Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope the wind is at your back. Ladies and gentlemen, Christopher Hadnagy, the human algorithm. I just wait till you see this guy. Wait till you listen to him. First off, though, to everybody out there, focus. Listen. Let the room bend. Christopher Hadnagy does not enter. He calibrates. He senses currents, unspoken codes, hidden signals, and draws the truth out without a word. founder of social engineer llc architect of frameworks newsletters and the first social engineering podcast he teaches the world to see the invisible lines connecting minds he does not ask he elicits he does not instruct he guides he does not push he illuminates a conversation begins mundane then imperceptibly It shifts. Eyes open, secrets surface, connections spark. Chris is the architect of that invisible choreography. Every gesture, every pause, every subtle cue deliberate. Every human, a network of signals waiting to be understood. Chris, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? You make me sound way cooler than I am. That's all I got to say. Like if you, if this podcast doesn't work out, you know, you could be one of those squires that walks in before people and announces them because that's, that's amazing. Yeah. You know, words are so powerful. And like, I love the podcast. I love the introduction because it, it allows people to, to it allows me to get to see people the way i kind of see them and like when i check out the book and i see the stuff you're doing and i want other people listening to that to be like whoa i want them to see the words i want them to see all the aura out there so thank you for that thank you so maybe you could um maybe we could just start off like you got the new book out human hacking book but maybe you could talk a little bit about how you got to be where you are before the human hacking book Well, that's a fun origin story because I wish I could sit here and tell you like I was some sort of genius and had this whole plan, but I'm kind of just like a happy mistake, right? So we're going back early two thousands. I'm working with a company and we're doing something called network pen testing. So we're testing computers, right? We're breaking in and testing computers. And writing exploits. And I am terrible at coding. Oh, just terrible. But I was reading all these books like from Frank Abengale, Kevin Mitnick, Victor Lustwig, all these like big con men and social engineers throughout history. And I said, I wonder if we can utilize some of this during our our tests, our audits. So we would ask a CEO like, hey, can I send an email? At the time, we didn't even have phishing. It wasn't just it was an email. Yeah, sure. You could do that. Can I make some phone calls? Yeah. OK, you can do that. You know, call say I'm Paul from IT. No kidding. Two thousand five, six. All you say is like, I need your password. I'm from IT. OK, here it is. Just hand it over. Right. There was no education. So I had this one CEO. He says to me, OK, you did it. How do I fix it? And I went, got no clue. I was looking at his, got no clue. I said, I don't know. I'm just hacking stuff. And he said, son, let me give you an analogy. If I went to my mechanic and I said, hey, what's this noise? And he said, your brakes. And I went, fix it. And he goes, I don't know how. I'd never use that mechanic again. And I'm like, that is a dang good analogy, sir. I'm like, wow. OK, so I came back and you can't see them all, but I had hundreds and hundreds of books here on influence, neuroscience, persuasion, nonverbals, body language, you name it. I was reading it all right. And I started writing in the columns of these books and saying, okay, let's take Cialdini. He's got this principle of concession or scarcity. Let's use scarcity. I'm going to write this email and tell them, I need you to do this in the next twelve hours. It has to happen. And now when the boss says, well, why did that phishing email work? And I go, oh, because I use this principle of influence called scarcity. And now I can tell you how to actually train that person and strengthen them. So I'm doing this. My boss at the time, he says, you got to put this online. Like, this is amazing. And I'm like, no, no, nobody's going to care about this. And he's like, we're putting it online. So I go out, I buy social-engineer.org, which was available at the time. And I put this framework online, two thousand nine. And it blew up like it went viral. I didn't understand. I got a call in early two thousand late two thousand nine from Kevin Mitnick's publisher says, I want you to write a book. And I'm like, no, I'm not an author. And I kind of hang up. I go back. I tell my boss, you got to hear this thing. This woman wants me to write a book. And he's like, well, when do you start? I'm like, no, I told her no. He's like, you're a moron. Call her back. I wrote the book. Uh, it came out, um, social engineering, the art of human hacking. And it was the first step to give it some credit. I tell people don't read it cause it's so old and whatever, but to give it some credit, it was the first book that wasn't stories about like, I did this and went to jail. It was actually scientifically showing why we get influenced and how these decisions are made. So I, I can't even believe I'm going to say this number. That book has sold over a hundred and ten thousand copies. Yes. That's ridiculous to me. Right. Like I didn't even want to be an author. So I'm getting called from all over the globe. Literally. I mean, I got invited to the Pentagon. I got I trained MI five, MI six FBI. Like I was getting called to go train on this everywhere. So I'm like, I'm going to start my own company doing this. i come home i tell my wife hey she had just uh just a year before giving birth to our daughter and she had worked her whole life she said i don't want to work anymore i want to stay at home and take care of a daughter so it's your job i'm like okay no problem so i come home and i say hey honey i want to start a company that does only social engineering what do you think She goes, OK, well, how many people do it and how much do they make? And I'm like, well, we're the only ones that would be doing it at this time. And so I can't answer the second question. And she's like, OK, let's do it. Let's try it. So that was two thousand ten. I started Social Engineer LLC and landed some big contracts and did some massive training. And ever since then, I wish again I can say I'm proactive because I can't see what the bad guys are doing. But what we do is we wait for the threat actors to. create something evil, and then we recreate it here, use it as testing for our clients, and then figure out how to help people fix it. Man, that is an awesome story. It's a crazy origin story, really, because all of this happened by and now. And, you know, I know other people were involved, so I don't want to I'm not taking all the credit. But now there's a whole industry behind this. There's a whole industry behind social engineering and there's people who have whole careers around this because of just starting that back then. It's kind of like a nuts thing to sit back and think of. yeah it totally is you know i've read what was it kevin's book ghost in the wires that book was phenomenal man like that guy was just he was doing it same thing with chris voss's book chris voss got a good book on social engineering of course caldini It's amazing. Any of those guys your favorites, or do you have some favorites in the space? Before Kevin passed, him and I were really good friends. I learned a lot from him. He was kind to me, starting out as a brand new author, giving me some quotes from my book and helping me promote it. I really, really enjoyed Kevin. He was a special kind of guy. I had a chance to interview Chris Voss once, and he's just as phenomenal as he looks. On screen, he is. He is that good. I had the wonderful privilege of being mentored by Dr. Paul Ekman, and we co-authored a book together. My second book, him and I were co-authors on it. And I learned so much about life in general. and just being a person from him uh it's like that was you know if i had to name three those are like my top three people that i say i interacted with as mentors in this space It's so interesting how, like when we think of human hacking, like we, we do think of like giants, like you got your, you got your books out there. There's Chris Voss and Kevin and so many interesting people. We see movies like can't or try to catch me now. And it seems like we're so enamored by this idea of hacking, but we're doing it every day. Right. And every relationship, isn't that sort of influence or that sort of, you know, putting it out there, that behavior sort of influencing going on, it's happening all day long everywhere. Right. All day, everywhere. Sometimes people don't know it, so they don't know how to identify it. And that's why a lot of times you can get taken advantage of if you don't know what's happening. But then when you do know it, my mantra is always use it ethically. Don't get unethical. Because once you learn these skills... It's, it's, you know, you kind of do feel like a Jedi at times. You can, you know, you can get, I mean, I've, I've gotten upgrades to first class from coach, you know, gotten upgrades to good cars and stuff, but you have to do it ethically and not leave people feeling worse for having met you. Because if you, if you get these skills and you do that, then it's just going to be easier and easier to be malicious as time goes on. Yeah. Yeah. And then that can bleed into the idea of this giant ego. I'm way smarter than these people. They deserve to be manipulated. You start to see it as you rise above the corporate rank sometimes. I love that point. I do. When I teach one of my classes, we have a whole section on ego suspension because it's such an important piece of being a good communicator. Because because you could be the best at something. And, you know, I use Chris Voss as an example. He's probably one of the top negotiators in the world, but he doesn't come in the room and be like, I'm the best. You suck. He he'll learn. He'll learn from other people. Yeah. And he's and he's kind, you know, and I remember I also had the honor of interviewing Bob Cialdini. And and he's the same way. You know, I mean, this is the guy who literally created the science bond influence. Like no one was studying this before him. And he doesn't come in and go, you know, I'm the leader of this industry. He just he's just like a really easygoing. I tried to call him Dr. Cialdini. You got to call me, Bob. And I'm like, I don't know if I can call you, Bob, man. Like, this feels dirty. Like, you know, like. no, I feel like I'm going to get smacked by my dead grandma, you know? So yeah, I think ego suspension is a, is a hard skill to learn, but you are a hundred percent right. It is necessary because when you learn this, it's so easy to then look at people like targets and not, not like humans. Yeah, that's a great point out there. I'm so enamored with language, Chris, like all the words we use. And then when you just step back and you start thinking, like, I wonder why they use that word. And sometimes I start thinking, like, man, is someone's outer dialogue the same as their inner dialogue? And like, what does that mean? Like, what is your thoughts on all that kind of people's words alone and why they choose them? Like, what are your thoughts on that? I think when people aren't self-aware on how to use communication skills, that your outer dialogue is your inner dialogue. And I can use myself as an example. I'm a very direct communicator. And I've always been like a giant D direct. And before I learned being self-aware and learned how to utilize these skills, I can say often, I was a jerk. I was a big jerk to people really, you know, like I, I would be too blunt. I would say things that in my head were like, well, I should be able to say this then and just hurt someone's feelings. You know, I remember one time, one of my closest friends, his wife got a haircut and I said, wow, your hair looks so much better than it did before. In my head, I thought that was a compliment. I just backhanded her. It's terrible. So I think your inner is your outer when you're self-aware. Now when you're self-aware, you realize that, hey, I'm talking to a person who talks like this or communicates like that, so I'm going to change my method. Or like I have employees and some of them are very quiet and timid. So when I get with them for meetings, I'm not going to have a loud voice and I'm not going to be so direct. I'm going to give them more details around discussions we have to have. It's when you when you learn those skills, you learn I can use these to be a better communicator. Yeah. Are you, are you looking like, let's say you walk into a crowd or you meet someone for the first time, are you looking for subtle cues or signals or perhaps things about their, the way they look in order to understand how to better communicate to them? So I have to say yes to that, but it also depends on the circumstance, right? So in my job, everything, yes. You're walking into the front building and I'm supposed to be walking right past security and there's three or four security guards. I'm eyeing up which one I think is bored out of their mind and not going to pay attention to me, right? The one who's on their phone or just like kind of yawning. That's what I'm looking for, those kinds of things. But let's say I'm at a business function and I really want to interact with some people that might be good leads or good opportunities. I'm looking for for body language, you know, looking for like where are their hips placed? You know, how how are they holding their hands? How are they standing? What's their matter of dress? Looking for things that might give me an in. to start a conversation with a complete stranger right so um yeah i think once you learn that too it's hard to shut that off you do that all the time everywhere yeah it's interesting to think about it do you ever use it on the on the back side like if you don't want to talk to somebody you start doing the yawning or like you start like pointing your feet a different direction or i love that question because i uh i had this this thing where i should practice these skills when i get on a plane because i have a captive audience So I remember once I I started eliciting listening with this woman sitting next to me and I did not make a plan for this because it was a four hour flight and she didn't stop talking the whole time. Right. And I heard from her childhood to the moment she met me, I knew everything about her. And, you know, and she was just poured it all out. I mean, I knew about her breakups, her divorce, her kids, everything, you know. So now if I'm getting on a plane, I'm like, I really just need to sleep. I do that. I put my headphones in right before anyone sits next to me. And I kind of just do this, you know, like, yeah, I'm tired. Like getting that that out there, like I'm not here for a conversation kind of mode. Right. Yeah. So I do do that. But it's also interesting because we have mirror neurons in our brain. Right. And we we mimic each other. So our hips indicate our interest. So if I'm in a conversation with you and, you know, you even do this now, like when we're here, we're facing the screen, we're facing that. I mean, if I was having a conversation like this, it would be really awkward for everyone watching. Because it's like, who are you talking to, man? Right. You know, so when you're in a conversation, if you need to exit, you know, that's a great that's kind of a great way to kind of move your hips a little bit away from the person you're talking to. And their brain will start to understand, oh, it's time to wrap this up. Right. So you can use these subtle cues also to kind of. end a conversation if you want to unless you're on a plane then you're you're stuck yeah it almost sounds like offense and defense to me is that a too simplistic of a way for it to be No, I don't think that's too simplistic. I think that's a great analogy, a way of thinking of it. Because it is. I mean, so let's take this from the manipulator side. Threat actors, people who want to hack you, will say, like, here's a big one on the phone for your grandma, your grandpa, your mom, your dad. They call up and they say, hey, grandma, this is Chris. I was at a bachelor party with a bunch of guys. We went over the border to Mexico. I got mugged. I got into a fight. I have no money. I'm in jail. You know, can, can you wire a thousand dollars down to this place? So I can, I can, you know, I can get out of here. And grandma wants to help. Yeah. She, she's like, it doesn't really sound a lot like Chris, you know, I'm still drunk, grandma. I'm so sorry. You know, So grandma does it, wires the money to the address she's given and does it right on PayPal. That money's gone. Well, what did they do? They used fear, right? They used fear to get her to stop thinking critically. So when we know that this is the way a threat actor is going to work, you can come up with stop gaps. So like what I did with my grandma when she was around is we had a code word. I said, Grandma, I'm the only one who's ever going to say this code word to you. So if I call you one day and I say, I need money, I'm in a bad place. You say, Chris, what's the code word? And if I don't say it to you, you hang that phone up. If I tell you I'm too drunk to remember, you say, call me back when you're sober. Right. And you hang up. And that kept her safe from those type of attacks, because we had a system that even though she might be scared, I don't want Chris to be in jail. I don't want him to be hurt. We had a system that now she could stay safe. So when you know the ways that they're being used, it is all offense because then you set up things to not be. You can even do it to yourself, say, well, I'm in this conversation with this person and I'm feeling really afraid. Like I'm feeling a lot of that could be an indicator. Why am I afraid? Yeah. Like is the IRS really going to send police to my house? Like, does that even make sense? It stops you, allows you to critically think for a second when you question yourself and that can stop you from being a victim. Yeah, that is a great, that's great. Thanks for sharing that right there. You're welcome. You know, it seems interesting to me because there are so many scams out there, whether it's an email phishing scam or a phone call or a Nigerian prince wanting to give you all kinds of money. But you know what, Chris? I see it more in the people we're supposed to trust. When I start looking at ads on TV or even words in music, sometimes I just get bummed out because I'm like, look at the architect's who seem to be wanting to sell us stuff based on fear, based on loneliness. How do we combat that? And what is your thoughts about sort of our society using it like that? Well, I think it's what you said before. It's the it's the offense defense. If you're aware of it and you know it, you know, like you can we can all remember this. The screen comes on and there's a starving dog and there's sad music. Right. And the arms of an angel. There it is. And this dog's just looking at you and it's got its ribs showing. And then the music crescends and there's a healthy dog because you gave a dollar a day. Yeah, they're using these things. So you have to say to yourself, if we know that marketing is doing this, we know that. And like nowadays with social media, we call it FUD, fear, uncertainty and doubt, right? FUD is used everywhere by everybody. And it's terrible because- when it gets you in your mind, like maybe I do need that thing because I don't feel very safe or protected. Like I need that. Right. You know, and that, and then I don't know how many, I'm sure everyone listening, maybe it's, hopefully it's not just me. You've done this late night scrolling. And you're like, I think I need that by now. And then you get it. And you're like, why did I even order this? Like what, like what, what was the, my purpose? What was I thinking when I clicked buy on this thing? Right. But yeah, I think it is, it's being used more and more. So it comes back to what you said, offense, defense. We need to be very aware that these skills are being used, be aware of those skills and then defend against them. Yeah, I love that. I got my friend Polar Knights chiming in all the way from Scandinavia. He says, true life have hacked me in my mind. I love the show. Polar Knights, thanks for being here, man. Thanks for chiming in all the way over there, man. I'm super stoked. Let me know if you got some questions for Chris. Put them in the chat over there. It's like eight hours ahead right there. So you're... Awesome. We are. What'd you say? I can't help myself. I see cheap socks. I will order it. I know. I know. This is what I'm saying. And those ads, they get you, you know? Yeah. I got another one coming in from my friend, Desiree. Desiree, I love you. Thank you for being here. She says, in your experience, Chris, what is the single micro expression or behavioral signal most people consistently misread? And what does it reveal about human nature? Oh, that's a great question, Desiree. So let's talk about facial expressions first. The one that is most often misread is contempt. And contempt is defined scientifically as the feeling of moral superiority. And the way it's displayed is one side of the face, and I'm doing this extreme because this is not usually the way it is, goes up. So a lot of times you'll just see it like that, right? And people often misconstrue it for a smirk. You know, so they don't read it right. But if you think about this, the definition of contempt, Dr. Ekman and a bunch of others did a great study a few years, way years back that in a marriage, in a relationship with your partner, you can feel all base emotions. You can feel anger, surprise, disgust, happiness, fear. You can feel them all and still be married and happy. But if you feel contempt, then marriage can't last, right? If I, if I feel I'm morally superior to my wife, then she is, then she's not equal to me. How can we stay happily married? Right? So that one, a lot of times ruins relationships if it's misread because that's people get into abusive situations and things like that. Now from a, A body language standpoint, that's an interesting one because there's this part of our neck right here called the suprasternal notch. It's where our collarbone meets. And when people feel like a big surprise or fear, everyone thinks they're going to go... But people go like this and they it's where the I think it's where that phrase clutch my pearls comes from. Right. They go here. And if you watch any CCT footage like where a mom is with her child in the mall and she looks down, the child's gone. They do this right away. So a lot of times people don't know what that means. So they don't understand what's being displayed when they see it. And I tell this to the guys out there. If you're walking in a bar and you see this girl you really want to interact with and you start walking up to her chair and she does this, she is telling you that she does not find you open. She's finding you a little bit scary. So maybe your approach or whatever it is, you need to redo something because you're not going to win that one, right? You can look for those cues and know that it's a good time to say, like, what am I doing? Is it my face? Is it my my walk? Is it my beard? Maybe she doesn't like that. Am I coming on too strong? Like, what is it like? There's something that's happening that I'm not making her feel comfortable. yeah that's an awesome one you know where i see it too is like intercultural conversations like my family my wife and her family are layocean and it's so interesting to see like i'm this white guy come out guns blazing and they hide in their knives you know and there's all these different intricacies about like when you laugh and when you don't laugh yeah You know, there's one in particular I want to share with you and everybody. It's when an accident happens, like in our family, like if there were to be, there was an accidental fender bender and my dad would get out and start laughing like, oh, but he was trying to show respect. I'm like, are you okay? But he had a smile on his face and he was joking about it. But the guy that they ran into was like, why are you laughing you think this is funny and it's like whoa total miscommunication right there leading to almost like this violent interruption you got to get in there and break that up but what do you what are your thoughts on the whole cultural dynamic of communication and reading signs it's very important because um body language yeah oftentimes is not always universal Right. So my wife, like your wife, she's from Thailand. So the first time I met my wife's family, I'm Italian. I'm American Italian. Right. I'm doing the whole hand on the shoulder, you know, and from here up is for God. I did not know that. No one told me that don't touch their shoulders until you're intimately acquainted with them. So I'm doing all sorts of touching as an Italian does. And I'm offending the whole family. Right. Right. so i i think it's important to understand you know uh i have a japanese employee and if i were to say come here that in japan is fight me this has come here if you see a mom with her children she'll do this right so it's like you have to understand oh i have a really funny story on yeah let's hear it man First time I was, I went to India for business. Um, the company I went for, they, they assigned me a host and he was to show me around. So we get there and we're going to these shops and, you know, a couple hours pass and the man says, are you hungry? And I said, well, are you hungry? And he did that. And I thought, no, he's not hungry. So I went, okay, well we can wait. So another hour passes and he's like, sir, are you hungry? And I went, are you hungry? And I went, Okay. He's not hungry. So another hour passes and I'm like, Hey man, I am starving. Can we eat? And he's like, I've been waiting for you. And I said, but you kept saying no. He said, no, I've been saying yes. This is yes. In India, India shake their head side to side to say, yes, this is no. And I'm like, what? they're so close. And I'm like, and he's like, I'm so sorry. You know what I mean? No, don't be sorry. It's me being stupid. I didn't know your culture. I should have learned something. Right. So miscommunication and three hours of not eating, you know, late because I didn't understand that his head nod was yes and not no. So if you're going to travel or interact with people from a different culture, I think it's amazing to find out some of their nonverbal cues before you have that interaction and it will make your conversation so much better. Yeah. But why is it then that it seems like so many, and maybe this is just propaganda from my part, but why is it that so many, it seems like there's so many foreign actors that are good at manipulating Americans. Well, so believe it or not, a lot of foreign actors that we find have explicit training in doing these things. There's actually modules and books on how to be a con person for them. But also, they know to use the emotion. So they know fear is a big one. They know lust and greed is a big one, like romance scams, right? They attack lonely people who have just lost their mates that are looking for a connection. Right. The grandparents can whenever they attack fear because I don't want kid to be in trouble. Kidnapping scam fear. My daughter's is kidnapped. Right there. The attackers are using fear based. And then when they're attacking companies, they're using authority. I'm coming from the CEO. You have to do this. You're going to be fired. And they're using methodologies that are completely unethical, but they work because when our emotion is triggered, we have these two little pieces of gray matter in our brain called the amygdala and the amygdala because there's two of them. When the amygdala are triggered, what they start to do is they take something from external sight, smell, hearing, whatever it is, and they start to trigger a psychological and physiological changes. before your brain has a chance to catch up. And if it stays triggered, your frontal cortex actually doesn't work. It's a slower processor at that point. I'll give you an example of this so they can picture it. Let's say you're deathly afraid of snakes. You walk out into your yard, your garden, and you see this long black thing out of the corner of your eye. What do you do? You do this. Now, why does this happen? It's a physiological response. Let's think about it. You take a gasp in. So your blood's now oxygenated. Your eyes open wide. So you're taking in the whole scene. And when you clench your muscles, adrenaline gets released into your blood. And why is this happening? Because that's the first F is freeze. But now you have fight or flight response. So your amygdala have prepared your body for one of those two responses. But now you look over and it's not a snake, it's a garden hose. And you're like, ah, silly. And you go back, but let's say it was a snake. Now your body's been prepared to defend or to get the heck out of there, right? So attackers might not understand the neuroscience, but they understand that if I can get you to... That right now, there's nothing happening frontal here. So the next decision you make is going to be purely on emotion. And we all know none of us make great decisions when it's based only on emotion, right? Ask any sixteen-year-old boy. I'm sure we all got stories. We don't make any good decisions on emotion only, you know? Yeah. It's an interesting one, though, too, because sometimes while... you know, when you look, especially if you're going to, like, I've made horrible financial decisions based on emotion and paid for the price for it, you know, but it seems like there's all this literature out there that says, follow your heart. And so much of the language, you've got language of the heart and, you know, get to know someone and stand close and feel the frequency about what is there sort of a dichotomy there or like what what's going on there. there is you know when my son was um graduating from high school he said to me dad what should i do like should i get into it what should i what should i do and i said you want to know something colin i said there are few trades in the world that can't be outsourced to other countries so if you want to be valuable for the for forever become a plumber become an hvac become a carpenter right Those jobs. So he went and he applied to this college, which was a really amazing program. The college uses the tuition money. They buy a plot of land. And for two and a half years, the students build a house from the foundation up. I mean, everything, the plumbing, the electrical, everything. And then the school sells the house and they use that money for the next next class. And he left that with a degree understanding how to do every trade craft. He had a great job in HVAC for years. Great job. Now he's pivoted as he got a little older. He does something with autistic kids now. But... In college, they'll say, follow your dreams, follow your heart. Well, at that age, what are your dreams? You want to be an artist? Okay, great. How many artists actually make a living being an artist? I have a good friend who's a lead singer of a rock band, and he said they just got lucky because there are so many bands that will never make it to where you can actually have a living being in a band. So I would have loved to have been a drummer in a band, but I didn't follow my dreams. So I think... I think what I try to tell people is, look, you want to be passionate about the thing you choose to do. So that is heart. You want to be passionate about it, but you want to make an informed decision, right? So when you're choosing a career, a mate, a place to live, you want to make an informed decision. Like I might say, well, you know what? Utah's beautiful. That state here in the U.S. Utah is a beautiful. But for what I do for a living, that would be the worst place to go live. Airports are a million miles away. There's no big businesses like I need to be where I'm at central to a very good airport so I can fly easily. Right. And you make that decision and then you say, OK, let me choose a city that I actually wouldn't want to live in. And that's how you make your decisions based on emotion, but also logic. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing that. What was the name of that? Is it okay to share the name of that school? That sounds amazing. I can't even remember because my son is now thirty one, so I can't even remember. I got to look it up and email you. Yeah, that would be so awesome. What a great opportunity. That brings me to another issue, too, is if we, if we think about right now, what are your thoughts on school? Like when I look at some of the bigger schools, like I, I fear for my daughter that it seems just like, it seems as if that Prussian model of school where you have an authority figure tell you all these things that you need to memorize, but somehow that doesn't seem to be working in our society. Obviously you get what you pay for. If you take classes that are like underwater basket weaving, you might not make it. If you go to a top engineering school, you're probably going to crush it. But like, Do you think we can move some of the things you're talking about, about behavior and understanding connection and passion to self and how your brain actually works? Could that be rolled into some of these schools for a better education for our kids? It needs to be. So I'll give you a great example. I work with a school in Alabama. It's a STEM school. Is it Alabama? Yeah, Alabama. And this school, this is a high school. So it's a four year high school. But they created programs around forget about. Yeah, everyone does their math and their English, but they have a robotics course. They have a electronics course. They have a welding course. They have things that when these kids graduate from high school, they're going to have actionable skills for the job market. Right. And and and they called me to ask, help them write a whole course on social engineering. So we wrote a nine week social engineering course that these kids get active education and using what we're talking about today, how to elicit, how to ask the right questions, how to critically think, how to read body language. They're getting that. And the effect. that I see on, I've been with them now three or so years. The effect that I see on these kids when they're graduating is on night and day from a normal high school. These kids know what they want to do with their life. They're respectful. They're mature. I don't hear, there's no reports of sexual violence or gun violence in that school. The school has been designed where every classroom is complete see-through glass. It puts the onus on the teachers and the students to be responsible for acting right because you can't hide behind a door. I wish I had a school like that when I was a kid. It's an amazing experience watching what these kids do. And some kids say, you know what? I don't need to go to college. I got my skills. I'm going to go get a job. And some kids say, oh, I know what I want to do with the rest of my life now because of the things I learned here. Right. And they they have a path because right now, if you think about it, I don't know about when you went to school. They didn't teach me how to balance a checkbook. No, they didn't teach me how to make a budget. They didn't teach me how to grocery shop. The things I needed did not involve geometry or trigonometry. I needed to know how to live as an adult. Right. I didn't learn any of that stuff. So this kind of a school is teaching those kids all those things. There's a whole class in banking, how to how to balance a checkbook, how to how to make a budget. I mean, this school is like unbelievable. Yeah, that sounds amazing to me. You know, it brings up the idea of the difference between what questions versus how questions. It seems like how do you do this is a is a much more powerful question than what do you do? How do you do, you know? Yeah. No, I, so when I teach on this, I always, I always say like, if you, if you want to have a great conversation, use how questions. Yeah. Right. Like, you know, let's say, Hey, how I need your advice. You know, George, how would you handle this situation right now? I'm not asking you to tell me what to do. I'm asking you how you would handle a situation. And then I give you the situation and now I'm going to get your opinion on it. Now I didn't ask you what to do. I just asked how you would do it. So now if I don't follow your advice, I'm not insulting you. Yeah. Right. So it's a great way of doing that as opposed to being like, what do you think I should do here? And then you say, hey, do this. And I go, I don't agree. Why'd you ask me? Right. You know, you know, so I agree with you how questions are much more powerful. Yeah, I think so, too. It's you know what? That brings up this idea of like the subject object relationship. It seems whether in schools or conversations or especially in the workplace, there's like this subject object and you are the object or you are the subject. And it takes away all of sort of the real creativity out of those conversations. What's your thoughts on that? Yeah. So I was talking to another person just just a few hours ago about like the effect that covid and having to be forced to separated has had on us. Right. Yeah. And now you blend that with the new brand of social media. Right. We have lost our attention spans at the point. Like if you can't show me how to cook this three course meal in sixty seconds, I'm done with you. Right. I don't have time. Right. So you better be able to do this. So our attention spans have been shorter when we were forced to alienate and not interact face to face anymore. People then got comfortable with that and they got comfortable using their hundred and forty seven characters on Twitter to say whatever the heck they wanted, no matter how awful it was. And now all of a sudden the world opens back up and people like, wait, wait, I don't know how to do this anymore. So they bring their online presence to the real world. And it's just like, I've never been, I remember being a kid and my dad would have a neighbor over who didn't agree with him on any political view. And they'd sit around, have a whiskey and talk. And then the guy would leave and my dad would be like, that guy's a dummy. And he'd invite him over next week. Yeah, totally. Same thing. Nowadays, if you and I disagree, I have to kill you. Or I have to call you all sorts of names. Or I have to hate you. It's like, why has disagreement become such a volatile thing? It's a crazy situation I think this world is in right now. If I don't agree with your... Your lifestyle, your sexuality, your politics. I'm a racist. What? And then we have to hate each other. But why? Why do we have to hate each other? It's because we can't agree. I have friends that are completely opposite of me. And that's the way it should be. But we've somehow lost that ability in this new world that we're in right now. yeah you know i i see it too especially when you look at what's recently happening all over the world you see these just incredible divisive nature that's happening it seems to me that that that's the very thing that's supposed to save us and on my more positive days chris i see this as a giant opportunity and almost a lot of people i talk to i'm beginning to see this evolution of awareness this idea that we're more than the words out there that When you sit down with somebody, you can be radically, the poles apart. But if you just sit down with another individual and start talking to them, you're going to actually see how close you are to that person. Yes, you may be poles apart over here, but how's your family? Oh, you've got a problem with your cousin too? Imagine that. Oh, you got that? Oh, imagine that. We need that more than ever right now. How do we get there? Yeah. I think so. I really like that question because I think there is an answer, but it is like I can only control my little circle of my universe here. Yeah. So if I if I help my wife and my kids to become that kind of a person. Yes. And then they grow up and they get families and they help their families to become that kind of people. Yeah. And if I can get my friend group to become that kind of person. Now we're going to it's like it's like a what do they call that? The marketing pyramid level marketing. Yeah. Yeah, multi-level marketing. It's like multi-level marketing, but for good, right? Where if we can spread this to our family and friend groups, eventually, I'm not going to say I'm going to change the world, but at least my corner of the world will be people that are like that. And that will make my life richer, right? I mean, I remember sitting in front of someone, this was years ago when terrorism really took off. And this person was a Muslim. And I said, I don't know anything about your religion. Can you just tell me? I don't understand it. Just explain it to me. You know, all I hear is what's on the news and it sounds horrible. And they when they walk me through it, I'm like, so it's really not that much different than Christianity. It's the extreme. Like you have Christians in this country and then you have the KKK. So terrorists are just extreme Muslims. Not every Muslim thinks you beat your wife or blow things up. Right. So it's like this is it's a great lesson. If you're confused about something. Go to a source. Don't go to Google. Find someone who is that and say, I'd like to learn. I remember once sitting with someone. I didn't know anything about people who are non-binary. And then I have a nonprofit I run. I had someone volunteer who identified a non-binary. So I was sitting with them. One dentist explained it to me. I don't understand it. So I'm asking because I really want to know. Even if I don't agree, I want to know. So we had this great conversation. All they explained everything to me so I could understand the reasoning behind it and how that how this came about and how they feel. And it was great. Now I understand it. And again, it doesn't mean I have to go away and agree. I didn't convert to being a Muslim after talking to that guy. But now I understand it. So it's a matter of. if I can get my friends, my family, my, my group around me to be that willing to be educated, to, to be, to ask questions, to, to be wrong, even right. To, to be completely wrong. Like to sit there and say, wow. Okay. So if you listen to the news, you think every Muslim person is just a horrible human being. And that's not the case, you know? And now you can say I was wrong. You could spread that man. If my whole group of people that I'm around can be like that, that's going to enrich my life. Yeah. I heard a great quote. Yeah. To answer your question, just sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but to answer your question, I think if we all can do that with our group, like, yeah, I can go out and try to say, I'm going to change the world with a movement, but you know, there's so many movements, right? Let me change me and let me change my group. And then that can expand. I love it. I think that's beautiful advice. It happens from the bottom up. We're so used to this top-down system. But in reality, it's always been become the best version of yourself and watch the world change. Watch it change. And people that are not like you will not want to be around you. Right. Cause they're going to, they're going to make them feel bad or they're going to want to change. Right. I remember. So like this is going back five, four years. I'm going to tell you something. I weighed three hundred and fifty pounds. Whoa. I weighed three hundred and fifty pounds. And I at the height of COVID, I was lethargic. I wasn't doing anything for my health. And I'm I was in my forties and I'm going to be dead before I'm fifty. Wow. This is awful. Right. Yeah. And I I woke up one day and I have a beehive that I take care of and I got some flowers for my bees and I'm out there digging and I'm out of breath and I'm like, I'm going to die planting a flower. Like I said, I got to change. I have to do something. I hired a trainer and my trainer over the Internet looked at me and said, OK, man, well, you're really unhealthy. So we're going to start with something small. You're going to make, you're going to do it. You're going to do it. I want you to do that every day, seven days a week for two weeks and then get back with me. Okay. So I did that. And I could not tell you without changing anything in my diet or anything, I was shedding weight. Like it was unbelievable drinking water and walking. Right. And then I come back and I'm like, look, I got a kettlebell. I got a bench and I don't have really any equipment. I got a couple of dumbbells. He made a twenty minute program for me and I'll jump to the end. It's been four years now. I weigh two twenty. So I lost one hundred and thirty pounds. Right. And I made a change because I I had to realize like that that was bad. Like I'm going to die. Right. So but like you said, it had to come from within. Right. I had a friend who went on a health journey and he came to me one day and he says, Chris, you're really scaring me. You're not healthy. And I went, I'm just big boned. He could have said that to me in my face all day long. I didn't listen. It had to come from here, right? Until you say, you look in the mirror and you go, I don't like what I see inside or outside, whatever, then you can't ever change. No one's going to do it for you. I didn't lose weight for my daughter. I didn't lose weight for my wife because if I did, I would have done it years ago. I lost weight because I was sick of who I was. So that change has to come from internal or not. And yeah, you can have people help you. I had a trainer. My wife cheered me on. My kids cheered me on. I had a group of people I hung out with that like to work out. So yeah, I had help. I wasn't like singular, but it couldn't be because of that. It had to be because of something inside of me. At the time when you weighed that much, did you catch yourself betraying your own writings? It seems like you have these incredible ways of human hacking and understanding things. Did you recognize in yourself like, wait, I'm using these techniques on myself? That's a great question, George. That's a really thought-provoking question. I don't think anyone's ever asked me that. That is awesome. You know what? Yeah. A hundred percent. I can say, because there was no way for me to, if I were to be honest. Right. Right. I'm going to take a shower. You look in the mirror. There's no way for me to go. It's all big bone. Bones aren't that big. Okay. Bones don't weigh for hundred and fifty pounds. Right. Right. So by telling myself that I gave myself an excuse. The other excuse I used, I was too busy. I'm traveling all the time. I got a business. I got employees. I don't have time to work out. Yeah. I would tell myself this and then be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn't have time. I did travel a lot. And I just told myself it was okay to be like that. I'm just being me. So I was. I was hacking myself for the bad. But then when the realization came, now it was like, I have to look in the mirror and say, you got to look at yourself and go, Chris, no, you're not. You're not healthy. This isn't good. Like I honestly said to my wife, I don't know how you ever even slept with me like that. I was disgusting. You know, like that was terrible. I got to apologize to her. I'm like, I am so sorry. Like, I feel bad for like putting you through that for so many years. You know, it's like, and we used to be workout partners, her and I. And then when she got pregnant with my daughter, the doctor said, I really need you to stop working out so much because we don't want to hurt the baby. So I said, okay, I'll, I'll pause with you for three or four months and I'll get back to it. Well, When I started working out again, my daughter was. Seventeen. So that went seventeen years of progression. Right. And I had to I had to. And that's the other thing. I tried every fad diet. I tried every pill. If a pill came out, said you can lose weight. I bought it. You know, I tried everything. Juicing, whatever it was, never worked. Never worked because as soon as you stop, you go back. It literally was, and I don't diet now. I don't, my, my, my trainer has me focus on protein first. So if I can eat one hundred and sixty grams of protein in a day, anything else I want to eat, who cares? Yeah. It says drink, drink at least like three of these and water a day, at least a minimum. Yeah. Don't skip a workout. And now I walk eight thousand steps a day. And as long as that, he doesn't care if I drink beer, doesn't care if I drink whiskey, doesn't care about anything. Just and I'm keeping it off. Because of the change. But again, the change had to happen internally. And, and I had to be willing. I think your question is so thought provoking. I had to be willing to look in the mirror and be like, you're lying to yourself, bro. Like you are lying to yourself and that's got to change now. Yeah. Thank you for it. Thanks for sharing that. I know that was kind of a, I don't want to go too deep, but I was like, I wonder what he thinks about this. No, I love it. No one's ever asked me that. You have to be honest with it, right? I think when people are listening to this and I had some friends that went on health journeys afterwards because they saw what happened and they asked me, what did you do? And I'm like, well, first get your hormones tested, find a trainer. But I said, before any of that, you have to internally look at yourself and say, am I willing to stick to it and make this change? And if you're even go, I'm not sure it's not the time because you have to be there because what's going to happen is you're going to make some progress and then you're going to fall right back into your old habits. But, you know, I tell everyone the story and I'm very honest about it because, I mean, people will see pictures of me back and I met someone that I hadn't seen for like two years. and they didn't even know who I was. Right. They had no clue who I was. They were like, wait, you're Chris Hadnagy. And I'm like, yeah, man, don't you remember? And they're like, no, the last time I saw you had no beard and you were huge. You know, I literally looked older than, five years ago than I do now. Right. That nice comment from your, from your fan in the chat where he said, my son is thirty one, not forty one. But thank you for that wonderful compliment. I'm fifty two. So I appreciate that. That goes to the hard work because I worked hard to get here. Right. And I don't ever want to go back to that old guy. So, yeah, I think that. Yeah. So I don't mind the questions. I don't mind going deep on that because I think it's a a powerful lesson i got to keep reminding myself because i did for well i wasn't always i mean it took quite a few years to get there but probably for ten to fifteen years i lied to myself about my health and just thank god i didn't end up in a hospital i remember once i was walking through an airport and i was late and i had to i had to walk really fast and there's no way i can run And when I got to the plane, my shin felt like it was going to pop off my leg and just flap around like a fish, like it was throbbing. It hurt so bad. So I get back from my trip and I go to a doctor and I'm like, what is this pain? And they're like, oh, well, you have shin splints. And I'm like, well, how do I get rid of it? They're like, lose weight. But there has to be another way. Like, what do you mean? What else can I do? You know, like when you're walking so fast because you had to, you're putting all the strain on that muscle and it got tight and it didn't loosen. So I went online looking for every shin splint remedy, got braces, eating bananas because potassium was supposed to help. You know what fixed it? Losing weight. Now I ran my first five K. I didn't get one shin splint, not one. Right. So I'm like that. That was the answer. You just got to be willing to hear it and take action. Man, I love that. It brings up another deeper question for me. I spend a lot of time talking to people like an addiction or PTSD or different therapists. I'm so fortunate to get to talk to so many cool people on my podcast. And when I think about therapy, a lot of people go in and they'll see a psychologist or something like that. But I can't really see... I think human hacking and knowledge of self is sort of therapy on some level. Do you think that like psychologists are they're doing the human hacking as well? Well, if we think about sadly, this got de-scienced. But if we think about the origins of what Bandler and Grindler started back in the in the in the sixties. Right. So they said, OK, guys, psychologists, they're all shrinks. They're all using LSD. And it's really not helping, right? It's not really working great. So they said, we had this fascinating idea. Why don't we talk to our patients? And why don't we match their tempo, match their volume, match their speed? And they saw a massive change in it, right? Now, of course, later on, a bunch of people took their great teachings and turned it into street magic and made it lose all of its scientific validity. But if we just look at that learning how to communicate properly is a lot like therapy now i would never say don't see a therapist because i've been seeing mine forever and i love her and you know i think that's really good if you if you need that but when me learning these skills helped me to realize that that super direct kind of jerk of a guy needed to change And the older I get and the more experience I get in life, the more I realize how this can help me become a better leader, a better father, a better husband, just a better person. By learning how to use these skills, it enhances everything in my life. I have this four-day class I teach called Foundational Application of Social Engineering. And that's the class I got to teach to MI five, MI six, SOCOM, FBI, U.S. Secret Service. I got to teach this class all over the place and to corporations, too. And when I first started it, I always geared it towards security people, you know, military or security people. And then one day I had a public class and I, you know, when the first day I was asking students, why are you here? And six of the students were from one automotive place as salespeople. And I'm like, why are you here as a salesperson? Like, well, our IT guy took a course and he brought the book back and we were looking through the book and we were like, this is what we need to increase our sales. Yeah. So they took the class and they called me back. They were like, this changed our whole process in our life. So I'm like, I changed the name of the course. I took away some of the security stuff. And no kidding, six months ago or a year ago when I taught this class, there was a guy in there and I said, you know, I said, hey, why are you here? He's like, because I need to be a better husband and a father. And that's why I'm taking this class is to learn how to do that. And I'm like, what? like what like mind-blowing and i've had people take this class for all sorts of reasons and a lot of not dealing with security just about communication learning how to communicate better learning how that kind of communication and understanding your self-awareness could literally open up doors for you that that could change your life Really? Yeah. It sounds all wooey, but you know, I mean it like it's, it's for, for me, like it's opened up doors for me. Like I said, I've got to go speak at the Pentagon. You know, I've got to meet. Um, I had the privilege of meeting Will Smith once because, uh, he came to hear a speech I was giving, uh, with Apollo Robbins because he was going to be in that movie focus and he wanted to use some of the skills I have. And I got the chance to actually like train him a little like, that's like, what the heck? Like what? Like, well, What? I started the nonprofit with the lead singer of my favorite band since I was since I was seventeen years old. Right. Like what? You know, Clutch is my all time favorite band. And Neil Fallon and I have become friends and he helped me start my nonprofit eight years ago like that, you know. And I'm not saying you'll have the same experiences, but you probably can attest that you get these amazing people on your show. You have these conversations and then you stay in touch. Yeah. Right. And now you have a Rolodex of people. You can reach out to some of these amazing psychologists and researchers and be like, hey, I want to have a conversation. Normal people can't just do that. Right. Right. They can't just they can't just call up Robert Cialdini and say, hey, you want to come on to a podcast? Right. So when you have that, it does change your life. And maybe your goal isn't this, but learning those skills can still open up doors for you and other opportunities like learning how to ask for a raise. That's so important because people do it wrong all the time. Learning how to use these skills and dating someone, you know, and not not manipulating. Right. So there's so many areas of life that this this can better you and make you just a better person. Do you think that there's room to get into trouble? Like when you become really good at it and say you're running like Hillary's campaign or you're running Obama's campaign or you're running Trump's campaign or you're doing some, you're a firm, you're a PR firm that somebody hires to dismantle something that people wanted to. Is there, and I don't know, I'm not the morality police. I talked to some whistleblowers a while back and they were telling me about this firm that was hired. And the more they told me about it, the firm was hired Explicitly to make this thing go through but the more they told me and i'm like Gosh, those people are so brilliant. They fully tanked it and they did it going through the positive side of it like It seems like there's sort of a dark arts where when you're maybe it's what we talked about earlier and i'm like I said i'm not the morality police but on some level This idea of the greater good or being hired out to run this sort of social engineering campaign on people That seems like a slippery slope to me. What are your thoughts on that? Very slippery? I mean, let's think about it. Okay Let's use one example. Like the Me Too movement had to happen. Right. Women were being misused and misapplied. Their power, the power of the men over them was being misapplied for years. But now look at what it's turned into. It's weaponized. Right. All a woman has to say is he touched me. He did something and people's lives are ruined. Yeah. And how many times has this happened with no proof that someone's life is ruined to later on find out it was made up? So when you weaponize something powerful, it's it's it's a it's a dangerous slope to get on. And I would I would warn people to never get into that. Like I look at pickup artists. Yeah. Pickup artists are a sleazy version of what I do because. They teach something called negging. Right. So they say, if you're interested in this girl, let's say I'm here at a bar and this girl is really attractive and I want to get to know her. But I notice that every time she laughs, she covers her mouth. So maybe I think she might be embarrassed of her teeth. So a neg would be, hey, you know, you're you really got big teeth. You're kind of cute like a rabbit. Now I call out something insecure of her. And if she is an insecure girl, woman, she will fight for my attention. Now, how awful is that? Yeah. Can you imagine waking up the next day and finding out that's how you got with this person? You were manipulated into it. How dirty and used you would feel. But this is taught all over the country, classes for this everywhere. So it's like that's a slippery slope. You start to treat people like objects as opposed to a fellow person that deserves respect and dignity. So, yeah, I'm with you using this to dismantle companies for corporate espionage for I did some training for the Brazilian army. And when we were down there, we identified I said, look, guys, you have a you have a major, major problem. all of your officers have girlfriends in other, other cities and everyone knows it. So when they travel, they have a girlfriend that they go, if I'm an opposing nation, I'm going to send a girl in to be a honeypot. Yeah. And she's going to be in his, in his hotel room with his laptop, with his credentials, with like, and they're like, yeah, we know, we know. How do we fix that? I'm like, Stop committing adultery. Maybe that's one answer, right? You know, I'm not the morality piece, but maybe that's one answer. Or vet these people. Yeah. Like you're just letting them choose any girl they want. And it's like, this is a trap. So, you know, weaponizing this man, I tell you, it's a it's a dirty slope. It's a dangerous slope. It never coming back from that, I feel would be really hard. I mean, I know some people have like Kevin, like Frank, you know, but look how far they got before they got a chance to come back. You know, they had to go to prison. Man, I can't help but think about the incredible Kash Patel and his twenty six year old girlfriend. I'm sorry, Cash. I'm sorry, man. I'm just going to throw it out there. Well, hopefully it's for love. I mean, you look at what's the football coach, Belichick? He's another one. He's a girlfriend. You're like... I hope it's for love, you know, but I mean, I guess some guys are okay having someone that beautiful and knowing it's just for the money. I guess some guys are okay with that. I'm not. I want a life partner that I can enjoy sitting with and talking and going on trips with and, you know, enjoying my every day with her. Right. So that's what I'm looking for. And yeah, also happens to be stunningly beautiful, but you know, Yeah, it's so interesting. And I don't know. I'm not in any of those positions. And I can only imagine that with great power opens up avenues and vista I have never, ever seen in my entire life before. So I'm just throwing it out there because I think it's hilarious. But I'm trying to take away the judgment from it on some level. I mean, can you imagine being as rich as like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos? You would not know. No. Unless you had friends that were there for your whole life. You would not know if this person coming to you is your real friend because of what you have or because they actually care. You would always be thinking in the back of your mind, like, is this person being this nice to me because they want money or what? So it's an interesting conundrum, right? And I think some people have to... I think that's why the rich and the famous take a very big swath on who they associate with because it's so hard to know if someone's being real or not. Yeah. Yeah, that that's, I'd imagine that would be a huge clientele for you. There are people that want to read your book is thoroughly understanding and they probably get a masterclass in it daily. Like once you reach a certain escape velocity, you are, you have nothing but a target on your back. People like this guy just hit this much money or this guy's this important. You know what they can do for me? You know, Yeah. Yeah. You know, we have a really nice privilege with my nonprofit. Aisha Tyler is a big supporter of it. And she's been gracious enough to help us out with social media, even come on some trips and donate her time. And she she told me that she's like, you know, people will hit you up constantly for for things when you're a celebrity. And if she's if I said yes to everything, there would be no time to have a life. And it's sad. It's sad that when someone reaches out as a request, you have to think to yourself, how does this benefit me? And it's sad you have to think that way because you should be able to help other people without having to think that way. But when you're at that status, being able to help people comes at a cost. It comes at a cost. So it's like you want to really respect that, understand that. And when a celebrity doesn't answer you, even if you write to them or something, there might be a reason, right? There might be a reason. It might be too much for them. Yeah, it's so true. Betsy, what's up, Betsy? How are you? I hope the gym's running amazing. My friend Betsy's got an awesome gym down in San Diego. She says, yeah, she's super awesome. Thank you, Betsy, for being here. I'll shout out to you. I got something I wanted to tell you too later. She says, what is the most beautiful unintentional honesty you've ever witnessed in someone? Ooh. I'll give you two. Oh, yeah. One first with my daughter. So I when my daughter was born, I had it makes me sound terrible, but it turned out good. She was like a big science experiment for me. I taught her nonverbals. I taught her body language. I taught her facial expressions. I taught her how to pick pockets, pick locks. I taught her all the skills I have as she grew up and always pounded into her. You know, you have to you have to use these ethically. And fortunately, she always has. Um, but she was maybe about seven or eight and we were driving back home and she was in the back seat and she goes, dad, dad, you see that woman on the side of the road? She was sitting on a bench. I said, no, I didn't. I didn't notice her, her face. She has very, very big sadness on her face. We need to go and take care of her. And I went, Maya, no, I'm not turning around for that. And she's like, Dad, you always tell me we have to help people if we can. I'm like, you got me there. So we do a U-turn and we get over to this lady and I'm walking with my daughter and she's like, I just want to do this. Like, you know, let me go. And I'm like, I just have to make you sure you're safe. This woman had just been kicked out of her house. Her husband divorced her, kicked her out with her luggage. She has no car. And she was just sitting on the side of the road on a bench crying. And my daughter had noticed that. And she goes, I don't have anything I can give you to help you, but can I give you a hug? And she gave this woman a hug. And this woman was like praising her up and down, telling me, oh, my God, you raised this unbelievable daughter. And that was maybe one of the most beautiful moments. i've ever seen in my life it was like i i couldn't be prouder of her but it was also just something that i taught that skill and she used it for really good that day you know really good i think the second one was i was teaching a class for um special operations command group and um these guys you know their their whole mission is like get me dropped off into a desert somewhere and we got to go into this village and we got to get everyone to to come over to our side without hurting anyone And that was kind of the mission of the class. Right. But at the end of the week, this guy stood up in class, a big burly guy that probably eats bullets for fun. And he is just crying. And he's telling me that this week he realized that his marital problems are due to his communication profile. And when he took the test, then he had his profile. He went back and talked to his wife and he said, I understand now. And then she took the test. And today they're still married. They're still married. But he was just crying, saying how this changed his whole perspective on his marital problems. And I'm like, I did not intend this class to be a marital therapy session, but I am so glad it did for you. And we stay in touch and he's still married. man yeah so i'd say those are the when she asked when you asked that question that question those are the first two things that came to my mind i'm sure there's others but that was the first two man that is beautiful it it really drives home the point to me that we're just not taught to communicate effectively. We're such a, it's a generational trait that's passed on and on. And it's something that you learn from like, you're probably great grandparents, you know, maybe it changes a little bit as you go, but if you don't do the work on it, your side monologue might not mean anything to the person that you love the most. Think about it like my generation. Kids were taught, told you're seen, not heard. Yeah. Right. And everybody smacked everybody. Now we come forward to this generation and kids are horrible. I mean, they miss they misuse teachers. They throw things. They're disrespectful. They're you know, they're not disciplined at all. So where's the balance of that? Well, I say, you know, that's not a school's job. uh that's a parent's job right so parents we need to sit back and say okay what do i need to do to make my kid the best person possible yeah and yes could i back to our other conversation i wish we could teach some of these things in school i wish more schools would would gather these things but if they're not it's your job as a parent to do that for your kids because they're going to take that into their next generation and do the same thing yep it's interesting to think about it i had um I got, I gotta, can I share a story with my daughter about, about something that we did? Okay. So when my daughter was in, she was going to school and she was probably like six years old. And I noticed like that she started lying a little bit, just little things here and there. And my wife's like, Sky, you cannot lie about stuff. And then me and my wife had this conversation and I'm like, look, I don't think that like everybody lies. Everybody does. And by us telling her not to lie, we can instill that in her, but it might drive her to do it more. I want to do this experiment where, so I told my daughter, You can lie, but you can't get caught. And I thought I thought that, OK, everyone always gets caught. So you can try it, but you're going to get caught. So my advice to you is don't get caught. And so one day shortly after that, she had stayed home from school and it was just her and I at the house. And I said, Sky, it's almost dinnertime. I need you to take a shower. So jump, grown up in the shower, take a, you know, take a shower and then come down for dinner. And she goes, I already took a shower. And like, I looked at her and like, I knew she hadn't taken a shower, but I'm like, oh, here we go. Okay, perfect. And I go, okay, you already took a shower. She goes, yeah. I'm like, how come your hair's not wet? And she goes, I use mom's blow dryer with son of a gun. That's pretty good. Yeah. And so I was a little bit proud. I'm like, look at her following through. Okay. And I go, that's weird because I took all the batteries out of mom's hair dryer this morning. And she goes, I put them back in. I go, you're kidding me. I know. That's three. That's three. This is epic, by the way. I know. I was so proud of some of them. And I'm like, I'm like, what size batteries did they take? And she went, the big ones. And I go, Sky, mom's hairdryer doesn't take batteries. And she said, dad, I'll go take a shower. I love that story. I love it. I know, but then I always thought like, okay, maybe I took the wrong direction. Like I shouldn't have told her it was okay to lie like that, but you know, I got another story though, but let's hear it. Would it be rude if I just let my dog out real quick? Doctor, take your time, man. Do it. Okay. I'll be here. Yeah, I hope you guys are enjoying it. Betsy, that was a great question that you asked. And Polar Knights, I'm so stoked you're here, man. Thank you for hanging out with us, checking out the shows on Twitch. To everybody hanging out with us now, check out the book Human Hacking. Chris has done some incredible work with multiple books. And if you want to reach out to him, check out the website I got right there. You can go down to the show notes, reach out to him after the cast. Or if you got any other questions, put them in the chat right now and we can put them towards him. Okay, sorry about that. Yeah, no worries, man. Sorry to your live audience, but I'm the only one home, and my dog was barking, and that meant if I don't get to him, he's going to do something I can't. I have a hundred and seventy-five pound English Mastiff. So this is not a small dog. It's a monster. So I have a similar story, but this was later on in my daughter's life, and we had to try this experiment where she broke some house rules. Okay. And I'm doing this for a living. So I'm like, I'm going to apply some of these principles to see how we can we can utilize this. Right. Yeah, totally. So she broke some house rules and she got home really late and I was really worried. Right. So I have this decision tree. I can be angry, dad, or I can be worried, dad, but I can't be both. So I have to decide. So I call it a pretext. So I'm going to be worried, dad. Angry dad would be like, I demand an answer. You're grounded for life. So she gets home. I'm like, Maya, I want you to know I'm really worried about you. You were late. And I'm worried because I don't know if you were okay, if you were hurt. i said maybe someday you're gonna drink something or take something you think i'm gonna be mad at but i would rather be the one to come safely get you home than to be be worried and then you you get hurt somewhere yeah i said so you know can you just can you tell me tell me what happened You know, I don't want to talk about it. I said, OK, so well, you know what? Here's the thing. I can see you're upset. It's late. I'm upset. So why don't we do this? We're going to have a conversation in the morning about it. But why don't we just take the night off right now? Why did I choose that? Because she her emotions are high. My emotions are high. One of us are going to say something we can't take back. Right. So, yeah. Next morning, I really want to have that conversation with you about this. And again, I want to reiterate, I'm not mad because you were late. I'm mad because I was worried and I couldn't get a hold of you and you weren't answering. Your location was off. I didn't know if you were hurt or not. And I felt like my heart was coming out of my chest. Like, you know, I just, I want to understand why you would do that, you know? And then it ended up being that, you know, she was with a bunch of friends and she knew she was going to be late and she didn't want to have to tell me she knew she was going to be late. So she just shut all her location off and didn't answer. And she didn't do anything wrong. She didn't take a pill or do anything. She just was being mischievous. So I said, OK. I said to her, well, what do you think the punishment should be for this? You know, what do you think I should do? And she says, well, she'll probably ground me for a month and take my phone away. I'm like, ooh, that's a capital punishment right there. I was thinking just this weekend. You can't go out with your friends. That's it. I'm like, a month? Wow. Man, I hope you get better before you're a mom. That's a brutal punishment. And she looked at me kind of like, what? And I'm like, yeah, Maya, it's It would have been a different story. I said, but here's the deal. From now on, just be open and honest. If your friends are pressuring you to drink, come home. I'll give you a drink. Under my supervision, I feel you're safe. If your friends are pressuring you to go to a party that might have drugs, you know what can happen. Call me. I'll come get you. We didn't even talk about it. And that dynamic got the results I wanted, which was the answer and a conversation about it. Whereas if I came in angry, dad, which I was because I was really upset, you know, that we would have got nowhere and I wouldn't have those answers. So it is a matter of, you know, thinking through. I don't know if your method was wrong or not. I mean, did she lie again after that? Like a three-story lie? Yeah, I haven't seen it after that. Or I haven't caught it. I don't know which is worse. Think about it. You said to her, of course you can lie. Everyone does it, but just don't get caught. And then she did. And you used the trap. Now she's thinking, crap, dad got me. So you're right. There's only two ways for her to go. She's either going to improve... her lying or she's going to, she's going to say, I got to give this up because dad's going to catch me every time. Right. Right. And, and it's always a bad, I mean, you know, like I think you're, what you said to your wife is a hundred percent right. We, we all do it sometimes, sometimes not intentionally. Right. Sometimes we're telling a story and we embellish or we, you know, we, we, we forget the real facts and we add a fact in and someone else that was there goes, that's not what happened. Yeah. It's, it happens to everybody. Right. So it's just a matter of, um, what I try to tell my kids is, look, I know you're going to mess up. I do it too. I know you're going to lie. I do it too, but let's try to keep those kinds of lies and mess ups to things that aren't going to harm the family or you. Right. Because that, that's really what, what matters. Right. In the end. Yeah. It, you know, it takes us all the way back to the beginning where the outer dialogue becomes the inner dialogue. And when you start lying to yourself, like you're in real trouble. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And yeah, I'm a living example of that. We all are. Yeah, but I mean, seventeen years of gradually letting my health get to a point where I could have died because of how unhealthy I was. That is that is a great example of your inner dialogue. Just fooling yourself. Right. So, yeah. And the more you lie, the easier it becomes to lie. Yeah. Which which is which is a self-fulfilling trap. Right. Because now when you when you find it easy to lie. uh to people that you love that's a that's a bad sign mentally for you right that's a bad sign mentally if you can look someone you love in the face and just completely tell them a falsehood and go to sleep at night you gotta you gotta you gotta check yourself now you better you better check in because that's that's that's scary yeah you might become a ceo of a really big company You might end up at a Coldplay concert, you know? That's hilarious. You know, I almost see it like, like when I, one thing I take away, and I don't know if this is true or not, like, but when I see the giant manipulations that happen in campaigns or, you know, out in the open like that, I feel it's like a magician's trick. Like someone might have a really good sort of campaign that's borderline dishonest or might, maybe it's flat out dishonesty and they're just coming after fear or something like that. But I think the more, it's like the magician's trick. Like once you see it once, you're like, oh, I get what they're doing. and that sort of opens up your awareness to like okay maybe i should be more cautious the next time i see these things so maybe on some level these giant campaigns that are being run are in some way deepening our awareness of the reality around us and our relationship to trust maybe you know it's i think it's um marketing and campaigns have to use emotion they have to right that's just because it's the way we make what's the way we get involved and make a decision right right but if the if it's dishonest That's where the problem comes in. OK. Right. If it's dishonest. Right. So Sarah McLachlan and her commercial was really to help dying children or dogs or whatever it was back then. And they used every emotional trigger they could. But their reasoning for doing it was also good. Right. So when I like before, when I define social engineering and I say it's any act that influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best interest. When it's not in your best interest and it's only good for me, then it's a poor use of those skills, right? So if a campaign is falsifying things that they're saying about their opponent or falsifying statistics or falsifying reports so they can look better, that's a poor use of these skills, right? That's a real, that's a terrible use of these skills. We talked about them before, but pickup artists, terrible use of these skills, scammers and con men, terrible use of these skills. But even this is a person, if you're using these, you know, I'll give you an example from my book. Okay. Um, we were in the UK, my wife, my daughter and I, and we're flying back on Virgin airlines, uh, economy class. And, um, i hit this bump and all of our luggage fell out and i made a joke i said ah everyone turned to look and i went oh dumb american on the m-five got into an accident and that's one of the roads over there so everyone kind of laughed and this one lady behind the desk i saw her laugh and i said to my wife oh go to her she's in a good mood right yeah So, and my wife does this naturally because she's just this kind of person. She was enamored by this woman's makeup and she was just complimenting her and complimenting her and complimenting her and saying how you match it to your scarf. It's so beautifully done. Like, do you have a makeup artist at home? And this woman was just gushing time. Oh, I took an hour this morning. I want it to look really good today. And I'm looking at this going, this is the time to ask a question. So there's a couple of ways I can do this, right? I could have told her, Hey, you know, we're just coming back from a funeral. That's what we were there for. You know, one of my, one of my close friends passed and, you know, really help us to relax a little. If we can get an upgrade, you know, give her that guilt. I could have done that. And that guilt now forces her. Let's say she couldn't do that. She couldn't do that as a kindness to say no to us as a bunch of grieving people. That's, that's hard. That's a horrible use of those skills. If I were to do that. So instead I have to give her an ability to say no, if she really can't do anything. So I said to her, I don't think we could afford it, but could you tell me how much it is to upgrade? Yeah. Right. And she doesn't even look at me. She looks at my wife, and she starts typing, typing, typing. She prints out three first-class tickets on Virgin Airways. No way. And she says, here you go. This is a gift. She goes, you made me feel so good today that I want to give you something to make you feel good. And she says to my wife, you guys have three hours before your flight. You've got to go to the lounge. And she was not wrong. The Virgin lounge, you get free whiskey, free food, free massages. Like it's, I would live there. Right. It was amazing. OK, so I'm telling you this because after that, I'm like, you know, it just happened. She's like, no, what? I'm like, I'm going to tell you the science of what just occurred and we're going to try it again. And I said, but you always said always, always, always. The rule has to be you have to be able to compliment the person for real. So it has to be real. It has to be genuine. And I always have to give them the ability to say no. Yeah. Right. By saying maybe we can't afford it because she could have said, oh, that upgrades eleven grand. And I went, oh, we can't afford that. Yeah. Thank you, though. You know, thanks for looking. And she didn't. She just gifted it to us. So we tried it six more times and it worked four out of six times. Right. That is amazing. And the one time at the one out of the two times it didn't work. We walked away and my wife said there was absolutely nothing to genuinely compliment that person about. They were horrible. They were in a bad mood. There was no way I can find a compliment. So she knew her compliment sounded fake. And there's no rapport building. There's no oxytocin released. So I'm telling you this because, yes, we got the benefit of getting upgrades in our plane flights. But I always gave the person a way out. So that way, if they had to say no, and the second time someone said no, it was legitimate. They were like, you know, I can, there's so many seats that we don't need any there. I can, I can give you an upgrade, but it's like eight hundred bucks a person. And I'm like, oh, no, I don't have that today. But thanks for looking. She's like, no, no problem. She's like, you know, I can see if I can get a discount. I'm like, no, I don't think I can afford it. You know, but thank you. Now, she still felt good for helping. Yeah. And I knew that we weren't going to get it. And she still felt good. She got complimented by my wife, too. So when you use those skills and you give people that ability to have a way out, you're not using them maliciously. Right. Because every one of those people had a chance to say, no, I'm sorry. Right. And, and, and we gave them a real gift with genuine compliments and, and being nice to them. So I remember once that we were going for a car rental and this lady, poor lady, she was getting chewed out by the guy in front of us up and down, chewed out. He's screaming at her. screaming and now it's our turn and she goes and I said listen there's a long line behind me why don't you just take a minute act like you're helping me just sit and recalibrate get your water take a drink said I'm in no rush but I said you cannot just go right back to work or after being treated like that she looks at me like really and I'm like yeah please just just sit there take a drink we're gonna be okay and we were in a time crunch you know but I was like we're gonna do this So she took like a minute or two and she's like, you know what? I really needed that. So he goes, thank you for that. And she didn't even ask. She just upgraded me. We got a Mercedes driving around a Merc for a week. Like, what the heck? Right. You know, a convertible Merc. Like what? And I didn't even ask for the upgrade. She just thanked me for giving her that gift. She did it as an upgrade, right? So when you are kind and empathetic to people and treat them with respect and dignity, it is amazing what people will do for you. But again, you said it before, it has to be genuine. It can't be manipulated or put on and then you don't get the benefit and you're like, well, that sucked. You have to know that you might do the really great thing and you might walk away and it might not turn into anything great for you. But I guarantee you what it will. It will give you oxytocin in your brain. You're going to get the gift of dopamine and oxytocin as well as the person that you're helping will get that same gift. So that's a big deal. It's a good win for both of you. Man. Those are awesome stories. And I think it, I think it even speaks to something deeper about the need for community on some level. Everything we're doing is so transactional. You work here, you get this much, you're this person. All these labels are put on us and everything is transactional. But when it's transactional, it's cold. It's calculated. There's no emotion. So when people get to see something for real, whether you step in and break up a knucklehead yelling at somebody or a genuine compliment, like people are reminded, like they remember something. Oh, that's right. I'm a human being. When we go to a restaurant, the first thing I always do if they don't tell me, I say, hey, what's your name? And if it is a unique name, I'll say, oh, what's the origin behind that? I'm always interested. I said, my last name means Lieutenant Commander. So I'm always curious about what people's names mean. And you'll see the smile on their face. We get the best service every time. And all I have to do is take two minutes out of my life to have a conversation with this person who probably is standing on her feet, twelve hours a day, working for next to no tips and All I have to do is take a little bit of time to be genuinely kind to her. And I know I'm never going to get spit in my food and I'm going to get good service. Right. And because of that, she's going to get a better tip. So it's like, take the two minutes, be kind. You know, I was in a Publix grocery store and this teller was yelling at this person because she couldn't speak English. She goes, you're in America. You need to learn English. We don't speak Mexican here. And I said, hey, ma'am, Mexican is not a language. Mexican is a nationality. And she's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, Spanish is the language. She speaks Spanish. She doesn't speak Mexican. She might be Mexican. She might be Puerto Rican or she might be Venezuelan. I don't know what nationality is, but she doesn't speak Mexican. She speaks Spanish. So I pull out my Google Translate and I say, you know, she's trying to tell you it's twenty dollars and twelve cents. And I said, no, she thanks me profusely. That woman's like, why would you stick up for immigrants? I'm like, I don't know if she's an immigrant. I don't know. And I went right up to her manager and I went, listen, that woman needs you to talk to her. Like this is this is unacceptable behavior. So sometimes you have to step in and even do that. Like you got the kindness is pointing out someone else's bad behavior. Because she shouldn't be allowed to do that to other people, even when I'm not there. She shouldn't be able to speak to another human that way. That's terrible. Dignity and respect. Every person deserves it. Until they lose the... The deserving factor, like if someone hurts a child or murders another person, they still deserve dignity and respect as a human, but they deserve punishment for their actions. Right. I remember I was interviewing a so crazy. I was interviewing the federal agent who catches child predators. Whoa. And I said, how do you even interview them? Right. I think about just how disgusting that person is. And he says to me something that never will leave me. He said, I really want you to think of this before you answer. He says, what does a pedophile want? He wants to hurt kids. Like, no, no, no. Get basic. What what do they want? And I'm thinking, and I'm thinking, and I'm like, I don't know, to feel connection, to feel loved. And they're like, right. I said, so do you want to feel connection? Do you want to feel loved? I said, I do. He said, what does a terrorist want? And I'm like, I know I want, I want to say blow people up, but I know that's not the answer based on this conversation. I said, um, He wants to serve his God, his belief system. He says, can you understand that? I said, I can. He goes, so when you're interviewing someone like that, you don't go on the actions. You go on the emotion that drove them to that action because you could probably understand that emotion. Now, your need to connect with another human for me is never going to lead me to a child ever because I don't think that way. So the act that they took deserves punishment. But if I can understand their belief system, why they did it, I can probably say I have that similar emotion in this case, which means I can have a conversation with you. That blew my mind. I was like, wow, you just opened up the doors on how to have a conversation with people who are even despicable, in my opinion, right? Who don't deserve dignity and respect, but you're opening the door. And I said, but why? And he's like, because what you want is you want enough evidence and proof to make sure this person goes away. And if you come in there like TV cops slamming on there and they clam up, they're going to walk. You need them to trust you. And it needs to be genuine. And that way they open up and tell you. And this guy is responsible for, I think, over a thousand two hundred polygraph exams on predators. With with a massive close ratio on getting them to admit to hands on offenses. By using those skills. And I'm like. That's a whole nother level from what I do for a living. But it just goes to show you that the principles are that powerful that you can use this even on people like that. And it still works. Right. It's amazing. You might you might have a different subset if you're talking about psychopathy or sociopathy. Right. Those those those brains work differently. So I wouldn't say like someone who's a true narcissist or a true psychopath. These things might not work because of their grandiose imagery of themselves. You'd have to you'd have to always be subservient to them. But, but I, I probably wouldn't want to engage in that interview or conversation, you know? Yeah. But these things work. They work on, on everybody around. I've trained this around the globe and it works in every culture. As long as you understand the nuances of the culture you're in. Yeah. It's, you know, I do for everybody listening. There's a cool, I know one that I do on the daily is wherever I go, whether it's to a grocery store or a bank, like the first thing I always tell people is, Hey, thanks for working today. And they go, what? I said, thanks for working today. And they're like, is it a holiday? And I'm like, no, I'm just stoked that you're here because I had to get this thing done. And like, you seem like a nice person. I'm stoked that I got in your line. Thank you for working today. And their smile just raises up and all of a sudden there's that connection there, you know? So it's free. Anybody can do it. And it makes the world a difference. So that's my little hack. It really does. Listen, little conversations with people can change their whole outlook on their day. It happens to me and you, right? Yeah. All the time. If someone if I'm actually one of the grocery store ladies did this to me, I had all my ingredients. I was there and she goes, hey, what are you cooking tonight? This looks interesting. And I told her and she's like, oh, I'd love to get that recipe. Next time I came in, I slipped her the paper with the recipe on it. Right. Like I like it was just it made me feel great. Like she was interested enough in my life to ask me what I was cooking tonight. And and and then was like, oh, that sounds great. Right. You know, it was a really interesting conversation. I loved it. Me too. Chris, this has been an amazing conversation, man. I'm super grateful. I kept you here an hour and a half, man. I'm sorry about that. I would go longer if I didn't have something coming up. And you got to come back on because I feel like we're just kind of getting warmed up, man. Yeah, I'll come back on. This is great. And I'm glad your audience asked questions. That's nice. Nice to have you people out there listening. Thank you for that. Yeah. Shout out to Polar Knights and Betsy and Desiree and Nick and everybody hanging out with us today. Super grateful. And before I let... Before... Before we end the interview, though, I was hopeful that you could tell people where they can find you, what you got coming up and what you're excited about. Oh, thank you for that. So LinkedIn is the best place for me. That's how I kind of interact with a lot of people. But my website is social-engineer.com or human hacking book as you have here on the screen. I have a couple of exciting things coming up in November. I'm running a two-day conference called the Human Behavior Conference. And it is not just for social engineers. We have HR people coming, CEOs. This is about using influence in everyday life. And there'll be some stuff there about security awareness, but it's two days. Some of the most amazing speakers and trainers in the world. If you go to humanbehaviorcon.com, And for conference, for conference, you know, humanbehaviorcon.com. You go there, you can see the lineup. You can hop on down Orlando in November. It's beautiful. So I want to invite everyone to that. And anyone who's interested in the class I was talking about, I'm teaching one in February. You can find that on the social-engineer.com site. And I'm working on an idea for my sixth book, so we'll see. You know, we'll see. So those are some of the things we have going on. We're doing a lot with AI right now. AI is being used by threat actors, so we're doing a lot of research into it and how to use it for defense. But it's a lot of topics we can talk about next time. Yeah, I'm fascinated by that. We should... I'll reach out to you because I have my mind is blowing up just thinking about the questions on that side. Don't you have a podcast too? I do. Yeah, I have a four series a month. Okay. Number one is The Human Element. That's the one I started in two thousand and nine. Okay. Ten. And that one covers like just having a fascinating person on and seeing what we can learn from them. Then we have the security awareness series. That's one of my team members and me talking about something to help people be more secure in their life. Then the doctor is in. I have this wonderful PhD that works for me. She's a child prodigy. She had her PhD by the time she was twenty one. I just read it. She's written. And she's twenty five, something like that. Twenty six. I see the crazy. But her expertise is body language, influence, persuasion. So we do a podcast and some scientific thing once a month. And then I have this good friend who just retired. He's an Emmy award winning reporter, Mike Holfeld. And we do a series that's about just local events, our current events, something that's happening in the world to keep people safe. And it's called the Fourth Monday. So you can find them on the website, too, or Spotify, iTunes, wherever, you know. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're within the sound of my voice, go down to the show notes. Check out the book. Check out the website. Check out all the podcasts out there. Reach out to Chris on LinkedIn. He seems to be pretty active over there. Get to his site and check him out. And Chris, please hang on briefly afterwards. But to everybody within the sound of my voice, I'm wishing you the most beautiful day in the world. Be kind, be respectful, and have a beautiful day out there. That's all we got, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha.