INTRO

TONY: What if you're not nearly as good at reading people as you think you are?

We all like to believe we're pretty good at it.

We look at someone's eyes. We notice their body language. We listen to their voice. We make a quick judgment and tell ourselves, "I can read this person."

But what if many of the things we think we know about reading people are wrong?

What if avoiding eye contact doesn't necessarily mean someone is lying? What if nervousness isn't deception? And what if our own assumptions are actually getting in the way of seeing what's right in front of us?

My guest today spent twenty-five years with the United States Secret Service, working in some of the most difficult investigative and communication environments imaginable.

He conducted more criminal polygraph examinations than anyone else in the history of the agency.

He's interviewed murder suspects, worked complex investigations, studied deception, and learned how to get people to reveal information they might otherwise keep hidden.

But what makes this conversation especially valuable is that his lessons aren't limited to law enforcement.

They apply to entrepreneurs, leaders, salespeople, managers, parents—anyone who needs to understand people and build trust.

His message is surprisingly simple: stop trying to be the most interesting person in the room.

Learn to be interested in the other person.

Learn how to listen.

Learn how to recognize the signals that actually matter.

And, perhaps most importantly, learn how to get out of your own head long enough to see what's really happening.

Meet former Secret Service Special Agent Brad Beeler.

Let's get into it.

Hi, Brad. Welcome to The Tony DUrso Show.

INTERVIEW – PART 1 (BACKSTORY: FROM SMALL-TOWN MISSOURI TO THE SECRET SERVICE)

BRAD: I grew up in a small town in Missouri.

As a kid, I watched shows like *Scooby-Doo*, *The A-Team*, and *CHiPs*. I was fascinated by the idea of figuring things out and helping people.

That eventually led me toward graduate school, where I had an internship that gave me exposure to law enforcement.

And that's where things really started to click.

The Secret Service has a dual mission.

People generally think of the Secret Service as the agency that protects the President and other government officials.

That's certainly a major part of what they do.

But there's also an investigative mission.

Counterfeiting, financial crimes, and other investigations are part of that mission.

I ended up in Chicago, and eventually polygraph became a significant part of my career.

One of the things I learned very quickly was that the technical part of the job wasn't enough.

You could have all the tools in the world, but if you couldn't communicate with people, you weren't going to get very far.

I started working with local police departments and investigators.

And over time, I realized that communication and trust were at the center of almost everything we were doing.

You had to learn how to get somebody comfortable enough to talk to you.

You had to understand when to push and when to back off.

And you had to earn the right to get the answer.

That's something that stayed with me throughout my career.

TONY: And that idea of earning the right to get the answer is really important.

Because most people think reading people is about looking for a signal.

They think there's some secret gesture or movement that tells you whether somebody is lying.

But what you're describing sounds much more fundamental.

It's about the relationship you're creating before you ever ask the important question.

INTERVIEW – PART 2 (READING PEOPLE: GETTING OUT OF YOUR OWN HEAD)

BRAD: One of the biggest lessons I learned came from my best friend, Doug.

Doug was deaf.

I met him when I was about fifteen years old, and being friends with him changed how I communicated.

I had to become much more present.

I couldn't just rely on the normal way of communicating.

I had to pay attention to everything.

I started thinking about communication as three things: lyrics, soundtrack, and music video.

The lyrics are the actual words.

The soundtrack is how you say those words.

And the music video is everything your body is doing while you're saying them.

We tend to focus almost entirely on the lyrics.

But that's only part of the communication.

You have to create an environment where people feel comfortable.

And most people, if you give them the opportunity, want to talk.

I tell people that in a good conversation, the other person should probably be talking eighty percent of the time.

That's also why I think a good podcast works.

The best voice someone can hear is their own.

If you let somebody talk, they'll often give you everything you need.

But you have to earn the right answer.

You have to ask yourself: Is this the right time? Is this the right place? Is this the right headspace?

You can't simply walk up to somebody and demand the truth.

You have to create the environment where they're willing to give it to you.

TONY: I love that.

And it also challenges something we've all heard about eye contact.

People are constantly told, "If someone won't look you in the eye, they're lying."

But that's not necessarily true.

BRAD: No.

Eye contact by itself doesn't tell you that somebody is lying.

In fact, there are many reasons somebody might not make eye contact.

What matters is the overall interaction.

I want a warm handshake.

I want good eye contact.

But not a stare.

I want what I call soft eyes.

I want the person to feel like I'm there with them, not that I'm trying to dominate them.

Think about the Catholic confessional.

It's private.

It's nonjudgmental.

And the person is there to talk.

That's the kind of environment I want to create.

People talk to people they like.

They talk to people they trust.

And they talk to people they respect.

I need two of those.

Everyone has secrets.

And one of the things I've learned over the years is that people can do terrible things without necessarily being terrible people.

That's why you have to be careful about putting horns and halos on people too quickly.

TONY: That's an important distinction.

Because we do this all the time in business.

We meet somebody and decide they're great.

Or we decide they're difficult.

Or we decide we don't trust them.

And then everything they do afterward gets filtered through that first judgment.

We're not necessarily seeing the person anymore.

We're seeing the story we've already created about the person.

SPONSOR BREAK – ODOO

TONY: Today's episode is brought to you by Odoo.

One of the biggest challenges businesses face is that their software systems don't always work together.

You've got one system for sales, another for accounting, another for inventory, another for marketing, and before long you're spending more time moving information between systems than actually running the business.

Odoo brings those functions together in one integrated business suite.

You can manage leads, automate workflows, build websites, handle accounting, manage inventory, and much more from one platform.

Odoo also includes AI capabilities and tools that can help automate tasks and improve the way your business operates.

If you're looking for a more integrated way to manage your business, check out Odoo.

Go to Odoo.com/Durso.

INTERVIEW – PART 3 (EARNING THE RIGHT ANSWER: WHY PEOPLE OPEN UP)

TONY: Welcome back.

One of the things I find fascinating about Brad's approach is that it isn't really about interrogation.

It's about understanding why people communicate the way they do.

Brad learned a lot of this while working in a St. Louis City lockup during graduate school.

He was interviewing people about drug use, gang affiliation, and their lives.

And instead of simply treating them as suspects, he became curious about them.

Brad, tell us about that.

BRAD: I learned a tremendous amount from those interviews.

People actually loved teaching me.

I'd ask them about what they did, what they liked, what they did for fun.

And they would tell me.

When people are comfortable, they're much more willing to talk.

There's also a physiological component to this.

Stress changes the way people communicate.

You can have cortisol and other stress responses affecting the body.

That's why you can't simply say, "He's nervous, so he's lying."

A completely innocent person can be nervous.

A person who is lying can also be calm.

You have to establish a baseline.

That's where people get into trouble with the primacy effect.

They make an early judgment and then everything afterward gets interpreted through that judgment.

That's the horns-and-halos problem.

TONY: So how do you actually approach deception?

BRAD: I don't start by calling somebody a liar.

I want to establish a baseline.

Then I'll ask questions that require a yes or no.

I might let somebody tell me a long story.

Then I'll go back and ask very specific questions.

I'm looking for what I call check-engine lights.

Maybe there's a delay.

Maybe they repeat the question.

Maybe there's a change in vocal inflection.

Maybe they suddenly use exclusive qualifiers like "usually," "normally," or "typically."

Maybe their head and body aren't saying the same thing.

Those things don't prove deception.

They're signals that tell me, "Pay attention here."

If the words say one thing and the body says something completely different, that's a check-engine light.

I want to investigate further.

TONY: I've actually experienced something similar.

I've had complete strangers tell me things they probably shouldn't have told me.

And I've wondered, "Why are you telling me this?"

It's almost as if people sometimes just need someone to listen.

BRAD: Exactly.

There are anonymous confession apps where people tell complete strangers things they've never told anyone else.

It's very similar to the confessional.

There's something powerful about feeling that you're not going to be judged.

And when you combine that with somebody who is actually listening, people open up.

That's why the person across from you matters so much.

It's not just what you're asking.

It's who you are while you're asking it.

BRAD: And detecting lies, therefore, was very, very difficult.

And that's continued to this day.

The other thing that's problematic is fight or flight.

From the standpoint of first impressions, we misuse that term all the time.

We assign horns and halos because we determine, "Is this thing going to hurt me? Am I safe?"

If we go back two hundred thousand years, you hear a rustling in the bushes.

You see a flash of light late at night.

What's going on?

Is this thing coming to eat me?

Is it a tribe that's problematic?

So we get that epinephrine and adrenaline dump.

We might associate the thing we don't understand with something bad.

That's gut instinct, and it can keep us safe on the streets of Chicago or wherever the case may be.

But it's not necessarily good to use in personal or professional relationships.

We think, "I'm going to trust my gut in this business transaction."

But it's not really your gut at that point.

We're putting a misnomer on it.

And cognitive biases are so powerful that if I put a horn or a halo on somebody, I want to stay consistent with that.

BRAD: I'll tell you a quick story.

I was doing a search warrant a couple of years ago, and I came into the kitchen with my partner.

There was a Chihuahua and a pit bull.

I don't want to have to shoot a dog.

But what am I focused on?

I'm focused on the pit bull because it might hurt me.

I'm not worried about the Chihuahua.

So I assigned the horns and halos accordingly.

Well, that Chihuahua came around behind me, jumped up, grabbed me by my testicles, and was dangling like a trapeze artist.

Thankfully, I was wearing Duluth Trading Company fire-hose pants.

It allowed me to continue talking at the octave I'm talking now.

I think the pit bull was laughing.

I know my partner was laughing.

But I had completely misassigned the horns and halos.

And you've got to be very, very careful about doing that.

BRAD: I've done that in investigations too.

We had a case in Illinois involving a motorcycle gang.

There was a one-percenter who was believed to be a felon and potentially responsible for multiple killings.

We had to hang around with these people.

The one-percenter was about six-foot-two and two hundred sixty pounds.

The other guy was about five-foot-eight and maybe one hundred twenty pounds soaking wet.

They were both dating the same woman.

They were in the same motorcycle club.

And the woman had been missing for three days and was presumed deceased.

So I came in to conduct a polygraph.

Of course, I asked the police department what they thought.

They said, "We think it's the one-percenter. He's the big guy. He looks evil."

So I decided, "You know what? I'll test this young guy who looks like an accountant first."

He failed regarding participation in her disappearance.

So I started interrogating him.

And he just kept looking at me and saying, "Brad, that's not it."

I kept saying, "Look, I want to protect you from this guy. I'm sure you were there. You saw it, but I can't imagine you did anything."

And he's saying, "Brad, that's not it."

I wasn't listening to him because I had confirmation bias.

I had made that false assessment.

Luckily, someone outside the room—a detective—didn't have that bias.

She came in and said, "Brad, can I ask a simple question?"

I said, "Of course."

She asked him, "You keep saying, 'John, that's not it.' What is it?"

And he said, "Oh, I killed her, cut her up in six pieces, and threw her in the Illinois River."

He said it just like that.

I had confirmation bias.

I'd put a halo on him, and I couldn't see what was staring right into my face.

Luckily, somebody outside the room came in and bailed me out.

These biases are very, very difficult to overcome.

That's why we've got to be extremely careful about making premature assessments.

The best thing I want to look for when I deal with people in a criminal situation—or even in a business situation—is consistent behavior.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

I want consistent interactions with somebody, not just a one-off where all of a sudden I give them an affinity bias because they did one thing very well one time.

TONY: That story is astounding.

The type of circumstances that you run into with killers—and someone can just tell you what they did.

And again, we're back to that same point.

Some people will just tell.

Is it because you're being that soft personality?

You're not being that person on the subway?

BRAD: Some of it is how you carry yourself.

You walk confidently into a room.

And what is confidence?

From the standpoint of the trust bank, I'm trying to put as much as I can into that bank when I meet people because ultimately I want to make a withdrawal.

If you view it as a ledger, I'm doing as many things as I can.

Once again, that dry, warm handshake.

What's the worst handshake?

Cold and clammy.

And yet people don't think about that.

They give multiple shakes.

They come in like the Queen of England.

Or they come in too shallow.

Or they miss the connection.

These are simple things we can fix.

I spray my hand with antiperspirant when I know I'm going to have a big interaction because I might be nervous.

I don't want to have a wet handshake.

And it's the first thing we do and the last thing we do in an interaction, Tony.

In a business sense, people remember the first thing that happened and the last thing that happened because of primacy and recency biases.

They remember those at a higher level.

So why aren't we doing those things?

We're so worried about what we're going to say, but we don't take into account the biggest part of communication: how we look while we're saying it.

The body-language aspect is what I think we miss so much in law enforcement and in business.

It's how we carry ourselves.

If I say, "I'm fine," and that's a text with no emoji, what does that mean?

We're so used to emails and text messaging now—and AI—that we don't understand that "I'm fine" can be:

"I'm fine."

Or it can be:

"I'm fine."

Or it can be:

"I'm fine."

There are so many different ways that it could be.

I need more than a text message.

When my wife texts me, "I'm fine," I may be in big trouble if she doesn't put an emoji next to it.

I always want to have the kind of conversation where I can see how what I'm saying is landing with you.

I can see you, Tony.

That's why I've got my webcam directly in the middle of my screen, so it looks like I have eye contact with you.

Too many times people put it low or they put it high, and you're missing out on the most wonderful thing: that soft eyes and eye contact while you're communicating with somebody.

But more importantly, I can see your reactions to my message.

That's the best part of body language—understanding, "Are you receiving my message?"

And it's like jazz.

Based upon your reception of my message, I'm going to riff and decide, "How am I going to take this? How am I going to audible as a result of your reaction?"

Too many people say, "Here's what I'm going to say."

They hit the play button.

They say it.

And they don't audible or improvise once they start.

TONY: I love that observation.

How often do we walk into an important conversation already knowing exactly what we're going to say?

We've rehearsed our presentation, prepared our arguments, decided what we want the other person to do, and then we hit the play button.

But what happens when the other person says something unexpected?

Do we actually listen, or are we just waiting for our turn to speak?

Brad's point is that great communication requires us to adapt.

And I think there's a valuable lesson here for entrepreneurs.

We need to know where we're going, but we also need to pay attention to what's happening around us—especially today.

Technology is changing.

AI is changing how we work.

TONY: Markets and customer expectations keep evolving.

You can't simply write a plan, hit the play button, and expect everything to unfold exactly as you imagined.

You need direction, and you need the ability to adjust.

And that's one of the reasons I created the Vision Map™.

I want to give you something that can help you bring greater clarity to your business and your life.

It's my free Vision Map Blueprint, and it begins with three important questions.

First, what are you building?

That's your vision.

Not what are you trying to finish this afternoon.

Not what needs to happen by Friday.

I'm talking about the bigger picture.

Where do you ultimately want to go?

What do you want to create?

What does success actually look like to you?

Second, why does it matter?

That's your purpose.

Because building something meaningful isn't always easy.

There will be setbacks, unexpected problems, and changes you never anticipated.

And when those things happen, your purpose reminds you why you started.

Then comes the third question:

What are you committed to accomplishing?

That's your long-term objective.

Something measurable.

Something you can work toward.

Something that tells you whether all the activity filling your day is actually moving you closer to your vision.

Vision.

Purpose.

Long-term objective.

Those are the first three steps of the Vision Map™.

And once you have them clearly defined, you can begin building the plan that takes you there.

As I often say, clarity creates momentum, and direction creates results.

You can get your free Vision Map Blueprint at TonyDUrso.com/Vision.

That's Tony D-U-R-S-O dot com slash Vision.

Download it.

Take a little time to work through it and write your answers down.

Don't just keep them in your head.

Then watch for my newsletter, where I'll personally walk you through the next steps.

And while I have you here, I want to say something.

Thank you.

There are millions of things competing for your attention—your business, your family, your responsibilities, the constant stream of news, messages, emails, and everything else demanding a piece of your day.

So the fact that you've chosen to spend some of your time here with me and Brad means a great deal.

Whether you've been following The Tony DUrso Show for years or this is your very first episode, thank you.

My goal is to bring you extraordinary people who have actually done the work.

People who have faced difficult situations, made mistakes, learned important lessons, and have something valuable to share with you.

Brad certainly fits that description.

He spent twenty-five years learning how people communicate under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

And now he's sharing those lessons with us.

If you're enjoying this conversation, please follow the show and share this episode with another entrepreneur or leader who might benefit from it.

It helps us continue bringing these conversations to you, and I sincerely appreciate your support.

All right, let's get back to Brad.

He was explaining why great communicators don't simply deliver a rehearsed message.

They watch, they listen, and they adjust based on how the other person responds.

And he had just compared that process to improvising rather than hitting the play button.

Next, I want to know whether that same awareness is what helps someone establish trust during the first five minutes of a conversation.

Here's Brad.

INTERVIEW – PART 4 (THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES: CREATING THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT FOR TRUST)

TONY: Is this what helps you win that relationship?

When you're speaking with someone you're going to interrogate, you write in your book about winning the first five minutes.

Is this how that's done?

BRAD: Yeah.

And I use the word "win," right?

Sometimes people say, "Well, it's not about winning. It's about getting the truth."

Yes.

I'm not going in looking for a confession.

I'm going in looking for the truth.

But if you want to look at this like a battlefield—and there are a couple of Sun Tzu references here—if you pick the wrong ground to fight on, that's problematic.

And when I say the wrong ground, I mean metaphorically.

It could be the wrong time.

It could be the wrong place.

If I want to have a sensitive conversation with somebody, I don't want everybody watching that person walk down the hallway and come into my office.

I want to have an anonymous conversation.

I don't necessarily want other people knowing we're having that conversation.

And I want to do it at the right time.

If I do it at eight-thirty in the morning, maybe they just came in from Chicago traffic.

If I do it at four-thirty in the afternoon, maybe they're already stressing about getting onto the Dan Ryan.

So maybe ten in the morning or two in the afternoon is better.

When we used to do search warrants in Missouri or Illinois, we might do them at six in the evening.

In South Carolina, we'd do them at six in the morning.

But at six in the morning, people were sometimes less conducive to talking because they were just waking up.

They were around their family members.

So when possible, we'd try to pick the right time and move the individual away from their family.

They're alert.

They've had their caffeine, their nicotine, whatever their drug of choice is, and as a result, their headspace may be better for communication.

So I want to pick the right place and the right time.

I hate seeing offices where somebody says, "I've got an open-door policy," but they don't have an open-door philosophy.

And sometimes the architecture isn't set up correctly for communication.

You should have a separate seating area where people can have a more equal conversation—not sitting across a desk with the boss in the high-back chair while the other person is sitting in a cheap little chair.

You want the same status level.

I want to be almost in a clamshell setup, maybe with a low table, so I can see the person's legs.

The legs can be one of the most diagnostic parts of body language.

Are their legs facing the door?

Are they facing me?

Did something I just said cause them to turn away from me or turn toward me?

If we're behind a desk, I can't see the lower body.

And I also don't necessarily want to be directly across a table from them because that can create an "against" relationship.

Instead, I want it to feel almost like we're sitting around an imaginary campfire.

They're next to me.

That's how friends talk.

Think about two friends sitting at Chipotle.

They're not necessarily sitting directly across from each other like they're negotiating a contract.

They're often angled toward one another.

Sometimes the architecture itself can assist your communication.

TONY: I got you.

And I think you touched on something else there: first impressions.

You talk about how powerful they can be.

Now, I grew up being taught that first impressions are incredibly important.

Then, through my years in corporate America and later as an entrepreneur, I started to feel differently.

My personal opinion became that first impressions don't necessarily mean that much.

But you say they're very powerful.

BRAD: Yeah, they can be.

From serial killers to incredibly successful business entrepreneurs, I've seen how someone's ability to make eye contact, shake a hand, show presence, and project confidence can have an enormous impact.

We've all probably experienced somebody making a horrible first impression.

And it could be a surgeon or a doctor.

You might immediately think, "I'm not going to have this person do surgery on me," simply because of the impression they made.

So yes, first impressions matter.

Winning those first five minutes can be incredibly important.

And when I'm talking to people, I go back to that idea of the trust bank.

Think about the neurochemicals involved.

When cortisol—the stress hormone—is released, it can remain there for several minutes.

The heart rate may spike, and now that physiology begins affecting the interaction.

Whereas the feel-good neurochemicals—oxytocin, serotonin, and others—may have a much shorter effect.

So I may need multiple positive interactions to offset one negative interaction.

If I start the relationship negatively, I may have a long way to go before I get back into the green, so to speak, when it comes to that person's impression of me.

That's why I teach my students to red-team these interactions as much as possible.

And what I mean by red-teaming is that if I know I'm going into a high-level interaction, I try to run through the scenario in advance.

Think about football.

Why do teams so often look sharp on that first drive of a game?

Because they've repped it the entire week ahead of time.

BRAD: So those are the plays they know and practice.

And that's what winning the first five minutes can be about.

It can be preparing, running the conversation through your head, game-planning it, and having somebody watch you on tape.

I'm a big fan, Tony, of recording yourself.

If you've got a big conversation—especially a speech—tape yourself in the exact environment you're going to be in.

If you're going to be behind a lectern or podium, go behind the lectern or podium.

If you're going to be moving around, move around.

Have somebody record you.

Wear the same clothes you're going to be wearing.

I see my students wearing casual clothes and practicing in their hotel rooms.

Then all of a sudden they put the suit on, get up in front of those hot lights, and wonder, "Wow, why am I so hot? Why am I stressed?"

Because you're not practicing like you're playing.

And there's another benefit to recording yourself.

When you're watching the video back, turn the volume off and just watch yourself.

You'd be surprised at how your body language looks and how much you may need to improve it.

Then turn the video off and just listen to yourself.

You may realize you're going to sound like Charlie Brown's teacher.

You're not going to be very interesting.

So there are things you can do to improve that.

You can read books about what everybody is saying—from Joan of Arc and others—and learn more about body language.

And there are also AI apps that are great for vocal improvement.

The only weapon I have in an interrogation room is my vocal tone.

And you can improve that five minutes a day with some of these free apps online.

Embrace the AI.

Use tongue twisters.

Make your face big.

Make your face small.

Do things to warm up your face.

It's just like an athlete warming up before a one-hundred-meter dash.

We're doing the same thing before communication.

TONY: Those are some really good points for public speaking.

I like that.

And you mentioned something earlier that you only touched on very quickly, but I want to bring it back because there's so much to talk about here.

Lyrics, soundtrack, and dance.

Let's go into that.

INTERVIEW – PART 5 (LYRICS, SOUNDTRACK, AND DANCE: MAKING COMMUNICATION HUMAN)

BRAD: I go back once again to my friend Doug being deaf.

Before we had cell phones the way we have them now, texting was different.

Back in the nineties and early two-thousands, we had the TTY machine.

Doug would type something in, and it would go to an operator.

The operator would read what he typed and then communicate it to me.

I feel for those operators because they heard some crazy things in the conversations between Doug and me.

But something interesting happened.

They wouldn't simply repeat whatever Doug typed.

They would put emotion into it.

Doug might type, "Hey, we're going to go do this, this, and this. Isn't that so funny?"

And the person speaking to me would actually laugh.

They would breathe life into the words.

That's the difference between simply delivering words and actually communicating.

And if you watch sign-language interpreters at a rap concert, they don't just mechanically sign the words.

They dance with the music.

They're moving with it.

They're breathing life into it.

And as a metaphor, I think that's what we need to do in the way we converse.

Because words are just words.

We're so used to text, email, and now AI.

It's AI talking to AI.

I can't tell you how many times people are throwing an email or a text into AI and saying, "Come up with the best response."

We're not even talking to each other anymore.

In the future, someone who can harness all three of those elements is going to have a tremendous advantage.

The vocal inflection—how we say something.

The listening—how we respond to what somebody has said.

And the meaning behind the words.

If I say to you, "You're fine," as a statement, that's one thing.

If I say, "You're fine?" as a question, that's something completely different.

One can be validation.

The other can be, "Tell me more."

Just how you say something can be incredibly telling.

And when people feel like they're being listened to, it's amazing how much more they open up.

Because in today's digital age, Tony, the greatest thing you can give somebody is your full attention.

Think about that.

We almost never do it.

We're always looking at our phones.

We're looking at our computers.

If you get around from behind your desk, shut off your phone, look at somebody with soft eyes, use that ventral fronting, and actively listen, your leadership skills will level up tremendously.

Attention right now is the ultimate drug you can give somebody.

And it's powerful.

TONY: What you just said there—that is really the stuff.

Because, unfortunately, all this electronics has made us less human in some ways.

And as you were talking, I was thinking about times when I've spoken with people who had hearing impairments.

I've found that, overall, the great conversations are very curious, but they're also very simple.

There's no stress.

You don't have to perform or do anything.

And you can have the best time speaking with someone who's hearing impaired.

Because they're just so interested.

It creates a very different dynamic.

So I can understand why you and your friend, who had hearing difficulties, became such good friends.

I sense that when he was communicating, he was really interested.

He wasn't rushed around like you might be in an office.

It was a whole different experience.

And that makes communication—and speech—all the more valuable.

BRAD: Yeah, you're right.

And with AI, we've got to remember that AI is not human.

It's just a suggestion.

We've got to take that communication, make it human, and humanize it.

INTERVIEW – PART 6 (DECEPTION: ASK BETTER QUESTIONS, NOT JUST BODY-LANGUAGE MYTHS)

TONY: And with that, I know we're kind of dancing around different points here because there's so much to this topic.

I'm still so impressed by how someone who has committed such a heinous crime can sit there and simply say, "Oh, yeah. I did this. I did this horrible thing."

And you mentioned earlier that sometimes you get those triggers where you think, "I'm going to interview this guy anymore. I'm going to interrogate further."

You realize he wasn't who you thought he was.

But there were some flags—some indicators of deception.

How did you spot it?

Are there some basics that we can use when we're interviewing somebody or talking to an employee who claims they were at a trade conference all weekend?

Can we actually spot deception?

That's where my mind is going.

BRAD: Yeah, it's very difficult.

Too many times, people think touching your nose, avoiding eye contact, or doing this or that means somebody is lying.

Those things have been disproven, just like the eye-contact myth we talked about earlier.

The best way is if we have evidence.

We want to get provable lies.

So we want to have somebody tell us as much information as possible.

That's hard for liars.

The Pinocchio effect kicks in because people don't want to be caught in a lie.

Think about it like a movie reel.

A movie reel of the truth just runs end to end.

There's no need for memory because you lived it.

A movie reel that contains lies has all these cuts and pastes.

It's probably a little like what you do when you're editing these interviews into YouTube Shorts.

You have to decide, does this flow?

Does it match?

That creates cognitive load.

So, for example, let's take the employee who says they were at the trade conference.

What I want to do is find out as many things as possible that happened at that conference—things that somebody who was actually there would have known about.

I collect that information.

Then I can ask them, "Hey, what was Tuesday like when such-and-such happened?"

If they weren't there, they're not going to be able to speak to it.

Or I could put a fake situation into the question.

"How was that fire alarm that happened Tuesday afternoon? Wasn't that crazy?"

There was no fire alarm.

Now I've put them in a tight spot because they might say, "Yeah, that was crazy."

And now I've got something worth investigating.

TONY: That's an interesting example.

Someone claims they attended an event, you ask them about something that never happened, and suddenly they're telling you all about it.

But there's an important distinction here.

Brad isn't suggesting that one unusual response automatically proves someone is lying.

He's explaining how to ask better questions, gather information, and look for inconsistencies.

TONY: And when you think about everything we've discussed so far, there's a much bigger lesson emerging.

Reading people isn't simply about watching their eyes and deciding whether they're telling the truth.

It's about understanding how people communicate.

Let's look at some of what we've learned.

First, Brad told us something that may surprise you.

Most people aren't particularly good at detecting deception.

Even trained professionals can get it wrong.

And Brad knows that from personal experience.

He told us about a murder investigation involving two suspects.

One was a large, intimidating member of a motorcycle gang.

The other was smaller, quieter, and seemed much less threatening.

Brad assumed the intimidating man was responsible, and that assumption shaped his entire interview.

He kept trying to get the quieter suspect to tell him what he had witnessed, but the suspect repeatedly told him that wasn't what happened.

Brad wasn't listening.

Fortunately, another detective entered the room and asked a simple question:

"If that's not what happened, what did?"

And the man admitted that he was the killer.

Think about that.

A highly experienced investigator nearly missed the truth because he had already decided what the truth was.

That's confirmation bias.

And it doesn't just happen in criminal investigations.

It happens in business.

You interview someone who looks impressive.

They have the right résumé, they say the right things, and suddenly you're convinced they're the person you need.

Or you meet someone who doesn't fit your expectations and you dismiss them before they've had a chance to demonstrate what they can do.

Brad's lesson is to be careful about assigning those horns and halos.

Don't let appearances make the decision for you.

Look for consistent behavior, gather more information, and remain open to the possibility that your first impression was wrong.

Then we talked about something else: the first five minutes.

Brad explained that the beginning of a conversation can influence everything that follows.

But it's not simply about delivering a great opening line.

It's about creating the right environment—the right time, the right place, and the right mindset.

He described how even the arrangement of a room can influence a conversation.

Sitting behind a large desk may reinforce a difference in status.

Sitting together in a more relaxed arrangement can create a very different interaction.

That's worth considering the next time you're preparing for an important meeting.

Are you creating an environment where people feel comfortable speaking openly, or are you unintentionally making it harder?

Then we explored his idea of lyrics, soundtrack, and dance.

The words we choose, the tone of our voice, and our body language all need to work together.

You can say exactly the right words, but if your tone or body language sends a different message, the other person may receive something completely different from what you intended.

And that brings us to something especially relevant today: artificial intelligence.

AI can help us write, prepare presentations, respond to emails, and communicate more efficiently.

But Brad raised an important concern.

We're becoming so accustomed to digital communication that we may be losing some of the human connection that makes conversations meaningful.

We send messages.

We generate responses.

We move on.

But are we actually paying attention to the person on the other end?

Brad made a point that really stayed with me.

One of the greatest things you can give another person today is your full attention.

I think that's worth remembering, especially when you're leading a team, speaking with a customer, or trying to build a relationship.

Put the phone down.

Listen.

Pay attention.

And allow the other person to speak.

Because sometimes the information you're looking for isn't hidden behind some elaborate deception.

Sometimes you simply haven't given the other person enough room to tell you.

And finally, we've begun exploring how to recognize deception.

Brad has explained that nervousness alone doesn't prove someone is lying.

Avoiding eye contact doesn't prove it either.

Instead, he encouraged us to gather information, establish a baseline, ask specific questions, and look for inconsistencies that deserve further investigation.

That's a very different approach from assuming we can spot a liar simply by looking at them.

And we're not finished.

There's still more to learn.

And now back to Brad, who was explaining how carefully constructed questions can expose inconsistencies in someone's story.

INTERVIEW – PART 7 (BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS: CREATING AN OUT FOR THE TRUTH)

TONY: And you had just described a hypothetical employee who claimed to attend the conference and how asking about an event that never happened could reveal that the employee wasn't actually there.

Let's get back to the conversation.

If we can do things like that, that's always helpful.

BRAD: I have some other questions that I like to ask.

They're called behavioral-analysis questions.

These were born in Chicago with the Reid approach.

It's received a lot of criticism in recent years, but there are several aspects of it that I do like to use.

One is what I call a dartboard question.

In a criminal situation, or if you're working an internal investigation, let's say it's an internal theft.

I might ask somebody, "Hey, John, let's just use you as an example. Can you come up with three reasons why you think somebody would steal from a corporation?"

TONY: Do you want me to answer that?

BRAD: Yeah.

Go ahead.

Let's say, theoretically, you've worked at a big company and you're asked, "Why do you think somebody would steal from a corporation?"

TONY: Well, I've run into it for real.

One of the reasons is that it can be justified corporately or legally.

There's a difference between something being legal and something being proper or honest.

I've seen theft where somebody says, "We made this company. I was there. I know what you did. We did this, and it's all legal."

I've seen what I would call complete embezzlement that was technically legal because you had the corporate documents to support it.

Money can be moved or taken simply through legalities.

Another thing I've seen is that if there's a lot of cash, it can be misappropriated or assigned to one reason or another.

You can say, "This went to this cause, and this went to that cause," because it's whatever you write down on the paperwork.

I don't know three, but I know two.

BRAD: Perfect.

Let's say your third reason was that maybe they needed money for Christmas presents or to make the bills meet.

If you were the person who actually did it, Tony, you're telling me where the dartboard is.

You're telling me what would unlock the key to get you to talk to me.

I have an acronym called BUDDY.

It stands for:

Blame outside forces.

Understand, but don't agree.

Diminish impact, but not culpability.

Demonstrate tactical empathy.

And focus on the why, not the what.

So in that situation, I might talk about how you've made this company, Tony.

You are this company, and you're not being taken care of.

"You know what? You're getting the so-called jelly-of-the-month club in December, and you're not getting what you need. So I can understand why you felt like, 'Hey, a little bit here, a little bit there.'"

And let's be honest, maybe there aren't a lot of corporate controls here.

They're just letting money sit around.

Anybody could take this stuff.

Then we diminish the impact.

"What are we talking about here? A few bucks here, a few bucks there. This corporation made forty-two billion dollars last year. We're talking about chump change here."

You see where I'm going with this?

I want you to feel comfortable.

Because if an enemy is surrounded and they don't have an outlet, they're going to fight to the death.

But if you provide an outlet, they're going to move toward that outlet.

You've taken the danger or harm and reduced it.

It's, "Hey, we made forty-two billion dollars last year. Whatever you took is inconsequential."

You've reduced the magnitude so much that it might allow the person to open up and say, "Yeah, who's going to miss three hundred and fifty thousand dollars or whatever?"

We don't want perfect people because we don't have them, Tony.

But we want perfectly honest people.

Then I would focus on the fact that all crime is based upon what I think of as an equation.

It's need plus opportunity plus ability plus justification, time, and stress.

That's the numerator.

It's divided by the chances and consequences of getting caught, along with morality and social bonds.

And I reverse-engineer that.

I look at every situation through that equation.

What did they need?

What was their opportunity?

What was their justification?

What stressors were they dealing with?

What social bonds did they have—or lack?

And I plug that into the equation.

That's how I reverse-engineer the situation and try to provide an outlet for them.

Because, once again, everyone's the hero of their own adventure.

No one thinks they're the boogeyman.

Not even the boogeyman.

So I want to provide them an out so they can save face and provide me the truth.

INTERVIEW – PART 8 (THE DARK CASES: PROTECTING YOURSELF FROM VICARIOUS TRAUMA)

TONY: Very interesting, Brad.

I didn't ask this earlier, and I realize I should have.

We only have a few minutes left, but with the scope and duties of the Secret Service, and everything you've done—and you've given more polygraph examinations than anyone else—what type of crimes did you deal with most?

The Secret Service protects heads of state and deals with counterfeiting.

So what was the big category you were dealing with?

BRAD: I worked a lot of homicides, which are always tough.

But sadly, those made a lot more sense than the child-exploitation cases that I worked.

I worked hundreds of child-exploitation cases where people would travel for the purpose of meeting someone who turned out to be an undercover officer, or they were downloading inappropriate age-based images.

These were really, really difficult cases to deal with.

About sixty percent of the people we talked to ended up making admissions to committing those acts.

So, hundreds of times, people were making disclosures against their own self-interest about those activities.

And it's really hard to understand.

How could you find that interesting?

Why would you do that?

Why would you hurt someone's life in that manner?

In order to rationalize, minimize, and project their behavior, you had to go to some dark places.

That's why I originally took up jiu-jitsu.

It was a place where I could take the sorrow of having to absorb all that information and leave it on the mat, so to speak.

It was really tough.

It was a lot tougher than protection work.

But the reward of doing those cases—the hope of catching these people so they couldn't continue to victimize children—was what kept me going.

And since 1994, the Secret Service has had a partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which John Walsh founded in the eighties.

As a result of that, I think we've done almost ten thousand polygraphs in support of those cases involving physical and inappropriate contact with children.

I think that's some of the greatest work you can do.

The individuals we protect—many of them have enough money to get protection.

But no child can choose the environment they're born into or the opportunities they're presented with.

So trying to be that sheepdog for them is what the people in our polygraph program have done very effectively.

TONY: I've met a lot of people in my day who have had to deal with difficult circumstances.

Yet they're good people, and they have to deal with bad things day after day.

You just talked about leaving it on the mat.

I'm curious, with all this dark material you're dealing with—especially involving young people—how do you separate yourself from it?

How do you come home and become, "Hey, I'm really glad I'm not this person"?

Because when you're immersed in it for so long, it can affect you.

I didn't know I had those scars.

BRAD: I didn't know I had that vicarious trauma.

And it was good to have a wolf pack—a buddy of mine, a partner—who could point it out.

I was getting on planes and I thought I was having panic attacks.

I thought I was having a heart issue.

But it was really cognitive dissonance.

It was my mind not wanting to fly to these places to talk to these people because I was a different person in the room when I was trying to obtain these disclosures.

The last individual I talked to was traveling to meet an undercover and, during the polygraph, admitted to doing terrible things to thirty infants.

Just awful.

And I had to talk to him like this.

I had to keep encouraging him.

"What else? What else? What else?"

I had to be that sounding board for him.

For me, getting help was important.

We had a counselor who gave me some great coping mechanisms.

I had a shirt that I always wore on these cases, and I would leave that shirt in the car before I walked into the house.

It was almost like a totem.

I could leave that part of the job outside the house.

I would write my reports away from home, do jiu-jitsu, and also play a game before I came into the house so that I could create some separation from the bad things I had just been dealing with.

But the thing I always like to teach people is this:

You can think you're this big, bad guy—ten feet tall and bulletproof—but your mind is the same as everybody else's.

It can only go so far.

I was lucky to have people looking out for me, and I like to be that advocate for other people and say, "It's okay to talk to people."

I never looked at the images, thankfully.

But the people who have to look at them—it is unbelievable.

You can't forget those things.

They leave scars, even if you don't want them to.

TONY: I've seen things—and I'm being very general now—nowhere on the level of what you've dealt with.

Not even close.

I'm talking about things in the corporate world, dealing with criminals or difficult employee situations.

Eventually, it changes people.

And I love some of the points you're making about how to separate yourself from that.

I think there should be more material in the world about how to do that because I think it's more prevalent than we realize.

Not everybody is a cop dealing with bad guys, but even in the business world, you deal with difficult things.

And when you come home, you've got to separate yourself from your children, your family, your parents, your spouse—whoever you're living with.

You've got to stop being that person and go back to being Brad.

I get it.

And I think that's something we could come back to in a future conversation.

I'd really like to explore that more.

INTERVIEW – PART 9 (THE ONE COMMUNICATION SKILL TO MASTER)

TONY: We've got about two minutes left, but I'm really curious.

Everything we've talked about, Brad—if there is one skill I could improve in communicating with people, what would you say?

What is the one thing I should make sure I'm strong on?

BRAD: Body language.

It's not even close for me.

Body language is the icing on the cake of communication.

It's your facial expressions.

It's your hand motions.

It's your positioning in the room.

It's how close you are or how far away you are from the person.

And it's also having the observation ability to understand their body language.

Are they comfortable or uncomfortable?

We're just not doing that.

We're thinking about what we're going to say, but we're not doing a good job of saying it—and understanding how we look while we're saying it.

It's just not coming across as congruent.

When you see great communicators out there, they've hacked this.

Some of it is natural ability, but you can become better at body language if you put in the work and study the material.

There's so much out there on YouTube now, in a good way, when it comes to body language.

But absolutely: body language.

And let other people talk.

Dale Carnegie said it a long time ago:

"Don't be the most interesting person in the room. Be the most interested person in the room."

And in doing so, you will become the most interesting person.

That's from almost one hundred years ago.

Take that to heart.

Just be interested in other people.

TONY: I like that a lot.

And in this whole conversation, one of the biggest takeaways for me personally is this:

When you speak with people—whether you're speaking to friends, colleagues, customers, or complete strangers—treat them as friends.

You're not behind this wall.

You're open.

You're sitting there with a friend.

You may have just met them, but treat them as a friend.

It opens doors.

BRAD: I love it.

TONY: I loved this conversation.

There's so much more we could talk about.

Maybe we scratched the surface.

Maybe not.

You've got a book called *Tell Me Everything*.

BRAD: Tell Me Everything.

TONY: Tell Me Everything.

And we've talked about telling some stuff.

I love it.

The book is about how to read people and build trust through Secret Service communication secrets.

And again, you can find Brad at BradleyBeeler.com.

Bradley, thank you so much.

I loved it.

BRAD: Thank you.

OUTRO

TONY: Wow.

Wow.

I'm a little tongue-tied there.

There's so much information here that I've got to think about it.

I need to listen to this interview again and make sure some of these points really sink in.

There are so many beautiful lessons here.

I just love this interview with Brad.

Thank you.

And if you guys enjoyed this, tell your friends about Brad Beeler and *Tell Me Everything*, and the Secret Service communication secrets we've talked about.

Tell them what he's been through and what he's accomplished.

I'm very impressed.

He comes across very, very well, and he's dealt with some—lack of a better word—dark individuals and dark stories.

He's got a lot to share.

All right, guys.

Wherever you're following, wherever you're watching, wherever you're hearing this—or wherever you're experiencing the show—please follow the show.

It helps us bring more amazing guests to you.

All right. Thanks.

And let's use what we've learned today to help you move forward on your journey to success.

Remember: just take action.

Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds.
So, good seeds do good deeds.
See you on the next episode.