I Was A Secret Service Agent For 25 Years — Here’s What I Saw

0:00 True interrogation is not what people think.

0:01 If you surround your enemy, they become very, very dangerous.

0:04 They know that there's no way out, so they'll fight to the death.

0:06 And when you leave a little bit of opening, they rush for that opening.

0:09 What were your expectations going into the Secret Service versus the reality?

0:13 95% of it is mundane, normal stuff.

0:15 It's the other 5% that you remember and that you

0:17 talk about 25 years later on a podcast.

0:19 I am Brad Biler and I'm a retired Secret

0:22 Service agent that did 25 years in the organization.

0:25 Brad Biler protected presidents and spent years [music] catching people in lies.

0:29 After 25 years in the Secret Service, he's revealing how polygraphs really work,

0:34 how interrogations break suspects,

0:36 [music] and what goes on behind the scenes of counterfeit investigations.

0:44 I grew up in Union, Missouri of all places, about an hour west of St.

0:48 Louis, small-town America.

0:50 It's very similar to the town here.

0:52 But yeah, very small town in the Midwest.

0:54 What was your upbringing like?

0:55 Uh great, you know, I had the white picket fence, two parents.

0:59 I played soccer growing up, played into college.

1:03 But pretty pretty basic upbringing.

1:05 You know, I grew up watching Scooby-Doo and Dukes

1:09 of Hazzard and A-Team and my favorite show was CHiPs.

1:12 So I wanted to be Poncharello and and John Baker.

1:15 So when you see that, you know, growing up as a kid in the '70s and '80s,

1:19 you think every episode no one gets hurt,

1:22 the police always win, you always catch the bad guy.

1:24 So I think I kind of grew up in that environment,

1:26 so that's what made me want to be the person with the white hat, I think.

1:29 How would you have described yourself?

1:31 Uh I don't want to use the word boring, kind of a square.

1:33 I stayed out of trouble.

1:34 I think that's probably why I got in the Secret Service,

1:36 cuz then they were very restrictive on drug use and previous activities.

1:39 So I would say pretty sheltered.

1:42 Were any of your parents or family in law enforcement?

1:44 Not at all.

1:45 They were all educators.

1:47 Which, you know, I kind of got into late in my career

1:49 teaching and I really enjoyed doing that, but nobody in law enforcement.

1:53 What was your plan to go to college for law enforcement?

1:56 It was.

1:57 Yeah, I did.

1:58 I went criminal justice and then I got my master's degree in criminology,

2:01 but when I went in college,

2:03 I had an experience where I interned with the Secret Service and thought,

2:06 "Wow, this is amazing.

2:07 I get to see these men and women who are very dedicated, very patriotic.

2:10 They do the right thing when nobody's looking

2:12 and they get to travel all over the world,

2:13 very supportive group." So, that's what really got me into it.

2:16 And then I took a job working in corrections, actually.

2:19 It was the highest paying job at the university.

2:21 It was a research job, but it was in the St.

2:23 Louis City Lockup.

2:24 So, you're familiar with the difference obviously with jail and prison,

2:27 but the lockup there, they typically had them for 72 hours before

2:30 they moved them to the to the workhouse.

2:31 And for 72 hours, we would have access to them to talk to them about drug use,

2:36 gang affiliation, those types of things.

2:38 And we'd give them a Snickers bar and a Sundrop, okay?

2:41 So, Sundrop, regional drink, very similar to a Mountain Dew.

2:44 Uh but very high sugar content and it's

2:46 better than the baloney sandwich that they had.

2:48 So, they were very uh appreciative of getting to talk to us.

2:52 And we got paid by the hour, so I wanted to have long conversations with them.

2:55 And I will tell you as a snot-nosed kid from the country,

2:59 talking to murders, rapists, robbers, pimps, prostitutes,

3:03 the things I heard and by being curious,

3:05 by asking them and having them teach me,

3:07 I would say, "How do you be a good pimp?

3:09 How do you make methamphetamines?

3:10 Oh, you take the match striker and then you do this, you take the batteries.

3:13 Oh, Coleman fuel, how does Like this was the old school like Nazi meth.

3:17 Like you would learn that stuff.

3:18 But what I found is and I think it's what you see on this podcast.

3:22 When you ask people questions and you want people to teach,

3:25 especially people some of the clientele that you talk to, their eyes open up,

3:28 they gleam, they're not stressed,

3:30 that dopamine's released and they want to educate you on something,

3:33 they want to educate your listeners on something.

3:34 So, that's what really got me on, "Hey,

3:37 I want to be a good communicator." because I think

3:39 if you let the other person talk 80% of the time,

3:42 you're going to get very good communication.

3:44 Good communication is like a good podcast.

3:45 You you do your research,

3:47 you read the books or you look at other people's uh history,

3:50 you warm them up in the green room, You you meet them.

3:53 You let them talk 80% of the time.

3:55 You tease out things that are interesting.

3:57 You pull them out of the depths if they go down a rabbit hole

3:59 because you know what your listeners want and you be an advocate for them.

4:02 And if you do that in any communication,

4:04 whether you're at college trying to court a female,

4:07 whatever, or on a podcast, you're going to be successful.

4:10 Yeah, it's all about being comfortable.

4:11 I've done say TV stuff or documentaries

4:13 where you don't even interact with the individual

4:16 you're talking to and you go sit down and your heart's beating fast.

4:20 Yes.

4:19 I attribute that a lot to say a traffic stop.

4:21 Like if I got pulled over for speeding, there's no disarmment.

4:24 It's straight, do you know why I pulled you over?

4:26 Or let me see your ID.

4:28 So you're really your your nerves are up here.

4:30 It's a significant life event.

4:33 So when I would interrogate somebody or interview somebody or polygraph

4:36 somebody or just interact with somebody as a secret service agent,

4:39 it's a significant life event for them.

4:40 And like you said, their heart rate may be up.

4:42 And some people that experience that type of stuff commonly,

4:46 they habituate to it.

4:47 It's not as big a deal to them.

4:48 So that's the careful part we have to be with the assigning

4:51 horns and halos to people is sometimes that 16-year-old kid,

4:54 they're not a felon, they're not a bad person.

4:56 This is a significant life event and they're anxious, they're nervous.

4:59 Whereas somebody that's been around the block, this is just a Tuesday for them.

5:03 So we don't want to say, oh that person's,

5:05 you know, they're not nervous, they're not a criminal, obviously.

5:07 It's just they've maybe experienced it more and it's

5:09 not as as big of a deal for them.

5:11 What do you think was the most important lesson you

5:12 lesson you learned in that jail that you carried over?

5:15 Curiosity and real and respect.

5:17 Realizing that everybody is the hero of their own adventure

5:22 and not everybody was given the opportunities that I was.

5:26 Not everybody had a great school district to go to.

5:28 Not everybody had parents that were busting their ass to to get you a car.

5:31 Not everybody paid for your car insurance, you know.

5:34 So seeing that, I truly realized

5:37 that I had opportunities that other people didn't.

5:39 But everyone's the hero of their own their own adventure and you need to try

5:42 to understand what makes them tick and how

5:44 they got in the shoes that they're walking in.

5:46 Because if we look at things from our perspective

5:49 for our from our perception versus their perspective, it's a problem.

5:53 I need to get into their life perspective if I want to understand them.

5:56 What did an internship at the Secret Service look like?

5:59 Man, it's uh a lot of filing,

6:01 a lot of uh did get to meet President Clinton,

6:03 which was awesome as a 20-year-old kid.

6:05 But honestly, when I met Clinton as as amazing as that was

6:08 cuz he's got a great handshake and he looks right through you.

6:11 But the agents that were there,

6:13 the counter-sniper team, the counter-assault team,

6:15 seeing the working shift for presidential protection detail,

6:18 I was like, "Wow, this is amazing.

6:20 You know, I want to do this." Uh so to me, that was eye-opening.

6:23 Getting to go to the range and at the time, I think they were using Uzis.

6:26 So getting to shoot an Uzi full fully automatic was like

6:29 That was the price of admission for doing all the administrative stuff,

6:32 but it was a it was a great opportunity.

6:34 They would carry Uzis?

6:35 So at the time, obviously either

6:37 on search warrants or during protective details, they would have Uzis.

6:40 They've moved on in their armaments now.

6:43 They don't use Uzis anymore, but yeah, back then they used the old-school Uzis.

6:46 There's a great photo that's been kind of going

6:48 as a meme lately that shows somebody took hostages in 1983

6:53 at Augusta National at the golf course and he they wanted

6:56 to talk to President Bush well or President yeah, President Reagan.

6:59 And the working shift uh got him out of there

7:03 and they were all hanging on the floorboards with Uzis out.

7:06 They were wearing Argo Argo socks, boat shoes.

7:08 I mean, it was like it was pretty rough the way they were looking,

7:12 but they looked like badasses when you when you put an Uzi in somebody's hand,

7:15 you look like a badass, right?

7:16 Are those even accurate enough?

7:17 Yeah, they're actually very accurate.

7:19 It's a 9 mm and if obviously you just hold it down,

7:22 fully automatic, it's going to start spraying on you a little bit,

7:25 but if you go in little short controlled burst,

7:27 it's The MP5 I like better, but the Uzi's a great system.

7:32 My only experience is Call of Duty.

7:34 Yeah, yeah, little little different, but not too much recoil.

7:38 So you can really keep it on target.

7:40 If you're wanting to be 50 m in and it's it's a very effective platform.

7:43 What did you know about the Secret

7:44 Service when you went for that internship before?

7:47 Movies.

7:48 You know, I watched like, you know, In the Line of Fire.

7:50 I'm dating myself, but that Clint Eastwood

7:52 movie where he's out running on the limo, you know, jumping on the limo.

7:55 He's 50-some years old and he's still doing that kind of work.

7:58 And I learned very, very quickly that it's not Hollywood.

8:01 The Secret Service is all about preparation.

8:03 It's all about being in the shadows.

8:05 It's all about one day you're working with a communist,

8:07 the next day you're working with a socialist,

8:09 then you're working with a you know, all different stripes.

8:12 So, I learned a lot that of what it's not,

8:15 but all I knew coming in was, "Wow,

8:17 this is what Hollywood is." And it's definitely not.

8:20 After doing that internship,

8:21 did you know that was the field you were going to go into?

8:24 100%.

8:24 Yeah, just with the people.

8:26 And I'm I'm sure you've you've seen this, but it

8:28 it's all about the people you surround yourself with.

8:31 In that I just knew these were top-tier individuals.

8:35 And it was a Crayola box of diversity

8:37 as far as their their We had college football players.

8:40 We had people that were accountants.

8:41 We had people that had no law enforcement experience whatsoever.

8:44 We had Navy SEALs.

8:45 And to to have that skill set is just so helpful on a day-to-day.

8:50 And it just makes your your life interesting.

8:53 And when you have to work 12, 16-hour shifts or you have to travel overseas,

8:57 it's nice to have people that are interesting.

8:59 Had you applied yet by the time you were

9:00 working in the jail or did you need some years?

9:02 to say I was just getting started.

9:04 It was about a 3-year application process.

9:07 I went and did juvenile corrections for about a year and a half.

9:11 And after I did I That's when I applied.

9:12 So, during that year and a half process,

9:14 I did my medical, my polygraph, background check, all that.

9:18 So, went through that complete process to finally get it.

9:21 And so, it was a good day when I found out, now it's time to move on.

9:24 Started in Chicago right after that.

9:26 How has the polygraph evolved since the time you took it back then versus now?

9:30 Not much.

9:31 I mean, really since 1939, polygraph hasn't changed that much.

9:35 Three Secret Service agents were actually

9:37 the first polygraph examiners on the federal end.

9:40 Uh, they went to Chicago and back then it

9:41 was just like a a 1-week class learning polygraph.

9:44 But the same components they used in 1939

9:48 are roughly the same components we still use now.

9:50 It's just obviously now we've got laptops

9:52 and the way we can calibrate everything.

9:53 You know, they had microphones in 1939.

9:55 Obviously these are a lot better microphones, right?

9:57 And the storage media is different.

9:59 But by and large it was the same.

10:01 It's just polygraph is all about how do you use it as a tool?

10:05 We don't rely on it.

10:06 It shouldn't be used in court.

10:08 Uh, we use it at the right time

10:10 on the right place in the person's right head space.

10:13 If like you said, when somebody just barges in doesn't

10:15 get to know you and they attach components to you,

10:17 you're not going to get a good read.

10:18 That's going to be Jerry Springer type stuff.

10:20 That's polygraph in the Jerry Springer world.

10:22 The way we do it is really tight guardrails, really tight with our questions.

10:28 Um, but for instance,

10:29 we use it in a lot of child exploitation cases on the criminal end where people

10:33 will travel to meet a 12 or 13-year-old

10:36 or what they think is a 12 or 13-year-old.

10:37 Obviously it's a it's an undercover agent.

10:40 And we will polygraph them then.

10:42 Or we will do a search warrant

10:43 on people that are downloading inappropriate age-based images.

10:46 So child sexual abuse material.

10:48 And what we found since 2004, I did my first one of these in 2004.

10:53 We we basically took this test from uh,

10:56 Customs at the time, then Postal Inspection Service at the time.

11:00 And we said, "Let's expand this to a very targeted group

11:04 of population." What we found is 60% of that population were hands-on offenders.

11:09 So the view that, "Oh,

11:10 these are just people are just looking at pictures, you know,

11:13 it's uh, they're not actually being hands-on." 60%

11:16 of those individuals what we found are hands-on offenders.

11:19 Many of them just atrocious uh, in what they're doing.

11:23 Now, do those individuals have to consent to the polygraph?

11:26 Yeah, absolutely.

11:27 And usually what will happen is they will get picked up.

11:30 So an undercover will lure them.

11:32 They'll pick up you know, to to catch a predator type situation,

11:34 you know, Chris Hansen type situation.

11:36 Hello.

11:37 It's not like that in real life though.

11:39 The SWAT team is the people that say hello and it's

11:41 maybe greeted with a taser or whatever the case may be.

11:44 But, then they will typically admit to yes,

11:47 I came here for the purposes of having relations

11:49 with this female or I did download those inappropriate images.

11:53 And the advantage for them is there are people that pass that examination.

11:57 So, they haven't evolved.

11:59 So, we triage it basically.

12:00 You think of an emergency room.

12:01 We try to determine who's in really bad shape here,

12:04 who do we need to look out for, and who's here for something minor.

12:07 So, the people that pass we view that as they haven't gone

12:11 down the rabbit hole that far and maybe we can help this person.

12:14 And the prosecutors will take that into account as well.

12:16 Versus the people that have problems,

12:18 I've had people admit to having relations with 30

12:20 infants and currently I got good news yesterday

12:24 one of the cases that I worked a babysitting

12:26 group that I polygraph the babysitter and her boyfriend.

12:29 They both molested 12 to 15 kids, but they just got 67 years yesterday.

12:34 So, I was really happy that they got the justice that they need.

12:38 They'll never set foot out again.

12:40 Now, the ones that are guilty, why would they consent to a polygraph?

12:43 Are they just twisted in the mind that they think they could beat it or

12:47 I guess the way you have to think about it is has there ever

12:48 been a time where maybe you went to a car dealership and you said,

12:51 "I'm just going to test drive this car, but I'm not going to buy it." Mhm.

12:54 Has that ever happened?

12:55 Yeah, it's happened.

12:56 Yeah, and you may have bought it from the showroom floor.

12:58 You take that test drive and you're like, you know what?

13:00 Why don't we go ahead and talk to talk numbers.

13:03 You know, I'm not going to buy it, honey.

13:04 And you're going to end up buying the car.

13:06 So, for me, polygraph is the test drive.

13:08 It's it's the opportunity to take them for a spin to chat with them

13:13 over an extended period of time and for me to elicit information I need access.

13:16 And this is access to where I can ask behavioral questions.

13:20 You know, I can ask "Hey Ann,

13:21 can you come up with three reasons why you think somebody would have

13:24 inappropriate contact with a minor?" And most

13:28 normal people be like, I don't know.

13:29 I can't even think like that.

13:31 You'd be surprised at how many times somebody be like, I don't know,

13:34 maybe they're going through a midlife crisis and maybe

13:36 things are I'm having a maybe they're having a drought

13:38 at home and maybe they were just looking

13:40 at some images and they went down a rabbit hole.

13:42 Wow, that's very specific.

13:44 So they're showing me where the dartboard is.

13:47 Um, for instance, on a homicide I worked, I asked that same question and I said,

13:50 Hey, can you come up with three reasons

13:51 why you think somebody might shoot another person?

13:54 Well, maybe disrespect, maybe they're afraid of that person,

13:57 maybe Oh, you know what?

13:58 Maybe I don't know, they bought a gun and they are

14:01 showing it off to their buddies and when somebody saw it,

14:04 they took that as disrespect,

14:05 so they brandished their guns and the next thing you know, bullets are flying.

14:08 Wow, that was very specific.

14:10 And that's ultimately what the guy admitted to.

14:12 So, those behavioral questions or the what do you think should happen question.

14:17 This has been around for a long time,

14:18 but people fall victim to it, guilty people because if I asked you,

14:22 what do you think should happen to somebody that has

14:24 inappropriate contact with a child, what would you say?

14:27 Uh, life in prison.

14:29 Exactly, right?

14:29 That's a great answer.

14:30 If I say that to someone that's done that activity,

14:33 they want to give me an answer of the punishment they would hope they get.

14:36 So, many times what they'll say is, Now, in your previous criminal case,

14:40 it may not have been that effective cuz

14:41 it was fairly it was a fairly minor case,

14:43 but on egregious or serious crimes, if I say,

14:46 what do you think should happen to somebody that shoots somebody,

14:47 stabs somebody, robs somebody, rapes somebody, whatever,

14:50 the answer should be a serious offense.

14:53 What I hear a lot of times is,

14:54 I don't know, I think everybody deserves a second chance, Ian.

14:57 You know what?

14:58 I think treatment could be very effective in that situation.

15:00 That's them saying that's what they want to have it.

15:02 That's the code for them, that's what they want to have happen to them.

15:04 So, it's not perfect, just like detecting deception,

15:07 just like polygraph's not perfect,

15:08 but when you put all these things together over a hour,

15:11 2-hour period of time where I have access to them,

15:14 I start now getting a better representation

15:17 of is did this person do that bad thing?

15:19 Is there a way to successfully beat a polygraph?

15:21 There's many ways to attempt.

15:23 I guess the way I look at it this is Ian, when I fly,

15:26 I fly armed and I'll check in with the pilot and I'll say,

15:29 "Hey, I'm with X, Y, and Z agency traveling here and they'll be like,

15:33 "So, you're going to do polygraph?

15:34 Polygraph?

15:35 I heard those things don't work and they can't be

15:37 used in court and you can beat them." And I'm like,

15:40 you know, I said, "There's about 350 people

15:42 on this plane that walked through a magnetometer.

15:45 Those magnetometers aren't perfect.

15:47 But, we trust that nobody's going to get on here with a gun." Right?

15:50 And he's like, "Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

15:51 It probably keeps some people from trying

15:53 to come through the magnetometers." I'm like, "Exactly.

15:55 Same thing with polygraph.

15:56 It's not perfect, but it's a tool." Um, but I said,

15:59 "As far as can it be beaten?" I said, "You're flying a 737.

16:04 Is there a manual on how you all these switches work and everything?" He's like,

16:07 "Yeah, it's about 1,500 pages." Did you have to read it?

16:09 "Yeah, I read it." So, let's give it to somebody that wants to fly a plane.

16:13 Let them read the 1,500 pages.

16:14 You know, yeah, they could do it.

16:15 Okay, then what would happen if they got on the plane on game

16:17 day and you shut the electronics off and you shut the windows down?

16:22 Oh, they'd crash.

16:23 Why would they crash?

16:24 Cuz they couldn't see what the inputs they were doing

16:26 with the throttle and the the the rudder and the throttle were doing.

16:30 Okay.

16:31 Well, and during the polygraph,

16:32 the things that they do without getting into specifics,

16:35 they can't see what that's doing to their physiology.

16:38 And since I know what normal physiology is after seeing it thousands of times,

16:42 those inputs are going to be out of this world and I

16:46 know you will get a thousand comments that'll say, "Polygraph this.

16:51 There's a reason it's not used in court.

16:52 I beat a polygraph.

16:54 Anybody can beat a polygraph.

16:55 Just Google it." Okay, yeah, we've Googled it, too.

16:58 All right?

16:59 The CIA, NSA, Secret Service,

17:01 FBI aren't going to use a tool that you can go on Google, learn how to defeat,

17:06 and then trust their sources and methods and who they have

17:09 stand next to the President of the United States with that tool.

17:12 That's flawed.

17:14 But, to each their own.

17:15 Okay?

17:16 Um, so, that's my view and I'm I'm a I'm a a realist.

17:20 Like I said, it's not perfect.

17:22 I don't want If you were accused of something

17:24 that may put you away for the rest of your life,

17:26 I don't want a polygraph to determine without

17:28 any admissions if that is going to happen.

17:31 Uh, so, it it it's a tool.

17:33 A hammer can be a bad thing and it can also be a good thing.

17:35 It's just how in what context do you use it?

17:37 Is the success rate based on the interviewer?

17:40 I mean, I I guess some suspects would be more comfortable with say

17:43 someone like you versus someone that didn't break down that that wall.

17:48 Yeah, I would say, you know, the operator does have something to do with it.

17:51 In the federal system and and in people

17:53 that have larger programs because you have good quality control,

17:57 it's really tight on what you can ask people.

17:59 So, let's say for instance you were planned to the a federal agency.

18:02 We have very specific questions we're going to ask.

18:05 So, we don't audible too much and go this way or that way.

18:08 So, as a result, you have pretty good statistics um across the the board.

18:14 You don't have a lot of outliers.

18:15 And if you have outliers, people are going to look at them.

18:17 So, we keep stats on everything.

18:18 You know, it's just like baseball.

18:20 You can see someone's batting average,

18:21 their slugging percentage, how many times they strike out.

18:23 You start striking out 40% of the time,

18:25 people are going to start thinking that there's

18:26 some issue with what with what's going on.

18:29 Um, so, as far as is it the examiner,

18:32 I will say I always like to um obviously got

18:37 to have a lot of personal pride in what you're doing.

18:39 But, on the criminal side of things, I view it as I prep like crazy.

18:44 I try to find out as much as I can before we enter that room.

18:48 Too many times, uh, in anything, people that don't do prep work,

18:53 they're going to suffer as a result.

18:55 In today's society, 30 years ago people put things in a diary,

18:58 journals, whatever the case may be.

19:00 What do they do now?

19:01 Put it in their phone notes.

19:02 Yeah, they put it Yeah,

19:03 they do put it in their phone notes and they also put it online, right?

19:06 So, because of that, there's so many ways I can find out what makes people tick.

19:10 I mean, what episode are you on?

19:12 Almost 600?

19:13 Okay.

19:14 That's 600 opportunities that someone could throw into AI and they'll say,

19:18 "Tell me everything about Ian Bick.

19:20 What are his pain points?

19:21 What are the things that he likes?

19:22 Tell me about his upbringing.

19:23 Tell me about his case." And as a result

19:25 of that, I could have AI put together a dossier that says,

19:29 literally, "If I wanted Ian Bick If I wanted

19:33 to befriend Ian Bick over the course of 1 hour,

19:35 what things would I bring up and what things would I avoid?" And as a result

19:39 of that, I've got a really good idea of what makes you tick.

19:41 Let's say we were doing a search warrant and I

19:43 was doing a search warrant on the the studio.

19:46 I would not let you see me doing the search warrant.

19:49 I would have somebody pull you out front.

19:51 I would walk in and I'd look at every picture.

19:53 I'd look at every book.

19:55 I'd look at every time you were smiling, every time you weren't smiling.

19:57 I'd walk up and see the uh the wonderful

20:00 prison set that you got up there with the commissary.

20:02 Okay.

20:03 And I would see all these little things

20:05 and I don't know how I'm going to use them.

20:07 But, I'll give you a for instance, like,

20:09 I'm doing a search warrant on one person

20:11 and he's got a Bible right next to the nightstand.

20:15 And it's bookmarked at the Book of Matthew where

20:18 it talks about Peter getting called out of the boat.

20:20 Now, I don't know how I'm going to use this at all, okay?

20:23 Um and he's also got a pitbull that he's a really big fan of.

20:30 I don't know how I'm going to use this.

20:31 So, during the interrogation,

20:33 we talk about he's he's at this kind of stage where he's just kind of thinking.

20:38 He's just kind of thousand-yard stare.

20:40 And I ask him about his pitbull and we

20:42 start talking about his pitbull and I say,

20:45 cuz he had told me earlier some egregious

20:46 things that happened to him in his upbringing.

20:49 And so, as a result, I said, "Talk to me about your pitbull.

20:51 Is it a great dog?" Yeah.

20:53 I said, "If you let it go at the park, would it be safe?

20:56 Would people Yeah, cuz I trained my dog." I said,

20:58 "It's a product of its environment,

21:00 right?" Pitbulls get a bad rap because people train them to fight.

21:03 They're great dogs.

21:05 I said, "It's just like people though.

21:06 They're both mammals." I said,

21:08 there were some things that happened on in your life

21:10 that create sort of zone of vulnerabilities.

21:12 When you were 6 to 8, you were molested, right?" He goes, "Yeah." I said,

21:16 "You lost your faith in your father." "Yes." And as a result

21:19 of that, it was like that pit bull that was trained to fight.

21:23 It changed your trajectory.

21:25 Okay?

21:25 Not because you're an evil person.

21:27 Most people I talk to are not evil.

21:30 But it caused certain vulnerabilities and that probably

21:32 led us to having this conversation now.

21:35 And then I brought in the book of Matthew and I said, "Look,

21:38 I saw in the Bible that you had on your nightstand,

21:41 you were exploring the book of Matthew.

21:43 And you had underlined where Peter was getting called out of the boat by Jesus.

21:47 And he was afraid.

21:48 And he was hurting.

21:50 And the wind was whipping and the the water was bouncing

21:52 against the side of the boat and Jesus was calling you.

21:55 But you were afraid.

21:56 You even put in your notes that you were afraid of commitment.

21:59 Now, look, I know you just met me.

22:01 I'm not trying to run a game on you.

22:03 All right?

22:03 I'm truly not.

22:05 But we both know that this situation took place.

22:09 We both know that you acted out of character on that day with that child.

22:13 And I need you to take that first step out of the boat.

22:16 I need you to trust me." And he just put his head down,

22:19 snot bubbles, started crying.

22:21 So, you take people's environment,

22:22 you take things that they've done in their past,

22:24 you you you take those types of things and then I will

22:29 start talking to you about things you do in your free time.

22:33 And you may be very adept at this in your podcasting world,

22:37 in your personal life.

22:38 But talking about family, people can't choose their family.

22:42 Talking about education and employment,

22:44 people sometimes don't have the same opportunities you do.

22:47 But talking about leisure activities and what

22:49 people do in their free time is priceless.

22:51 So, if we were going to run this out, let's say outside of the podcast,

22:54 outside of your personal life, what do you do in your free time, Ian?

22:57 Uh I like to go to the gym, take walks with the dogs,

23:01 um go out to say restaurants or Yeah, I would say those are the main things.

23:05 When you go to the gym, what do you like to do?

23:09 Uh usually will do chest one day, you know, chest and shoulders,

23:13 triceps, and biceps, back, legs one day, and then cardio.

23:17 some kind of modified push-pull system, so on and so forth.

23:20 So, let's just say I ran that out for about 10 or 15 minutes.

23:23 I was asking about your training splits,

23:25 your supplementation, if you're taking peptides, right?

23:28 Oh man, you're on this stack, you're on that.

23:30 Whatever it is, if I just ran down that rabbit

23:32 hole and just kept asking those type of the questions.

23:35 And then I said, "What is it about working out that you enjoy so much?"

23:39 I think it helps clear your mind, and I just feel better for the day.

23:44 That's how I start my day.

23:45 Okay.

23:46 So, the beauty of that is your dopamine's being released,

23:48 your cortisol's going down,

23:50 your heart rate's going down, your oxytocin is is being released.

23:53 So, all these neurochemicals that are good for me,

23:56 and the best part about that is the best voice in someone's head is their own.

23:59 So, you talking 80% of the time, and you talking about something you enjoy,

24:04 you're imparting that connection with me.

24:07 And as a result, the worst thing I could do is say, "Me, too.

24:10 I love to work out, right?" But, the worst thing I could do is say,

24:13 "Me, too." It's a wet blanket on conversation.

24:15 I'm sure you've been around people like that.

24:16 "Oh, what do you like to do?" "I like to run." "Me,

24:17 too." "What do you like to do?" "I like to collect this." "Me,

24:19 too." Like, shut up.

24:21 Let people bathe in their own situations,

24:24 and you will get so much more information.

24:27 So, if we did that for 10 minutes, eventually you'd probably say, "Wow,

24:30 Brad, so do you work out?" And then that's my opportunity to come in.

24:33 Let's say I don't work out in the gym, but let's say I love Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

24:38 Okay?

24:39 I love to do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu because it's

24:41 a way for me to just kind of escape,

24:43 just like going to the gym is probably a way for you to escape,

24:46 to get away from all the other business and personal responsibilities you have.

24:49 So, we can connect at that level.

24:51 Um so, that's how you find common ground.

24:53 Even if you don't have common ground, you got to go deeper.

24:55 You got to ask people, "What is it about that you enjoy so much?

24:58 And you would be amazed at how helpful that is.

25:01 You'd be a great dating coach.

25:02 I will tell you, it's so funny.

25:04 So, I wrote my book and at first it was for law enforcement,

25:06 then it was for communication.

25:07 And my son, who's a junior in college,

25:08 Andrew, he he's reading the book and he's like,

25:12 "Dad, I do this at the bar now." He's like,

25:15 "I I just The girls will be telling me,

25:16 'I love doing hot Pilates.' And he's like,

25:18 'Well, what is it about Tell me about hot Pilates?

25:21 Well, what is it about hot Pilates you enjoy so much?' And it's like, 'Brad,

25:24 I'm at the bar and 20 minutes in they're like, 'Oh my god,

25:26 you're such a great listener.'" He's like, "I didn't do anything, Dad.

25:29 I just ask questions." And I'm like, "Perfect." So,

25:31 he's pimping the book off to all his other college buddies.

25:33 So, it's a untapped source for me.

25:35 Yeah, what I realized is doing the podcast

25:38 while I was dating before I had a girlfriend

25:40 was the level of not quality conversations I had

25:45 before doing the podcast with people that I accepted.

25:47 And then when you you're doing this type of setting

25:50 for so long and you go on dates with people, you realize there's not much there.

25:55 Right.

25:54 Um and it just it changed my life having those conversations.

25:57 Yeah, I mean, you you know how to do

25:59 good podcast and you know what aren't good podcasts, right?

26:02 You've seen probably podcasts where it's a 50/50 mix.

26:05 Yeah.

26:05 Oh, and you can always tell even like if

26:08 I'm doing one and and it doesn't flow right, you can tell what's off.

26:11 But I think the worst thing when I do someone's podcast is they'll say,

26:16 "Tell me everything.

26:17 Tell me your story."

26:19 Mhm.

26:18 I'm already agitated right off the bat.

26:20 You didn't disarm me and I'm going to give

26:22 you a rough rushed up version of the story.

26:25 Yes.

26:25 Um and just to speed through it cuz now I want to get out of there.

26:28 And that's what I see as the biggest mistake.

26:30 And then also people that interrupt.

26:31 I learned that very early on doing podcast cuz I

26:34 had some of my best episodes early on, but I

26:36 couldn't get out of my own way and I just

26:38 kept asking questions cuz I wanted to follow a script.

26:40 And that's not the way to do it.

26:42 Yeah, no no doubt is that you got to have something in the middle.

26:45 If you're too much or if you just let you know,

26:47 if they just hit the play hit the record button and say,

26:51 "Tell me everything." That's not good either.

26:53 Yeah.

26:53 Uh you've got to have those follow-up questions.

26:55 And plus you've got to have the body language that that backs it up.

26:58 Too many times, whether it be in podcast or personal life,

27:00 people will be on their phone, they'll be looking away.

27:02 Oh, yeah.

27:03 Uh-huh.

27:03 It's like they're not invested.

27:05 We want to ventrally front.

27:06 What I mean by that is What is it What

27:08 is your wonderful dog I saw pictures of your dog?

27:10 and Boone, yeah.

27:11 Yeah, Bella and Boone.

27:11 I saw pictures of your dog there.

27:13 When your dog let's just do a a little thing about communication.

27:16 So, if you walked up to your dog or somebody walked up

27:19 to your dog and they walked up to it in the perfect way.

27:24 Hey, do you mind if I approach your dog?

27:26 They get down at the dog's level.

27:27 They offer up their hand, you know.

27:29 Um so, your dog's going to sniff it.

27:30 And they say to your dog, "You're the stupidest dog I've ever seen.

27:34 You're an ugly freaking dog." Does the dog know any better?

27:39 No.

27:38 No, because you're it's it's the way you're saying it.

27:41 And it's the same thing with babies.

27:42 "You're such an ugly baby." That's primal communication.

27:46 They can't understand the language.

27:48 If I'm in a subway in almost any other country besides the United States,

27:51 I don't understand what they're saying.

27:53 But what am I reading?

27:54 I'm reading the body language.

27:56 Um I'm sure there were times in prison where you may not have

27:59 been in earshot of somebody or you may not understood what they were saying,

28:02 but you saw from their body language,

28:04 "This is not a good time for me." Or now is an okay

28:07 time for me to sit down or whatever the case may be.

28:09 Body language is everything.

28:11 And we need to ventrally front.

28:13 That's exposing our tender bits, so to speak, to the person we're talking to.

28:18 Too many times, especially in law enforcement

28:20 we'll shake hands and then we blade away.

28:23 You know how cops blade?

28:24 They drop their dominant leg.

28:25 That's also the same thing people do right before they punch in the face.

28:29 Mhm.

28:29 So, we need to ventrally front.

28:30 We need to be heart-to-heart to people.

28:32 We need to have an amazing handshake that's dry,

28:34 that's warm that's at a 2:00 angle cuz I show you the white of my hands.

28:39 I will put antiperspirant on my hands.

28:41 Okay?

28:41 Because I'll always give you a dry handshake.

28:43 If you have a wet dry handshake, what does that say about that person?

28:46 If you shake somebody's hand and it's wet and it's it's cold and it's weak.

28:51 What does that say about it?

28:53 Uh that they don't pride themselves or they're not necessarily confident.

28:57 Yeah, that's a problem.

28:57 Or they give you the queen of England, right?

28:59 Whatever it is.

29:00 That's terrible.

29:01 So, it's the first thing you do in a communication,

29:04 it's the last thing you do in most professional communications.

29:06 You've got to have a dominant hand.

29:07 Not When I say dominant,

29:08 I'm not talking like Trump where we're pulling the hand back.

29:11 I'm talking about we go into a 45° angle, it's not a shake,

29:14 it's just a hold with eye contact and it's about 1 second.

29:17 We're not sitting there like the United

29:18 Nations like we're doing peace accords here.

29:20 Just a nice quick handshake while we're eventually fronting.

29:23 I give you a little slight head tilt,

29:25 a little eyebrow flash because neutral codes negative from evolution.

29:29 200,000 years ago when we were walking and we saw another tribe member,

29:33 I had then half a second to determine are you going

29:34 to kill me or are you going to be a potential mate?

29:37 Literally, that's how it went.

29:38 And if I saw neutral, I would code that as negative.

29:41 So, to avoid that, I give you a subtle smile which needs to be genuine,

29:44 but I also give you an eyebrow flash.

29:46 And when you do that to people and every once in a while

29:48 you kick your head off to the side that exposes your carotid,

29:51 it says to people I'm putting myself out there as if

29:54 I'm vulnerable and I'm not a threat to you, okay?

29:57 You've probably had some CEOs over the days, right?

30:01 That they thought they had to have that tough look.

30:04 They thought they had to have a persona about them.

30:08 How helpful was that them in in getting

30:10 information from people or being respected?

30:12 I don't think it was helpful at all.

30:14 I think the ones that are the total

30:16 opposite of the hard CEOs like the SIS investigators, they know how to work you.

30:20 Just like a detective or those guys are seasoned.

30:23 They're so comfortable.

30:24 They act like your friends and they know what they're doing, you know?

30:27 Yeah, and I say and that's the key thing.

30:29 When you said act like your friends because that's going

30:32 that's where we have to take it to the next level.

30:35 Because if you can see that it's acting,

30:37 everybody else can see that it's acting.

30:39 I truly and I I I haven't always been this case.

30:41 When you're talking to somebody that's molested 30 babies,

30:45 deep down inside I want to I want to bury them under the jail,

30:48 and I'm still going to have a smile on my face.

30:50 But, most people that I talk to, and I don't know

30:53 your thoughts on this, because I you've seen some people over the years.

30:58 95% of the people I talk to, murderers, rapists, robbers,

31:00 they were normal people or maybe not great people that did evil things.

31:06 They weren't evil people.

31:08 There's very few evil people out there

31:09 that wake up at 8:00 in the morning saying, "How am I going to go out and hurt

31:12 people?" It's typically situational factors that focus on that.

31:16 Now, once again, I'd be interested to know your thoughts

31:18 on that, but I just whether it be CEOs, whether it be cops,

31:21 with detectives, whatever the case may be,

31:23 I just don't think there's as many evil people out there as people think.

31:25 Yeah, I mean, you look at the majority of the guests on my show,

31:28 there's a lot of people that have committed murder, served 20 or 30 years,

31:31 and then they'd get a pardon or their sentence commuted, or a corrupt guards.

31:34 They're not currently still in prison.

31:36 So, they made a bad decision in that moment

31:39 where something happened that led them to that decision,

31:42 but they're good-hearted people now.

31:43 The episode I released last night, a guy named Tone,

31:46 he got a 30-year sentence, somewhere along those lines,

31:50 and got it reduced after 20-something years by the governor, and his victim,

31:56 cuz someone died in the case,

31:58 his victim's family reached out to him to forgive him.

32:01 The victim's brother he met in prison who also forgave him,

32:05 and it was just an incredible journey.

32:07 That decision he made 30 years ago is not the same person he is today.

32:11 So, I wouldn't consider him an evil person,

32:13 but then the person that sees or runs into him at the gym

32:16 that read the article might think he's just a murdering evil person Yeah.

32:20 without knowing all of the the background.

32:22 Yeah, it's easy.

32:22 But, in that moment, you have, when you look at all crime,

32:25 I have always viewed it as need,

32:27 ability, opportunity, and stressors lead to crime.

32:30 So, if I need it, if I have the opportunity to do it,

32:33 I have the ability to do it,

32:35 and there's stressors lumped onto that, and then I divide

32:38 that by the chances of getting caught for it and your morality.

32:42 So, if you don't think you're going to get caught with something,

32:44 the chances of it are happening.

32:46 But sometimes we have unintended consequences.

32:48 Like we have the war on crime or the war on drugs, what happens?

32:51 Um the price goes up, other drugs come into the mix.

32:55 Uh we try to shut down on prescriptions or heroin, what happens?

32:57 Then fentanyl comes in.

32:59 Um right now we're having issues with it's child sexual abuse material

33:02 as far as certain states are really cracking down on certain porn sites,

33:06 what it's causing people to do is look harder for that porn.

33:10 And unfortunately, where they're looking is in places that take them

33:13 down a a rabbit hole where they see really, really bad stuff.

33:16 So, there's always unintended consequences sometimes of what

33:19 we do from a law enforcement perspective.

33:21 So, now when you first joined the Secret Service, where were you assigned to?

33:24 Cuz I don't think anyone just goes right into a protective detail, right?

33:27 Yeah, we don't.

33:28 So, uh I went to Chicago.

33:29 So, it's 6 months of training, uh Federal Law Enforcement Training Center,

33:32 and then we've got a 3-month academy in Beltsville,

33:35 Maryland, where you learn about counterfeiting,

33:36 credit card fraud, and then obviously protection.

33:39 A lot of people don't know that for the first 50 years of the Secret Service,

33:42 we were strictly an investigative body.

33:44 Abraham Lincoln signed us in the law to stop counterfeit.

33:46 And then in 1901, we took over protection and then went from there.

33:50 But start in Chicago, and I was in the counterfeit squad.

33:53 That was my main responsibility, and then I would get pulled off for protection.

33:57 Um so, for instance, I was on the uh W.

34:00 Bush uh Bush 43 governor detail when he was running for president in 2000.

34:04 So, that was my first real experience with 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off,

34:10 24/7 protection, you know, in the limo,

34:14 running with the protectee, that type of stuff.

34:15 That was really eye-opening for me.

34:17 And it also showed you that um how

34:21 quickly your mind can change in echo chambers.

34:23 Because I was I don't want to say I was a Democrat probably at the time,

34:26 but you go out for 3 weeks and you're around a Republican talking point,

34:30 you're around supporters,

34:32 you're around you hear the same stump speech over and man I I kind of like

34:35 some of these thoughts and like same

34:36 thing with my buddies that were very conservative,

34:38 they'd go out on Bernie Sanders and for 3 weeks they hear

34:40 this and they hear that and now I'm starting to feel the burn, right?

34:43 So echo chambers can be very important.

34:45 So we really try to stay right down the middle and protect

34:48 the office and not the man or woman who's in that office,

34:51 but so I started in Chicago protection, then I got into polygraph after that.

34:56 My permanent protective detail was Bush 41, so father Bush, H.W.

34:59 Bush.

35:00 And that was a great time, summering in Maine, living in Houston.

35:04 Went to St.

35:05 Louis, which for as great as it was to be a polygraph

35:08 examiner in Chicago because there's a decent amount of crime, St.

35:11 Louis was another great opportunity just because

35:14 there's a lot of issues criminally in St.

35:17 Louis.

35:18 So the way we would do our polygraph program

35:19 is for everything that the locals did for us,

35:23 we would try to give back to them with our polygraph program.

35:25 So my partners and I,

35:26 we were very blessed to get to work a lot of child

35:28 exploitation cases and a lot of homicide cases well as in St.

35:31 Louis.

35:31 Then I went to Columbia, South Carolina,

35:33 the federal polygraph school where I taught interview

35:34 interrogation to the 30 federal programs that were there.

35:37 So DEA, CIA, FBI, all the major alphabet soup organizations.

35:42 And then that's where I retired out of, so.

35:44 What were your expect expectations going

35:46 into the Secret Service versus the reality?

35:50 Yeah, so once again, thinking uh the movie aspect of it and not thinking

35:54 I'm going to be in a stairwell for 20 hours.

35:58 And then you're going to get 4 hours of sleep

36:00 and then you're going to be in the stairwell again for another

36:01 16 hours and that a protectee's going to be running

36:03 late and that this shift that was coming to replace you,

36:06 they their flight got canceled, so you're working a double.

36:09 But that was the great thing about having

36:12 great people is when you have great people,

36:14 you can work through those situations.

36:16 Um so 95% of it is mundane, normal stuff.

36:20 It's the other 5% that you remember and that you

36:22 talk about 25 years later on a podcast, you You the cool stuff.

36:26 You know, going to three Olympics.

36:28 Um you know, being able to see Michael Phelps win a gold,

36:31 be able to see the redeem team win a gold in Beijing.

36:34 Like I'm not as a pop public citizen going to be able to go do this.

36:37 I'm not going to go to 40 40 foreign countries as a as a normal citizen.

36:41 I'm not going to do dog walks with Barbara

36:43 Bush or drive a boat with President Bush.

36:45 So, it it gave me some great opportunities

36:47 that weren't in the recruiting brochure, but that's the 5%.

36:50 The other 95% is you paying your toll, you doing paperwork, very mundane stuff.

36:56 How hard is it to shut out the noise

36:58 when you're on a protective detail like that?

37:00 Cuz you have to be so locked in and focused on everything else while listening

37:04 to conversations you're not even supposed to listen

37:06 to and how all that come at you?

37:09 you definitely um protectees that we've been with us a long time,

37:12 they treat us just like a you know, like we're just a bump on a log.

37:17 They're so used to having these conversations.

37:20 The newer protectees, I think at first they kind of like,

37:22 should we go in the other room before we have this conversation?

37:24 But that's one of the things I will pride my organization

37:27 on is we're very good about not disclosing those types of secrets.

37:32 Because the moment you do, your protectees are not going to trust you and they

37:36 are going to distance themselves from us and as a result,

37:39 we're not going to be able to do our job.

37:40 So, I think even when you see Secret Service books,

37:44 there's never really anything in there.

37:45 There may be stuff about the organization and failings of the organization,

37:49 but you really don't see anything about you know,

37:52 kiss and tell type stuff that from the protectees.

37:54 Yeah, cuz it's just straight unprofessional.

37:56 It is and it's like I said,

37:58 very honorable that we don't do that because I'm sure there's a market for it.

38:02 Um I'm sure that you could sell books and get clicks on you know,

38:05 some kind of YouTube short for it, but uh but no,

38:08 I think we've been very good about not doing that.

38:11 But in the moment, how hard is it for you to put

38:14 that to the side when you do hear something and continue your job for the day?

38:18 Yeah, I would say without getting into specifics,

38:20 you hear certain things where you're like, "Wow, that I I can't believe I just

38:25 heard that." Um and then sometimes you're surprised

38:29 like I was on Israel one week and then I'm on Iran the next week.

38:34 And when Ahmadinejad came into country, you're like,

38:37 "Oh, the Iranians are such bad people,

38:39 right?" They were some of the most professional their their secret service.

38:43 Ahmadinejad was only on was always on time.

38:46 Um they were very chatty.

38:48 Once again, we got to be careful with what we talk about.

38:50 I mean, we're not giving up any national security secrets,

38:52 but you talk to these foreign details and they

38:55 put their shoes on and off just like we do.

38:57 They're worried about missing their wife's anniversary just like we do.

39:00 Uh so, you you learn people are people um across the spectrum.

39:06 I mean, I was in Japan right after that and I'm with their security guard.

39:09 Once again, we're in a stairwell for 20 hours a day and I'm using

39:12 Google Translate and we're having this amazing

39:13 conversation with this Japanese Secret Service agent.

39:16 And he's from Hiroshima.

39:18 Like 70 years ago, we bombed with an atomic bomb.

39:21 We're we're buddies.

39:23 He's bringing in pastries that his wife's making each

39:25 night each each day and he's telling me about

39:28 his kids and their love of K-pop and all

39:30 this stuff and it's like I said, people are people.

39:33 So, um to me, that's really what I remembered.

39:35 In the moment, you're so focused,

39:37 especially let's let's say you're um doing a large-scale protective event.

39:43 You're so focused on the crowd that really

39:46 the noise just kind of goes into the background.

39:48 It's almost like those times when you're driving and you're almost like, "Hey,

39:51 how did I get how did I get to work?" How you know,

39:53 like you're just you're so zoned in to everybody's

39:57 faces and everybody's hands that you typically what

40:00 they're saying is it's almost like when you're

40:02 on a protectee that has the same stump speech,

40:05 you hear the last like 15 seconds before they wrap up and you're like,

40:08 "Okay, now we're ready to to go to the rope line,

40:10 so turn it on now." But you're in kind of a weird haze when

40:13 you're kind of taking it all in, so um I would say not too difficult.

40:17 I will I will say, you know,

40:19 and and as evidence of that, we can talk about Butler as far as the things

40:23 that went wrong in the planning and in the post standing of that on that day,

40:27 but as far as the reaction, I think you saw those men and women very

40:32 very quickly jump on President Trump and, you know,

40:37 kind of put their lives on the line and they the CS,

40:39 the counter sniper, put a round on the target.

40:42 You know, once again, it's too late.

40:43 Um, we were very blessed that nothing,

40:46 you know, more ominous happened uh to Trump.

40:49 Um, obviously a firefighter, Mr.

40:52 you know, Corey Campitor, obviously, you know,

40:54 he he passed on and and his wife's got to live

40:56 with that and family's got to live with that, but it was a failure,

40:59 but I think you saw in that reaction that they were able to react very quickly.

41:03 Now, have sunglasses always been associated with the Secret Service?

41:08 You know, I don't know when that started.

41:09 I will say, yes, it seems to be it was the Ray-Bans, the Oakleys.

41:13 Um, we do get discounts Okay.

41:16 Yeah, you do.

41:17 You do.

41:17 Or you'll have uh certain sunglass companies will give them to agents

41:21 and cuz they want you to wear them and those types of stuff,

41:24 but uh I think it's it's uh it's sunny and I don't want to squint.

41:28 I think people make it out to be so you can't see where we're looking,

41:31 so you look the part.

41:31 No, it's just sunny.

41:33 Like if I'm at an outdoor event,

41:35 I don't want to be squinting and and not be able to see,

41:37 so I think a lot of the mystique

41:38 has been brought on by Hollywood associated with that.

41:41 Um, but yeah, a good pair of sunglasses is is a definite must.

41:44 What about the the suits and ties?

41:46 Are you able to move around efficiently with with that on?

41:50 Having a good suit is key because the problem is you're wearing, you know,

41:54 uh certain things underneath your your suit

41:57 uh from a protection standpoint, Kevlar and such.

42:00 So, you have to get them cut a certain way because if you get cut, you know,

42:04 the problem one time I went to Thailand and and I was like,

42:07 we're going to get some suits really cheap, right?

42:09 And they make them right there.

42:11 The problem was they do that European cut.

42:13 It's very slim fit.

42:14 Uh it's not a that doesn't work for me

42:16 and it definitely doesn't work when you get your gun,

42:17 badge, radio, spare mags, those types of things.

42:19 So, you have to get it almost flared out and it's it's

42:22 a custom fit and it's not real it doesn't look great cuz you have

42:26 to get a suit that's or a and then you have to get

42:28 a shirt that's a little bit bigger so that you can get that under.

42:30 So, the problem is is that holds the heat

42:33 in and if you're doing an outdoor event, it is awful.

42:37 Okay, it's uh where it was really tough I know was in 2000

42:41 when we were on the governor's detail when when uh he was running.

42:44 Bush was a hell of a runner.

42:45 I mean, he was running fast and he was smoking a lot of our agents.

42:48 So, uh this was about 40 lbs ago for me, but I could run at the time.

42:52 But uh I just remember we would he would

42:56 run and then three or four agents that were

42:57 running with him we'd get back to the hotel

42:59 before he would go to his next event and man, we had to we had to do Superman

43:04 changes where we're getting out of our running clothes,

43:06 we're all sweaty, we're we're jumping in the shower for about

43:09 20 seconds just to wash yourself off and then we're putting

43:11 our suits on now and we're still sweating cuz you know how

43:14 it is when you you've been sweating you can take a shower.

43:16 If you don't take a shower for 20 30 minutes, you're still sweating.

43:19 Now you're sweating into the Kevlar,

43:20 you're sweating into the suit um because we're

43:22 trying to hurry because he's only one person.

43:24 He's putting on his stuff and he's ready to go.

43:26 He's not waiting on us.

43:28 Uh so that was always uh an interesting part.

43:31 You learn how to change your clothes very very quickly.

43:33 What about the shoes?

43:33 Is it comfortable to wear those?

43:35 Can you wear sneakers?

43:36 You can't wear sneakers.

43:37 Um the the way we dress, I mean,

43:39 there's no I don't want to say there's a dress code,

43:42 but it's kind of frowned upon to wear anything other than blue or black.

43:46 You want to wear a pretty neutral tie.

43:49 And the shoes, you're not going to want

43:51 to wear the the the wood and leather bottom shoes.

43:54 You're going to do that you're going to wear those at nice Allen Edmonds

43:57 or whatever they are the one time and then you're going to be like,

43:59 "Wow, standing on marble is not fun." Because that's what it is.

44:02 You're in government buildings,

44:04 it's not this wonderful shag carpet that you have here.

44:07 It's marble.

44:09 And you're standing there and it's it's awful.

44:11 So, you're going to get a very comfortable looking

44:13 almost orthopedic looking Forrest Gump type pair of shoes.

44:17 It's not the most stylish thing, but your your feet appreciate it.

44:20 My dad is a caterer and there's a picture upstairs with him and Bill Clinton.

44:24 He got to cater an event at his and he wanted to bring the best plate of food,

44:29 like lay it out for him on the table

44:32 and the Secret Service agents came in, said,

44:34 "You got to put that back." And then they mixed

44:36 up like a hundred plates all over on the counter.

44:39 So that you're not targeting, you know,

44:41 if your if your dad would have really been a, you know,

44:43 Manchurian candidate or a bad guy, right?

44:45 then they taste everyone, too, before it even gets served.

44:48 That's so interesting.

44:49 Yeah, I mean, I guess you have to because you've seen

44:51 some of the things that have happened geopolitically across the world.

44:54 You've seen that type of stuff happen since Roman days, right?

44:57 So.

44:59 Now, when they recruit,

44:59 do they ask about politics at all for the individual agent?

45:03 not so much because I think people can really do a good job of separating it.

45:07 Um, the problem is in the times we're in now,

45:10 we're just getting so, you know, extreme on both sides.

45:13 So, your applicant pool is getting more extreme

45:15 just like the rest of the population is.

45:18 But even then, I mean,

45:19 we have people that take care of communists that come into this country.

45:22 We have people that take care of very,

45:23 very right-wing people and many of those people

45:26 are complete opposites of the protectees.

45:28 So, we you talked about being able to separate it earlier,

45:32 you know, how how do you get the mindset?

45:34 And and I truly have never thought

45:36 about the person's politics that I was protecting.

45:38 Just never really thought about it.

45:41 So, um, there's no real way, I guess, to gauge that.

45:44 We do have some great interview questions that try

45:46 to eliminate the extremes without getting into, uh,

45:48 specifics, but um, that's a great I've never been asked that question,

45:52 so so I appreciate it is that, uh,

45:53 I think that's one of the most honorable things about the organization

45:56 is that it tries to stay center as much as possible.

46:00 Yeah, I mean, I compare that to first responders

46:03 that respond to a shooter who just killed three people,

46:06 took a bullet by law enforcement, they have to go save those individuals.

46:09 Yeah, it's like a Hippocratic oath, you know, doing the right thing,

46:12 but that's a perfect example of that is

46:13 that you can separate your job from your personal politics.

46:16 Yeah, absolutely.

46:17 How hard was it to transition from investigations

46:20 to detail and then say back to investigations?

46:23 You know, it's good because you can't do protection for more than 5 or 6 years.

46:29 Um when I say that, permanent protection.

46:31 And even then, it's very straining

46:33 because it's going to hurt your relationships.

46:35 Um you know, it's hard to stay in shape when you're constantly doing that.

46:39 You're missing things.

46:40 I missed 17 wedding anniversaries.

46:42 We made the mistake of getting married, my wife and I, um in September,

46:45 and that's always when the United Nations General Assembly is in New York,

46:48 uh which is great because it's like

46:49 a class reunion to meet your agent buddies again,

46:51 and it's a decent time of the year to be there,

46:54 uh but 17 times I had to send flowers.com like, "Man, I'm sorry.

46:58 I love you, baby." Um So, yeah, that that part of it uh is difficult,

47:02 but I think it makes the best of you.

47:06 And and and I'll give you a quick story.

47:07 So, um I just come on the job and it

47:11 was one of these situations where I'm a snot-nosed kid,

47:13 and I'm doing what's called the protective intelligence advance,

47:15 which normally it's not a heavy lift.

47:17 You without getting into specifics,

47:19 you do some some record checks on the front end,

47:21 and you're there on game day to control protesters

47:23 and any issues that may pop up from an intelligence standpoint.

47:27 Well, of course, Murphy's law, the day before the visit, we get a phone call,

47:30 and it's like a guy between probably 40 and 70 by his voice,

47:35 calls in, and it's the old answering machine,

47:39 calls the answering machine at the Republican headquarters in the small

47:41 town that we're going to, and it's like, "I'm a sniper.

47:44 I'm a former Marine.

47:46 I don't miss.

47:48 I'm going to take him out." And uh of course,

47:50 we got an open-air event the next day, and I'm like, "I don't know what to do,

47:54 right?" I mean, common sense, I need to try to figure this out,

47:57 but So, thankfully, I had this guy named Bill.

48:00 He's like an OG detect like he'd been on the job,

48:04 I don't know, 20, 30 years, and he had done everything.

48:07 But, just so laid-back.

48:09 Like, not bragadocious or peacocking in any way.

48:13 So, he said, "Son, we got this." And he took me out,

48:16 and it was they traced the phone call to like a payphone.

48:19 And he whips out his Spyderco pocket knife, and like,

48:24 I don't know if you can visualize a payphone.

48:26 Like, not too many Some of you listening are like,

48:27 "What's a payphone?" You actually put coins in it, right?

48:31 Um so, he goes to the payphone, and he just he doesn't have gloves.

48:34 He just takes like the Ziploc bag,

48:35 puts the and the the hand phone handle over it,

48:38 and he's grinding through this like metal thing

48:41 that's holding the phone on the the wire,

48:43 and he cuts through it, and he's like, "All right,

48:44 in case we need that for evidence." And I'm like,

48:46 "Whoa." Um and this is like an abandoned strip mall.

48:49 He kicks over the little trash can right there,

48:53 and he starts going through, and there's dirty diapers and vomit and old,

48:57 you know, malt liquor bottles, and I'm like,

48:59 "What are you doing?" He sees this little paper cup, this little foam cup,

49:03 and it's got a yellow piece of paper in it,

49:04 and he just takes his little knife, and he pops it open,

49:06 lays it out, and it's the phone number to the Republican

49:10 place that had the phone call go to it.

49:12 I'm like, I can't believe this.

49:13 Like, wow, you know?

49:15 So, we go to the local Quick Marts looking for the cup.

49:18 Nah, that's too small.

49:19 About two blocks away is this little Imagine like

49:23 um a Wegmans or like a a grocery store.

49:26 And we go in, and hey, looking for the manager,

49:29 and the way he's talking to the manager is like,

49:31 "Do you have anybody that's politically opinionated between 40 and 70,

49:34 male?" And the manager's kind of thinking, and while he's thinking,

49:37 he looks on the wall, and he sees those cups next to the coffee.

49:42 Then he goes over, and while he's doing

49:43 that, there's a yellow notepad on the wall.

49:46 And that yellow notepad has a yellow piece

49:47 of paper that's torn off that's the exact same

49:49 as that the yellow piece of paper he found

49:51 from the trash can with the number on it.

49:53 And he's like, "Well,

49:54 obviously that person works here." He looks in the yellow pages,

49:57 the Republican National Headquarters number is underlined.

50:00 So, obviously he knows that person works here.

50:02 He says the manager who was on shift at such

50:04 and such time uh that was a male between 40 and 70.

50:07 We got three people.

50:09 We pull their employment apps.

50:10 The first employment application because it was handwritten,

50:13 we're able to do a little quick impromptu handwriting analysis,

50:17 and he had a strike through on his sevens,

50:18 and he had a layover on his twos that was a perfect match.

50:21 And I was like, "Wow.

50:23 Okay." So, he calls the local PD.

50:25 We rush out to the house.

50:26 It's about 10:30 now.

50:27 The visit's the next morning.

50:28 So, time's of the essence.

50:30 Knock on the door.

50:30 Small Midwestern town.

50:32 The lady comes in her pajamas, but she's still up.

50:35 And she's like, "Hello." So nice.

50:37 And he did it.

50:38 Hey, I'm agent you know,

50:39 he's Bill and this is agent Beeler and uh we would like to talk to your husband.

50:44 "Oh, okay." She's like, "Uh would you like anything to drink?" And he's like,

50:49 "We'll be here for a little bit.

50:50 So, if you wouldn't mind putting on a pot of coffee,

50:52 that'd be great." She's like, "Absolutely.

50:54 You want cream?" "Sure." And we walk in and it's about 20

50:58 ft down the hallway to where he's tying fish flies or something,

51:01 something very genuine and Norman Rockwellian on the the kitchen table.

51:06 But as Bill is walking down the hall, he sees these two pictures on the wall.

51:10 He sees a picture of his Marine Corps photo from Vietnam.

51:13 And he sees his next photo of his the the lady that had just answered the door,

51:16 so his now wife um probably from the '60s.

51:20 So, he's been married for a long time.

51:22 So, he walks up to to this cat and he says, "Hey." Introduces herself.

51:26 He says, "Hey, we're Secret Service.

51:27 We do two things.

51:29 We protect the president and people running for president,

51:31 and we also stop people that counterfeit money." He goes,

51:35 "When's the Have you been counterfeiting any money recently?" And the guy says,

51:39 "No." He goes, "Well, now you know why we're here." And he goes,

51:42 "The reason I'm talking to you the way I'm

51:44 talking to you is cuz you've served this country.

51:46 You've been committed, I can tell by the photo on the wall,

51:48 to a wonderful woman who's now making us some coffee.

51:51 She doesn't know what we're talking about right now.

51:53 But I think what we're about to talk

51:54 about is you got in a politically charged conversation.

51:56 You said something you regret, and unfortunately made a phone call.

52:00 And if we can collect those weapons

52:02 and we can understand that you're not a threat, we can handle it this way.

52:05 If you look at me and you say I don't know what you're talking about,

52:06 we're going to have to handle it a different way.

52:08 So, which way are we going to handle it?

52:10 And he just put his head down and he said, "I made a mistake." And that was it.

52:13 And I saw So, to answer as as kind of a a go around to your question,

52:18 the investigations helped the protection.

52:21 And his protection experience helped the investigations.

52:24 And that's why I would never want to see

52:26 the Secret Service lose all its investigations because they

52:28 make you so much better in your ability to talk

52:30 to people in order to accomplish the protective mission.

52:33 What happened to him?

52:34 Did he get arrested?

52:35 He did.

52:35 He got arrested.

52:36 I want to say he was in his late 70s, and uh you know,

52:40 as you know, they take those types of things into account,

52:42 and I believe he got probation.

52:45 Now, moments like those must must happen even more so now than ever,

52:48 especially when you have social media, people writing things.

52:51 and and as you know, it happens so quick.

52:52 You've seen this with Charlie Kirk,

52:54 where you take somebody that has certain political beliefs,

52:57 and let's say, for instance,

52:59 if you and I and and a couple of your buddies were drinking,

53:03 and a political discussion came up, and you said something outlandish.

53:06 Before it got to the point of saying

53:08 those magic words that we'd have to investigate, somebody's going to be like,

53:12 "Ian, you're being an idiot." There'd be friction

53:15 that would stop you from saying that stupid thing.

53:17 Okay?

53:18 The problem now is there's no in-person bar anymore.

53:22 It's I'm going to go on Discord,

53:23 and I'm going to get in this chat room of like-minded crazy people.

53:27 And then eventually, those people aren't crazy enough.

53:30 I'm going to go into the next chat room where people are like,

53:32 "Oh, those people are lame.

53:33 We're the real people." Then they're going to go

53:35 to the next room where they start weaponizing that stuff.

53:37 And that's the problem.

53:38 They go from an online, and it's the same thing we see with C-SAM,

53:41 They go from somewhere that's an online gaming platform

53:44 to then they go to an encrypted platform that's more selective.

53:48 So, it's not only you're you're in an echo chamber of like-minded people,

53:52 but now you're in an echo chamber

53:53 with like-minded people that it's harder to find.

53:57 It's harder for us because we're in America.

53:58 We are in a very We're in a culture that wants to safeguard personal liberties,

54:02 which is great, right?

54:03 That's why we love it.

54:04 It makes our job in law enforcement a lot more difficult.

54:07 It's interesting how like I'll post a clip where a guest will share

54:09 a certain view or or they'll make a statement and some people in the comments,

54:13 they just get so angry over it

54:15 to the point where they're threatening or violent.

54:17 And it's just like what How do we get to that point?

54:20 They weren't calling that individual out directly.

54:22 You're totally unrelated to what that person said.

54:26 Yeah.

54:26 And they just get so mad.

54:27 It is and it's it's hard not to take some of those things

54:29 personally cuz I know I've been on podcasts and people are like,

54:31 I'll take things that didn't happen for 500, Alex.

54:34 And it's like, why would I come on here and make up a story that could easily be

54:39 But I get it, but you know, yes,

54:41 they're And then sometimes the bots get involved.

54:44 And then they start pushing people both ways and that drives the algorithm.

54:48 And that's where we're at is it we're in this social media algorithm world

54:51 is that you don't have that friction to stop that bad thing from happening.

54:54 And that's my fear is that we're already divided and the algorithm

54:59 is what's adding fuel to that fire

55:01 and hopefully weaponizing uh thought processes.

55:05 Now, counterfeiting,

55:06 how have you seen it evolved since day one on the job versus present day?

55:11 Yeah, day one on the job, it was still some old school polygraph.

55:15 So, what I mean by that is offset prints.

55:18 So, to [clears throat] tell you the best way

55:20 to kind of talk about counterfeit is to talk about genuine.

55:23 So, when we learn counterfeit, we don't learn how counterfeit's done cuz

55:25 that can be done a thousand different ways.

55:27 We learn how um genuine is made.

55:30 So, just up the road a little bit is where they make US currency paper.

55:33 75% cotton, 25% linen.

55:36 They do certain security features in it uh that are in the note.

55:40 And that's the paper.

55:41 And that's the only people that make the paper.

55:42 It's the only people that have the paper.

55:44 So, if I see a note that doesn't have that paper,

55:48 I don't care how good the printing is, it's counterfeit.

55:51 Then we go to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and we see

55:53 how the green part is typographic and it's pressed down into the note.

55:57 So, there's a divot.

55:58 And we see how the etching of the face

56:00 and all that is actually laid on top of the bill.

56:03 Okay?

56:03 So, it's actually raised.

56:05 And I can see at certain points of that bill.

56:07 I can look at it under a little loop

56:09 and I can see where there's that mountain and that valley.

56:12 If that's not there, it's counterfeit.

56:14 So, that's the beauty of it.

56:15 The color-shifting ink.

56:16 All of that is is great.

56:18 I remember though my literal second day on the job,

56:22 I get handed a little and I can remember there like

56:24 a green manila folder and it was of a a counterfeit note.

56:28 And what it was was it was one of the new 1996 big-headed bills.

56:33 And it was warm in that time of the year and it had actually come apart.

56:37 It was a glued note.

56:39 And I was like, I'd not seen a glued counterfeit note in training.

56:42 So, we kind of dissect it.

56:43 We take it apart.

56:45 It had the watermark in between the two

56:48 and it had the security thread in between the two.

56:50 And there was some type of glue holding it together.

56:53 But it was a very light paper,

56:54 but the paper was about half the size of a genuine note.

56:58 And so, we start looking at it.

56:59 We start looking at it.

57:00 And now we're getting destroyed with this note all up and down the interstates.

57:03 And it's all feeding into Chicago.

57:04 I'm like, what is going on?

57:05 This must be the base of operations.

57:08 So, for about a year, we keep hearing this guy's name's Art.

57:11 Okay?

57:11 And it's a it's kind of a hybrid note.

57:13 How it was constructed, how it was put together.

57:16 The serial numbers were changed, which is unique.

57:19 And I was like, "Hmm, interesting." And it almost looked like he

57:23 was starting or his team, whatever it was,

57:24 was starting like in towns about 5 hours away

57:27 and then working their way back to the city.

57:29 So, they weren't all they weren't printing they or they weren't

57:34 uh passing in an area where they lived which was smart.

57:36 So Finally one day I was about to close the case

57:40 because all we knew is there's a guy named Art.

57:42 He was very proud of what he did.

57:43 He was about 6-ft tall about 200 lb and he was starting to lose

57:47 his hair and I'm like wow that looks a lot like me, okay?

57:50 And one of the guys even when we're doing the run out I'm talking to one

57:53 of the people that have been arrested he goes yeah he kind of looks like you.

57:56 I just that's all we knew.

57:57 Well one night we get a call from the House of Blues Hotel

58:00 in Chicago and it was about 2:00 in the morning when I got the call.

58:03 They had run the notes through the database and they

58:06 had associated it with me as the case agent.

58:08 So I got woken up which is never a good thing at 2:00 in the morning

58:10 and they said hey we got a guy picked

58:12 up with one of the notes you're associated with.

58:13 I thought at first it was just one of the other

58:16 hundreds or thousands of bills that he had passed.

58:19 And they said yeah but his name's Arthur Williams Jr.

58:22 And I'm like okay I'll come down.

58:24 And I come down and I had to play to the ego.

58:27 I'm 26 at the time.

58:29 I'm a snot nose kid.

58:31 Here's this guy that by all accounts had been

58:33 telling everybody he was the the King Kong of counterfeit.

58:36 And so I told him I flew in on the Gulfstream.

58:39 Told him it was like the biggest case in the Secret Service.

58:41 I drove in from the suburbs in my 1991 Plymouth Acclaim, okay?

58:45 And but I let him teach me and he opened up and just kind of like what we talked

58:51 about when we talk leisure activities he's like yeah I

58:53 get yellow page paper I get it donated to me.

58:56 My wife gets the end rolls and it's cheap and you

58:58 know it it it has less of a the marker

59:01 doesn't affect it as much and as a result then I get this kind of paper and I

59:05 do the watermark and then you know and then I do this and then I do the UV stuff

59:09 and then I glue it together and as long

59:10 as it's not over a certain temperature the glue stays good.

59:12 And he's like then I talk up

59:14 the the cashiers when I'm chatting with them so they

59:16 don't really look at it but he's like let's be honest what are they going to do?

59:18 They're going to use the pen which is going to pass you're going to hold it up

59:21 the watermark's going to pass and it's got color

59:23 shifting ink that I got from an automotive company.

59:25 So it was a B-minus quality bill,

59:30 but it was done in a way that operated on the shortcuts that people have.

59:36 Hold it up, pen.

59:36 Okay, you're good to go.

59:37 Plus, you're making at the time probably $9 an hour minimum wage.

59:42 They could care less.

59:43 And he They hit it around the holidays when people,

59:45 you know, are getting all kinds of money.

59:47 So, um unfortunately, the police department that arrested him,

59:51 the way they wrote up the police report was that everything was in plain sight.

59:55 And he had he had a good defense attorney that went to that room and realized,

59:59 uh-uh, that's not plain sight.

1:00:00 They would have had to step in the room 10 or 12 steps.

1:00:02 And that's what it was.

1:00:03 So, the 20,000 counterfeit went away, and as a result, he got let free.

1:00:07 But, he made a poor choice.

1:00:09 Just like a lot of criminals you've probably

1:00:11 talked to, uh especially with counterfeit, is very addicting.

1:00:15 It's getting something for nothing and trying to perfect

1:00:17 it is like manna from the gods from them.

1:00:19 They They want to go back to it.

1:00:21 So, he went to Alaska of all places.

1:00:23 That's where he met his dad.

1:00:24 His dad had been a felon.

1:00:26 And he reunited with his dad.

1:00:27 Unfortunately, he got his dad in the business.

1:00:29 And his dad, unfortunately, got some other people in the business.

1:00:31 And they went to a mall,

1:00:32 and they He didn't have his plates that he normally used, and he got busted.

1:00:37 And dad snitched on son.

1:00:40 So, son got 3 years.

1:00:42 Now, when I first talked to him, Art was like, "Yeah, I'm writing a book.

1:00:44 I'm going to get a movie deal." How many times you heard that, right?

1:00:47 Yeah, every day.

1:00:49 day.

1:00:48 I was like that when I first got you know.

1:00:50 Yeah, right.

1:00:50 Like, "Yeah, I'm going to get a movie deal." And you got people coming at you.

1:00:53 So, Art was like telling me that.

1:00:55 I'm like, "This is never." Well,

1:00:56 it all came to fruition about 3 years later when a buddy called me and he said,

1:01:00 "Go to Union Station and get the Rolling Stone." Well, okay.

1:01:03 I go get the Rolling Stone.

1:01:04 There's Arthur Williams Jr.'s face on a $100 bill and a 10-page spread.

1:01:10 And you're like, "Wow." He did have this.

1:01:13 Jason Kersten wrote this great article.

1:01:15 And of course, I had a little burr under my saddle because he said,

1:01:18 "Yeah, I didn't admit anything to that agent in Chicago." And I'm like,

1:01:20 "You son of a right?" So, anyway,

1:01:23 we go back to the field office and we start looking through

1:01:25 all the notes that were coming in and there's his distinctive style.

1:01:28 It's back.

1:01:29 So, I had a great case agent named Eric that, you know,

1:01:33 worked with and we got some buys, we did some undercovers, um surveillance.

1:01:38 And one day, uh on the Bridgeport, South Side of Chicago, his son,

1:01:42 who was an aspiring rapper, 15-year-old rapper, comes down and he's got,

1:01:47 I don't know if I don't know if

1:01:48 it's four or five thousand dollars of counterfeit

1:01:49 in his hands and he was pissed off that I didn't buy him some studio time.

1:01:53 So, he threw this counterfeit on the hood of a Chicago police car.

1:01:57 And that's what started the next arrest.

1:01:59 We consent search going into the house.

1:02:01 So, we arrested Art III and then Art Williams Jr.

1:02:05 And I talked to his son and his son gave up his dad.

1:02:09 Saying the dad did everything.

1:02:11 So, in the course of 3 years, his dad and now his son have handed him up.

1:02:16 And the thing about Art is, of course, I had to upgrade.

1:02:20 I wanted to impress him,

1:02:20 so I told him I was from headquarters and I flew in on the G5 now.

1:02:24 And I played total fanboy.

1:02:26 Um I had the Rolling Stone article with his face.

1:02:30 And I said, man, it's been an honor to work this case.

1:02:32 It's top case in the Secret Service.

1:02:35 Um would you mind autographing your photo for me?

1:02:38 And he put, "To Brad, the greatest Secret Service agent ever,

1:02:40 Arthur Williams Jr." I've got it framed, you know, so um but I played fanboy,

1:02:44 but it wasn't from necessarily I don't want to say a manipulative standpoint.

1:02:48 Like, I truly respected the guy.

1:02:50 Because he took it.

1:02:52 And he still educated me.

1:02:53 He told me how he was doing his counterfeit now.

1:02:56 And he said he did about $8 million.

1:02:58 Don't know how much of that's bragadocious.

1:03:00 Uh you know, you've you've seen people inflate

1:03:02 totals of things all the time before, right?

1:03:04 But he did do a lot and he was a perfectionist and I can't

1:03:07 imagine how much he burned that wasn't good that he could have got money for.

1:03:11 But uh he got 8 years and the sad part

1:03:14 about it is about a year later we arrested his son.

1:03:16 And his son actually gets assigned the fame

1:03:18 the same federal institution as he does and they're cellies.

1:03:21 He he he tells a great story.

1:03:22 I've since connected with him and cuz he's an honorable

1:03:25 man and uh they connected and it it was it's

1:03:28 really sad when you hear the story about how sad

1:03:31 and or I guess happy and sad at the same point.

1:03:34 He's like, "I'm going to have my at least

1:03:35 my I'm sad my son's getting arrested and is incarcerated,

1:03:38 but now I get to spend more time with him than

1:03:40 I never spent before." It's so surreal to hear the story.

1:03:43 But over the course of those eight years he actually learned how to paint.

1:03:46 And now he's a famous artist.

1:03:47 He's got multiple galleries and I'm looking

1:03:50 forward to in a couple months here going

1:03:51 to an art gallery and and and and meeting

1:03:54 up with him in person after all those years.

1:03:56 So, I hope he stays the course and he doesn't get

1:03:59 locked up again um because it is a very addicting thing.

1:04:02 So, hopefully he's changed his art form.

1:04:04 Do you find that those white-collar criminals are looking for that, you know,

1:04:08 approval from agents like yourself?

1:04:12 100%.

1:04:11 Yeah, I absolutely yeah.

1:04:13 You know, I I gave some perfect the interesting

1:04:16 thing about that is you talk Matt Cox, while this was all going on, Matt Cox's

1:04:20 most wanted Secret Service photo was in our mailroom.

1:04:24 [laughter] He's obviously changed his look a little bit,

1:04:25 but it's just it's funny that both of those things were happening.

1:04:28 And when I was talking to Matt on his podcast, I got the same feeling from him.

1:04:32 It's just professional respect.

1:04:34 It's I visualize that scene from Heat.

1:04:37 Not trying to equate me and I was I had you know,

1:04:40 so many people make it about them.

1:04:42 I just happened to be assigned the case.

1:04:43 I didn't do anything magical with it.

1:04:45 But um I've visualized it like the scene from Heat

1:04:50 where Al Pacino and De Niro where they're like, "You do what you do,

1:04:53 I do what I do." Um it's that professional respect, you know,

1:04:57 and I think some police officers, just like some criminals,

1:05:02 give those two sides a bad name.

1:05:04 I think most cops, most agents have

1:05:06 a have a respect for the people they're investigating.

1:05:08 Now, you you were talking about holding the the bill

1:05:11 up to the light and then the pens.

1:05:13 I don't really see people holding it up anymore.

1:05:15 I just see them relying solely on the pens.

1:05:16 Is that an accurate Yeah, they've even got more lazy.

1:05:19 It's not accurate because what people can do, once again,

1:05:22 I don't want to give away too much information,

1:05:23 but people can do certain things to try to thwart that.

1:05:27 But, the advantage we have in the counterfeit

1:05:29 space is that everything's going digital.

1:05:32 You know, before billions and trillions of dollars

1:05:35 were exchanged hands with with paper currency.

1:05:38 And now everything, you know,

1:05:40 you I can't even think of the last time I paid with cash.

1:05:42 Yeah, I used cards for everything.

1:05:44 people just use their phones.

1:05:45 So, the problem with that is is if I was wanting to do counterfeit,

1:05:49 I had to pass a lot of times and there

1:05:51 were a lot of opportunities where I may get caught.

1:05:53 Now, if I scam you on a dating scam and have

1:05:56 you send me money in Green Dot or in online or whatever,

1:05:59 I can you know, the same thing with Matt, like he could get $100,000 on a deal.

1:06:03 Trying to do that with counterfeit's difficult.

1:06:06 Mhm.

1:06:06 So, it's uh it's a blessing and it's a curse.

1:06:08 I think counterfeit has gone down significantly,

1:06:10 but now you've seen Secret Service, FBI,

1:06:13 all these other agencies move to that electronic

1:06:15 crimes just because that's taken over everything.

1:06:18 When you transitioned to teaching,

1:06:19 what do you think was the number one question students had for you?

1:06:23 Um I think the emotional impact of doing this, um especially with the kid cases,

1:06:27 like how do you how do you go home at night and have kids at home?

1:06:32 You know, I I remember right before I came teaching,

1:06:35 I I thought I was having some heart issues.

1:06:38 And when I get on a plane, I started to get man, I I've flown all my life.

1:06:43 But, I was flying to cases where I was

1:06:44 talking to people about horrific acts and it was like

1:06:47 this uh kind of vicarious trauma that I was

1:06:50 going through and I think I was having panic attacks.

1:06:53 And it was perfect time for me to throttle back

1:06:57 and go to teaching because I had in one week three offenders.

1:07:01 They were doing a big round up.

1:07:03 And three of the individuals made admissions

1:07:05 about some horrific things they were doing

1:07:06 to some blonde hair blue-eyed girls that were

1:07:08 right roughly the age of my daughter.

1:07:11 And what I found is yeah, I could deal with it.

1:07:13 I could still collect the information.

1:07:15 It was all about getting the information.

1:07:17 You know, blame somebody else, understand, diminish impact,

1:07:20 demonstrate tactical empathy and focus on their why.

1:07:22 But I was basically their buddy.

1:07:25 The problem was is you would go home.

1:07:28 And you got to write that report at home like during COVID.

1:07:30 You're writing the reports at home like and then your daughter, "Hey Dad,

1:07:33 can you make me something for lunch?" And the problem

1:07:37 is is that the next case I started to put

1:07:41 horns on the people that I was talking to and I

1:07:42 started short-changing my interactions and I started not really caring.

1:07:46 It'd be like you get up every day and you probably want to do a podcast.

1:07:50 Man, I'm going to put the best podcast out.

1:07:52 I got to the point where I'm like I got to do a polygraph today?

1:07:56 I got to talk to another child molester today?

1:07:58 And as a result, you're not that best person because if the person was innocent,

1:08:03 you're not the best person and if the person's guilty,

1:08:05 you're not the best person because you're not going

1:08:06 to get justice for what needs to be done.

1:08:09 So teaching for me was all about, you know,

1:08:12 the whole teach a man to fish, you know,

1:08:14 he'll never go hungry type thing is I can't

1:08:16 tell you how great it is now that I've

1:08:19 really throttled back the amount of interactions that I

1:08:21 have where people will call me and be like, "Man, dude, thank you.

1:08:24 I tried that.

1:08:25 It worked.

1:08:25 I got this information." Or "Hey Brett,

1:08:28 I did this and I was able to vindicate this person." Because

1:08:30 it's not My goal is not to go in and get the confession.

1:08:33 My goal is to go in and get the truth.

1:08:35 Sometimes that is a confession.

1:08:36 How long did your career last for?

1:08:39 25 Well, I'm on year 27.

1:08:40 I'm with another federal agency now,

1:08:42 but uh for 25 years with the Secret Service.

1:08:45 Once you left the Secret Service,

1:08:46 what do you think to this day is something you think

1:08:49 about from your time there that you think will never go away?

1:08:53 Uh in a bad way um was talking to an offender um who showed up to meet

1:09:03 [cough and clears throat]

1:09:05 um to meet a 12-year-old what he perceived to be a 12-year-old girl.

1:09:10 Came in and admitted to that because

1:09:14 the chat logs and everything were were there.

1:09:16 He obviously showed up to a house.

1:09:19 Um during the initial interview prior

1:09:22 to the polygraph we had an extended conversation.

1:09:26 We're talking about some things and he starts opening up.

1:09:29 He said recently over the last 5 years he

1:09:32 had um got on an online dating forum weaponized

1:09:37 information that he garnered online about this girl

1:09:42 to ingratiate himself to her to become the Prince Charming.

1:09:45 He could care less about her romantically,

1:09:47 but she was a babysitter and she provided him access to children.

1:09:51 And he engaged in a relationship with her for 4

1:09:57 years and during that course of time he molested 30 babies.

1:10:03 Babies.

1:10:04 And he was describing it just like I'm talking to you right now.

1:10:08 And at one point he said to me, he goes, "Brad, it's like, you know,

1:10:11 if you haven't gone to your grandma's and had food in a while and then you go

1:10:17 back to your grandma's for Thanksgiving and you smell

1:10:19 the collard greens when you walk in." He's like,

1:10:23 "Now you know you're home." That's what offending was like for me.

1:10:28 And I was just The people outside the room you could hear

1:10:31 them just like what punching the wall and like they're just so pissed.

1:10:35 Like the way he was saying it was just like today's Tuesday.

1:10:40 And I just remember it it it really messed me up.

1:10:43 And um like of course, you know, as men we have this ego that, you know,

1:10:48 we're not going to we're not going to let it affect us

1:10:50 and I probably shut my wife out and didn't really talk about it.

1:10:54 But I remember the following week I took some of my students and we went

1:10:57 to like South Carolina is really big on barbecue

1:10:59 and it's really big on barbecue got buffets.

1:11:02 And so I'm loading up my food at the buffet and the next item is collard greens.

1:11:10 And I just put my plate down, walked away,

1:11:12 and started went straight to the bathroom and started dry heaving.

1:11:16 It just the triggering aspect.

1:11:17 It was just like what's wrong with this guy?

1:11:20 And they have no idea.

1:11:22 You know, I mean you had Jim Cole on recently.

1:11:25 The things that man has seen, things that people has seen,

1:11:27 I only have to talk to him.

1:11:29 I've talked to hundreds of pedophiles and hebephiles,

1:11:31 but having to look at the images.

1:11:34 So, for me that's one thing that yeah,

1:11:37 I'll love seeing remembering the Olympics.

1:11:38 I'll love remembering the great things that protectives did for us.

1:11:42 I will love and miss all my co-workers,

1:11:45 but sadly that vicarious trauma, those hidden scars will never go away.

1:11:49 How do you cope with that?

1:11:51 For me, I had a wonderful PhD um Dr.

1:11:56 Stacy out in um Seattle.

1:11:59 She's with the Internet Crimes Against Children

1:12:00 Task Force and she did an amazing

1:12:01 job with me as far as talking about when I come home from an event,

1:12:05 I wear the same shirt every day.

1:12:07 It's similar to to these type of typical cop shirts, right?

1:12:10 Um where what I would do is I'd wear the same

1:12:13 shirt every time and when I was done with it,

1:12:16 I would take it off, leave it in the car before I'd walk into the house.

1:12:20 And it was almost like medical examiners,

1:12:21 the way they do with their examination coats, they leave them at work.

1:12:25 Because they may have had to sadly do an exam on a child or something.

1:12:28 So, I would leave it in the car.

1:12:30 Then, I took up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu about 12 years ago

1:12:34 and for me that was key because the phone's off, I'm in present.

1:12:39 If I don't stay present on the mat, something bad's going to happen to my arm,

1:12:43 my leg, my ankle, or I'm going to get choked out.

1:12:45 So, that was great.

1:12:47 And then never doing anything work related regarding those cases at home.

1:12:52 Taking it somewhere.

1:12:52 Go go to Starbucks, wherever.

1:12:54 So that I don't talk about that associating that with my family.

1:12:58 And having a great uh group of buddies, a wolf pack so to speak,

1:13:04 of people that know what you're going through,

1:13:06 that see when you're holding on too tight.

1:13:08 Um I had a great friend Ryan that would do

1:13:10 that for me and I remember I had to do that for him.

1:13:12 He had a case where it was a girl that was caught up in a horrific situation,

1:13:15 but she was doing some awful things to some children, some babies.

1:13:19 And he fell for her.

1:13:20 He was he was really connected.

1:13:22 So after the case, he's like, "Well, Brad, you know, this this this." I go,

1:13:25 "What did she do to the baby?" And he tells me and I go, "Ryan,

1:13:29 what did she do to the baby?" And then finally he gets

1:13:33 out of this haze because sometimes we had to understand the boogeyman,

1:13:37 you kind of have to go to their world a little bit.

1:13:39 And the problem of doing that is you have to go to some dark places.

1:13:42 So thankfully, I had good people there that could see

1:13:45 something wasn't right and I needed to take a little break.

1:13:48 Now, don't a lot of federal agents say, like Secret Service or the FBI,

1:13:53 they'll go in and interview some of these people that have

1:13:56 done horrific things to help them with current or future cases?

1:14:00 Yeah, the FBI does that quite a bit.

1:14:03 Um their behavioral analysis unit will go and and try to once again try

1:14:07 to understand people's minds or they'll go

1:14:08 to serial offenders and try to do that.

1:14:10 And that's always something that's so fascinating that I always tried

1:14:13 to pick the brain of of of people that I would run across

1:14:16 that would do that type of stuff because they're amazing at being able

1:14:19 to just sit there and just almost turn it into a therapy session.

1:14:23 You know, interrogation it's not what people think.

1:14:26 People think an interrogation is, "Tell me now!" Good cop, bad cop.

1:14:30 You know, making up evidence.

1:14:31 No, that's that's horrific.

1:14:32 And people that do that, that's caveman type mentality.

1:14:35 Like I truly want to be your buddy.

1:14:38 Like let's let's put it this way.

1:14:39 Let's go back into your world.

1:14:40 Now, were you interrogated?

1:14:42 Yeah, the I did the very first time was with uh local police,

1:14:47 but then I had a lawyer with me but then

1:14:49 I went by myself to the Department of Banking.

1:14:51 a poor choice.

1:14:52 Sat there for 5 hours but this this is where it gets worse.

1:14:55 So listening to the whole 5-hour interview were postal inspectors.

1:14:59 Oh, yeah.

1:15:00 And after the interview they bring me

1:15:02 into this room and they show me their badges

1:15:04 and I didn't I thought postal inspectors were like

1:15:06 civil because I didn't know they were federal agents

1:15:08 and then I sat with them for like another

1:15:11 half hour and they had targeted questions for me

1:15:14 based on that interview and then they gave me

1:15:16 a target letter at the end of the interview.

1:15:18 Um but that was my experience with that.

1:15:21 Yeah.

1:15:21 So some similarities, some difference like you know proffers obviously

1:15:25 having somebody is a little bit different.

1:15:27 But a true interrogation is not like I said

1:15:29 what people think but let's say things would have

1:15:31 went different and let's say I would have been

1:15:34 chatting with young Ian a few years back, all right?

1:15:37 And I know a little bit about your case

1:15:38 but I don't know what everything about it, okay?

1:15:40 But I would obviously get to know the stuff on the front end.

1:15:44 I would try to make that great first impression, have a great handshake.

1:15:47 Um I would obviously like to dress professionally but not aloof.

1:15:50 So I want to dress slightly above wherever you're going to be.

1:15:53 Um So this with khakis is probably my typical thing.

1:15:57 I'm not coming in with a shirt and tie.

1:15:59 And I'm going to find out about family, education, employment, leisure.

1:16:01 I'm going to ask you some of those behavioral questions

1:16:03 but at certain point we got to get down to brass tacks.

1:16:06 And at a certain point I have to make you feel good

1:16:09 about the situation meaning it's almost like Sun Tzu would talk about

1:16:13 how if you surround your enemy they become very very dangerous because

1:16:16 they know that there's no way out so they'll fight to the death.

1:16:19 You have to leave a little bit of an opening.

1:16:21 And when you leave a little bit of an opening they rush for that opening.

1:16:24 So what would be the opening for you?

1:16:26 Let's go back.

1:16:26 How old were you in when your case happened?

1:16:28 I was 18 so I got Yeah,

1:16:31 I was 18 when I had the the meeting with the investigators.

1:16:36 So if I was the person talking to you I would

1:16:38 be like Ian there's no doubt whatsoever that you did this thing.

1:16:43 Okay, there's there's no doubt whatsoever.

1:16:46 Do I think for one moment 6 months ago, a year ago,

1:16:50 you sat there and you were like, "Hmm,

1:16:52 how can I take advantage of people?" Absolutely not.

1:16:55 Now, do I talk to those people, Ian?

1:16:57 Absolutely.

1:16:58 In fact, that's who I prefer talking to cuz those are bad guys.

1:17:02 But, let's be honest.

1:17:03 Let's talk about what really happened here.

1:17:05 This wasn't about people that made

1:17:06 bad investment choices that should know better,

1:17:09 that should know they're not going to get a 50% return on their investment.

1:17:12 Anybody that invests with Goldman Sachs knows that and they

1:17:15 were hoping against hope that maybe we get lucky here.

1:17:18 They're going to write that off as a loss.

1:17:20 You know what this is?

1:17:20 Little Johnny, little Sydney, they lost some money that they were going to spend

1:17:25 at college because they're whatever and they said it to their mom

1:17:28 and some mom called in to the US attorney buddy

1:17:31 of theirs and that's why you're in this chair right now.

1:17:34 Can we both agree upon that?

1:17:35 Whereas, if you were anybody else or if

1:17:37 you would have just been a couple other people,

1:17:39 this wouldn't be a big deal on the end.

1:17:40 All right?

1:17:41 So, what I want to do is I want to try

1:17:43 to understand not the what cuz I know the what.

1:17:45 I want to understand the why.

1:17:47 And if the why is because you had some initial success, you started feeling it.

1:17:51 Now, you got a car payment.

1:17:52 Now, you got this.

1:17:53 Now, you got people that you're trying to take care

1:17:55 of and then the snowball starts going down the hill.

1:17:58 And then the snowball starts going down the hill.

1:17:59 And then, you know what?

1:18:01 You've got this great plan on paper, but shoot,

1:18:04 now we've got one of our acts, there's a snowstorm.

1:18:07 Now, one of our acts, somebody gets sick.

1:18:09 Now, one of our acts, you know what?

1:18:10 It just didn't show up the way we did.

1:18:11 Now, some alderman says or or some college administrator says, "Well,

1:18:16 you can't bring people in and buses from other colleges." Oh, shoot.

1:18:20 Well, man, that's an extra thousand people I can't bring

1:18:22 at $25 a ticket and the next thing you know,

1:18:26 you're chasing trying to get back to normal.

1:18:28 So, what do you do?

1:18:28 You go to some people to try to make

1:18:29 it right and before you know it, you're drowning.

1:18:32 And let's be honest.

1:18:34 Do people make good or bad decisions when they're drowning?

1:18:37 Somebody that's truly drowning, Ian,

1:18:39 will grab their own child and pull them down to get one more breath of air.

1:18:43 I think you were drowning.

1:18:45 And if that's what we're talking about here,

1:18:47 that's a whole lot different than somebody was planning,

1:18:49 scheming, hoping, trying to take advantage of people.

1:18:51 That's not you, right?

1:18:53 I could be wrong, but is that you?

1:18:56 That's not you, right?

1:18:57 I think you're the guy that just made a mistake, got caught up in a situation.

1:19:00 Is that what we're talking about?

1:19:02 And I would do it while trying to create a Catholic confession.

1:19:06 Okay?

1:19:07 Why do I don't know if you're Catholic, Ian,

1:19:09 but why do people go to a Catholic confessional?

1:19:12 Cuz they have something on their mind.

1:19:13 They got something on their mind.

1:19:14 What What is makes it conducive to communication?

1:19:20 Pri- Secrecy, privacy.

1:19:21 Secrecy.

1:19:22 You put that little veil.

1:19:24 You can't see the priest on the other side.

1:19:26 The priest is offering you professional judgment,

1:19:28 advice, salvation, do your 50 Hail Marys, whatever.

1:19:31 If the priest was in there going, "What?

1:19:33 You did what, Ian?" If he was judging you, if he was being disrespectful,

1:19:37 if he was talking with a loud voice, he's talking with a low voice.

1:19:41 He's making you feel good.

1:19:42 He's being your buddy.

1:19:44 And that's what communication is, and it's going to happen if you got

1:19:46 involved in a situation in your personal life,

1:19:49 if you had a breakup, a divorce, whatever the case may be.

1:19:51 What would a good buddy do?

1:19:52 He'd blame the other person.

1:19:54 He'd understand what you're going through,

1:19:55 and he'd demonstrate empathy by saying, "Look,

1:19:57 there's a lot of other fish in the sea." That's what good friends do,

1:20:00 and that's also what good communicators do.

1:20:02 Well, we know you're definitely in the Secret Service,

1:20:04 cuz they pretty much did that whole thing.

1:20:07 [laughter] I mean, they they they they played upon we know it was an accident.

1:20:10 Um we're going to help you.

1:20:12 It was help, help, help.

1:20:13 Here's a business card.

1:20:14 I think they definitely took hopped on the fact

1:20:17 I didn't have a lawyer at the time, so business card, this.

1:20:20 I gave them like addresses, bank records, everything.

1:20:23 Um well, cuz I trusted them.

1:20:25 Like I I thought that they were going

1:20:27 to actually in my best interest to help me.

1:20:30 Little did I know that they were just shooting for prison time,

1:20:33 um but that was at the direction of like the prosecutors and everything.

1:20:37 But yeah, that they they I warmed up to them with that.

1:20:41 They were really good at that.

1:20:41 But I was also really young, too.

1:20:43 Yeah, that's I mean, I don't want to say that's, you know,

1:20:45 I'm very careful about talking

1:20:48 to any juveniles because they're so impressionable.

1:20:51 False confessions happen.

1:20:52 They do.

1:20:53 Um when you talk to juveniles, it can happen.

1:20:55 When you offer fake evidence, it can happen.

1:20:57 When you offer promises and guarantees, it can happen.

1:21:00 So, I'm very, very concerned about that and I would try to make

1:21:02 sure that I have holdback information that I can, you know, prove up.

1:21:06 But in how I talk to people, I try not to be manipulative.

1:21:10 Am I going to try to influence them?

1:21:11 100%, right?

1:21:13 But I'm I'm not going to manipulate them.

1:21:16 Yeah.

1:21:15 Now, over the 25 years, you know,

1:21:18 big part of your job is secrecy and you can't go and and talk about it.

1:21:22 How do you deal with those situations coming home to your family?

1:21:25 You had a brutal day, but it's stuff you're not even allowed to talk about.

1:21:29 So, I'm kind of lucky.

1:21:30 Most of the investigations we did were very white-collarish, okay?

1:21:34 So, and most of the protection stuff wasn't really secretive, you know?

1:21:40 It'd be a regular day going,

1:21:41 "I stood in the stairwell again today." Or drove the boat around.

1:21:46 It was great.

1:21:46 Like, the Bush detail, they sent me to EMT school,

1:21:48 they sent me to boat school, they sent me to rescue swimmer school.

1:21:51 So, that was pretty much it.

1:21:53 Like, "Man, the water was cold today." Yeah, and traffic was awful.

1:21:57 Like, it's pretty normal.

1:21:58 It's not like CIA or, you know,

1:22:01 some FBI agents that are working crazy JTTF Joint Terrorism Task Force

1:22:04 cases that they've got to be really on with their with their family.

1:22:08 Uh the things we wouldn't talk about is just

1:22:10 obviously what we heard in the limousine from the protectees.

1:22:14 If you could do it all over again,

1:22:15 would you pick a different agency or are you happy with the agency?

1:22:18 I I mean, I truly had a a blessed career with the Secret Service.

1:22:21 I wouldn't change a thing,

1:22:22 and I know not everybody can say that, but every place I wanted to go,

1:22:26 every opportunity I wanted to do, I got.

1:22:29 Um My wife you have [clears throat]

1:22:32 a decision after you do your first field office.

1:22:34 I was in Chicago for 7, 8 years and of course you come on the job going,

1:22:38 "Man, I want to run next to limo.

1:22:39 I want to get on Air Force One." And that was the plan

1:22:43 and then an opportunity presented itself

1:22:45 on the former detail with Bush and they're like, "Yeah, you summer in Maine.

1:22:49 Uh you live in Houston during the winter.

1:22:51 Uh you get a higher cost of living.

1:22:53 Um you're not in DC.

1:22:55 The houses are a lot cheaper." And my wife started being like,

1:22:57 "I kind of really like this." Um so you make decisions based upon the family.

1:23:01 And if I would have done it differently, chasing a carrot,

1:23:05 I wouldn't have got to get back into polygraph.

1:23:07 I wouldn't have got to get in teaching.

1:23:08 So it's that whole butterfly effect where

1:23:10 everything just kind of worked out well.

1:23:12 Tell everyone about the book.

1:23:14 Yeah, I appreciate you asking.

1:23:15 So um in between uh retiring and moving on to my next federal job,

1:23:19 um I wrote a book called Tell Me Everything.

1:23:21 And at first I was just trying to write it for cops.

1:23:24 Like, "Okay, how do you do a better job communicating?"

1:23:26 Because we sometimes do not a great job at de-escalation.

1:23:30 Sometimes we don't do a great job at victim interviews.

1:23:32 Uh and then detecting deception and then

1:23:34 obviously also once we detect deception,

1:23:37 how do you get information out of people?

1:23:38 But then the more and more I started writing about

1:23:40 it and kind of relating to situations in the job,

1:23:42 I found, "Wow, this is just going to help a teacher.

1:23:44 It's going to help a parent." And the same thing with my editor.

1:23:46 They're like, "This is a communication book." So what

1:23:49 I tried to do is distill the stories down,

1:23:50 some of which we did talk about today,

1:23:52 but say, "How do we prepare for an interview?

1:23:53 How do we pick the right time, the right place?

1:23:55 How do I get you in the right head space?

1:23:57 How do I get me in the right head space so that we can have that communication?

1:24:00 How can I engage in active listening?" And then how can I detect deception?

1:24:04 You know, how can I look for those delays?

1:24:06 How can I look for that vocal inflection uh that's at a higher pitch

1:24:09 and you would need to have a question

1:24:11 mark next to it versus an exclamation point.

1:24:13 You know, there's a difference between somebody saying no and no.

1:24:16 Uh the no is very deceptive.

1:24:18 Uh look at exclusive qualifiers.

1:24:20 There's about 20 different things that scientifically I look at to say if you

1:24:24 study this type of stuff you're going to put yourself in a position to win.

1:24:27 And then if people are deceptive, how do we still maintain a relationship

1:24:30 but try to get that information from them?

1:24:32 So, hopefully it lands with everybody.

1:24:34 Um the initial feedback was I've got

1:24:36 from bankers and investors and negotiators that are like,

1:24:38 "Oh man, this is this is what we needed." So.

1:24:41 Yeah, I can see you speaking to big,

1:24:43 you know, companies if you're not already doing that already.

1:24:46 Yeah, it's been it's been a fun ride for sure.

1:24:48 Well, Brad, thank you so much for coming on the show today.