A former Secret Service agent who protected President George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama he has a tip for getting everyone to do what you want: ‘keep quiet’ and ‘listen.’
“There’s a myth that people think, ‘If I talk a lot, I can dominate,'” Evy Poumpouras, an assistant and interviewer, explained. ‘It’s rubbish.’
Poumpouras said: ‘The biggest mistake people make is that they talk too much.’
‘If I’m doing all the talking and you’re listening, you’re learning all about me.
‘You’re learning about what I care about, my values, my beliefs, and you’re getting a good read on me.’
The secret to getting someone to do what you wanthe said that he is learning why he does what he does.
‘What you want to understand is the motivation of the person,’ he said.
Whether it is respect, personal safety, family, money, sex, responsibility, freedom or anything else, Poumpouras said. That motivation is the foundation that matters which can help you make a good case to someone that doing what you want will help them get what they want and need.
‘If you go in with the mindset of ‘I want it, I want it’ you will lose,’ he said. ‘Go in with ideas: What is this person missing?’
In addition to her public speaking and book writing, former US Secret Service Evyenia ‘Evy’ Poumpouras (above) served as a judge on Bravo’s ‘Spy Games’ – a 2020 American reality competition based on a World War II program that screened and analyzed. he trained ordinary people to be spies
For Poumpouras, whose role as an interviewer has seen him take detector tests as a polygraph expert, listening is the best way to read someone well.
‘Everyone is inspired by something. But I have to listen to you and pay attention to you to understand what it is,” the former head of the secret service continued.
‘Everyone’s purpose is different… If you give people enough space, they will express themselves to you.’
Poumpouras shared his hard-earned advice in an interview with Steven Bartlett on ‘The CEO’s diary‘ podcast.
Former polygraph examiner, who also served in detail to protect First Lady Michelle Obamain the year 2020 it released a book that teaches people to ‘read people, influence their life’ and ‘live without fear’, titled ‘Becoming Bulletproof’.
This book, which is part guide and part memoir, turns his 12 years in the Secret Service into life lessons that anyone trying to navigate the uncertain world of treachery and mystery can learn from.
One quick tip he learned in a dozen years defending presidents, he said: ‘Whenever you hear someone say ‘Trust me, I know what I’m doing’ – it’s usually the last thing you should do.’
Poumpouras also points out that, when listening to body language, it is not necessary when you are listening intently to find out more about what someone is saying to you.
‘Most of what we communicate is through our bodies,’ he said, ‘not through the words we speak.’
‘When I talk to people, the way I know what I’m saying is being heard is when I see their heads moving down and their eyes follow me,’ as he once said. NBC News.
‘If someone is leaning in and suddenly you say something and their hands are crossed, now I know that I said something that this person didn’t like,’ Poumpouras added. ‘But you’ll miss it if you’re not looking.’
Above, Secret Service Special Agent Poumpouras back in 2010 – standing as President Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Malia and Sasha Obama walk through the Honolulu Zoo in Hawaii.
Over the years since he worked for the government, the former Secret Service Agent has been speaking with taught lessons on the ability to read people if they want to know more, get a better opportunity or be good at speaking.
His skills – heavy on cultivating informants and assets and dealing with the world’s most dangerous people – can help anyone, according to Poumpouras.
He says that paying close attention to body language can help anyone recognize ‘breathing patterns, signs of stress, and deceptive voices that appear when someone is trying to distract us and disrupt our consciousness.’
These mental factors can be useful anywhere, from business to home or back to dating.
As a Greek-American New Yorker, raised in Queens, Poumpouras says some of his gifts and intelligence on the subject are the street smarts that got him into the Secret Service in the first place.
His childhood showed him how to find out many hidden information that should attract the attention of any listener, but it also taught him to keep quiet.
‘We are too busy talking. We are busy making noise because we think everyone needs to hear me. Everyone should know me, me, me, me,” as he told Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast. ‘You know? Nobody cares.’
