An Undercover Cop’s Tips on How to Influence Others and Navigate Life
Episode Stats
Summary
Derek Vassar shares how he became an undercover police officer, what he learned from that job, and how he applied those lessons to Big Brother and how you can use similar techniques to influence others, know when someone's lying, and bounce back from adversity.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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It's not uncommon for former law enforcement officers and intelligence agents to write
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self-help books where they share how the lessons they learned in their professional careers
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can apply to people in any walk of life. What is rare is for one of these officers turned
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authors to publicly prove they know what they're talking about and that their tips work as Derek
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Vassar did by winning the reality show Big Brother. Derek is a former undercover detective,
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current private investigator, and the author of The Undercover Edge. Find your hidden strengths,
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learn to adapt, and build the confidence to win life's game. Today on the show, Derek shares how
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he became an undercover police officer, what he learned from that job, how he applied those
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lessons on Big Brother, and how you can use similar techniques to influence others, know when someone's
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lying, and bounce back from adversity. After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is
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So you've had a really interesting career, and I want to talk about this because you wrote a book
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about it, and you provide some lessons to just regular people from your career. You started working
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for the police at a really young age. I was surprised how young you were when you started.
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So how old were you when you signed up, and what nudged you towards a career in law enforcement?
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I was 20 years old, so not even old enough to buy my own bullets. I actually had to have
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the police department provide my ammunition at that point. So that was an interesting way to start my
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career. The guys that were older than me on the job really loved that. I have to say, you know, when it came to,
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like, like, nudging me into law enforcement, I didn't necessarily have any ambitions to be a cop
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before the year leading up to that whole chain of events where I was in college. I was going for a two-year
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degree. I was playing baseball. I was getting ready to transfer to a four-year school, and the summer between
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my sophomore and junior year, I had just finished my criminal justice degree, my associate's degree.
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The chief of police for the police department I ended up working for was a longtime friend of mine.
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I grew up in the city where I eventually worked, and he knew me, and I had a pretty troubled childhood
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in some ways. My parents were good, but I got into a lot of fights, and the chief was someone who,
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as a patrolman, always looked out for me, was kind of a role model, was someone I looked up to, and so
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over that summer, when I was getting ready to go into my junior year, his name was, his name is Joe
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Moran. He said, hey, why don't you apply for the police department? Give it a shot just to kind of
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get your feet wet and see what it's like, and, you know, when you're done with your bachelor's degree,
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maybe you come back. I don't think you're going to get hired this time around, but it would be great
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for the experience. So I ended up taking the test, and it was about 300 or 400 people there, and to make
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a long story short, about three, four months after going through all the testing, the physical, the
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mental, the psychological, he calls me up and says, hey, I need you to come to the police station.
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So I go to the police station, and I'm expecting him just to tell me, like, hey, here's where you
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did well. Here's where you didn't do well. This is what you should work on in the future, and he goes,
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you know, come on in. Sit down, and he says, listen, I'm in a really interesting predicament right now
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because I had no intention on hiring you, and yet you finished first overall out of everyone.
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So I also cannot not hire you because what's my reasoning for not hiring you other than you're
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young? So at this point, if you feel that you're ready, I'd like to offer you the position, and at
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that time, I was 20 years old, broke, really not going anywhere in my baseball career. I was okay,
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but I wasn't going to play professional, and I loved the idea of giving back to my community,
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so I decided to take that leap, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
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So you started working for the department. Then you started doing undercover work. How did that happen?
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Well, again, Joe Moran is going to be a common theme in my law enforcement career story.
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It's my 21st birthday. Now, a little backtrack. When you go to the police academy, you're there in
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Rhode Island with police officers from all other agencies. Everyone goes to the one police academy.
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So word got back to these other police departments that there was this really young kid who was in
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their academy with them, and not only was I young, but I looked even younger. And so I get this call
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on my 21st birthday. I had a couple of celebratory drinks the night before. I get a call from Joe
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Moran in my hotel room, and he says, listen, there's something going down at a local university.
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They believe there might be some drugs, maybe some date rape drugs being distributed throughout the
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school. I got a call from a certain police department. They heard about you. They'd like
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you to pose as a student and see what you can find. Obviously, that's the dream, right? Like
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when you grow up, when you're thinking about being a cop at all, you're not thinking about,
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you know, the patrolmen who are writing tickets. You're thinking about bad boys. You're thinking
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about Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, right? So when he says that to me, that's like music to my ears.
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I basically ditch all my friends and go right into the police department, end up doing the
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undercover operation, and it was extremely successful. We ended up arresting 11 people,
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identifying even more individuals than they initially thought. And I caught the bug. I had
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the itch, and I knew right then and there, that's where I wanted to go with my career. Now,
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as a patrolman still at that point, you can't just jump into detective work. But what happened with me
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was as I was learning how to be a patrolman, I was also working for different agencies in a short-term
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capacity as an undercover detective. So as my career progressed, and I reached a point where I was
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eligible to be in the narcotics division full-time, it was kind of a clear transition that I was going
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to be the next up for that spot, which happened. And I did another four or five years as a narcotics
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detective and then two years as a sergeant of narcotics. And it was probably the best part of
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my career. Yeah. So it sounded like you had the 21 Jump Street, you know, transition to undercover
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work. You infiltrated younger people. Yep. That was my niche. And everyone has a niche, right? Like
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depending on what the job dictates or what the, what the, the case involves, you need a different
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undercover officer. And for me, that's the role that I played. And there wasn't a lot of people
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on the job that fit that role. They either looked like too much like a cop or they acted too much
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like a cop and it just, they couldn't infiltrate those certain areas. So I had, I was, I was in high
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demand when I first started. That was for sure. Then you ended up as a contestant and winning
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big brother. How did that happen? So I was 30 years old. And when I was on my deeper portion
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of my undercover career, when I was really under there and I was doing a lot, I couldn't really
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go out a lot. And so I would be at home and to be at home with my wife and I was looking for stuff
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to watch. And I ended up stumbling upon this show called big brother. And I really got into it. And
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part of the reason I really got into is because I think a lot of us find shows that we think we would
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be good at. So we like to watch and critique the people that are playing it. And I remember
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multiple occasions where I would say to my wife, Oh man, if I wasn't a police officer, I would
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absolutely kill the show. I'd be, I do so well. And everyone's like, yeah, sure, buddy. Sure you
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would. So when I got out of narcotics work and I was a Sergeant, it was my 30th birthday and it was
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a bucket list. So I basically just sent in a video. I didn't even send in the proper amount of time,
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but it was just to say I did it. And I, I started my video by saying, you know, I was an undercover
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detective. I have a business degree. And if you put me on the show, I'm going to win.
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And within like two weeks, I got a call back and the big brother people said, Oh, you think it's
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that easy, huh? You think you're going to come on the show? We're just going to come out here.
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You're going to control everything. And I said, no, I'm probably going to lose right away. And they
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said, what you said in your audition tape that you're going to win. I said, no, I said what I needed
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to say to get you to call me and here you are. And they said, Oh, okay. Yeah. You need to come to
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New York. And then the kind of the process went from there. So it wasn't what I planned to happen,
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but it worked out. It really did. And it was a great experience. Big brother was an awesome
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experience. When you win the money, it's, it's hard not to enjoy what's happening.
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And did you use your experience as an undercover officer to help you win big brother?
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Absolutely. So for anybody who doesn't know, big brother is basically 16 people in a house for a
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hundred days and each week someone goes home. And during that time you have to develop alliances and
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build relationships. And I went into the house and told them that I was a parks and recreation
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coordinator. Didn't even tell them I was undercover cop. And I used my ability to read people and
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communicate with people and find commonalities with individuals that you may not necessarily
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get along with to build relationships that were bigger than just our alliances. They became
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actual friendships. Some of those friendships I have till this day. And it wasn't until after the
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votes were locked in that I revealed to the entire cast that I was an undercover detective.
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And it was a, it was a great TV moment. That's awesome. So what have you been doing since then?
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So after big brother, I went right back to being a police officer. I had no ambitions to be on TV.
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I won the show. I got what I wanted out of it. I went back to work, but I had an agent reach out
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to me. I had, you know, you have a bunch of people reach out to you afterwards and they all have these
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big plans for you. And I wasn't buying any of it, but I had one agent, Harry Gold, who's still my
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agent to this day, reach out and say, Hey, you know, you should be back on TV. And I said, nah, I'm not
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interested in any of these shows. I did my one show. I'm done. And he said, what about true crime?
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I said, what's true crime? He said, listen, just come out to LA. Let me, let me grab your ear.
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So I go out to LA and he tells me about this project involving OJ Simpson, where there's a
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private investigator who believes he's innocent and he can prove it. So they hired me for the show for
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discovery. It was a six part series. And I said, screw it. Let's try it. Did the show. It did extremely
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well. And they decided to give me my own show breaking homicide. At that point, I had about
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three years back on the job since big brother. And it became a little difficult to do both. I was
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traveling all over the world. I had gotten my private investigators license at that point. So
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I could work nationally, not just in my own jurisdiction. And I had to make the decision
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as to whether or not I was going to stay a cop or I was going to pursue this career as a private
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investigator slash analyst, you know, TV host, whatever you want to call it. So since then I've
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left the job, I left the job in 2017 after 13 years, I opened my own private investigator
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firm that year, which is still in business. We've been in business for about seven, eight
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years now. We do genetic genealogy. We do cold case investigations. We do a lot of civil
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cases, surplus searches, air searches, you name it. I have a studio called Square Mile Studios,
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which is an homage to my hometown, Central Falls, Rhode Island, where we currently have two shows.
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We have Crime Weekly, which is on YouTube and on audio podcast platforms. I have another show
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called Detective Perspective, which is also on YouTube and on audio. And that focuses on unsolved
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cases. And we got some other shows in the mix. And in addition to that, I do some TV stuff. I have
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a show called Crime Feed with Nancy Grace. I've done some talking head stuff for different networks.
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It's all in the same ecosystem. It's all under the true crime kind of theme. It's what I enjoy. It's my
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passion. And I've found ways to kind of use that passion in different platforms in different ways. And
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I will tell you this, to bring it back to Big Brother, everyone has a lot of big decisions
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they make in their life. No decision had more of an impact on my life than Big Brother. Because
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I can tell you right now, if not for Big Brother, none of these other things that I'm talking about
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right now happen. So it's a crazy life. I'm 40 years old. And even sitting here talking to you
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about it, it's surreal for me even to this day. I feel like I have this constant case of imposter
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syndrome. Yeah. So you wrote a book a while back ago called The Undercover Edge, where you
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take readers through the lessons you've learned as an undercover police officer that are applicable
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to any person's life. If you take a step back and look at the big picture, why do you think
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undercover work provides so many lessons about life in general?
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Well, Big Brother was the proof of concept, right? Because I didn't tell them I was an undercover
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detective. I just used a lot of what I learned while working undercover in this social experiment
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to prove that the same things that you do in undercover work can be applied anywhere.
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And it's really, it's not that, it's not that complex. It's simple interpersonal skills. It's
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understanding not only yourself, but the person you're communicating with. I referred to it in the
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chapter as know your target, right? Understanding not what motivates only you, but what motivates them.
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So you can phrase your questions and your suggestions in a way that's, that incentivizes
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them to want to do it, not just for you, but for themselves. And when you're trying to build
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relationships, whether it's in your personal life or whether it's in your professional life,
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you want to try to build a relationship that's based on genuine commonalities, things that you
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can actually both agree on so that as you're growing together in that relationship, it's not
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disingenuous. There's something really there that you can latch onto and utilize to build a stronger
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connection. And that's really what I did in Big Brother and what I've done, not only in an undercover
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work, but in my personal life to build relationships with the people that are personal to me, but also
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my employees, the people that work for me and having individual relationships with them and
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understanding it's not a one size fits all. Every person that works for me, they respond to different
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things. My job is to understand what that is. And that way I get the most out of them.
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Yeah. That was the big takeaway for me is that the thing from your undercover work,
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undercover work is all about social relationships. And in order to succeed there, you have to develop
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those social skills. And that's the same thing in life in general, whether it's work, family,
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et cetera. Yeah. It's all, it all comes down to social.
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It's not brain surgery, right? Like at the end of the day, you can be an intelligent person and still be
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horrible socially and you're going to have trouble. But if you can, if you can talk, even if it's in a
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romantic relationship, we always hear like the jokes, like he's not the best looking guy, but man,
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he can talk, right? That's, that's really what it's about. It's about being a good communicator
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and understanding who you are as a person, your strengths, your weaknesses, acknowledging both,
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and then utilizing what you have at your disposal to benefit you in whatever you're trying to
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accomplish, whether that's just getting to know someone better, building a stronger friendship,
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or in a professional setting, getting an employee to be motivated by the work you're asking them to
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complete. So going on that line of knowing your strengths and weaknesses, this is something you
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talk about in the book. I thought it was really interesting. The Joe Harry window. Yeah. Johari,
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Johari window. Johari window. That's how it's pronounced. It could be Joe Harry too. I've heard people
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pronounce it both ways. All right. Johari window. What is that Johari window? So you're, you're pulling
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back from memory here, but I believe it was made by two individuals. I think their first names were
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Joseph. I apologize. I don't remember their last names. I believe it was Joseph and Harrington,
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and they combined the two to create this Johari window. And it's kind of self-explanatory. If you
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look it up, it's kind of hard in the audio podcast, but it's basically four separate windows into
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yourself, right? And, or quadrants, whatever you want to refer to it as. And what it actually to me
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represents is just a visual representation of you. It's a self-assessment. And we could talk about the
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Johari window for probably 30 minutes, but the short version is you break it down into different
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quadrants. One being what's known to you, what's known to others, what's known to them, but not
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necessarily known to you, like maybe flaws you have that you don't even realize you have. And then
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what's known to yourself, but not known to others, things that you are passionate about that maybe you
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haven't shared openly with people, or maybe struggles that you have that people are unaware of. And then the
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final quadrant would be things that are yet to be discovered by anyone, not only yourself,
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but the people around you. And for me, taking stock and creating an audit of where you are
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allows you to better understand who you are and where you need to improve and where you need to
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capitalize on things that you're already good at. And I think it's sometimes difficult, specifically
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the quadrant of things that are known to others, but not necessarily known to you. The question would
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be like, well, how do you write those things down if they're not known to you yet? There are times in
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our life where people may give you hints to those flaws or areas that you need improvement on,
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but you refuse to listen, or it's something that you just don't want to believe. And they also refer
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to this, which isn't the most politically correct term these days, but the blind spot, right? Where
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there are things that are things that you need to improve on, but you don't necessarily want to.
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And when you visually write it down, if you can take that acknowledgement and write it into that
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box, you can actively work towards moving it from the not knowing it about yourself or not
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acknowledging it about yourself to the box where you do accept what it is. You understand its
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limitations and you can work on turning that into an asset. So again, Johari window, it's not going to
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change your life, but I think it is important sometimes to take stock in who you are as a person
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and have a visual representation of where you are now and where you want to be. And Johari window
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is just one of those many tools that can help you do that. Yeah. And when you were an undercover cop,
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did you kind of use the Johari window on the fly for every situation? Like, okay, what are my strengths
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for this situation? What are my weaknesses for the situation? I don't think I'd necessarily referred
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to it as the Johari window back then. It was something that I had learned about in college and then kind
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of forgot about and came back to after getting my business degree where you start to be more of like a,
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I guess, a scholar, if you will, where you start to try to find applications and studies that will
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help you assist you in better ways in your personal professional life. But for me, it was just
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knowing my target, right? I would get some counterintelligence on the person or the group
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that I was trying to infiltrate. I would see what they liked, what they disliked, what they were
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gravitated towards, what they pushed away. And I would look for genuine things within myself that would
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allow us to create authentic connection. Even with these criminals, there were things that we
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had in common. And those are the things that I would try to focus on as opposed to being disingenuous
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and trying to find areas that I thought they wanted to hear about, even though they weren't true to who
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I was. It may be sports. It may be politics. It may be just the way we conduct ourselves in public
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settings. But I would try to find things that even though this person was doing something that I
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didn't necessarily agree with, I could still find areas that we were the same. And those were the
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areas I would focus on. It would also allow me to be a better undercover cop because when they
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questioned me on those things, I just had to be myself. So there wasn't really an opportunity to
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trip me up because I stuck with what I knew and who I really was. I thought that was interesting
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talking about the target and developing a dossier about the target. The amount of pre-work that was
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involved. I think sometimes people think, oh, you know, this guy went undercover. You just, okay,
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here's the assignment. Now you go undercover. There's actually like months, maybe years potentially
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of pre-work before that happens. Walk us through like what sorts of things were you trying to figure
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out before you actually infiltrated a group? Depends on the case. In some instances, it can be exactly
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what you described where there's case agents who are working on a case with a particular
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organization for six months to a year. And then when the undercover comes in, like myself,
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we're given a case file on that person to kind of catch us up to speed. And I may have a couple
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weeks to a month to review it and ask questions and kind of critique it and make it more in line
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with what I can do. Then there are other times where you may have a couple hours and they'll give
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you a case file and say, hey, this is exigent circumstances. We need to get this going now.
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Here's the person. Here's where they are. Here's what they do. Here's what we have on them. Here's
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where they frequent. Here's the type of friends they hang out with. Gather as much intel as you can
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and develop a personality as quick as possible. So yeah, the more time, the better. The more you
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can understand your target, the better off you're going to be at getting whatever you want out of
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them or building some type of relationship as quickly as possible. But it does vary. Sometimes you
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have more time. Sometimes you have less. And that adaptability is what separates, I think,
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the good detectives from the bad ones, where the people who can adapt not only prior to the
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investigation, but also on the fly in that moment, they're going to be the most successful.
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How did you use this idea of developing a profile for a target? How did you use this on Big Brother?
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Same thing, right? When I went in there, it's by being a good listener. I describe another chapter
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in the book where you have the right to remain silent and listen. It's important to listen.
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It's important to just shut up and listen to what the person is genuinely saying, even what they're
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not saying, and to understand what motivates them. Because if you're actually listening to them
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and not just thinking about what you're going to say next, you're going to learn a lot of
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information. And from that information, you can develop your approach to how you're going to
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communicate with them in a way that's more effective. So in Big Brother, I went in there and I just
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wanted to be someone they could talk to. I wanted to be their brother, their father, their uncle,
00:20:44.740
you know, just a friend, whatever they were looking for. I wanted to be that person. And we would talk
00:20:49.760
about their friends, their family members, their dreams, their aspirations, their motives for being
00:20:54.360
in Big Brother. And once I learned what those motives were, I could frame my questioning or my
00:21:00.240
instructions in a way that would incentivize them to do it. So for example, just one example,
00:21:05.000
you had people who weren't there to win the money. They were there to gain notoriety or maybe get
00:21:09.620
exposure for their singing career or whatever. So when I went to certain people, I may be wanting
00:21:15.400
the same thing, but the way I frame it to one person may not be that way to another. So for one
00:21:20.080
person, I may say, man, if you make this move, if you put this person on the block, I can tell you
00:21:24.960
it's going to be a TV moment. You're going to get so many followers from this. People are going to be
00:21:29.720
crushing your phone after this to get you to come on and do other shows with them because
00:21:33.480
that that's going to be a memorable moment. And for that person, that's all they needed to hear.
00:21:38.080
For someone else, it may be financially motivated where it's like, listen, if you do this,
00:21:43.100
there's an opportunity that you could get further in the game, which is going to allow you to
00:21:46.220
generate more income because the longer you're here, the more money you make. So if you want to
00:21:50.540
increase your longevity in this game, it's important to get this person out now.
00:21:54.560
Now, the real secret sauce and all that is I was having them do things that were ultimately
00:21:59.480
beneficial to my game. They just didn't see it that way because I framed it in a way
00:22:04.120
that it appeared on the surface to be good for them. But in reality, this was a bigger plan that
00:22:09.440
I had for myself to get to the end. Yeah, I thought that was an interesting takeaway. It was a big
00:22:14.200
takeaway for me after reading your book is when you're developing a profile on somebody, whether
00:22:17.700
it's, I mean, it sounds kind of mercenary to talk about, you know, people as targets inside of a
00:22:23.300
criminal situation. But you do do that. Like it could be a potential employer. It could be an
00:22:28.560
investor. It could be a potential romantic partner. Like you've got to develop some sort of profile
00:22:33.340
them so you can figure out how you can connect with them. Right. But the idea of finding out what
00:22:37.780
someone's motivation is, that's often like the last Tumblr and the pin in that Tumblr lock. If you can
00:22:44.660
click that, then like you can really figure out how you can influence this person.
00:22:48.220
1,000%. Yeah. And also how they receive praise, right? Like how you perceive praise,
00:22:53.580
how I perceive praise. It could be different depending on if it's a personal situation or
00:22:57.740
professional situation. Just in a personal situation, if it's your significant other,
00:23:01.780
I may be more prone to just wanting physical touch where my wife may be more receptive to
00:23:07.480
physical gifts, you know? So I don't want to go to her and start hugging up all on her and doing all
00:23:12.960
these different things with that's not really what she's looking for. There may be other ways to get
00:23:17.000
through to her that incentivizes her to continue whatever I'm wanting her to continue, whatever
00:23:21.120
behavior or action she's carried out that I like. And so I think it's understanding, again, back to
00:23:27.860
this Johari window, understanding yourself, but more importantly, understanding the people around
00:23:32.780
you and what makes them tick. We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
00:23:39.780
And now back to the show. So how do you figure out someone's real motivation? Because here's the
00:23:44.800
thing. Sometimes people say publicly, like, this is why I'm here, but really it's not. So how do you
00:23:51.580
figure out that hidden motivation? So it can be difficult. And I do think that there is just an
00:23:56.500
innate ability to it as well. Like, just like a lot of things in life. I grew up in a very diverse
00:24:01.800
community and it was dangerous at points. And my safety was based on my ability to interpret people's
00:24:08.540
true agendas relatively quickly, which ultimately led to a successful law enforcement career.
00:24:13.200
But there are things you can learn. And I do think the more you let people talk and the more you
00:24:18.360
listen, the more likely they are to either expose themselves or contradict themselves in a way
00:24:24.080
where you can make note of it and understand what their true agenda is, even though they may be saying
00:24:29.000
one thing, but their actions suggest another. And that also comes down to verbal and nonverbal cues.
00:24:34.040
We didn't even talk about that, right? The verbal cues are what they're saying, but they could be
00:24:38.160
saying something, but yet their physical actions show another. So you have to not only be a good
00:24:42.700
listener, but you have to be a good observer. So in the Big Brother house, again, this is applicable
00:24:47.100
to life as well. Someone could be talking to you about something and saying, hey, I really like this
00:24:52.880
person. And yet you can see what they're doing physically suggest another thing. So you have to
00:24:57.720
be aware of both. You have to make an assessment of it. You have to note and document maybe physically
00:25:02.440
or just in your head what you're seeing and how it lines up with what they're saying and come to an
00:25:07.400
educated decision on what you think their true intentions are. Are you always going to get it right?
00:25:11.660
No, absolutely not. And you'll have to make adjustments when that happens.
00:25:15.140
But that ability to at least make an initial assessment and adapt on the fly is critical
00:25:19.620
to the success that you'll have. Yeah. I thought it was another part of your book
00:25:23.580
talking about reading body language. We've had people on the podcast before, like body language
00:25:27.860
experts. And they're way more advanced than I am, for sure. Yeah. But a common response to
00:25:32.460
reading body language, like, well, it's just bunk. Like you can't do that. But it sounds like,
00:25:36.560
no, it's not. You actually use this not only as an undercover cop, but you used it on Big Brother.
00:25:40.540
Yeah. There's people who make a living doing this. And they're a lot better than me, obviously.
00:25:44.220
There's people like, I think about the podcast, the behavior panel. They're incredible at this.
00:25:48.220
Like there's studies that show that there are subconscious behaviors that we do when we're
00:25:54.260
feeling a certain way, feeling a certain emotion that we're not even aware of that we're doing.
00:25:59.500
And what I would say to just kind of put it in perspective, it's not a science in the sense of
00:26:04.020
everyone does the same thing. Like, oh, if you're lying, you're always going to look down to the right.
00:26:09.380
That's not everyone. What I would say is every person is different. And the number one thing you
00:26:14.560
could do goes back to being a good observer and being a good listener. You have to sit there with
00:26:18.920
this person, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days, and you have to develop a baseline for them.
00:26:26.120
What I mean by that is everybody's different. Things that may be indications of deception
00:26:31.400
in certain cases may be just a normal behavior for them. So your job initially is to be a good
00:26:37.140
report taker and document what you see both verbally and non-verbally so that you have an
00:26:41.280
understanding of who they are and what they normally do. That's when you can transition
00:26:46.300
the conversation to what you really want to know about. Whether it's in an interrogation or just
00:26:51.000
at the job, you can start to ask them questions that may elicit a specific emotion. Maybe it's
00:26:56.200
something that's going to make the situation a little bit more tense, maybe make them a little bit
00:27:00.000
more anxious. And that's when you want to compare the behaviors that you saw under normal
00:27:05.100
circumstances when there wasn't really anything on the line to what you're observing now. Are there
00:27:10.000
any differences? Once you document those differences, you go back to normal questions,
00:27:15.060
maybe about sports, maybe about the weather, to see if they continue to display those new
00:27:19.100
behaviors you just observed. If they don't, it could be an indication of some type of anxiety or
00:27:24.400
deception, or it could just be an outlier. It's on you to document those things to see if you can
00:27:30.440
connect the dots and also recreate a situation where they display that behavior again. And if
00:27:36.420
you find that they're only doing it with certain questions, now you have an indicator that is
00:27:41.160
specific to them. So when people say it's bunk, I think that's more in line with people who say,
00:27:46.540
hey, you can read this one book and you can tell when every single person is lying just by reading
00:27:50.840
this book. I don't believe in that, but I do believe there is truth in the idea that we all have
00:27:55.580
certain traits about us, subconscious behaviors that we don't even know we display. And if someone's
00:28:01.180
sitting in front of you long enough, they can identify those elements and use them to better
00:28:06.000
understand you. Okay. So just to recap, that's a cool interrogation technique. So if you suspect
00:28:11.360
someone might be lying about something, the thing you can do is you start off talking to them. You just
00:28:16.860
talk about innocuous thing. You ask them questions. Talk about baseball. Baseball, movies, whatever.
00:28:22.240
Yep. They're relaxed. They're not bladed. Their hands aren't crossed. They're not rubbing their
00:28:25.700
fingers. They're not rubbing their knees. Yep. Exactly. So that's establishing the baseline.
00:28:29.940
That's your baseline. This is, there's no anxiety here, no stress. That's right. And then you throw
00:28:33.800
a question like, well, tell me about what was going on when you were at this time. Yeah. Did Joey take
00:28:39.160
those, that cash off the, did you know who took that cash off the counter that was there the other day?
00:28:43.140
Yeah. And then if they start getting a little cagey, it's like, okay, something's going on here. Then
00:28:46.320
you go back to talking about the Mets again. Yep. And then if they continue to display that behavior,
00:28:51.140
it may just be an outlier. It may just be a red herring, or if they go back to being relaxed,
00:28:55.040
not bladed, not kind of wringing their hands, not kind of rubbing their thighs, not kind of
00:28:58.540
tapping their feet. Now it's something where you go, Hmm. Okay. And I I'll see saw back and forth.
00:29:03.640
I'll go back. I'll blade back into that uncomfortable conversation to see if they start
00:29:07.600
displaying that behavior again. Now that doesn't automatically mean they're guilty of something,
00:29:11.940
but it does indicate a level of anxiety that they're not displaying when you're asking normal
00:29:16.820
questions. Again, not a direct science. It's not applicable to everyone, but I think most people
00:29:22.020
would hear what I just said and say, yeah, that, that kind of makes sense. Did you use on big
00:29:26.100
brothers? So you like, you talk to somebody like, Oh, we're just talking about our family. And then
00:29:29.300
you'd be like, so are you going to vote off so-and-so every day, every day, every hour. It's a big
00:29:34.340
reason I was so successful is, is not only understanding who they are, but then also understanding
00:29:39.500
some of their nonverbal cues that would indicate they were lying to me, or they were anxious about what I
00:29:44.420
was referring to, or what I was questioning them about, which would allow me to say,
00:29:48.320
you know what, maybe I shouldn't trust this person. They got to go home.
00:29:52.260
Another tactic you used as a police officer, when you're trying to figure out what happened in a
00:29:57.000
situation, separating people. Why is separating people a useful tactic to kind of get to the truth?
00:30:02.340
Well, you think about it when people have the chance to collaborate and kind of get on the same
00:30:06.200
page, it's very easy to come up with a story and stick to it. But when you separate them and there's a
00:30:11.180
wall between them, there may be some distrust there. And at the end of the day, they don't know
00:30:16.020
what someone's saying on the other side of that wall. So by separating them, you can not only get
00:30:21.100
true stories from each individual party, but in an interrogation situation, you can also use it
00:30:26.900
against them. And some of your listeners may not be okay with that, but that's an acceptable tactic
00:30:32.300
in law enforcement, where if you and I are being interrogated and they come into me and they know that
00:30:38.040
I'm lying and they kind of know more of the story than they're letting on being the investigators.
00:30:42.060
And they say, well, you're telling me this, but Brett's telling me that Brett may not have said
00:30:46.940
anything, but I don't know that. And if there's some concern that I have about Brett because of
00:30:51.860
my trust or lack thereof for him, I may start divulging information to save my own ass.
00:30:57.500
And in reality, Brett hasn't said anything. So it is something that can be done. It's also referred
00:31:02.940
to as trickery. Like I said, not everyone loves it, but criminals usually have the one up on
00:31:07.820
everything because they know what happened and we don't. So anytime we can separate parties and
00:31:12.120
use whatever tactical advantage we are legally allowed to use, we will do it. And that is one
00:31:17.220
of those that can be very successful because again, we don't allow them to communicate with
00:31:21.500
each other, which can embolden them to kind of lock up and not say anything. When you separate them,
00:31:27.000
it creates a level of anxiety where they're saying to themselves, I want to get the deal before him
00:31:31.520
because if I don't, he could be testifying against me.
00:31:38.580
And I can see like a parent using this, like the lamp is broken.
00:31:46.420
Instead of talking to them both right there, it's like, all right, you, child number one,
00:31:50.620
come here, I'm going to talk, get their story. Child number two, and there's probably going to
00:31:53.880
be some conflict there and then you can start figuring things out.
00:31:56.260
And that's such a basic way, but it's so true. And it can apply to even more severe situations
00:32:00.540
where, whether it's employees or employers or a romantic partner, when you can separate the
00:32:06.280
parties and they're not allowed to bounce off of each other's behavior and verbal intonations,
00:32:11.240
whatever they're saying, it gives you the one up, which anytime you can get that advantage,
00:32:16.600
So going back to this idea of just listening, just shutting up and listening, you talk about
00:32:21.040
another tactic you use as an officer and you use this on Big Brother too, is just continuing the
00:32:26.540
pause, like allow for an awkward pause. Why is that such a useful tactic to get more information
00:32:32.400
It's so funny because that's not something anyone ever taught me. It was just something
00:32:35.920
that I realized. There is this psychological expectation where when you talk to someone,
00:32:42.900
you might say a statement or two and you're looking for some type of acknowledgement, whether
00:32:46.680
that's physical or verbal. And in most instances, doesn't apply to everyone. What I found
00:32:52.420
was that when someone I was interrogating was telling me a story, they would give me just enough
00:32:58.560
where they felt like I would be satisfied. And they're looking for that response, that rebuttal,
00:33:04.700
that dialogue, so that there's not this awkward moment of silence. Somebody has to fill that air,
00:33:10.640
right? So when they start talking, they may say something and they may say, you know, initially,
00:33:16.600
hey, uh, I don't know much, but, you know, but I do know that there was, there was a red car there.
00:33:23.500
There was definitely a red car there. And I look at them and I go, I'm not going to say anything
00:33:29.680
else. I'll give it, it does come off as awkward. I promise you. It's like a 10, 15 second gap,
00:33:35.360
but then they go, and this doesn't happen every time. This isn't like people listening may say,
00:33:39.480
oh yeah, I'm sure that's going to work, but it's another tool you can try. If it doesn't work,
00:33:43.560
you go on to the next tool. But in certain cases, they may go, the first three digits of the license
00:33:49.180
plate were RTX. But honestly, that's truly all I know. And I may give them a look like, really?
00:33:56.760
Come on. I, again, not saying anything. There's just this awkward pause. And in some cases they'll go,
00:34:02.980
what do you want to know? What's going to get me out of here? And I'll go, I'll go, you tell me,
00:34:08.800
I know, you know more, you tell me, I'm not saying much of anything. I maybe said five words in this
00:34:13.120
whole interaction. The person was, you know, this white dude with a white beanie on, but really,
00:34:18.480
genuinely, that's all I got. You can arrest me. I don't care. That's all I got. But just by the
00:34:22.620
momentary pause, I've gained little bits of information, little pieces of the puzzle that
00:34:27.260
can help solve the overall case. Now, would I say this works a lot in my personal life? No,
00:34:33.800
because those people know you. And if you're just sitting there looking into their eyes,
00:34:37.120
they're kind of looking at you like you're a weirdo. This is more for an interrogation. I wouldn't
00:34:41.400
necessarily suggest that people do this in their personal life, but it can apply. I think with
00:34:46.180
your kids, I think with certain employees, when you're investigating either a misconduct or a
00:34:51.200
theft, and you're in that position of authority, you have the ability to keep that pause or maybe
00:34:56.560
pretend like you're writing something down where it creates this psychological need to fill that
00:35:02.500
silence. And if you're not filling it, in some cases, the other person will.
00:35:06.720
Okay. I like that. It's interesting. So in your career as an officer, you had to do something
00:35:12.340
that very few officers do. I think it's like 27% of officers actually have to fire their gun
00:35:17.100
outside of a range. So you had to shoot someone in self-defense and that person died from their
00:35:21.320
wounds. How did you respond to that? Not well at first. It was a very difficult situation to go
00:35:28.420
through. I was 23 years old. I don't think I can talk about this without giving a little backstory
00:35:32.900
for everybody going, oh my God, that conversation just took a turn. But it was a 911 hangup. And
00:35:39.380
for anybody who doesn't know, 911 hangups are very common in law enforcement. They happen almost every
00:35:44.020
day. And so it was Easter Sunday. Multiple officers were at the station. Again, it's Easter. It's a slow
00:35:50.340
night. So we thought. And so we responded to this house because it was a 911 call. The phone picked up
00:35:55.800
and then just hung up. So we get there and we get up to the second floor and there's a person standing
00:36:00.660
there. They only speak Spanish. So a Spanish speaking officer that was with me starts talking
00:36:04.900
to them. We learned that there was a fight on the third floor. Get up to the third floor. There's
00:36:09.420
another individual standing there and he's standing in the hallway. And it's hard to describe this over
00:36:13.440
an audio podcast, but he's standing on this landing with his shoulder, his left shoulder facing this
00:36:19.080
apartment door that's currently closed. So I'm the first one going up the stairs. I start to talk to
00:36:24.040
him. I realize again, he's Spanish speaking. So I continue to walk up to him and then past him where now
00:36:29.340
I'm also standing on the landing to his right facing the door to his left. And the officers, there's three
00:36:37.540
other officers. One of them is on the stairs speaking Spanish to this person. And all of a sudden, I don't
00:36:42.360
understand what they're saying, but this individual opens the door to the apartment. When he does, it's just
00:36:47.980
this completely dark apartment. I can see it's a pretty big apartment. I can see multiple doors kind of lining the
00:36:53.820
hallway that I can see down. And one of the doors, it's, I can tell that it's open because there's a
00:36:59.820
light emitting from the room. I can't see in the room, but I can see the door frame and that it's lit
00:37:03.820
up. Well, as they're sitting there having this conversation, a figure comes out of the room. I
00:37:09.300
can see this silhouette and I, luckily I could see it pretty well. I couldn't see them, but for some
00:37:14.140
reason I could tell that when they walked out of the room, they were looking right at me. They were
00:37:17.600
looking right through my soul. And fortunately enough for me, as I scanned their silhouette from
00:37:23.960
their head down to their feet, I could see one thing that stood out to me immediately. And that
00:37:28.820
was the fact that they were holding a long knife by their side. And we always learned at the academy
00:37:33.620
that when you see a knife, the first thing you should do is yell knife as loud as you can. And it
00:37:37.020
sounded so stupid in the academy, but creating that muscle memory over the years, it was the first
00:37:42.220
thing I did. I immediately yelled knife. And as I yelled knife, the silhouette turned towards me and
00:37:48.400
started running towards the door. So I pushed the individual that had been standing on the landing
00:37:52.440
with us down the stairs. And at this point, the other officers are going, what the F is going on?
00:37:56.660
Because they can't see any of this. But I pull out my gun. I back up into the window that's behind me
00:38:02.420
on this third floor landing. And I could feel the cold air on my back. I almost fell out the window.
00:38:07.540
I have my gun out and this individual comes all the way up to the door. He gets in the doorway. He's
00:38:11.980
got the knife over his head. I can see his eyes are bloodshot. He's kind of breathing heavy. And I
00:38:16.420
could tell that he's under some type of substance. And we were only about a foot away from each other,
00:38:20.800
but I didn't shoot him because right when I was about to, he stopped. And I really didn't want to do
00:38:26.580
it. I didn't want to shoot him. So he ends up shutting the door. And at that point, we have to go
00:38:31.320
inside because he could be in there hurting himself or hurting someone else. And at that point, we had
00:38:35.400
developed the information that there was a fight between multiple people. And we hadn't found those
00:38:40.460
other people yet. For all I know, they could be in that bedroom with him and he could be killing
00:38:44.080
them. So we have to go in. So I kicked the door in. All four officers, including myself, go into the
00:38:50.100
apartment. We're in the kitchen with him. He's standing there with a knife over his head. Two
00:38:54.320
of the officers with us speak Spanish. They're telling him in English and in Spanish to drop the
00:38:57.980
knife, drop the knife. He's not doing it. And we know this isn't going to add well. So we gave him
00:39:03.560
enough room to kind of move around. We didn't want him to feel cornered. And we really just wanted
00:39:08.160
the situation to deescalate and for it to end. But unfortunately, that didn't happen. And he
00:39:12.520
ran to his right back down that hallway that I was describing earlier, but into the furthest room,
00:39:19.020
which was the living room. So we stack up again, the officers, because it's a very narrow hallway.
00:39:24.520
And I end up being the first one. And as we're going down that hallway into that room, it's only
00:39:30.080
about an eight by eight room. And the first thing that I can see is this individual in the back corner
00:39:35.060
with the knife in his hand. And he's trying to open the window, which is connected to the fire
00:39:39.260
escape. But the window's not opening. And he doesn't realize it at the time because he's under
00:39:43.000
so many substances that there's a piece of wood in the window and he can't open it. And we learned
00:39:47.320
out later that the two victims were on the second floor and that's where he was trying to get to.
00:39:52.440
Unfortunately, you know, I guess I could say fortunately for us, the window didn't open. He didn't
00:39:57.060
get down there, but that did cause him to turn around. And he saw me standing there and he raised the
00:40:03.120
knife over his head and he ran directly at me. And he was, he was only picking up speed. He was not
00:40:08.080
slowing down. And law enforcement has been learned through studies that if someone is within 21 feet
00:40:13.840
of you, they can get to you even after being shot and still kill or severely injure you. When I finally
00:40:19.760
shot him, I was only about three feet away from him, maybe less. There was stippling on his chest
00:40:24.560
because of how close he was. Stippling being the gunpowder burning on his skin because of how close he was.
00:40:29.640
And there was even a point because I took so long that an officer behind me who was a Marine who
00:40:35.540
had been overseas thought that I was going to freeze. And he actually took his gun out, put it
00:40:40.580
over my head to my right ear and shot the guy as well. But what actually helped me in this case later
00:40:46.240
as they start to investigate a police involved shooting was the fact that that Marine was so
00:40:51.600
focused on the knife, which was over this man's head and was coming down towards my face. This Marine was
00:40:57.260
so focused on that knife that he got tunnel vision. And when he shot him, he actually shot him twice in
00:41:02.480
the arm. But the way the bullets went through his arm, it proved that the guy's arm was over his head
00:41:08.600
when he shot him, showing the trajectory of the bullets going through his forearm from the front to
00:41:13.020
the back, indicating that what I said was actually true. So this happened. Unfortunately, he did not
00:41:19.240
survive those injuries. I have no ill will toward him. Selvin Gardado was his name. It was probably a good
00:41:25.700
person who just made a really bad decision. And what fortunately helped me in the grand jury
00:41:30.660
proceeding, which happens in every police involved shooting, was that not only did the ballistics
00:41:34.900
support what we were saying, but his family testified on my behalf as well. They knew what
00:41:39.100
was going to happen that day and it was going to be him or me. So it was a tough situation for me.
00:41:44.420
Although you sign up and you know that's a potential possibility, it hadn't happened in 25 years in my
00:41:49.120
police department. And I left that situation asking myself, why me? And I really struggled with it for a
00:41:55.300
while. I wasn't a very religious person, but when something like that happens, you start to question
00:42:00.940
where does that leave you? Where do you go from here? What have you truly done? And if there's
00:42:06.540
someone who believes in God, where does that put you? And I really started to be concerned about those
00:42:11.340
things on top of the fact that I was waiting to go to this grand jury where these people who don't
00:42:15.660
know me could ultimately decide to indict me. So it was a really tough time, but through the help of
00:42:21.280
friends and through the help of my church and people around me, I was able to come to a understanding of
00:42:27.940
what transpired and the fact that there was no other choice and I had to do what I did. And
00:42:33.380
there was a point where many people, including officers in my department, who were saying I
00:42:38.520
should retire. I would be able to retire with a 66 and two-thirds pension, non-taxable for the rest of
00:42:44.200
my life. And ultimately I decided not to do that clearly because I continued on with my career. But
00:42:50.400
the main reason I did is because one, I felt I was okay with what I did. I'd come to terms with it
00:42:56.260
and I didn't want to disrespect any military person or former officer who had been through a similar
00:43:02.820
situation and wanted to stay a police officer, but couldn't because of the mental struggles they now
00:43:07.840
had. I didn't have those struggles and I didn't want to fake it. And I didn't want to disrespect
00:43:12.040
anyone who had. So I came back and I took this really difficult situation and turned it into a
00:43:18.180
positive by using it as a tool to motivate me, not only on the job, but in life. And honestly,
00:43:23.460
I will tell you many things that I did after that were because of that shooting, including going on
00:43:29.520
Big Brother. Because when you go through a situation like that, you realize that life is binary. It's on
00:43:36.140
or it's off and it can be over in a moment's notice. You are not promised tomorrow and don't
00:43:42.560
live life like you are. So after that time, I really went for everything that I wanted in life,
00:43:48.340
whether it was detective work, whether it was going for my bachelor's degree and then my master's
00:43:52.340
degree, whether it was applying for a stupid show like Big Brother, or whether it was just personal
00:43:56.500
things in my life that I wanted to experience. Being in that moment and realizing how precious life
00:44:01.920
is, you can't take it for granted. And although this was something I would have preferred to have
00:44:06.520
never happened, I appreciate that it did. And I'm glad that I can take something out of it that I'll
00:44:11.520
carry with me for the rest of my life. That was a very, very long version of all this. But I think
00:44:15.620
that's the only way I could tell that story in a context that people would understand without just
00:44:21.040
saying, hey, you shot someone and they died. So that's, that's my takeaway. I know that was long winded.
00:44:25.760
So I apologize. No, it was good. I appreciate that. You know, something that you talk about in the
00:44:30.000
book and it stood out to me was you took this moment that could have defined your life negatively,
00:44:36.140
like for the rest of your life, and then you turned it into a catalyst for growth. So I mean,
00:44:40.120
it really hits home that idea that sometimes our most challenging moments in life can become our
00:44:46.880
biggest sources of strength if we let them. Well, Derek, this has been a great conversation.
00:44:51.120
Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?
00:44:53.560
So the book has been out for a few years. I appreciate you reading it. The Undercover Edge,
00:44:57.340
I believe is still on Amazon if you want to check that out. But I would say if you,
00:45:01.220
if you're interested in what I'm doing, you can go check out Crime Weekly, which is on YouTube
00:45:04.920
and audio, any podcast platform. I also have my own show Detective Perspective where we really dive
00:45:10.100
into the unsolved cases that are out there again on YouTube and audio. And you can follow me on all
00:45:15.380
the social medias. You just type in my name, Derek Levasseur on Instagram X, you know, I'm there.
00:45:21.160
I'm not a TikToker. You're not going to catch me dancing, but I appreciate you allowing me to come on.
00:45:25.600
It was a great conversation and hopefully some people got some stuff out of it.
00:45:29.880
Well, Derek Levasseur, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:45:33.480
My guest here is Derek Levasseur. He's the author of the book, The Undercover Edge. It's
00:45:36.680
available on amazon.com. You can find more information about his work at his website,
00:45:40.060
officialderrick.com. Also check out our show notes at awim.is slash undercover,
00:45:44.780
where you find links to resources when we delve deeper into this topic.
00:45:47.040
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website
00:45:58.380
at artofmanlies.com, where you find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles that
00:46:02.500
we've written over the years about pretty much anything you think of. And if you haven't done
00:46:05.860
this already, I'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a podcast or Spotify. It helps
00:46:09.320
out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend
00:46:12.980
or a family member who would think there's something out of it. As always, thank you for
00:46:16.220
the continued support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay. Remind you to not listen to anyone
00:46:19.360
podcast, but put what you've heard into action.