Modern WisdomHow To Read Behaviour Like An FBI Agent | Robin Dreeke
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
130 min read · 26,355 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(wind blowing) Hi, friends. Today…
- CWChris Williamson
(wind blowing) Hi, friends. Today my guest is Robin Dreek, and he is the ex-head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Division. Now that sounds like an incredibly secretive and exciting job to have, and it really is. Today's discussion takes us through Robin's 21-year in-field career, including when he was in Manhattan on 9/11. He was out for coffee with his friend as the first plane struck the North Tower, and then back on the 25th floor of his department when the second plane hit. Apart from that, we're also going to learn the verbal and non-verbal cues that both you can use to help encourage trust and make your communication with others more effective, and also to be able to detect deception in other people. Robin really is the real deal. Uh, i- it's evident that he has a very terrifying and wide-ranging skill set of personal and interpersonal communication. Um, I- I'm super happy to have him on. I- I'm not going to pontificate anymore. Please welcome Robin Dreek. Oh, yeah, P.S., uh, we did have some connection issues during this episode. Uh, I promise that any of the cuts I made weren't due to Robin giving away national secrets. (laughs) And also the irony of a podcast about communication being beset with communication problems is not lost. But there may be a couple of jumps here and there, so just bear that in mind. (upbeat music) So Robin, is this the moment where the FBI burst in through the door of my bedroom and tell me that we need to stop this interview?
- RDRobin Dreeke
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Is that when this happens?
- RDRobin Dreeke
No, 'cause I duck and weave really well. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah. And you're on the other side of the screen, so you're gonna be fine. Well, anyway, thank you very much for coming on. Welcome to Modern Wisdom. It's a pleasure to have you here.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Thanks, uh, thanks for having me. I'm excited about it as well.
- CWChris Williamson
It's gonna be a great, great conversation. So can you tell the listeners at home what your job roles were please?
- RDRobin Dreeke
Sure. Uh, so I'll kinda give you a chronology, um, from the beginning to the end without taking a million, uh, million, million, uh, minutes to do this-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RDRobin Dreeke
... uh, just 'cause it's not boring. But i- it's good to frame the background of where I came from to where I arrived and where I'm still going to, and that is, so, uh, my background is I graduated from the United States Naval Academy here in Annapolis, Maryland, and from there went on to become a Marine Corps officer, and from there I joined the FBI. And I joined the FBI in 1997 and worked counterintelligence for my entire career. So I was assigned to the New York field office in Manhattan. From there I went to Norfolk, Virginia. From Norfolk, Virginia, I went into management, so I went up to, to the J. Edgar Hoover Building here in Washington, DC. Um, also during out my entire career I worked Russian, so that's kind of the, the nouveau thing these days, although for 21 years no one was listening to me. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RDRobin Dreeke
(laughs) And so, uh, and so when I started running behavioral ana- you know, the, the program at headquarters, through my time in New York before I got there, I got on our behavioral analysis program for counterintelligence. And, and what the behavioral analysis program is ... And a lot of people know about the profilers and the behavioral analysis units from things like Criminal Minds and movies like that. Those are the criminal guys, the guys that work on criminal cases. My team, we worked nothing but counterintelligence cases. And my team's whole strategy all the time was how were we going to create a good, healthy engagement with another human being, whether you're trying to recruit a spy, talk to someone, interview someone. Whatever it is is we were always strategizing engagements. And so from FBI headquarters, uh, I, I eventually escaped, thank God, because I'm not a, I'm not a headquarters guy I realized, and they asked me to go down to Quantico where I taught, um, counterintelligence interviewing and source recruiting and things like that. And then I took over our behavioral team as the head of it back in 2010-ish and I ran it for three or four years until sequestration, which was a big budget thing we had, eliminated my team and a bunch of things. And so I went back down to the street and I worked (clears throat) as an agent on the street working counterintelligence for my last couple years before I retired. So yeah, my entire career has been nothing about, um, trying to recruit spies, catching spies, talking to sources, all ... Nothing but intel all the time.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. I mean, that sounds like the stuff that, um, novels are made of, right?
- RDRobin Dreeke
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It's a lot of si- kind of the typical spy stuff-
- RDRobin Dreeke
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... it sounds like. The, the proper James Bond shit.
- RDRobin Dreeke
It is, it is. You know, it's truly funny, and I actually ... You know, you being in the UK is really great. I, I have a saying, uh, especially when I was in New York, "I love w- love working with the Queen," because, (laughs) we, we worked with MI5 and MI6 a lot, and uh, I love them a lot because their funding was always better than ours. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RDRobin Dreeke
And they're great hosts. Ver- very great hosts. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
That's awesome. Well, I, you know, I think the, the Brits are, are, are pretty well-renowned for the fact that we have good tea, and, you know, the weather's not so good, but everything else is-
- RDRobin Dreeke
That wasn't what we were, that wasn't what we were drinking. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I bet it wasn't. Um, so you've mentioned there some, you know ... The New York field office in Manhattan and the J. Edgar Hoover Building, those are places that I really only know as references from movies. Um-
- RDRobin Dreeke
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
But th- that sounds like a sort of place where there's an awful lot going on, a pretty big hub of activity I'm gonna guess.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Yeah. Um, but, you know, I always ... You know, I'm always ... I mean, just think about this. People are generally under-impressed with their own jobs. It's, you know, because-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Very true.
- RDRobin Dreeke
It's always, it's always the outside optic. You know, for me it was my job. Basically your job was to build relationships and build trust.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.I got you.
- RDRobin Dreeke
And, and so what was interesting was, you know, a lot of people ... So, you know, I wound up writing a bunch of articles, and, uh, wrote a couple books. I got another one coming out this we- year. And my, my intro to whatever I'm doing, a speech, a talk, you know, podcast or, uh, even in my writing, it always starts out with me kind of laying out that background of mine, which says, "Wow, this guy is a type A hard-charging guy."
- 15:00 – 30:00
Mm-hmm. …
- RDRobin Dreeke
before. Um, and I ... 'Cause again when you live something, you just kind of do and act. And so I, I took that step back and I, I gave myself that optic of, what am I actually doing in all these behavioral assessments? What I was actually doing in all these cases throughout my career, you know, whether it was a recruitment operation, an interview, a double agent operation, false flags, I mean, all the fun hooky spookie spy stuff.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
And what I, and what I quickly realized was all I was ever doing was strategizing trust, because I was always trying to get and to hopefully have someone for move from point A to point B. Hopefully point B would be a place that, that we could collaborate. And the, and the only way someone is going to move from A to B and collaborate with you is through trust. And so when I took that step back and realized, wow, in everything I'd ever done in my entire career and then for the larger optic of my entire life, and it's what we do as human beings, we're always strategizing trust in relationships. And so I broke it down to five really simple steps, uh, to what I call the elusive obvious. You know, so as you said, so here's, here's the process. It's really simple. First, what's your goal? What is it you're trying to achieve? Um, and then the second part of that, so, so why should they want to? You know, why should they want to be interviewed by you? Why should they want to collab- cooperate with you? You know, why should they want to do anything? And at first, you know, that's as, as surface as I got with it, thinking to myself, "Oh, it's a very short term goal." But then I asked myself, "Well, why do I want to do that goal? Where am I trying to go with this?" And ultimately in my work, I was trying to protect national security, and ultimately I, I came out with what I call the ends goals and means goals. And interviewing someone or recruiting someone or selling a product, that's really a means to the end.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
And at the end goal, what, you know, whether you're just trying to sell a product or trying to honor the mission statement of the company, me, I was trying to honor and protect the national security of my country. And what was really fascinating was so many people and things have input on, on those means goals. You know, there's a lot of relationships that go into is someone willing to cooperate and trust you? So what I started focusing was on the end goals first. So I reversed it. And the ends goals for me are very, very simple and easy. My number one goal in every single engagement I have, one, is a healthy professional relationship, 'cause without a healthy professional relationship, everything else will fall apart. I, I, I have become so adamant about focusing on relationships above all else that, um, I'm (laughs) ... I, I, I preach it at every opportunity I get, because, you know, uh, the greatest analogy I always have whether I have a group of 1,000 people or two people, I, I, I can always say I can guarantee you not one person is sitting in this room as successful as you are without a relationship with at least 1, 2, 10 people-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
... because nothing can happen from that. So I always focus on the relationships first. Second, under that, my next goal is open honest communication and transparency, 'cause you cannot have a healthy relationship without that open honest communication and transparency. And my third anchor, my third end goal I always focus on is I make myself an available resource for the prosperity of others with no expectation of reciprocity. And here's how that breaks down. Available resource for others. I once offered someone help and he thought it was condescending.... that I was offering help. He thought I, thought I was better than he was, and so he took offense to it. So that's why I have available resources. And s- because human beings do not like to be looked down upon. They want to be treated as equal, they want to have, be affiliated and valued. So I have... I offer resources for their prosperity. Prosperity is a very open term. Prosperity according to what they think prosperity is. And the s- and the last part of this is no expectation of reciprocity. In other words, I am being willing to give my resources to you without an expectation of reciprocity. In other words, I'm not trying to do this to get something. Again, as soon as you do that, you start going into the realm of manipulation. Shields go up and trust goes out the window.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
So those, so those are my thir- three anchors, and that's step one. As long as I get set on those and I move forward, then we're s- great. So step two, this is easy. Discover their priorities, their needs, wants, dreams and aspirations, short-term, long-term, personal, professional. How do they see prosperity and success from their point of view? Because if you don't talk in terms of their priorities, you're wasting your voice, 'cause everyone o- will listen to you if you're talking in terms of what's important to them. So step two is about them. Step three, understand their context. How do they see the world through their particular optic without judging it? In other words, what's their age, their demographic, their ethnicity, their gender, um, socioeconomic status, eh, you know, all these things play into how people s- see world through their particular optic. And to... That's generally also where we find places of affiliation and that we can build upon. Um, one of my favorite questions when dealing with, uh, lots of folks internationally is, you know, "Would you mind sharing a favorite family holiday you had growing up?" And again, you don't have to have the same favorite family holiday, but what you have is a favorite family holiday. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Everyone has something they remember from their childhood. And when you share those kinds of things, "Well, look, I had a childhood just like yours. We had something we enjoyed. We had a tradition, we had a meal, we have tastes, we have flavors, we have music." All these things are where we build those affiliations and we build that tribe. Because ancient tribal man, you know, a tribe of 30, 40, or 50, it was the first form of survival. If you were not part of a tribe, the likelihood of you passing on your genetic coding to others was slim to none. And so we're constantly seeking to be affiliated with meaningful people in our lives and be valued by them. And so this is the process by which we're doing that. So that's the third step. Fourth step is to actually... This is where you gotta make sure you're talking in terms of them. Wanna suspend your ego, and that is, you know, you gotta put your own thoughts and opinions aside. You gotta talk in terms of them and theirs, and never argue context. In other words, if they have a certain point of view that you don't agree with, um, what's it going to cost you to not argue it?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Second, be non-judgmental, you know, because people... Uh, here's another guarantee in life. If you start judging them verbally or non-verbally, I guarantee you their shields are going up, 'cause you're basically saying, "Hey, you're not part of my tribe." And so people get defensive, and they'll get shields up. Honoring reason. And honoring reason's really where you wanna make sure that everything you're saying and doing is congruent with what it is you're trying to achieve. Keep that thoughtful mind engaged. Don't get emotionally hijacked where you're gonna let your emotions interrupt what's going on between your brain and your mouth. And so honoring reason's... I, I'm always asking myself, "Is what I'm about to do or say going to help or hinder what it is I'm trying to do?" And ultimately, remember what I'm trying to do is create a healthy relationship. Um, fourth is validate others. You know, validation, this is just seeking to understand at a deep l- level as possible. It's not saying you necessarily agree with them, although agreeing with them can be validating. But just seek to understand, especially if you have a different political point of view, um, on religion, gover- anything it is. You know, it's not that you're seeking... It's not that you're placating them or pacifying them. No, you're seeking to understand how it is they have that certain point of view. The key here is you have to be congruent with, you know, what's in your heart and what's coming out of your mouth. Because if your ver- if your body language and your verbals are incongruent, you just look like you're, you know, you're full of it. Um, so you have to actually be honest in- internally about trying to understand them. And finally, uh, the fifth step of, of... step four is be generous. Be generous with your time and be generous with your resources. And then finally, fifth step is craftiness engagement. You know, how are you gonna put all this together to have a great, meaningful, you know, genuine, sincere conversation and dialogue? And so to do that, the first thing I always do is I'm going to state a s- very specific, um, validation of a strength, attribute, or action that I've witnessed. In other words, I'm going to just always be seeking the greatness in others where their strengths are, so I can always start out with a conversation about, "Hey, when you did this last week and had such a great result in this situation, would you mind sharing with me how you came up with that? Would you be willing to share it with others?" And from there, we just have a great dialogue and conversation. There's many other steps to that, but those are the five basic, you know, steps I use, what I call the elusive obvious, like how do you f- form a relationship of trust and, uh, health. That's it.
- CWChris Williamson
I get it. So it sounds like steps one through four are, um, setting the scene and coming up with what you're going to say, and then five is delivery. Is that fair to say?
- RDRobin Dreeke
Yes. Absolutely. And then-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. And it seems like... I think, and like-
- RDRobin Dreeke
Oh, go on. Sorry, go ahead.
- CWChris Williamson
... based on what I thought about behavioral analysis, I thought that it would be all step five. That's probably my, um, (clears throat) romanticizing a little bit of the, of the spy industry, and then a lack of understanding of just how much stuff probably goes on behind the scenes with counterintelligence. And that the, the tip of the spear is exactly just that. It's the, it's the tiny little bit at the end that delivers the, the message or the blow or whatever it might be, as opposed to all of the work that's gone beh- before it.
- RDRobin Dreeke
You know, you did a great job summarizing it, and, and you couldn't be more right. I mean, it really comes down to you have to really know people, and how do you know people? A- a- and this is... This goes back to a lesson I learned really early on in my career, uh, in the Marine Corps. I remember I got ranked last out of all these other officers (laughs) , and very humbling moment. And (laughs) I, I go up to the, the guy who's berating me and I said, "All right, what am I doing wrong?" as well, "You just ne- need to make it about everyone else, not yourself, and b- and be a better leader." And I was like-Well, I thought I was doing that. What the hell are you talking about, make it about everyone but myself? How do you do that? What's, what's the methodolo- how do you make a conversation about everyone else but yourself? I didn't understand it. This process, this is exactly this. This is how you make it about the other person. You- you're finding out their priorities, you're finding out their context, you're... and then how do you put all these things together to talk in terms of them? And, you know, you add these four things I love to throw into every statement I make, is one, I seek their thoughts and opinions, I talk in terms of their priorities, I validate them nonjudgmentally, and I give them choices. When I do one of those four things in everything I say or write, that entire conversation is completely about them.
- CWChris Williamson
I understand. And I'm going to guess that the science will say that that plays into a sense of trust and safety and focus on them as an individual, which I'll presume will probably lower barriers and stuff like that.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Absolutely. So here's the science behind it. Um, we know this anecdotally because when you, you know, when, when you say, "Hey," when someone's talking about things that are important to me, I love listening to it. Um, and we've all experienced those moments where we've had these conversations where you said you had to go in five minutes but you're, like, you're there for 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes longer because you loved the conversation. Well, it's because they were validating you. So the science behind it, they, they did a, a great study at, uh, Harvard back in the spring of 2012 where they actually wired people's brains up, and what they found was on average people spend about 40% of their day sharing their own thoughts, opinions, and ideas that they have. And what they're doing is they're testing the environment around them saying, "Hey, here's what I think in a... Here's what I think, here's what I think, here's what I think." Because we're seeking constantly to see if we can affiliate with tribes and affiliate with people. And what they found is when people were sharing their thoughts and opinions and ideas, and those thoughts and opinions and ideas were being validated by others, dopamine was being released in the brain.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
So the pleasure centers, you know, were firing s- seratonin (24:00) , oxytocin in the bloodstream. Our pleasure centers are constantly firing when we're being accepted nonjudgmentally for those thoughts and opinions and ideas that we have because we want to be affiliated with meaningful groups and organizations for survival. So that's the science behind why when you structure a conversation dialogue and relationship like this, it's magic. And it's, it's... And it... The greatest thing too, it's totally genuine. There's no... You know, I'm, I'm anti-verbal judo and how to win an argument. I, I just... There's no strategy on how to do that. It's just how do you get to understand a person and make it about them?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Piece of cake. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I get it. I- I get it. So the- the first four steps that are quite conceptual, I think, must m- require a lot of research about the person, but to me just seem like spending time under tension. Like, work out what it is that the person wants and how you can speak their language and give them choices and, and, and don't judge. But the fifth one I imagine requires a little bit more skillfulness.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Um, well, here's how I put it together. Here's how I generally structure, um, my... And this, again, I don't have my notes in front of me, going off the top of my head. What I generally do is, again, step one is I mak- I, I, I make a very specific statement, a validation of a strength, attribute, or action. Now, that's if I know what one of those strengths are. If I don't and I'm gonna be talking to a stranger I do a phone call, the first thing I'm gonna validate is their time, because human beings do not have to give me their time. So I'm gonna be extremely deferential and gracious for the time that they can give me, and offer... also willing to walk away if they don't want to engage me, because in order to make this conversation about them, you have to be willing to accept their denials of your time. So I start out with that. Next, I'm gonna seek their thoughts and opinions about their priorities. That's step two of my... how I strategize. Now, if I don't know what their priorities happen to be at this point, because again, I haven't had any research, because I do li- I, I mean, we do this in sales all the time, we do lots of cold calls.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RDRobin Dreeke
But the... But if you don't know what their priorities are, here's a general priority of every single human being on this planet: safety, security, and prosperity for them, themselves, and their families, because that's survival. And so public safety is one that I'll always go to for the things I was doing. But safety, security, and prosperity. I work with financial companies all the time that sell insurance. Well, safety, security, and prosperity for them and their families, that's a priority. So again, if I don't know what one specific of their priorities are yet, one that I can ask them about and see if... and, and seek their thoughts and opinions on is, is safety, security, and prosperity for you and your family an important thing to you? And so that's step two. Uh, step, um... The third way I do this, uh, next is I'm gonna validate those thoughts, opinions, ideas, um, that they just shared with me and validation. Again, if I don't understand exactly what they're saying, I'll dive a little deeper so I can get a better understanding. Now most of the time what we're trying to do is we're trying to inspire people to listen to our thought, uh, thoughts and opinions, ideas. Uh, in other words, what we're trying to impart on them, and I use that word inspire because that's really critical. Uh, something I realized a number of years ago is that there's a big difference between trying to convince someone of something they want to listen. Um, because really you really can't convince anyone of anything because that's about you imparting what you want them to listen to, rather than... Rather, I think of how can I inspire them to want to listen to me? Because if I'm thinking of inspiring you to action, if I'm thinking of inspiring you to listen or do something, in order to inspire you to do it, it's got to be completely about you and your idea. So how do I inspire you to listen to my idea? This is easy. I'm going to ask you your thoughts and opinions and ideas about my thoughts and opinions and ideas.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- 30:00 – 45:00
Mm-hmm. …
- RDRobin Dreeke
I was curious. What do you think about this?" And now I'm seeking their thoughts and opinions about my thoughts and opinions.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Everyone always wants to plant seeds with people by, you know, giving them thoughts. You don't plant seeds with people by telling them what you think. You plant seeds with people by asking them what they think. And so that's wh- that's where this part of the process is. I ask them their thoughts and opinions about my ideas.Um, finally, well not finally, next I now em- ask them, hey, I understand there are priorities, so I've talked to them in terms of my priorities. Now I offer them choices of overlapping priorities. You know, "I heard you say this, this, and this, and I thought this and this and this. Do you think we might be able to work on maybe X, Y, and Z?" And now you're empowering them with choice. And then finally, if appropriate, I empower them with choice about remaining in contact or of assistance. That's it. That's- that's- that's the fifth step. That's how I, that's how- how I line it out.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- RDRobin Dreeke
And so when I'm talking to someone live, I do it that way, or if I'm going written, I just make sure that at least every one of those things is in every single statement I make.
- CWChris Williamson
And now you've got yourself a spy. Now you've caught a spy in there-
- RDRobin Dreeke
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... that- that given up all of the state secrets and you've got the Wi-Fi password and everything.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Only- only if it's in their best interest to do so. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Fair point. So, I wanted to ask about, um, specific techniques that you guys use in the field when time is of the essence.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Gosh.
- CWChris Williamson
So, obviously when we're talking about this kind of a situation, it's a, I- I'm gonna guess there'll be a word for it, like a long- a- a longer game, um, where you have time to prep, but there must be time, you know, you were- you were in the service. I don't know what particular, um, department you would have been in at, uh, at 9/11, but you know, there's periods of time-
- RDRobin Dreeke
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... where y- y- you
- RDRobin Dreeke
... (laughs) it's a guarantee, you know. Um, whether you're trying to gain a date of birth of someone, you know, just say, "Hey, I'm pretty good at this. What are you, born in June?" They'll go, "No, July." "Oh, the 15th?" "No, the 22nd." I mean, and so right there, I got their date of birth without even asking a question.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RDRobin Dreeke
I made a statement.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I can play that through in my mind as well and my desire to correct you is, like, coming up as well.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Oh. Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, by doing that, you get a lot of people's, you know, priorities, you start understanding their intentions, you know. So whatever tidbits of intelligence you've been, um, tasked with getting, you create a strategy about how you're gonna ask, make an intentional misstep and about that specific type of intelligence, 'cause most of the time when you are, are trying to gather information... And whether you're trying to do, you know, gather corporate information, you know, for o- you know, for takeovers or, you know, to outbid a client, you know, or whether you're trying to re- you know, cr- recruit information for spies, you don't want anyone else to be alerted to the things that you're looking for.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
'Cause the ga- I sa- as I said it earlier, if you ask them a question, I guarantee you they're gonna think about that question forever, it'll rattle around in their brain. So the, the trick is don't ask questions about the things that you care most about finding out about.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's planting a flag in the ground to identify what your priorities are, which is not, not necessarily what you were after. You wanted theirs.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Right. Right. So, but I'll tell you, I... My earlier years, I was more into understanding and, and exercising that, and what I came to find out was, was I got better and better at getting that, the stronger the relationship and the trust was. So I will... I go for the rapid, as fast as possible trust, with full transparency, which, which gets that trust to that point, and then I just come right out and ask them what I want and I ask and tell them why I need it. And you'd be amazed at how much easier that is. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Can you, can you give us, can you give us an example?
- RDRobin Dreeke
So, uh, I mean, I was, I mean, just probably my last couple of years before I retired, you know, we came up... and I won't give you exact details.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Um, but we came up with a situation where we'd i- identified, uh, an emerging threat, you know, to public safety, and they said, "We need to find a source in this area." And I didn't know anyone, but I went to some of my, some of my guys that, you know, are my sources of information. I said, "Hey, we need someone in this area." They said, "I don't know," but because I had healthy relationships w- with them and they have healthy relationships with others, about two weeks later, one of my contacts brings me a potential guy. You know, doesn't int- you know, doesn't introduce me, but gives me his website, gives me an email address, and I was like, "Ah, this guy might be right up the, you know, right what we're looking for."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
It sounds an awful…
- RDRobin Dreeke
I take people very specific, you know? It doesn't mean I can't trust them in another situation, but in this specific situation, the things that we're talking about, no, we're not gonna have a healthy engagement here. So I, I'll just disengage.
- CWChris Williamson
It sounds an awful lot like, um, being quite frank and quite upfront, like almost, not blase, but certainly, um, certainly very upfront and, and, and as transparent as you can be, both in terms of what you are trying to, uh, what you're trying to convey and what you do and don't understand, is forming a, quite a big basis here. And I suppose that the foundation for a, a relationship of trust is truth, uh, in two directions, right?
- RDRobin Dreeke
And openness, yeah, you know, 'cause as you said, very frank, and, and it is, it can be very frank. But at the same time though, it's very, uh, extremely cordial, because it's always about them, you know? There's never me in- it's never me inflicting my thoughts and opinions on you about you. I don't judge you, I don't say, "Hey, I'm just being honest. Here's what, you're an ass." You know, that's, that's, (laughs) not the thing you do.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Um, it's, it's about being, being frank and open about what my intentions are and trying to understand yours, um, 'cause that's, that's it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I get that. So I wanted to, uh, pick your brains as far as the, uh, uh, classifieds, (laughs) broadcaster will allow us, um, to just get some, some stories from your time while you were in the service. And the first thing that's come to mind for me is who do you think on the planet has the best, uh, behavioral, uh, agents? Would you say that the, the US is really good, or the, do the Russians happen to be fantastic at it?
- RDRobin Dreeke
Boy, everyone's... You know, uh, I wouldn't put it down to a service because services, um, ha- and services across all countries have, have greatness and have, and have ????? inside each of those services that has the patience and, and the focus of trust on, and put the, and put the broader need of the country ahead of their personal need for self-gratification and glory. Um, and I've seen that in every ser- service. Um, I, I've worked with, I've seen some fantastic Russian officers, I've seen some horrible Russian officers. I've seen some fantastic American CIA and FBI agents and some horrible ones. Um, age doesn't matter. It, it comes down to does this person putting the mission of the country ahead of themselves? And do they have the patience to develop healthy, trusting relationships? The people that can do that, I don't care where you're from, those are the ones that win.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Because they're winning for a greater cause. That's it. Uh, I've seen it everywhere.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I totally get that. Um, so how about when-
- RDRobin Dreeke
Although, although, I'll, I'll, I'll give you one group that I'm most, I was really, really impressed with.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Um, they were the United States, um, Army Green Berets. I worked with them a couple years back, and the most different thing about them is that they were very much like, uh, my career. My career was what it was not because of any, anything except oppor- just chance. It really was chance. I was, I worked operations for 21 years. I did the same type of operations for 21 years. You're going to either get good or get out.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RDRobin Dreeke
And, you know, and a lot of times in all these other organizations, you'll do it for a couple years on the street, then you're promoted to management and up and up and up, and so you, you're no longer doing the actual craft on the ground, and you, and you're going to lose it, because one, you never mastered it to begin with. And two, you don't do it anymore.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
I, I was very fortunate that I, I did it for a number of years, then I was on the team and ran the team for a couple years, still doing it, um, and then I went back and did it for five more years before I retired. I mean, it was non-stop constantly strategizing, and strategizing learning about what... And that's why I'm so altruistic about this, because ultimately it came down to people just want healthy relationships.... so they can survive. That's it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Now, how do we foster that? And so, and I, when I mention the Green Berets, um, they spend, this one particular group, spent their entire career doing exactly the same thing. That's, that's, you're gonna get mad skills at anything you do if you do it for that long.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RDRobin Dreeke
It's just, it, it's just, so, so services that allow their people to continually hone, practice, refine, and get best at their craft over years, they're gonna be the best.
- CWChris Williamson
You end up with some, some real beasts at the end of that, I suppose.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Yeah, you really do. A- and the greatest thing is, the r- (laughs) as you call them, the real beasts, these are the ones that are actually the genuinely good people in life, because they know the cause and effect of behaviors, they know that it all comes down to relationships and trust, and there's no ... These are the ones that aren't playing games with people anymore. Uh, like, I, I, I know people every now and then who will say, "Hey, when we're going out to dinner, why don't you, you know, talk to that waitress and get her date of birth and her PIN number."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RDRobin Dreeke
And I'm like, it's like, it's like, it's like, d- I was like, "Dude, you understand? I don't p- I don't play with people. I, I, I just refuse to play with people." I, I, I, I honor people too much and I, and I honor relationships and, and health and, and being a good human being too much to play with people. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Are there some, are there some agents that you've met who are sufficiently talented to be able to, like if, if they decided to put their foot to the floor, so to speak, would be able to, um, be able to do some things like that, and really, uh, kind of use y- use these to get some surprising results out of people?
- RDRobin Dreeke
Oh, God yeah. I mean, I, so I got a friend of mine, Chris Hadnagy, social engineer, and actually I'm a board member on the Innocent Lies Foundation with him. He uses all of his, uh, technical, uh, and cyber skills to protect companies and then we took it to the next level, and we're protecting human trafficking with children around the world. And, um, years ago, we put together a, a social engineering course where he certified people as social engineers. In other words, can these people go in and, and hack information from human beings and get these, these, the type of information that can compromise com- companies so that we can educate that company on protecting themselves against morons like us, you know, that are, that are actually have nefarious, uh, things in their minds? Because, yeah, if, if, y- yeah, these, these skills used by the bad guys, that's why, that's why there are hackers. That's why there are, you know, data mines that get, you know, stolen all the time, because it comes down to human beings and these techniques. Th- and the difference is, is that those people are manipulating and have an agenda, and generally agendas are on timelines, and so that's why my empowerment with choice about maintaining contact or assistance is always one of my fail-safes, um, that makes sure this isn't manipulative. Also, no expectation of reciprocity, that's my also one. But these people, the bad guys, they're doing exactly the same thing. They just have an agenda. The good thing as though, people with agendas tend to be much more impatient, um, than people that are actually going for healthier relationships. So impatience, t- you can see through impatience very rapidly.
- CWChris Williamson
That's so cool. I love the term social engineer as well. It, it really does sound like a hacker, um, taken off the computer and into the real world.
- RDRobin Dreeke
That's what they do. I mean, these guys are phenomenal. Chris and his team, you know, are phenomenal at this, and they have, they, they have competitions, you know, in, when they go to Black Hat every year, and it's just pretty fascinating. W- when we had the classes out there, and he's, Chris is about to have another class now down in Florida. You know, we send people, you know, teams out, you know, to, uh, engage people, elicit information, and practice how to do this. Again, n- no, you know, no, you know, personal id- uh, you know, personal identifying information or anything will be compromised or anything like that, just how do you practice engaging with a stranger and developing rapid trust?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I, I, I guess watching those guys at work must be pretty, uh, fascinating and terrifying in equal measure.
- 1:00:00 – 1:06:35
Yep. …
- RDRobin Dreeke
it's like a, it's like a sense, you know, like one of our five senses. I remember I did a trip and I won't say which country I went to, um, 'cause I don't want to disparage anyone.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- RDRobin Dreeke
But, uh, we did this overseas trip and, you know, we went into their command center where they have all their analysts sitting inside this command center and they had so much tech- technological capabilities, um, with, with following people in their own country, like the spies in their own country, that-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
... they ... I, I remember one of them, uh, said that, yeah, it was a bad day if we only had 95% of this person's day covered where we knew what they were doing. 95... They knew what this guy was doing 95% of the time because of their technological coverage.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- RDRobin Dreeke
And they asked, and they asked us and I was like, and I was like, "Maybe 10% of the day we know what they're doing?" And, but you know what their challenge was? They couldn't recruit sources. They had a very, very hard time using interpersonal skills to actually get human bodies recruited.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RDRobin Dreeke
And so they were massively-... behind in a lot of areas because one of their senses was enhanced, the technological sense, but their other sense of interpersonal skills was completely thrown out because they relied too heavily on the other.
- CWChris Williamson
There is a-
- RDRobin Dreeke
And so-
- CWChris Williamson
... com- compensatory, uh, mechanism.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Right. And us, w- our, our, our interpersonal skills tend to be higher because our constitution keeps us from doing anything like that. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Well, when you're skinned-
- RDRobin Dreeke
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... when you're skinned, you need to rely on your skills, don't you? You can't be, y- you can't be spending-
- RDRobin Dreeke
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
... a lot of money on things. Um, a interesting statistic, I was watching a, a Amazon documentary recently, and they said that if you took the data that was collected on everybody on the Earth and you printed it on, um, an A4 piece of paper, double-sided A4 piece of paper, every day's worth of data that gets collected would go from here to the sun and back four times. So the stack of paper-
- RDRobin Dreeke
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... of data that is collected on a daily basis, and most of it's just garbage, gobbledygook to do with, like, location data and how many bites of this and, and what address was it sent to, so on and so forth, but that's the volume of data that's to the sun and back four times. I just thought that was-
- RDRobin Dreeke
Crazy, right?
- CWChris Williamson
... I thought, I thought that was unbelievable. Yeah. And there, uh, the, another statistic that they dropped was that-
- RDRobin Dreeke
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... the m- the maddest thing to do with how efficient it is, and you were talking earlier on about having the paper going in and out and all this sort of stuff, if you were to remove all of the hardware and just have the electrons, so the, the actual, uh, atoms that are containing the information that the, uh, internet and all of, all of the collective, uh, human knowledge electronically is held on, it would be about the size and the weight of an orange. So you think you've got-
- RDRobin Dreeke
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... everything, everything, and all of the banks and banks of computers and the servers at Google and all of this sort of, even the hard drive in your house, and it's, like, just an orange. That's all you've got.
- RDRobin Dreeke
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
And you've-
Episode duration: 1:06:35
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