#137: FBI Hacks for Building Rapport with Robin Dreeke
[00:00:00] Hala Taha: You're listening to YAP Young And Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Hala Taha. And on Young And Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life.

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[00:01:03] This week on YAP. We're chatting with Robin Dreeke, best-selling author professional speaker, former head of the FBI and master spy recruiter. Robin's life mission has been breaking down the art of leadership, communication, and relationships, and then building those lessons into five tangible steps. Robin is also the founder and president of the People Formula LLC, an organization that offers advanced rapport, building training and consultation, having made his way through the ranks of the US Marines. Robin quickly realized his path to leadership was going to be a nonlinear one.

[00:01:37] He learned the defining lesson. That leadership is more than just telling people what to do, but rather using interpersonal skills to inspire action. With this knowledge, he was recruited into the FBI where he became a counter-intelligence specialist and recruited Russian spies. His fascination with human behavior eventually led him to run the FBI's elite behavioral analysis program.

[00:01:59] He [00:02:00] soon became a behavioral analysis expert and has written three best-selling books and uses his expertise to train others through his online training academy. And today's episode we discuss, Robin's journey to the military and eventually the FBI, how humans are hardwired socially, and the difference between likability and trust.

[00:02:18] We'll also talk about Robbins, six signs of predicting human behavior. His leadership mantras had to keep our egos in check and some of the biggest mistakes we make when trying to build new relationships. If you're looking for a deep understanding of human behavior and how to hack your way into better relationships, keep on listing.

[00:02:38] Hey, Robin, welcome to Young And Profiting Podcast.

[00:02:41] Robin Dreeke: Hey, thanks for having me excited to be here with y'all and sharing with everyone.

[00:02:44] Hala Taha: Me too. This is my favorite topic. Human behavior is my all time. Favorite topic. I've had some of the best on my show. I've had Robert Greene on my show, Chase Hughes, Mark Bowden. So I've interviewed a lot of experts and just super excited to have [00:03:00] you Robin because you are one of those types of people.

[00:03:02] You are an expert in this field.

[00:03:04] Robin Dreeke: Oh, I actually know a lot of those guys. You just mentioned that. Yeah, Chase Hughes, trying to figure out what exactly his job was. He still hasn't shared that completely.

[00:03:14] Hala Taha: He's amazing. He's been on my show maybe three times already. I've got to get you guys on some sort of a panel on clubhouse or something.

[00:03:21] Cause it's, it would be so awesome. I love talking about this topic, I guess that, but before we get into how to build rapport, how to gain trust, all these really interesting things that we need in our daily lives and in business, I'd love to understand how you became somebody who works in the FBI. So first start off and tell us, what was your career journey like?
[00:03:42] Like what are some of the things that you did as an adult in your career, and then walk us through how you actually created that path academically and experience.

[00:03:51] Robin Dreeke: And I'm laughing because yeah, I had to take a deep breath. So that's called a pacifying behavior because it's stressful. My, my path was not an easy path.

[00:03:59] There was a [00:04:00] path full of lots of failure. So I ended up in my career before I retired as the head of the behavioral analysis program for counter-intelligence in the FBI. And so that's the common question it gets. So how did you get to do that? And so when I was young and I went to high school, you actually be, even before high school, I want to go to the United States Naval Academy.

[00:04:20] We had a friend of the family that was a pilot for United Airlines when I was growing up. And he had been a Navy pilot during Vietnam and his, I love me room looked really cool. And those were the years when we had just started the space shuttle program. So I wanted to be a Naval academy grad. I wanted to major in aerospace engineering.

[00:04:38] I want to become a Navy pilot. Then I wanted to become maybe even a blue angel on the flight demonstration team than a test pilot and ultimately an astronaut and this amazing, great leader. I failed out of aerospace engineering because no one told me the guy that could barely pass the SATs and barely get in the Naval academy should not be majoring in an aerospace engineering.

[00:04:57] My eyes went from a 20, 20 to [00:05:00] 2030 while I was there. And back then, you can not correct your vision. Aviation was out. They put me on a boat one summer and I didn't like that. The Marine Corps called my name. I went through Marine Corps instead, and then I learned that I'm actually, and we'll talk about this later.

[00:05:15] I learned that I was actually misdefined. Leadership as power and popularity and it's anything but that and leadership is about others, not about self and that's all where the human behavior comes in. And so I was exercising my popular, outgoing personality and failing as a leader. So I had humbling moments in the Marine Corps, but I started learning better.

[00:05:38] My final job in the Marine Corps was at Paris island, South Carolina training recruits down there and implementing a thing called a crucible. And then they had a recruiter for the FBI come down. As I was considering another Marine Corps as a captain, I'd done five years. And this Marine re FBI recruiter said he felt Marine Corps officers made great FBI agents.

[00:05:56] And I had two questions. I said, does all my military time [00:06:00] count towards my retirement? And I didn't know what the FBI really did. So I said, I figured let's talk job satisfaction. I said, how many people make it to retirement? And he said about 95 to 98% of the agents that come on board, go to retirement. I said, oh, they must like the job.

[00:06:16] I get assigned a after new agent train, I get assigned to New York field office. I worked in Manhattan from 1997 on, until around 2006, was there during nine 11 or our office at 26 federal Plaza, about five blocks away. I was there. I saw I was watched everything saw the second plane hit. The fireball come through.

[00:06:34] As I watched about eight people jumped from the north tower. So it was intimately involved in that. And I got assigned to work. Counter-intelligence when I got assigned to work in New York and work in counter-intelligence for me meant my job was recruiting spice. I worked, I, my job was recruit Russians.

[00:06:48] And during that time period, I got on our behavioral analysis program, which is like in layman's terms, it's profiling for the counter-intelligence side, but it's really strategizing on dialogues and recruitment [00:07:00] ops and double agent ops and all that fun stuff. And I got to transfer out of New York to, I went to FBI headquarters, ran a Russian program there.

[00:07:08] Then they asked me to go down. I went to Norfolk on, did the same thing down there. I got the Quantico. I taught a Quantico at the CIA counterintelligence advanced training courses. And I got to take over our behavioral team for a number of years as well. And the entire time, all I did was realize that, it's not all about me.

[00:07:26] Yeah. Put that focus on others. And yes, that is a typical type, a hard charging resume. But if you're going to work in the world of recruiting spies or sales or anything, where you require a relationship, you will fail majestically. If you're focusing on what you want, rather than what others want.

[00:07:45] Hala Taha: I love that a lot of these people that I interview who were in the FBI, or maybe they were police trainers, once they get out, they just want to teach regular people how you can do this stuff because it's relatable, no matter what your profession is, like you said, for sales, especially in we'll get into that in a [00:08:00] bed.

[00:08:00] So before we get into all your different strategies, I do want to give my listeners some context. So I think a great way to start this off is by defining a word that you coined called sympathy, which is a combination of stoicism and empathy. So explain what that is and why that has to do with understanding how people interact with each other and understanding human behavior.

[00:08:23] Robin Dreeke: Absolutely. It's my my favorite combination of everything in the world. So the part of the sympathy that as you said, the stoicism part is stoic philosophies, which is problem solving. It's human problem solving. It has nothing to do with pessimism. It has to do with understanding the human condition and being extremely thoughtful about understanding the cause and effect.

[00:08:42] Do you have another is through human behavior? Ryan Holiday is a great author who I absolutely love all his writings, egos, the enemies obstacles the way and stillness is key are three of my favorite books, which talks about how to. Immensely, put these things in place for self regulation and thoughtful and [00:09:00] contemplate of ways to engage him in bin.

[00:09:01] So that's just empathy part. But if you just use that, you might miss the important thing that you need when you're engaging human beings is understand what they see through their optic and their lens without judging it, which is empathy. And so my code of trust is really a code of empathy, which is understanding other people from their point of view without judging it.

[00:09:22] So now when you combine the thoughtful way to engage human beings with cause and effect of human behavior, because you understand what motivates human beings and you put it together with your desire to understand what they see from their personal optic through empathy, you really have a magical combination of engaging human beings very productive.
[00:09:40] Hala Taha: Is there anything else we need to know in terms of how humans are hardwired or hard coded before we get into strategies for likability and building trust?

[00:09:50] Robin Dreeke: Sure. There's one simple core understanding that everything will spring from no matter what you're doing. And if you remember this, it'll always be a great guide for you.

[00:09:59] And that [00:10:00] is all of us are genetically and biologically coded to act in our own best interests. According to what we as individuals think that are in terms of our safety, security, and prosperity for ourselves and those we care about in our lives. So as long as you take the time to figure out what someone else thinks is in their best interests, you can now understand what they're going to do, and when you understand what they're going to do, and now you offer yourself as a resource for those things.

[00:10:26] You can predict what's going to happen. You're going to have a relationship. So that's pretty much it.

[00:10:31] Hala Taha: Yeah. I think that's key for my listeners to understand. So the other thing I want to understand is the difference between likability and trust, because it's not the same thing. Can you break that down for us?

[00:10:43] Robin Dreeke: Yeah, sure. So trust the first thing I do when I, wrote the last book is redefined trust because trust a lot of people think it's a carte blanche. Big swath of a paintbrush saying, I either trust you or don't trust you. And they [00:11:00] misinterpret trust as likability. A lot of times. And likability just means that you have overlapping interests, commonalities, priorities, demographics, whatever it is, that's the likeability thing, which is, can be very emotional.

[00:11:12] And it's very good. It's very nice to be light, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can trust someone because trust is about predicting behavior, predicting what someone's going to do in a given situation. And so again, when it comes to trust, I don't do a paintbrush. Like I don't trust your distrust you because there's lots of areas I could trust someone in, but a lot of areas I might not.

[00:11:32] And my example I love to use is flying. I fly a plane, small planes. I rent small planes and I used to do angel flights and things like that. I have a lot of training to fly a plane. I can fly a plane very safely. I have a lot of people in my life that are very close friends. I, matter of fact, I still go out to lunch with one of my FBI friends weekly.

[00:11:51] And, but he is not a pilot. I trust him with a lot of things in my life, but I'm not going to throw him the keys to the plane and trust him not to get us killed, because he doesn't [00:12:00] have a skill set in that lane. So trust, first of all, it's I go by lanes, what can I reasonably predict you're going to do in each one of these lanes.

[00:12:07] And then trust is about understanding and predicting that behavior, not about, the emotional ties to like him, because I can like you, I like a lot of family members, but I might not trust family members. I might trust family members, but actually not like them, so they overlap. It's great when they do overlap, but don't mistake one for the other, because you could get yourself jammed up.

[00:12:28] And actually what happens is when you misidentify trust, because you like someone and they fall short of what your expectations are, that's when negative emotions like frustration and anger starts seeping in, and that starts ruining relationships. Cause the whole purpose of understanding people at a deep level like this is you can maintain great, healthy, strong relationships, because that is the bedrock to everything you want to achieve in life is good, healthy relationships.

[00:12:52] Hala Taha: I totally agree. So I do want to get into how to build rapport and then into trust. But you did mention that you [00:13:00] believe that trust is predicting human behavior, predicting what you think that person is going to do. To me, that's a hard concept to grasp. So can you dig into that a bit and really explain what predictability has to do with trust?

[00:13:13] Robin Dreeke: Sure. So predicting behavior again if we just go to the core again, of knowing that people will act in their own best interests. If you understand what they think is in their best interest, you can now predict what they're going to do. They're going to act in their best interest. So that's the first predictor.

[00:13:26] Now the challenge here is to let go of you and yourself, let go of that and beat, really practice ego suspension, and really wholly focused on that other human being watch, observe, so I have this, my six signs of predicting behavior, which I can take a look at and I listened to your words, deeds, and I watch your actions to see what I can observe.

[00:13:48] The first one is simple. It's vesting, there's this person's words, actions, deeds demonstrated that they see our successes tied together because now if they see our successes tied together, I know I can trust. They're going to take [00:14:00] actions that are good for me, as well as themselves. Longevity is another one, do they see the relationship together as transactional and short term?

[00:14:07] Or they see it more long-term because again, if I just here's the other thing too, there's no right or wrong or good or bad, or any of these things just are there, their milestones and signs, then you have reliability, which is about competence and diligence combined together. And you have actions and actions to me is the greatest predictor because people, a lot of times will hope that someone will do something different a different time.

[00:14:27] No, the thing about this, if I watch you do something the same way, three or four times, the likelihood of you doing it the same way, five and six times is pretty stinking high, but people keep hoping it'll be different. That's silly, unless there's a different stimulus that comes in a different priority that enters that person's life.

[00:14:43] They're going to keep doing things the same way, because they think that actions in their best interests, which makes it very predictable and the most important one. I have to, the last one is emotional stability because we don't want to deal with crazy people. But the one I really love the most, which is a great fast read on [00:15:00] everyone is language.

[00:15:02] So if you want to make a connection with any human being, you want to demonstrate that you value them and you want to affiliate with them. And the easiest way to do that is through these four things. One seek their thoughts and opinions rather than sharing. To talk in terms of their priorities instead of yours, three, validate them, non-judgmentally have that great nonjudgmental curiosity about them and who they are.

[00:15:28] And finally, you empower them with choices. When you use one of those four things, the entire conversation shifts from you to them and their brain is rewarding them with dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin and endorphins. The short term and the longterm, all the brain is fire. Anson is person is good for me.

[00:15:43] So what I'm doing is when I'm assessing others, are they using that language with me as well? And so that's a very quick read and you can make that combined with nonverbal congruence. In other words, they have good, happy, comfortable non-verbal displays, and you have a really good [00:16:00] sign of this is someone.

[00:16:00] Hala Taha: Let me pry into that bed because I've heard this from a lot of the experts. I had Dr. Jack Schaeffer on the show. He always talks about how, when you're having a conversation with someone, you've got to make it about the other person. It's not about yourself. You just said the same thing, but I have trouble thinking about how can I have a genuine conversation if I'm not actually sharing my own experiences, if I'm not sharing my own stories and perspectives, because that actually turns the other person off, because you're not talking about them.

[00:16:28] You're only talking about yourself, but if you never share anything about yourself or talk about yourself, how does the person actually get to know you? I guess that's where I get stuck. When people say, make it about the other person at all times.

[00:16:40] Robin Dreeke: Here's how you make it about the other person all times.

[00:16:42] And you maintain that balance. If you always have to talk in terms of the priorities of the other person, if one of the priorities of the other person, as they want to get to know you better at a deeper level then you give them that information and knowledge, so it's actually reading and understanding the priorities.

[00:16:56] I had some people say, oh, Robin, I'm just introverted. I don't want to [00:17:00] talk to her. And I don't want to sit around and talk to anyone at work. I said, great. And that's a part of yours. I'm going to give you your space. And so it's really understanding what individual's priorities are. So watching and reading the non-verbals, and if someone asks you a question, you can share, share as much as you think they want, not what you want.

[00:17:18] And so you're going to start watching those non-verbal behaviors to see are they giving you minimal encouragers? Non-verbally to continue with the story as your dope, main stars flung, because here's the challenge. Your brain is now starting to say, this is good for me because you're sharing and you're being accepted.

[00:17:32] Nonjudgmentally for the things you're sharing. So your brain is. Keep going. You have to keep watching the other person for any sign of boredom or discomfort by what you're sharing, then, it's time to shut it off and bounce back. But no you share when they want you to share.

[00:17:47] Don't share. When you want to share is the best way to.

[00:17:49] Hala Taha: And how can you tell if somebody is bored or having discomfort? I know Chase he's taught me if somebody is blinking really fast, that means that they're bored and to change the topic. Is there any other signs that [00:18:00] we can look for?

[00:18:00] Robin Dreeke: So I'm going to be a lot more generic on this cause it's a lot easier.

[00:18:03] So when you first interact with any human being, you've automatically established a baseline of what their normal behavior is. And so what you want to watch for is a deviation from what normal is. So when they're sharing about themselves and they're giving your thoughts and opinions and talking about their challenges that they have, you're going to see a normal baseline of what their normal looks like in comfort.

[00:18:22] And now when you start sharing your anecdotes and stories, if it's been requested, you're going to be observing again. I just looked in the face area, is everything maintained in the same baseline of what it normally looks like? Or is there a deviation? And if there's deviation, that's your sign to either apologize for something you might've said inappropriately, or you just bounce back, say, enough of me, I really apologize.

[00:18:41] I'm curious. What do you think about what I just said. And again, you can still then talk about what it is you just said, but you now ask their thoughts and opinions about it. So that's an easy way to keep a conversation going and demonstrate that value by seeking that thought and opinion.

[00:18:56] Hala Taha: So I want to keep going in terms of building rapport and [00:19:00] building these relationships, because when it comes to business, it's all about networking.

[00:19:03] It's all about relationships. Having a good relationship could mean, getting your next promotion or getting your next job opportunity. It's super important, no matter what point you are in life. So we just touched upon body language. Maybe we can stick on that. I know that you say that one of the main things when it comes to building rapport is to be in sync with your body language.

[00:19:25] What do you mean by that?

[00:19:26] Robin Dreeke: So I call it congruence. So we have all these great behaviors we can do where we're seeking the thoughts and opinions of others talking in terms of priorities, validating, and giving them choices and making it all about them. But the most important thing then also do is show nonverbal congruence.

[00:19:42] And this is where the difference between, a really bad sleazy salesman and you know which again, they're using great scripts. They're using great lines are using great language, but somehow they just make you feel creepy. And what's happened is you are not. Picking up on [00:20:00] incongruence between their words and their actions.

[00:20:02] And one of the easiest things to pick up on is a lack of synchronous with tempo. If people are really focusing on you and being accommodating to you, they will naturally start sinking their tempo with yours. In other words, these bad car salesman that are trying to get you to get to yes, and get you to buy something and purchase something.

[00:20:20] Cause they're on a tight timeline, they're going to push your tempo fast than you're willing to go. They're going to run back to their manager and ask for a better deal. They're going to come back and they're going to try to put pressure on again. It might not be your tempo and that's where things they're saying the right things, but their actions are way out of sync with your tempo.

[00:20:38] And so that's the easiest thing in the world is look for comfort displays, which is smiling, eyebrow elevation, palms up all these venture displays for high comfort and you want tempo sync and the. Thing to really watch me, careful of I've had many people say shouldn't you just mirror someone's nonverbal behavior.

[00:20:57] I don't like consciously doing that only because if you're [00:21:00] discovered mirroring someone's behavior, it looks like you might be mocking them. And it looks like you might be trying to manipulate. And if that's even suspected, trust is blown and good luck ever get them.

[00:21:11] Hala Taha: So I know that in past episodes we've covered the eyebrow flash.

[00:21:14] Like you just said, the smile, the, that the head tilt to, that's, Jack's three, three magic things, right? Head tilt, eyebrow flashing a smile. You just said, palms up. I've never heard about that. What is palms? What are we looking for when people's palms are up? But I've never really see somebody naturally having their palms up.
[00:21:31] Robin Dreeke: This is great.

[00:21:32] Hala Taha: For anybody on video, he's going to show. And if you guys are listening, he'll describe it.

[00:21:36] Robin Dreeke: When people are chatting, we have a natural way in which we engage people. I naturally use palms up like this ventral space because when your palms are facing upward, this is inviting.

[00:21:46] It's saying, I want to hear what you have to say. Tell me your thoughts and opinions. Even if someone's being directorial in their words to say, this is what we're going to do. Look how different this looks, where I'm using the words. This is what we're going to do. I'm using [00:22:00] eyebrow flash. I'm use smile, a little head tilt, palms up as opposed to.

[00:22:04] This is what we're going to do. Oh, the eyebrow compression palms down. It's very direct. It's this, when my palms are down at saying, I am not listening to what you have to say, this is what we're going to do. This is saying, this is what we're going to do. And because remember people are looking to be understood and heard.

[00:22:23] They don't necessarily need to be agreed with, but we want to be understood and heard. And when you use those comedy non-verbals inventional displays and palms up, you're saying, I'm hearing what you're saying.

[00:22:33] Hala Taha: That's awesome. So just to describe to everybody what he was doing, he was using hand gestures.

[00:22:37] So basically when you're using your hands, as you're talking, if your palms are up, that means you're being friendly, open all that kind of stuff. When it's down, it's condescending and seems a little scary or what's the word aggressive or something along those lines. So let's move into meeting somebody for the first time.

[00:22:55] So let's say we're at a party you're meeting a stranger for the first time. You want to build good [00:23:00] rapport. You've never talked to this person before. They might not have a lot of time. They might be very busy. They might be somebody who is somebody above your level. Let's say you're at a networking party.

[00:23:11] You want to talk to somebody who you want to be your mentor or a future client or somebody who you feel like is above your level. What do you do to have a conversation with them to help them feel like they're not trapped in a conversation with you and to help build rapport? What are your tips there?

[00:23:29] Robin Dreeke: Possibilities when it comes to the individual. So if you're at a function and you see someone that you love to be a mentor or someone that you feel is, I don't think anyone is above anyone's level. I think all humans, human beings are pretty equal, but if if you have a title and position as someone that is aloof.

[00:23:44] Or that you'd love to gamble, able to grab a meeting with later in the week or later that day. Yeah, I use, I always start out with a time constraint, which I think you're alluding to there. And I'll give an example of how I'd probably do an opening. I'd use a time constraint. I seek a thought and opinion.

[00:23:59] I'd [00:24:00] validate them. And I have used an assistance theme because those are probably a pretty good combination because you're going, you want someone to feel really good about engaging with you and you want their ego involved and hit their vanity as well. At the same time, using an assistance theme, which is one of the techniques to quick rapport, we are genetically coded and hardwired to render assistance.

[00:24:22] When people. Now granted a lot of people these days at the higher executive levels do have a big bucket of no. They've learned how to say no to things, but if you use a time, constraint is my work. So I do something that's Hey, I'm so sorry to bother you. It's a busy party and I know you've got a lot of people to chat with.

[00:24:38] So I was just curious, I've read your LinkedIn background. I read your bio on your website. I would love to be able to pick your brain maybe for five minutes, maybe sometime this week. If you had a second to really map out a chart for me, And what I could do to be more like you, what kind of advice would you have for someone like me?

[00:24:57] That's trying to, set a career path for five [00:25:00] years from now. If that's something that you're comfortable with, if not, I'd love anyone that you'd refer me to, that might be able to do to similar things that you've mentored in the past.

[00:25:08] Hala Taha: I love that. I just want to highlight the tip, cause I thought I've never heard of it before.

[00:25:12] And I think it's so brilliant the time. Thanks. So you basically walk up to someone and you're like, oh, I got to run in 10 minutes, but I'd love to chat with you about X, Y, and Z. Then they know it's going to be 10 minutes max. And their anxiety is reduced because all of us have been in a situation where we don't want to be caught up with a stranger for too long.

[00:25:30] It makes us uncomfortable.

[00:25:31] Robin Dreeke: And also you're monopolizing their time and you're not important to them whatsoever. And you're demonstrating, so Robert Cialdini in his book influence, says, human beings on first contact have to answer priorities of the out of the human beings.

[00:25:43] And that is who you are, what you want. And how long is this going to take? And when you answer to how long this is going to take, you're basically empowering them again. One of the four pillars I have is empower people with choice. You're empowering them with a choice of knowing the end is coming soon.

[00:25:57] And. I always loved throwing in there. If [00:26:00] that's something you're comfortable with, because that is also, it's very soft, it's great language and it's empowering them with choice. And then even at the end, I gave them a choice. If you're not comfortable having a chat with me, who else would you recommend that I could equally do that because they're going to recommend them to someone in their circle.

[00:26:16] Because again, when you're, when you are using one of those four statements and great report, every single statement you're making their brain is completely re warding them for engaging with you. And when you make it about an assistant scene and you're looking for advice and guidance on how to be just like them or a path they'd recommend, and it's, it can either be them or someone else, even if it's someone else you're going to be in that close, tight circle of that person, it's going to be one degree of separation.

[00:26:42] So if not today, you'll be able to maybe make a connection later as well. And what you're doing by doing all these things, as you're greatly improving your personal brand about how you're interacting with humans,

[00:26:52] Hala Taha: So I'd love to further understand the importance of giving people choices in a conversation like why

[00:27:00] is giving choices so important?

[00:27:01] And what does that do? Human behavior wise.

[00:27:04] Robin Dreeke: Human beings want to feel empowered and given people a choice gives them power that they want. And so it's very simple. And people, especially in the sales world and marketing world are so terrified of letting someone off a hook and not giving them a choice to walk away.

[00:27:21] I had a philosophy that I held with me throughout my career and I hold it today. And that is I'd rather work with seven people. Give me 120% of their effort than a hundred people. Give me 5%. Because it's just such laborious work. And if you're trying to convince someone to have a conversation dialogue with you, it's really about you.

[00:27:41] It's not about them. And that's the kind of relationship. If you're not giving people a choice that they cringe, when they see your cell phone number pop up, they don't even open the email when it comes that, it's all those kinds of communications things, because you're not making it about them.

[00:27:55] I'd rather have people excited to see me and inspired, to want to have a dialogue [00:28:00] in cooperation with me. And if you're doing all these things before you give the choice, the likelihood of them saying go away is so low. I have not had anyone say Robin, I just don't want to talk to you ever now. They've placed conditions on it.

[00:28:15] Sometimes they've said Robin, I'm willing to have a dialogue and be a resource for you, but just not necessary maybe over here, so they might've shifted things. They put conditions on it a few times. What I haven't had anyone say
[00:28:26] Hala Taha: So basically you're saying when you give people a choice, they're less likely to feel pressured that they have to say yes.

[00:28:33] And because they feel less pressure, they're more likely to say yes.

[00:28:36] Robin Dreeke: Yes. And also because their brain is saying, this person is safe because remember safety, security, and prosperity. If someone's giving me a choice, they're not, I know they're a lot safer than someone who's not giving me a choice. That's making me skeptical, getting it keeps going down to those four things, seeking thoughts and opinions, talk in terms of priorities, validation, and power with choices because our brains want to have that kind of power and control because it makes us feel.[00:29:00]

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[00:30:35] So let's get a real example. Let's say it's somebody's asking a girl out on a date. How can we give them choice, have a conversation where we give the girl choices so that she's more likely to say yes, like what's an example of that.

[00:30:48] Robin Dreeke: Boy. I haven't asked anyone on date in about 28 years. It would definitely be along the lines, although my son is my son. Who's 21 said you actually stalk everyone on social media now. And I ask them out via social media. I'm like what? I never heard of that. But [00:31:00] anyway so I would, again, I seek their thoughts and opinions that, Hey, I mentioned it last night at this at the function we were at, we're at this beautiful function where I talked to the CEO and he said, he'd give me a meeting.

[00:31:09] I'm curious, I said, I'd love to take you out for a cup of coffee because it looks like we might have some overlapping interests. And if that sounds like it's a good idea to you. Great. We can meet at either Starbucks or we can go to the place down the street here, or if you prefer lunch, we can do that.

[00:31:22] You just let me know what you're comfortable with. And let me know what time might be best for you. Cause I'm available either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and I'm usually good on, between noon or, one.

[00:31:34] Hala Taha: Lots of varying choices to make them feel like they're empowered to make their own decision.

[00:31:41] Robin Dreeke: Yeah. And it's not high pressure, you're demonstrating a lack of intensity. Nothing sets people off, especially on first contact and believe me, my background, it screams high-intensity Taipei. I know how off-putting that is. So as I got more comfortable with making it [00:32:00] about other people and empowering people choices in my career, and I was like, all right, you either want to get together or you don't, I'm fine either way.

[00:32:07] Then when you're relaxed, everyone around you becomes relaxed. And so part of that is giving people a choice of, Hey, if you want to see me great, if not a completely understands,

[00:32:16] Hala Taha: That totally makes sense. And I think it's natural, but when you think about it, you're more proactive to actually make sure that you do that in your interaction.

[00:32:23] So I love that you talked about,

[00:32:24] Robin Dreeke: And it's challenging too. Especially if there's someone we want to meet, whether it's personal professional, we are desperately, we want this to work. And when we want things to work, what happens, we get tense. We get intense, and the focus is what I'm looking for.

[00:32:39] I'm trying to think in turn, my brain automatically thinks in terms of how can I convince this person to want to see me, but remember convincing is about you. You want to inspire that person to want to see you and inspiration has to come from within them. So if you're going to want to have this person inspired to see you, you have to give them a reason why they'd want to see you [00:33:00] from their point of view, from their priorities.

[00:33:02] And one of the ways you do that is by overlapping priorities and you empower them with choice about whether they want to.

[00:33:07] Hala Taha: I think this is so interesting. So as you're having this conversation, I think a theme that's popping in my head is that you've got a stroke people's egos. And then in your own words, you say you have to suspend your own ego.

[00:33:21] So talk to us about how we can suspend our own egos, especially if we are the extroverted type that loves to talk about ourselves that love to put ourselves first. What are some ways that we can keep our ego in check and know that we have a problem and how can we start to suspend our ego?

[00:33:37] So we focus on the other person.

[00:33:39] Robin Dreeke: Yeah. So it's very difficult to suspend your ego. Matter of fact, I'm not of the school where you can stop doing a behavior. The best thing you can do is use good emotional intelligence, which comes into play here, which is says, what can I add to my behaviors? Because when you add a new behavior or mitigate a negative behavior, me being an extrovert from the [00:34:00] Northeast, as we were talking before, and I am from New York, I'm an extrovert.

[00:34:03] I'm extremely opinionated. I'm extremely vocal, I think out loud. And it's just, it's been in my way. Most of my life. That's why my books are my manuals on how not to be the self-centered moron I was born to be. And so the behavior you add. Curiosity the best way to get over your ego is to be more curious about other people and their thoughts and opinions rather than sharing yours.

[00:34:27] Because once you realize people really don't care about your thoughts and opinions, you'll let go of it. Because what happens is when we're trying to make this human connection, it's typical where we share anecdotes and stories with each other, our thoughts and opinions and things are going in our lives.

[00:34:42] Because typically what happens is say you share, we did it before, and you said you're from. And I'm listening to stories of Jersey and what they merely do, LA I'm from New York. Let me tell you about New York. So our brain automatically says, oh, I got an anecdote or story to make a connection because that's what we're human beings want is connection and value.

[00:34:59] [00:35:00] Ego suspension is the active act of saying, all right, here's how I want to say, but now I'm going to completely dump it. Not even shut up and be quiet because now you're still thinking about that thing. You want to say, no, you got to completely dump it from your head. The first time you do, it's going to feel very weird to literally say, I'm going to get rid of this anecdote and story.

[00:35:19] I'm going to share. I'm going to refocus on this other person and explore everything she shared with me, because if it's coming out of your mouth, it's a priority of yours. And now it can explore that. Like, how did you decide to do this? When did you decide to do that? What kind of challenges did you have along the way of doing.

[00:35:37] You mentioned you and Jordan harbinger being a great guy. Yeah. I love Jordan. Jordan was at our first class years and years ago that we put together. And again, the inclination there is to share my anecdote story about Jordan, rather than say, how did you meet Jordan? So that's the difference.

[00:35:49] He goes, suspension is letting go of my need to share my anecdote about Jordan and hear what yours is.

[00:35:55] Hala Taha: I love that. So before we move on to other topics, I want to get into some sales [00:36:00] techniques and things like that. Before we do that, what are some last things that we should look out for when it comes to relationship building like the biggest mistakes that people make when they try to build their relationships?

[00:36:12] Robin Dreeke: Forcing your agenda and others?

[00:36:13] I think that's a really simple one. That you, if you relationships are about beautiful balance of understanding each other's priorities and being a resource for each other non-judgmentally and not keeping a scorecard on it either, because sometimes there's going to be periods in people's lives where they're going to need a little bit more.

[00:36:30] And at other times they won't, so it's about understanding the needs, wants, and dreams of others. What you can do to make their lives easier, what you can do to make their jobs easier. And don't keep a scorecard. And the best thing I could tell my 20 year old self that I wish I knew back then was instead of trying to make myself look good at work, I should have been trying to make everyone around me.

[00:36:48] Look good at. Because now you're the one that everyone wants. You're the one that people want a team with you to one that people want relationships with because when you're this high achieving self-reliant, [00:37:00] self-actualized person, which has fantastic skill sets to have you think it's all about you. In other words, I can only rely on myself, but you cannot achieve anything in life without relationships.

[00:37:10] And if you just focus on building good healthy relationships, which means that you're focusing, understanding others and what their needs are and being a resource for them without an expectation of reciprocity. So that's the thing that gets in people's way as they think they just keep barreling ahead with their own agendas, irrespective of the impact they're having on others or the needs of others.

[00:37:30] Hala Taha: Super interesting. So I want to talk about sales. It turns out when you're in the FBI, you actually had a sales element to your job. You had to recruit Russians fries and your product was, it was American patriotism. So talk to us about that. Give us a real story about how you use some of these techniques and how you use them to recruit spies and how that's related to sales and what people can.

[00:37:55] Robin Dreeke: Yeah. So it's everything. The life to me is exactly the same. It was engaging with human beings, whether you're [00:38:00] recruiting spies or selling, financial services because recruiting spies, it's a service industry because I'm selling a service of, American nationalism protect national security, United States.

[00:38:10] That's the service is protect national security. And my, when I was in New York, I had a squad, we had a squad about 10 or 12 folks on my squad and basically that's my sales, that's the sales team. And so we had about 10 or 12 sales folks. And our only client base was about 35, Russian military intelligence officers.

[00:38:27] So we only had a potential. Clients of about 30, 35. So the first challenge areas that, you have almost as many salespeople as you do potential clients, and so everyone's struggling for, to make the sale. So this other challenge is how many of these Russian nationals, which are diplomats at the United Nations, under diplomatic cover, spying for Russia wants to buy my service of American national patron.

[00:38:52] Probably pretty low to none. And so basically I have a, I'm offering a service that no one wants most of [00:39:00] the time. And then the next thing is because of treaties and everything as an FBI agent, it was actually illegal for me to initiate contact with one of these individuals. So I was, it was illegal for me to make a cold call.

[00:39:12] So you don't even, I don't even have the ability to initiate that contact, even try to use the techniques of rapport and trust. And so the only way you can do that is use a trusted third party individuals, that might make an trusted transfer of trust or have them come to you because if they initiate contact, that's actually completely fine.

[00:39:30] But then how do they find you that comes down to again, that personal brand. And so that begs the question that everyone always has. So how do you actually recruit a Russian spy? Just like anything in life you don't. Do you actually sell a product or you build a relationship and does the product sell itself?

[00:39:45] All the job was trying to identify the priorities of these intelligence officers and offer resources in terms of those priorities that overlapped with my priorities was protect national security, United States and our NATO allies. And in order to do that, I needed [00:40:00] information of their methods and tactics and techniques that they're doing and the information they're going for in the information they garner in order to get.

[00:40:07] I need to offer them resources in terms of their priorities. And if I could identify an intelligence officer whose priorities was that a dying wish of a mother or grandfather or someone else was at their grandchildren or children, wouldn't grow up under Putin's regime. That is actually a priority.

[00:40:22] I have resources that can help you with, so it really just came down to understanding the priorities of others and often resources, and then doing the same thing. And so it's everything in life is exactly the same when you're selling a product or service, you're identifying a priority of an individual and you're offering resources in terms of priority. So that it.

[00:40:40] Hala Taha: And how did you give them options in this case, let's go back to the options.

[00:40:43] Robin Dreeke: It's really funny because people always think you just offer a money, offer them diamonds, offer them, no, it's deeper than that because those things are a means to the ends. What are they trying to do?

[00:40:53] That kind of money. And even when you're like, when you're selling a financial service, people don't are not less looking for money, [00:41:00] not looking for a product they're looking to provide. As my friend, Joe Navarro says and be exceptional there, look, everyone's looking for things that are going to provide psychological comfort, according to what they define psychological comfort as.

[00:41:14] And and the bigger cases that I worked, it was months and months before you actually talked about the type of remuneration they're looking for, what they're looking for reciprocity. And then now I've never been in a case where anyone ever put a dollar number on what they're looking for.

[00:41:27] They're looking for things like I want guaranteed education at a top institution for my children. I want the top level medical care for my family. I want to live in a house in a comfortable area that has these amenities can, there was no dollar amount. They're looking for what they're looking for, psychological comfort as they define it.

[00:41:45] So the job was to understand what psychological comfort is to them. And then I can check my resources, see if I can provide that in exchange for things they're providing for really psychological comfort, the United States. [00:42:00]

[00:42:00] Hala Taha: Yeah. It must've been so awesome to have that job. And something else that you talk about a lot is leadership.

[00:42:07] And the fact that leadership is about inspiring and not convincing. Can you talk to us more about that?

[00:42:14] Robin Dreeke: Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up too, cause it is you must follow me on social media because it is, I have literally on a tear with this. I've had so many good humbling moments in my life about what I am not good at.

[00:42:26] And when I was younger, I was, in high school, I was one of those as an expert. One of those semi-popular guys, as a football player, very active with all the clubs. And what happens is those types of popular people. A lot of times teachers and guides and mentors. Place a label of leader on you, so you made you're made the captain of the team or the president of the club or something like that, but popularity is nothing but power because popularity is about self it's about, look at me. Look at social media. Are you a me former, look at me or [00:43:00] you an informer where your resource for others.

[00:43:02] I, one of the most profound books I read this past year was in his, right behind me, The 48 Laws of Power by Greene.

[00:43:11] Hala Taha: We had him on his show episode 43 and 44.

[00:43:14] Robin Dreeke: When you mentioned that name, I almost, I cringed. He is a great man and understand the human nature, but that book, I almost put it down five times because I did not understand.

[00:43:25] Power. So power in his 48 Laws of Power. Yeah, it's the human condition. All right. The power is about self it's. About what I can do about making myself look good. It's about control and leadership is the dichotomy, the opposite, Jocko Willink talks about the academy of leadership. A dichotomy that is not often talked about is the dichotomy between leadership, which is about a seat being of service to others and power, which is about self.

[00:43:51] And so in all dichotomies, you can't be on one extreme or the other, at first I was like, absolute, you can't do power because it's horrible. It's corrupting, [00:44:00] but. I understand you need to exercise some laws of power in order to get an opportunity to exercise leadership. So it really comes down to being incredibly self-aware so that you can do what you need to do through popularity to gain the title and position you need.

[00:44:16] But you have to recognize once you have that position, you now have to shut it off. And now we have to lead because lead is about being a service, others about accountability to self. And there's so many elements I've been speaking about this because leaders solve problems, leaders own the actions that happen, and they just keep moving forward and people that are exercising just power don't do that.

[00:44:39] So it's a good, it's a good awareness that I didn't have. I realized I was exercising popularity. And when I hit the Marine Corps and I thought as a popular guy, and I got ranked last out of every single second Lieutenant at my first duty station, cherry point, my went to my major and I said, Ronald, I doing wrong.

[00:44:55] And he goes, oh, that's easy. He just needed to be a better leader. I said, all I thought [00:45:00] I was, how do you do that? And he goes, you just need to make it about everyone else. But yourself, when you spend a lifetime of being validated for being popular, you have no idea what that means. So it really was laying down the gauntlet for me, for the rest of my life to figure out how do you make it about others and not yourself.

[00:45:15] In other words, how do you let go of power and popularity and actually lead.

[00:45:22] Hala Taha: So interesting. Oh my gosh. She just dropped so many gems. I would encourage everybody to go rewind that bit back. I wish I could rewind it back right now because it was so good. Thank you so much. So let's get into your new book, The Code of Trust.

[00:45:35] Give us the high level. What is this book about? I know we talked about predictability and trust a little earlier. Is there anything else that we need to know that we can apply in our daily lives that you think would benefit our listeners related to this?
[00:45:47] Robin Dreeke: The Code of Trust is, I have these five steps to trust and we really we've been through pretty much all of them throughout this but the one I will really emphasize that we haven't really talked about, but we did when talking about this [00:46:00] topic of power and leadership, and that is be generous.

[00:46:02] Leaders are generous with resources. They're generous with time and the bedrock of it is without expectation reciprocity. This is really tough for people. I know it's tough in the sales world and that is you. A lot of times we want to do something for someone else because we want something in return leaders let go of that.

[00:46:22] So I have, my three pillars of leadership are pretty simple. We accomplish goals, missions, objectives, and priorities, because that's what keeps the world moving forward. Organizations and individuals. We have to know the path where we're walking to. We create a safe environment, both physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

[00:46:39] We provide that psychological comfort for everyone around us because only then can you have innovation? Simon Sinek talks about how human beings. We thrive in a state of deprivation a lot of times, but also thrive when we're feeling safe. And so creating leaders create that safe environment so that people are free to innovate and keep moving forward.[00:47:00]
[00:47:00] And finally, the third pillar is what we're talking about is that as leaders, our resources for the success and prosperity of others without expectation, Even if someone doesn't like you, they want to walk out the door. A great leader will help them go out. They'll help them get the next job.

[00:47:14] They'll help them move on. It's because leadership is not about liking someone. Leadership is about being a resource for others, and that's where it's the most selfless thing you can do. And ultimately, I've written a lot about this lately leaders are problem solvers. If you don't like problems, stay out of leadership.

[00:47:34] Hala Taha: I love all of those. Those are some great principles. So I see my last couple of questions here. We were talking offline, you have maybe 40 Bucks Behind You. You told me these are all books that you've recently read. What's the best book that you've read recently.

[00:47:48] Robin Dreeke: Oh boy, you have to hit a topic. I, there's not a book.

[00:47:51] I don't like I take notes and everything. I get a lot of, I, my topics on my website I categorize my books into is self-awareness [00:48:00] context and historical context, body language, and leadership. So those are my topics. So I, I definitely love stoicism. I love Ryan Holiday's works on Egos Enemy.

[00:48:10] Stillness Is the Key and Oh, The Obstacle Is the Way. I love Steven Pressfield's. One of my new favorite authors. He is a great historical writer. He wrote The Virtues of War. He wrote Gates of Fire, which is the real story of the battle of Thermopylae 300 on that the movie was made after he is a great historical fiction writer.

[00:48:28] It gives amazing context and amazing leadership values that are ageless. So that's a great book, I think Tasha Eurich she wrote a book that I read recently called Insight. It's about the science behind self-awareness, which is fantastic. Also Jay Shetty, and think like a Monk absolutely loved that book, Jocko Willink, and Leif Babin.

[00:48:47] I love there. I didn't think I was gonna like those books extreme ownership and dichotomy on because like, all right, it's just another military guy like me, but no, his storytelling is phenomenal [00:49:00] and his relate-ability of how he then applies it to business is stunning. So it's a great leadership principles in there as well, but anyway, I could keep going, but those are just some of my top ones.

[00:49:12] Hala Taha: That's awesome. And you just gave me like ideas for five different episodes. So producers who are editing this interview pay attention and please invite those folks.

[00:49:21] Robin Dreeke: And you mentioned it too. And also I got to give credit to Jac Schaeffer and Joe Navarro with two of my team members that were on my batch team.

[00:49:26] When may Joe Navarro book Be Exceptional, phenomenal book has got five rules to be an exceptional people do. And of course, Jack Shea, my good buddy, The Truth Detector I loved because what a spin on a hunt elicitation.

[00:49:40] Hala Taha: Yeah we had a whole episode about that truth detector and we did one on the leg switch.

[00:49:44] Two great episodes. You guys can go check out. So Robin, the last question I ask all my guests is what is your secret to profiting in life?

[00:49:53] Robin Dreeke: Oh, I tell you something today that I probably went through said five years ago, and that is, I have

[00:50:00] discovered what a moron I've been because I didn't read. I also discovered I'm, what's called a kinetic thinker and a kinetic learner.

[00:50:06] I have to move. And a COVID has been a challenge, for everyone in the world, but I always look, the obstacles the way, the gift and the challenge. And I started walking a lot, because business was pretty low. And so I discovered I got bored listening to music.

[00:50:20] And so I said, Hey, let me try this audible thing. Let me try listening to a book because I could never do it before. It was like, I can't sit and listen to a book, but I discovered that when I walk in. I remember everything. I take notes and I devour books and I that's my secret. I just try to keep learning and all of these gaps that I have in my life.

[00:50:40] And it's been profound. It's the, Jim Mattis had just read call, Sign Chaos, the former secretary of defense and another phenomenal book where he says learning and reading is your shock absorber for life, because all the, all your, all the answers you seek have been answered already, your job is just to find them.

[00:50:58] So I have found it to be [00:51:00] the most beneficial thing I've ever done.

[00:51:02] Hala Taha: I love that. And I loved the fact that you mentioned that you can listen to books sitting still, but once you started moving around, that works for you. I think a lot of people also listen to podcasts while they're moving around, whether that's working out, walking around a great way to listen.

[00:51:17] Robin Dreeke: And actually, it's funny, you said that because that's exactly what started happening. So I started listening to podcasts more I listened to Jordans and I love listening to podcasts that would recommend books. So Jordan had Jay Shetty on and I was like, wow, that sounds like a really cool book.

[00:51:30] And that's literally, so that was the first book I read when I started discovering how I actually learn. It took me into, I'm almost 53 years old. It took me that long to figure out how I learn.

[00:51:40] Hala Taha: I'm going to try that. I'm going to try to see cause I study for other interviews a lot of the times by listening to other interviews, because I know that I learned better hearing things than I do reading them.

[00:51:50] I'm going to try walking around and seeing if that even helps it stick it further. And that's interesting.

[00:51:55] Robin Dreeke: It is truly amazing. I wish I knew this years. I'm trying to remember what book I read. It [00:52:00] said that it might've even been a call sign chaos. I think the journal said that anyway, one of them.

[00:52:06] Hala Taha: Don't, you wish that we could take all our meetings walking around a, not at a desk.
[00:52:10] I wonder how much more productive everybody,

[00:52:11] Robin Dreeke: A good friend of mine, Chris Nagy. He actually, he might be another good one for it too. He wrote the book. Human Hacking is social engineer. A matter of fact, he is the CEO of innocent lives foundation where I'm a board member. We uncover online predators, child predators, and hand it over to law enforcement.

[00:52:25] And so he actually, he lost a lot of weight and started doing much better when he actually, his desk is his treadmill. And so he stands always doing podcasts and walks, just nice, easy stroll while he's doing podcasts while he's working. And he lost a lot of weight doing it, but it actually helps him think.

[00:52:44] Cause again, somewhat we're all just different learners. And so if you can discover what your learning style is and it works for you, find a way to do it. The only took me my entire life.

[00:52:54] Hala Taha: I'm definitely gonna test that out. It's better, late than never. So where can our listeners go to learn more

[00:53:00] about you and everything?

[00:53:01] Robin Dreeke: Everything I do is all on peopleformula.com, all one word peopleformula.com. Whether it's my newsletter sign up. I do a lot of writing. I do daily posts on all the things I'm writing. I do have a book club. I have online training academy and I do coaching. I do speaking, you name it, and I have a YouTube channel for my own author podcasts.

[00:53:20] I do. So if you want anything or reach out to me in any way go there. It's easy to go.

[00:53:25] Hala Taha: I predict a future clubhouse event where I invite you. Chase, Dr. Jack Schafer and the whole crew to talk about human behavior. I'm super excited about it. Thank you so much, Robin. This was an amazing conversation.
[00:53:37] Robin Dreeke: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

[00:53:40] Hala Taha: Thanks for listening to Young And Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe to this podcast. So you never miss an episode. What an amazing conversation with Robin he learned early on in his career, that leadership isn't just about popularity or likeability, but it's about the ability to inspire those around you into action.

[00:53:58] Leading effectively [00:54:00] means pushing your ego aside, being nonjudgmental, honoring reason, validating others and being generous with your time and wisdom. I loved Robin's perspective on how to suspend our ego with curiosity. When I'm able to be more curious about the person in front of me and ask them more questions, it becomes way easier to push my own ego aside and being in the moment with whoever I'm with asking questions, shows that you care and that you're listening and people will like you more.

[00:54:26] When they feel that you truly care about their wants and needs in order to have a better understanding of what people want and conversations and relationships, remember that you need to shift the focus to them instead of you through open body language and active listening, we can form strong bonds with strangers from the very first interaction. I'm going to recap some of Robin's key methods for connecting with others.

[00:54:48] The first one is to establish artificial time constraints. This is especially important. If this is the first time you're talking to someone, because nobody wants to feel trapped in an awkward conversation with a stranger, [00:55:00] you could try something like I'm on my way out. But before I left, I wanted to ask you something.

[00:55:05] You could also avoid correcting people or anything that could be interpreted as one-upmanship. You never want to sound like you're trying to one up someone so avoid correcting other people. You also want to make sure your words and body language are aligned and both non-threatening remember smile.

[00:55:21] Smiling is so powerful and so important. And you also want to speak slowly talking fast signals, nervousness while talking slow signals confidence. And lastly, just listen. You don't need to tell your own story. Just encourage them to keep telling their own stories. Listening is the simplest validation that can be given to another individual.

[00:55:42] The difficulty most of us have is keeping from interjecting our own thoughts. Own ideas, our own stories during the conversation, true validation, coupled with ego suspension means that you don't have to tell your own story. You're just simply there to hear their story. There was so many other [00:56:00] awesome takeaways from this conversation with Robin, I would highly recommend that you go back and re-listen to this episode because it was super valuable.

[00:56:07] And I want to thank Robin for coming on the show and being such an amazing guest. If you want to learn more about sparking, genuine conversations with strangers and raising your likeability, go check out episode number 64, Turn On The Like Switch with Dr. Jack Schafer yet another former FBI agent and behavioral analysis who has been on the show.

[00:56:26] Here's a clip from that episode.

[00:56:28] Dr. Jack Schafer: Because we all think the world revolves around us. And everything has to be about us. So if we extend ourselves and make it about the other person, then that person says, wow, somebody paid attention to me. Somebody understands, somebody observed something about me and made a comment.

[00:56:48] Therefore, I liked that person because they're finally, somebody is paying attention to me and my world. So that's the thing is you're getting out of your world and you're projecting empathy into another [00:57:00] person's world, which makes people feel good. What we're supposed to do in life is make people feel good about themselves.

[00:57:08] And I like to go through life. And every time I meet somebody, I like to make them think that was a person worth meeting because I just feel that much better for having that person. And that's my goal. Now.

[00:57:23] Hala Taha: Again, if you want to learn more about how to become a more likable person, go check out episode number 64, Turn On The Like Switch with Dr. Jack Schafer.

[00:57:32] Now, as always, I want to end the episode by shouting out one of our recent Apple Podcasts, reviewers, Apple Podcast reviews are the number one way to thank me and everybody on the YAP team for all of our hard work. And this week, shout out, goes to Marielle Ali in the Philippines, and she says highly recommended.

[00:57:48] At first, I was just looking for good podcasts to listen, to, and get guidance for side hustles, but they featured more and more topics on self-improvement and wellness. And I got absolutely hooked. I can honestly say that listening [00:58:00] to YAP has helped me get through the pandemic all. Thank you so much, Marielle.

[00:58:04] So glad that Young And Profiting has been a source of inspiration during such a tough time. I've heard that a lot, and I'm really happy that people have connected with the podcast and have bettered their lives through the podcast. And if you're out there listening and you enjoy and find value from this show, please take a few moments to drop us a five-star review, and maybe you'll get shouted out on the next week's podcast.

[00:58:25] Feel free to also share Young And Profiting Podcast on your social media. One of my favorite things to see is when you guys take a screenshot of your app, upload it to your Instagram story. Tag me @yapwithhala on Instagram, and then we can talk in the DMS. I love to hear your feedback. I love to read your reviews.

[00:58:42] You guys can also find me on LinkedIn. You can search for my name. It's Hala Taha big, thanks to the amazing YAP team as always. This is Hala signing off.