INTRO
TONY: Welcome back to the podcast. Now, every entrepreneur eventually learns that building a successful business isn't just about strategy, marketing, or operations, guys. It's about people. The partners you choose, the employees you hire, the customers you serve, and the relationships you build ultimately determine whether a business grows or struggles.

And in today's world, you know this—where decisions are fast, communication is constant, AI is changing everything, how we work—understanding people has never been more important. And here's the challenge. Most of us were never taught how to truly understand human behavior. We rely on instincts, impressions, and sometimes just hope for reading people correctly.

My guest today has spent much of his career studying something many leaders overlook—the predictable patterns behind human behavior and trust. Robin Dreeke is a former FBI counterintelligence behavioral expert whose work focused on understanding how people build trust, form alliances, and reveal their true motivations, often in high-stakes situations where getting it wrong has serious consequences.

Today, we're going to explore what entrepreneurs and business leaders can learn from that world, how understanding human behavior helps leaders build real trust and create the kind of alliances that last.

Let's dive in. Let's bring him on. Hi, Robin. Welcome to The Tony DUrso Show.

ROBIN: Thanks, Tony. Great to be here. And what great topics we're talking about today.





TONY: Well, you know, the one thing that really caught my eye about you and what you're an expert in and what you can help with is about creating unbreakable alliances. And if you think of that as the CEO, the founder, the business owner, how amazing that is to have with your subs, your employees, everyone that you work with, your agents—to just have these strong bonds. And I've approached this conversation a couple of different ways in the past, but I think we're going to hit it really head-on this time. Robin, so can you—

ROBIN: Yeah, I'm sorry, because I just wanted to riff on what you're saying. So unbreakable alliance is hands down, it is the greatest tool we have in our lives that can overcome any challenges that we face. Because really, you can teach anyone to flip a switch to do a thing, but it's the relationships we have in our lives that can help us innovate and move through any challenge we face.

TONY: I like that a lot. I'm curious what led you into studying human behavior and eventually led to your work here in counterintelligence?

INTERVIEW – PART 1 (THE JOURNEY: FROM ASTRONAUT DREAMS TO FBI)

ROBIN: Yeah, it's kind of a crazy story because how many of us actually do what we set out to do earlier in life, or actually really knew what that was or what that meant. So yes, at the end of my professional career inside the FBI, before I retired, I was the chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. My job was recruiting spies, recruiting confidential human sources, running my behavior teams who were strategizing all these kooky, spooky spy things across the nation. As I say, where it's double agent operations, false flag operations, undercover operations, all the stuff you think James Bond was doing.

But my journey was really not about that. I really wanted to be an aerospace engineer, Navy pilot, and astronaut when I was younger, and I failed at everything. At least I thought I did.



So what happens is, when you study and love human behavior, and really when it comes down to it, when we want to build alliances, when we want to feel safe and we want to move through fear, it's understanding what makes people do what they do. And when you focus your entire life on that, and we all do, we all are trying to figure this out because the greatest thing about human beings is that each of us and all of us are extremely predictable, all of us.

And especially as you're working as an entrepreneur, we're all doing the same thing all the time, is we all are going to take actions that we think are in our best interests in terms of our safety, security, and prosperity from our point of view. All you have to do to understand what someone else is going to do and build that alliance, build trust is really understand what that means to them. That takes deep, active empathy.

So that arc of mine, where that started was, I'm going to make it really, really super simple. I'll share a few highlights along the way. But when I was very, very small, and this is before I even went to grade school, before I even went to elementary school—because when you understand the things we do at our very early ages of life, that allowed us to feel safe, the things we craved, the things we wanted to do, and then got rewarded when we did them, that becomes our life arc.

And when you can even ask that question, just like you did of me right now, what was that spark and inspiration all those years ago that inspired you to be who you are today? When you can discover what that was, you can now predict what they're going to follow every single day in their life, what they're going to pursue. Now it's going to manifest in different ways. Mine wound up recruiting spies around my behavioral team, but my original arc started with a very simple thing.

I wanted to go to school when I was in kindergarten. I was dying to get on that school bus because I loved to go outside, play with kids and make friends, and that was it. That's the driving force in my life and a lot of people's lives. And so how do you do that? You got to start reading your environment. Am I making a connection, not making a connection?



And I gotta tell you, it's both the nature and nurture part of things—I came up in a place where not a lot of money, kind of really, really very blue collar family. So I had to do a lot of problem solving early in my life. And I was solving my problems. But I was very attuned to solving problems with relationships. I love making friends. I love great, gregarious, outgoing. We did a little pre-show talk. I was born in New York City, grew up just north of New York. Gregarious, outgoing, extroverted, all these bigger than life things.

And as I said, I was very good at solving my problems. I wanted to go to the United States Naval Academy when I was in high school. In order to do that, I needed to be the captain of the football team. I needed to be elected school president. I needed to do all these things for leadership. In reality, all those things are about popularity, and popularity is about self. But I didn't quite understand that yet. Still, problem solving on my own.

Had to take the SATs, the standard operating test like seven times, even get the minimum grades to get into the Naval Academy. It took me an extra year to get in. Again, aerospace engineering—remember, wanted to be an astronaut, aerospace engineer, Navy pilot. If you go into Naval Academy having to take the SATs standard test seven times, I should not have majored in aerospace engineering. Kind of failed out of that.

But in order to get through the Naval Academy and even get in the Naval Academy, what did I need to solve that problem? Relationships. Had all those relationships.

Now I get out of the Naval Academy. I wound up going Marine Corps instead of Navy because my eyesight went to twenty-thirty. You couldn't have it corrected. I couldn't be a pilot. I fell in love with the Marine Corps. Why? Brother in arms, the camaraderie. What did I want to do when I was younger? Friends, friends, friends, leadership, all these things. And so they manifested into going into the Marine Corps, learned a lot of humbling lessons along the way.





INTERVIEW – PART 2 (THE TURNING POINT: RANKED LAST)
ROBIN: This is the quintessential life lesson I learned, where I started shifting how I thought and perceived the world around me was my first duty station at Cherry Point, North Carolina. I'm a brand new second lieutenant, and I thought I was God's gift to leadership. Why? I was popular, happy-go-lucky guy, gregarious, outgoing, a lot of friends, a lot of contacts. It was going great.

Marines are very, very good at evaluating and judging the living hell out of you. And my first ratings came out and I was ranked dead last—fourteen out of fourteen out of the second lieutenants.

Humbling moment in life. I only had one nature gift I was given. I think that really helped this and that was I always owned my behavior. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin talk about it in a great book, Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership. And what it talks about is when something goes wrong, when you're faced with a challenge, are you placing blame outwardly, or you're accepting your responsibility for your actions for it?

And in other words, do you see the world as the glass half full or glass half empty? Do you see the world as you're the victim of what's happening? Or do you own your behavior and just work the problem?

I was always a problem solver, and that's what leaders are. They're problem solvers, innovators are problem solvers, and entrepreneurs are problem solvers. If you sit on your butt blaming everything around you, I guarantee you you're not going to move through that challenge and you're going to fail.

So I owned it. I said to my Marine Corps major, I said, "All right, sir, I get it. I'm doing something wrong. What is it?"

He said something very simple and profound. He goes, "That's easy. You just need to be a better leader."

When you don't have context of what someone's saying when they say it because you thought you were, the words were meaningless. It's like fleeting. I said to him, "All right, sir, I get it. I need to be a better leader. I don't understand what that means. I guess because I thought I was. What specifically do I need to do?"

Always asking a question. What makes it be granular for people? Be very objective. Again, I didn't take things personally. I just wanted to move through this challenge.

And he goes, "Oh, that's easy too. You need to make it about everyone else but yourself."

That was a challenge to me because it also hit me at my core. I thought he was saying, "You're a narcissistic megalomaniac. That was just making it all about you." That's not what he was saying. What he was saying was, "You're very, very good at solving your problems. If you want to be a leader and innovator and a problem solver, you have to focus on being a problem solver for others."

And that's that difference. And that's that. I was now able to shift the skill set of building relationships for solving my problems and learn what leadership was, what innovation was, what being an entrepreneur is, and learned that, wow, the people around me, they have challenges, priorities, and pain points in life as well. And if I become a resource for them overcoming their obstacles in life, overcoming their challenges in life, I'm going to start building relationships with them. They're going to want me in their lives rather than me wanting them in my life.







INTERVIEW – PART 3 (THE FOUR GOLDEN KEYS)

ROBIN: And so that's when that shift happened. And the language behind this was very, very simple that I didn't know at the time, because we all fall into this trap—our egos, our vanity, our own insecurities, our own trauma responses typically make us self-centered when we hit fight or flight or when we hit challenges.

And I was very good at being me-focused with my language, and all I had to do was shift what I call these four key principles.

Instead of talking about my challenges, goals, and priorities in life, I had to talk about their challenges, priorities, and goals in life.

Instead of talking about what's important to me and talking about what my opinions are, I have to talk in terms of what their opinions are, seeking their thoughts and opinions.

Three, I had to stop judging the living hell out of people that didn't agree with me and be actively curious about them non-judgmentally.

And finally four, give someone choices. You empower them with choice because when people have choices, they feel empowered, they feel safe, and they have situational awareness to move a direction that they feel is comfortable for them.

And again, those four golden keys is what I was starting to put together. From there, I did five years in the Marine Corps, served at Cherry Point, North Carolina. Then I got great lessons learned on lots of what I call reps, life reps at Parris Island in South Carolina, where I was a series and company commander down there.



And then I came in the FBI nineteen ninety-six to ninety-seven, and I got assigned working counterintelligence in New York City, where I got assigned to work recruiting spies, Russian spies. And I served like ten, eleven years in New York. I got transferred to Norfolk, Virginia, where counterintelligence, FBI headquarters, national program for counterintelligence.

The entire time, I was an adjunct as an adjunct duty. But it's a collateral duty of being on the counterintelligence behavioral analysis program as a team member, where we're assessing all these things. And then I got to take over the team towards the end, like the last five, I guess, five to ten years of my career. So I ran the team as a behavioral expert. I was an instructor at Quantico, blah, blah, blah, all these things. All these things really add up to a lot of reps.

SPONSOR BREAK – MONARCH
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And now back to Robin talking about creating unbreakable alliances. And you can find him at RobinDreeke.com. That's Robin—R-O-B-I-N—Dreeke is D-R-E-E-K-E, RobinDreeke.com.

And right before the break, Robin was talking about how years of experience eventually led him to one core realization that nearly everything in life and business ultimately comes down to trust. And that's where we pick things back up.



INTERVIEW – PART 4 (EVERYTHING IS TRUST)

ROBIN: And here's the key bedrock I learned probably in my last ten, fifteen years in the FBI when I was running my behavior team. Someone asked me once to write an article and describe what we did on the behavioral analysis program. And I took a second back, and I never really thought about it. It was just kind of this—we had a process where I would assemble four team members that were specific to a particular violation or case we needed to work with as a recruitment operation or a false flag or something. And depending on the country we're working, I'd bring in four team members and one operational psychologist, and we would talk to the case agent. We learned about the case. We'd learn about management.

Because the first question I always ask the case agent that called us in was, "Tell me what your management thinks about this case," because I'll tell you, here's a reality behind everything in life, especially as an entrepreneur or business owner or anything, you have to first convince or inspire your bosses to approve what you want to do long before you engage the client, long before you engage anyone in the public, long before you pitch a spy to work for the good guys. You have to get your bosses, the State Department, the CIA, whoever else is involved to say, "Yeah, that's a good idea."

So you're always working all these things. And when I started to write an article about this and sit down and say, "What are we actually doing in every single case?" That's when it kind of came opening up my eyes, as I call it, the clearing of the fog.

All I ever did on every single case for twenty-two years with the FBI, whether it's my case or assessing any other cases on all these behavioral assessments I do. And even now, in my post-bureau career, all you are ever doing in every single situation, including as an entrepreneur, trying to solve problems, trying to solve challenges, you are strategizing trust because no one is going to cooperate. No one is going to share information. No one's going to be a problem solver in your life unless they trust you.



So every single thing we did was trust. And so everyone that watches all the spooky, spooky spy movies and James Bond and think it's all about subterfuge, manipulation and all that, as I call carnival tricks. Real life is nothing like that. Real life is about open, honest communication, transparency, and vulnerability.

Because if you're asking someone to take the greatest risk of their lives and their family's lives to cooperate with you to protect the national security of the United States, if they think you're trying to manipulate them, if they think you're trying to use subterfuge or deception in any way, there's no trust.

I mean, just do your own thought experiment on this. If someone came up to you, they didn't really tell you who they were. They're offering you maybe money for something. You have no idea what you need it for and you don't know them. What are you going to say? What are you going to do? How would you feel? Do these reverse optic thought experiments and you're like, you'd run away fast. You'd report it to the police, you'd do something.

So that's why all those things are garbage. They do not work. We strategize great trust in every case. That was my semi-quick life arc of how I got to be where I am today.

TONY: Absolutely amazing. There's so many comments I'd like to make on that. I almost don't know where to begin. I'm sure everyone in the audience is going to have their own questions. I'm going to try to take this in a little bit of order, but the biggest thing that is hitting me right now, which is the last thing you just talked about, is trust. Okay, so it's all about trust. Trust is important. You're absolutely right. Trust with your employees, your subs, your agents, the companies you work with, your trust.

Somewhere along the line, you've learned and you mentioned a little bit, but I want to really dive into it, how to build that trust. And what did you learn that you got wrong about trust?



INTERVIEW – PART 5 (THE SEAN STORY: WHAT I GOT WRONG)

ROBIN: Oh, just because it's inverted for us, we get it the wrong way. So what did you get wrong about trust that you've then found out it's a different world?

Yeah. Life is full of great, great life reps and beautiful, humbling moments. Every time we have a humbling moment, that's when you dive deep and you be thankful for it. Here's a great thing about human behavior and how our brains and minds work. We do not remember average days.

I mean, Tony, I could ask you what you had, you know, last week for maybe lunch, dinner or, you know, what email came in and you'd be pressed to remember that from a week ago, two weeks ago, let alone a year or two or three ago. We do not remember average days. The days we remember are the ones that are either really, really challenging or really, really awesome.

And so any time something super challenging or humbling happens to us, lean in hard and love that moment because you're going to have a great life rep that if you take that moment in, you reflect, you do a great after-action review of yourself, everything you could have done differently, the outcomes that could have had you play thought experiments, you just do a great after-action. You're going to learn beautiful tools from that. And I had some great ones along the way.

Part of my upbringing from that earlier arc of wanting to make friends and be popular and have fun outside playing was my ability to read. And any people that go through some challenging childhoods and some trauma—I'll just call some trauma. We get really good at reading people and assessing our environment for safety. It's part of our human condition. We're genetically and biologically coded to really read the environment pretty good. Some of us more than others.



I was very, very good because I cared deeply about making friends at that young age. When I wronged someone, if I said something off, if I was off-putting anyway and I could see them recoil, I could see a little bit of compression, lip compression, any locking blade, any of the nonverbal of stress coming in. And I always owned it and said to myself, "What did I do that caused them to feel uncomfortable with me?"

And so when you go through life self-centered, as I was at first talking about my things, I was deeply pained every single time that I caused discomfort in someone else. And I was constantly assessing, "What do I need to do better? What do I need to do better?"

And I would have these humbling moments. I showed you that one in the Marine Corps and the FBI. I had quite a few. I wish I didn't, but I did, and they were very effective working with squad mates. That's always easy to tell when people aren't talking to you or they are talking to you. You can tell when someone's off-put or doesn't want to cooperate with you, or they do. So those are moments when you can take it in.

But when you're working with potential confidential human sources and you're putting your all into creating trust and a relationship that could literally save the world—I mean, I worked on cases, and when you work national security and you're cooperating with our foreign partners and not, you know, not just domestic, but foreigners as well, the Five Eyes and other intelligence organizations around the world where information is going to the leaders of nations. Yeah, it's impactful and it's important.

And I remember I had been in the bureau about four or five years, and I was doing very well. One of my things I love doing, I love recruiting sources. I love doing interviewing. I love, you know, spy operations. All these things are great because why? Human interaction. You're forging relationships. You're inspiring cooperation. And I'll get back to that word inspiring later on, I'm sure, versus convincing or persuading or influencing, which is about me. Inspiration's about them.



But there's this one operation where I was re-recruiting, I should say, a confidential human source. I'd been in the bureau about five or six years, and I was doing well in the sense of lots of sources on board, lots of operations. I loved what I was doing, great human interactions. My bosses loved me because I was really good at making cases work and great at papering files, all the things you need to do.

And we had one of our Russian spies had departed the country. Then he came back after a couple of years on his second tour here. He'd come back and there's one of the sources we had that he was in touch with, that he got back in touch with. The previous handling agent, case agent that was in charge of him, had moved on to headquarters, got promoted. But I knew this source was a great source of ours, but I hadn't been introduced.

And I remember going to the former case agent. I called him on the phone and said, "Hey, Sergey Ivanovich, you know, whatever his name was, was back in town. He's back in touch with our source. Let's call him Sean. Do you think Sean might be willing to reinstitute a great relationship with me and the FBI and continue the great work he's doing, providing information on this spy and maybe help us recruit him?"

"Oh, yeah. Sean's a great guy. I'm sure he'll help you out. I'll set up an introduction."

The former handler sets up the introduction. I get Sean at this first meeting. Now, I had gotten really, really good at taking care of my sources. I'd take them out to fine meals. I'd take them out to baseball games if they want to do. Be able to give them a little bit of money for their time and effort. This is typically what you do to wine, dine and make someone feel special.

The difference here was that was things that I liked to do and things that made me feel important. And granted, ninety-nine percent of the sources loved it too, because I made them feel important by being able to make them feel like a rock star. And they were. They were providing information and giving feedback. All this, this helped out.



In this situation, and this went straight up to the president or went to the Defense Department, whatever it was. And I did the same thing, thinking about what I preferred to do because I was being successful. But this guy, he was a hard science kind of guy. He was an engineer. He was a researcher going for his PhD at a university in New York.

And I came in with the same, you know, smoking and joking and having a good time and, "Hey, let's get together." And he—I remember the very first meeting he said, "So, Robin, that's all very nice and fine. What specifically can I do for you? Because my time is very limited. I got a lot of demands on it, but I'm willing to help out. But I really need to know exactly what you need."

He was asking for granular, objective things that we could discuss and talk about. As I'm talking about the weather, I'm talking about baseball. I'm talking about fine dining. I was driving him up a wall. I didn't know it because I wasn't picking up on these cues.

And I said, "Oh, we'll talk about that next time. Can't wait to see you. You know, I'll call you in three days and we'll get together."

And he goes, "Okay, yeah, I'll think about it."

Totally oblivious to me. I get back to the office, do my little jig, do my little dance. So excited I get another source on board. My boss is like, "Yeah, there it goes. Robin again. He's knocking it out of the ballpark."

I then call Sean a couple days later. He doesn't pick up the phone. I said, "Huh, that's odd." I then try emailing him. Ghosted me. And this is during the days before we even had ghosting as that term. I'm getting ignored.




So I do whatever every fine gentleman that feels like he's being jilted by someone does. I switched up my cell phone because maybe he'd see a new cell phone number and not think it's me. He picks up when I use a different number, and I get him on the phone and say, "Sean, man, I've been waiting to get together with you. I thought we were gonna grab a Yankees game and, you know, go out for a good meal."

And he goes, "Nah, man, I can't help you."

I go, "What?"

"You don't seem to really understand what I need, and you don't seem to really have a plan in place. I just really can't waste my time. I'm so sorry. Goodbye." Click.

And it's like, "Wow, I totally blew that."

And in that moment, as he said those words, I had reps and I was very good at reflecting and I said, "I own this and this is how exactly I blew it."

I go back to the office, hat in hand, humble as living hell, and I told my boss, "We got to close it. I said, I blew it."

And he's like, "No, wait, man, just give him another call. You didn't blow it."

I said, "No, I blew it. This will not happen again."




So that was a really quintessential moment where I now—this is all subjective art form stuff at this point. Still, before I got to Quantico and started teaching this and taking this art form and making it paint-by-number to pass on to others. But that was a very good early career humbling moment that I learned a tremendous amount from is about, don't do what you want to do. Be who they need you to be in that moment, every single moment, always assessing their comfort level with the things they're doing, always assessing what are they doing, what am I doing to inspire them to feel safe?

Because if you're not, you could potentially blow it. And when you have things on the line, when you have a business on your line, when you're building relationships, whatever it is you're trying to achieve, you constantly have to assess, "What do I need to do to communicate in a way that they prefer to communicate? To communicate in a way and be a problem solver in their lives? What can I do to inspire them to feel safe and comfortable with me?"

And when you're recruiting a spy, or when you're doing anything in life for your business, and you need to build relationships and alliances, the first and only thing to be focused on from the very get-go is put your agenda behind you. You know what it is. You don't keep it at the forefront because if you go in with an ask and you haven't built a reservoir of trust yet, and that thing's empty, you're going to get a no or you're going to get some reluctance, you're going to get a reluctant cooperator. And that's not ever good.

You want to go in and build that reservoir first, and the way you do that is when you can identify a critical life challenge or a critical business challenge that they're facing, and then you can become a resource or offer resources for them to overcome that challenge. And you can do so without an ask. And you have the behaviors of trust, of open, honest communication, transparency and vulnerability, then you may have a relationship.

And then when you sensitize them towards things that you're facing, when they are curious about the things you're facing, and then you can lay it out that, "Yeah, I'm kind of facing this challenge, this problem," then that inspires them because that need for reciprocity will have built in them because you actually proactively are problem solving in their life first.


And then the hardest thing ever—manage your tempo. Because if you're on a deadline, if you're on a tempo that's a million miles an hour and they're running at one hundred miles an hour or five miles an hour, and if you try pushing that tempo without transparency on what exactly you're trying to do, you're going to be off-putting.

So again, long narrative answer on how I learned to get over myself.

TONY: What Robin just said there really hits at the core of leadership and communication. If people feel pressured, manipulated, or unsafe, they pull away. But when they feel understood and respected, relationships open up. And honestly, that applies directly to entrepreneurship.

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And now back to Robin, who was talking about how trust is never built through pressure. It's built through transparency, safety, and understanding how other people think.

INTERVIEW – PART 6 (READING SIGNALS: BASELINE & DEVIATIONS)
TONY: All I can say is, wow. Absolutely amazing story. And I can totally see how you think one way and whatever, it flips the other way. Are there signals? I mean, how this person did not — of course, based on the training you had at the time, didn't follow a predictable pattern. You thought you had it. You talked about it. "Hey, I'm going to wine and dine and go out and go to a game, go whatever, whatever."



But there's signals. So what are some of the signals that we can watch for so that we can really understand where people are at? We need this when we do negotiations, when we do sales, when we deal with other business owners and CEOs in our lives, what should we be looking for?

ROBIN: Yeah, it's a lot easier than people tend to make it out. Even as a behavioral guy that I am, you know, people are always thinking its some high-tech, high-faulting need to do a lot of study. But here's the good news for everyone paying attention right now is we're all doing it every day, every single moment.

So even ask yourself right now, you can tell when someone's having a bad day, can you, at work? If you've interacted with someone once, twice, or three times, you've got a good baseline understanding of what normal, healthy behavior looks like for them every day. And what happens is, is when someone's having a bad day, it's not because they come in and say, "I'm having a bad day." They have a deviation in the normal pattern of behavior, just like you said, Tony.

And so what that is, is there becomes incongruences in what you expect. And so even when you're doing a short interaction, you just are going to get more and more attuned to those things. And so what we're always looking for and what we always want to do is we want to always establish a good, strong, healthy, normal baseline at the start of every conversation.

It's like, you know, just like we started today, its like, "Hey, what was that spark and inspiration that brought us here today?" You start with the stuff that is a great open-ended question that allows people to feel comfortable. You get so you can just see and experience what their normal tempo is, what their normal behavior pattern is, what their speech pattern is, the modulation, their voice, the tenor of the voice.





And I keep hitting on this word tempo. Each of us has, and you can tell it with me. I've been on the same tempo every single time, every single answer. All my speech patterns, my modulation, everything's got the same tempo. Even when I give a short pause, a think for a second, that pause is generally pretty standard, pretty regulated. Because I've said these things before, they're comfortable for me to talk about.

But then as you establish what that normal looks like, if all of a sudden you bring up a topic or ask a question or go down a certain road or an idea, and all of a sudden you start seeing a deviation or a spike in that normal pattern, the tempo of their behavior, now we've got to take a pause and just assess, "Is this a good thing or not so good thing? Is this a sensitive topic that we should avoid or not avoid?"

And so when we see a deviation in their nonverbal behavior, which includes voice, which includes tempo, that's when we need to assess. "Did I say something that's already—own the behavior that caused discomfort anyway?"

And then we just make a choice. Should I address it and apologize? "Oh, I'm so sorry, Tony. You know, it seems like that might be a sensitive topic for you. If you'd like, we can avoid it and not go there again. And my deep and sincere apologies for it. Or if you like, I can try to address it now if you'd like, and we can try to move through it. Whatever you tell me I'm willing to do just to make it more comfortable, more agreeable for you."

And so we can either address it like that, where you empower them with choice about how to move forward, or you can just sidestep it and say, "You know, this is just a venue and an avenue here, a lane that we should just avoid at this current time, maybe come back to it later."

So that's what I'm always assessing because people will give a lot of grace if they see you making an effort, but if they see you blowing through their discomfort, then you're just creepy and they're going to put their shields up and you're not going to have an interaction.



So that's typically what I'm doing ninety-nine percent of the time is I'm just intuitively gauging like we all are what's going on. And the key to this also—the second part is don't get so fixated on what it is you're trying to say. Pay attention to what it is they're saying. Everything they're doing, you have in the back of your mind everything you need to accomplish. But when you get so focused on what you're going to say, a script you might be running in your mind or your agenda, you're going to miss what they're giving you to work with.

Because they're going to give you exactly what they're comfortable working with, both the content, the topics, the subjects, all of it. If it comes out of their mouth, they're willing to discuss it to some degree. If it's not coming out of their mouth and you just kind of blast through and want to go down a certain road, just read their reaction to it before you keep blasting down the road. You might need to back off and adjust.

INTERVIEW – PART 7 (THE FOUR GOLDEN KEYS OF COMMUNICATION)
TONY: That Russian engineer, technical person, scientist that you wanted to help work, you had in your mind, "I'm going to do this and this and this" because that's your normal M.O., that's what you'd normally do. You wine and dine. You take them out, you get to know them. You build the trust that way. But he had a total different—he was like, "Tell me what you want. Tell me."

And so he was telling you that you didn't get it because you were so into what you want. And so that kind of brings me kind of on that point, but kind of because it's about—we want somebody to do something for us. Now everyone in the audience is thinking, "Oh yeah, let's—it's all how you manipulate someone."

But if they don't go the way you want it to go, then what do you do? And I think you've mentioned about this, it's you got to build that trust. But if you can't wine and dine and take the person out, not that you were going to wine and dine your employees or your subs or your agents—in terms of applying this to the business world, you still want to create that. You want people to do things for you. So you've got to create that trust. So how do we do that? And you've kind of touched upon it, but I just want to hit it head on. How are we going to create that trust with the people that we want so that we can get these things done?

ROBIN: Yeah. So without wining and dining and just material gift giving that we do, if we're trying to recruit a spy, you know, because here's what you're actually doing in all the cases I've demonstrated, and here's what you do with everyone every day—you demonstrate that you value them, you demonstrate that you see them and you don't judge what they're doing, you assess what they're doing.

There's a big difference between making it about you and making it about them. If you just focus on these, what I call—and I hit on them briefly, but I'm going to make them very linear for you. Earlier on, that was these golden keys of communication.

When you're communicating, each of these golden keys is registering chemically in the other person's brain that this person is good for me. They allow me to feel safe, I'm being valued, and I'm being seen.

And that is number one, every single interaction you have, and this is where you build up that trust bank and all it takes is a little bit of bandwidth. You can do each one of these things. You don't have to do all of them. But if you just pick one and everything you say in a live interaction, in every sentence or in an email, just make sure every single sentence has at least one of these things in it, or even in a text.

It's very, very simple. Take a second. Take a pause before you hit send. Before you open your mouth, make sure it's about them by doing one of these things.

**One: Seeking their thoughts and opinions** instead of going on and on and on about what you think.





And so here's a great example. Say you have a policy letter you got to put out. Say you have a promulgation, say you have a new client you want to bring on board. Instead of saying, "Hey, here's what I need you to do. Here's a new policy coming out. Here's a new product I want to give you"—instead of saying that because each one of those things is about what I'm trying to achieve, what I want—instead, you can keep the same core intent by reversing it with a simple thing.

"Hey, what do you think about this new policy coming out? What do you think about this new product we have being delivered? What do you think about this?"

See how easy that is? Instead of telling them what you think, ask them what they think about the same thing. You don't plant seeds with people by telling them what you think. You plant those seeds by asking them what they think, then they're engaged. Because when you're doing that, what do they do? They feel valued.

**Second, when you're presenting these thoughts, opinions, and ideas by seeking theirs, talk in terms of their challenges, their priorities, their pain points, their friction points in life,** instead of guessing by saying, "Hey, this can solve this problem for you. If you do this, this will be good if you enact this program." That's what you think.

You can then frame it in terms of knowing what their challenges are and say, "Hey, you know, this might be a good thing for you. What do you think about this being able to solve this problem for you? Being a resource for overcoming this obstacle you face in your business? What do you think about this policy coming out in the business here? Because it will help us do X, Y, and Z. Is that something you agree with or not?"

So again, you're seeking the thoughts and opinions in terms of their priorities, challenges or pain points. If you don't know what they are, say it. Say, "Listen, I think this might be a good product for you because it could potentially do this, but I'm not really totally clear on what would be good for you. You tell me if this good align for you or not. If not, let me know what I might be able to bring to bear for you. And I can try to make that happen."

So that's the two.

**Three: Non-judgmental, active curiosity.** Non-judgmental just means I'm not going to sit here and verbally or non-verbally judge if something you say is incongruent with what I think, what I believe, or whatever it is, because typically if someone says something, whether it's what you see in the news, I mean, it's typical with news, right? Half the world watches CNN, the other half watches Fox News, and the two will never agree again for the rest of all eternity. Right.

But if you sit there judging it, I guarantee you walls up, shields up. No one's ever going to talk to each other again and there'll be no communication. Instead, instead of saying, "That's not what I think, here's what I think," say something like this: "Wow, I never heard it quite put that way before. How did you come up with that? Where did you hear that? I'd love to learn more."

Nowhere in there did I say I agree with you. I'm seeking to understand it through that non-judgmental, active curiosity. And when I say the word active, what I mean is just don't be curious about what it is you want to know. Be curious about what it is they want to share. So that's the active part.

**And then finally, you empower people with choice.** The thing I used all the time in the FBI and in business now—the beautiful word "if."

"If that's something you're comfortable with. If not, let me know what I could do to make you more comfortable. If that's something it would be good for you. Great. If not, let me know."

So again, "if" empowers people with choice, goes back to the ancient primal brain we have because when we felt we had choice, we felt in control because the greatest motivators of all human beings—again, I said it earlier, we act in our own best interests in terms of our safety, security and prosperity. So the greatest fear in that circle is fear. Fear is a great motivator. But the other thing we want to do is we want to control everything we possibly can. When people have a choice, they feel in control.

TONY: Robin just made an incredibly important point there. When people feel like they have a choice, they feel safe. And when they feel safe, trust grows. That applies to leadership. It applies to business. And honestly, it applies to this show too, because none of this exists without you listening, sharing, following, and being a part of these conversations.

So before we continue, I just want to take a moment to thank you for being here. Your time and attention truly matter to me, and I appreciate you choosing to spend part of your day with me. How cool is that?

And if today's episode is giving you something to think about, you can follow the show wherever you're listening so you don't miss what's coming next. And if someone comes to mind who could benefit from this conversation, feel free to share it with them. That's one of the best ways this show continues to grow—through people like you, sharing valuable conversations with others who need to hear them.

And if you're not already receiving my Elite Entrepreneurs newsletter, you're always welcome to join us. A couple of times each month, I share insights like this along with practical ideas entrepreneurs and business leaders can apply right away in business and in life. It's designed to help you think differently, lead better, and stay focused in a world that's constantly pulling your attention in every direction.

I also share highlights from upcoming interviews, leadership insights, Vision Map ideas, and conversations that can help you move forward on your journey to success. You can find it at TonyDUrso.com. That's Tony D-U-R-S-O dot com.

And again, thank you for being here. I truly appreciate it. And now back to Robin, who was talking about how giving people choice creates trust, safety, and stronger human connection.




INTERVIEW – PART 8 (BUILDING TRUST = DEMONSTRATING VALUE)
TONY: Now all those points, those four points that you made, the summary of it, if that's the right way to say it, is, this is how to build trust. As I'm looking and thinking with all these points and it's deep. I've got to listen to this again, but it's how to build that trust with that person by including them. It's sort of like you're including them instead of telling them what to do. Even if you're the boss, you're including that person into the mix.

And though you never said the word, "trust me," but it seems to build more of a camaraderie. Now you've built more of a trust as a result.

ROBIN: It did, because what's going on then when you're doing each one of these four things and you don't have to do all of them, just one sprinkled in there, every time you're doing this, it's all about them, their brain, our ancient genetic, primal biological brain is saying, "This person sees me, they value me, they want to affiliate with me."

And so the dopamine, the serotonin, the oxytocin and endorphins, the big four in the brain are firing. And so think about this. If they have—say you're offering a widget, say you're selling your widget and five other people are selling the same widget, it always comes down to who do they want to cooperate with? Who do they want to work with? Because they light up when you walk around that corner.

If you want someone to light up when you walk around the corner, when they see your email coming in, when they see the phone light up, be that person that does one of those four things and they will choose you over everyone else.

I mean, think about this. Think about the person in life right now. I talked about walking around the corner. If you just give yourself a thought experiment for a second and think about who could walk around your corner right now in your home, your office, wherever it is and you just light up inside. You stop everything because you cannot wait to have this conversation with this person.


I guarantee you that person does one of those four things with you every single time you chat, and ninety-nine percent of the time, it's because they're non-judgmentally actively curious about what's going on in your life. And they talk about it. They ask you questions about it. They allow you to share about it.

So you be that person. Well, you know what? No one else is doing this. You be that one person in your life doing this. They're going to accept you into their life, and they cannot wait to do something in reciprocity. When you have an ask, they'll give it to you hands down. You don't even have to finish the sentence before you say, "Yes. I'm all on board."

INTERVIEW – PART 9 (RED FLAGS: WHEN TO WALK AWAY)
TONY: Robin, I'm going to flip this around. Not to argue with you. I don't argue, but just because the one thought that we've been doing this whole trail now is building trust, building rapport, getting people to do things. And I'm thinking, wait a second while you're going over this. I'm thinking, what if the person's not the right person? How do I know that I should even trust this person?

I'm going through all this effort to get this person to do whatever I want or whatever. Should I? Are there signs like, you know, maybe this is not the right person to have? Like, instead of, you know, so it kind of changes the playing field here. So how do you decide on that?

ROBIN: There's a lot of different things that we want to do for that. You know, people call them red flags. I have a pretty simple red flag system that I stick to all the time. And that is I'm seeking transparency.

So if we're talking about a topic, we're talking about a situation, we're talking about anything and someone is being less than transparent with me on a topic that is critical for us to move forward. And they're either sidestepping the question, I will give someone grace once or twice when I'm trying to seek some clarity on anything.


And what you should get in return when you're seeking transparency and clarity on a situation that is critical for our cooperation, you should have at that same tempo, the same modulation, the same comfort level, an easier explanation because you want an easy explanation, maybe to a complex question, because that demonstrates their competence in actually this area that they say they should be competent because they should be able to make complex things simple. That's when they have expertise.

But the other thing I'm looking for is that transparency. Now, if they aren't giving me that transparency, they're avoiding the question. They're giving you that creepy feeling. And that creepy feeling is basically when we are picking up on incongruence between words and emotion. That's a major red flag for me because I guarantee you this of human behavior.

If someone has a lack of transparency and they're giving the creepy feeling, that's because they don't want to work together in that area. They in a critical area that you want and need information for you to feel safe in, and they're not willing to give it. You're not going to make it better by pressuring them, I guarantee it.

So I just—I bail or avoid it or decide. And that's where you make a decision for yourself. Is this a critical area enough that it's going to be a showstopper and a game ender for me or not? Or if I'm fine avoiding it and just going over to this lane, we can do business over here. That's fine. But if this lane is a critical lane, I'm out. I'm good.

And here's the key. No resentment over it either. It's just that our paths are not meant to be congruent in this area right now. And I'll be very—I'm extremely transparent with these. I'm extremely humanistic when I'm engaging with people. Very kind, very generous, offering a lot of grace. But I'm also very transparent.

And, "Hey, this is definitely an area that we're not going to agree on because I'm looking for transparency. I'm looking for some easy information, some easy access to information, and I can tell you're not comfortable giving it. Now, if I'm wrong, please share and tell me how I'm not accurately assessing this, but I'll bow out now. I'll make it easy on both of us instead of trying."

I guarantee you I'd rather work with people who give me one hundred and twenty percent willingly than more people give me five percent reluctantly. Because then if you dread seeing me, if you dread getting together with me, this isn't a relationship that's going to be good for either of us. So it's okay to walk away. Maybe next month, you know, this may very well work on a lot of things.

INTERVIEW – PART 10 (SALES: BE THE LIGHTHOUSE, NOT THE PRESSURE)
TONY: And I'm thinking of applying this in sales. It doesn't quite work that way. If I want the sale, you know, not that I'm very astute on this about whether the person gives me the creepy feeling or not, which is its own little conversation. But I want that sale, I want it. And if—and I work on indicators and if I'm not getting what I'm expecting to move forward, I'm going to keep trying to find what that is. I'm not going to bail. I'm going to keep trying and keep trying.

I think this is how us diehard salespeople kind of work is, "What didn't I touch upon? What didn't I solve?" you know, and try to bring that person in. And I'm trying to apply what you've said to sales. And I'm kind of—I'm close, but no cigar just yet. I'm still working on it.

ROBIN: Well, here's the problem. Here's just a guarantee. I mean, if you're working in sales, you're good at sales and you enjoy sales. And if you keep hitting a stone wall and you just can't get there, here's a guarantee. If you keep trying to pressure, you're not getting better at this. They just don't want to deal with you.

And the number one thing that makes sales professionals awesome is referrals, is it not? Because I mean, seriously, think about this. Just do the thought experiment. Would you rather have one high-pressure sale for this person and you get so—you might eventually pressure them, coerce them, cajole them into buying this thing from you or going along with whatever you want. What do you think they're going to say about you the second they break contact? You think they're going to give you a referral or they're going to tell their friends, family and other associates, "Never do business with this guy. It's high pressure and I'm going to ruin his reviews."


I much rather be a lighthouse that attracts people than being the guy that's trying to ram it right down your throat because it just ruins relations.

It's what we did in the FBI all the time. You know how much easier it is to have people want to come to me and volunteer to be a cooperating human source and prevent national security crisis than me going out and getting them? It's so much easier if you come to me. They're not going to come to me if they're fearful of me.

I always used to say this at the end of every meeting, "Please, Tony, ask me any question I possibly can. If I gave a lack of transparency in any way, ask me anything you want. Because if we break contact from this meeting and you ask yourself, 'I wonder what he really wanted,' I've totally failed you. And if you never want to have contact with me again, please, Tony, let me know. I'll make a note to never bother you again."

That's one thing. As a salesperson, you're never going to ask that question. But you should. Because think of it. You know why you don't. Your ego and your insecurity gets in the way. Seriously, the best salespeople in the world offer that advice.

I've been in sales my entire life. I have sold a simple service of American patriotism. And then afterwards, I speak, my books, you name it. I don't care what it is. And I consult with companies all over the world. The best salespeople in the world empower people the choice to walk away and never deal with them again. How many times do you think they're told, "No, I never want to see you again"? It doesn't happen. Think about it.

So you and I, you know, we probably remember this movie growing up and remember the very old, the original nineteen thirties, Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street. Who does it right? Santa Claus sitting in Macy's when Santa Claus didn't have—when Macy's didn't have the toy that they wanted. He sent them over to Gimbels. And what did they say to the manager when they left the toy department? "I don't know what game you're playing, but I was never a regular Macy's customer in the past. But you just solved my problem for me. I'm going to be a regular customer for Macy's from now on."

Macy's didn't make the sale on the fire truck because they didn't have it. They sent them to Gimbels, but they got a lifelong customer and client for life.

Be a problem solver in someone's life. Help them solve that problem. If you don't have the solution to their problem, you're going to try to ram a half solution down their throat. Do you think they're ever going to come back to you? Do you think they're going to refer anyone to you?

Remember, you're in sales. You're in business to solve people's problems. If you have the solution, fantastic. If not, you send them where they can get that solution handled. You want the reputation that gets referrals. You want the reputation where your brand stands out above everyone else. That's the way you do it.

Now, I'm not telling you what you have to do or don't have to do, because I get people say all the time, "I'm just gonna ram it down their throat." Good. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, because this is part of being a great humanist. I'm just telling you what's going to work and not work in the long term. It's just predictable human behavior. You make people feel unsafe. You make them feel cajoled, they walk away and feel like they're manipulated. I guarantee you they'll never deal with you again.

OUTRO
TONY: Love it, love it, love it. Once again, this is Robin Dreeke. We're talking about creating unbreakable alliances. You can find him at RobinDreeke.com. Robin, I just want to thank you so much. Really great points. I can apply this and I've applied some throughout my career as an entrepreneur in corporate world. Right on point. I mean, this is the stuff, this is really key. And we just touched on what could be so many questions. Could be a whole series. This was really, really great. I just want to thank you for going over this and explaining this and telling us. And man, that just makes it all so simple. When you look at it, sometimes when it's all condensed, you know, and you just go through some of these points in this interview, in this conversation are some of the key, most points to really growing our business. Thank you, Tony.


ROBIN: And for everyone listening, I want to add one more thing. Tony puts an awful lot of time, effort and energy to have amazing people on his show. And it takes a lot of effort, a lot of bandwidth. And so if you could please hit like, hit subscribe and share with your friends and family and other professionals because he makes a huge difference in a lot of people's lives and it could benefit even more. Thank you.

TONY: I appreciate that so much. Thank you. Thank you again. Thank you. Absolutely. Absolutely amazing. Wow. Absolutely. Love it.

Well guys, it was so great to have Robin on. And as he mentioned, if you like this, please, I appreciate that you follow us wherever you are. And if something hits home or if you think of a friend and you go, "Oh, you know, this might help my business or the boss or the owner or my sub or whoever," share this with them. Tell them about Robin and some of the stories that he's gone through and what he's accomplished.

And he looks at things from the point of view, you know, when I got into sales and marketing many, many, many years ago, I would have loved to have had this information instead of learning through the school of hard knocks, which is always good to learn. There's always something more you're going to learn. But these were really, really good key points. So I just want to bring that up that I'm giving it the thumbs up. All right.

And as Robin said, follow the show. It helps to bring more amazing guests to you. All right, guys, let's use this and let's help you move on your journey to success. Thanks. Remember, just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. Sow good seeds, do good deeds. And I'll see you on the next episode.