How to Build Command, Authority & Credibility w/Evy Poumpouras 1092

“Stop doing things that you are only comfortable with.”Today's guest is Evy Poumpouras. As a member of the most prestigious protection force in the world for over 12 years, Evy served on the Secret Service’s Presidential Protective Division for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. She has also protected presidents George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and George H. W. Bush. When not safeguarding the world’s most high value assets, Evy worked complex criminal investigations, operated undercover, and was an interrogator for the agency’s elite polygraph unit specially trained in the art of lie detection, human behavior, and cognitive influence. Evy’s actions as a first responder during the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City bestowed her the United States Secret Service Valor Award. In this episode Lewis and Evy discuss the three questions to ask someone in order to get the truth, the best way to build command, authority and credibility, how to stop worrying about other people’s opinions, and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1092Check out her book: Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live FearlesslyDaymond John on How to Close any Deal and Achieve Any Outcome: https://link.chtbl.com/928-podSara Blakely on Writing Your Billion Dollar Story: https://link.chtbl.com/893-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is episode number 1,092 with former US Secret Service Special Agent Evy Poumpouras. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  Howard Baker said, "The most difficult thing in any negotiation, almost, is making sure that you strip it of the emotion and deal with the facts." An author, Carol Frohlinger, said, "Don't bargain yourself down before you get to the table." My guest today is Evy Poumpouras, and I had a blast today with her. As a member of the most prestigious protection force in the world for over 12 years, Evy served on the Secret Service's Presidential Protection Division for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. She also protected Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush as well. And when not safeguarding the world's most high-value assets, Evy worked complex criminal

• 1:14Speaker 00

  investigations, operated undercover, and was an interrogator for the agency's Elite Polygraph Unit, specially trained in the art of lie detection, human behavior, and cognitive influence. Evy's actions as a first responder during the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City bestowed her the United States Secret Service Valor Award. She's the author of Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly. And in this episode, we discuss the three questions to ask someone in order to get the truth out of them: how to communicate effectively even if you're sharing bad news; the best way to build command, authority, and credibility in any situation;

• 1:56Speaker 00

  how to stop worrying about other people's opinions; the habit Evy contributes her success and happiness to; and so much more. Make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired by her story and her insights. And a quick reminder, if this is your first time here, or you've been listening for a while, but you haven't subscribed yet, please click the subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you're listening to this right now. As well as let us know what you enjoyed most about these episodes in the ratings and reviews section on Apple Podcasts. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Evy Poumpouras.

• 2:31Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest, Evy Pomporous in the house. Former Secret Service agent. I'm so excited you're here. Welcome.

• 2:41Evy Poumpouras?

  Thank you.

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  To the show as a recovering liar, cheater, stealer. But a human being that always wanted to be a good as growing up. But for some reason, I found myself in situations of lying, cheating and stealing my way through a lot of life. School, shoplifting, all these things, lying to my parents, all this stuff. I'm curious if I would have had the secrets growing up on how to lie better where I didn't get caught. What would I need to have done better? Cause I got caught a lot lying to my dad and my mom all the time. What would I have needed to do better? Or should I just not try to ever lie and just be completely honest and not worry about it?

• 3:23Evy Poumpouras?

  I think some lying to some degree is healthy.

• 3:26Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 3:27Evy Poumpouras?

  Well, if somebody's calling you and you don't want to answer the phone and they're very taxing person or emotionally, you know, those emotional vampires are just someone that's not unhealthy for you. Voicemail, sorry, I was busy. I think in some situations it's okay. But as far as like lying, it's interesting. You say that because we would, to become a special agent, there was a polygraph that you would have to take and these things would come up as far as like, do you steal? Do you cheat? Do you lie? But often people were worried about telling the truth. And what they do is they wouldn't tell the truth. You know, yes, I stole. Yes, I did this and they would hold it in. They failed their polygraph or failed that part of the interview. And had they told the truth, they probably would have been fine.

• 4:12Evy Poumpouras?

  Cause it was more of an integrity thing.

• 4:14Lewis Howes?

  It's more like tell the truth and, and not pass the test, but at least you're telling the truth.

• 4:19Evy Poumpouras?

  You'll pass the test if you tell the truth. Here's the thing, it's like the thought process is if you're gonna lie about this, a polygraph, you know, then you're gonna lie about everything.

• 4:28Lewis Howes?

  Oh, right.

• 4:29Evy Poumpouras?

  And so it's a big part of the job is trust because you get so much power, so much authority. You're around the President of the United States, you're really around, you know, a secret environment, so to speak, and so they really need to know that you can just be dropped anywhere. And it's okay. So it's really about the integrity of it.

• 4:47Lewis Howes?

  How many, how many polygraph tests did you take to study doing this process as an agent?

• 4:53Evy Poumpouras?

  I didn't take a lot, but I had to take them and then pass them myself. Because you have to get in, so I would be polygraphed, are you, you know, about my background or, you know, and I can't get into the, the details, I'm kind of filtering now in my head. But basically, you know, you trustworthy, are you looking to cause harm? Have I convicted any felonies and have not shared? Drugs tended to be a big disqualifier for a lot of folks.

• 5:19Lewis Howes?

  Drugs, have you done drugs or have you been?

• 5:21Evy Poumpouras?

  Drug use or drug experimentation, so they would allow.

• 5:27Lewis Howes?

  Hey, when you were 16, if you did it for a few months?

• 5:29Evy Poumpouras?

  They allow, they have criteria. I think today it's a lot more lenient. When I went in, it was extremely strict. But I think what they found is like, we can't, we can't find people.

• 5:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, everyone's tried something, right?

• 5:40Evy Poumpouras?

  We can't find people, everybody's failing the, you know, the exam and, you know, and there's this understanding of that when people are young, they make mistakes. And it's, you know, should something that you did when you were 16, 17, 18, 19, and now you're 30, preclude you from getting a job somewhere else? So there has to be a little bit of that logic in there where, you know, when it, it was a bit so severe, but I think there is a lot more experimentation today. But as far as your first question about your parents, I think that they just knew you well. And so they knew.

• 6:19Lewis Howes?

  You could just feel it, I'm just like, uh, no, I didn't do it.

• 6:22Evy Poumpouras?

  Well, they know you, so they know your tells, they know your demeanor, they know how you shift when you do lie. And so sometimes with people that we know very well, we can see it. They're probably very intuitive to you. They probably also didn't want to believe your lies. Because sometimes you'll have people say, well, I was married to someone or I was close to someone and I didn't see it. And sometimes we intuitively see it.

• 6:50Evy Poumpouras?

  We know it's there, but we ignore it. And so we'll listen to somebody's excuses or explanations. And because we're invested in that person and we wanna believe in that person. We wanna believe the lie. And so sometimes that's what happens when we get caught up in something. And then you look back, you're like, I saw this. I saw that and all those nickels will start dropping. Because, but when you're invested in someone, you wanna believe in them. You wanna believe when they tell you, oh, no, no, no, I was actually doing this. Because it's not to your benefit. It's to your benefit to believe what they tell you.

• 7:27Lewis Howes?

  Do we all lie, all human beings? And is it okay to lie?

• 7:33Evy Poumpouras?

  All people lie. The research varies. Some research says some people will lie 10 times within a conversation.

• 7:40Lewis Howes?

  10 times, like in one 30 minute conversation?

• 7:44Evy Poumpouras?

  Hi, how are you? I'm great. How are you? Meanwhile, I just, you know, had a fight with my significant other. So that would be a lie. Then also, lying by omission is a big thing. People think that, that I have to say the lie for it to be a lie. But I can tell you a story and leave something out. That changes the context of the story. So now the story is not accurate. I mislead you, that is a lie. And actually, the number one way people lie is by omission. Because most people don't like to lie. They're not comfortable with it. You know, it's not natural to us. It's work. It's a lot of, it's a lot of work. It's very hard.

• 8:23Lewis Howes?

  Because you gotta remember what you said too, right?

• 8:25Evy Poumpouras?

  You gotta remember it. You have to stick to it because you may have to repeat that lie again later in time. And it really is a credibility killer. It's just not worth doing. And so it's a lot of work to do cognitively. So it is actually easier to leave something out. I don't feel as bad. And then when you ask me, Louis, I say, oh, you know, I forgot to tell you that part.

• 8:46Lewis Howes?

  And then you lose credibility.

• 8:49Evy Poumpouras?

  If I lie like that, I may not lose as much. It's when people outright lie. And then, so you probably did some outright lies.

• 8:57Lewis Howes?

  Did you do this, yes or no? Uh, no, I didn't.

• 9:00Evy Poumpouras?

  Or how about this, no, I didn't do it.

• 9:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right. Uh, no.

• 9:04Evy Poumpouras?

  That's like one of the indicators, um, when people say, um, their body doesn't match it with, doesn't match what they say, so they'll say, no, yes.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:13Evy Poumpouras?

  And so you'll see the body will do this, like the body's in conflict with what they're saying. It doesn't happen to everybody. It's everybody, everyone is so unique and so different. And I think what popular culture likes to do, um, is say, everybody will do this. Everybody will do that. And that's just, it's false. And there's no easy way to read people. It's work. It's studying the person, understanding human behavior, knowing that person, paying, paying attention to their mannerisms. So like when I speak, I, I use illustrators when I speak. So if I'm telling you a story, I went here last night, I did this, I saw that. Now you ask me something, you know, Evy, is this your favorite podcast? Which it is.

• 9:56Lewis Howes?

  I don't know.

• 9:57Evy Poumpouras?

  Right, but I start, you know, I put my hands down and I, I change my mannerisms. Now I'm stoic. I'm not moving. Um, in fact, people who do lie tend to move less, actually. Because I'm working, I'm working. This is work.

• 10:12Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 10:13Evy Poumpouras?

  So I'm not, I'm thinking, I'm focused. So there's all those indicators that do help you kind of filter out what's going on with the other person.

• 10:21Lewis Howes?

  So using body language and being more expressive hides the lie? If you are lying?

• 10:28Evy Poumpouras?

  If you're, usually not at all. Like I wanna be, you know, cause some people that don't use a lot of maneuvers, they're always stoic.

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 10:35Evy Poumpouras?

  And so that's just what they are all the time. But if you have someone who is illustrative, who's always talking with their hands, and now they, you ask them a question that they're uncomfortable with, or they wanna lie to you about, you'll see less movement in the body.

• 10:49Lewis Howes?

  What would be three questions, if you could only ask three questions to a human being, to figure out if they're telling a lie or telling the truth? How would you start those three questions? What would they be?

• 11:00Evy Poumpouras?

  TED. T E D. Tell me, explain, describe. And then I would fill in the rest.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  Tell me...

• 11:08Evy Poumpouras?

  Tell me what you did last night. Rather than, who did you out with last night? Or were you with Sam last night? So tell me what you did last night.

• 11:17Evy Poumpouras?

  Explain to me how important this relationship is to you. Describe to me what you want in this business partnership.

• 11:25Evy Poumpouras?

  Those questions allow people to tell a story. So if you really wanna read someone out, read somebody, you want them to tell you a story. So the more I can get you to tell me a story, I hear you, I'm watching you, I'm getting your mannerisms down, everything. But then you're also telling me what is important to you, what is of value to you. And then when you do that now, I don't have to sit there and guess and figure out, oh, how should I start my business pitch with Lewis? You already told me the things you like and so I can come in and speak to you in an intelligent way, rather than trying to guess what, you know, what to say. So ideally, when you start a conversation, and this could be for anything,

• 12:10Evy Poumpouras?

  it's not just catching a lie. This is really just trying to start a conversation. TED, T E D, tell me, explain, describe. You start big. You get people talking and telling you stuff, even though you're like, I wanna know this specific thing. But if I ask the specific thing, this person's gonna shut down on me. So I can't go straight for that. So what you do is you narrow it. You get closer, you get, you go from vague to, you know, more, you know, accurate to more accurate to then, in the end, you get to that direct question because you've worked them to that point. So for example,

• 12:46Evy Poumpouras?

  if you had a case where somebody was murdered or killed, right? And you had a suspect, you wouldn't say, did you kill her? You would never say that. In fact, that would, you wouldn't get there till like maybe two hours into the conversation. That's like the, you, you, you get there, it's over time. Because it's, it's, it's a serious thing. It's an ugly word. You know, I might not even say, did you kill her? Did you hurt her? Did you harm her? Did something happen? And I would get you, so I would never ask it that way. You get the person to give you admissions. Like, for example, yes, I was there. I was at the house. Or yes, I did this. You know, you want them to give you a little bit

• 13:29Evy Poumpouras?

  and then eventually you get more admissions, more admissions. You start to paint a picture and then you, you never actually have to ask them, did you kill? They eventually tell you.

• 13:39Lewis Howes?

  So you were at the scene. You were there at the same time. You were holding the knife.

• 13:43Evy Poumpouras?

  They tell you all of it. But you walk them, you walk them through that process. And so when you watch these TV shows or... When you ask somebody a direct question and you want a direct answer and you don't get it, this is why. It's work. It's a lot of work to connect with people, read people. And I think that's why, and I think society makes it seem like do these three tricks and you'll have people eating out of your hand in it. It doesn't work. It's not true. And this is why people struggle because they're looking for the easy way. When it's really about human behavior. The person across from you, like understanding them, being curious. Curiosity is wonderful. So let them tell you stuff, ask questions because you're curious.

• 14:29Evy Poumpouras?

  And then you'll get more information rather than try trying to go for like exactly what you want to know. And then the other thing too that helps with conversations is something called adaptability.

• 14:41Evy Poumpouras?

  Which a lot of people don't have, like if I have a I have a conversation with you and I specifically want to know one thing. But you want to tell me a whole other story around it. People don't have the patience and so like, no, no, no, no, no, we're talking about something else like stick. Stick to the topic. And when you do that, you you break a rapport. You hurt the conversation. So it a part of it is being patient. Let them take you a little bit on a journey. And then slowly you can bring them back to where you want. But sometimes we come in so rigid. No, no, I have to talk about this. This is the topic. And you're not able to adapt. So adaptability is being is allowing a person

• 15:23Evy Poumpouras?

  to take you where they want to go, letting somebody sit in the driver's seat for a little bit.

• 15:28Lewis Howes?

  So you're telling me when my girlfriend is arguing with me about one thing, but then doesn't want to address it and takes it around the the the playground of all these other conversations, I I get to listen to all those things to get it back to where I want to go to.

• 15:42Evy Poumpouras?

  Perhaps.

• 15:42Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to, babe, let's just focus on the problem right here.

• 15:45Evy Poumpouras?

  Well, it sounds actually like your girlfriend is actually more of an identity based person.

• 15:52Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 15:53Evy Poumpouras?

  Okay, so there's instructional, there's identity. So if I'm talking to you and I want to tell you, you know, you want to tell me basically, Evy, if you stop talking to this person, your life will be easier, right? You know, cut this person out of your life, right? And I'm like, no, I want to tell you how I feel. No, this makes me feel this way. This makes me feel that way. But you don't know, and you're just kind of like, all you have to do.

• 16:15Lewis Howes?

  It's cut them out of your life.

• 16:16Evy Poumpouras?

  Cut this person out of your life, or all you have to do is this one thing, problem solved. You are instructional. Let's just get to the point. What do we gotta do to fix it? One, two, three, done. Identity is, I don't wanna hear that. I wanna take you on a journey with me to tell you how I feel. This person or when we are in that space, this means this person just wants to tell you how they're feeling. They wanna tell you about their identity. What's happening is about their identity. So, they don't want, she doesn't want your solution. She doesn't want you to tell you what to do. She wants you to listen to her. And so, just, it's not even about solving it.

• 16:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:56Evy Poumpouras?

  And so, I think that's another place where we get stuck. We're like, here, here's the solution. And it's like, no, no. I don't want that. And you're like, but you're telling me you have this problem if you just do this. You're instructional, their identity.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  What are you?

• 17:09Evy Poumpouras?

  I'm typically instructional. I'm very like, just tell me what I need to know. I don't need to go through the circle. But, when I speak to other people, and I realize that their identity or in that moment, they wanna tell me this whole story and I'm just like, dude, all we gotta talk about is one little thing, problem solved. I let them go.

• 17:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:28Evy Poumpouras?

  If you have the patience. It depends what the topic is. But she's identity-based. So, I think every time you talk with her, if you see that she's like, not wanting to get to the point and figure out the solution where she just wants to tell you about her feelings, how this makes her feel, or how this hurts her, or, you know, if it's about her, her identity, then that's what she's doing. It's not about the solution.

• 17:52Lewis Howes?

  Whether you were in the Secret Service doing an interview or an interrogation, or in the real world now, I guess that is the real world, but after now,

• 18:00Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah.

• 18:02Lewis Howes?

  What are the social cues or psychological behaviors? Body language, responses that people have before you take the polygraph test to know whether or not they're actually telling the truth? What are those few things that you would see? We talked about the body language. Are there other things that would happen? Social cues or behaviors?

• 18:27Evy Poumpouras?

  It's interesting. Everybody would assume that the polygraph was...

• 18:32Evy Poumpouras?

  The, the lie detector. Like you just ask the question, "Come on in, have a seat Louis, let's hook you up." "Did you steal when you were a kid?" You know, "Did you steal that gum or did you steal that?" And then it just tells me everything. And it doesn't really work that way, like typically the, the lie detector is the person, so you sit across from a person, you have a conversation. And as we're discussing something, let's say you're applying to the US Secret Service, we'll make you a recruit.

• 18:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay, give it to me.

• 18:58Evy Poumpouras?

  And so we're asking you all these questions about your education, your background, um, drugs, whatever it is, and let's say we get to, I say to you, "Louis, did you ever steal anything?" And so now, I look at, "Are there any shifts, are any changes, do you change the direction?"

• 19:15Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 19:18Evy Poumpouras?

  People are usually not that obvious, you know, they're, but you can see, you can see something, you can feel it, it's also feeling people, I think that gets dismissed quite a bit, that it's not just see here, you know, it's like, it's also you can feel another human being.

• 19:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:34Evy Poumpouras?

  You can, and it's intuitive and you should, we should allow that and listen to that more, rather than shut that down. But it would be, you know, if I would ask you that, I would hear the way you responded. Did you respond similarly to all the other questions the same way? Is your, you know, and let's say if I said, "Louis, did you ever, you know, I asked you all these other historical questions and you're like, "No, no, no," and then I say, "Louis, did you, "Have you ever stolen anything?" "Absolutely not." So now, something like that, as small as that, I may mark that, I was like, "Okay, he said no, "No, no for everything else." But here he said, "Absolutely not."

• 20:13Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 20:14Evy Poumpouras?

  Why is it a bit more emphatic?

• 20:16Lewis Howes?

  He cares more about either protecting something or that it actually isn't the truth.

• 20:20Evy Poumpouras?

  Maybe.

• 20:20Lewis Howes?

  He doesn't want that to be out of sight.

• 20:21Evy Poumpouras?

  But I will no, notice that it's different. That you did something different, even if you, no. It could be a very subtle thing, or you might not give me anything, there are some people, and I've had those people where it's just like,

• 20:35Lewis Howes?

  Poker face all the way through.

• 20:36Evy Poumpouras?

  Some people, but they'll, I don't wanna say they're professional liars, but some people, you know, would come in, especially if it was a criminal case. And they're guarding their, the truth really hard and you have to try to figure out what that is. Or some people come in and it's, I swear to God, God knows I would never do such a thing.

• 20:57Lewis Howes?

  On my mom, on my grave.

• 20:58Evy Poumpouras?

  Those are usually red flags unless it's a culture or a person who typically does it. If so, they, if they always say, I swear to God, I swear to my mom, then it would be like, look, this is part of this person's natural language. Or maybe in their culture, they refer to God quite a bit. But if it's not, and then you start doing that, then again, that's a red flag. So that's what you're really looking for, rather than we have some of these cookie cutter things. It's like, everybody does this, everybody does that. Now, are these things I'm talking about indicators? They are. But you may do them and I may not. I may do something else.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  What do you do when you lie?

• 21:37Evy Poumpouras?

  Oh, I do when I lie.

• 21:39Lewis Howes?

  We all lie at something, right?

• 21:41Evy Poumpouras?

  We do, I do, I do.

• 21:42Lewis Howes?

  Small or big?

• 21:43Evy Poumpouras?

  My husband's like, did you, you know, have a donut this morning? No, I don't have a donut.

• 21:47Lewis Howes?

  What do you lie about the most? Professional or personal? And what in each, each category?

• 21:55Evy Poumpouras?

  Maybe like if I'm mad. Cause I have, I have a pretty, I have a pretty bad temper, so it's like, oh no, I'm fine. You know, and I'll, because sometimes I'll know, I'm like, you know, I have a temper. And sometimes I know I'm being irrational. And I don't wanna open up a whole conversation, so I'll just be like, no, I'm, I'm okay. I'll, I'll leave it, cause I'll know it's me. Trying to think, what do I, I lie about? Maybe work, if it's a project I don't wanna do. But usually, that's what you have agents and managers for, cause they do it for you.

• 22:25Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 22:25Evy Poumpouras?

  They shut it down for you. I'm trying to think. I mean, we all lie, but I try to keep it like, usually for me, it's like, cause I'm like a, you know, I like donuts and I like things, cookies, I like things. So my husband's like a health fanatic, so he'll be like, how'd you eat today? You know, I was like, oh, it was, it was okay. I was, I was pretty solid, you know? Oh, okay, so he'll know what I'm trying to say.

• 22:50Lewis Howes?

  Is there, is there such a thing as person being radically honest all the time?

• 22:55Evy Poumpouras?

  No, I don't, I've never, I've not come across that. But I think. Here's the thing, it's okay to lie because have you ever been very, very, very honest? Maybe with a person and then felt afterward, you know, I don't, you feel a bit exposed. And you feel like, you know, I wish I didn't share this much with this person. Afterward, you kind of have that remorse. Because we feel like it's a, it's a protection mechanism. I don't want to tell you everything about me. I don't want to be an open book. And so I may, and it may not be a lie. So by omission, so in a meeting, if somebody's pitching me a project or I'm talking, talking about something. I don't like it, or I don't like the direction it's going. I may not say, I don't like this.

• 23:40Evy Poumpouras?

  I may say, thank you, you know, let me think about that. Meanwhile, I want to, I want to say, no way, I'm not doing it. That's terrible. So that, that technically would be a lie. I'm like, you know what, thank you, it let me think about that. But I know I can't respond the first way, shuts people down. That's why I feel like we hear people say, say no. You know, being able to say no to people more so because a lot of us have.

• 24:04Lewis Howes?

  To protect your time, your space, your energy.

• 24:06Evy Poumpouras?

  And that's wonderful, but don't say no. Find other ways to say no. No is ugly, no is mean, no is hurtful. So I can say, thank you so much, I'll let you know. Um, I'm not really sure if I'm able to, let me think on that. Find alternative ways to let people down.

• 24:25Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 24:26Evy Poumpouras?

  To preserve the relationship.

• 24:28Lewis Howes?

  Because when you say no to someone, even if it's a friend, they might take it personally.

• 24:31Evy Poumpouras?

  It stings, right? Why are you saying no to me? Why do you have to say like that? You can say, you can reject people in a thoughtful way, in a professional way. It just, it depends, like, do you care about the relationship? And if you do, your no, your hard no can hurt people's feelings. People become sensitive because you're rejecting them. And so I'm going to think of a different way to say no. That's not going to impact you as much. It's really using language thoughtfully. So for example, you brought up lying, I love that. And you said, you know, when I was a kid, I lied. So I would never say to you.

• 25:07Evy Poumpouras?

  Louis, you're a liar. Or Louis, no, Louis, you're lying to me. I would say Louis, I know you're not being truthful with me. Louis, you're holding something back from me. Sounds different. So it's the same way with language. We don't. We throw our words out and we don't realize that they land on someone. And so then we scratch our heads, heads, wondering why did this conversation not go well? It's this person's the problem. When we don't have that ability to think about how did I deliver this? So if it's a business relationship that's important to you, but you want to say no to this, you want to think of a great way to say no. So we want to think about how do we let people down? Without hurting their identity. Going back to identity.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  Was there ever a time when you were interviewing or interrogating someone? And you didn't believe them, ever? But they were telling 100% the truth?

• 26:03Evy Poumpouras?

  Oh my God, you just reminded me of this case.

• 26:06Lewis Howes?

  You're just like, I know this person's lying to me, but at the end of the day, everything he said was pretty true or almost 100%.

• 26:12Evy Poumpouras?

  This was, this was, I've never, I had, it was such a simple case and it was even, it was not even for a lot of money. It was an ATM scam. This man was going to ATMs and he was taking, stealing money. Somebody would go in, use their credit card, he'd come from behind, take money. Very simple. On the ATM.

• 26:29Lewis Howes?

  Put him up with like a gun or something?

• 26:30Evy Poumpouras?

  No, no, no, no, just follow them in. There's these little skimmers that they put on top of the machines so when you scan your card, that it would pick up your information as well and then you could go. There's all these different scams. So, but when you go to the ATM, there's a camera there. It's got your full picture. So I have a picture of this guy, my perpetrator. It's a picture of him. I see him, his face, he's wearing a hat. He's wearing a New York Knicks hat. And I was like, here's my guy. All right, you know, I've got it. All I gotta do is lay the picture on. So he shows up for his interview, wearing the same New York Knicks hat. So I start speaking to him. I don't take out my evidence, right? Because I'm saving that.

• 27:12Lewis Howes?

  She knew this was a slam dunk.

• 27:14Evy Poumpouras?

  This is a slam dunk. I was like, and he didn't even steal a lot, $500, it was something.

• 27:18Lewis Howes?

  Small.

• 27:18Evy Poumpouras?

  I don't know how it landed in my lap, but it did. And sir, you took the money. No, no, miss, I swear to God, I would never do that. Sir, we have this. So I'm doing this with him for like 15 minutes. And this was a mistake on my part.

• 27:32Lewis Howes?

  We have evidence, we have proof, we have

• 27:33Evy Poumpouras?

  You know.

• 27:34Lewis Howes?

  Video footage of you at the scene.

• 27:36Evy Poumpouras?

  Never me, never me. And I pull out, I think I'm being slick, and I pull out my photo of him. Boom, right on the table.

• 27:45Evy Poumpouras?

  Who's that, sir?

• 27:48Evy Poumpouras?

  Right, and I'm sitting there, I'm all smug, I'm like, I got this guy. And he takes it, and he looks at it, he's like,

• 27:55Evy Poumpouras?

  Looks like me.

• 27:58Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah, he looks like me. He's not me.

• 28:02Evy Poumpouras?

  I was like, what? That's you. He's like, it looks like me, that's not me. Same hat, New York Knicks hat.

• 28:10Lewis Howes?

  You're wearing it right now.

• 28:11Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah, no. And I, it was a creative interview, and I remember it was for money, it was not for a lot of money. In fact, when it came to financial crimes, crimes that had to do with money, it was actually harder to get people to confess to those.

• 28:26Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 28:27Evy Poumpouras?

  Less guilt.

• 28:29Lewis Howes?

  Less guilt, they didn't hurt someone physically.

• 28:31Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes.

• 28:32Lewis Howes?

  They might have hurt them financially.

• 28:34Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes. I'm at home, I'm sitting behind my computer, I'm in my fuzzy slippers.

• 28:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:38Evy Poumpouras?

  Or even if I'm doing it at the ATM, I'm not stealing from you, I'm stealing from the bank.

• 28:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:44Evy Poumpouras?

  But it's different when I walk by you and actually put my hand in your pocket. It's different when I go into your home and I assault you.

• 28:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:52Evy Poumpouras?

  So there's, there's that level of guilt, when it's money, and especially if you steal it from an institution.

• 28:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, who cares?

• 28:58Evy Poumpouras?

  Zero guilt. Those were the hardest to get. But yeah, that was my guy, I will never forget it, that's why I started laughing.

• 29:03Lewis Howes?

  Was it him or was it not him?

• 29:04Evy Poumpouras?

  It was him, we arrested him anyway, because we had the proof. But it's always great to get, it's always helpful to have a confession. Because it really just kind of seals everything. You've got the evidence, you've got this, the person said it.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  But he never agreed to it?

• 29:19Evy Poumpouras?

  No, no, no.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  He said, "Looks like me, but it's not me."

• 29:21Evy Poumpouras?

  No, same New York Knicks hat. Yeah, I don't know, I guess he's from New York. Who doesn't like the Knicks? He just, nothing. And you could see his face. Looks like me. I got nothing from him.

• 29:30Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 29:31Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  So he never actually told the truth, but it was in fact him?

• 29:34Evy Poumpouras?

  It was him. I mean, we had evidence, we had prints, we had all that stuff. But yeah, no, he, you know, to the end, no, not me.

• 29:41Lewis Howes?

  Could you tell, like?

• 29:43Evy Poumpouras?

  I couldn't tell.

• 29:43Lewis Howes?

  You couldn't tell he was lying or not?

• 29:45Evy Poumpouras?

  I couldn't tell. No, he was so believable. But I knew going in that he was my guy.

• 29:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:51Evy Poumpouras?

  So that's why I was like, I know it's him, but it was just like, stoic. And there's a moment, I'm like, isn't that him? They're so good, you're like, am I seeing this right? Turn the photo around, I'm like, no, no, it's him, it's him, it's him. No, no, this is you. So some people are that good. Some people are that good. They will, some people, and I think this is, look, this was also somebody who committed a lot of crimes. And

• 30:14Lewis Howes?

  He was used to it.

• 30:16Evy Poumpouras?

  He's used to it. So certain people who are, who lie a lot, usually become better at it. Or they, or they don't feel bad, it becomes, become better at masking it. You obviously have a great conscience, and so it bothered you, and so all your tells were shown. You couldn't conceal it.

• 30:34Lewis Howes?

  Your heart is pumping, like your chest is tight, like your throat is clenching, you're like, ah.

• 30:39Evy Poumpouras?

  It bothered you.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:41Evy Poumpouras?

  Which is a healthy thing. It's actually a healthy thing when it bothers you. We tend to see in people who are, who have sociopathic tendencies, or antisocial tendencies, those people don't tend to be bothered. And so they can lie and can be quite calm about it. Uh, because they don't feel that guilt. The majority of people will feel guilt, so the majority of people will feel the way you feel. Because you know it's wrong, you feel it. Whereas those individuals with those tendencies, they don't care.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  What about, um, a situation that?

• 31:21Lewis Howes?

  You lied your way through where someone believed you. Is there a situation like that in the last three to five years where you lied about something you're not proud of maybe? Or that people believed, but people believed you and more than just, oh, I'm having a good day lie?

• 31:37Evy Poumpouras?

  You know what I did? I could probably confess that this is just so long ago. I went and got, it was back in the day, I got a money order from.

• 31:46Lewis Howes?

  Western Union?

• 31:47Evy Poumpouras?

  The post office.

• 31:48Lewis Howes?

  Post office.

• 31:48Evy Poumpouras?

  And you know, I was like young, I was a kid, I wasn't making a lot of money, I was in college. And so I asked for a money order for like three ninety-nine. I pay, I get it. And then as I'm leaving, I see four ninety-nine and I'm like, oh.

• 32:01Lewis Howes?

  Hundred bucks?

• 32:02Evy Poumpouras?

  Hundred bucks and I took it and to this day I remember it, it bothered me.

• 32:06Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 32:07Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah, it bothered me.

• 32:09Lewis Howes?

  Did it bother that you didn't tell the truth right then and say, hey, you guys gave me too much?

• 32:13Evy Poumpouras?

  No, I took the money.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Evy Poumpouras?

  I took the money.

• 32:15Lewis Howes?

  But it bothered you that you lied about it?

• 32:16Evy Poumpouras?

  Statute of limitations, I think I'm okay. I took the money. It bothered me afterward because I knew it was, um, I knew it was wrong. I will tell you this one story. We went.

• 32:27Lewis Howes?

  Did that come up in the Secret Service interview? Did you ever steal something like money when you were younger?

• 32:31Evy Poumpouras?

  You know what I did lie about and did come up in my Secret Service interview? I'll tell you that. I, when I applied for the job, when I went to, um, when I went to college, my parents, and I love my family. They weren't very supportive. They weren't very supportive of my decisions. My dad was a bit difficult, like they didn't really want me to go. And so when you apply for college, you need their paperwork, their tax paperwork. I needed aid. They couldn't afford it. And so my dad was so upset with me, he wouldn't give me his tax paperwork.

• 33:03Lewis Howes?

  To go to college?

• 33:04Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah. They didn't agree with my decisions because I was going to private school that, um, they could not afford. And I was like, I'll figure it out on my own. But either way, and so I lied, lied. When I went to the school, I said, I can't get this tax paperwork. You know, the main person was there is like, well, you think you can't get aid? And so I went back to the school later on and I said, I'm not living at home. I'm alone. Can I get aid? I can't get access to this tax paperwork. And then I got aid. So I flat out, I, yup, I lied and I spilled the beans in my polygraph. I was like.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  You told them this is what happened.

• 33:40Evy Poumpouras?

  I said, I lied to get financial aid. I could, because I couldn't qualify for aid. And so I was like, you know, they didn't care that I was like, look, my dad, my mom, they won't give me their tax paperwork. They're so upset with me. They don't agree with my decision to go to this school to do this. And they're like, no, unless you don't have your parents in your life. And I was just like, I was like, I'm going to college.

• 34:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:04Evy Poumpouras?

  And I lied, but in my polygraph, I was like, I have to tell you something. Actually, I said it before they hooked me up and I said, look, I did, I lied about this. I did this, you know, like, why did you do it? I was like, I wanted to go to college. I couldn't get money to go to school. So I was okay. I got the job.

• 34:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow. How many things did you tell, did you confess to before you took the polygraph?

• 34:23Evy Poumpouras?

  That was my biggest thing.

• 34:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:24Evy Poumpouras?

  That was my thing. Drugs, like I didn't, I never had, I, despite growing up in New York. I never had any issues. I, I always stayed away from it. I think because I saw so much around it, of that around me. And the more people kind of put it in my face, the more I was kind of like, I'm not doing that. But probably it would have been the opposite. If nobody did it, I'd be the one to be like, oh, I'm gonna try this. I think that was the biggest thing. It weighed the heaviest with me because I was like, I did this bad thing. I lied on my financial aid paperwork to get aid. I'm hoping the statute of limitations is expired on that as well. I paid back all my loans.

• 35:02Lewis Howes?

  I'm sure it's fine, yeah.

• 35:02Evy Poumpouras?

  I paid back all my loans.

• 35:04Lewis Howes?

  When you're, when you're in an interrogation or an interview, or you're on a first date, or you're at a, a job interview in your career, or any type of first interview with any situation, what's the best way to build command, authority and credibility?

• 35:23Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah. So you can do very simple things, like when you greet someone, hi, how are you? Come on in. Why don't you use the bathroom before we get started? So I'm not asking you, would you like to use the bathroom? I'm telling you, why don't you go use the bathroom? Why don't you have something to drink? What, what can I bring you? Right? So I'm, I'm in this subtle way, I'm telling you to go to the bathroom and you're gonna go. Because of the way I said, why don't you go to the bathroom? No, no, go before we get started. You just said authority. Um, why don't you have something to drink? Oh, no, I'm good. No, have something to drink.

• 35:56Lewis Howes?

  We're gonna be here for a little bit.

• 35:59Evy Poumpouras?

  So now I'm, I'm, I'm planting these little seeds telling you. I'm in control. I'm not telling you, but I'm doing it subtly. Have a seat there. You know, you can show me where to sit. Or on the flip side, you could also practice something called autonomy, where you let somebody choose their own seat. And that's a different tactic. So, there's two tactics.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  Where would you like to sit?

• 36:22Evy Poumpouras?

  Where would you like to sit? So, you may use that on me if you want to talk about a topic that I don't want to talk about. And so autonomy makes me feel like I have a choice. You let me choose where I'm gonna sit, because you're gonna let me have it later. You're gonna try to push me on something later.

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  I gave you something now, the law of reciprocity means you give me something later.

• 36:42Evy Poumpouras?

  Exactly. But also autonomy, though, it's actually also not reciprocity. It's actually more of I feel in control. Because we don't like to feel like we're not in control. So if you want to talk about something where I'm really uncomfortable, I don't feel like I'm in control. I will give you control elsewhere. So I will give you control in picking where you want to meet. I will give you control in what time. I will give you control in where you want to sit. Little things like that you can do where that person has autonomy to choose. We can do it here, we can talk about this, or we can talk about this. Which would you prefer? That's, um, nobody likes to feel like they don't have control.

• 37:25Evy Poumpouras?

  So a way that you can deal with a resistant person is by giving them some level of control.

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  When you're going on a first date, how is, and you've been maybe in an abusive relationship in the past where you were a doormat. You were walked on, you had no control, no authority. The person that you were in a relationship with walked over your boundaries, took advantage of you, all that. And you've had time to heal, and now you're getting back out there.

• 37:53Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  How can that person create a great dating experience in that first date to put themselves more in the driver's seat with some authority and not a doormat mentality?

• 38:05Evy Poumpouras?

  Alright, so there's two things. I think the first thing is, don't take out on that person what was done to you by somebody else.

• 38:13Lewis Howes?

  That's the worst.

• 38:14Evy Poumpouras?

  They're just, you know, because we've all been victims of things to some degree, right? And let's say even if it was, it was abusive, it was horrible, it was that. It is also not fair to take that out on an innocent person. Like to take your trauma out to someone else. And sometimes we can feel trauma elsewhere and then project it on to someone else who didn't cause that to us. So I would say that's the most important thing because it will allow you to connect. The other thing I will say is the majority of people tend to trust. When we have relationships with people, we tend to go and trust people. So when someone says something to you, you tend to believe it.

• 38:57Lewis Howes?

  Believe it.

• 38:57Evy Poumpouras?

  The average person.

• 38:58Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 38:59Evy Poumpouras?

  We're just engineered that way. And I don't even know why that is, but we tend to sway towards trusting the person. In law enforcement, actually, it's the opposite. Law enforcement officials are notorious for thinking people are deceitful. So the average person believes people are honest. Law enforcement believes people are deceitful because they deal with more people who lie. But that causes a problem elsewhere because when you do have innocent people.

• 39:27Lewis Howes?

  Or tell the truth.

• 39:28Evy Poumpouras?

  They're telling you the truth and then you get false confessions. You get problems, you're looking at the wrong person because you're confirmation biased. That's a whole other animal over there. But knowing that we tend to give people, we tend to believe people automatically. Just hold a little bit of that back. Don't.

• 39:48Lewis Howes?

  Believe less?

• 39:49Evy Poumpouras?

  Just be more reserved in how much you trust.

• 39:52Lewis Howes?

  Discerning about it, yeah.

• 39:53Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes, just don't put it all out on the table. Oh, my God, this guy's great or gal's great, I just connected with them. And then what we do, we go nose in. And so you don't want to give unconditional trust. So unconditional trust is like I give you now trust across the board. I trust you in everything. When you start dating someone or any new relationship, even in business, always conditional trust. I'm not going to trust you all the way, I'm going to trust you part of the way. So now here's the thing, we love to trust unconditionally, which is probably why we tend to just want to give people trust. It's less work. I could just turn my brain off. I can trust you, Louis.

• 40:34Lewis Howes?

  Great story, yeah.

• 40:35Evy Poumpouras?

  Louis, ask me anything you want, because you asked me in the beginning, is there anything off the table? I'm like, no, Louis, go ahead and ask. But you give that person unconditional trust, and I don't have to think so hard. I don't have to worry if you're gonna manipulate me. I don't have to be on my guard. It's easy. It's easier, that relationship. Conditional trust means I have to be a bit more careful. So it's like me going to buy a car. I know, I'm dealing with a car salesman. I know I should be careful. It's just understood that they try to get you to buy certain things, they use certain language. So when I go in, I go in with conditional trust. And so I'm better protected. That's why there, you're less likely to get hurt in those situations where you understand, I can't fully give everything to this person. I can't fully trust them conditionally.

• 41:20Evy Poumpouras?

  I can, um, so I, excuse me, unconditionally, so I have to just be careful. The thing is, that's work. It's a lot of work. We get tired. We access a specific part of the brain when we do that, a more complex part of the brain. So that's why unconditional trust, you don't wanna give it right away. And that is why when we get betrayed by people close to us, that's why it hurts more.

• 41:45Lewis Howes?

  The most, yeah.

• 41:46Evy Poumpouras?

  It's usually by people who betrayed us on, uh, who we give unconditional trust to.

• 41:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:51Evy Poumpouras?

  That's my advice for dating.

• 41:53Lewis Howes?

  That's when it stings. Would you use the same approach if, let's say you're, you know, I haven't been on a first date in forever, but let's say you're on a date, your first date, with someone, would you say, hey, why don't you have some water? Why don't you use the restroom first? Where would you like to sit? Would you do the same approach there?

• 42:10Evy Poumpouras?

  I, I would not, because I don't wanna establish authority there. That's not, if you're looking to have a relationship, I would not do that. That's not, that's, that's creepy.

• 42:22Evy Poumpouras?

  That's a controlling, unhealthy relationship.

• 42:23Lewis Howes?

  What should you establish, trust?

• 42:25Evy Poumpouras?

  I think rapport and trust. And I think probably the best thing you can do is just not talk about yourself and listen to that other person. Just ask about them.

• 42:34Lewis Howes?

  What would be the, the?

• 42:35Evy Poumpouras?

  You did that to me when I walked in.

• 42:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:37Evy Poumpouras?

  It was like, Evy, boom, boom, boom, boom. I was like, ah.

• 42:39Lewis Howes?

  What would be the three question, three most fascinating questions someone could ask on a first date? That would not be interrogational, but be, uh...

• 42:50Lewis Howes?

  Connecting questions.

• 42:52Evy Poumpouras?

  Ted, tell me, tell me about yourself. Explain to me what your dreams are. Describe to me what your, you know, what your hopes are. Don't, don't create a question because you may ask a question that you think is fascinating and they're gonna look at you like that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

• 43:07Evy Poumpouras?

  You don't, right? Because we, you don't know what they think like, what they, what their aspirations are, what their...

• 43:13Lewis Howes?

  We're on a hypothetical first date. What would you say to me? Using the tech.

• 43:17Evy Poumpouras?

  Tell me about your podcast. I'd love to hear all about it.

• 43:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, okay.

• 43:20Evy Poumpouras?

  Explain to me how you got into that.

• 43:23Evy Poumpouras?

  Describe to me like what it's like when you interview all these different people. I'm gonna shut up and I'm gonna let you go, Louis. Because now I get to hear you. I get to see what you're like, your values, your beliefs, what excites you, what doesn't excite you. Excite you. You're gonna tell me about why you started it. You're gonna tell me about your background, what got you into it? Any growing pains or heartaches or how this happened? You're gonna tell me about your favorite guests. You're not favorite guests. You're gonna tell me about the amazing things you learned or maybe some of the things that you were like, I can't believe I brought this guest on. And so now you just opened up this world and I had to do no work and I can just listen.

• 43:57Lewis Howes?

  These are more indirect questions, is that right? Or open-ended?

• 44:00Evy Poumpouras?

  Open-ended questions.

• 44:01Lewis Howes?

  So don't ask a direct question. Who is your favorite guest? Don't say that.

• 44:06Evy Poumpouras?

  I would tell me about, tell me about your guests. And then I would allow you to naturally tell me on your own because you feel like you're in control and it's more likely that you will tell me on your own. But if I ask you directly and if you wanna protect the integrity of the people you interview because you don't wanna say, this is my favorite guest to make it public because then that's, it's gonna hurt the people that come on the show, right? Your clientele, so to speak, your guests. So I would, you're not gonna answer it. You're gonna be reluctant. Oh, Evy, I love everybody.

• 44:37Lewis Howes?

  It's like my kids, you know? You can't say your favorite kid. It's all your kids.

• 44:41Evy Poumpouras?

  You're gonna say that. It's like when people ask me, who's your favorite president? I always say, I love them all. They're all, I love protecting all of them. But if somebody says, tell me about the people you protected or tell me about the presidents you protected. Now, I feel comfortable. I'm in control. I'm talking. The more we talk, the more we leak. I'm less guarded. It's less direct. I don't even know you're trying to find that and I may naturally on my own get them.

• 45:08Lewis Howes?

  Tell me about a characteristic of a president that wowed you the most.

• 45:16Evy Poumpouras?

  You know.

• 45:17Lewis Howes?

  You like that opener? You like that opener?

• 45:18Evy Poumpouras?

  Oh, you used Ted on me.

• 45:21Lewis Howes?

  A characteristic from one of the presidents that you were just like, obviously that they're all inspiring in some way, I'm assuming, for you, but tell me about a characteristic or a a belief, a mindset, an approach, a strategy that one of them used that wowed you.

• 45:37Evy Poumpouras?

  I liked, there's a couple, there's like little things. I'll tell you, President, former President George Bush Senior, he used to write note cards to everybody. He had a little, he wrote note cards, "Thank you so much." He would just send little note cards to people. And I saw what an impact that made to people to receive a handwritten note. He handwrote it from someone saying, "Thank you, I appreciate you." And to this day, I do that. And I, and I took that, I took that from George, President George Bush. Because I saw that and I was like, what a wonderful thing. And I saw how much of an impact that did. It was a very little thing, but I, I took that from him. So whenever I meet someone, or there's an exchange or something,

• 46:22Evy Poumpouras?

  I will write a handwritten note card. "Thank you for your time, I appreciate it." And it, it does a lot.

• 46:28Lewis Howes?

  Did he write you a card?

• 46:29Evy Poumpouras?

  He did not write me a card. He wasn't my full-time protectee, but I watched.

• 46:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you watched him actually write it for other people?

• 46:36Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah.

• 46:37Lewis Howes?

  Or you saw other people get it?

• 46:38Evy Poumpouras?

  Both. You would see them when they would work and you would know what they did or didn't do. But that's what he did.

• 46:44Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 46:45Evy Poumpouras?

  Another characteristics, I think, I liked President Obama. I liked the way he spoke.

• 46:54Evy Poumpouras?

  And for me, that was very, I appreciated that because I, although I was an agent and an interviewer, I didn't know how to speak for myself. It's weird, right? I could speak on behalf of the government and the law and all that. Um, but I never paid attention to the way I spoke to people. And what I loved, you could hear him, you could hear him. Usually you call Renegade, I could say it, it's public, it's on, it's in his book. Renegade on the Move, right? You could, you could hear the agents say that. But you could hear him. You could hear him, you could, I love the way he echoed his voice and projected his voice and didn't hold it back.

• 47:33Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 47:34Evy Poumpouras?

  And how he took his time to speak. Where a lot of people speak very fast because we feel that we're not worthy of somebody's time. I don't want to take up too much of your time, so I'm gonna speak fast. We do that. We feel like, let me just hurry up and say this. This person's probably busy. He has things to do. And then he really projected his voice. Like it boomed through the hallways. And that was a person who was not shy of being present, of taking taking us a space and letting you know, I'm here and my voice is relevant. I like that.

• 48:10Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's powerful.

• 48:12Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes.

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  Any other characteristics from anyone else?

• 48:16Evy Poumpouras?

  Hmm, there's so many.

• 48:19Lewis Howes?

  The ones that wowed you, that stood out?

• 48:21Evy Poumpouras?

  They all did, like, they were all great. George Washington, George Washington.

• 48:25Lewis Howes?

  How old are you?

• 48:30Evy Poumpouras?

  GW, President George Bush. He, like, I love going to the ranch with him. I'm from New York City. I go to Texas. And I was just like, what the, you know? It was like, we were out in the wild. He's like, we're going, we couldn't make trails. I was like, why are we gonna make trails? There's a road right there. You know, we'd cut trails and hike. And he was very authentic. Who he was on camera was who he was off camera and vice versa. He was very just real. And so you'd see these qualities with different people and, you know, it's kind of interesting. I just thought of it. I was almost like in my own school of greatness. By being in the White House.

• 49:12Evy Poumpouras?

  And then over all the years of about, you're around all these people, these influential leaders, despite, forget politics. It still takes a person of some

• 49:23Lewis Howes?

  To get there.

• 49:23Evy Poumpouras?

  To, yes, to get there. And so you watch them, and they're not just them. They've got cabinet members, other individuals who, you know, you watch and you listen to, you see how they problem solve. And I was in my own school of greatness where I just got to be front row. And you're doing your job, but at the same time, you're like, You're listening, you're watching, you're absorbing. I loved it.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  Were there any strategies you witnessed or watched or observed from them telling you or not telling you on how they commanded respect and authority? In just their way of being, tonality? Was it touching people, you know, on their hand, is it, you know, whatever it is, eye contact? What were the things that they did or that some of them did that really stood out to you?

• 50:12Evy Poumpouras?

  So I'll tell you this, they didn't have to work as hard.

• 50:14Lewis Howes?

  Because they're already the authority.

• 50:16Evy Poumpouras?

  Because they're already the authority. So you don't, so I want to say that, like, they don't, a person can look at you and be like, hey, how you doing? And then like blow you off and you're like, oh my God, I got like a whole solid second. Whereas when they're talking to me or you, it's just like, you only gave me a second, right? So they don't have to work as hard. So even the little attention they give you lands on you. However, though, eye contact is huge. When you talk to someone and you want to convey, you want to convey, hey, trust me. And rapport, this is huge. In fact, if you go to the supermarket and you look at cereal boxes. They have cartoon, the characters on the cereal boxes.

• 50:55Lewis Howes?

  They're looking at you.

• 50:56Evy Poumpouras?

  You know where they, a lot of them look down? They're looking down. You know who they're looking down? You'll see cereal boxes where the character looks down.

• 51:02Lewis Howes?

  At the cereal?

• 51:03Evy Poumpouras?

  No, I'm a cereal box, right? I'm the Trix Rabbit or whatever, right? Now, you go shopping, I'm not looking at you, I'm looking down. Why am I looking down?

• 51:12Lewis Howes?

  The rabbit's looking down.

• 51:13Evy Poumpouras?

  Right, the rabbit's looking down. Thank you.

• 51:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:16Evy Poumpouras?

  Because the kid's the consumer.

• 51:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, not the adult.

• 51:18Evy Poumpouras?

  No, the kid's gonna say, Mom.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  Come grab me.

• 51:21Evy Poumpouras?

  Mom, buy that for me.

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 51:23Evy Poumpouras?

  So they designed them to actually look down and they also put them at a certain level. And so maybe in adult cereal, they'll have the person looking at you higher up because they're looking at the adult. Eye contact is huge. It conveys, "Trust me. Talk to me, I'm here, I'm connected with you." Even when you wanna listen to people. Normally, we do break eye contact, but good communicators will lock in. They're not uncomfortable. They're there, I'm with you, I'm connected with you. That is huge. But you touched on, literally touching people. And you would see a tactic. I don't wanna say a tactic, but a, no, it's a tactic.

• 52:02Lewis Howes?

  It's a strategy.

• 52:03Evy Poumpouras?

  It's a strategy. Is, you know, "Hey, you know, Louis," and, you know, and maybe I like to touch your forearm.

• 52:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:09Evy Poumpouras?

  You can do that. But I will say today.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  You can't do that.

• 52:12Evy Poumpouras?

  Today is very different.

• 52:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:13Evy Poumpouras?

  You know, they would teach us that. They're like, "Hey, you can touch the top of a person's knee and just be like, 'Hey.'" And I could be like, "Whoa, unwanted touch." So now, I would actually go against that. I would actually encourage people not to do that, just simply because you don't know how it's gonna be received. And now today, it's, you gotta be a little bit, less is more with that.

• 52:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, shaking your hand, maybe that's it for...

• 52:35Evy Poumpouras?

  I think so.

• 52:36Lewis Howes?

  A second hand on the top, like a genuine heartfelt for two seconds and then let it go.

• 52:40Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah, I think so, I think so. You wanna respect people's space. It's a little bit different. I think we have more, well, we do have more social space now.

• 52:48Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 52:48Evy Poumpouras?

  And it's interesting how that's gonna change the dynamics of how we interact in the future.

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. How do you build that trust without being present and more connected and touching and...

• 52:57Evy Poumpouras?

  Right, and you have a mask. You can't even see the lower portion of a person's face, which conceals their expressions, their gestures. So it's even harder to read them.

• 53:06Lewis Howes?

  So how do we read people like that? Is it more body language then of like, shoulders down as opposed to...

• 53:11Evy Poumpouras?

  It's harder. In person's always better. And obviously, if you're on Zoom, you can see the person. But the tone, the inflection of the voice, does it change, does it not? The body posture. Again, sometimes it's just as simple as how they say something. You know, the way they deliver a story. For example, when I worked cases, sometimes I did, I did interviews and interrogations and I would be asked to help local police departments sometimes. And they'd say, "Look, we have..." This case and it we've got three suspects, but we can't figure out who it is. And I would, you know, I'd I'd always want to interview the person I thought it was. And so I would say, send me, do you have statements? And they say, yes.

• 53:56Evy Poumpouras?

  And I'd say, send me the statements that they wrote.

• 53:58Lewis Howes?

  Written statements.

• 53:59Evy Poumpouras?

  Written statements.

• 54:00Lewis Howes?

  About what they said, they their story is.

• 54:03Evy Poumpouras?

  Their story is, correct. Because these are people typically that had been already interviewed by local police. They got nothing, they have no proof, so they would reach out and they say, look, you guys are polygraph examiners, you're you have a bit more expertise in this. Will you help us out? It's an important case. And so I'd say, send me their statements. And so I'd look at their statements. And based on their statements, I would be able sometimes, most of the time to tell who um likely did it. And it was those statements that and this also happens when we tell a story, when we speak. When you ask somebody, what did you do yesterday? Well, they deliver you deliver a beautiful story to you that has a beginning.

• 54:46Lewis Howes?

  Every two minutes, yeah.

• 54:48Evy Poumpouras?

  And an end, it's an arc. When it's a story, it's an arc, it's typically manufactured.

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  That's a lie, usually.

• 54:54Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes, because we don't typically talk about our stuff like that. And so when I would read a story, I would read a statement and if I read like a story. Because the person's like the liar is like, oh, I gotta write a story, I gotta tell them what I did here. Then that here they're they're manufacturing it. A truthful person is gonna write how their day went. And a truthful person also makes spontaneous corrections. So it contradicts what a lot of people think in that if I correct myself as I'm telling you something.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  Then it looks like I'm hiding something.

• 55:26Evy Poumpouras?

  And I'm I'm I um it looks like I'm yes, I'm correcting myself because I'm hiding something I can't remember my lie. And it's actually not true.

• 55:36Lewis Howes?

  Those are the honest ones.

• 55:38Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes.

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  Actually, that was a mistake.

• 55:39Evy Poumpouras?

  It's a spontaneous correction. When it's unsolicited and somebody you're speaking to, or even in writing, you'll see a scribble. It's okay. If it's a spontaneous correction, meaning they're correcting themselves as they're speaking to you, it indicates truthfulness.

• 55:54Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's an interesting little.

• 55:57Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes. And also too, like a little one, when somebody uses quotes when they talk to you, they'll say, oh, he said, and quote, you know, they'll tell you something somebody said in quotes, like, he said, you know, this in quotes, that's also truthful.

• 56:09Lewis Howes?

  The air quotes.

• 56:10Evy Poumpouras?

  The air quotes.

• 56:10Lewis Howes?

  When someone uses that, not on the written paper quotes, but.

• 56:13Evy Poumpouras?

  Oh, even in both, yes.

• 56:15Lewis Howes?

  Someone uses quotes.

• 56:16Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes.

• 56:16Lewis Howes?

  And I repeat, this said this, that means they're telling more likely the truth.

• 56:20Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 56:22Evy Poumpouras?

  Because they're, um, they're being very specific. Uh, we also know based on the research, people who lie, lie vaguely. Remember I said, it's work, it's hard work, it's you're trying to create a lie, tell a lie, remember the lie, listen to the person speaking to you, think about what you want to say, there's so much going on. And so, what they do is they, they lie vaguely because it's too hard for me to remember all these details, create all these details, it's just too much, it's a heavy cognitive load.

• 56:54Lewis Howes?

  I heard one time in one of these books or somewhere that when you say, I did not, as opposed to, I didn't do it. When you're like more specific of like, I did not do this, is that generally speaking more untruthful?

• 57:10Evy Poumpouras?

  So, again, it depends on the person.

• 57:12Lewis Howes?

  I'm thinking of a famous president that said, I did not commit these sexual relations.

• 57:17Evy Poumpouras?

  Well, he, he, we know he was dishonest, but, okay, so you said that statement, I did not. And so, it is true, most people like when, did you have pizza this morning for breakfast?

• 57:28Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 57:29Evy Poumpouras?

  You're not gonna be like, Evy, I did not have pizza this morning for breakfast, right? You're not gonna work so hard. So, when people lie, they work very hard sometimes to sell you the lie.

• 57:42Lewis Howes?

  Tell you the full story.

• 57:43Evy Poumpouras?

  Think of a car salesman, how hard do they work you, like, oh, you gotta get this, this is great. So, when people work that hard, um.

• 57:52Evy Poumpouras?

  It's likely that there's some deception there. But if I'm just like, "No, go pound sand, I didn't do it." And I don't, you know, the truth is typically simple.

• 58:02Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 58:03Evy Poumpouras?

  But if that person, though, in their everyday speech, always speaks like that, that's where you want to be careful. Because maybe I'm that person who does that. Or another thing that people say are to be weary of is like when people start up with a sentence saying, "Honestly, honestly, I would never do that."

• 58:22Lewis Howes?

  Truthfully, this would never happen.

• 58:23Evy Poumpouras?

  Right, but if I use that in my conversation, I sprinkle that all the time into the way I speak, if it's part of my language, then I'm not lying, it's just the way I color my language.

• 58:34Lewis Howes?

  That's why it's good to use the TED approach

• 58:37Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah.

• 58:38Lewis Howes?

  to talk for twenty, thirty minutes to see how they normally talk.

• 58:41Evy Poumpouras?

  How do they speak? What are their mannerisms? And you can ask them truthful, truthful questions about, you know, something where maybe they have to remember something, tell you something like that you know is truthful, rather than just how they feel. And that's, you know, that'll give you indication of like, so you know for sure they're telling me the truth here. You know, "Oh, tell us about how it was coming in this morning." Or something very simple, you can ask questions that are benign. They don't, they don't evoke anything.

• 59:12Lewis Howes?

  It's not a yes or no answer.

• 59:13Evy Poumpouras?

  No, they don't evoke anything. However, though, evocation, so we're rolling into all these techniques, is a very good one you have someone who's reluctant to speak with you, when you want to evoke emotion. So when you have somebody that's shut down on you, I may call you a liar, because I want you to give me something, because you're giving me nothing.

• 59:35Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 59:36Evy Poumpouras?

  And so, this is why it's so important to TED people, or to know the person you have across from you, because if I have a resistant person, I'm going to speak a certain way. If I have a high conflict person, I'm going to speak a certain way. If I have a business relationship and they're amicable, I'm going to speak a different way. If I have someone who's identity-based, this is why really paying attention to the human being across from you matters. Once you do this, and then you're going to, you're going to know, you're going to start ticking people like, "Up, identity, up, instrumental, up, high conflict." And then you're, and then you know how to maneuver.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:00:13Lewis Howes?

  What um what could you test on me right now to see whether I'm lying or telling the truth? But something maybe not some crazy thing, but just.

• 1:00:21Evy Poumpouras?

  I can't, it won't work because you're telling me to do it, you're prepared for it.

• 1:00:25Lewis Howes?

  Ah, okay.

• 1:00:26Evy Poumpouras?

  That's where I went there.

• 1:00:27Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:00:27Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes, it doesn't work like that.

• 1:00:28Lewis Howes?

  It won't work, it never works.

• 1:00:29Evy Poumpouras?

  Never works.

• 1:00:30Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:00:31Evy Poumpouras?

  No, because you know, you're ready.

• 1:00:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Evy Poumpouras?

  You're gonna lie, you're gonna lock in, you're gonna do everything I just taught you.

• 1:00:37Lewis Howes?

  Well, my my goal would be to tell the truth and to see if you actually believe it or not.

• 1:00:41Evy Poumpouras?

  It has to be organic.

• 1:00:42Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha, yeah.

• 1:00:43Evy Poumpouras?

  And it can't be manufactured and it's and I wouldn't go straight for it. I would, you know, maybe if I wanted to know about your past criminal history.

• 1:00:51Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:00:51Evy Poumpouras?

  When you were younger.

• 1:00:52Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:00:52Evy Poumpouras?

  And there was something that you were, maybe one of those things you really didn't wanna talk about and I knew it. Then I would try to build rapport and get you to speak about it. Or I'd ask you, why don't you wanna speak about it? Because sometimes I would have someone and they're like, look, I don't wanna talk about this. And I would say, okay, why don't you wanna talk about this? It's okay, you don't have to tell me what it is, but why don't you? And sometimes that was a great way for me to open the door. So if I had somebody who would not confess to a crime, you know, or whatever, and I would say, could you just tell me why you don't wanna talk about this? Or what are you so worried about if this gets out? And I remember one case, one person said, I don't want my wife to find out.

• 1:01:36Evy Poumpouras?

  And that moment, I was like, he did it, he did it, he did it, he did it. Because he just told me why. If he didn't do it or she didn't do it, that wouldn't be in their mind.

• 1:01:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Evy Poumpouras?

  And so people can tell you, so you can start there. Why don't you wanna talk about this? Why do you feel this way? What are you worried about? And so that's a different angle for him, instead of being like, tell me this. Go back to how they feel. Go to identity.

• 1:02:02Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:04Evy Poumpouras?

  Tell me what it is you're afraid of. Tell me what you're so worried about. Why do you feel that you can't share this? You don't have to tell me anything, just tell me what's going on with you. As long as I could keep somebody talking, that's it. You just gotta keep them doing this.

• 1:02:20Lewis Howes?

  What was your biggest fear as a, as an agent?

• 1:02:24Evy Poumpouras?

  If we're talking interviews, there's two. If we're talking interviews, I never wanted an innocent person to confess to a crime they never committed.

• 1:02:32Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, that's, that's sad.

• 1:02:34Evy Poumpouras?

  And I was always very, very, very careful. I actually aired on the side, this is, I actually aired more so on the side. I gave more people benefit than the other way around, because to me, it was worse to have...

• 1:02:47Lewis Howes?

  Someone in jail who didn't do it.

• 1:02:49Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes.

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  That is like, the worst thing. It's gotta be horrible for that person.

• 1:02:53Evy Poumpouras?

  That was, like, something that I was very, very, very aware of.

• 1:02:58Lewis Howes?

  How many people you think are in prison or jail for something they didn't do?

• 1:03:02Evy Poumpouras?

  A lot.

• 1:03:02Lewis Howes?

  Right now?

• 1:03:03Evy Poumpouras?

  I think quite a few. And I think we see it, when you look at now the DNA testing that we do, the scientific testing that we do, to see who gave false confessions, um, to see how people were manipulated and maneuvered. And it's not, it's not always because the interviewer is bad, it's because they tend to think, again, law enforcement tends to think most people are deceptive. You come in, Louis is my guy, I know Louis is my guy. So now, no matter what you say, my, my, even when you're trying, even when you are saying things that are, are showing your innocence, I'm still focused on you did it. So it's confirmation bias. No matter what you say, I'm gonna make it fit the narrative I want, which is, you did it.

• 1:03:48Evy Poumpouras?

  And so that was a, a very important thing, because I had seen it, I knew

• 1:03:53Lewis Howes?

  Man, that's tough.

• 1:03:54Evy Poumpouras?

  how you could do it. And I had people in the room, if they're young, if they're mental health issues, or sometimes you get people in weak moments, or sometimes people see you, you're law enforcement, you're you're the authority, you're police, I'm supposed to trust you, and they do. And they don't realize that the law allows for police and law enforcement to use deception in the room to get you to confess. It is legal. So I could say to you, what if, what if I told you I have fingerprints?

• 1:04:23Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:04:24Evy Poumpouras?

  I got no fingerprints. What if I told you I have fingerprints? What if I told you that, what would you say? I'm lying, I'm using manipulation. And so some of that stuff...

• 1:04:34Evy Poumpouras?

  It's not, you know, there's a lot of research and science on this now, like, it's not good. You don't, you don't want to lie to people. You wanna try to stay, you really wanna try to read them, understand them, and just get them to talk to you. And that's also important, not just with solving cases, but when you interview victims, witnesses. Sometimes, the inability to interview somebody properly affects whether a case gets solved or not. So if I don't know how to effectively interview a witness or a victim, I can get bad information.

• 1:05:08Lewis Howes?

  How tall are you?

• 1:05:10Evy Poumpouras?

  Five two.

• 1:05:10Lewis Howes?

  Five two, mighty five two. When you went into the, uh, when you went to be an agent, I'm assuming it was a lot of men when you were there in the start. Is that, is that correct? Much taller, bigger, in general, right? More than, more than five two.

• 1:05:28Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever feel insecure, or intimidated, or a lack of self-confidence? Being in the position you were in?

• 1:05:35Evy Poumpouras?

  No, and I don't know if it was maybe my dad, like, even though my parents, like, I had certain issues, but, I don't know, like, I never thought about that. I never went in thinking, I shouldn't be here. I never went in, oh, I'm a woman. I went, I'm like, oh, man, I'm the only woman, good for me. I really had a different mindset. I was proud that, oh my god, there's only like, there's no other women. I'm like, good for me. If I went to a meeting. Yes, I was proud of that fact. So I never looked at it as a negative, why, I'm the only woman. I was just like, I was just like, good job. So that's how I took it and I, I was proud of that. And so that kept me going. I, I, I didn't think about my gender. I, I just did my job.

• 1:06:20Evy Poumpouras?

  And if, and look, will people treat you differently? Will that stuff happen? Yes, it will. Whether it's gender, race, that stuff happens. I don't care what anyone says, it happens.

• 1:06:30Evy Poumpouras?

  But I cannot alter myself and I cannot let you, who I know you're wrong anyway, impact me and not, and, and not do my job, but because now psychologically you're in my head. I remember I went to, I usually don't share these stories, but I went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado. President Obama was gonna go speak.

• 1:06:55Evy Poumpouras?

  And I was the agent in charge of the outside perimeter of the stadium. And then I was there with several other agents and we're meeting the head person, he was a Colonel Lieutenant Colonel Colonel in the Air Force. I don't remember. So it's me, all male agents, there's about several of us.

• 1:07:11Lewis Howes?

  You were in charge.

• 1:07:12Evy Poumpouras?

  I was in charge of the outer perimeter. Yes, I was one of the two people in charge. There was the other agent was in charge of the inner perimeter and then everybody else worked for us. Not worked for us, they were supporting us. And so the Colonel comes and he comes in and so let's say, you know, here's, here's everybody, here are all the agents, I'm in the middle. And the Colonel comes and he's like, nice to meet you, nice to meet you, nice to meet you. This legit happened. I'm right here and it's like.

• 1:07:38Lewis Howes?

  No, he did not.

• 1:07:39Evy Poumpouras?

  Nice to meet you.

• 1:07:40Lewis Howes?

  He skipped you.

• 1:07:40Evy Poumpouras?

  He skipped me.

• 1:07:42Lewis Howes?

  And you were in charge.

• 1:07:43Evy Poumpouras?

  And he was, he did, you know, it shouldn't have even mattered. And so it took everything in me to not be like, to not blow up.

• 1:07:50Lewis Howes?

  Over your.

• 1:07:51Evy Poumpouras?

  He went over, he skipped me. He skipped me.

• 1:07:55Lewis Howes?

  The guy next to you, you.

• 1:07:57Evy Poumpouras?

  He assumed I was either a secretary.

• 1:07:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:08:00Evy Poumpouras?

  Or staff or something. Cause he's like, hey, let me talk to the other.

• 1:08:03Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:08:04Evy Poumpouras?

  I remember that. And I was just like, does this guy do this? I'm like, this guy just did this. You know, I'm having an internal dialogue with me. I said nothing. I said nothing. I was like, doesn't matter. I was like, he's gonna find out who's in charge in a couple hours. And he did. Hi, I'm the agent in charge of your outer perimeter. Who's my counterpart and who do I speak to?

• 1:08:23Lewis Howes?

  So you didn't take it personally?

• 1:08:24Evy Poumpouras?

  I didn't look dumb. He looked dumb. I think, why would I take it personally if somebody is ignorant enough to do that? And why would I want that person's attention or respect? I, in my mind, I was just like, you can keep all of that. I'm gonna go get, do my job.

• 1:08:42Lewis Howes?

  Do my job, yeah.

• 1:08:43Evy Poumpouras?

  That's exactly, so I, you can't, at least for me, I never let it get in my head because it's like, I have a job to do, I have a mission to do. And if I get people, if I allow somebody to get in my head, people will die.

• 1:08:57Evy Poumpouras?

  I'm not doing that.

• 1:08:58Lewis Howes?

  Right. Were you ever nervous in interviews or interrogations?

• 1:09:03Evy Poumpouras?

  In the beginning, I was worried about, I was worried about not being respected. I was worried about, because I didn't want to be an interrogator. I did not want to be one.

• 1:09:15Lewis Howes?

  Not being respected by the perpetrator, not the team.

• 1:09:19Evy Poumpouras?

  Oh, the team.

• 1:09:20Lewis Howes?

  Not your team, Secret Service team.

• 1:09:22Evy Poumpouras?

  No, because at that point, when I became an interrogator, I went to specialized training. They were scared of me. Because then I started doing the polygraphs for new recruits.

• 1:09:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:09:32Evy Poumpouras?

  And so they would tell me all their personal bad stuff that they did. I had it all. I had all the goods. And then six months later, they see me in the hallway, and I'm like, hey, how you doing? And they're just like, oh my god, she knows all my dirty stuff. So no, after that, people were kind of like, hey, you almost like repel people.

• 1:09:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:49Evy Poumpouras?

  But you know, you never speak about that stuff. When people expose themselves like that to you, you don't do that.

• 1:09:55Lewis Howes?

  Right. So you got nervous a couple of times in the beginning?

• 1:09:58Evy Poumpouras?

  In the beginning, I didn't want to be an interviewer or an interrogator, because I thought nobody would respect me. I was like, these guys are gonna see me, and they're gonna be like...

• 1:10:06Lewis Howes?

  The perpetrators.

• 1:10:07Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes, perpetrators. Because you're dealing with sometimes really hardened people. And they see you come in, and they're like, this girl!

• 1:10:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:14Evy Poumpouras?

  And I was like, you, I really had in my head the image of something else, and what you see on television. I didn't know. And afterward, I realized that the idea that I didn't look intimidating, and that they were not expecting me, they're like, oh, this is a piece of cake. And they sit back, like, what do you want to talk about? I was like, let's talk about anything you want. And then, sure enough, admission after admission after admission, to the point like, hey, do you mind just writing all that down for me here, right here? Thank you. And you have a confession.

• 1:10:46Lewis Howes?

  You probably did it, I mean, you're probably easier, you're less intimidating to look at, maybe, in terms of like this big man that you'd see on TV, like in your face.

• 1:10:54Evy Poumpouras?

  That stuff doesn't work, by the way. None of that works. It looks great for TV. In real life, male or female, when you impose yourself on someone like that to that extent, they shut down, they get nervous, they're intimidated, they may tell you anything, just to get you to leave them alone. Those are not good tactics. I'm not saying that they're not used by a lot of interviewers and law enforcement. I think they are. Because there's those moments where I'd do an interview with someone from another department, and I'd sit there, and I'm like...

• 1:11:25Lewis Howes?

  This is not the way to do it.

• 1:11:26Evy Poumpouras?

  It was rough sometimes, but you can't, you can't tell somebody, hey, don't do this, I'm in your house. But there were moments where sometimes it was harder. So I usually would do them with either an experienced interrogator from my own agency because we knew how to work together. It was only like thirty of us. So you would, you know, I would say, I want this person for this. If it was like a child pedophile case, we had one guy who I knew was great. I'm like, I want that guy. If it was terrorism, I'd say, I want this guy because he's really good. And I say guy because they're mostly, mostly guys, not all. But even the female interrogators, we had some good ones.

• 1:12:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And so, when was the time where you felt like, oh, I'm in, I'm in trouble? I said the wrong thing, I messed up, like, it's about to go down the wrong way? Was there ever a time like that? Or were you always pretty much in control?

• 1:12:14Evy Poumpouras?

  I never felt like that because it's a conversation.

• 1:12:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:12:17Evy Poumpouras?

  I let it flow. It wasn't very rigid. If I have just an agenda and I have, I have to go from here to here, to here, to here, that's where adaptability comes in. I didn't go in saying, here's my plan, here's my agenda, and I have to follow this. Because I have to allow the person to go where they want to go. So I may ask them, what did you do last night? Tell me about your night. And now they're telling me about, you know, how every night they go to karate. And oh, let me tell you, I started doing karate. And they're telling me this whole other story. And I'm thinking, I don't want to know about how you started karate. I want to know about last night. But I would allow them that ability to do that. Or sometimes you have somebody who's worried about it, who's maybe angry that they're there.

• 1:12:59Evy Poumpouras?

  And I would have to allow them to talk about what they wanted, to get off their chest, why they were angry, why they were there, what they were scared of, so that they could get it off their chest and then talk to me.

• 1:13:12Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Were the people that were angry mostly innocent or no?

• 1:13:19Evy Poumpouras?

  Mixed.

• 1:13:20Lewis Howes?

  Mixed, yeah.

• 1:13:21Evy Poumpouras?

  It was a mix. It would go where

• 1:13:25Evy Poumpouras?

  sometimes usually innocent people would be like, I'm done, I'm leaving. But then sometimes you'd have innocent people be like, no, if I keep talking and I tell the truth, they'll, they'll, they'll see it. So I can't say it was one or the other, but guilty people tend to like to stay in the room.

• 1:13:44Lewis Howes?

  Why, why?

• 1:13:45Evy Poumpouras?

  Because I gotta convince you. I gotta get you off my back. Because I'm not, because you're not gonna go away. So you can get up and leave the room, but the investigation's still open.

• 1:13:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:56Evy Poumpouras?

  I'm still looking at you. So their goal is to get you.

• 1:13:59Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. To convince you.

• 1:14:01Evy Poumpouras?

  Don't look at me anymore. Go look at this other guy. Let me, let me throw some other people your way. And so that's the goal. So they would stay in the room. It's like the car salesman. Always think of the car salesman, working hard, working hard, working hard. I, I, I don't want you to look at me anymore. I want you to look at someone else because you're gonna keep on coming back. If I could get you to look at this other person, now I'm good. So that's why they usually stay. They usually would not leave. Guilty people would stay.

• 1:14:27Lewis Howes?

  And how would you influence people to trust you and believe you and like you?

• 1:14:30Evy Poumpouras?

  I would be genuine.

• 1:14:33Evy Poumpouras?

  I, I, I would tell them the truth. Look, this isn't my case. And often, usually it wasn't. It's not my case. I was like, if you didn't do anything, you didn't do anything. If you did, if you did do something, I get it, we'll work through it.

• 1:14:49Evy Poumpouras?

  And I was like, I'm here to help in any way I can and to help facilitate. And so, you know, if you did do something and you're forthcoming and you tell me, I will talk to the prosecutors, I will talk to the investigators, and I will tell them that you were cooperative. And I would do that. I would keep my word. It doesn't hurt me. Like, it wasn't, it's not personal.

• 1:15:10Evy Poumpouras?

  None of my cases were personal. Because sometimes people would ask me, when you were done interviewing someone, did you follow that case afterward? No, I was done.

• 1:15:19Lewis Howes?

  Moving on.

• 1:15:20Evy Poumpouras?

  You don't, I never invested myself personally because it's, I'm not supposed to. I'm supposed to be, and I really like this because they taught us this in the service, you are an objective seeker of the truth. And I walked into every interview room saying, I am an objective seeker of the truth. So I don't care that everybody here is telling me he did it. You know, I'm going to give this person a chance. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna look at the evidence, of course. And if I have evidence, like my guy in the-

• 1:15:50Lewis Howes?

  The hat.

• 1:15:51Evy Poumpouras?

  Who's like, oh, no, that's not me. I mean, he looks like me. What do you, can I, what do you do with that? Where did you go? That was my heavy. And I dropped it early, too. You know, you're not supposed to drop evidence so early. You're supposed to hold it. That was my heavy. After that, I had nowhere to go. No, yes, it's you. No, it's not. But yes, it's you. No, it's not. There's nowhere to go. I lost that one. That one I lost.

• 1:16:14Lewis Howes?

  You seem like an extremely confident person. From a scale from one to 10, 10 being very confident in general of your life, what are you?

• 1:16:23Evy Poumpouras?

  It fluctuates. In certain moments, I feel very confident and centered. In other moments, I'm like, what the?

• 1:16:32Evy Poumpouras?

  It fluctuates. I think it depends on what it is, what you're going through, what you're dealing with. If it's family, like those scales, like when it's family, like all these composure things go, go out the window, right? Or like a whole other thing. I think it depends on the situation. But there are moments where, sure, I may lack confidence, but sometimes like, I would go in and think, maybe because I was in such a life or death type of job, where I would be like, no one's holding a gun to my head. I'm not gonna die. I'm gonna go home after this. I don't fucking care.

• 1:17:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:09Evy Poumpouras?

  And that's helped me more than anything. And my ability to curse usually internally. cursing has actually given gives me a lot of strength.

• 1:17:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:17:20Evy Poumpouras?

  There's actually science behind it. That when you curse, whether outwardly or inwardly, it actually makes you it empowers you. You know, so I'd rather be I'd rather be like, you know, I've always and I've always had that, not that it's a good thing, but I always use try to use my inside voice. Instead of being like, what was me this person's picking on me? These people are doing this to me instead of like inside me and be like, fuck them.

• 1:17:45Lewis Howes?

  Right. You feel more confidence.

• 1:17:48Evy Poumpouras?

  It it shifts it.

• 1:17:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Evy Poumpouras?

  Instead of me feeling like I'm a victim and I'm being preyed upon. It's just like, who do you know?

• 1:17:55Lewis Howes?

  Screw that, yeah.

• 1:17:56Evy Poumpouras?

  I think having that part of yourself and the ability to do that, not not to intentionally actually hurt someone, but having that part of you inside. You know, my Colonel, right? When he did that, that's exactly what echoed inside my head. You know, I I made sure I'm like inside voice, inside voice, inside voice. But I was like, it doesn't matter. Instead of me being like, if I let that impact me, then the rest of my assignment, every time I see him, I'd feel smaller, I'd be affected. And it was just like, this guy, who's this guy? And that allowed me to to do my job. So I think for me, that's helped me quite a bit.

• 1:18:36Lewis Howes?

  If someone listening or watching feels like they lack confidence in most areas of their life, what would you say is the way to overcome self doubt and build confidence? Some things they can do.

• 1:18:47Evy Poumpouras?

  Stop doing things that you're only comfortable with.

• 1:18:52Evy Poumpouras?

  Take risks. Make decisions. I think I've noticed that with people who lack confidence, they're quite indecisive. Indecisiveness is a big thing. And what they will do is they will go take a survey and ask everybody around them, what do you think I should do?

• 1:19:08Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:19:09Evy Poumpouras?

  What do you think I should do? And you're asking a person who has no ability to

• 1:19:15Evy Poumpouras?

  You're asking someone with no expertise about something. It'd be like, love mom, but it'd be like me asking my mom, "Hey mom, do you think I should do this TV show?" And she'd be like, "What did you say? What TV show? Oh, you're gonna be on TV?" You know, like, I can't ask my mom about a TV business decision. She doesn't have the experience. I can ask her about something else. You know, that she does have experience in. But indecisiveness is key.

• 1:19:42Lewis Howes?

  How does someone build decisiveness?

• 1:19:45Evy Poumpouras?

  You gotta start, you gotta stop asking people what to do and just do it. And then when you make a mistake, own it. Fall on your face. The more you fail, the more confident you become. I, you can't fear failure. I've failed, Louis. I don't even know. I feel, I feel so much. And every, you know, and I look at it like, alright. And once that happens, once the worst thing that could happen to you happens, and you are still standing, you are still there, you are still breathing, like, huh.

• 1:20:13Evy Poumpouras?

  That, that builds resilience. Indecisiveness, knock that out. The minute you're like, let me ask people, stop. Choose. Don't worry about it whether you're right or wrong, just do it.

• 1:20:24Lewis Howes?

  We gotta take risks, make decisions, fail often, choose. Anything else? An overcoming self doubt that you've seen?

• 1:20:33Evy Poumpouras?

  The way you talk to yourself in your head.

• 1:20:37Evy Poumpouras?

  Watch the language you use, watch your mouth with yourself. So for example, I work out. And so there are moments where it happens where I'm sitting on the sofa and I'm just like, "I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna go run outside. I don't wanna go to jiu jitsu. I'm tired, I wanna sit, I wanna eat popcorn. I don't wanna do anything, I wanna watch Netflix." I will never say to myself, "Don't be lazy. Get up." I'm not lazy. There's nothing about me that is lazy. Why would I ever say that to me? But I will say, "Every move. Get up, go." And I may be bitching as I'm putting on my sneakers and

• 1:21:12Lewis Howes?

  I don't wanna do this.

• 1:21:13Evy Poumpouras?

  I hate this, whatever. But I will be putting them on and doing it and then go. But I will never Call myself names and that's something I had to learn over time.

• 1:21:21Lewis Howes?

  Oh man, this was my entire childhood was calling myself names. You're never gonna amount to anything, you're stupid, you suck, why did you do that? Idiot, you know, all these things.

• 1:21:31Evy Poumpouras?

  Even something as simple as like, oh, I'm such an idiot, what did I do? Why did I put that there? And I catch myself, I'm like, don't say that about yourself, you're not an idiot. I wouldn't want another human, I wouldn't want somebody else to call me an idiot. Why would I call myself an idiot? We get pissed at other people when they call us that stuff. But we don't, no.

• 1:21:49Lewis Howes?

  She get mad at ourselves for calling us that stuff?

• 1:21:51Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52Lewis Howes?

  What would you say are the three greatest skills that you have as an interrogator?

• 1:21:58Evy Poumpouras?

  As an interrogator? I can listen. I can listen and have a person completely shred me. And not say a word.

• 1:22:07Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean shred you?

• 1:22:08Evy Poumpouras?

  Like you can have somebody be like, I hate you, you're this, you're that, you know?

• 1:22:11Lewis Howes?

  You don't react?

• 1:22:13Evy Poumpouras?

  In the interview room, especially with the job, I would, I would sit and take it. Because it wasn't my ego.

• 1:22:19Lewis Howes?

  It's less personal too, it's not.

• 1:22:20Evy Poumpouras?

  It was less personal. But I've been able to, not always successfully, but even in my personal life. Um, maybe without with my husband so much, he's probably like, yeah, that's bullshit. But he's an interrogator too, so it's alright. But typically with friendships, relationships, I'm better at not. Like I can, I, you know, I can have people say hurtful or cruel things and not respond.

• 1:22:47Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:22:48Evy Poumpouras?

  I'm not saying it hurt, it doesn't hurt. And there's moments, you know, you have those moments where maybe a business relationship doesn't go well. Or you have a friend, or even a distant family member. And like they send you a horrible email that, you know, soul crushing. And you just wanna point out like, just the, the, you know, the lies or the inadequacies in what they wrote. And I have learned to not respond or to try not to respond. I have my moments too, but I really think to myself, is this person worth responding to? Sometimes it's hard because it's like I hear what this person's saying. I see what they're doing and you wanna respond.

• 1:23:27Evy Poumpouras?

  And I think it takes so much discipline to not be mean to someone who's being mean to you.

• 1:23:34Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:23:35Evy Poumpouras?

  Or hurtful to you.

• 1:23:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's tough.

• 1:23:38Evy Poumpouras?

  Because we all go through that.

• 1:23:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:39Evy Poumpouras?

  Every, each one of us has people in our lives who give us hate. And you're like, how's this happening? Why is this happening? And you wanna give it back, especially when you've trusted them unconditionally. You feel betrayed.

• 1:23:52Lewis Howes?

  You believed everything they say.

• 1:23:53Evy Poumpouras?

  You believed, you, you, you accessed the primitive part of your brain and you gave them all that trust. You didn't give them conditional, you know, trust. You gave it all up. And then that relationship goes south and you're, you're just, you can be distraught. That's, that's hard.

• 1:24:09Lewis Howes?

  How do we learn? How did you learn to respond in an empowering way or not respond at all when someone attacks you?

• 1:24:15Evy Poumpouras?

  That, to be fair, I learned that in the interrogation room, in the interview room. When we were.

• 1:24:20Lewis Howes?

  Were you always like that? So you weren't always like that?

• 1:24:22Evy Poumpouras?

  No.

• 1:24:23Lewis Howes?

  You used to be like, screw you.

• 1:24:24Evy Poumpouras?

  I was bad, I was bad. Where I, I was pretty bad. Yeah, I took after my father. I did, in that part, you know? And look, and I give my dad kudos in that. Like even, you know, I talked about the cursing thing. And I realized where I got it. When I'd go home as a kid sometimes and I'm like, dad, this person picked on me and this, that. This is advice. Did you say fuck you?

• 1:24:47Evy Poumpouras?

  He never taught me to be a victim.

• 1:24:49Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:24:50Evy Poumpouras?

  Never. And I remember, so my dad passed and I remember, this is hard. He was, it was, we were at home. And I couldn't handle his pain anymore. He had pancreatic cancer. And I was managing his treatment at home. And I couldn't manage it with the drugs. He had to go into hospice. And then the hospice people came. We're sitting at this table, it was the round kitchen table. And she's like, we have to take him. You can't manage it anymore. He has to go to hospice. And I knew in that moment, when he left, that was it. He was not coming home. And like the tears are coming down. And I'm sitting there and he's like, he's like, hey. He's dying, he's like, hey.

• 1:25:35Evy Poumpouras?

  And he says it to me in Greek, you know. He says to me in Greek and I'll say it in English. He's like, how are we gonna win the war if you're like this?

• 1:25:41Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:25:43Evy Poumpouras?

  He's like, how are we gonna win the fight if you're like this? Stop.

• 1:25:48Evy Poumpouras?

  And so, I appreciate that. Cause he never taught me to feel like a victim. And so to the point where he died, that stayed with me. I'm like, he's dying, he's going to hospice. He knows he's never coming back.

• 1:26:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:26:03Evy Poumpouras?

  And he's just, hey, knock it off.

• 1:26:05Lewis Howes?

  So he still wasn't a victim then?

• 1:26:07Evy Poumpouras?

  He's like, hey, to me, he's like, stop. How are we gonna win the war if you act like this? How are you gonna win in life? I was just like, shit, sorry. Yeah.

• 1:26:17Lewis Howes?

  What was the greatest lesson he taught you?

• 1:26:19Evy Poumpouras?

  That.

• 1:26:22Evy Poumpouras?

  You know, he, you know, to, and he had a temper. He was worse, like he would actually vocalize the stuff. And I learned not to do that. He taught me not to be a victim. He taught me not to let, even though people hurt us. He'd be, you know, he'd say to me, does this person feed you? Do they clothe you? Do they, do they pay, do they pay your bills? And I'd say, no. He's like, the, what are you upset about? And you, you have this moment, you're like.

• 1:26:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, why am I upset?

• 1:26:52Evy Poumpouras?

  You're right. It kinda like knocks out quite a few people. And that, that helped me. I mean, it could also be traumatizing when you're young. You want a little bit of the, hey. Yeah, I didn't get any of that. But I appreciate that. And I think that that also intuitively gave me that I'm not, I'm not your victim. And I don't even like that word.

• 1:27:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:27:14Evy Poumpouras?

  I don't like that word. Cause I think when we think like that, we intuitively fall into that role. And so, sometimes being able to like, say, hey, F you.

• 1:27:25Evy Poumpouras?

  Gives you power back to say like, I'm not gonna take this. I'm not gonna do this.

• 1:27:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:32Lewis Howes?

  So number one was listen. You're a great listener.

• 1:27:34Evy Poumpouras?

  Oh my God, I forgot the question.

• 1:27:35Lewis Howes?

  No, it was a great answer. I just wanted to make sure I get to, I want to learn about your other skills too. That was a powerful response.

• 1:27:42Evy Poumpouras?

  What was the question?

• 1:27:43Lewis Howes?

  The three greatest skills you have as an interrogator.

• 1:27:47Evy Poumpouras?

  Listen, I think being able to take it when people are cruel, and I think we touched on that.

• 1:27:52Lewis Howes?

  That's so hard. But you were gonna say how you learned that in the training.

• 1:27:57Evy Poumpouras?

  People would.

• 1:27:58Lewis Howes?

  How did you learn that? Would they just like constantly come at you in training and say?

• 1:28:02Evy Poumpouras?

  You know, when I first learned that, I was in the NYPD. I started in the NYPD first as a recruit and they used to run us. It's called the FDR Highway, the FDR, and we'd run in ranks of four. We'd run in these ugly cargo shorts and please change the uniform. And these, you know, I am a little bit of a, you know, I was just like, wait, is this not a matching outfit?

• 1:28:22Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna look good, yeah.

• 1:28:24Evy Poumpouras?

  I was like, if I'm gonna arrest people, I want to at least look good, you know?

• 1:28:27Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:28:27Evy Poumpouras?

  If I'm gonna get shot today, I want to look good as I'm going down, you know? But, so we're running in the FDR, uh, four cross in ranks. And the FDR is a highway, so there's a service area where you run. And people are driving by doing like forty, fifty, sixty to highway. And back then, kind of similar to where we are, they hated police. It was before nine eleven. They didn't like law enforcement and they'd flip the bird. They'd spit at you while they're doing fifty, sixty miles. And I remember we're running and I didn't understand. I got in quite young. And somebody like spit our way and gave us the finger and I'm like, hey! And I turn around and the instructor just like grabbed me. He's like, what are you doing? I was like, did you not see what that guy did? He's like, I was gonna give him peace of my mind. And he's like, no, you don't do that here.

• 1:29:13Evy Poumpouras?

  He's like, you are not like them. He's like, you control them. He's like, if you can't control what people do, he's like, you're never gonna make it out there, nor should you be out there. And that was the first time I thought I was being tough.

• 1:29:27Lewis Howes?

  Defending yourself.

• 1:29:28Evy Poumpouras?

  Defending myself, and that's the first time I learned like you don't, tough people don't need to do that.

• 1:29:34Lewis Howes?

  The real toughness is letting it go.

• 1:29:37Evy Poumpouras?

  It takes more self-control and more self-discipline to be able to not say something and say something. There's this great quote, I'm gonna butcher it, Aristotle said it, I believe, and it's like, it's to get angry is an easy thing, but to be angry with the right person for the right reason and in the right way and for the right situation is not easy and not within everybody's power.

• 1:30:04Evy Poumpouras?

  You know, and so for me, I work on that just because I naturally gravitate to that. But I think for other people who don't, I think they need a little bit more of that,

• 1:30:14Evy Poumpouras?

  that part of them that doesn't let them, I'm a victim, I'm this, I'm that, a little bit more of that fire or like, maybe a little bit of crazy.

• 1:30:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:21Evy Poumpouras?

  You gotta have that, there's good crazy and you gotta have that.

• 1:30:24Lewis Howes?

  So if you're, if you have a victim mentality a lot, maybe step it up and defend yourself a little more.

• 1:30:29Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah, or you know, put yourself in uncomfortable places and when people say things to you, don't, you don't want, you can't let it crush you, you gotta have a little bit of that, who are you?

• 1:30:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, some thick skin, yeah.

• 1:30:40Evy Poumpouras?

  But, but not even thick skin, but the ability to say like, you're wrong, I know you're wrong. I don't even need to tell you you're wrong.

• 1:30:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:47Evy Poumpouras?

  Cause sometimes, you ever have that Louis, where you're dealing with somebody and you know they're wrong, but they, and they, and they lay out all the reasons why they think they're right, and you wanna point them out, and sometimes you do, but it doesn't matter.

• 1:30:59Lewis Howes?

  The energy's not worth it.

• 1:31:01Evy Poumpouras?

  But it's not like you can get across to them.

• 1:31:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:03Evy Poumpouras?

  They've already made up their mind, so even if you, you refute each thing they say, they're just gonna come up with something else.

• 1:31:09Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, so the, yeah, the energy of reacting is not even worth it to them at that point.

• 1:31:13Evy Poumpouras?

  No, then you end up leaving frustrated, and I think that the third thing would be what I learned is, when you try to say something to someone, and when you're gonna explain something to someone, you have to ask yourself, does this person sitting across from me have the ability to understand the perspective I'm about to share with them?

• 1:31:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, they may not.

• 1:31:34Evy Poumpouras?

  And if they don't, just sit there and just be, okay, okay, oh my god, look at that, look at the time, I gotta go. And so, I think not wasting your time. Banging down a door that it's not even a door, it's like letting that go.

• 1:31:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think I heard in another interview you did where you said, you know, it's our responsibility as leaders in the world to actually be a more adaptive and understand where the other person's coming from and not expect them to understand us, where we're coming from.

• 1:32:02Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes.

• 1:32:03Lewis Howes?

  And be like emotionally flexible with where they're at.

• 1:32:07Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes, so with interviewing and with most, almost everything I try to do. So we have a conversation, I'm fifty percent of it, you're fifty percent of it. But what happens is I get, most people get focused on me, what am I gonna say to Louis? How am I gonna be with Louis? How am I gonna interact with Louis? Me, me, me, I, I, I, I get nervous, I'm insecure, how do I look? How do I sound? And what I've done is given zero thought to Louis. It's all been about me. And so when I live in this space, I become nervous, I become insecure. I have, I'm self-conscious. But when I leave that aside and I'm like, this is about Louis. I wanna hear about Louis, Louis, tell me about yourself. I wanna know about you, I wanna absorb everything about you.

• 1:32:53Evy Poumpouras?

  I put my energy into you and then I listen to you. How does Louis speak? What's his demeanor? If every time he likes something I says, he does.

• 1:33:02Lewis Howes?

  I do a lot. That's good.

• 1:33:06Evy Poumpouras?

  You know, so I'm like, oh, that's his, that's his posture, that's how he, he's showing you, he's connecting with you. But I have to see the world through Louis's eyes. How he sees it, how he experiences it. So when you say to me, you're like, look, I lied, I did this when I was growing up, I did that. And if I was just like, who does that? Why would you do that?

• 1:33:29Lewis Howes?

  This interview's going south.

• 1:33:31Evy Poumpouras?

  Max, we're done.

• 1:33:34Evy Poumpouras?

  But my ability to connect with you and allow you to be you and not judge you, that was big with people who committed crimes. I, somebody told me they did a horrible thing and usually with a violent crime or with a child, I sat and I told that person.

• 1:33:50Lewis Howes?

  You're wrong. Disgusting.

• 1:33:54Evy Poumpouras?

  That I not, I'm not seeing from their perspective, they're not gonna talk, I'm not gonna get information, I'm not learning anything. That is work. And I think when we do, especially like in business, or when you're nervous, or if you're like, I'm nervous interviewing, I'm nervous speaking. If you can take the attention you create off of yourself. And put it all on that person. Now you're distracted by them. But we're nervous, we're uncomfortable, when all we're thinking about is me, me, me. I, I, I, how do I sound? How am I gonna do this? How am I gonna say that? And I'm not.

• 1:34:26Lewis Howes?

  It, it sounds like, it sounds like one of our greatest fears is the opinions of what someone else thinks about us. How do we stop thinking about the judgment of other people, the opinions of other people about the way we look, act, think?

• 1:34:38Evy Poumpouras?

  I think once you have haters. Haters are good. Cause you get them, and you're like, I've got haters. Okay. I have to keep going. And you keep going, so you'll see that. I guess you have to catch yourself, somebody is criticizing something you're doing. Do you keep doing it? Or do you change the course of your actions because they said something to you? If you change the course of your actions because this person said something to you. Shared their opinion. Now, you, you're being maneuvered by them, and you are being impacted by them. But if you still are like, no, this is what I need to do. Despite the hate, or the criticism, or the venom that you receive, you still stay on that path. That's how you know.

• 1:35:23Evy Poumpouras?

  So I think, pay attention as an individual. Am I doing this because I believe this to be the right thing? Or am I doing this because outside people are putting pressure on me? To change my path. And change who I am.

• 1:35:39Evy Poumpouras?

  Look, it's, it's good to get other people's opinions. But you have to know whose opinion to listen to and when. So when someone gives me their opinion, solicited or unsolicited, I ask myself two things. Who is this person? Um, and why should I listen to them? And so if I can't come up with that, then I'm like, I shouldn't listen to this person. So I, you know, but it's, it's having a conversation with yourself and practice. These are, these are all habits. You don't change overnight. So if you've been a person who has, your habits always been to let other people's opinions affect you, you talk negatively about yourself,

• 1:36:21Evy Poumpouras?

  you're intimidated by the things around you, you're not a risk stake, risk taker, you're indecisive, you can't change overnight. But what you can do, you can say this month, I'm not gonna ask anybody for their opinion. I'm just gonna spend like a month just making my own decisions. And you create and cultivate that habit.

• 1:36:39Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:36:39Evy Poumpouras?

  And then you move on to the next thing, and the next thing.

• 1:36:43Lewis Howes?

  So that was not reacting. That was number two. Was there a third one that you shared there?

• 1:36:46Evy Poumpouras?

  I think I gave you like five.

• 1:36:47Lewis Howes?

  Okay, just read, you shared. I wanna miss something there.

• 1:36:53Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious about the thing that you're most proud of that most people don't know about.

• 1:37:00Evy Poumpouras?

  Proud.

• 1:37:03Evy Poumpouras?

  Is it bad to say that I don't have anything?

• 1:37:09Evy Poumpouras?

  I don't, I don't know how to answer that. I don't have, I don't have anything. Like, I guess, I don't know, and I don't know if it's maybe, I came from a place where

• 1:37:22Evy Poumpouras?

  it's about the team and it's more about humility and you're not supposed to stand out, even though now I'm on TV, right? Huge contradiction. I'm an author, I'm a book, have a book.

• 1:37:33Evy Poumpouras?

  I don't know. I mean,

• 1:37:36Lewis Howes?

  Maybe something you've done with your team too, or something in the past, or something more recent?

• 1:37:41Evy Poumpouras?

  What am I proud?

• 1:37:44Evy Poumpouras?

  Maybe,

• 1:37:46Evy Poumpouras?

  I don't know, I maybe proud is like not the right word for me because I'm...

• 1:37:52Evy Poumpouras?

  I'm happy maybe because I don't let other people

• 1:37:58Evy Poumpouras?

  affect me, especially when I know they're wrong.

• 1:38:00Speaker 00

  Hmm, that's good.

• 1:38:01Evy Poumpouras?

  That I will do. I will, I'm able to recognize and have a conversation and and say, is there truth to what they're saying? And if there is, what role did I play? Or is there no truth to what they're saying and what they're saying entirely about them? Their world, their inadequacies. Cause sometimes you go back to asking people their opinion. Most people will be like, don't do that. Don't quit your job. Don't this. And what they're doing is they are imposing on you their fears, their beliefs and all that stuff. So how can I ask someone else to tell me how to, what job to take, how to live my life?

• 1:38:38Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:38:39Evy Poumpouras?

  Who to date, who to marry, when I'm, hello, I'm gonna be the one stuck with them. They're gonna choose differently than I would. Like with my mom, this is terrible example, but like she'd be like, isn't he cute? I'm like, oh, who are you looking at? You know, when she was trying to get me to get married? I'm like, oh, he's good looking. She's like, what's wrong with you?

• 1:39:00Evy Poumpouras?

  Um, so I could never ask her to tell me who I, it's weird, but like, because I had such a different belief system. My mom grew up poor in the village. She, my grandmother was illiterate. They were, they were dirt poor, poverty in Greece. And I can't ask my mom certain things because she doesn't have the context to answer some of the questions that I have that are, I, I grew up in a different environment, in a different place, a more complex world. And so she can't, she can't connect with that. She couldn't connect with me going to the police department. I might, I should have just told her I was gonna go sell drugs. She would have, that would have been at least more like, oh, okay, I can see that.

• 1:39:42Evy Poumpouras?

  Um, she couldn't connect with me going to become a secret service agent. When I left that to go into TV, she couldn't connect with that. She's like, what are you doing? Why are you doing all these things? You know?

• 1:39:54Lewis Howes?

  She didn't understand your perspective, yeah.

• 1:39:56Evy Poumpouras?

  She couldn't understand, but she also grew up very fear-based, poor, hungry. You have something great, don't mess this up. And then I'm like, but there's something.

• 1:40:04Lewis Howes?

  How did you shift that mindset if you grew up in an environment of a fear-based, more protective maybe, fear-based mother? How did you shift from that and not have that?

• 1:40:14Evy Poumpouras?

  It made me angrier. I think it does one of two things. You either become more afraid.

• 1:40:19Lewis Howes?

  Or the opposite.

• 1:40:19Evy Poumpouras?

  Or the opposite. And I became the opposite. I became more infuriated by it. And I fought it harder. And the more I was told no, no, the more I was like, no one's, I'm not gonna tell me no. Let the world tell me no. And then I'm okay with it. I'm gonna apply for this and let them laugh at me. Let whatever is gonna happen, happen. I wanna, I want someone else to tell me no. It can't come, it can't come for me first. It just can't. Cause I, I won't be able to live with myself because I had done that before. I think we all have to some degree and we're like, why didn't I listen to myself? And I think that hurts more. At least for me, it hurt more.

• 1:41:03Lewis Howes?

  From the police department to Secret Service to TV, media, book world.

• 1:41:08Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:10Lewis Howes?

  What were the habits that you learned along the way? From being around the presidents and in that space? Maybe the three or four habits for ultimate success, fulfillment, and happiness that you've seen? That you've applied, or maybe you'd like to do more of? Based on everything you've witnessed?

• 1:41:30Evy Poumpouras?

  Do you know what? I'm actually gonna answer the opposite, cause it just intuitively came to me. I actually, it was hard for me because I had never been in the business of me. And I was always speaking up for, I was, I represented the people, I represented the government, I represented right and wrong. That was different. And then when I went into the business of me, a whole other ballgame. And TV entertainment, oh my goodness. I found myself using my interviewing, assessing human behavior skills more in like my meetings with producers and agents.

• 1:42:09Lewis Howes?

  Are they really telling me the truth or not?

• 1:42:11Evy Poumpouras?

  Oh, totally. I'm like, oh, he scratched his head when I asked that question. I was like, sir, did you, so did you like me on that show? Oh yeah, it was great. You were good. So I found, I had a hard time shifting. And I think it's because you go from, because look, even though you're, you're taught to be decisive and a free thinker, you're also, there's a hierarchy and chain of command. The orders come from the top down. And now what I found myself doing is thinking my agents and my managers were like my supervisors. And I, I, I, I kind of stuck, got stuck in that place. So I had to learn and be like, no, I need to speak up for myself.

• 1:42:55Evy Poumpouras?

  And I need to say, no, I don't want this. No, I don't agree with this, even though I always had it. But I don't know, Lewis, I had a hard time. And I don't know you, did, did you, I mean, you're in this industry. Was it hard for you when you went from playing football to being the business of you?

• 1:43:13Lewis Howes?

  Well, in the sports world, I was really good at learning how to set goals for myself. And I worked on me to become a better athlete every day. So it was always physical, mental, uh, visualizing and I was practicing different habits to improve and to gain, you know, the success I wanted as an athlete. So I felt like I had an advantage going into the business world because I was very coachable. I was already like, let me find the best mentors and coaches because they have the answers. I don't know what I'm doing. Tell me what to do. I'm going to go work really hard for six months and I'll come back and show you what I did. And then give me some feedback. And let me figure out, you want me to read this book? Can we do this? Okay, I'll learn, learn, learn, develop skills, follow routines and see what works for me.

• 1:43:57Lewis Howes?

  So I would try and try and try a lot of things. And if it got me the results, great. Did it also bring me fulfillment? No. Okay. What do I need to do for that? Um, but sports really helped me develop habits and a mindset. Because it was an environment of failure every moment. You're dropping a ball, you're missing a shot, you, someone steals the ball from you, whatever. You're, you're failing. So you have to learn constantly if you want to improve.

• 1:44:21Evy Poumpouras?

  I think, you know, now that you said that, I think what habit I took then was my ability to not get my feelings hurt.

• 1:44:29Lewis Howes?

  That's a good habit.

• 1:44:30Evy Poumpouras?

  So in the service, like, they didn't sugarcoat anything, like, hey, you know, that last, that last advance you did, you know that part where the president got knocked down? Yeah, you know, we'd just appreciate if you'd just put better bike racks up and secure it a little better. It'd be like, why wasn't that secure? That's not gonna happen again. You're demoted. You've got a week of midnights. Or whatever, or, you know, give me 50 pushups if it was training. And so I liked that. It was very direct.

• 1:44:56Lewis Howes?

  Clear.

• 1:44:57Evy Poumpouras?

  Which is why I think we're both instrumental. It's just like, tell me what I need. I don't need the whole story. I don't need the sugarcoating. Tell me what I need to do to be better. And in fact, even with the one thing I do with any project I have, any my agents, my executive producers, any project I'm on, my editor for my book, or my agent, I don't need you to, you're not gonna hurt my feelings.

• 1:45:21Lewis Howes?

  Right. Is it good or not? Yeah, tell me.

• 1:45:22Evy Poumpouras?

  Just tell me if it's good. If it sucks, say, Evy, it sucks, but just tell me why. So I can fix it. This sucks, this is why. You did not do a good job at this. This is why. I can't be better if you're so worried about hurting my feelings, which I think in this industry, people don't give it to you. Like, I remember I started doing the news and after every news thing, it's like, you were great, you were great. I was like, I can't be great every single time.

• 1:45:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. Give them some feedback.

• 1:45:48Evy Poumpouras?

  So I had to pull one of the producers aside and I said, please tell me what I can do better. I don't want you to tell me I'm great. I'm not gonna get better. If you don't tell me, stop using your hands so much on camera, or you know, don't curse. I don't know.

• 1:46:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Give me good feedback.

• 1:46:05Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah. Give me feedback. So I definitely got that. I don't, nothing hurts my feelings when it comes to that. Tell me I suck, tell me why, so I can fix it.

• 1:46:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but maybe your husband said that, it might hurt your feelings.

• 1:46:17Evy Poumpouras?

  He does that, he does that. He's just like, let me sit you down, and he goes straight to it. He's like, really? Actually, when I began doing television, he would, you know, I had a great support system. He would text me during commercial break, "Sit up, you're slouching, fix your hair, who did your makeup today?"

• 1:46:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:46:36Evy Poumpouras?

  He's like, "I don't like it, that eyeliner is crazy, what are you wearing, too many stripes?" I mean, he would critique me so that I could be better, and I was never pissed, never. I'm like, "Watch me, you know, tell me what I'm doing right." "Oh yeah, that outfit didn't work." "Oh, who did your hair? Don't do that again." But that was because he wanted me to be better.

• 1:46:54Lewis Howes?

  And because you asked for it, too.

• 1:46:55Evy Poumpouras?

  I asked for it. I don't know if I always ask for it, sometimes it's unsolicited, but I, but I knew what he was doing and why. Whereas I think a lot of folks get their feelings hurt, so I think with our backgrounds, that there's no time for that.

• 1:47:10Lewis Howes?

  Let's get some results, let's go.

• 1:47:13Evy Poumpouras?

  And I think it's like, yeah, I just, tell me how to be great. I don't need you to, my feelings are fine, my feelings will hurt when I don't, when I fail at this, or I don't get the job, or they replace me with somebody else to host, or whatever, produce, or whatever. Yes.

• 1:47:28Lewis Howes?

  That's good, I love this. You've got an amazing book called Becoming Bulletproof, Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly, that I want people to check out. I believe that life is a game of enrollment, and we're either enrolling people in something, or they're enrolling us. And it's all about influencing, persuasion, in an ethical way, but we're always in an enrollment environment. Convincing people in something, or unconvincing them in something. And so, this book is gonna help people protect themselves if someone's doing something harmful. It's gonna help them read people and understand people, and influence people in a more positive way. And I love all the strategies and techniques you've given today, this is really inspiring.

• 1:48:13Lewis Howes?

  I can follow you also all over social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Where are you hanging out the most?

• 1:48:18Evy Poumpouras?

  New York City, although I love LA.

• 1:48:20Lewis Howes?

  Which social media do you hang out the most? Which platform are you on the most?

• 1:48:23Evy Poumpouras?

  I think Instagram. I'm on Instagram, but I'm trying to get into TikTok. I'm struggling.

• 1:48:27Lewis Howes?

  Oh, all right.

• 1:48:28Evy Poumpouras?

  Are you on it?

• 1:48:29Lewis Howes?

  Of course I'm on it.

• 1:48:30Evy Poumpouras?

  I gotta learn. I gotta, I need help.

• 1:48:31Lewis Howes?

  You'd do great. You'd do great on there.

• 1:48:33Evy Poumpouras?

  I don't know how to use, I need help.

• 1:48:36Lewis Howes?

  I'll show you a couple of accounts that have blown up kind of in your space.

• 1:48:43Lewis Howes?

  I think we do really well at. If you just look at some of the stuff they do. I'll text you some of those accounts.

• 1:48:47Evy Poumpouras?

  I'd love that. I'd love that.

• 1:48:49Lewis Howes?

  But Instagram, right?

• 1:48:50Evy Poumpouras?

  Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

• 1:48:52Lewis Howes?

  And it's all your name.

• 1:48:54Evy Poumpouras?

  It's all my name, comments, spelling.

• 1:48:55Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. There we go. I've got a couple of final questions for you.

• 1:48:59Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes.

• 1:49:00Lewis Howes?

  This is called the three truths. It's a hypothetical question.

• 1:49:04Evy Poumpouras?

  Oh, I'm nervous.

• 1:49:05Lewis Howes?

  Imagine, imagine your last day on earth many years away from now.

• 1:49:09Evy Poumpouras?

  Okay.

• 1:49:10Lewis Howes?

  And you've got to accomplish everything you want to accomplish. All your dreams come true. Everything you want to do, it happens.

• 1:49:17Evy Poumpouras?

  Okay.

• 1:49:18Lewis Howes?

  But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. Your written work, your books, your audio, this interview. It's all going to go with you to the next place, wherever you go. You've got to take everything with you. So no one has access to your content anymore. Or a recording of you anymore. Or your information.

• 1:49:34Evy Poumpouras?

  Okay.

• 1:49:35Lewis Howes?

  But you get a piece of paper and a pen and you get to write down three lessons you've learned from your life that you'd want to share with the world. I call it the three truths. What would you say would be your three truths that you would share with everyone?

• 1:49:49Evy Poumpouras?

  Do the right thing, even when it's not the most popular thing to do.

• 1:49:56Evy Poumpouras?

  That would be, that would be huge. Because sometimes you're doing the right thing and everybody around you is telling you you're wrong, you're this, you're that. And it's like, if you know it to be the right thing, do it. That's not easy.

• 1:50:11Evy Poumpouras?

  Three things that I would leave behind, right? I would.

• 1:50:15Lewis Howes?

  Number two?

• 1:50:16Evy Poumpouras?

  Say it again. I want to hear it again.

• 1:50:19Lewis Howes?

  This is all you have to leave behind. Lessons that you've learned from your life.

• 1:50:22Evy Poumpouras?

  Lessons.

• 1:50:24Lewis Howes?

  I call them three truths.

• 1:50:27Lewis Howes?

  Do the right thing, even when it's not popular.

• 1:50:30Evy Poumpouras?

  Make your own decisions.

• 1:50:38Evy Poumpouras?

  Fail as much as possible.

• 1:50:42Evy Poumpouras?

  Because if you're, the more you fail, it means the more you're doing and the more you're putting yourself out there. When you don't fail, it means you're not doing anything.

• 1:50:48Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 1:50:49Evy Poumpouras?

  Yeah. Oh, that was deep.

• 1:50:52Lewis Howes?

  It's good. I like this. I want to acknowledge you for a moment. The fact that you've gone through these different stages of your life and done the right thing, even when it's not popular.

• 1:51:02Evy Poumpouras?

  Try.

• 1:51:03Lewis Howes?

  You tried. You tried to.

• 1:51:04Evy Poumpouras?

  I don't want to put on. I might have had a little bit of Lewis in me too, growing up. I'm not gonna. I'm far from perfect. I will say that.

• 1:51:12Lewis Howes?

  Well, I acknowledge you for being in the industry and the level of service that you've had. For trying to do the right thing, trying to help people make better decisions, having justice where justice is needed, and being a force for good. You've shown as a force for good for many, many years in your level of service. So I really acknowledge you for showing up. And then also moving into the next stage of your life and showing up in a different way to serve people with this type of information, to help people, to spread the knowledge that you've learned in these different environments. So I really acknowledge you for the gift that you are, for showing up, for learning, for failing, for growing, and all the stuff that you're doing. It's really inspiring.

• 1:51:51Evy Poumpouras?

  Thank you. I appreciate you saying that.

• 1:51:53Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah.

• 1:51:54Evy Poumpouras?

  I feel the same way. I walked in, I saw School of Greatness. I was like, oh, I am in the right place.

• 1:51:58Lewis Howes?

  That's it. It's not the school of average. Okay, final question for you. I want people to get the book, follow you on social media, but the final, is there anything else we want to mention?

• 1:52:07Evy Poumpouras?

  Oh, man, you hit me hard. I feel like I've never been interviewed this. I was just like, whoa.

• 1:52:12Lewis Howes?

  It's a friendly interview, you know, friendly interrogation.

• 1:52:15Evy Poumpouras?

  No, I love it. This is, it's nice because you're, if I can flip it on you now, you're a thoughtful interviewer. It's a conversation. It's not an interview. You're not just like banging the questions out. Like you really put your thought and you're really trying to get into something deep. We're not, it's not often like that.

• 1:52:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:33Evy Poumpouras?

  And I, I appreciate what you do, like trying to teach people. And it's like what I tried to do with the book, I was like, what can I share with people that I learned that will be helpful to them? And how can you package it and deliver it in a way to people so it's digestible? Like, how do you help try to make people's lives? And I love your honesty in that you're like, I'm not perfect and I'm not preaching. Cause it's like, and that's where you want to make sure I'm not preaching. I just, this is what I've learned.

• 1:53:00Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:53:00Evy Poumpouras?

  I hope it helps you. Cause it, it helped me. It's still helping me.

• 1:53:04Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Love it. Uh, final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:53:09Evy Poumpouras?

  Trying to help people and protect people. Yeah. Helping and protect people. I think we, we are very like mind my own business, me, me, me, just me. And we've lost that ability to, to protect. And I think maybe it goes back to what I did, like, I will protect you. I may not know you, but I will, I will protect you. I will try to help you. I think that's greatness.

• 1:53:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:53:38Evy Poumpouras?

  Helping people, even maybe when it's not to your benefit sometimes.

• 1:53:43Lewis Howes?

  Evy, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

• 1:53:44Evy Poumpouras?

  Thank you.

• 1:53:45Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:53:46Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired by this wisdom and Evy's story. And if you haven't subscribed yet to the School of Greatness, then what are you waiting for? Just go to Apple Podcasts right now, type in School of Greatness, click on the subscribe button right there and leave us a rating or review and let us know what you enjoyed most from this specific episode in that review section, as well as share this with a few friends that you think would be inspired by this. LewisHowes.com/1092 to send them to the show notes and all the other stuff that we talk about in this episode, or just copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this and share this out with some friends. Post it on social media, make sure to tag me and Evy as well, so we know who's listening and what you liked about this.

• 1:54:29Speaker 00

  And if you haven't yet texted me, I want you to text me right now, text the word PODCAST to 614-350-3960. If you want to get on my secret and special texting communication list, where I send out positive inspirational messages every single week and other good stuff behind the scenes. So make sure to text me the word PODCAST right now to 614-350-3960. And I want to leave you with this quote from John F. Kennedy, who said, "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." Ooh, I loved this episode. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And I want to remind you, if no one's told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so grateful for you, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.