Evy Poumpouras: Why authenticity at work erodes real respect

1. 0:00 – 2:28

   Intro

   1. EPEvy Poumpouras0:00

      Don't bring your authentic self to work. I want your professional self. You can bring your authentic self to Thanksgiving meal with your family if you'd like to. Your authentic self is about who? Me, me, me, me, me. Everything is what's happening to me. What's in it for me? Do you know that you impact other people? You affect other people's lives. You make the work environment easier or more taxing.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:20

      Can someone learn to be a better self-regulator of their emotions?

   3. EPEvy Poumpouras0:23

      Yeah. So I've been around former SEALs, US Secret Service, presidents, and I learned a lot about communication, reading people, confidence, and I'll share these things. So first of all-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:33

      Evy Poumpouras is the former US Secret Service agent.

   5. EPEvy Poumpouras0:36

      From guarding presidents to reading liars...

   6. SBSteven Bartlett0:38

      She now reveals the strategies she used to make anyone respect you, trust you, and give you what you want.

   7. EPEvy Poumpouras0:44

      I'm been around very confident people and they had a really good circle around them, inner circle, because if you're exposing yourself to people and environments that are not good for you, that will actually impact your life negatively. You know, I always say, "Be careful who you try to save. Some people will drown you." And then the other thing I would see presidents do is they were very good at delegating. So they didn't need to know everything, because confident people are okay with not knowing all the information. So your brain is like a bathtub. The bathtub can only hold so much water. If you keep putting water in the bathtub, it's gonna overflow. That's your cognitive load. My bathtub only holds the water it needs to hold in. And another thing the Secret Service taught us is that it's really important to use your hands, because when people don't see hands, it's a sign of untrustworthiness, like you can't trust them. So when you see hands, open hands, I'm no threat. And then there's communication skills, manipulation tactics, and a strategy to make good decisions, and I will go through them. But the two most important things are ...

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:40

      To my regular listeners, I know you don't like it when I ask you to subscribe at the start of these conversations. I don't like saying it, I don't like it being in there. None of us like it. It's frustrating. Do you know what's also frustrating? It's also frustrating when I go into the back end of a YouTube channel and I see that 56% of you that listen frequently to this podcast haven't yet subscribed. And so many of you don't even know that you haven't subscribed, because I see in the comments section, you say to me, you go, "I didn't even realize I didn't subscribe." And that actually fuels the show. It's basically like you're making a donation to the show. So that's why I ask all the time, because it enables us to build and build and build and build, and we're going for the long term here. So, all I'd ask you is if you've seen his show before and you like it, help me, help my team here. Hit the subscribe button and we'll continue to build this show for you. That's my promise. Thank you to all of you guys that do subscribe. It means the world to me. Let's get on with the show.

2. 2:28 – 5:26

   Why People Are Drawn to Your Mission

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:28

      What is the overarching theme of why people, you think, are drawn to your- your particular message, and what part of that message are they drawn to?

   2. EPEvy Poumpouras2:36

      I get bombarded on all social media platforms and in email and it's always like, "Evy, I have this problem. Please help me." And it can range from "I have a problem communicating" to "I'm in an abusive relationship" to "My brother was murdered and they're saying it's a suicide, it's not." So I get everything, and I think what I'm seeing is, there are a lot of people that are not doing well. It seems to me that people are tired of being told that they have no control over the outcome of their lives and no control over their relationships, 'cause when you tell people, "It's not your fault this happened to you, and it's okay that you're this way," which it is, I think people don't want to stay there anymore. And so people look to, "I don't have to, I don't have to be weak all the time" or "I don't have to feel weak." You can have a weak moment. It's not the same thing with feeling fundamentally weak or insecure or insignificant all the time, and then looking at a moment or a situation or moments in your life and saying, "I'm this way now because of all these things that happened." And I think for a while, that worked. I think for a while, people were buying it, because it's like, "It's not your fault like, you're like this. Now this happened to you here. It's not your fault that you don't trust people. This happened to you here." And so because that theme's been going on for so long, what it does is it renders you powerless, because it's saying, "You're this way because of all this other stuff, and it's not your fault," and that translates to, "I have no power over it. I'm- I'm a result of what's happened to me." And that's a powerless state to be, which all it does is keep suppressing you down. So you just stay there. Instead of saying, you know, "It happened to you. Okay, now where do we go from here?" And it's wild, 'cause I did consultations and mentor sessions for a window of time, and I would only do either one or three. I wouldn't do more than that, because what... the most important thing, I didn't want people to rely on me. It's like, I'll come in and I'll give you some guideposts, and... but my goal is not to make you reliant on me, to keep coming back to me. Three was the max I would do with someone, no more than that.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett5:00

      Three sessions?

   4. EPEvy Poumpouras5:00

      Three sessions. Three sessions, because my goal is if I keep you coming back to me, then I'm not helping you. All I'm doing is reorienting you to come to me. "I'm gonna fix it for you." My goal was always, "No, you have the ability. I might need to kind of shift things around or shake things up a little bit in your mindset, but in the end, you are very well capable." Most people are. They just don't learn... they just don't know how to trust

3. 5:26 – 9:37

   People Waste Time Overthinking Instead of Changing

   1. EPEvy Poumpouras5:26

      themselves.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett5:27

      You talked about how using the past to diagnose your current self by saying, "This happened to me, so I'm this way," is almost... it's like a short-term friend in the moment, because it kind of helps you feel heard and understood and it justifies the way that you are. But it ends up being a long-term enemy in the context that you're then stuck with the results of who you are, for better or for worse. And I was thinking about myself. I was thinking of all the ways that I've, like, justified who I am today using something that happened in the past, and actually, whenever I do that, it makes that behavior, even if it's- the byproduct of it is making me unhappy, really hard to change. Like, it's very hard to change. Like, if I say, "This happened when I was a kid and my- my..."... dad was unorganized or whatever and messy, so I'm a messy person. It's almost like etching it into cement or something. It, it, you know...

   3. EPEvy Poumpouras6:15

      Can I ask you a question?

   4. SBSteven Bartlett6:16

      Hmm.

   5. EPEvy Poumpouras6:16

      Why does it matter? I don't, I don't understand why we have to psychoanalyze everything we do. I feel we waste so much time in trying to figure out, "I'm like this today because of this, this, and this." Sometimes I have found there's no clear reason why. There's no, there's nothing to, to, to make sense of. Even sometimes when people try to assess like, "Why does this person treat me this way? Why that? What did I do? Why this?" Sometimes there are reasons and sometimes that person's just an asshole. There's nothing to analyze, there's nothing to figure out, there's nothing to dive deep on. That person, you just happen to fall on an asshole, and that's okay. Let's move on. So there's moments where that exists too, but I feel like we try so hard to figure it out that we do more damage. And, you know, like I, your brain is like a bathtub. Your cognitive load is like a bathtub. Think of this as a bathtub. If you have a bathtub, the bathtub can only hold so much water. If you keep putting water in the bathtub, right, it's gonna overflow. That's your cognitive load. So if I have my cognitive load, my bathtub, and I keep putting water, water, water, it's gonna overflow. It's the same thing when you put stuff in there. "I'm gonna 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 fraz- 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 y- 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, 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 s- good leaders do? And this is what, again, I w- 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.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett8:51

      S- so he didn't have to make so many decisions every day?

   7. EPEvy Poumpouras8:53

      Yeah. He didn't want to sit and figure out what he's gonna 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 h- 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.

4. 9:37 – 12:41

   Forget About The Past

   1. EPEvy Poumpouras9:37

   2. SBSteven Bartlett9:37

      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 gonna change their future. So they think, you know, "If I can figure out why I, I'm low confidence, what happened to me, then I can do something today which is gonna change tomorrow."

   3. EPEvy Poumpouras9:58

      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 wanna change now?"

   4. SBSteven Bartlett10:10

      So I'm, 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, I just have bad luck. I have bad luck with men. I'm, I'm pretending I'm a woman. Um, I have bad luck with men. Um, 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, Evi, getting more credit for doing less work.

   5. EPEvy Poumpouras10:36

      Okay. So this is great. So this is probably a person that you cannot help, number one.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett10:40

      Why? (laughs)

   7. EPEvy Poumpouras10:41

      Because, because everything's bad. Everything's bad. And you'll get those from time to time. You'll get those. Everything's a problem. And if e- everything's a problem, right now, if you get that persona, which it does exist, it's, it's... You get them. That person doesn't want a solution.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett10:57

      Really?

   9. EPEvy Poumpouras10:58

      Nope.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett10:58

       What do they want?

   11. EPEvy Poumpouras10:59

       They want me to validate how they feel. That's what they want. They don't want a solution. If everything's the 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, it's not the bar. So when someone's like, "I have this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem," they're, 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'm s- 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 who had a, 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, 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- 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 gonna 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- a waste of time.

5. 12:41 – 19:03

   Being Stuck in the Identity You’ve Built

   1. EPEvy Poumpouras12:41

   2. SBSteven Bartlett12:41

      There's two personas that I'm thinking about. One of them is 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, th- the part of the UK they lived in became more diverse, um, over the years. They've been there for 20, 30 years, and now the race- racial abuse has pretty much gone away, but you wouldn't, you wouldn't think it.

   3. EPEvy Poumpouras13:23

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett13:23

      Because when y- 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- I've come to believe with this particular person who I know very well that their 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 as being survivor and a h- like a hero- heroic survivor, and now that the enemy has gone, so much depends on that identity that, you know, this person's at- 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, um, daughter-in-law's racist, and this person said this thing which is racist or- 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.

   5. EPEvy Poumpouras14:40

      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.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett14:50

      What do I do about that person if I'm a bystander?

   7. EPEvy Poumpouras14:54

      Nothing.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett14:55

      Really?

   9. EPEvy Poumpouras14:56

      Nothing.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett14:56

       I don't try and help them, change them?

   11. EPEvy Poumpouras14:58

       No because did he- did he or she ask you?

   12. SBSteven Bartlett15:02

       No.

   13. EPEvy Poumpouras15:02

       Don't do it.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett15:03

       Why?

   15. EPEvy Poumpouras15:05

       Because they're not ... They don't want it, and you might end up upsetting them anyway. They might get even angrier fr- uh, from it because they're in a space where they're so emotional and self-focused, and they want to live there. Do you know too when you sit and you ruminate, like, you- you ... It activates parts of the brain that make you feel alive? Think of it this way. You get, like ... You get hits. You know how you get dopamine hits? I feel good from certain things. Well, you get a hit when you ... even when you're angry or upset. You ever f- get so upset or angry and you get worked up? What do you ... Adrenaline hit. Your- your cortisol's going up. What do you do? I feel alive. I- I'm here. I'm there. That feels good too.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett15:41

       Mm-hmm.

   17. EPEvy Poumpouras15:42

       It's- 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 gonna 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- your guidance or advice. So even when I did mentor sessions or consultations, there were probably, like, several times where I knew. I was like, "This is a waste of my time." I'm like, "You know what? I'm gonna give you a full refund. I'm not for you." Because I understood. I'm like, "This person isn't ... They're not registering." There's ... You did remind me of a story. I remember once I was doing a- a news story, um, and I went and I interviewed somebody who was part of the cleanup efforts for 9/11, right? September 11th cleanup ef- efforts, and, uh, he was doing all this stuff to, you know, present day to help victims of 9/11 today. So I go with my camera person or producer, 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 at 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, uh, we're talking, and there's this big, uh, tower tattoo, the towers, 9/11 tattoo as I'm micing up the person. The towers ... There was a room in the hou- home that had all this 9/11, uh, memorabilia, like a whole room. And I remember being there thinking, "Okay, this person must have had some really serious trauma or 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, um, 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, uh ... I think he had lost, like, 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 not 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, the, the trauma, the, 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, like, 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 fo- 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?"

6. 19:03 – 25:13

   The Secondary Game: Why People Don’t Overcome Problems

   1. EPEvy Poumpouras19:03

   2. SBSteven Bartlett19:03

      There's this concept in psychology called, um, secondary gain that I was, I was writing a book about. I'm writing this book at the moment so I was... 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, like, something you benefit from it and the problem is people can get addicted to that. And sometimes it's, like, safety or comfort that you get from it, sometimes it's identity, and sometimes it's r- remuneration. Like, you know, it might be money or other rewards. The other example that I was gonna 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, 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, 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...

   3. EPEvy Poumpouras20:15

      Enabling.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett20:15

      Enabling them, this person got better. Very, very quickly got better, because she basically said, "I'm not gonna... I can't help anymore. And also, don't talk to me about this. I don't have the," as you say, like, "the cognitive energy anymore." This person got better, and it made me realize that, you know, sometimes two people can keep one person trapped.

   5. EPEvy Poumpouras20:32

      They can.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett20:33

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

   7. EPEvy Poumpouras20:51

      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 'cause you're constantly looking for it. But again, I- 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 like to live and how you like to live, live it. I think where it becomes a problem for folks is when it bleeds into your own life. So, like, with the mom where she had that moment where she's like, "I don't wanna do this anymore because it's impacting my life," then I can understand that 'cause she's like, "I don't wanna participate in this." But I just have found, like... I want you to think of it this way, like... Uh, it's like, think of a- an iceberg. Think of an iceberg. You see the top of the iceberg, the little blip at the top of the- the water and then the- the- 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, like, they got this huge bottom portion of this iceberg that you don't see, and it's who makes them what they are. So one, the things that make you who you are today are all the things that have c- accumulated over the entire time span of your life. Family is a huge one. Did you have family? Were they a good family? Did you have one parent? Both parents? Did you have any parents, right? Uh, friends. Who were 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 va- vastly different, Steven, than who you were 5 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 gonna roll in and within, what? A couple of hours, a couple of conversations, you're gonna get them to, what? Shift? That's what you're up against. So often people become very upset because they can't change other people, and that's why I'm like, "Accept what you had." I gave 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, she came up to me afterward. She said, "I really want a 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, uh, to try to get him to change and I wanna 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, "Oh, a long time. Years." I said, "Does he wanna change?" "No." She's like, "But I try and I don't wanna give up." I said, "Did you see that part where I ta- 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.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett24:30

      Because she's scared of the potential answer or...

   9. EPEvy Poumpouras24:35

      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. Like, 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 pe- 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

7. 25:13 – 30:20

   You Can’t Change People

   1. EPEvy Poumpouras25:13

      to be."

   2. SBSteven Bartlett25:14

      But I might be worried that he's gonna die or something if he's-

   3. EPEvy Poumpouras25:16

      He, he very well will.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett25:19

      And, you know, if you see someone that's about to die, one should intervene, no?

   5. EPEvy Poumpouras25:24

      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 wanna 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 wanna know, you don't want to hear it. Right? And, 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, how much of a pain is this for you?

   6. SBSteven Bartlett26:51

      So you think you should never try and change someone?

   7. EPEvy Poumpouras26:54

      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 too, 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 gonna roll in and let me tell you how I should live. My values and your values could be vastly different. So who am I to impose how I think you should be? Who says I'm right? Who sa- 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- it's not the same. So I, 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, it... How narcissistic of, is it of me to think I'm gonna roll in and change you? It's kinda like, I did interviews and interrogations on terrorists and when I walked into an interview or interrogation, I di- it was not delusional to think that I'm gonna walk in and I'm gonna tell this person, "Hey, I'm, I'm part of the good guys. I, I, 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, that was set for years. He's thought a certain way. He's, he developed who he was 30, 40 years old, whatever it is, this is who he is and I'm gonna 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 him 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 thing 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.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett29:36

      It's interesting. When I was going through our previous conversations, Eve, and I was looking at the moments that people re- re- 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 feel- 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, um, a little bit unappreciated. But I think the, the bigger point here is about confidence and strength and feeling like... yeah, feeling, feeling like I can, I can get what I want from life.

8. 30:20 – 35:48

   How Steve Builds His Confidence

   1. SBSteven Bartlett30:20

   2. EPEvy Poumpouras30:20

      Okay.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett30:20

      I deserve it.

   4. EPEvy Poumpouras30:20

      We're gonna break this down, but I wanna ask you a question, if it's okay.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett30:23

      Yeah.

   6. EPEvy Poumpouras30:24

      How do you build your confidence or what's something you do that builds your confidence?

   7. SBSteven Bartlett30:28

      Oh, that's a great question. Um...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 are going to go, "Yeah, because you made a million dollars." No.

   8. EPEvy Poumpouras30:58

      (laughs)

   9. SBSteven Bartlett30:58

      Listen. It wasn't that. E- even when I had the money, I was still having... I was still being rejected by women. And then at some point around like 25 to 30, everything changed. And so what 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 a 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 I... 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 why 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, "Do 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 s- I said to him, "Do 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 and like comes out of this central source of who you think you are. And I think the... 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.

   10. EPEvy Poumpouras33:13

       I want to get to the confidence thing in a moment.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett33:15

       Okay.

   12. EPEvy Poumpouras33:15

       I'm actually curious 'cause 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?

   13. SBSteven Bartlett33:26

       No. My girlfriend's literally told me... I've been with her for seven years now, and we're ha- 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 fucking plane. This... We were flying on a plane. She didn't know sh- she was.

   14. EPEvy Poumpouras33:41

       It was a test.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett33:41

       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'd 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 our whole relationship I was aware of this. So when she... those moments where she said, "Do 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 that to her all the time. I'd say, "You go wherever makes you happy." And do you know what? I would mean 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 'cause he's... he's actually 30 s- 30 s- th- 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.

   16. EPEvy Poumpouras34:47

       Yeah. W- so it- 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.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett34:56

       Yeah.

   18. EPEvy Poumpouras34:56

       But I have found 'cause 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? 'Cause 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 e- everybody makes peace with things, uh, things their own way, or some have had past relationships where the other pe- 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 gonna say this to you so you don't think-

   19. SBSteven Bartlett35:41

       Yeah.

   20. EPEvy Poumpouras35:41

       ... that I'm, I'm that way, so that's why I always wonder when people say it, what are they really saying?

9. 35:48 – 38:41

   Stop Being Driven by Fear

   1. EPEvy Poumpouras35:48

   2. SBSteven Bartlett35:48

      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 will hurt her freedom. So six months into the relationship when she comes out with a statement like that, honestly what I said to him, I said, "Bro, like you're six months in."

   3. EPEvy Poumpouras36:08

      Say nothing.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett36:09

      "Just let it ride. Just bloody hell. Just carry on like... Do whatever you were doing in that moment, just carry on doing it and say, 'That's interesting.' Keep it moving," 'cause it... 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, et cetera, they're gonna be tested in a thousand ways.

   5. EPEvy Poumpouras36:29

      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, he's dealing with, he's insecure but his, his decision is, "I need to be, find somebody now because I'm afraid I won't find somebody, or I'm afraid I won't get married, or I f- 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, 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 pushed and promoted by fear. So him dating, trying to find someone, it's not 'cause he truly... Does he wanna find somebody? Yes. But the bigger drive is, "I'm afraid I'm not gonna find somebody so I'm trying so hard, I..." So all his decisions are fear based, so that's why his response were 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, is throttled by fear. And so his dating is throttled by the fear that, "I won't find somebody fast enough."

   6. SBSteven Bartlett37:42

      People can tell, can't they?

   7. EPEvy Poumpouras37:44

      You feel it. You feel, you feel it, you feel that energy, right? And it does, 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.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett38:08

      Mm-hmm.

   9. EPEvy Poumpouras38:10

      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-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett38:18

       Yeah.

   11. EPEvy Poumpouras38:18

       ... 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.

10. 38:41 – 40:29

    How to Self-Regulate Your Emotions

    1. EPEvy Poumpouras38:41

    2. SBSteven Bartlett38:41

       Can someone learn to be a better self-regulator of their emotions so that they don't ruin their life by reacting-

    3. EPEvy Poumpouras38:46

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett38:46

       ... to things all the time?

    5. EPEvy Poumpouras38:47

       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. Uh, I had to learn and I learned in the NYPD. I was very young, and I was very fortunate to be around very premiere 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 kind... they pluck you, because the idea is if we put you in here, you better fit well because just one person's gonna muck up the whole thing. We don't want... We want efficiency. And so I, so with that, I was around very highly regulated people, highly intelligent people. And so because I was around very highly regulated pe- people and instructors who kept me in check, uh, I collected in. So that's how I was able to manage myself. So who's around you? If everybody around you is a loose screw...

    6. SBSteven Bartlett39:45

       Do you still have the amygdala, um, like explosion? The, like... Do you still have the mental s- surge of emotion, but you just, on the outside, sort of have learned to keep it in?

    7. EPEvy Poumpouras39:59

       Externally, I can do it very well. Sometimes at home with my husband who's also, he's also Homeland Security Special Agent US 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 there are those safe people that once in a while you... I think it's important if, to have, but even with him, you know, you don't wanna do that to people because then you make people your doormat.

11. 40:29 – 49:20

    Should You Be Your Authentic Self at Work?

    1. EPEvy Poumpouras40:29

    2. SBSteven Bartlett40:29

       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, um, "Hi, Stevie. You had, uh, 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 d- gonna be a different person at home.

    3. EPEvy Poumpouras40:49

       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? US 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 h- 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 it in a mean way. They don't care about you personally. Who, who are... 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, um, on this young man. This little girl is 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 her dow- 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 three to four, 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? 'Cause your authentic self could be, "I'm bringing my problems, I'm bringing my opinions, I'm bringing my judgments." Honestly, nobody cares.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett43:37

       I, um, 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 they're, uh, 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, 'cause you're going into these interrogations and you're winning them over to some degree because you-

    5. EPEvy Poumpouras44:24

       I'm building trust.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett44:24

       You're building trust, but you're not acting. That's a different thing. So-

    7. EPEvy Poumpouras44:30

       I'm not being disingenuous.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett44:31

       How do you square all of that? You're like not, you're... Are you acting? You're not acting.

    9. EPEvy Poumpouras44:35

       I'm listening, 'cause 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 wanna know what's going on around you, all the time. If people are too afraid to say things or, "Don't tell Stephen. Oh, you don't know how he's gonna react," or, "He's gonna get mad," or this. That's a problem. The problem is they're gonna 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 wanna collect intelligence. You're collecting intelligence. Because when you have the right intelligence, then you can make the right decisions. But you must need, know what's going on around you. So when you pass judgment and you're telling everybody your opinion or you're bringing your aut- 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. The majority... A good interviewer doesn't say anything. Good interviewer says less. Don't make it about you. Don't try to guess where people head space is. Ask them. "You seem, uh, you seem like you're, uh, something I said before is upsetting to you. Could you tell me a little bit about that? Uh, explain to me what it is that you're worried about right now. Describe to me what you're concerned with." We used to call it TED; tell me, explain, describe. It's just a way, great way to get people talking, just get them talking. But it... Going back to what you're saying, it's just, everything is very about me, me, me. We've 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 m- 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.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett46:50

        To be effective when you're dealing with these m- monstrous people that you dealt with, whether it's terrorists or people that hurt children, whoever else it might be, is, did you have to kind of step outside of, like do you, do you have to detach at some deeper level and do you have to s- see everybody as, uh, just a human being? 'Cause I'm, I'm wondering how you navigate these spaces when these people have done horrific things. Are you... Did you teach yourself to just be more empathetic, dare I say?

    11. EPEvy Poumpouras47:18

        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 the, that, that, that, that person's viewpoint.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett47:50

        But what about that kid that hurt that little girl?

    13. EPEvy Poumpouras47:52

        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. Um, 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, there's s- 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, I, I... 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, um, 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. He 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, but I, 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.

12. 49:20 – 51:31

    Which Gender Tells Lies Better?

    1. EPEvy Poumpouras49:20

    2. SBSteven Bartlett49:21

       Who's better at spotting lies, women or men?

    3. EPEvy Poumpouras49:25

       There's no research that shows one is better than the other.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett49:27

       'Cause women seem to have a sixth sense and people joke about it in, like, relationship context, but I generally feel like, I feel like women have a high- 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 h- hormones on women. So, like, from a physiological standpoint, women do seem to be more sensitive to, especially to, like, per- um, to men. There was that study they did where they got, um, 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 at 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...

    5. EPEvy Poumpouras50:15

       In my experience, no. And I will say this is just a, a g- a, a lot of men were very good at assessing. One of the reasons, um... Look, the vast majority of polygraph examiners were male. There were some women and they were very good too. The vast were male. What, w- males, men are good at being more rational. It's actually, there were, there was a, 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, 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, right? 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, uh, female cops versus male cops, female cops have less complaints against them, made against them, and they tend to think 'cause they're better communicators, they have less complaints. 'Cause when you're a cop, you're gonna get a complaint. Eh, eh, there's no way. You're gonna get them, like, all... Eh, you're gonna just get them. Um, but women tend to have less, female officers tend to have less complaints, and they think that they're just better at dialoguing and deescalating.

13. 51:31 – 57:11

    How to Build Confidence

    1. EPEvy Poumpouras51:31

    2. SBSteven Bartlett51:31

       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, what can one do to build their confidence?

    3. EPEvy Poumpouras51:48

       Let me say this first. I've been around very steady people, confident people, I suppose. 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, uh, US Secret Service, the pe- the, the, the, 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 were saying initially, like, stop overanalyzing. Just be s- just be you. Just do. But now, if you're, if you're looking at confident people with things that I notice, traits amongst confident people or steady people, uh, I n- they have strong, they have a good circle around them, meaning they're very aware and meticulous of who's around them and who they associate with. 'Cause if you're not c- if you're around insecure people, it, it bleeds on you. Like, you're gonna absorb what other people are. And if, you know, if you're the most confident person in the room, it's probably not a good thing. It's p- it's not a good thing. You wanna be around people you learn from. It can't just be you're at the top and everybody's looking to you. Eh, your bathtub's gonna crack, number one. The other thing I've learned about confidence, research shows law 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 wielding this knife? Should I shoot? Should I not? Should I pull out the pepper spray? I mean, 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.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett54:06

       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.

    5. EPEvy Poumpouras54:37

       I'll tell you this. I've never heard a, I've never heard anybody, like, from the field of work I came force, came from say, "I feel like I'm an imposter." You know that whole imposter syndrome?

    6. SBSteven Bartlett54:47

       Mm-hmm.

    7. EPEvy Poumpouras54:47

       I've never heard that.Again, I didn't hear it 'til after I left the service. Like, it's wild, 'cause all these things, I had no awareness of them because they were never discussed in the circle that we were in. The, 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, I, n- we never did that. And you know, how do you, how do you build confidence in, I, I think about training. Training, there was nobody cheering you on. There was no one like, "Hey, Pauperis, good job. Good job, girl. Good job." They were ha- they were trying to get me sent home. You had to fight. You had to claw your way, 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, like you stick. You just stick it out, and you're just, there was days where I'm like, "I don't know how I'm gonna 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, on a run for miles and miles, and you never knew when it was gonna end. That's the worst. At least if you know, "Hey, we're gonna run from here to here. It's gonna be two miles, three miles, five miles, 10 miles," whatever, tell me what I'm looking at. But anyw- they wouldn't tell you. So you'd start running, and then you'd hit a point, like, and you'd think, at least I would, I'd think, "Oh my God, how am I gonna do this?" And you know what I would do? I would go and I'd be like, "Just make it to that tree," (laughs) which was 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, and that's how you do it. W- what's right in front of me? But if you look at that whole picture of, "How am I gonna be all of this?" it's so overwhelming, and so ... It's just so hard. It's just gonna k- it's gonna kill your confidence whether it's like, "I wanna do this. What's the first thing I need to do? Then the second thing." I would think, and I'm asking you, when you build 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"?

14. 57:11 – 1:03:12

    Why Small Challenges Matter More Than Big Ones

    1. EPEvy Poumpouras57:11

    2. SBSteven Bartlett57:11

       Yeah, one of the most incredible things is I, 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 words web developer, clicking onto people's links, and then emailing them saying, "Hey, can you build websites?" Like, I, 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've taken, had I known how difficult it was, had I not been so ignorant and naive, maybe I would've 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, 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, like, Googling stuff. So very much one foot in front of the other.

    3. EPEvy Poumpouras58:01

       Wait, what did you just say? "I was ignorant and naive."

    4. SBSteven Bartlett58:04

       Yeah, it was useful. It was p- phenomenally useful, 'cause I think if, if I was informed, it would've 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 ... You know, I spoke to Nir Eyal, who's a, 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've been so overwhelming, I would've just cleaned my house. And so sometimes, yeah, it does help.

    5. EPEvy Poumpouras59:05

       It goes back to a lot of the stuff that we're saying, that sometimes over-analyzing 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 trying to analyze everything, "How should this be done or that be done?" Or if you look at the bi- big pi- bigger picture of what it's gonna be like, it's, it can be, it can kill you. It can kill your confidence. Training, I had no idea what training was gonna be like, absolutely none. I went in there completely blind, completely clueless. I actually thought it was gonna be like college. (laughs) Ha ha. (laughs) I learned my lesson the hard way. But this, 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.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:02

       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, like, 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 was, I 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 far- n- 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 h- 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, the, you know, which burns 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 cy- successful cycling team of all time, I believe, and won five out of the six Tour de Frances. And that whole idea of, like, yeah, 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.... so small that it's, 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 so o- sometimes so small that it feels like that can't possibly be the right step to take.

    7. EPEvy Poumpouras1:01:19

       Because it's hard. Because it's uncomfortable.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:24

       What's that, like, they call it exposure therapy. It was Jordan Peterson that said to me, he was, like, dealing with a guy in the, who wouldn't leave his bedroom, and instead of getting him to, like, go outside and stuff, he just got him to move the Hoover 10 centimeters closer today, and that was today done. And then the next day, he got him to, like, 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 w- with change is the first step is often so embarrassingly and shame- shamefully small that people, like, don't wanna do it." That's, like, embarrassing to do something so small.

    9. EPEvy Poumpouras1:01:55

       Because it's a myth. We've been fed a myth that to make big change in your life, you have to make, do big decisions, you have to bake, make big movement. And the big change you create in life, it's through the small movements. You just reminded me of the story of my buddy, Don Saladino. He's like the, he does training, um, for all the ... Have you ever watched a lot of those Marvel movies or the DC movies-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:14

        Mm-hmm.

    11. EPEvy Poumpouras1:02:14

        ... uh, 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, a story of a, I think he was telling me he had a client and who he was just trying to get him to work out, and the client was overweight and having all these issues. And what, what the client did, what, what they, 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, uh, severely obese and having, uh, um, um, being very unhealthy to running marathons. And that's how he did it.

15. 1:03:12 – 1:10:29

    Lessons From the Best Decision Makers

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:12

       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?

    2. EPEvy Poumpouras1:03:25

       I'm gonna say this. To be the president of United States, it's no small thing. So for you to get to that place, you, you are exceptional. I, I just, I say this in a n- in a neutral way. People get very personal or biased, and I, 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 I protected out of, out of respect. You know, there's a Greek saying, "Everybody loves the Ɣóli agap- agapanat i prodostia, ouzi sto prodoti." Everybody loves a treason, nobody loves a 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 inf- 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 mom- 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've known this, I should've this, I should've that." And any time 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've chose differently."

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:57

       I've heard Obama say that as well.

    4. EPEvy Poumpouras1:05:59

       Just like I said it?

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:01

       Pretty much. Close. He, I, 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 Paolo a couple 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, 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, move on."

    6. EPEvy Poumpouras1:06:28

       Confident people are okay with not knowing all the information.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:32

       Yeah.

    8. EPEvy Poumpouras1:06:32

       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 gonna make the wrong decision, why? 'Cause you're gonna look dumb? You're gonna feel dumb? Confidence, you don't care how you look or how you e- you're not sit and you're not quantifying, "He's gonna think I'm dumb. She's gonna think I look stupid. They're gonna think this." And even for yourself-... that you don't tally that. You're okay with making the wrong decision. It's like, "I'm gonna 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, like, you would see them, they would have time where they would be alone, and they would think. They weren't, 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, like, "I need to kind of find my roots." President Barack Obama and Obama have spent every holiday in Hawaii. He went home. George Bush Sr., he would split his time between Kennebunkport and Texas, Houston. So that was another thing. They'd all go home. They'd all go home.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:13

       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 around corners and remove the keyboard and remove the stylus and remove the, the iPhone jack and remove Java from our phones and do all of these things that at the time were like crazy talk, that, that someone who was motivated by money today would not have done, but someone that could see the future tomorrow could have done. And, um, you come to learn that he was basically like a yogi, like he was, he was a meditator. And what you described there made me think of that, which is, okay, all these successful people seem to be, have some kind of practice where they get out of the trenches and like into their intuition or into the clouds alone so they have space to stand back from the, the painting so they can see the full picture.

    10. EPEvy Poumpouras1:09:03

        Do you know what they would all also do? I can't speak for all of them, but a lot of them worked out. Like their workout was built into their schedule. Uh, President George Bush, uh, Jr., he would bike. He used to actually be a runner. He was a very fast runner, um, because they would ask for agents to run with them, and you, when you run, when, when you would run, you have to run with your gear on. President Clinton was a runner. Then Bush, Bush started biking, so you had to be a good biker.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:28

        Where can they run?

    12. EPEvy Poumpouras1:09:30

        Well, President Bush would run the trails when we'd go to Texas or Waco. You're not gonna run the streets of Washington, DC. So they have, the White House has its own internal gym, but they did, 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. You, when you physically take... I've just seen them all do it, and I learned it also as an agent. Like you're, 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, 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. (paper crinkles)

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:27

        Just give me a minute of your

16. 1:10:29 – 1:11:26

    Ad Break

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:29

       time and I'll tell you about a device that my team has been using that they won't seem to shut up about. It's called the Note Pro, and it's by our sponsor, Plaud. This tiny card clips onto the back of your phone and captures everything. But why it's so clever is that it picks up multiple voices at the same time, and when someone says something important, you just push this tiny little button here and that moment gets highlighted in your notes and captured. It records the conversations that it hears, takes those conversations, creates a transcript, and it uses AI to synthesize all of that information into whatever template suits you. You get a summary, action points, highlights, and even a mind map sent straight to the Plaud app. So I highly recommend you check out Plaud's products using the link in the description below. Don't tell anybody this, but if you use code DOAC22, you'll get 22% off on some of Plaud's products.

17. 1:11:26 – 1:18:49

    Why Your Tone of Voice Matters

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:27

       (paper crinkles) I was trying to understand what it feels like to have true, a true lack of confidence. Like 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, like the tightness in your bod- body, which could be clenched jaw. It could be like that fidgeting you see, heart racing, all the like 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, r- ruminating on your past mistakes. The third way is in your emotions, which is this feeling, this insecurity that you might be exposed at some point, um, avoiding speaking out too much or holding yourself back. The f- and the last way is in behavior, which is speaking softly, rushing your words, avoiding eye contact, and apologizing.

    2. EPEvy Poumpouras1:12:14

       I don't-

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:15

       Too much.

    4. EPEvy Poumpouras1:12:16

       I feel that's such a waste of time, like 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? Uh, I want to try for my, uh, the best tone I can so that I can speak with authority. It, research shows that it's not what you say. People sometimes sit and memorize like what they're gonna say, the words they're gonna use, when in fact the research shows what y- how you say it impacts people more than what you say.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:49

       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?

    6. EPEvy Poumpouras1:13:05

       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. The... Does not matter what I say, it's what I sound like. So if, you know, even using the, the right part of my voice, my, my deeper, uh, tone, my authentic tone. You know, it, it's very different. "Hi, I'm Evy. How are you doing? Okay." One of the things I really make sure in front of my daughter, not to go in a really high-pitched voice because I don't want her growing up talking like this. I want her to h- 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 wanna 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 wanna tell her, "Hey, speak, speak this way." I'm gonna show her how to speak and she's gonna, she's gonna mimic that. So when you look at how you present yourself to others... So as far as like 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 makes p- 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 wanna hear it, and if you put that there, then they feel it.

Episode duration: 2:46:11