Building Trust and Active Empathy – with ex-FBI Behavioral Expert Robin Dreeke

Arthur: [00:00:00] Welcome Robin to the Collective Institute of Ideas. Robin, you've spent over 20 years in the FBI with experience in the military, as well as being head of the behavioral science program that's given you had a lot of insight about people. What are you most grateful for in terms of what it's given you?

Robin: What makes me really grateful for all that is that it allowed me and gave me the opportunity to focus even deeper on understanding what makes people do what they do.

I guess that's the easiest thing to do and think about because when I think back and reflect on my life and the passions I've had and the focuses and really like most of us do, try to understand what gives us great joy and a sense of purpose, which is so hard for some people, very hard for me to figure out what gave me great joy and purpose.

And so I really had to sit back and analyze those moments when I'm really enjoying what I'm doing. And in each of those moments, whether it's recruiting a spy, the most [00:01:00] beautiful moments in my life was strategizing with my adult children life and even doing the true crime commentaries I do all the time, I'm always looking for what's the thread between all these things that I enjoy doing because they seem all over the place.

But there's always a core. And the really, the deep core for me was at a very young age. 'cause that becomes our life arc of the things we pursue in life that allow us to feel safe and valued and seen by others. It was really understanding what makes people do what they do. Which is behavioral assessment.

I really enjoyed that. And so my job inside the bureau was recruiting spies and then going to Quantico and teaching this stuff and running my behavioral team. And at the core of everything I did is we are assessing what inspired people to take the actions are going to take so that I can figure out what I can do to be a resource for them in terms of those actions.

And most of my time because, so recruiting a spy, it's something you do infrequently because there's so few of them and it's a really intensive event when you're [00:02:00] going to try to have that kind of elevated conversation with someone. But what happens every day is the interactions you have with your colleagues, your management, the people around you, all the resource you have to bring to bear for that one conversation.

So every single day it was constantly figuring out what everyone else around me was doing, which made them feel safe, understanding their behaviors, and every day it allowed me to really, truly focus at the highest levels. 'cause with all that pressure on of trying to help the National Security United States or NATO allies and the five is like the uk, we are constantly strategizing what makes people do what they're going to do and what can I do to be a resource in terms of those things.

Arthur: Looking at the young ro Robin back in the day, was that, do you think there was some core influences that led you into that curiosity. .

Robin: Yeah, always. So the things we have earlier in life, the, between the ages of roughly nine to all the way at the 24 as the prefrontal lobes, fully forming those emotional things we experience those years of life that allow us to feel [00:03:00] safe or unsafe are things we're going to do or avoid the rest of our lives.

And they manifest in different ways, but they're all looking for and searching for the core things. So part of my arc when I was very young was I was an only child in a household with very little money. And so I was always doing things that allowed me to feel safe, problem solving, strategizing how to make money.

So I was always innovative. I was always an entrepreneur. I was always trying to figure out things. And when you're trying to figure out how to interact with others and profit from relationships at a young age, and also how to overcome any obstacle, it made me a good problem solver with relationships of people.

Also, part of that arc was I was an only child. I could not wait to go to school so I could have friends. And in order to have friends, you have to understand what would make them want to be a friend with me. And so it's that reversal. And then definitely an thing that added to that arc was being bullied.

Having massive fights at bus stops, being bullied, being made fun of. All these [00:04:00] things really add to that desire need to, what am I going to do to feel safe and what made them want to do that towards me? And so it's really, most of our things that we do very focused in life is figuring out how to rectify and overcome those trauma responses we had earlier in life.

And so it was those two things together really forged that passion and desire and enjoyment of understanding people and figuring out what I can do to be a person that someone would want in their life, whether it's through friendship, whether it's not to be bullied by them, and ultimately to whether they want me in their lives, to defect to our country, rather theirs or dealing with management.

It's all the same thing. It's like human interactions at the highest level.

Arthur: Yeah. And no, no better way to push your ability in influencing people than protecting your country. Has there been a moment for you, on your death bed if you were asked, what is the moment say that ended up making you really feel like you've contributed.

Robin: Yeah, I mean there was definitely some professional moments that were like [00:05:00] that, especially after nine 11 here in New York. Not here in New York. I'm in Virginia now, but when I was in New York and recruiting sources 'cause I worked Russia most of my career. And then when we shifted from Russia to Middle East for a time period, I recruited very high level sources around leaders of Middle Eastern countries developing back channels between Duke governments preventing nuclear wars between countries.

There was definitely moments where the skill sets I had. Presented themselves as opportunities to use them to for a greater good. The only thing I really care about on my deathbed is that I had great relationships with my kids and my wife. That's literally it, 'cause that's the only, out of all the great things that people think they do professionally in their lifetime really the lasting impact they're gonna have is what they leave for the generation behind.

So they can have healthy, strong relationships too, so they can keep progressing us as a species. And the only way we progress as a species is when you feel safe. When you feel safe, you innovate. When you innovate, you solve life's most critical, challenging problems. And even though I did all these in interesting things as a professional, they gave me the skillset to be a better parent, husband, and [00:06:00] father.

So that's where I feel my lasting impact is. I, it's not an answer. People generally give, but I am all in on, I love being a dad more than anything in the world. And I, all the skills I got. For to be a better father every day came from my professional life, so it's not reversed. Some people think they get all the skills in life to be a great professional from trying at home and failing at home so they can do better in the world.

No, I'm completely reversed.

Arthur: Super interesting and there are several themes that you push, which really dictate. Some core learnings that you've had out, out in the field in terms of navigating relationships, communication a beautiful one is not, it is thinking about people, not being too in your own head about your world and thinking about other people thinking about contributing.

Now that's a beautiful one. How can one become more aware of when they're not thinking about others?

Robin: Yeah, it's it's our, [00:07:00] anytime we have a very negative response towards anyone, any, anything, a situation, typically the thing that creates a negative emotional response, whether it's anger, frustration, resentment, impatience, all these things generally centers around our ego. Our ego is bruised, our ego's damaged, no one's moving on our pace.

No one understands me. All these things are me. And so every time you have an emotional negative response to something, it's a great opportunity to ask yourself what is actually causing that? Typically it's you are the problem that's causing that. So when you can start letting go of your ego, I call it eco suspension, it's very stoic.

It's very echo, totally the power of now I, as much as I am a student of nonfiction things like, let's see The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Green, Andro and holidays. All his books on stoicism and all human behavior. Even the evolution of our species, Noah Hava on the book Sapiens and the Homos and Nexus.

There's a lot of great work out there [00:08:00] about understanding us as a species, but at the same time, there, there's a lot out there that's also on the Eastern philosophy of understanding how to calm the brain, because a crazy brain cannot solve problems. A crazy brain cannot understand the world through someone else's context, and why that's so important, it's called deep, active empathy, seeing the world through someone else's optic.

I got into doing this because every time we had a recruitment operation where we're trying to recruit an intelligence officer, the first question you ask yourself is, so why should they want to be recruited by you? Not why you think, because you know what if it was what I thought was the reason we'd recruit everyone there, there would be no spies.

If, because think about this. If I was great at figuring out why someone would wanna buy my product and I could sell it to them, then I would be the richest man in the world. I could sell whatever I wanted. Because we fail at understanding why they think they should buy your product, why they think they should be recruited by you, that requires you to deeply understand their life from their optic, [00:09:00]their lens, letting completely go of what you think, understand what they think.

'cause when you can do that deep dive and understand their life arc, the decision process in their lives, human beings can be and are exceptionally predictable. I call these things life arcs. 'cause if you can understand, like we started talking about at the beginning, that spark an inspiration that someone had earlier in life that put them on their path, that they're going to tread the rest of their lives.

You can now start predicting behavior. When you can take that optic back and observe without judgment or confirmation bias, both positive and negative, how they're making decisions and things that are challenges, priorities, and pain points in their lives. They're going to continue that same arc their entire life unless there's a major deviation in there.

And then you can predict what people are going to do and then you can see what those needs, wants, dreams and aspirations are, and then think to yourself, what can I do to be a resource for them in terms of those things? So that's how the process really begins and how you dive deep on this and it's [00:10:00] what gave me the ability to really zero in to do that.

Arthur: When relationships with people in general are a great source of joy productivity learning community and connection their core needs for people. Looking at how we walk into Rome, we meet someone, make conversation in general. Is there a view you have about how people , get it wrong in terms of learning about others?

And I'm particularly interested at, from the perspective, it, if there's someone very similar to us, it's quite easy to get on with 'em. But as you point out, different people have different energies and behave very differently. And, some people. Might have gone through trauma, for example, and, or some people can be very un, socially relaxed.

How do we make the most out of getting to know people

Robin: where they're at. A lot of times we think we can go to a school [00:11:00] or listen to Robin, give a podcast or a training session, and you're going to walk away knowing how to get people to do something. It's completely the wrong mindset. You can't get someone to do anything. What can you do to be.

Wanted in their life is the way to think about it. And when we talk about training, we talk about these life reps, it's understanding where the baseline understanding starts, but then you have to personalize it, make it personal for you and how you roll with your personality. But most importantly, it gives you that understanding is how does someone else prefer to be interacted with?

And when I say meet someone where they're at, we've heard that expression before, but here's what that actually means. The first thing is tempo. Oh my gosh. We blow through tempo and someone else's tempo, way off, way outta track most of the times. And that's what makes people feel really creepy. And that is, Hey, I learned this new skill.

I'm a very big extrovert. I love engaging people. I'm gonna go try out my skill set. And bam, they're in your face and they're going and they're trying to make it about you. And they're trying all these things. Meanwhile, the other person's tempo is back here. Down here, [00:12:00] it's over here, and they're being overwhelmed by you and your enthusiasm and the energy level and it's way outta sync with theirs.

It's very off-putting. So the first thing to do is make sure you are taking that deep breath, that second, that pause and take an understanding of someone else's tempo and at least meet the Matt it and go a little bit slower. Because when you go slower than someone else's tempo, you're meeting them where they're at, where they're comfortable, because the entire time, always it's a simple principle.

What are you going to do to inspire someone to feel safe with you? In every single situation. This is business alliances. This is in recruiting spies. This is meeting strangers on the street or even meeting people that you know in your life. In those moments, what are you going to do to inspire someone to feel safe with you?

And I, we use that word inspire because you can't make someone feel safe. Inspire means it is unlocked from within them. And in order to unlock it from within them, you have to understand what they think that means to them. What [00:13:00] that looks like to them is doing deep pause, taking all the data you're seeing, taking the tempo and meet them where they're at on that tempo.

And the other thing that you want to do too is people will think they have to be interesting. No, you just have to be interested and you have to understand and listen to with what I call active curiosity. What they're sharing and fill out those nooks and crannies. Be curious, and this is, we're not just curious about what you wanna know.

This is about being curious about what it is they want to share. And when you start out a beautiful open-ended question, like I already shared one already, and that is, what was that spark and inspiration to be where you are today. That is an open-ended question. They're going to give you response now.

You might have your own confirmation bias on what you think that response is gonna be, and you're ready to follow up with a question on what you want to hear about. You can't. Active curiosity means they're going to give you a starting point. And you gotta just have a clear mind [00:14:00] to just hear that starting point.

And then you fill out the nooks and crannies. Say, wow, you started here it is. Like Arthur, you're living in London. So tell me what was the spark and inspiration that brought you to London? And then I'm going to pay attention and listen, and I'm going to fill out the nooks and crannies. 'cause the other thing that struck me is that beautiful art behind you.

The first thing that struck my mind is when you came on screen, it's wow, what inspired that art behind you? And then we get a story and not a story that I can't wait to then tell you my story. I wanna double down and find out more about yours. And so that's what we wanna do. We want to be actively curious about what the other person has, what it is they're willing to share and comfortable sharing.

And you meet them with their tempo. That's how we form relationships. And that's where when we are doing these things, you're being deeply present for the other person. You're being sincere, you're being genuine. There's congruence between our words, actions and deeds that's focused on you. And when I'm focusing all my attention without an ask, without an agenda on my side.

Then your brain is saying, this person allows me to feel safe. I'm being valued, I'm being seen. The [00:15:00] dopamines go in serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins are firing in your brain. So this is where the beautiful brain of ours is firing 'cause this person is good for me in my life. And so the next time we have an engagement or it's on your schedule, it's on your zoom count, whatever it is, and you see me walking around that corner, you see it popping up on your schedule.

Your brain is getting excited 'cause you're about to have the most beautiful conversation because I was interested in you. That's what people are missing out today, is learning how to truly focus free of an agenda.

Arthur: I'm focused on other people. That's yeah, that, yeah. That's super interesting when you, okay. Colleagues, friends, people can be often confused why someone's not acting in the way that they're used to. And it might be in fact probably is completely related to what you're talking about, which is that person's not taking an interest.

Which can, your immediately one's mind's thinking, oh, what have I done? That seems odd and, one natural reaction or assumption might be, oh, maybe they don't care about me anymore. Let you know. Let's say that's like a [00:16:00] base worry. , Where would you point people to thinking in terms of how people's behavior isn't related, necessary to them?

And it's more about that person. And sometimes we have to be with people who don't care about us because they're not in the states where they can care about other people they're struggling with what's going on in their own world. What's a healthy, productive way for us to navigate in those situations whereby we can actually help them?

Robin: It's an unfortunate truth that it's not all about you. And that's what we often think most times is that if something, if you're engaging with someone and you have a normal established pattern of behavior with someone, and all of a sudden we get a spike in deviation from that pattern, our first assumption is me.

That I did something wrong, I offend. Again, if we are empathetic and we care deeply about others, we're going to automatically assume you know that I must have did something wrong. That I offend them, they're angry with me, they're, but the likelihood of that is [00:17:00] slim to none. Now, you might have done something to trigger a trauma response in them or said it, but it's never about you directly.

It's about something that going on in their head, in their mind. It could be completely unrelated to you, but it could have been something you said. And it triggered a trauma response in them that changed the behavior that they had, understanding that it's not you. Dealing with it's them inside them.

Now, first thing I do, and there's a lot of different theories and ways people deal with this. First thing is I do is I always own my own behavior. I ask myself, I go through the checklist very objectively and not self-deprecating wise. I say to myself, what did I do or say that may have caused a trauma response in them, and I'm gonna have to guess at what the trauma response might be.

But I will assess my language, my deeds, my actions, and to see if I deviated anywhere from my normal pattern, from our normal, healthy relationship. Now, if I do the self-assessment and I can't come up with one, then I say there must be another stimulus that's going on with them outside of our relationship.

And then to another aspect of [00:18:00] this, a lot of times if people are feeling excluded, if they're not being included in something, most times people aren't excluding you. Doing something directly against you, they're just not making a choice to include you. There's a big difference. So if you might not just be, people think they're always being considered by other people, most of the time they're just not being considered.

There's a big difference. 'cause like for example, so Arthur, I'm thinking about getting the group together and I'm going through my list of people I want to include in my group, and I get to your name on the list and say, Arthur you know what? I really don't like him. I'm not gonna include him. See, that's what people are generally thinking going on.

But it's not, most of the time people are saying, Hey, I'm gonna get to have a get together. Who do I wanna include? And they're going to now just pick some names outta there. Your name just doesn't come up in their mind. Big difference was you are just not being regarded and thought of, rather than being intentionally excluded.

And then you have to ask yourself, what am I missing that I'm not being included in? In what going on in their mind? [00:19:00] 'cause I've seen people being slight, that were put in. So example in the workplace, people put in for a job position. And they didn't get the job and they thought they were best qualified.

They interviewed well, they thought everything went really well, and they don't get the job. And they say They must not like me. No, not necessarily. They just like someone else more. There's a big difference, and so it's not that they don't like you, it's just that you didn't quite fit what they're looking for.

You didn't allow them to feel as safe with the making that choice as this person did. So then we can do a great ego suspension. We can look at the person they selected and see how did this person make them feel safe with saying yes to you to get that job position as opposed to me. What can I do differently?

What can I improve upon? Then we get after action. That's what we have relationships. So it's a, it is a constantly reversing how the world is seeing us, letting go of our own insecurities and our own trauma responses from those feelings of inadequacy, those feelings of being persecuted or wound collecting victim and realizing what does it look like from the other person's perspective.

Arthur: Super interesting.

Biasness we are [00:20:00] all, we can be biased. We can immediately think, oh, it's and have some kind of completely irrational concept that, we weren't invited because of something that we did or said that may have caused offense for that to that person, when in fact that person wasn't offended and it was completely is that, how do we be more aware of our own biasness, be it positive and negative.

Robin: those are tough. Specific when we like someone or something or dislike someone or dislike something, we have a very hard time not being confirmation biased on it. So it's easy to think in the world of politics these days, if you like one political person, there's nothing or very rarely something that person's gonna say or do that you don't agree with.

Meanwhile, the other side is seeing nothing but negative coming from that person because we're all doing things well and we're all doing things not well. But when we have a liking involved, we're always going to have a confirmation bias of positive or negative regarding that [00:21:00] thing. It's one of the things that people do in the area of I love the myth of lie detection.

The myth of lie detection is another beautiful area to really think about this. 'cause everyone's always thinking, yeah, if I'm a great nonverbal expert or a statement analysis expert, I can really detect lies from people. No, you can't. Only the best in the world are only 50% accurate. 'cause if so, let's look at, let's do a thought experiment.

If there was truly a great lie detector in the world, there'd be no court cases. There'd be no lawyer need for lawyers. There'd be no need for juries because we can actually see if they're lying or not. And it'd be admissible in court. But none of these things, including polygraphs or admissible in court.

Why? Because it's an art and not a science between it. Because understanding this, you can't. So when you're trying to detect deception, all you're going to find are deceptive clues. If you're trying to detect and understand truth, it's the same thing. You're only gonna see truth as opposed to just take in data.

[00:22:00] Just take in analysis. Just observe the behavior, look for the positives, look for the negatives, look for incongruencies between what people are saying.

Confirmation biases and how to overcome 'em is very challenging on our own. It's one of my greatest things I always advocate is a loving critic. A loving critic is someone that is a deep cares, deeply about you, but not the outcome you're seeking. So you can be, they're your objective person that can do that half step back from you.

They can look, observe, and give you feedback when asked for situations, peoples, and engagements As a loving critic for someone else, I am really good. I objectively see human beings, causes and effects, actions, intents, all these things very accurately. And all these things objectively for myself. It's hard, maybe 50 or 60% of the time. Because I'm emotionally tied to the outcome. I'm hoping 'cause that word hope comes in. Therefore, hoping for something [00:23:00] that's where the confirmation biases are gonna come in.

That's why I love using, by the word living by the word. Maybe someone says, what do you think's gonna happen? Maybe this 'cause maybe keeps me open-minded. If I say I think this, oop, now I'm gonna be in the world of confirmation bias. And so my loving critic who's on my shoulder someone I confer with, mine is my wife is a great loving critic.

My, my partner in crime with D two intelligence is Matthew Dunn who had on your show again, we're, when you're loving critics for each other and you have great alliances and partnerships, this other person can be that objectiveness when you're dealing with things that are very close to you, because it's very hard as an individual to overcome solo our own confirmation biases.

But you can, by using words and thought processes like. Maybe when you use and think in terms of, it could be either way, let's keep collecting data, let's keep assessing. I'm open to whatever outcome that might happen. I let go of liking someone, disliking someone because that's gonna bias us one way or the other.

I am just [00:24:00] curious about what is and not what I'm hoping it will be.

Arthur: Yeah, I think that there's part of the mind that likes to come to a conclusion, even though we know we don't necessarily have a conclusion. Maybe it's like comforting. So there's two situations I'm keen to get your view on. So situation one, is it's conflict. Someone you're walking on the street, someone just is gonna be verbally like super aggressive.

Safety's an issue. Are surely with your, I would've thought with your with your background, you might have some clever ideas that can completely pull out some tricks that can distinguish tension. And the second one is around. How we don't always pick, get to pick who our colleagues can be or or who's working with us on a project.

And how to navigate being with people who aren't impacting you in a positive way. And how to deal with that if you've got pragmatic views there.

Robin: [00:25:00] Yeah there's a lot on all these fronts, so I'll try not to forget. So let's, we'll hit the chaos on the street kind of situation first, where someone's acting pretty chaotic and potentially violent or threatening. There's multiple things to be assessing here, and the first one that I, when I typically see something like that happening, the first, my first thought is someone's having a moment.

I get curious what's causing that moment? Is it a mental issue that is universal? In other words, is it some sort of psychotic break? Is it a, an episode of over addiction, of mental health issues? And you can tell that generally if the unhealthy behaviors not directed, but it's spewing out and we've seen this, we've seen some, I call 'em nutters, all over the place.

Just spewing whoever gets close to them. That is someone who you're not gonna be able to reason with because there's a lot of unreasonable things going on there. So that's, you have to call a professional, you have to call law enforcement. You have to do something because this is someone who's very unsafe to anyone that comes close to that environment.

And so that's someone that I wouldn't even try to reason with because [00:26:00] there's no reason going on there that is someone that just, you need distance because they're all over the place. 'cause typically. We generally see in life, especially if it's in closer confines of a restaurant maybe a subway or in the tube or something, maybe.

'cause these are generally, larger places. But if you're in a more confined space where there's typically ty, more healthy people that are in the workplace, in a home environment or at a venue that you're at, those are typically. Being triggered by events surrounding that individual. They're angry or frustrated at a situation or an individual.

So we have the ability there to actually have a conversation potentially when they're ready. And the way to do that is, is to not engage them emotionally, but try to get their pragmatic objective brain back engaged again, because I actually just read a book right now. Mel Robbins wrote the book, let Them Pretty Popular book.

And she says a lot of similar things that the STOs are saying all the time. Ec and also Ryan Holiday and the Laws of Human Nature with Robert Greenham. And there's a lot [00:27:00] of stuff in there, but there's a few things that I thought were pretty unique, and one of them is that she reminded us that our emotional responses, we have happen in about six seconds.

We see an, we see a stimulus in the outside world around us, and our brain releases chemicals that happens in about six seconds. That gives us a negative response. That response only lasts in our brain about 90 seconds, and then it actually goes away. It doesn't go away. If it's being fueled by someone else, though, if it's being fueled by the situation or we dwell on it, that's gonna keep perpetuating, you're gonna keep fanning the flames of that fire, so to speak.

So what you can do as an individual when you see someone having a very directed emotional response, a negative response to a situation or a person, first question I do is I ask, what are you trying to do? What's the outcome you're seeking? I just go I go to, instead of why? 'cause remember, people will say, why are you doing this?

You're dealing with now the subjective emotional world by asking a why question. It's fueling the fire. 'cause they're gonna come up all these rationales and all these [00:28:00] explanations on why this and why it's unjust and why they're a victim, and why all these things are happening. And you're gonna keep trying to rationalize irrational behavior.

But if you go to what I call a what question? A what question forces the brain to be specific, it, it gets outta the emotional hijack and it goes back to the pragmatic brain. 'cause I say, what's the outcome you're seeking? It slows their brain down. 'cause then they're gonna say to themself, what am I trying to do?

And then so when they get off of the emotional response, there's no more fuel on the fire. They're gonna start thinking, what am I really trying to do? See how just, just think that to yourself when you're facing any kind of situation, someone asks you what's the outcome you're seeking in this situation?

Or something like that. Again, context is important. It gets your brain start thinking again. 'cause a second ago, when you're emotionally responding, you're not thinking, you're reacting. You get them, inspire them to start thinking again. When they start thinking that 90 seconds is gone and they start getting pragmatic again.[00:29:00]

'cause now you're not accusatory, you're not shaming them, you're not confronting them, you're asking them. You never I use the expression all the time. You don't plant seeds with someone by telling 'em what you think. By saying, you're acting unreasonable. You're being this way. You plant seeds with the people by asking them what they think.

By asking them, what are you trying to achieve? What's the goal you're seeking? What can I do to be a resource for you moving down that path to solving this problem? 90% of the time that's gonna deescalate. If it's someone that's actually rational in regular everyday life, it's falling within normal parameters or human behavior.

There's no chemical imbalances, there's no drugs or any other things that are at play. So you have two different types of situations now onto the what was the, what was the second

Arthur: call the tough colleague that is just,

Robin: So health colleagues. A

Arthur: yeah.

Robin: tough colleague is gonna fall a lot into that second scenario I gave you. Someone that's having a rational moment at work. If a colleague is having a moment, we say that's one [00:30:00] way to deal with it. But now you, let's go to the realm of we're dealing with people every day that we just don't like because they're annoying as sin.

We find them we find their comments disrespectful. We find the way they engage others unpleasant, whatever it is. I live by a motto 'cause I dealt with it. I was in the bureau for 22 years before I retired, and there was a lot of people I just didn't wanna be around. I found it the most frustrating place in the world to be is around people that are just a pain in my butt.

Because I was constantly trying to figure out how to inspire someone to feel safe, to say yes to my operations that I'm trying to do, to protect the national security of the United States. It was very frustrating. It can be for anyone in any job. But I live by the concept of I do not allow anyone to bother me and I will never be collateral damage in anyone else's insecurities.

And what I mean by that is people's way in which they engage. You always un understand this. No one thinks they're being an ass. No one thinks they're [00:31:00] gonna wake up in the morning and say, I'm just going to treat everyone like dirt today. It's just who they are. Your job if you want to actually coexist, is understand what makes them think that's normal from their perspective.

'cause to them it is normal. That's how they feel safe. And so if it's a really abhorrent behavior or a negative behavior, there's something that happened to them in their lives that allows them to think that's a proper way to do it. And most of the time that we're dealing with people we don't like.

They're rolling through life, dealing with their own insecurities. And the way we deal with our own insecurities, we bully people. We say we're passive aggressive, we say demeaning things, we talk under our breath. We sped rumors about people 'cause that is nothing but that other person's insecurities. And so what I do is I get closer.

I get closer to try to understand what made them who they are. Today. Again, I go back to my life arc of I love to understand what makes people do what they do. And if [00:32:00] you just have this deep curiosity free of judging 'em from being right or wrong. 'cause here's another thing, if you can let go, and I'm not saying let go of your own morals or ethics, but if you can let go of thinking of someone being right or wrong and just thinking in terms of they are, you can get closer and try to understand the behaviors they have 'cause.

You're not trying to change behavior, you're trying to understand the behavior. 'cause once you understand the behavior, you now have context. Once you have context, you know what that does to tolerance and understanding and acceptance. Skyrockets. I don't have to change your behavior. I just, I'm just trying to get it to not bother to live in hell outta me.

In the way it doesn't bother me is when I understand what made you who you are. Walk a mile in your shoes and see what decisions I would make free of judgment of that. Being right or wrong. It just is. Wow, that's a hard path you walked. Now I understand why you're so insecure. And then I say to myself, what can I do to make you not insecure [00:33:00] around me?

So you can lower your shields, lower your defenses, and make you not so insecure, so you don't act insecure and do and speak to me in a way that is just not fun or effective for anyone.

Arthur: That, that's such an interesting point, and I really, it's very refreshing hearing and clearly, one can see how influential you have been with all these different people over time, be it family members on helping them because you, you make it about them, right?

And that's really the quickest route to being able to impact people.

And and what's I find particularly interesting is how you bring in this notion of people don't understand or think that they're in the wrong. And, it links to the concept of innately we want to help educate people about behavior, but if it's normal for them or they've been through a life experience, there's no point.

So why change? And that acceptance piece is very powerful.

Robin: I don't, all I'm ever trying to do, and this goes to the, that deep act of empathy [00:34:00] and how to be present for someone. I'm not trying to get anyone to do anything. All I'm trying to do is I'm trying to understand the path that you're trying to walk, and I wanna see if I can be a resource for you walking that path.

More flawlessly, more effectively, so that you can do the things in life that you want to do effectively without being paused, without being hindered, without being frustrated. Because all I'm ever trying to do is understand your path let you walk it as freely and wonderfully as possibly can. Free of distraction from all the negative emotions you might be feeling, you might be experiencing, the frustrations, the angers, the resentments, all those negative emotions are hindering you, moving down, down the path that you've chosen for yourself.

Or maybe you don't know what that path is. And so I'll help you discover that path by asking discovery questions. It's if you feared nothing, what would you do today? What was that sparking inspiration all those years ago? Oh, was it this person that inspired you to do this? And then there's, you can see the spark happening.

There's little aha moments and there's, when you see someone having an aha, thoughtful [00:35:00]moment over a question you asked, not something you told 'em to do, but a question you asked them, which allowed them to think and about ha. What that's doing is it's letting go of the negativity. It's holding them back from walking that path.

And now here's where relationships come in. If I then have a relationship of trust, because I have no ask in this whatsoever. If they say, Hey, Robin, that's really profound. I never really quite thought about it that way before. Do you happen to know anyone or would you be willing to be, a resource on this path for me?

Absolutely. Let's see what we can do together. And this is how relationships are forged. And then when I do so with the, what I call behaves of trust, which is open, honest communication, transparency and vulnerability, which allows you to feel safe because I'm an open book, who doesn't want that in their life?

This is how relationships are forged. This is this is what mankind does when we're innovating and accelerating forward in a lot of areas because when we fear we don't innovate and solve problems, we hunker down and stay close to the vest when we feel safe. [00:36:00] That's when we're going to getting through the most challenging wickedly complex things in life is when we feel safe around others, and also we solve no problems solo in this world.

Zero 'cause not one human being on this planet has all the answers. We have a portion of this and a portion of this and a portion of this. And when we actually can, the person that coates all these things together and these great minds together where they feel safe, that's when things move forward. Fear.

It's a hindrance to everything.

Arthur: What are the foundations of psychological safety to you, and how can we create that or try and build that for ourselves?

Robin: I think the, there's a lot of things that'll apply to different people and there's a lot of different nuance and techniques, but I always try to keep things very simple, safe transparency. Just be transparent. Be genuine, be organic. Don't try to hide an agenda. 'cause inevitably everyone has an ask.

Everyone has a hope, a dream, an aspiration, or something that they're trying to ally with you on. Okay? Just tell me, so when, what [00:37:00] allows people to feel safe is that transparency. When you give someone situational awareness to the best of your ability, that allows people to feel psychological, comfort and safety.

The other thing too that does it is human beings are exceptionally predictable. We are all seeking safety, security, and prosperity for ourselves. And those we care about in our circle could be expanded, could be contracted. And just understanding what that means and looks like to the person is important.

'cause when you can be a resource in terms of that, it's great. But the bedrock of everything also is, we're all working on something. All of us are flawed in something. We're all have a, an insecurity, we all have something. So if you try to hide those things from someone else and you give a presentation of perfection, you don't build trust.

No one has that. So it's always been maintaining and dichotomy of what I call confidence with humility. This is where that vulnerability comes in, because when we can be vulnerable, in other words, Hey Arthur, I'm really good. This is a great example we just talked about. I can be really [00:38:00] good loving critic for you.

I can help you assess the things, the meetings you're having. I'll do, I'll give you everything I got 95, 90 8% of the time. If I'm giving you an observation that you're seeking about an interaction, a dialogue or something that's going on I'll be there for you and I can be really accurate for you.

Now, for me, myself, I'm gonna ask the same for me. 'cause I'm about 50 or 60% accurate on myself. I'm not flawless. I'm gonna be flawed on you, but less flawed. I am on myself. That's transparency. I'm saying, Hey, here's a weakness in myself, but here's a tool I have for this. I am not perfect for myself.

So I use a loving critic in all my interactions. That's transparency. 'cause when I'm sharing with you and I have the courage to tell you what I'm not great at. The likelihood that you can trust me to tell you everything is much higher. 'cause I'm not hiding anything. This is exactly who I am. And now here's the other thing too.

If you identify for me a blind spot that I was unaware of and I don't get defensive, I said, wow, Arthur, you're right. I never really thought about that before. What do you think I should do about [00:39:00]that? As opposed to getting defenses saying, no, I dunno what you're talking about, man. I'm good. You're off your rocker.

See what I mean? It's if I absorb the information you give me and I get reflective, I think in terms of, and then I double back, say, what would you do if you were me? What kind of resource do you think I would I should have in order to offset that? Who did I just make that? So it's all about me, but how, see how I reversed it?

I made it all about you. 'cause I was doing what I call the keys to communication. I'm seeking your thoughts and opinions. I'm talking in terms of your priorities. I'm validating you nonjudgmentally and actively curious. And I'm empowering you with choices when you do those four things, another human being, the entire shift goes from me to you.

And your brain is saying, wow, I feel safe

Arthur: Yeah. And taking a step outside of social interactions, how do you, what are the things you feel are important for people to work for themselves towards, to have a healthy relationship with yourself?

Robin: it is the toughest thing in the world is to avoid the cult of more and the [00:40:00] disease of comparison. It's so hard as a species, we do it all the time. It's how we function. It's how we set goals and objectives to try to overcome and get better than someone else by that disease of comparison.

At the same time, it can be crippling. 'cause when we're constantly comparing ourselves to others, we are only seeing someone else's five second highlight reel in life. No one's telling you all the dirty garbage that got them to the point that they are. And so always understanding that, hey, we're all working on something.

Fall in love with who you are and what you're doing and double down on that and always understand you're a student to someone and you're always a mentor and teacher to someone else. 'Cause that's the path to mastery. Mastery is falling in love with the process every day, with confidence, with what you know, and the humility to know I'm gonna learn something else.

And when you can keep doing that every day and not have self-loathing, not compare yourself well, I'm not as good as this person. Of course you're not, you'll never be good as this person, but you know what? You're gonna be further along your path than this person and get [00:41:00] rid of those words. Good or bad.

There just is. If someone is doing something that you hope to be able to do, it's not that they're better than you. They're further down a path than you. They have a skill set in a different area than you ask yourself, what are you going to do different? What are you gonna add to yourself to move you further down that path?

If you en envy someone, again, envy, good and bad. Envy's a horrible emotion. But if it's, it can drive you to push yourself in an area that's good. But maintain everything in moderation. Keep the dichotomies in balance and. And stop over judging yourself. Hell, we give so many. As a species, we typically give other people much more grace than we give ourselves.

Give yourself some grace too, 'cause we're all working on something and just have fun with it. This is a great experiment. We're all working through life on

Arthur: I, yeah, I feel like when you, as one gets older, there's more of a sense of I guess depending on everyone's path. That the, an awareness of, how everyone's got their stuff going on and maybe a bit more [00:42:00] empathy. One would hope that other people, they've, they've just got, difficult things that they're dealing with which results in different behavior et cetera, et cetera.

I want to jump into the world of counter, intelligence. It is a field of hugely limited resources. Is there this sense of, you can't catch every spy give us a flavor of maybe stories that dictated really around what counter intelligence is.

But also maybe, capture some of the like, interesting nuanced human behavior elements

Robin: so there's a lot to the world of counterintelligence. It really, and I'm gonna say it depends and it does depend. It depends on where you are, where you're assigned, and what your job is. I'll take you through my career and, some highlights on the different things I experienced in that world.

So when I first came into the bureau after the Marine Corps in 1996 going into 97, I assigned to work in New York City. And so I worked in New York City for the, really the big formative years of my career. And I was assigned [00:43:00] to the Russian military intelligence squad. My job inside the FBII was to recruit Russian GRU officers and military intelligence officers assigned to the United Nations.

So my job was recruiting spies, which is intelligence officers working a bath of another country. And the big aha moments there were, it was, first of all, getting access to an individual like this was hard because first of all, I was illegal for me to make an approach directly doing a cold pitch or attending something.

'cause as FBI overtly, it was illegal by treaty and law for me to approach a foreign diplomat that's a, that's working on behalf of Russia. So I can't do cold calls. I had to surround them with confidential human sources. I didn't have to recruit sources, human beings that were willing to tell me about their best friends, their colleague or someone they're working with.

Personal information, data that could help me understand that life arc of that person so I could maybe put myself in front of them. And so that was one of the great challenges there. And you're selling a product and a service of American [00:44:00] patriotism to someone who definitely on the surface doesn't wanna buy it.

And and it's also no one makes a split min minute decision to betray their country, no matter what people see in the movies, it just doesn't happen that way. Every single recruitment operation I was on, and that was successful, it was predetermined by the individual years, if not decades before that they were thinking and contemplating that they wanted to cooperate with a foreign government because they had critical life issues and situations.

They wanted a solution for that we had resources for, whether it's children's education, whether it's dying parents, whether it's not believing in the horrendous oligarch, Putin destroying their country and the world around them. There's all kinds of things that people have and so understanding. You're not gonna recruit someone.

All you need to do is identify all you need to do. What you have to do is identify who has that critical life challenge buried deep in their heart that they're not sharing with anyone. 'cause that thought, if [00:45:00] it ever got out to their colleagues, would get them killed or imprisoned in life. So finding that individual, placing yourself in their path, because if I initiated a conversation with them, first of all, it's illegal.

Second of all, they're trained that if a, if someone, if an American approaches them first, they must be intelligent. They'll never have contact with you again. So how do you place yourself in their path to you, the person they can trust to solve that critical life challenge in their lives that they've kept hidden forever?

That's what I did every day, is trying to figure out that rarity. It's like we call, I call it like buying a lotto ticket or mega millions or that. That one in million chance that you're gonna take. But my job every day was to take a chance on is it this person? Is it this person?

And after a while you there. They're very subtle signs that might indicate someone might be thinking that. So you can focus a little bit here. And one way we do that is we have allies. I worked so closely with my friend not particularly him in this case but Matthew [00:46:00] on a lot of, I worked with MI six a lot.

I worked with the Canadians a lot with the Australians lot. 'cause a lot of times these intelligence officers will have served other deployments overseas. They've had sources there. They've gained a lot of information about those critical life challenges and issues they may or may not be dealing with.

So it's always about not the individual you're trying to recruit. It's developing a massive team of yes. People around you that felt safe supporting you to do this operation. Whether it's foreign partners, my executive management, my finance division, my logistics division, my surveillance people, my linguists that are doing translation.

You are constantly developing massive networks of people as you're as a center of the hub. For that one question at one time, maybe you might be able to have a chance to offering this person to solve a critical life problem. So that's one way we do counterintelligence. Other ways, protecting the national Security of United States or NATO allies.

We have other critical infrastructure around the country. We have labs, [00:47:00] we have clear defense contractors. There's any, anything that could benefit another country by saving them money and resources and research is something that foreign adversary's going to always go after, whether it's agriculture because our seeds are really or grown really well.

'cause being bioengineered and they can feed the world. Or whether it's, nuclear technology or even something as simple as. Our meals ready to eat for our troops getting ready to be deployed. All this information is information another country could use to bolster their own standing in the world, bolster their own political agenda, and also, save them thousands of not millions and billions of dollars in research.

So it's a vast area that you try to protect for the national security of the world to keep it all safe and balanced place. .

Arthur: Yeah, I mean it's yeah, a very broad nature of challenges as you point even to, cross see, seed types and r and d. Are you, can you give us a few moments or people that you were just really taken aback [00:48:00] by, and maybe it was their motivation, focus perception of what was going on, just the way they think that you were just, completely in awe by

Robin: positively.

Arthur: Yes.

Robin: I'd say probably the biggest, I don't have an individual necessarily, although I have a couple examples. All the people's motivation I ever dealt with, and this goes cross spectrum. I worked I worked so many different nationalities throughout the course of my career. The biggest motivation of every single individual that was cooperating and being a partner with me for all these righteous things.

I call 'em righteous things to try to keep the world a safe place. And I use that free of judgment. I'm a very I'm all about, protect national security of the United States, but it's also, if you're going to do that, you're going to protect the world. Again, my optic, my, my context and viewpoint from the things I was doing, and every single individual is motivated by family.

A hundred percent. And everything else was an add-on to that. [00:49:00] They were always taking actions to benefit their family. Their legacy, their what they thought was important to them, and hugely by and large that every defector and I hate using that word, defectors, they never saw themselves as defectors.

It's a, it's a crass word to say that someone, 'cause they never saw themselves as betraying their country as well. They saw themselves as serving the world by trying to undermine really bad people doing bad things to others. So that's why I'll never call 'em that either.

They, these are great human beings doing what they thought was very good and righteous. And so to your point, you asked about Robert Hansen before. He's a those, it's very interesting. I never worked with people like Robert Hansen on the other side. Robert Hansen was a self-serving narcissist that was a wound collecting victim.

And he saw himself being not valued, undermined, and not getting paid enough money, all to the classic signs of a narcissistic egomaniac. And he was vengeful and took out retribution against the United States government justifying [00:50:00] it because he was entitled to it because they're so bad. And they treated me wrong.

I never dealt with anyone like that. I dealt with people. Now granted, everyone has their own rationalizations. I dealt with from my context very different human beings that were doing the best they could for their family. They, I, so here's the other thing too. Hanson had a price tag. He wanted cash. I never dealt with anyone from the other side that came to us asking for cash.

They're looking for resources for successful prosperity for their family. All of them. And these negotiations would go on for months at a time before people really truly agreed, even though they wanted to. What they're looking for is, can you get my children into the best schools in America for a great education?

Can you provide healthcare for me and my family for the rest of my life? Can you provide us a house and a place to live in a comfortable area that's safe? Can you take care of my [00:51:00] elderly parents and maybe exfiltrate them and get them out in their final years? That's not what Robert Hansen was cared about.

Robert Hanson cared about him. So the opposite objective ends. This isn't just one indi, I'm talking about every single person I dealt with that from the other side that we were working with. Those were their concerns. That was the probably the biggest aha when you get into this line of work is those are the people you're dealing with and who when someone cares that deeply about their family and trying to do better for the world, who wouldn't want to do all you can to help them do that?

Now granted, the information they're giving is profoundly impactful for national security. Profoundly, my Jedi master, who was my good friend, still is my good friend that I was my mentor in guide in New York during the course of his 21, 22 year career. Granted, if you have one of these cases to that you're part of, because there's very few people that are actually the case agent, 'cause it takes a team.

But if you're part of one of these operations in your career that's successful, that is a profoundly fantastic career. My Jedi master my good friend in my books, [00:52:00] his name is Jesse Thorn. 1414 successful recruitment operations in the course of 2122 years. I've never met anyone in my entire life that the world will never know about the impact he made on the security of the world by the things he did and the people that cooperated with him.

And how did he do it? Everything we're saying right here. And yeah, so the Hanson case, yeah, that also came about because we had a very successful recruitment operation of the person that gave us enough data points to figure out who Hanson was. And that was a very unique, very well done case, very unusual one as well because it was a targeted case.

Very rarely do we target someone for recruitment and are successful at it because again, you are on that wor you, you start teetering on that world of convincing someone to do something rather than inspiring someone who already wanted to. So it was teetering on that one Great operation though.

Arthur: It must be so hard to remain fact led on these cases.

Is there a moment [00:53:00] where where you've just witnessed a really smart sleigh of hand from someone in this situation.

Robin: Just buy stuff.

Arthur: could, whole situation could work out well or using a phone in an unusual way, just a bit of deception or that saved an operation.

Robin: So the, I've never seen a bad guy, if you wanna call 'em bad guys, use those techniques. Because you, and here's why. I've dealt with cases. We had the fake rocks, we had the signal sites and the dead drops. We had I've witnessed these things live and they're they can be pretty comical.

And the reason why they're comical is because they're very high stress situations. And when people are very high stressed and you only do 'em like once or twice a year, you're not really good at them. And we had this one situation where there's gonna be a signal site. And for this operation we had in New York a number of years ago, and the signal site was, there's going to be like a, an empty can, like a like an orange juice can on this pathway in, in upstate New York, [00:54:00] about an hour north of New York City.

And we're there observing us. 'cause it was actually a signal for a bad guy saying, Hey, the drop is filled. And this is very typical old school tradecraft still use it today. The old ways are still extremely effective no matter what the technology is. It just went from copying thick paper documents and put 'em on microfish to a thumb drive now.

But it's all the same techniques because they're very tried and true. And so we, there's a signal that the bad guy had laid down to say, Hey the fake rock is filled at another location. Lo and behold, it's along this path and we're in the woods. We've got cameras set up to watch this thing so we could actually capture it on camera.

And some good Samaritan comes by walking his dog, and he sees the trash on the side and he picks up the, and he picks up the trash and puts it in his bag. And he keeps walking. We're like, oh my God. He just picked up the signal man. And if we don't have that signal down, it's gonna be another six months before we have another opportunity.

So we're like, oh my, what do we do? What do we do? So we went out and got another, can mashed it. Exactly. Put it down there. 'cause we only had 15 minutes before the bad guy's gonna come through. And lo and behold, an [00:55:00] hour had passed since this guy went down the path. Now he's walking back the other way and he comes back the other way and he looks down, he sees the same can in the same spot again.

And he looked in his bag, he's, and he's he's freaking out. He's, he couldn't believe it. The dude picked up the trash again and he picked up and walked away and we're like, we are screwed.

So yeah, there's moments like that just are funny. But we've, I've actually been on cases where we actually had given. A spy covert equipment for communication, for photography and, and then secreting into secret compartments. And we equip them with all this stuff. And most of the time they will reject it and not use it.

And I remember, and here's the simple explanation. Spy equipment gets spies killed. And so if they couldn't explain away what they had and why they had it, if they're caught with it, they're gonna be, they're gonna be killed. So we, what we typically would do is we would always try to strategize, how [00:56:00] does this make sense?

If you're caught with it, it can be explained away and you didn't get killed. So no matter, and now there are covert comms and there's all these things and we do use 'em in a lot of denied. And that's what the CIA does. CIA does an amazing job in my six, does an amazing job of denied territories. We're gonna use a lot of that stuff.

But on domestic soil, both in the UK and in the States and other places, you're gonna do all you can to stay away from spy equipment because spy equipment gets people killed, but in denied territories. That's your only way of cove com and things like that. Yeah. That stuff is used pretty frequently and very effectively.

Arthur: And looking at the g, the GRU unfortunately they in the media a lot very active. What kind of profile person do they recruit and who would you recruit someone with a seminar profile?

Robin: That's a great question. That's evolved over time a bit. They're always looking for someone. Boy, they have different levels of their agents. You have the unwitting agent that is just giving [00:57:00]passive information that is open source, but it's being sourced to an individual. And so typically like that, they'll just try to, like you and me, they'll try to develop a friendship with someone and get some insights on open source information that they can then source them.

So it's now sourced information. So it becomes intelligence. Very benign types of stuff. And that's one level of source they'll have. And they'll recruit just anyone with access really. And they are like a vacuum cleaner. They'll try with anyone. And then you'll start dealing with more of the double full blown double agent operations where they're actually getting classified, where it's a very witting individual that knows they're doing a lot of bad and a lot of damage.

And typically it's a real balancing act because you have to have someone that is willing to betray their country. So say they're just trying to recruit an American or a Brit, they're going to typically. Target someone who's got the access in order to have that kind of access. They've gone through a lot of security vetting and screening and everything else, and so they're pretty emotionally stable, should be, [00:58:00]but they have to have enough life challenges and things going on in their lives that can be used as a lever of influence that the Russians are gonna try to use.

But a lot of times and the Russians do this too, very rarely do people target someone to recruit them. You wait for the volunteer to come to you. And so a lot of times, like all the cases we knew of, I mean there's cases when the Russians will actively try to target someone. They're the only way that those will be effective a lot of times if they're gonna use a honey trap or coercion or manipulation or leverage in some way.

And those are never great sources for anyone anyway, because everything they ever say or share is always suspect. So usually waiting for someone to come in and volunteer 'cause it's so much easier working with someone that's willing than someone who's not. And so if you have to convince someone of doing something, you're gonna spend a lot of time and energy recon convincing them every single meeting.

So it's a lot easier to deal with volunteers. And so typically they're, they'll take [00:59:00] anyone, but they're going to do a lot of vetting because we will send people at them nonstop to desensitize them

Everyone. So we use a, we do a lot of proactive operations to, to make them think everyone's bad because more they think everyone's bad, they won't take the real ones.

And so we're constantly doing those things.

Arthur: There must be so many fascinating projects on that to learn about how recruitment is done from the other side. Building websites, communities, forums and so much of it relying on empathy, replicating, understanding. How other people behave. So we're gonna move on to the quickfire questions.

Three things you get joy from,

Robin: my kids walking and reading and camping, sorry, backpacking, camping. I'll throw that into four.

Arthur: Great. A mantra , you want to embrace now would be

Robin: It's not how you feel. It's not how you make people feel about you. That's matters. It's how you make them feel about themselves.

Arthur: [01:00:00] wonderful. One unusual thing that gives you pleasure,

Robin: Backpacking,

Arthur: a favorite film, book, or artist that isn't obvious

Robin: Andy Weir who wrote the book, the Martian,

Arthur: best advice ever received.

Robin: start solving other people's problems and stop solving your own.

Arthur: Something you want to learn more about?

Robin: Anything that crosses my path,

Arthur: How do you get over a tough meeting moment or period of time?

Robin: realize it's not all about me.

Arthur: Something you wish you knew when you were younger,

Robin: That if I focus more on how it's gonna be a resource for other people's challenges, priorities, and pain points in life, rather, my own life would've taken a lot easier. Course

Arthur: the world works in a certain way. How would [01:01:00] you want that to be changed?

Robin: I wouldn't. The world has been what it is. I'm a study of, I'm a lover and study of history. It's all been happening to me before. It's all gonna happen again. Great court from Battlestar. Galatica,

Arthur: thank you so much, Robin. It's been such a pleasure to have you on.