The Art of Manliness - #348： A Counterintelligence Expert's Five Rules to Lead and Succeed

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here. Welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Trust certainly

00:00:19.080 makes life easier when it exists. Instead of having to craft complicated contracts for

00:00:22.840 a business deal, a simple handshake will do. And instead of surveilling your spouse

00:00:26.120 like the NSA, you just take them at their word. But trust, it seems, is in short supply

00:00:30.400 these days. We're afraid of trusting people and we have a hard time getting people to trust

00:00:33.780 us. How can you establish trust in even the most toxic environments? Well, my guest today

00:00:37.820 thinks he has the answer to that question. His name is Robin Dreek and he spent his career

00:00:40.980 working in a field where trust is hard to get but important to have, doing counterintelligence

00:00:45.000 for the FBI. Robin's recently published a book sharing how he's been able to gain the trust

00:00:48.720 of people who aren't very keen on trusting others. It's called The Code of Trust. And

00:00:52.360 today on the show, Robin shares the five rules of building trust with anyone, no matter how

00:00:56.100 suspicious they are of you. While these rules may seem like they're an invitation to become

00:00:59.220 a human doormat, Robin explains why that's not the case and how they actually make you

00:01:03.260 more influential. Whether you're working with spies like Robin or just want to build more

00:01:06.840 trust in your office, you're going to find plenty of interesting and actionable advice

00:01:10.100 in this podcast. After the show's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash trust.

00:01:22.380 Robin Dreek, welcome to the show.

00:01:24.160 Hey, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it and taking the time to chat.

00:01:27.520 So you just put out a book called The Code of Trust. But I think to appreciate what you're

00:01:32.740 writing here, the ideas you're putting out in The Code of Trust, we need to know about

00:01:35.840 your background because you work in an industry or you have worked in an industry where there's

00:01:39.580 not a lot of trust. Can you tell folks a little bit about your background?

00:01:43.420 Sure. The industry where there's not a lot of trust, it's an interesting statement too.

00:01:47.160 So we'll talk about that. So yeah, my background, it's really simple. I'm a Naval Academy

00:01:51.340 graduate. Went in the Marine Corps afterwards. After the Marine Corps, I came in the FBI. So

00:01:55.960 I've been in with the FBI over 20 years. And specifically inside the FBI, I worked counter

00:02:00.500 intelligence and ran our behavioral analysis program. And it's interesting because it's

00:02:05.600 when you work in the world of counterintelligence and spies and counter spies or counter proliferation

00:02:10.400 or whatever it is. You think of it more as a criminal matter, I guess, a lot of times.

00:02:15.960 But in reality, it's not because we deal with human beings on a day-to-day basis. And we all do in every

00:02:21.060 walk of life that we are in and every profession. And in my line of work, there's very, very little

00:02:27.720 remuneration I can give someone for cooperation or wanting to put our country's well-being ahead of

00:02:35.220 their own sometimes, except a relationship. And people aren't going to generally do that without

00:02:39.900 some semblance of trust. Because I generally, 99.9% of the time, I'm not dealing with criminals

00:02:44.860 that have committed crimes. And so there's really no reason why they should want to talk to me. So

00:02:49.060 if you can't make it about them and inspire trust, you're not going to get very far.

00:02:53.660 And when you first started in counterintelligence, what was your approach? Did it take you all to figure

00:02:58.840 out that I need to make it about them and to get them to trust me in order for them to work with you?

00:03:04.920 Or did you take a different approach?

00:03:06.860 That was really the approach. It was, it's, you know, it's funny, the book, you know,

00:03:10.260 The Code of Trust, it's about inspiring trust, but ultimately it came down to leadership.

00:03:15.600 What I learned in the Marine Corps about leadership, because again, I'm not a natural-born leader. 0.97

00:03:20.900 I'm really kind of a natural-born self-centered jerk most of the time. But that approach of that 0.97

00:03:26.220 type A hard charger might work fine for you to a limited degree if you have a title or position or

00:03:31.820 a rank or a billet or something that someone has to listen to. But what I found out very rapidly,

00:03:37.620 when you come and work in my line of work, you know, it's a very flat organization. It's a very

00:03:42.240 flat hierarchy and structure with people you're talking to. Matter of fact, most of the people

00:03:46.440 that I interacted with are twice as old as I was, four times as smart, at least. And, you know,

00:03:53.460 they didn't care about title and position. They cared about how you treated them.

00:03:56.100 And luckily for me, I did have some people that I, that are surrounded with that were the real Jedi 1.00

00:04:01.740 masters of human interpersonal skills that actually had the art form down that took me

00:04:07.100 an awareness. You know, I definitely had self-awareness about what I lacked, but a lot

00:04:11.620 of times maybe a little more challenging to figure out what it is I had to add.

00:04:15.060 So to understand how important trust is, let's look at examples of where there's,

00:04:19.260 where trust does not exist. Any examples of organizations or businesses that you've worked with,

00:04:25.500 or even countries where there was hardly any trust, what's that like?

00:04:30.680 Well, we see it all over the world right now. You know, I've written about it a few times since too,

00:04:34.600 you know, trust in government, trust in politicians, trust in organizations, trust in a product. I mean,

00:04:42.080 there's lots of examples of mistrust and it's really because there's some core elements that are

00:04:48.340 really lacking in a lot of communication that human beings have right now. You know, human beings,

00:04:54.320 you know, range in tribal by nature. You know, we're lived and survived in tribes of 40, 50, 60,

00:04:59.300 I mean, thousands of years ago. And in order to survive in a tribe, you actually had to have

00:05:03.360 trust. Otherwise you'd be left for dead. And what human beings are at the genetic and biological

00:05:08.700 level are seeking is a sense of affiliation and a sense of being valued. And there are very clear

00:05:15.000 things that you can actually include in language that you use when you're communicating with someone

00:05:19.060 to demonstrate value and demonstrate affiliation, because that tells our brains that it's good for

00:05:23.780 us. And when you cascade on top our genetics and our biology, on top of good societal norms and

00:05:29.680 humanistic ways to deal with people, it really becomes very easy. And those four things are really

00:05:35.160 simple. You have to seek people's thoughts and opinions. Yeah. How often do you hear people

00:05:39.520 in politics or in government or in a line of work in an industry seeking the thoughts and opinions of

00:05:46.260 those people they wish to interact with? Because when you're seeking thoughts and opinions, you're

00:05:49.080 saying, Hey, I value what you say. Next, you have to talk in terms of their priorities, their needs,

00:05:54.860 wants, dreams, aspirations, personal, professional, long-term, and short-term. Because here's another

00:05:59.280 guarantee. If I'm not talking in terms of what's important to you and what you deem is prosperous for

00:06:03.520 you, you're not going to listen because why would you? Third, you have to validate them. In

00:06:08.240 validation, it's not simple flattery, which I don't really subscribe to. Validation is a seeking to

00:06:13.840 misunderstand the human being you're interacting with at the core level of how it is they see the

00:06:18.840 world through their personal optic. And you do it non-judgmentally. And fourth, you want to empower

00:06:24.160 them a choice. Again, we don't give people choices unless we value who they are and can affiliate with

00:06:29.580 them in some way. So very rarely in a lot of things that we're seeing these days are people doing at

00:06:34.920 least one of those four things in everything that we're saying and doing. And why is that? I mean,

00:06:39.100 why has establishing trust become so hard in our modern world? You know, it's fascinating. I think

00:06:45.800 we see this a lot with insecure people at work or people that become annoying at work. Again, let's

00:06:51.360 go back to ancient tribal man. We want to feel affiliated and we want to feel part of a collective

00:06:55.500 because feeling part of a collective means we'll survive. And when any individual or group singles

00:07:01.340 out another group, either positively or negatively, what happens is that everyone else feels disconnected

00:07:08.160 and they feel like they have to try to convince someone to accept them for who they are. And so

00:07:12.620 when people are feeling ostracized and not included, people are going to start battling.

00:07:16.860 And when you start battling, shields are up, no information is flowing, and people start standing

00:07:21.440 their ground and thinking they have to fight for what is right from their perspective, while at the

00:07:27.320 same time, they're not doing anything. Because the one thing I never even try to do anymore is I never

00:07:32.140 try to convince anyone because I really can't. I think in terms of how can I inspire them to want to

00:07:36.340 listen to me? Because that convincing aspect is about me and what I think. If I'm thinking in terms

00:07:41.960 of inspiring, it's about them. So why aren't people doing it more these days? Because people are battling

00:07:47.040 to feel included more so than I think they've done in a long time.

00:07:50.100 Which is weird because, you know, supposedly the internet and all this technology allows us to

00:07:53.700 communicate. It's supposed to connect us more, but it sounds like it's made it harder to establish trust.

00:07:59.140 Well, what's happened is with the anonymity of being behind, you know, a screen or a Twitter

00:08:04.460 or a Facebook posting or LinkedIn posting, with that anonymity comes this unbridled desire to give

00:08:12.680 your thoughts and opinions and judge others. And as soon as you start judging someone, that's when

00:08:18.000 the shields go up and that's when divisiveness starts. Instead of rather trying to understand how

00:08:22.520 other people see the world through their optic. I mean, granted, you know, you look at my background,

00:08:27.180 you know, Naval Academy, Marine Corps, FBI, it can sound like, like I said before, a pretty hard

00:08:31.300 charging, judgmental individual. Well, do this for over 20 years. I can't judge anyone. You know,

00:08:37.840 I've had a career and a lifetime of knowing that if I start judging, you know, someone as being right

00:08:44.360 or wrong or less or more or morally corrupt or not, I guarantee you that people's shields are going

00:08:51.760 to go up and there's no, not going to be any communication flow because ultimately all I'm ever trying

00:08:55.520 to do is inspire someone to want to collaborate, want to work on mutual beneficial priorities.

00:09:02.320 And if you start judging in any way, half, you know, shields are up, no information's flowing,

00:09:07.020 and that's what's happening in the digital world. But I mean, and the good side though,

00:09:10.500 is it's very easy to communicate with much more people in the digital world because you can

00:09:14.040 use these strategies to make it all about them, but people just have this incessant need to want

00:09:19.100 to correct others. Right. And the big takeaway I got from the book, you know,

00:09:22.580 the benefit of trust is that it just makes life easier, right? Whether it's business,

00:09:27.240 your personal life, you know, imagine a world where, you know, you can just transact on a

00:09:32.720 handshake. That's much more efficient than drawing up these huge complicated contracts

00:09:37.580 because you don't trust the guy that you're in a partnership with.

00:09:40.460 Absolutely, Brett. The, uh, the thing that's really pretty amazing to me and what's happened

00:09:44.800 since the years I've developed this is that life has become exceedingly calm and exceedingly

00:09:49.980 prosperous. And here's why years ago, you know, I, I, I self published a first little

00:09:55.760 book on rapport and the whole purpose of rapport was, you know, to try to elicit some information

00:10:00.860 or something for an interview. And then I started realizing, well, the next step to rapport is

00:10:05.080 really trust. And, you know, when you have trust, you have collaboration, you have mutually

00:10:09.280 beneficial priorities that you're working on together. And what I really realized is the

00:10:13.220 more I focused on trust, I started having relationships, deep, meaningful relationships,

00:10:18.040 relationships where people are mutually vested in each other's prosperity and vested without

00:10:22.720 expectation of reciprocity. So that is truly the unconditional giving that you can offer.

00:10:27.920 And what happens is, is when you start creating a network of trust through relationships, that's

00:10:34.040 when the majesty of calmness happens and prosperity. I mean, it's really been pretty amazing. You know,

00:10:39.300 I said to my son a couple of days ago, he originally got into exactly where he wanted to go to college

00:10:44.100 on a very early decision. And the first thing we did is we sat down and said, Hey, you had all

00:10:49.220 these skills that allowed you to do that. But the first thing we're going to do is let's talk about

00:10:53.040 the relationships that was able to facilitate exactly what you wanted to accomplish. Because

00:10:57.240 as I've seen throughout my life, and he saw throughout his, you can have all the talents

00:11:02.180 in the world, but talent and all these skills without relationships is completely useless.

00:11:07.560 All right, let's walk through the code a bit here. And you've already laid out some of the parts

00:11:10.720 already. But let's get very explicit here. The first one is suspend your ego. What does that look

00:11:16.160 like when you are trying to establish trust with somebody? Yeah, suspend your ego. It's the it's

00:11:21.620 really one of the bedrocks of facilitating the code of trust. I often teach and talk about how the code

00:11:26.860 is flawless. It is completely unconditionally flawless. The one thing that will cause it to fail

00:11:32.420 is you, your ego and your vanity. And what I mean by that is anytime things come about yourself,

00:11:37.920 your own priorities, things that you're trying to accomplish through someone else, but still it's

00:11:42.160 become self-centered. That's when your ego gets in the way. Because if you're not dealing with

00:11:47.240 someone that's unconditional and offer new resources, which generally people aren't, there's

00:11:51.860 no reason why they wouldn't want to cooperate you. Our ego and our vanity really get in the way of our

00:11:56.040 mouth and the things we say, where we become judgmental, where we have this need to correct other

00:12:00.960 people, argue how they see the world through their particular experiences. And that's what we're

00:12:05.020 really getting in the way. Right. And, but it could be very subtle too. You might not think

00:12:08.800 you're being egotistical, but like, you know, you, the way you approach the person you're going from

00:12:14.740 your frame point. Yeah, absolutely. Matter of fact, I used to work with someone. I worked with

00:12:18.820 some amazing people. One of them in the book, I call him Jesse Thorne. Real life, his name is John

00:12:23.860 protecting names of the innocent, but he was the master of interpersonal communication. One of the most

00:12:29.180 down to earth, humility driven individuals that was most successful person I've ever saw in my line of work.

00:12:35.020 And like, and also on my same squad, I had someone with the same amount of time that was also very,

00:12:41.000 very good investigator, fantastic, but he didn't have the ability to develop the same sorts of

00:12:45.560 relationships. And the reason was he had some very stringent ethics, morals, and religious beliefs

00:12:51.320 that he didn't necessarily state, but non-verbally, he was very judgmental of people that didn't believe

00:12:57.280 what he believed. And so that started getting creeping in there. I call it incongruence.

00:13:01.800 We've all experienced this incongruence between that's what we say. A lot of times, you know,

00:13:06.000 you get these salespeople, they can say all the right things, but you still get that creepy salesman

00:13:10.600 effect. Well, that's because emotionally, they're not actually thinking to benefit you. They're

00:13:14.740 thinking to benefit themselves. And so that's what happens in a lot of these things that comes across

00:13:18.880 non-verbally. So having congruence between that, what you're saying and that, what you're feeling

00:13:22.680 about the other individual and specifically being non-judgmental is really key.

00:13:26.720 Right. Well, that leads us to the next step. It's be non-judgmental. And the third one is

00:13:29.940 validate, which are very similar. Okay. What do you mean by, because I think we all understand

00:13:32.980 be non-judgmental and validate. What do you mean by validate?

00:13:36.220 Validate is seeking to understand that human being that's in front of you. Again, you have to

00:13:41.280 combine it with non-judgmental because you can seek to understand someone, but if you're doing so,

00:13:45.460 scorning them or not believing in what they're saying or standing in judgment of it, there's not going to be

00:13:52.000 any kind of trust or shields down where information is exchanging and flowing. So validation is merely

00:13:57.540 seeking to understand. So that really the key and the reason to do this is sometimes you're going to

00:14:04.200 deal with people that you feel intolerant of, that you don't like being around, that annoy you,

00:14:09.600 whether it's personal or professional. And those are the people that you actually have to validate

00:14:14.400 the most, meaning that you have to seek to understand them. Because what happens is when you

00:14:17.840 seek to understand and you validate, then tolerance ensues. And when you have tolerance,

00:14:22.500 then you start having that congruence again between that's what you're saying and that what

00:14:25.820 you're feeling towards the individual. I mean, there's people in lives that can, you know,

00:14:29.740 bug the living heck out of us, whether it's at work or home. And the first thing I do is I seek to

00:14:35.100 understand, well, why is it their behavior is bothering me? And a lot of times it's because of

00:14:40.800 experiences they had growing up, experiences they've had in the workplace. And so they're feeling

00:14:45.220 insecure about something. And so the first thing I try to discover is, or validate is what are they

00:14:50.260 insecure about? And so I can make them feel more secure about it when dealing with me.

00:14:53.380 Well, and how do you do that without, you know, approving of their behavior? Because I'm sure this

00:14:57.940 happened to you encountering child intelligence. You probably were working with people who were

00:15:01.940 possibly thinking about doing some sort of treasonous act. So, you know, you want to be nonjudgmental

00:15:08.100 and validate, but at the same time, like say, that's actually not a good thing that you're thinking

00:15:12.060 about doing. So how do you, how do you balance, how do you deal with that?

00:15:15.100 Yeah. I've got a deep, dark story on a espionage side I'd like to use sometimes,

00:15:19.160 but a little too deep and dark for this, but it really comes down to the fact that what I got to

00:15:24.360 focus on my end goal. You know, my, if my end goal is to protect national security and my end goal is

00:15:29.720 to, you know, then if in the business world, sell a service or a product and you're the person that I

00:15:35.740 need to interact with, then I need to communicate with you in a way that's going to inspire you to want to.

00:15:41.120 And if I start judging you, then you're not going to want to. So you're all, so you're

00:15:45.420 automatically undermining what it is that you set out to want to do. And that's what makes this

00:15:49.360 leadership. You know, leaders are the ones that are setting the goals and objectives about

00:15:53.180 interacting with other human beings. And now strong, inspirational leadership makes it about the

00:15:58.000 other person. Leaders set the goal and then they take actions that's going to inspire someone to want

00:16:02.620 to come along on the ride with them and make it beneficial for them ahead of you. And if you start,

00:16:07.960 you know, judging others and not validating them, then I guarantee you, they're not going to do it.

00:16:13.140 You know, the great thing I love about this too, is human behavior becomes extremely predictable.

00:16:18.240 If I take the time to understand what your priorities are, like I said before, your needs,

00:16:22.480 wants, dreams, and aspirational, personal, professional, long-term and short-term. If I understand

00:16:26.440 how you define prosperity and what's in your best interests, and I now offer you resources for you to

00:16:34.160 achieve all those things, I know you're going to do it. I guarantee you're going to do it. Why wouldn't

00:16:38.620 you? So that's what this is all about, is understanding those things about other people

00:16:43.020 non-judgmentally and then offering resources for them to achieve it. And now, if for some reason

00:16:47.440 you feel so strongly that you're going to stand in judgment of them, I'm not saying that's right or

00:16:51.960 wrong either. I can just guarantee you, you're not going to have a productive interaction. So you

00:16:55.380 should just break contact before you even start.

00:16:57.160 Gotcha. So the fourth part of the code is honor reason. What do you mean by that?

00:17:02.640 Honor reason is kind of what we've already been talking about. These things all kind of swirl

00:17:06.080 together congruently. Honor reason is making sure, especially as a leader, whether it's leadership

00:17:12.400 where you're trying to sell, whether you're trying to lead on a battlefield, counterintelligence in

00:17:17.600 your household with your teenagers, what leaders are very, very good, at least the inspirational

00:17:22.200 leaders are, they're very good at maintaining cognitive thought processes during the interaction.

00:17:27.620 And so the thing I love about the code, the code is very empathetic. In other words,

00:17:32.620 I care very deeply about what other people are doing. Because if you're finding out their

00:17:37.220 context of the world, you're validating them, you're seeking to understand those priorities,

00:17:40.860 you're going to start to understand them and empathy is created. Now, what honor reason is

00:17:45.700 doing this, is ensuring that that feeling I have towards your success that I don't get

00:17:50.180 emotionally attached to your decisions. Because ultimately, they are your decisions and how you

00:17:54.420 want to interact. My job is to help you understand your cause and effect of where it is you are and

00:17:59.340 where it is you're going. And so for me, honor and reason is maintaining an objective third-party

00:18:04.040 analysis for you so I can be a resource for you moving forward. I have these three anchors

00:18:09.440 that I do that maintain my cognitive reason. One, I make sure that I have happy, healthy relationships.

00:18:16.720 So everything I say or I'm doing is going to make sure that I have happy, healthy, or professional

00:18:20.160 relationships. That I have open, honest communication with transparency, because you cannot have

00:18:24.940 healthy relationships without that. And third is I'm an available resource for the prosperity

00:18:30.140 of others without expectation or reciprocity. Because making yourself that available resource

00:18:34.780 with no expectation or reciprocity is what leaders do. Leaders don't keep a scorecard. When I honor

00:18:39.100 those three things, that keeps me very rational, honoring reason. But how do you maintain that rational

00:18:45.220 sort of cool detachment in the heat of the moment? Because it's easy to get caught up with your emotions.

00:18:50.560 Yeah. So you've got to build some muscle memory, as I call it. You have to first recognize in

00:18:57.760 yourself what you do when you get emotionally hijacked, when you start having brain creep of

00:19:03.100 either stress, anxiety, resentment, anger, frustration. All these thought processes that

00:19:09.740 enter the brain, they start the emotional hijacking process where cognitive thought starts going out the

00:19:14.260 door. So first, recognizing when you're hitting that emotional state and then immediately going to

00:19:20.360 the code of trust. In other words, I hit it all the time. I mean, I'm a type A. Type A's love to fix

00:19:25.200 a problem with a baseball bat half the time. And what happens is as soon as I get that emotional

00:19:29.900 that hits in there, I recognize it rapidly and I then immediately go to what's my goal. And is what

00:19:35.980 I'm about to say or doing going to help or hinder what I'm actually trying to accomplish? So in other

00:19:40.320 words, I recognize emotional hijacking rapidly and then shift into cognitive mode. And it takes practice.

00:19:46.460 There's no doubt. I mean, when I first started realizing this, I'd slip into this emotional

00:19:50.420 hijacking kind of gradually and not realizing it. But as soon as you start realizing it, go right to 0.97

00:19:55.780 the code of trust because it maintains that great cognitive thought process. So the final step of the

00:20:01.400 code of trust is be generous. What does that look like as far as gaining trust? Pretty much combined

00:20:07.360 with what I said before, my three anchors and the third anchor being make yourself an available resource

00:20:12.640 for the prosperity of others without that expectation of reciprocity. In other words,

00:20:16.960 be generous, be generous with your time, be generous with resources if you have an offer.

00:20:22.460 And when you do, and when you're generous with both time and resources without that expectation,

00:20:27.060 in other words, if you have an expectation, it makes it about you. That's the only reason you're

00:20:30.480 doing it. But if you can actually let go of it with no expectation of return on it,

00:20:34.640 that's when people are actually become inspired to want to reciprocate. But you can't hold on to that

00:20:39.680 because then it all becomes about you and the whole thing gets undermined by your own ego and

00:20:44.200 vanity. So, I mean, I like the way this sounds in theory, but I think a lot of people are probably

00:20:49.180 listening to this and thinking, well, this is like a formula for getting, you know, becoming a doormat,

00:20:54.360 right? Because you're just making it about the other person. You're being generous, you know,

00:20:59.500 giving them your trust to them without them earning their trust. I mean, so are you going to get

00:21:05.140 walked over following the code of trust or does it play out in the long run in your favor?

00:21:09.820 It has never happened yet where I've been a doormat and here's why. Yes, absolutely. This

00:21:15.220 can be a very humanistic, altruistic way about dealing with people. But never once did I say,

00:21:21.860 be kind, be nice, be soft. No, it's about rational thought. And the first step in the rational

00:21:27.660 thought we're talking about, I said it earlier, is what's your goal? In other words, if people that

00:21:33.120 are doormats, either they don't set a goal at the beginning of an interaction or relationship

00:21:37.920 and or they set it and they become wishy-washy on maintaining it. There hasn't been any instance

00:21:44.240 yet where I've actually had to compromise my original goal or whether I had to let go of it

00:21:50.220 or even not have one to begin with. I'm always a lot, I have a lot of clarity on what it is,

00:21:54.800 why I do what I do. And it focuses on the ends goals for me. As I said, I gave you my three ends

00:21:59.640 goals already. The happy, healthy, professional relationships, open, honest communication,

00:22:03.560 available resources for prosperity of others with expectation reciprocity. Under there,

00:22:07.360 I have a few others. Maintain security for myself, my community, my country. That's another end goal.

00:22:14.460 And so if I have these milestones along the way, I become very flexible in how to execute those

00:22:19.540 milestones so they can maintain the mission statement. In a lot of companies, we have mission

00:22:23.860 statements. And I also have mission statements with my own family. Again, healthy, professional,

00:22:28.060 healthy, happy relationships with my own kids in open, honest communication, an available resource

00:22:32.580 for healthy relationships in their lives. The only way to do that is to make sure that I'm talking in

00:22:37.460 terms of their priorities, empowering them, doing all these things. So in other words, I'm always

00:22:41.320 extremely clear on the direction that I'm moving with the mission that I'm trying to achieve. So

00:22:47.100 I've never had to be a doormat. Now, the thing that makes this non-manipulative is one,

00:22:52.600 manipulation is nothing but control with an attempt of subterfuge and deception.

00:22:55.960 Well, how does the code deal with that? Well, there's no deception whatsoever because the

00:23:01.940 third anchor, again, is open, honest communication with transparency. I never try to deceive. I don't

00:23:06.980 use pretext calls. I am straightforward, 100% honest because I'd rather have one or two people give me

00:23:13.900 120% of their effort and time together than 10 or 20 people give me 5% and they don't want to talk to

00:23:20.480 you tomorrow. It comes down to branding.

00:23:21.940 Right. So an important part of this is knowing your goals. And then a part of that is aligning

00:23:27.280 your goals with the other person. Absolutely.

00:23:30.840 So the trick is how do you figure out what the other person's goal is? Because sometimes they

00:23:35.640 might say it's one thing, but it might actually be another thing.

00:23:38.800 That's a great question. And you're absolutely right in this. And this is what goes back then to

00:23:44.200 the fail. Again, the code to me is majestic and fail safe because the fail safe for that is if you've

00:23:49.380 told me what your priorities are and your goals are, and I've offered you resources for achieving

00:23:53.340 them. And for some reason, you're not doing that and you're not executing. Again, it's on your tempo

00:23:58.640 and timeline because again, if you're trying to manipulate, you're on your own timeline. If you're

00:24:02.160 trying to inspire, it's about their timeline. But if they're not taking action, they're not executing

00:24:06.560 and things start becoming incongruent, well, what are they not doing? They're not being open and honest

00:24:12.080 with you. And that means if they're not being open and honest with you, it's not a healthy

00:24:15.660 relationship. So now you have to make a choice. So again, the fail safe here is, is if it's not

00:24:20.500 being effective because they're not taking advantage of what you're offering in terms of

00:24:24.860 their prosperity, then there's something else going on. It's not you, it's them.

00:24:29.040 So another phrase you repeated throughout the book, and you even said it a few times already,

00:24:32.780 is you never argue context with somebody. What do you mean by that?

00:24:36.960 People have a different point of view of everything. I mean, just one of the things we're talking about

00:24:40.860 at the beginning here today was trust. One reason why people don't trust is because people are

00:24:45.120 arguing context, whether it's the right side or left side of politics, whether it's a performance

00:24:50.780 of a certain product or a certain service, whether someone views their own children in a certain way

00:24:56.660 or a different way. Context is how each of us has developed our own sense of self and our own sense

00:25:03.960 of how we see the world around us. So our prefrontal lobe is not fully formed until around roughly 24,

00:25:09.840 25-ish. And so the things we experience between the first formative years of our lives, a lot of times

00:25:14.820 between the ages of 8 and 19 forms how we see the world for the rest of our life. Then you put on

00:25:19.460 top of that our individual demographic, our gender, our ethnicity, all these different things that make

00:25:26.000 up who we are, gives us our vision of how we see the world. I mean, I could hold up a product or a

00:25:32.400 situation in a room with five people, and I'm going to have five different things that people see when

00:25:37.640 they see that, and that's context. If you want to inspire trust, do not argue context. Again, if it doesn't

00:25:43.680 cost you anything legally, because all you're doing when you challenge someone on how they see the

00:25:48.380 world is I guarantee their shields are going up and no information that you want to talk about is

00:25:52.180 going in. All right. So you never say, you know, like if someone says, I feel this way, you say,

00:25:56.480 well, you're wrong. Absolutely. Again, you can say what you want, because I believe there's no right

00:26:00.620 or wrong, just cause and effect. So say someone says something that you don't particularly agree

00:26:05.120 with. The natural response is exactly what you said, saying something like, well, I don't agree with

00:26:08.680 that. Here's what I think. Well, what's your actually end goal here? Well, if your end goal is

00:26:13.080 to have them actually listen to what you think, you can't convince them because now you just tried

00:26:17.880 and failed. How can you inspire them to want to listen to you? So the first thing I do is I seek

00:26:22.020 to understand. So I validate. I say, wow, I never heard it quite put that way before. Help me understand.

00:26:26.260 How did you come up with that? So I'm seeking thoughts and opinions, their brains rewarding them,

00:26:30.040 and they're sharing their thoughts and opinions, and I'm gaining their context. Now, if I want them to listen

00:26:34.000 to what I think, the next thing I say is, wow, that was really interesting. Again, thank you for

00:26:38.500 sharing. I haven't heard it that way before. I'm curious. What do you think about this? Again,

00:26:42.880 I'm now seeking their thoughts and opinions about what it is I wanted them to listen to to begin with.

00:26:47.360 I guarantee you they're going to contemplate it, they're going to ruminate on, and they're going

00:26:50.840 to give you thoughts and opinions. If you had just said what you think and told them that you didn't

00:26:55.300 believe in what they said, they're not going to listen to a word you said. Again, that power of asking

00:26:59.480 those thoughts and opinions where you're demonstrating affiliation, you're demonstrating value,

00:27:02.900 they're going to listen to it. It's the same thing as people say one of the things you want to do with

00:27:08.100 people is plant the seed for them to think about. Well, if you want to plant seeds with people,

00:27:12.000 you don't tell them what you think. Ask them what they think.

00:27:14.180 Right. And another one of my favorite maxims you repeated throughout the book on gaining trust was

00:27:19.820 don't follow the golden rule, follow the platinum rule.

00:27:23.100 Right. Yeah. I wish I could claim total credit for that one. The great book called The Platinum Rule

00:27:28.820 by Tony Alessandra a number of years ago when I first got to get into all the behavioral stuff.

00:27:34.740 It's really pretty simple. The golden rule, it's a beautiful intention, and I'm not arguing at all.

00:27:39.880 The golden rule says treat people as how you want to be treated. What the platinum rule is saying is

00:27:45.220 what I'm talking about in the code of trust is treat people how they want to be treated. In other

00:27:49.660 words, a lot of times I'm going to treat you – matter of fact, that's the big reason why I had some

00:27:54.580 some fantastic, humbling moments in my life, I treated you exactly how the type A wants to be 1.00

00:27:59.000 treated. But that's not how they want to be. So shields up and no interaction. Meanwhile, if I took

00:28:04.340 time to understand how you want to be treated, how you prefer to be communicated with, what your

00:28:09.000 priorities are, and I talked in terms of them, that's the platinum rule.

00:28:12.300 Gotcha. And so this means if you're a type A person and you're dealing with someone a little

00:28:17.640 more laid back, you want to take a more laid back approach. But if you're a more laid back person

00:28:22.560 interacting with a type A hard charging guy, you probably want to take that approach as well.

00:28:27.860 Absolutely. A lot of times – we see this in emails a lot of times too or even in a quick text or

00:28:33.560 something where you have someone that's extremely people-oriented. And people-oriented people are – they do

00:28:38.240 make up the majority of people on the planet. And they're – these are the individuals that like

00:28:43.060 anecdotes. They like stories. They like doing things with a lot of pronouns and usage and generally

00:28:49.740 goes in the world of a lot of words. And so one of the challenges here, if you're dealing with

00:28:55.080 someone task-oriented like that, they just want just a fax man. Cut to the chase. Tell me what you want

00:28:59.380 and I'm in and out. And so when you have a severe divergence there, it can be a real off-putting to

00:29:05.280 each side. But just remember, no one's – people very rarely are trying to do something to you.

00:29:11.540 They're just being who they are. Right. A lot of times it's not about you. It's usually about them.

00:29:15.660 It's never about you. Very rarely is it about you. You just happen to get in the way that day.

00:29:21.140 And how do you apply this stuff to digital communication? Much – a lot of our communication

00:29:25.680 is going online now. And as you said, one of the challenges there, there's anonymity. You're not in

00:29:30.040 person so you can't have like the facial cues and body language interaction and the – how do you

00:29:35.180 establish trust online? I actually enjoy doing that a little bit more, believe it or not. Even

00:29:40.460 though I'm an Xer. I'm just about 49. So I'm not born of the digital age like a lot of the millennials

00:29:48.180 are. But I actually enjoy it a lot easier only because you can really strategize how to say things

00:29:53.680 a little easier. Because when you're having a live interaction with someone, you can't memorize

00:29:58.500 what you're saying because if you're memorizing things, you're not focusing on them, which is

00:30:02.180 the most important thing. You're thinking about yourself. I do think about my first line when I'm

00:30:05.820 going live so I can make it about them. But after that, I have to really focus on them and make sure

00:30:09.660 I'm using language that is about them. But when in a digital age, if I'm emailing or texting or

00:30:14.180 Twittering or whatever we want to do, it's very easy to go line by line with everything you're doing

00:30:19.900 and making sure you're including one of those four things. Seeking those thoughts and opinions,

00:30:24.340 talking in terms of priorities of others, validating them and empower them in choices.

00:30:27.680 It's so easy to build one of those four things in. I mean, a simple way to just do it is here's

00:30:34.320 what I want to do, folks, blah, blah, blah, if that's okay with you. In other words, just by adding

00:30:40.540 if that's okay with you, if that's something you're comfortable with, I just made it about them.

00:30:45.360 Validating their time, that makes it about them. Seeking assistance, that's making it about them.

00:30:50.320 There's lots of little things you can do to make sure that every statement is about someone else.

00:30:53.760 And writing is very easy because you can write. I mean, we do this all the time anyway. Think about

00:30:57.820 a lot of us before we send an email, well, hopefully we're doing it anyway. Before we send

00:31:02.640 an email or a text, we think about who's it going to. And then we think about it and then we craft

00:31:10.480 it a little bit and then we send it. And so that's all we're doing in this situation. We're taking it

00:31:15.220 to the next level by making sure that we're doing one of those four things and everything we're doing.

00:31:18.780 So this is a question that just came to mind. So as you're doing this code of trust and you're

00:31:22.880 interacting with a lot, you're probably interacting with dozens, maybe even hundreds of people.

00:31:26.780 How do you keep track of everything, right? Like context for different people. Like, I mean,

00:31:32.060 do you, what did you do as a, as a counterintelligence guy? Do you have like a dossier? Do you have like

00:31:36.700 a document you go to or a database? What do you do there?

00:31:40.200 I, again, great question. I get asked quite a few times. It doesn't get this complicated,

00:31:44.780 believe it or not. The amount of people in any individual's lives that have complete overlapping

00:31:50.420 of priorities, um, it fluctuates from time to time, but there's really a handful, maybe 10,

00:31:56.400 15 most. And, and some will fade in, some will fade out as these priorities no longer overlap.

00:32:02.060 But if you're honoring the code of trust, it's always a strong relationship. So they can come in

00:32:05.540 and out as need be over time. And so that being said, they also have all these 10 or 15 people,

00:32:15.600 they have their contacts, they have their relationships, they have their trusted networks.

00:32:19.580 And so yours become bigger and more vast, the better effect you have on those around you.

00:32:25.720 It becomes what I call the hub and spoke, you know, where you're the hub and everyone else is their

00:32:29.620 own hub and it keeps expanding. And what I've seen is, is the more calm and healthy you can make

00:32:35.320 your relationships, the people you're interacting with, they're starting to do the same thing.

00:32:38.620 Cause they're starting to mirror those behaviors of success. The other thing that I will add though,

00:32:43.020 I learned this early in the Marine Corps was I had what was called the platoon commander's notebook.

00:32:47.440 And what that was, was it was some notes you take on every, you know, I had, I had a good number

00:32:52.600 of Marines that worked for me and yeah, remembering finer details about everyone's lives that they're

00:32:57.540 willing to share. It could become challenging. So I just jot a few notes down on anniversaries,

00:33:02.180 birthdays, significant events in their lives. So I could refer back to it from time to time.

00:33:06.680 I mean, people do this all time. Now you get a business card from someone, take a few notes on

00:33:10.140 the back. But what you'll find is at least what I found is that that core network of highly trusted

00:33:16.380 individuals, I've never had it really exceed anything that was unmanageable that I couldn't

00:33:20.680 remember. Gotcha. That's good to know. So trust is hard to gain or is it hard to gain? Is it actually

00:33:27.120 easy? Is it easy to gain or is that? I think it's very easy to gain. I think it's easy to gain

00:33:30.580 when you know how to communicate. And if you communicate in terms of the other people and

00:33:34.280 not yourself, it's very easy to gain. Now, the thing that you can't force though, is whether

00:33:38.140 the other person is ready for you in their life or not. You know, if you don't have things

00:33:42.320 that are interesting to them, you know, in the worries of their prosperity, or you have

00:33:45.940 a personality trait that's very off putting, then don't force it because then you're making

00:33:49.900 it about you. But in general, it's pretty easy to gain. Now, the big thing here is so everyone

00:33:54.900 has a different tempo. Some people are easy to let trust, you know, go. So they'll, they'll

00:34:01.200 trust you within the first couple of minutes of you just having great communication about

00:34:04.300 them. Some people, they've had some life experiences that make them very skeptical or they're in

00:34:08.860 a business that makes it that they generally deal with untrustworthy people. So it might take

00:34:12.720 three, six, 12 months. So you just got to be flexible. Can't make it all about you.

00:34:18.240 And it's, it's, but I found it to be pretty easy.

00:34:21.920 And is maintaining that trust after you spent, you know, after you gained it, is it just a

00:34:25.380 matter of just following the code regularly?

00:34:28.240 Following the code regularly is definitely critical, but people always ask me, so Robin,

00:34:32.660 how exhausted did you get doing the code 24 hours a day with everyone you interact? And

00:34:36.340 I said, well, I don't, you know, when, when it, when it's a new relationship, that's just

00:34:40.960 starting when it's a relationship that, you know, you'd have to have a more challenging

00:34:45.020 conversation, uh, or something deviates from kind of normal interaction. Then that's when

00:34:49.720 I make sure I'm really exercising it well. Otherwise, you know, I I'm, I'm just me, you

00:34:55.200 know, and what happens is, is you get better and better behaviors anyway. Um, but I just,

00:35:02.840 I, my, my, when I get my shields down, I get a little snarky with people. Cause I kind of

00:35:06.340 got a quick wit and too fast one-liners now and then, especially, you know, outside the home,

00:35:10.600 I'm probably 95% on most of the time inside the home, maybe 60%.

00:35:14.880 What do you do? Uh, like say there, there's probably people listening to the show right

00:35:18.100 now. They're in an office, you know, workplace where there's just no trust. It's toxic. How

00:35:22.580 do you go about turning the culture around where people start trusting each other?

00:35:27.020 That's not uncommon. So first of all, for anyone listening, it's in that environment. Don't

00:35:30.480 think you're alone. It's very common. Unfortunately. Um, it really depends on how the trust is,

00:35:36.040 was lost to begin with and, and, and that, that unhealthy culture began. Um, a lot of times it's

00:35:42.480 from management on high. And so a lot of times, I mean, I've worked for bosses that, you know,

00:35:48.800 constantly shift up goals and priorities to keep you off balance so they could feed off of your

00:35:52.320 stress and anxiety. That's unhealthy. So sometimes you're not going to be able to affect the individual

00:35:57.960 cause in the environment, but if you can start mitigating the people around him, in other words,

00:36:02.240 people like that don't bother me anymore because I know it's their issue and not mine.

00:36:06.040 And so if I can start calming the reaction of the people around me, so there's nothing

00:36:10.140 for these people to feed off of, that's one way to mitigate it. Um, another way to mitigate

00:36:14.940 it is just possibly asking yourself, is this kind of environment that's healthy for me in

00:36:19.740 my way of life? You know, because ultimately what we, most human beings were not, we're not

00:36:25.620 seeking, I mean, studies came out about this a couple of years ago. I think the, the average

00:36:29.460 income of the happiest people in the world was not in the millions or hundreds of thousands,

00:36:33.000 about $75,000 a year. I think it was. And what it is, is see people are looking for very simple

00:36:39.880 things for their own prosperity, um, healthy relationships, uh, health, diversity of activity

00:36:46.280 and food, shelter and healthcare. That's about it. After that people are seeking to be valued.

00:36:52.180 And if you're in a place that you're not feeling valued, um, and sometimes we don't, you'll never

00:36:56.460 feel valued by your bosses and that's okay. If you're feeling valued by the people around

00:37:00.080 you, that might be enough to hold you. Just do an assessment. Ask yourself, is this healthy

00:37:04.080 for me to stay in this environment? If not, what can I do about it? And if I can't do anything

00:37:08.200 about it, you know, ask yourself, why am I still here?

00:37:10.660 Gotcha. Well, Robin, this has been a great conversation. Where can people learn more about the book?

00:37:14.220 That's easy. So, uh, the book, the code of trust, you can get it anywhere. It's available

00:37:17.660 everywhere. I do have a website. It's called www.peopleformula.com. Uh, all one word people

00:37:23.980 formula. You can follow me on Twitter at R D R E E K E. I've been posting a bit lately, LinkedIn as

00:37:30.440 well. And, uh, I got a Facebook author page, so I'm pretty much all over the place. Uh, look forward

00:37:35.380 to chatting with folks. Awesome. Robin Dreek. Thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:37:39.260 Hey, thank you. I really appreciate it too. My guest there is Robin Dreek. He's the author of the book,

00:37:43.340 the code of trust. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find out more

00:37:47.060 information about his work at peopleformula.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash

00:37:52.460 trust, where we find links to resources. We're going to delve deeper into this topic.

00:38:07.280 Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:38:11.380 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com. If you enjoy the podcast,

00:38:15.000 I've gotten something out of it. I'd really appreciate if you give us a review on iTunes or

00:38:17.780 Stitcher helps out a lot. And also share the podcast with some friends. It's how most people

00:38:21.440 find the podcast is just a recommendation from a friend. As always, thank you for your continued

00:38:25.220 support. And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - October 17, 2017

#348： A Counterintelligence Expert's Five Rules to Lead and Succeed

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