Why You Put Things Off & The Myth of Criminal Profiling

Every medication has an expiration date—but what exactly happens when that date passes? Does the medicine suddenly stop working? Does it become dangerous? The answer is more complicated than most people realize and depends greatly on the medication itself. https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-legal-regulatory-and-policy-framework/expiration-dating-extension Everyone procrastinates. We put off phone calls, projects, conversations, paperwork, workouts, and sometimes the very things we know would make our lives better. What's strange is that procrastination rarely makes us feel good. The unfinished task lingers in the background, creating stress, guilt, and mental clutter. So why do we keep doing it? And why do some people insist they "work best under pressure"? According to Jon Acuff, procrastination has far less to do with laziness than most people think. In this conversation, he explains the real reasons we get stuck, why motivation is often overrated, and the practical strategies that help people finally start—and finish—the things that matter most. Jon is a bestselling author, one of Inc. Magazine's Top 100 Leadership Speakers, and author of Procrastination Proof: Never Get Stuck Again (https://amzn.to/43Hs5Cr). Criminal profiling has become one of the most enduring ideas in modern crime-solving. We've seen it countless times: investigators study a crime scene, build a psychological profile of the killer, and use it to catch the culprit. It makes for great television. But how well does it work in the real world? The true history of criminal profiling is far more complicated—and controversial—than most people realize. Rachel Corbett, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic, explains how profiling rose to prominence, why it captured the public imagination, and whether it has ever lived up to its reputation as a crime-fighting tool. She is author of The Monsters We Make: Murder, Obsession, and the Rise of Criminal Profiling (https://amzn.to/3RIIrZ2). Can a scent make people trust you more? Surprisingly, research suggests that one familiar fragrance may subtly influence how trustworthy others perceive you to be. It's not mind control—but it may help explain why first impressions are affected by more than just what people see and hear. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01486/full PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS POCKET HOSE: For a limited time, when you purchase a new Pocket Hose Ballistic, you'll get a FREE 360 degree rotating pocket pivot and a FREE thumb drive nozzle! Just text SYSK to 64000 AIR DOCTOR: Head to ⁠https://AirDoctorPro.com⁠ and use promo code SYSK to get $250 off select AirDoctor air purifiers, including the 3500, 4000, and 5500 models. Plus, you’ll receive a free 3year warranty! RULA: Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that’s actually covered by insurance. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Rula.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get started. QUINCE: Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! DELL: With the Dell Pro laptop powered by Intel Core Ultra with vPro, no matter how many interruptions you have, your laptop won’t be one of them. With battery that’s optimized for the way you work, and built-in intelligence that quiets distractions the moment you’re trying to focus, your tech won’t slow you down. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Dell.com/Dell-Pro⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SHOPIFY: It's time to turn those "what ifs" into CHA CHING with Shopify Today! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:02Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, how important are the expiration dates on the medications you take? Then, why we procrastinate our important goals and strategies to stop doing it?

• 0:15Speaker 01

  Let's audition that goal. Let's try 15 minutes a day for seven days in a row, and if you won't pay that fee, you're not going to pay the rest of it, and you can enjoy removing that goal. There's freedom in not chasing goals you really don't care about.

• 0:29Mike Carruthers?

  Also, a scent you can wear that may make you more trustworthy, and a critical take on criminal profiling. Police use it, people believe in it, but does it really work?

• 0:42Speaker 02

  While something like 80% of the detectives' used profiling felt it was very useful, only about 2.5% of those profiles actually led to apprehension of a suspect. So there's kind of a difference between belief and reality there.

• 0:56Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 1:01Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:46Mike Carruthers?

  and track your orders all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing. But with 1,000 chances to win $1,000, I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million shop cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today. Something you should know. With Mike Carruthers.

• 2:39Mike Carruthers?

  So just how seriously should you take the expiration date on a bottle of medication? It's a good question, and one we're going to start with today on this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi, I'm Mike Carruthers. So every medication, whether prescription or over the counter, comes with an expiration date. And it may not be such a hard and fast rule. In fact, the US military has spent years studying the question of expiration dates on medication. Working with the FDA, the military tests its medication that's in stockpiles once they reach their expiration date, rather than just throwing them away. The results have been eye-opening.

• 3:22Mike Carruthers?

  Many drugs have been found to remain safe and effective years beyond their expiration dates, saving taxpayers more than $1 billion in replacement costs. That's because unlike food, most medications don't suddenly go bad when the date on the bottle arrives. Instead, they often lose potency very gradually over time. There are important exceptions. Insulin, EpiPens, nitroglycerin, liquid antibiotics can all become less effective much more quickly. And when your health or life depends on a medication working exactly as intended, you don't want to take chances. Still, if you find an expired bottle of headache medicine in the back of the cabinet, it may

• 4:06Mike Carruthers?

  not be nearly as expired as you think. And that is something you should know. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to put off something important? You know it needs to get done. You could do it now and be finished and done with it. But instead, you tell yourself you'll do it later. And then later becomes tomorrow, and then next week, and sometimes, never.

• 4:35Mike Carruthers?

  What's strange is these unfinished tasks don't just sit there quietly. They take up space in your head. They nag at you. They create stress. They make you feel guilty. And yet somehow, we still don't do them. Why? Why do smart, capable people procrastinate? And more importantly, how do you stop? Here to explain what really drives procrastination and how to finally get unstuck is John Acuff. He is a bestselling author who has written 12 books. He's a sought-after speaker and one of Inc. Magazine's top 100 leadership speakers. His latest book is called Procrastination Proof: Never Get Stuck Again. Hey, John. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me today. Looking forward to it.

• 5:20Mike Carruthers?

  So first, define procrastination for me. What is it exactly?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my definition is procrastination is when your actions don't match your intentions. When who you want to be is not who you're currently being.

• 5:35Mike Carruthers?

  And an example of that would be what?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Well, an example of that would be, according to the New York Times, 82% of Americans want to write a book. It's one of our most popular goals in this country. And if you look at publishing records, based on how many books are published each year, about 1% to 2% do. So 82% say it, only 1% to 2% do it. So that's an example of people that go, "I've always wanted to do this thing," which is very doable. People do it every day, but they're not doing it.

• 6:04Mike Carruthers?

  And why do you think that is?

• 6:08Speaker 01

  I think there's a lot of reasons. I mean, one is they're afraid of what will happen if they do. You know, I never had a one-star review written about me when I was a copywriter for Home Depot. No stranger on Amazon ever said, "John Acuff is terrible at sitting in his cubicle. He writes the worst rug headlines." But when I actually got a book across the finish line, then I opened myself up to actual criticism. So I think sometimes it's fear. Sometimes it's the task feels overwhelming and people say, "I don't know where to start," as if there's a perfect place to start. Sometimes they've been tricked into thinking their process is procrastination. They go, "I turned in a paper late in college. It's how I think best. I like to wait until the last second." And so there's a number of different reasons people give if you actually ask them, "Okay,

• 6:53Speaker 01

  why do you put off the things you wish you were putting on?"

• 6:57Mike Carruthers?

  And as you went down that list, I bet people could hear themselves in several of those things that as it relates to tasks they say they want to do. But I also, I also think, and I'd like to get your thoughts on this, that another reason that people don't write the great American novel, or whatever it is, is they don't really want to, they don't want to do it. They maybe want to have done it. They want to be a famous author, but they don't really want to do the work that gets them there. It's just something to say because it sounds good.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would, I would 100% agree with that. There are certain goals that everybody thinks they're supposed to have. You know, I live in Nashville. No one here thinks they're supposed to record an album. You very rarely meet somebody who goes, "Yeah, I'm supposed to do a folk album. I've always known it." But book writing is one of those things that people think they're supposed to write a book. So yeah, I mean, to me, that's a fake goal. And what I always tell people is, "Let's just do a seven-day audition. Let's audition that goal." Like, let's try 15 minutes a day for seven days in a row, and if you won't pay that fee, you're not going to pay the rest of it, and you can enjoy removing that goal. Like, there's freedom in not chasing goals you really don't care about.

• 8:14Mike Carruthers?

  Well, and also, it seems, not just with writing a book, but with, with really doing anything big, is you want the, you want to be at the finish line, but you don't want to really run the race. That, that the reward sounds great, but the work between here and the reward is not a price you're willing to pay.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a lot of middle. I think, I think that's one of the realities of goals. If you ask the average person, take a 30-day goal and divide it into the beginning and middle and end, most people say, "The beginning's day one through 10, middle's day 11 through 20, and the finish is 21 through 30." And the reality is, the beginning is day one, the middle is day two through 29, and the end is day 30. So there's a lot of middle, and there's a lot of really easy, kind of fun ways to make it through the middle, and to not procrastinate through that kind of middle part of a goal. But I think a lot of people do get kind of lost in the wasteland of a middle.

• 9:11Mike Carruthers?

  What about people who, who seem to procrastinate because, as you had said earlier,

• 9:18Mike Carruthers?

  They like the rush of working under pressure. They like to work against the deadline, that that gives them fuel. And I sort of understand that, but I don't know if it really makes sense.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, the first thing I'd say is they've studied that up and down, and it's just not true. Scientists have studied that particular thing again and again and again and again. And it's just not ultimately true. And what I mean by that is nobody's first draft is their best draft. You might wait until the last second. You might skid across the finish line, but nobody's best draft is their first draft. If you had the freedom of 24 hours of reflection or three days off from the project and then you came back, you're going to find mistakes, you're going to find improvements. And so I do believe and subscribe to the idea that a deadline can be motivating. I like the rush of a deadline. I've just learned to have both, meaning I use it as a form of positive motivation,

• 10:18Speaker 01

  but I don't suffer the consequences of turning something in last second. I just figure out, okay, how can I create multiple finish lines in a project? You know, if I've got a big book due and it's a two-year project, I can't just have one finish line. There's no way that I have the willpower, the discipline to kind of hold my breath for two years. So I just find ways to have that rush as many times as I need it to finish the project with small deadlines, small accountability, small chapters I'm turning in. So I like a both and. I just don't like the idea that, you know, I got a great grade once in college and the problem is we forget all the times it didn't work. So the sexy save the day moment we remember, we don't remember all the other times where we got a C minus and the professor says, what is this?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  This paper feels like it was thrown together last second because it was.

• 11:07Mike Carruthers?

  Because it was. Well, do you think procrastination is a mindset in this way? That procrastination is something that people do, some people do a lot of? It's kind of who they are, they procrastinate everything? Or do we all have one or two things that seem to be sticking points?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  I think we all have some degree of it. You know, we did a book once called Soundtracks about mindset and hired a PhD named Mike Peaslee. We did a study, we asked 10,000 people if they struggled with overthinking and 99.5% of them said yes. So then we did another study where we asked 3,000 people, "Do you feel like you've tapped into your full potential?" And 96% of them said no. And I would argue, if you know you're capable of more and you're not doing anything with that, there's procrastination present. So I think there are probably some people on the extreme edge where everything they procrastinate on, but I think that the average person, if you sat down with them and said, "Have you accomplished every goal? Do you always do the things you want to do?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Do you have a remarkable life?" Which I would define as when your actions match your intentions. It's the opposite of procrastination. I think most people are honest enough to go, "You know what? There's two or three things I know I want to do them. I know I want to have a better relationship with my kids, or I know I want to lose a couple pounds, or I've always wanted to start a business, or have my own podcast, but I just keep kicking that goal down the road." And I looked up and all of a sudden I'm 55 and I go, "Whoa, where did the time go?"

• 12:43Mike Carruthers?

  Where did the time go? Is it just a matter of priorities that you do the things that are important to you? Or is procrastination also burying the things that you say are important, but as you talked about earlier, you don't want to face what the results might be?

• 13:06Speaker 01

  What's interesting to me about procrastination is it's the type of mindset issue that will apply to both things you desperately want, like starting a business, and also things you don't want to do, like your taxes, or the laundry, or following up with a difficult client. It's kind of a, it's one of those mindset issues that applies to so many different things in life, which is why it's fun when you figure out, oh, for me to do the things I need or want to do, here's the tricks. Like, I tell people all the time, you're the most persuasive person you've ever met. And what I mean by that is, before every bad decision you ever made, first you talked yourself into it. You are the greatest you-salesperson who's ever lived. And so, I like to just tell people, so let's figure out how to sell ourselves the things we actually want.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Let's figure out some easy tools, some easy resources, that allow us to talk ourselves into doing those things that maybe don't come naturally. Like, I don't, I get up at 4:55 a.m. to work out, and I never want to do that. There's no, I'm not like Mark Wahlberg, like getting up at psychopath 2 a.m. and doing burpees. Like, I don't want to do that. But I love the after. I love driving home. I love the endorphins. I love being in shape. I love the community. So I've just found ways to sell myself on that idea. And I've consistently done that long enough that now I'm in that sweet spot where to not do it feels weird. It feels weird when you start a new goal, or break an old habit. It feels uncomfortable, it feels weird, but eventually you get to a spot where not

• 14:34Speaker 01

  doing it feels weird, and that's really fun.

• 14:37Mike Carruthers?

  You mentioned doing your taxes, and there's an example of procrastination that I can really relate to, so I want to ask you about that in just a moment. My guest today is John Acuff. He's author of the book Procrastination Proof: Never Get Stuck Again. And John, going back, you mentioned doing your taxes, which I think is a perfect example, at least for me, that I put it off and justify why I put it off. Well, I'm, I think I need another form supposed to come in from the thing. And so, I put it off, and I put it off, and when it's done, it feels so good, and I think, why did I put it off?

• 15:17Mike Carruthers?

  I should have done it a long time ago, and I could have felt this feeling of relief and gotten that weight off my shoulders. Two months ago, but I didn't. And guess what I'm gonna do again next year?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're gonna put it off?

• 15:33Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Well, part of the problem there is that we forget that good feeling. You know, the brain has something called negativity bias, meaning we're really good at remembering the negative in life and trying to prevent it. But we tend to forget feelings like that. And what I've found over the years, I've helped probably a million people with their goals, I've never met somebody who changed just because. I've never met somebody who said, John, today I got up and I decided to have grit. I decided to have willpower, decided to have sacrifice. That's never what happens. The only thing that happens, the only reason people leave their comfort zone is because something outside it is worth being uncomfortable for. So in my own life, in my mid 30s, I was a pretty average husband, pretty average dad, had, you know, a bunch of different jobs, terrible career.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  And two things happened. One, I was tired of being broke. I didn't know we were poor, I just thought we liked camping. I said to my wife, like, wow, we sure were outdoorsy when we were first married. And she was like, no, that's because we had no money, we could only afford to camp. And I bumped into blogging. I started the blog online and realized there's this whole amazing audience out there. And that gave me discipline, meaning I didn't start getting up earlier because I was disciplined. I started getting up earlier because I desired to write more and I had two kids under the age of four. I didn't stop watching so much TV because I was disciplined. I stopped watching so much TV because it wasn't giving me anything and blogging was giving me everything. So I think a big part of it, whether it's your taxes or a book, is going, what's the thing I really desire? I want that great feeling.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  I don't want this thing hanging over me for an extra month longer than it needs to. And I remember last year's great feeling. I'm gonna go ahead and give myself the joy of that a month early and then enjoy this month in a different way than I did last year.

• 17:17Mike Carruthers?

  That's one of the best lines I've ever heard anyone say is, I didn't know we were poor, I just thought we liked camping.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 17:25Mike Carruthers?

  I love that.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  It's very true. It's very true.

• 17:30Mike Carruthers?

  That's really funny. So what do you do to fix this if it just becomes part of who you are? Like, you're just the guy that puts everything off to the last minute. Maybe that's okay, right? Maybe that's just who you are.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I think part of it is just examining your labels and making sure you're good with them. You know, we assign ourselves labels, especially as adults. I met somebody the other day and she said, "Well, I'm not athletic," and that's a label. And then she said, "My strongest muscle has always been my brain," and that's a label. And then she said, "My sister was the athletic one, I was the smart one." And she decided, probably in the eighth grade, when she got cut from the volleyball team, "I'm not an athletic person," and then added, "I'm clumsy," and then doesn't think she gets to exercise for the next 60 years of her life. And so in a situation like that, I'd go, "Hey, I don't think that label's helping you. So if you say to me, 'Well, I'm a procrastinator, that's just who I am,' I would probably ask you some questions to say, you know, are you

• 18:32Speaker 01

  getting the things you want out of life? And, you know, are they impacting your family? Like, it's not just one, you know, if you're a parent, it impacts your kids. There's a kid in our neighborhood, I always think about this little buddy, he would ride or walk to neighborhood swim practice because his mom was such a procrastinator. She was always late, and he was an on-time kind of kid, and it really embarrassed him, and it really drove him crazy. So about midsummer, he just started finding his own way. Just started going, "You know what? I know I'm seven, and I probably shouldn't essentially hitchhike, but I'm gonna find my way to swim practice." So in that situation, I would say to that mom, like, "Hey, I know you're kind of used to being late, but that's a changeable thing, and it is actually impacting your son in a way that you would actually be sad about if you knew."

• 19:17Mike Carruthers?

  That's a pretty gutsy kid.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just encourage people to challenge their labels and then decide which ones they want, and then go build those. Like, the best part of mindset to me, there's two things. One, it impacts everything. If I give your listeners great tips on email management, that helps them when they're in their email. But not with their marriage, not with their fitness, not with their finances. But if I help you figure out your mindset, it touches every part of your life, even while you're asleep, you're dreaming, you're thinking. So I love mindset for that. But then the second reason I love it is it's simple. Great thoughts turn into great actions, great actions turn into great results. So you figure out, "Here's the results I want," and then you go, "Okay, what are the thoughts that are gonna drive those actions that'll drive those results?" We've made it woo-woo and fuzzy and light a sprig of sage and Malibu. Like, it's not. It's very practical, it's very

• 20:04Speaker 01

  actionable. And procrastination is just a mindset issue, and therefore, it's fixable.

• 20:09Mike Carruthers?

  I love this idea of figuring out your labels because how self-limiting is that when you say, "I'm a procrastinator," or, "I do things this way," or, "I do it because my dad did it." Because my dad was a bit of a procrastinator. I remember, he would always be up doing his taxes on the night of April 14th until 4:00 in the morning, trying to get them done. And I just figured, "Well, that's just who he is, and maybe that's how I'll be." And I kind of, I'm nowhere near that, but you just kind of take on these roles and assume these labels without question.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and in a situation like that, I always tell people, "You can respect your parents without repeating your parents. You can respect them without repeating them." And so you, as an adult, get to kind of go, "Yeah, that worked for me, for them. I don't think it works for me. And here's what I'm gonna tweak, or here's what I'm gonna change." And sometimes, it's big things. I was on another podcast with a guy named Steven Scoggins, and he said his dad used to say, "Scoggins don't get ahead, Scoggins get by." Imagine saying that over a kid, again and again and again. And then when he hit his early twenties and started to become successful, he had to say, "Oh, wow, I don't accept that we, as a people, our people group, doesn't get ahead, we get by. I'm gonna rewrite some

• 21:28Speaker 01

  new soundtracks and change the way my family functioned." And so I think, yeah, sometimes we can inherit some kind of frameworks when it comes to, again, perfectionism, procrastination, inner critic, imposter syndrome, all the kind of mindset issues we deal with, but you don't have to keep them the same. You get to write your own.

• 21:46Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah. Well, yeah, and I remember, my father used to say, all the time, he used to say, "Why is life so difficult? Why does it have to be so difficult?" And I thought, later on, when I got older, I thought, "Well..." I don't see it that way. I mean, but I might not have done that. I might have just assumed his mantra of life is difficult, but it's as difficult as you make it.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had a friend challenge me on that. Because ironically enough, I'm a pretty negative pessimistic person by nature.

• 22:23Mike Carruthers?

  No.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  It might be because I grew up, it's true. I grew up in Massachusetts. Maybe it's because we're wicked cold people. But I just learned years ago, Mike, that the ROI of positivity is better than the ROI of negativity. When I'm positive, I'm a better dad, I'm a better husband, I have better client relationships, I make more money, I feel better physically. So I just learned over the years to practice positivity. And that's really changed my life. Even though I grew up at a time where Seinfeld was doing Serenity Now, and Saturday Night Live was doing, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me, I just started to realize that, okay, like hearing a negative thing from my dad, okay, I recognize that for what it is, I'm going to choose a different path, and I'm going

• 23:06Speaker 01

  to practice that. So I've just learned over the years, how do I practice positivity? In small ways and big ways? And that's why procrastination proof is my 11th book. I never would have written this book at book two, because I didn't know it was true. It would have been a cocky arrogant 36-year-old me who said, I figured out how to become procrastination proof. But by book 11, I feel good saying, hey, I figured some few things out about getting the things you care about done. Like, I'm a very distracted person. It's hard for me to focus, but I've learned some tricks. I think it'll help you too. And that's what's been fun for me with this project in particular.

• 23:45Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you know that old saying, don't put off till tomorrow what you could do today. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. And yet, I don't know, maybe it's just a glitch in the human brain. But it sure is easy to put things off when you don't want to do them. And I appreciate your insight into the topic and how people can get out of that trap. I've been talking to John Acuff. He's author of the book Procrastination Proof: Never Get Stuck Again. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Great, John. Thanks. Thanks for doing this.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Well, I appreciate the chance to talk to you again. It's always fun.

• 24:24Mike Carruthers?

  If you watch enough crime shows on TV, you know about criminal profiling. It's this very clever way law enforcement uses clues to draw up a profile, an idea, perhaps a very specific idea, as to what kind of person committed this crime. Maybe it was a man in his 40s, a loner with a certain aptitude for something. So it must be Bob. It's almost as if it's an exact science, and by the end of the TV hour, Bob is in handcuffs on his way to prison. Well, it works well on TV, but in real life, criminal profiling is far murkier, far less precise,

• 25:08Mike Carruthers?

  and a lot more controversial than most people realize. So what is criminal profiling really? Does it actually help solve crimes? And why are we so fascinated by the idea that someone can get inside the mind of a killer? Here to separate myth from reality is Rachel Corbett. She is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic. She is also author of a book called The Monsters We Make: Murder, Obsession, and the Rise of Criminal Profiling. Hi, Rachel. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 25:47Mike Carruthers?

  So my sense is that criminal profiling is something fairly recent, like in the last 50 years or so. Do you know when it started exactly?

• 25:57Speaker 02

  It dates back, really, I date it back to about the Victorian era in London when Scotland Yard was looking for Jack the Ripper. And there were no, there was no physical evidence. There was almost no, no one to be an eyewitness. They had little to go on. So they got creative, and this police surgeon by the name of Thomas Bond started thinking a little bit outside the box. And he started thinking about, well, what other clues could we deduce that are not necessarily physical clues? And he really started to get creative and think about who, what clues... Kind of person would do such a crime? How would he dress? Who would his friends be? Where would he work? What kind of family did he come from?

• 26:40Speaker 02

  What, um, you know, population or ethnic group or would he, would he come from? And, you know, they came up with lots of theories. They even enlisted Arthur Conan Doyle, the creative Sherlock Holmes, came in and had his own theories. He predicted that Jack Thrippier would be a very educated man, maybe a doctor. And, you know, it, it didn't work, of course. The, it, they never caught Jack Thrippier as, well, as far as we know. But they did kind of create a new way of thinking about, about a suspect, a way of thinking psychologically. So if you fast forward to, uh, the 1960s and 1970s,

• 27:23Speaker 02

  a similar thing happened in the US in the FBI. Um, and so they began to look also for psychological clues. Sometimes they call them psychological fingerprints or behavioral DNA at the crime scene. So they'll look for, you know, what kind of gratification might the perpetrator have gotten out of this crime? You know, was it chaotic or was it really organized and premeditated? And by looking at these types of clues, they could make certain predictions about who it might be. The problem, of course, is that it doesn't tend to work like it's intended to. It, it might create some interesting theories, but in practice, it doesn't tend to capture as many perpetrators as you might think.

• 28:07Mike Carruthers?

  Oh, I was hoping, I was hoping it was really, it was a, a science that, that gets the bad guy every time. But you have to wonder, it just kind of like from a common sense point of view, when I watch, just when I watch it on TV, I think, well, just because the guy did it that way doesn't mean he went to college and, you know, likes sugar in his tea. I mean, I, like, you, you could have five different criminal profilers look at something and get five different theories, which makes none of them very important.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  And that's what usually happens when you do have multiple profilers looking at a subject. I mean, Jack the Ripper, for example, while Arthur Conan Doyle thought he was a highly educated doctor, many others on the force thought he was a very low-class Jewish man living in the East End. So, you know, it just, what I think we find is that it's often a bit of a projection. It's in the eye of the beholder, who you think this perpetrator is going to be.

• 29:08Mike Carruthers?

  You know, it reminds me of like dream analysis. Like if you ask 10 people, dream analyzers, what my dream means, you'll get 10 different answers. And well, then, then none of them mean anything because there's no science to it. It's all opinion and it's all opinion.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. And I mean, you know, you can look at, there is certain data, you know, bombing suspects, they're almost always men. They're typically white men, they're typically younger. I mean, there are all these statistics that turn out to be true. You can make certain broad guesses. But, you know, the profiling that you see on TV is like you said, you know, you know exactly where he gets his coffee every morning and, you know, what he's, every little detail. And that's really, that's really more of a fantasy. And then when you think about it, what does it really do to say, okay, we're looking for a young white male? I mean, it doesn't narrow down a whole lot.

• 30:08Mike Carruthers?

  And so since it's been more or less debunked, why is it still a thing? Why is it still, why is it still around?

• 30:17Speaker 02

  I think it's around less than, than one might think from TV. What's happened is it's really evolved into very specific forms of profiling today, like geographical profiling. We know certain patterns of gun violence. You know, if there's a gunshot here, we think there's going to be another one over here. Kind of patterns of retaliation. Or, you know, murderers tend to kill within their, their own zip code, for example. And maybe they'll slowly spread outward from that. So there's certain ways to also kind of narrow things down based on. Features like that, or victimology, as they say, which is, you know,

• 31:01Speaker 02

  if certain kinds of people go after certain kinds of victims, usually it's someone of your own race, for example. So maybe there's still ways, but I think they're much less ambitious in terms of what they can actually do with this science, if you want to call it art or science. There was a study done in England that found that while something like 80% of the detectives used profiling felt it was very useful, only about 2.5% of those profiles actually led to the apprehension of a suspect. So there's kind of a difference between belief and reality there.

• 31:38Mike Carruthers?

  Could it be that doing that kind of work, of going through the process of trying to profile somebody, it just makes you think in a way that you might not otherwise think that then might lead to, like, it makes you more analytical? Is there anything there or not?

• 31:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think it's useful, in a general sense, for some law enforcement to be versed in some level of psychology, sociology, because I do think it helps to imagine how this crime might have happened, the kind of person. Maybe it just informs something in the back of your mind and guides certain questions down the road. It's just when it becomes too much of a part of your mind, you start thinking, it's gotta be this person. It's gotta be a white male, you know? And then that limits you from actually looking at other suspects. So it can kind of go both ways.

• 32:34Mike Carruthers?

  Is it true what you said before about most murderers kill in their own zip code?

• 32:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, especially, they start close to home and then they will start to spread out. But I think it has to do with comfort, just the kind of, you know, they may not do it right, they're not going to do it right next to their house, but they may do it down by the river where they, near where they live, or that kind of thing. In places they know, because they know, you know, kind of for practical reasons in a way. They know the landscape, they know... You know, where to go, where's dark and hidden, or that kind of thing?

• 33:10Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you would think that over time, if you start to profile cases, especially in the rearview mirror after it's been solved, you would think you would begin to build some data that would help profiling in the future, because now we know what really happened. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  Well, I think there was a lot banked on profiling. You know, for the FBI to kind of admit that it wasn't working, it would have to admit that it was really ignoring a lot of the evidence for a long time about profiling. Because in the 70s and then into the 80s, when there was this so-called epidemic of serial killers, this was the Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy era, the FBI was kind of exaggerating the threat. They were saying that something like 4,000 to 5,000 people are killed every year by serial murderers, and actually it was more like 400 to 500. And they didn't correct these errors.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  And they would hold these very splashy press conferences where they'd bring out their profilers and say, you know, we've got this huge problem on our hands and we've got the solution for it. And the reason behind the scenes was that the FBI was really left in disgrace after J. Edgar Hoover left. And their funding had been gutted, and they needed to kind of rebrand themselves, and they needed to get more money. So by creating this really sensationalized problem and a really kind of sexy solution with these mindhunters, they were able to get the public on board and public pressured Congress to fund them. And so it really worked in a certain way, and they had a reason for making it seem more effective than it was.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  And then I think slowly over the years, it kind of just petered out a little bit quietly. They kind of kept everything quiet.

• 35:12Mike Carruthers?

  Have there been any cases where the killer was, or the criminal was profiled and they nailed it?

• 35:22Speaker 02

  There's a very famous case about this that often gets told and some of your listeners might even know it. It's about the so-called Mad Bomber, this bomber who was terrorizing New York City in the 1930s or was it 40s? I can't remember. I think it was the 40s, actually. But he was leaving pipe bombs in movie theaters and around the city. And the police were completely befuddled, completely stumped. They had no evidence. So they brought in this psychiatrist whose name was James Brussels. And he made these extraordinarily specific predictions. He said he's going to be Eastern European, he's going to live with a sibling, he's going

• 36:04Speaker 02

  to live in the suburbs or outside the city somewhere. And then he's going to be wearing a blue double-breasted suit buttoned to the top when you find him. So the police go out, they get a tip that there's a guy, and actually, an angry former Con Ed employee, who, they go to his house, they knock on the door. His sister is there. He lives with his sister. He's of Eastern European descent and he's wearing a bathrobe. So that part wasn't right. But then when they told him they were taking him into the station, he went to go change and he came out in this blue double-breasted suit buttoned to the top.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  It's like this extraordinary, almost magical, you know, conclusion. And that gets told widely over and over and over again. But it turns out that this is what James Brussels, the psychiatrist, wrote in his book. But he left out all the predictions he got wrong and he massively exaggerated the ones he got right. So it really didn't turn out to be that useful. It was actually just a Con Ed employee who turned the guy in. But that all got covered up in the mythos. So I feel like, I mean, I wish I had a better answer to this question, but I keep finding time and again that it just hasn't proven that useful.

• 37:22Mike Carruthers?

  So has law enforcement pretty much thrown in the towel on this? Or are there still champions of criminal profiling?

• 37:30Speaker 02

  I think that they would say it's evolved. I mean, they would, they now call it like behavioral analysis or, and they, they were, you know, kind of like I was saying, they may use it more for geographical profiling, victimology, or things like linguistic profiling, looking at the way, say if someone writes ransom letters, or writes letters into newspapers, they may analyze that and try to figure out similar questions, like where, where might they be from, you know, what gender is this person, you know, those kinds of things, but through different, different means, means that have a little bit more data behind them.

• 38:06Mike Carruthers?

  And so behavioral analysis, which, you know, that seems to be, yeah, you, what you said is that that's more the term now that you see on TV and whatever, is that any better?

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Well, it's more honest, perhaps, you know, they, the FBI famously changed the behavioral science unit to the behavioral analysis unit, and John Douglas, who's the very famous profiler, who's, the show Mindhunter is based on, you know, his book, said that they, the reason was because they wanted to take the BS out of, out of the unit, so it became the BAU instead of the BSU. So I think it's just, it's pretending less that it's a science, accepting more that it's an art, and also accepting that maybe there are more limited, specific focuses where it, where it can be applied. And this also goes to advances in AI and predictive policing and all these other tools

• 39:00Speaker 02

  that have come up since the sort of heyday of criminal profiling.

• 39:04Mike Carruthers?

  Have there been cases where behavioral analysis, or criminal profiling, or any of the things that you're talking about, have really gotten the wrong person and made their life a living hell?

• 39:18Speaker 02

  I spent time with a family in Florida where there was a sheriff's department that was implementing a new Kind of, they called it intelligence-led policing. And similar motives, they said, you know, we've looked at the data. We find that children who are, who come from homes where there is physical abuse or there's an incarcerated parent or there's drug use, you know, all these different things in the house are more likely to become criminals than those who don't have any of those risk factors. But the problem is, instead of just understanding that and maybe reaching out for, you know, reaching out to those kids with resources, support, therapists,

• 40:00Speaker 02

  I don't know, they, they, they targeted them for enhanced policing. So a lot of these kids, and they were children, many of them teenagers, who this sheriff's office was going and following them, knocking at their doors day and night, where are you, where have you been? Sometimes they might catch a kid, in the case of the family I looked at, he had weed on him one time and so he gets, or not even, I think he had like a trace amount or something in a bag. So it got thrown out, but he got put into like a juvenile detention center for so long that he had to drop out of school. And this kept happening over and over again. And, and he was never ultimately charged or convicted of a crime as part of this policing operation.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  But he spent so, so long in detention that he, like I said, he had to, he had to quit school because he had too much, you know, missed too many classes. Then he starts kind of becoming friends with the kids in the detention center and, you know, and, and it really reshapes the course of his life. Would he have ever been a criminal had this not happened? If he had been able to say, finish school, maybe go to college? You know, we can't say, but it, there were so many people targeted like this. Two, two of the, two of the, the subjects committed suicide. Again, you can't draw any conclusions clearly, but it, it wasn't having good effects on people. And ultimately, they had to ban that program as well.

• 41:29Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it's really interesting that, that, that it has, this whole thing has kind of become. Legend in some ways, and yet, as you point out, most of it has been debunked and proven not to really be. And on some level, it makes sense. When you think about the randomness of crimes and the reason people do horrible things, it seems like it would be hard to put it in any kind of predictive pattern that you could then follow anywhere. Because things happen very abruptly and impulsively. And it's, I mean, maybe serial killers are

• 42:11Mike Carruthers?

  different, but it just seems the whole thing is, crime is not always so easy to predict.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think those two things you just said there actually go hand in hand. I think that the reason it's so hard to predict is the reason why we have all these shows about prediction working so well. I think it makes us feel safer, more comforted to watch something on TV where this out of control, the most terrifying thing you can imagine, say, you know, being the victim of a serial killer or something. You have these guys with this special power who can find, you know, they can get to the heart of these criminals, they can capture them, you know, what no one else can do. And I think it makes us feel, it contains in a way that terrible fear. I don't think, you know, it gives us a sense of control

• 43:03Speaker 02

  over this totally uncontrollable thing. So I think that's, I think that's why we have this lingering, persistent fantasy of the profiler.

• 43:13Mike Carruthers?

  Well, when you think about the movies and all the TV shows that really champion criminal profiling, to find out that it certainly isn't what it's often portrayed to be is really fascinating. Rachel Corbett has been my guest. She's a writer and journalist, author of the book, The Monsters We Make: Murder, Obsession, and the Rise of Criminal Profiling. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Rachel, thank you for being here.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. It's been nice talking to you.

• 43:47Mike Carruthers?

  If you're trying to create a good first impression, what you smell like may matter more than you think. Researchers have found that the scent of lavender appears to make people more trusting. In one experiment, participants exposed to lavender were significantly more willing to trust strangers with money than people exposed to peppermint or no scent at all. Scientists think lavender's calming effect may put the brain into a more open, cooperative frame of mind. Even more intriguing, newer research suggests that one of lavender's natural compounds can increase trustworthiness ratings even when people don't actually consciously smell

• 44:32Mike Carruthers?

  the lavender. So while a lavender scent won't magically make everyone trust you, it could give your first impression a subtle boost. And that is something you should know. If you have a moment today, please tell someone about this podcast, make them aware of it, tell them how to listen to it, and help us grow our audience. It really is appreciated. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.