecting Presidents: Resilience and Circles of Trust
Evy Poumpouras describes the presidents she protected and what she absorbed from being around world leaders. She learned resilience, choosing which conflicts are worth engaging, and keeping concentric zones of people around you.
- •She protected current and former presidents plus foreign heads of state
- •Leaders tuned out harsh criticism and stayed gracious toward people who attacked them
- •A buffer of filtered, loyal people kept them calm
- •Concentric zones run from intimate trust to outer circles of people who would devour you
- •She absorbed these habits from joining the Secret Service at 23
Why Authenticity and Oversharing Backfire
Codie raises the idea that total vulnerability is overrated, and Evy agrees. She argues people should bring a version of themselves suited to each context, drawing on her keynotes and her teaching.
- •Share truthfully and genuinely, not as a tactic to lower someone's guard
- •Authentic is often misread as 'be me and whoever likes it'
- •Bring the business version of yourself to work
- •Companies tell her they are getting people with a weak work ethic
- •Students are shocked when she enforces the deadlines she set
Boundaries, Accountability, and Your Role in Problems
Evy says a boundary is only real if you hold it, and that people teach others how to treat them. She urges owning your 50% of any dynamic, avoiding both excuse-making and self-flagellation, and changing the way you talk to yourself.
- •Breaking your own stated expectations grooms people to ignore them
- •Ask what you are doing to contribute to a situation
- •Western culture tends to minimize its own shortfalls, unlike more community-minded cultures
- •Stop calling yourself a victim; she says she has never used that word
- •Change the tone of your inner dialogue first
Read People by Talking Less
Evy explains that going quiet lowers your cognitive load, lets you gather intelligence and notice cues, and is why she never ran criminal interviews alone. She also advises not to crush too hard on people too early, and Codie shares her own business-partner experience.
- •When you talk you gather nothing, so give people space to reveal themselves
- •Talking is a high cognitive load that makes cues harder to pick up
- •Trust gut feelings even when you cannot articulate them
- •Polygraph interviews used a primary and secondary examiner who wheeled in when the first got stuck
- •Don't chase the like or go all the way in too soon
Catching Lies Through Admissions and Reflecting Language
Codie asks for a story of catching someone lying, and Evy recounts a Secret Service applicant who described a rape without naming it. She explains that admissions matter more than confessions and that reflecting a person's own language draws out more.
- •The applicant gave admissions without ever saying the word rape
- •When someone gives a peek behind the veil, ask a question that pulls the curtain back further
- •She reused the subject's own words to make him comfortable
- •You need admissions to form a picture, not a full confession
- •You don't need to be right, and they don't need to know that you know
Resilience Versus Healing and the Trap of Rumination
Prompted by Codie's mention of the 9/11 response, Evy argues that people don't need to fully heal to be resilient. She says rumination can be addictive and describes a woman who stopped attending anniversary gatherings of a train shooting to let it go.
- •Waiting for full healing is unrealistic because the next hit will come
- •Resilience and healing are not the same thing
- •Evy says rumination activates the same brain region as cocaine
- •Look for support that moves you forward rather than retelling pain
- •A shooting survivor stopped reliving the event to let it go
What Predators Are Really Like and Who They Target
Codie asks what predators and criminals are actually like. Evy describes an unassuming offender, says to label behavior rather than people, and explains that predators go after kids, women and the elderly because they want easy prey.
- •Predators often look nothing like apex predators
- •Label the behavior, not the person, and give people time to reveal themselves
- •Predators target kids, women, and the elderly most
- •Predators look for a suitable target, so don't be one
- •People should feel you have a little bit of crazy so they think twice
Business Predators and Not Giving Ground to Bullies
Codie and Evy apply predator dynamics to business, including why Codie refuses to settle frivolous attacks. Evy says pulling back gives dominant people more space, that bullying is a power trip, and that once a dynamic is set in a workplace it is almost impossible to fix.
- •Business predators go after people who look like they will fold
- •Codie says she fights bad-faith attacks to avoid creating a precedent
- •Pulling back from a dominant person creates more space for them to fill
- •Bullying in business is a power trip like other predatory behavior
- •Evy says that once you set the tone for how people treat you, it's done, and you often have to leave
Showing Up with Presence: First Meetings, Dress, and Your Authentic Business Self
Asked how a person should show up on day one at a new job, Evy advises saying little, dressing seriously, and staying visibly alert. She and Codie discuss how dress and hair signal seriousness and why you should bring your authentic business self, since employees are an extension of the brand.
- •Don't talk much in the first meeting unless you add value
- •Wear dark colors and a suit jacket; keep your phone off the table
- •Evy kept her hair up as an agent but refused to drop her femininity
- •Bring the version of you that fits the job, not the clubbing version
- •People see your internet presence before they meet you, so watch what you post
Adaptability, Secret Service Stories, and Quiet Strength
Evy calls adaptability the key to power and survival, illustrated by blending in at Coachella while protecting Barbara Bush and by searching celebrities with a magnetometer. The conversation moves to the odd questions agents and soldiers get, including how many people they've killed, and to the idea that the toughest people don't advertise it.
- •Being adaptable is the key to being powerful and surviving
- •At Coachella she dressed to blend in to avoid drawing attention to her protectee
- •She magged celebrities regardless of who they were
- •She used to tell people she was a hairdresser to deflect questions
- •The quietest people are the most lethal, and tough people don't need to tell you so
Voice, Tone, and Concise Speaking
Evy explains paralinguistics and how to make your voice carry authority. She recommends finding your deepest genuine tone, projecting, ending sentences downward rather than upward, and speaking concisely, since she says verbosity reduces credibility.
- •Paralinguistics is what you sound like when you speak
- •Find your truest, deepest tone, since your voice carries past experiences
- •She took voice and speech classes at an acting school and recommends them
- •Project your voice and avoid the upward inflection
- •Using fewer words makes you appear more credible
Diplomacy and Negotiation as a Secret Service Liaison
Evy explains that agents served as liaisons to foreign governments and staff, representing the US with professionalism. She tells a story of a soft White House staffer being surrounded by a delegation and says you must bring strength as well as respect.
- •Agents acted as liaisons and diplomats overseas
- •Saying the wrong thing could hinder international relations
- •Professionalism and demeanor matter when dealing with staff
- •A too-nice staffer was nearly devoured by an intense delegation
- •You can exude strength without saying it so people won't cross the line
Preparation, Predictable Dialogue, and Adapting to the Person Across from You
Codie asks whether negotiation is mostly preparation. Evy describes planning interviews with a partner, predictable dialogue, and rehearsing opening lines, and both argue for adapting to the other person; Codie praises personalized prep, and Evy tells how Stormy's presentation led to a full-time job.
- •More preparation builds confidence, and you need less over time
- •Predictable dialogue means preparing responses for each way the other person might react
- •Rehearse an opening line tailored to who you're meeting
- •Read people first, then adapt to them rather than making them come to you
- •Personalized preparation, like Stormy's presentation, is rare and powerful
Working for Free, Early Struggles, and the Road to the Secret Service
Responding to Codie's question about free work, Evy describes her unpaid congressional internship, which produced a key reference letter for the Secret Service. She also recalls a tiny NYPD paycheck and says focusing on the dollar amount from the start is a mistake.
- •She worked unpaid for almost two years for Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy
- •McCarthy wrote one of her three Secret Service reference letters
- •Her NYPD pay was about $400 every two weeks after taxes
- •She grew up in government housing without wealth
- •She says that if you put in effort and meaning the wealth will come, but fixating on pay from the start is trouble
New Book, Mentoring Patterns, and Letting Go
Evy discusses Becoming Bulletproof, her international editions, and her second book, 100 Rules of Engagement, which grew from patterns she saw in mentor sessions. She closes with the message that you're not that special, that holding onto harm poisons you, and that you can let go without forgiving.
- •Becoming Bulletproof is being published in Turkey and Slovenia
- •The second book is called 100 Rules of Engagement and is in the drafting phase
- •Mentor sessions around COVID revealed repeating patterns and mistakes
- •Thinking your suffering is uniquely special isolates you
- •Let it go without forgiving, because holding on poisons you

Publisher timestamps

Get more out of YouTube videos.

Read along on your phone, search it beside the video, or ask your favorite AI app what was said.