[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's, it's positive. You know, I think we all have the tendency towards indulgence in some ways. Uhm, but for someone who struggles with that or who's coming to us and like every time they turn on the news, there's a significant amount of paranoia for them and that causes them to act in response to those delusions or thoughts in a way that's like harmful to them or others. Well, then we help


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something like schizophrenia, I mean it's a thought disorder, it's impacting your cognition, your ability to think in a lot of ways and so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, a lot of times, which is why it's so important to, to build a sense of rapport and safety with someone to be consistent in what you're doing and have an environment that's consistent so that people feel safe enough to allow you to support them. And, and, and they will in a lot of ways with time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but the work that we do is not a quick fix. People spend a long period of time with us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, so that we can develop enough safety where they will buy into trying some of the things that we're requesting might be, you know, or suggesting might be helpful for them, uhm, and so that then they can develop some of their own insight, like, oh wow, I haven't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In like an outpatient type setting, they can reflect back some of those things. Like I didn't like the structure that you put me on, or I didn't like this particular thing, but I realize now why that was so helpful for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meaning that the family is helping to support some sort of boundaries around the options that the child has in a lot of ways. Because sometimes people will come to us and their kiddo has schizophrenia, that they don't want to come to treatment, they don't want to do these things, they don't want to do some things that are going to help them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. So a lot of times when, when folks come, they aren't necessarily happy to be there, but they just don't have a lot of options. And we really work with family, extended family, grandparents, whatnot, to be like, don't send that $500 check. Because if you do, I know you feel bad and he doesn't have any money, he's probably going to be out on the streets drinking or whatever it might be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so we work with as many people as we can to create a nice safe container in some ways, which is the treatment environment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because with what we do, it's not a locked setting, it's sort of the least restrictive type of environment in a residential setting, but it requires a ton of containment and support from every member of like the community that's working there and the family to make sure that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a path, and maybe there's a couple options to the path, but it's really clear and they're tight and contained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that, uh, the person can actually have some experiences and we can calm down some of the things that are happening in these symptoms so that they can begin to develop some of their own insight or understanding as to why. And sometimes, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the hardest part about the work that we do is that you can want to help someone, you can want to save them, you can...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they might not want that. And it might not be the choice that they have for themselves. And we've had to, you know, walk through losses in that way as well, you know. So I do think there is a component of that person wanting some of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even if somebody on the surface doesn't want it, uh, families and the people around them can do a lot to create an environment for them where they can grow in that desire for themselves. Uhm, and you know, sometimes people don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, that's a tough question. I mean, discernment is important in knowing people's history and such, especially in the work we do. I think it's different, you know, when you're looking from a clinical perspective, but discernment is huge. And at the same time, I think one of the hardest things in loving or caring about somebody who's struggling with something is that we don't necessarily have control over how they respond.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is going to go kind of sideways for you. Does that feel true for you? And just sort of being direct and honest with people. I mean, I think people can feel congruency. They can feel care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And tough love, if it's coming from a place that's like love, it's felt very differently than something that's critical or mean or suggests like, here, I'm gonna cut you off from my life if, if, if you don't, you know, do this thing. That's very different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when we talk about tough love and often times it is working families to be like, this isn't mean, this is actually the most loving thing you could do for this person because to say nothing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or to let them continue on in a way where their life is just deteriorating, well that would be horrible, right? So like to do nothing, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's definitely a risk involved in doing some of those things, uhm, and it doesn't always, you know, have a positive outcome to set boundaries and things like that, uhm, and at the same time, uhm, I think being congruent is like most important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's think about that. Let's walk that through. Like if a, depending on how much exposure they have to that outside of that world is going to make a big difference in terms of the impact of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, kiddos have a family who's willing to talk them through all the things that they're seeing on social media, help them discern what they read, these sorts of things. So uhm, definitely a balance outside of that is necessary to combat the influence within social media.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well and you see it show up a lot in folks coming into work younger ages between 20 to 24 and you're referred to a lot as like being entitled, right? You hear this term entitlement thrown a lot, like this generation is entitled, entitlement and such.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do I do? I just leave or I check out or stop caring about what I'm doing or, you know, I can justify misusing company resources or not really using my time. I mean, there's all kinds of interesting things that come from it, but at the core, uhm, at least I'm not an expert on this at all, but,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's so many potential causes for that, but I mean, ultimately it's a, it's a state in which you're sort of, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Assuming or maybe anticipating that something very negative is going to happen, right? Uhm, I have this, I will just use a job interview coming up and, you know, I really need this job, but I'm definitely going to say something wrong and I'm going to trip out. I mean, it just can sort of, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in some ways, for some people, it's very physical. They're sick all the time or often getting a cold or, you know, these sorts of things, so uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would just say it's like the difference too between, I think most of us experience some level of anxiety around things. It can actually be really helpful, right? Help me to prepare for something. But when it gets to the aspect of sort of clinically significant, it's interfering in such a way that now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An appropriate emotional response to what's happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you can kind of find that disruption and sometimes with, when you're looking at a personality disorder, something has been so severe that now it is part of the personality, uhm, in some ways and so you can shape it and kind of, uh, do some things with the volume of it but that disposition might always be there to be sort of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sort of irrational and you're like, what's going on? For them, it feels very real. So this piece of like, how do I calm down the body enough to bring the brain online to be able to just consider.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What else might be possible, uhm, is a super important part of helping somebody through that. And you can see with time, with like an appropriate level of support and period of time and multiple reparative experiences and relationships where the thing that I feared didn't actually happen, that some of this can calm down a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I think when you, you talk about this from like a clinical where you're ending up in treatment, it, it moves into a place where you have, uhm, you lose sight of, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ego cannot tolerate any sort of feedback that would suggest like, wow, I might have hurt someone when I did that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or in fact, like, I could, uh, I do have the potential to hurt someone. It's like, uhm, become so distorted in a way that they, they can't even see that as a possibility. And so then I come across in my behaviors and such as very disregarding of others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These, uh, uh, a person with a narcissist personality is very easily wounded with your words. They're not the person that you can give that sort of direct feedback to. They're so wounded that they're almost catastrophic to the relationship sometimes to be able to give feedback.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean it was, it was significant because I mean already, especially when you're working with very complex psychiatric disorders, resources and like access to hospitals and such is always sort of an issue for our folks because, you know, there is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Certain criteria related to being able to get hospital support. Somebody has to be very, sort of significantly regressed to be able to get hospital support if they need that and there often times isn't, uh, that level of care that allows for that, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because, you know, when I go inside my head and I have this internal site of isolation, a lot can happen. And so just being in contact with other people, making eye contact with you, these things, they're like grounding to the person. So all of that is impacted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How we had to do therapy shifted significantly. I mean, we moved from a residential setting where we're seeing people in person, we're going to outings together, we're meeting in groups together to like, now I'm doing over the computer with you, with somebody who, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] May have some significant psychosis around computer use, so they're not even gonna get on the camera with you. So it just really impacted our ability to provide care during that time. And people responded, I think,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I can't speak for all settings, but you know, uh, as best as they could during that time to be able to provide services and such and maintain the level of services that people needed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, it was definitely a really difficult time. And you know, telehealth is a super great option. It's not the best option for every client, you know, that in person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is so important and a lot of times for our folks because a lot of talk therapy is very cognitive and if you're working with someone with a cognitive disorder or a thought disorder, you know, often times your sessions look like going for a walk or baking a pie together or like something of that nature that really like we couldn't do so much during that time or if we did it was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, an increased risk to the person and their health, especially during the time of COVID where we didn't really know too much about, right, what was happening and all these regulations came in and like you had to have all this distance and couldn't do these things, uhm, it, uh, it impacted a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Especially for some of the younger kids that are protective to have that over the face in some ways, uhm, very interesting impact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether sort of real or imagined, the military or armed forces in general is doing a lot to try to address providing resources, early intervention, uhm, when traumatic events occur, uhm, having people on site who are trained to be able to help support, I mean there's a lot that's happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But stigma, the notion of stigma, uhm, is, is still very present with regard to what it means to have mental health issues. And so I often have both active duty and veterans find me in my private practice knowing that I, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, was previous military. I think they feel a draw to me in that way, in that history that I'm a safe person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Coming to me, uhm, because it doesn't in that environment, uh, feel safe just yet to be able to talk openly about what's going on for me, uhm, because of, I mean, I think there's two really primary themes, which look like, uhm, privacy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In terms of what we can do is, it's amazing all of the resources that are being created and opportunities. I just recently read about, like it's referred to as the sprint team, but it's essential. It's a special psychiatric unit as part of the armed forces where they come on site in response to like a trauma or something. It's very awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Engagement in the resource is still a really important factor, especially for veterans who disengage from, like, use of VHA services or anything like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Getting people to engage and like I, you know, what we know about engagement in general is that like that initial response to someone's willingness, and we talked about this earlier, to disclose or talk about what's going on for them, uhm, is critical because it's going to shape whether or not they feel they can do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and so I think engagement is huge both in the active duty and veteran realm and what we see with a lot of veterans and why they usually end up finding me in private practice not part of their insurance or anything like that is the privacy factor but also, uhm, you know, when you're separating from the military,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a culture, real or imagined, or in my mind, I feel like this is not a place where I can talk about these things. So I've chosen not to, I've sort of white-knuckled it, I've gotten through, I haven't shared a whole lot. Here I am as a veteran looking towards trying to get some services or disability, or maybe now I'm realizing I'm no longer in


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm being told, well there's, there's nothing here to suggest in your record that anything significant happened to you, so you have to kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Convince me in some ways as to why you should get this disability percentage or why you should be treated for these and the way it's looked at is based on, you know, PTSD or uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, everything is broken down in parts. Your back is one part, your PTSD, your mental health is one part, your, your arm is one part of that and they're all looked at differently in that way and so it puts a veteran in a position where they have to sort of now


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Recount all this. I have to get these, uhm, character references for these things that happen to sort of prove that I'm worthy of this disability, which then opens me up to these, like, resources in some ways. And so, that part.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, what we can do sort of like as a leader in an initial response to somebody, you know, say they're coming to tell us something that's going on, uhm, how we react in that moment is huge because it's going to set the precedent for whether or not that person is going to re-engage should something be going on for them or if it's a safe place to talk about the things that are going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all the resources that are being put out there is still an issue and I read something from the.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Navy, like, it was like a 2021 study around veteran suicide rates and all of these different things and the suicide rate daily for those individuals who were engaged with the VHA was less than those who were not, right? So, uhm, engagement is a really important factor and how do we keep people doing that? Well, I think, uhm, making sure that we understand how important


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, special operations or things like that, like, they're more likely to seek services, in my experience, outside of, uhm, the military, out of fear of those two things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, not just from the encouragement or the cognitive part of the conversation, but to see people, to notice them is huge, uh, because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, I'm not a psychiatrist, so it's hard to speak to that part, but generally when somebody's coming in,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On a bunch of different medications, you know, there's a, there's a conversation about like, do you, do you know what you're taking? Often times with folks with complex psychiatric disorders, they, they don't. Uhm, it's just, this is what I was told to take. Do you know what it's treating? Uhm, how do you know that it's helping you? And really starting to discern that because, I mean, I think we,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and this is my opinion in some ways, but in a culture of sort of instant gratification or seeking something outside of myself to soothe, you know, there's a lot of benefit to various, you know, psychiatric medications. They can really help stabilize someone in a place where without otherwise they might not be able to receive some of that treatment, uhm, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, someone is using the various amount of things and their understanding of it and uhm, you know, one of the things, the benefits of being able to do long-term treatment in a structured environment is it gives us an opportunity to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, sort of unpack some of these things obviously with the support of a psychiatrist and somebody, you know, who's medical overseeing their care to see, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, what, what in fact is this actually treating at this point? Is it helpful? Uhm, and if it is, great. Uhm, uh, but also too, does it take us out of the role of like the work? Because, you know, therapy is hard work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like people might think therapy is a soft place to come at whatever. Therapy is hard work. Someone who commits to therapy is really willing to do some work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very different than the, uhm, the amount of effort that's involved in walking through a very difficult situation or if I'm afraid of something in particular I haven't gone to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah, I mean it's both and, because without the structure that we create, the therapeutic process that we try to do is not possible. Like without the routine, without the sleep, without the healthy eating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the framework. That has to maintain. That never changes. That structure and stability is the main component that sort of holds the foundation for everything else to be able to be possible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's definitely uhm, you know, with any sort of complex human issue, you can't say that one thing is gonna solve anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Getting up at a certain time, they might pick their day that they go grocery shopping, they might, because that structure and routine is, is very helpful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, there's a, there's a lot to this. I mean, you're talking about deinstitutionalization. Like, I mean, some of this started even back into the 1700s, but there, there's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and that's where they primarily receive treatment, uhm, or just a place to stay. And then as that evolved, you know, sometimes, uhm, I think the term asylum came along at some point, this became a place where people could stay and also work and such and they were having, you know, but what was really happening on the inside, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was a pretty restrictive setting in some ways and then there was some, you know, people that had gone in and saw, you know, all this horrific stuff that was happening and so ultimately,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, then you also had the, the notion then coming in of, uhm, SSDI and SSI and these different things that started reform as federal movements, but people-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's social security disability income, uhm, or social security income that came from like a federal movement. So this part where people who are in inpatient facilities at the time were not entitled to those resources and so sort of forced this max set of exodus as discharge from hospitals, uhm, for them to be able to receive these services and what you find at that time then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It also, uhm, some of the states created laws that made it much more difficult for people to, uh, re-admit to inpatient settings, right? So the, the notion was good, this idea that people will do better in the community, they'll do better in a least restrictive setting, let's create these resources like SSDI and such like that for them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, it sort of flipped its on its head in terms of the amount of resources that the community wasn't ready to absorb that. So what we saw is sometime, in some states, I think California, I can't remember the year, but in the year of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, and if you read about this, I mean, depending on where you come from, congressman, rulemaker, they could say financial stuff, whatever, like everybody has sort of a different rationale as to, you know, why deinstitutionalization, the outcome, but ultimately what we know is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the 1950s, uh, antipsychotic drug was released. Prior to that, it was, you know, people with mental illness, like they'd never be cured, right? There was the myth of mental illness. We didn't know too much about it. And so I think Thorazine was the first antipsychotic that came out in the 1950s. And so at that point it was like, oh, well people can get better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And our, our model of care really allows people to stay long term in a way that they can move fluidly through this and avoid really moving into the hospitalizations. But it's also, uhm, it's a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a private pay model. It's a, you know, insurance is not going to pay for that for folks, right? Because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so folks who are primarily dependent on insurance and such like that will find themselves in more short-term environments, uhm. Kind of like crisis intervention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Faster than they're ready to move, but what you're describing with the framing around the book is we plant seeds, we create as much structure and consistency as we can, we plant seeds, we help people to kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll be thinking about and, you know, how this will impact them, but every day it's the sort of same conversation until they get it and sort of a loving approach with them until they get it and being able to tolerate what comes up for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, somebody who needs a little pick-me-up, that turnaround might be a lot quicker than somebody with a chronic sort of complex disorder and in that case, like, it might take


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can I deal with my own sense of like helplessness and like sense of powerlessness or even inadequacy and not being able to like shift like all these things come up for someone when you're loving somebody through


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something like this, uhm, but consistency is huge. And then remembering that you're not hurting someone by trying to hold them, uhm, in their own discomfort, right? So if somebody is uncomfortable,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I think trusting our intuition is huge if there's a pull in some ways to check in with somebody or ask them how they're doing or you notice something that feels off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody when I didn't see that they were up for meds because I didn't want to like kind of call them out or whatever it might be, uhm, and so I think that, uhm, you know, trusting our intuition with that and like really checking in with people and asking important questions, uhm, and working through our own fears that we have related to addressing some of these things are super important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you for having us be here. Extremely grateful to be a part of this. And yes, I mean, I think in terms of the work that we do, it takes a special type of person to be, to have this conversation, to talk about this, to work with this population, to be a part of it. And you're definitely a part of that. So thank you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These cartoonish pictures that you're utilizing of me, by the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, son of a, of Richard and Joyce Voss. My dad was a blue collar entrepreneur, owned his own business. My mom was initially a stay at home mom. That's what they were back in those days. And then ultimately, you know, as the kids grew up, got involved in my father's, aspects of my father's business.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, oil jobber originally, a middle man between, uh, shell oil and the end user, which would usually be, um, large farms, small companies. And then really the business when he bought it was home heating oil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I can remember my father going out in the middle of the night in the middle of the winter because somebody's furnace shut down. He had to fix it or they were going to freeze. And then, uh, after he got into the business, according to him, uhm, not, not independently verified, but it certainly was a case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The gas company came in and gave everybody that had fuel oil furnaces free natural gas service furnaces.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Took away all his customers. By the time that I graduated high school, we were one of the only houses that I knew that was still burning, uh, fuel oil for heat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he adapted, you know, you gotta adapt. He expanded his business, bought some gas stations, built some convenience stores, saw himself as much in the energy business as a fuel oil business and just adapted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the old man just wasn't happy. He wasn't seeing that as, as a, as legitimate, um, sporting activity that could divert me away from working for him. So, you know, I had to, my father believed he put a roof over your head. He fed you, he clothed you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The only time I ever worked at a gas station, it was for one that he didn't own and it was a business associate wanted to hire me on. But most of the time it was uhm, whatever needed to be done. Maintenance, driving trucks, driving tractors, cutting grass, painting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I, I did a, painted a lot of stuff in the summertime. I, to this day I hate to paint. You know, he needed, he needed a house painted. He had kids. Here's, here's a bucket of paint. Here's a brush. Here's a scaffold. Well, my favorite one was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He, uhm, wanted a new garage. Wanted to build, you know, the house we bought. Had a single car garage. You barely fit that one in. He wants a new garage. I'm probably about 11 or 12 at the time. My older sister's 13 or 14.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He hands us crowbars and says go out in the backyard and tear down the garage. And then, and then so we tear, we pretty much tear the whole thing down. And then we got the foundation left. And you gotta knock the foundation out. And the old man thinks alright, well I'll go run a jackhammer. I'll put my kid, my 12 year old on a jackhammer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the foundation was so big I couldn't break it up with a jackhammer. So he finally has to hire a contractor and this guy comes in with a backhoe. And I'm thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fair, uhm, I was capable of better grades than I felt like getting. Uh, mostly a B student.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] College, college was always part of the game plan. Like my, for whatever reason, we just always accepted that all of us, uh, older sister and two younger, accepted we were gonna go to college. Old man was gonna spring for four years of tuition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you graduated or not, that was on you. Finite amount of money, you know, got, got a certain amount of money put in my checking account, start of every session. If I spent it or not, it was up to me. Uhm, and I just, you know, it was just, and then whatever happened after that was pretty much up to us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Iowa State University. My older sister went there, one reason ago. Uhm, you know, I really idolized her growing up, and she was there, sort of plowing the ground. It was far enough away from home, that I wouldn't have to work in the evenings, or be expected to work on the weekends. You know, because it was a freaking


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah, good observation. Nah, I wasn't into wrestling. I'm home of a lot of great wrestling. Dan Gable, a bunch of folks. Iowa State Cyclones were running championship after championship in those days. Uhm, the 190 pound wrestler, Frank Santana, I remember him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I was 16, a buddy of mine and I went and saw, uh, based on a true story, true life movie, The Super Cops. Two cops in New York.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somebody recently actually found me a DVD of it and sent it to me. Uhm, these guys worked in Bed-Stuy, back when Bed-Stuy was a really bad area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] White dudes. Very black area. Community love them. Love them. These guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Locked up bad people and the good people in the community appreciated the heck out of it. And these guys were extremely creative. I didn't realize that at the time. The other thing that really, uhm, attracted me to them, complete mavericks. Like, didn't pay attention to what the bosses told them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And put a lot of bad people in jail. We're very, very creative about it. And, uh, the, uh, the community actually nicknamed them Batman and Robin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, who wants to be robbing, right? But then, then, uh, me and my buddy saw this when I remember we were 16 and we both got struck at that moment in time. We wanted to be in law enforcement. And I stayed in, and, uhm, law enforcement is occasionally a harsh reality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my buddy went to Phoenix, got on with police department there, and the harshness of it, he just wasn't built for it, needn't last.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they didn't call it that back then, they would call it industrial administration, but it was a business degree. And, uh, I started out originally,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I got in the engineering school, I switched out as soon as I was there, switched to sociology, then I realized that a lot of sociologists out of work, what if I changed my mind about being a cop? So I decided to go to business, just to have the flexibility and go in whatever direction I wanted to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I went, well, initially, I wanted to go to Kansas City, Missouri. I, uh, I'd never been there. But everybody in that part of the world, the three cities for choices were principally Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Originally, I had my heart set on San Francisco.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And because we had visited there, my family went there when I was about 18. I thought, this is a cool town. It's a really interesting place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, uh, a thing called Proposition came through in Cali- Proposition 13 came through in California where they cut back on all the property taxes. I figured they were going to impact the municipal budgets negatively. Probably a guy from out of state who's going to have trouble getting hired.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then I just decided to stay local and everybody that I knew that had been to Kansas City said this is a great town. And so I just went and applied completely out of the blue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were, they told me they were not hiring when I graduated. I remember when I graduated I was really depressed because I didn't know where I was going to go. Didn't want to go back home and work for my father.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I had nowhere else to go. And Kansas City, although they knew internally that June 1, it was going to be a new fiscal year and a new world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were telling me at the time, nah, we got no idea when we were gonna hire. Just no idea. This is May. So they had to have known they were gonna hire in June. And a new fiscal year came in, they started a new class, I was in the class.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Interesting. I may have gotten a letter, I don't even actually remember.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also, like just to get into law enforcement, I remember I applied for a sheriff's department, got turned down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I had done an internship with the Iowa Department of Public Safety. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't remember exactly why. I don't think I wanted to be in Iowa. I didn't want to be in Iowa Highway Patrol. If I was going to be uniform, I wanted to be in a city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I remember being told from the police, uh, people in the Department of Public Safety, like you could walk right into the highway patrol, because I'd had an internship with them the year before. So they knew me, they knew I was an honest guy, and that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I was going to follow the rules. Uhm, but I, I didn't want to, I didn't want to be a highway patrolman, so I held out for Kansas City, wanted to be in the city and got in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they had just moved a police academy into a local community college, I think for budgetary reasons. They had their own academy in its own stand-alone campus where they controlled


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All aspects of it, and for whatever reason, which I'm sure is budgetary, uhm, they abandoned that. So we're in a community college.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, combination of classroom, not quite boot camp, plus you're going home to your own apartment every night. They, uh, six months.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, PT every day and something that I think law enforcement has really lost sight of, like the neck restraint, the carotid restraint.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We worked on that every single day for six months. Like nobody that I ever worked with ever hurt anybody by misapplication of the neck restraint.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they knew, they knew that it was potentially lethal, and if there was one thing they were gonna do, we were gonna be in condition, relatively speaking, not sealed condition, but in condition. But we weren't gonna hurt anybody putting a neck restraint on them. We worked on that every day for six months.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One cop and I, uhm, we had to corral this gorilla, uh, and just, you know, Caucasian, just for the record. But this monstrous dude at the mental hospital,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which means like, normally somebody is nuts and big as that, once you corral them, you take them to the mental hospital. So when the mental hospital calls you to get somebody out of there, you know you got a problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If we wouldn't have been able to choke that guy out with the proper carotid restraint, I don't know how we'd have gotten him out of there without shooting him. Like, and we got him out of there completely unarmed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] School, 6 month academy in a community college, uhm, trying to maintain quasi-military discipline, which most law enforcement kind of quasi. And it was, it was, yea, it was a good classroom, working out occasionally a couple times a week going to the range.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Combination, constitutional law, some un-understandable probable cause, uh, administrative, uh, rules and regulations that we're gonna have to know just to get by on the street. You know, I can remember the first time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The standard report form was a form 189. And so they, eh, they say we're gonna learn how to fill out a form 189. I remember thinking like, I gotta remember 189 forms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I felt like I was. I certainly did. Uh, there were a couple things, uh, that took getting used to. Like initially I was so nervous, my breaking officer was scared to let me drive. And then, uh, you know, the complexity of being on patrol, listening to the radio,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And actually being on patrol. Most, initially you can't do both. So if you're really paying attention to your environment, if you're looking around, if you're listening, you're not going to hear the radio. And finally somebody's going to come by and say, we've been calling you for 20 minutes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then, and then you just keep, keep doing it every day, every day, every day and then suddenly something clicks and you're pulling in all the information and you're dialing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They, you know, they wanna see whether or not they're gonna turn you loose. Kansas City at the time ran one man car patrols.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when you got cut loose off break-in, you were riding around by yourself. Which is, for a variety of reasons, actually I'm hearing now, really a good patrol strategy. Why is that? What I just heard recently, uh, unsourced, uhm, that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A male police officer is less likely to overreact to a challenge if he's by himself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if there's two males there, two male police officers at the initial challenge, you're a little more likely to overreact because there's another male there that you're afraid of losing face in front of. I don't know how true that is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It makes sense to me for a variety of reasons. There's some more complexity to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I held off before talking to you about the different people you've had on. Uhm, Huberman. I'm a huge Andrew Huberman fan. And I saw you had him in. I think, eh, he's brilliant. He's a brilliant dude. I had the good fortune to have lunch with him one day. And uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm very much into the neuroscience aspects these days. And on one of his podcasts, he was talking about, again, separating out the problems with law enforcement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as I recall, he's talking about, uh, the basic four neurochemical hormones that, that drive us. And as I recall, it's primarily testosterone, serotonin, oxytocin, serotonin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, if you're essentially testosterone type, you're more likely to see things as a challenge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, let's get out of race and get into type. You got a testosterone driven comp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stopping a testosterone driven male, and they're both gonna see almost everything that happens as a challenge. You can expect that to turn into a downward spiral, absent better training. It's got nothing to do with race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. No, that's exactly right. And most police departments are running uhm, two man patrols. Two person patrols.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you're trained too. I mean, you're trained to not let your negative emotions get out of control.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I loved it. My first year there I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I was in a commercial area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, a fair amount of street life, uhm, a little more fast paced. And that suited me. I'm not a real meticulous, super organized, super patient.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By, ehm, nature and nurture, I'm not sure which, but neither one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So my first year I had, I had a ball. I mean, I had a ball. I mean, I was putting bad guys in jail. You know, I really loved it. I can even remember, uhm, my parents came to visit me one time and we, we met at the, uh, came by the precinct.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Towards the end of my shift and I was told they were there so we drove up and my mom said when she saw me get out of the car She said the way you moved when you got out of the car. I saw a cop get out of that car


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so then after I was there for a year, they switched me to a residential area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is a different kind of work. You know, you're not, you're not making, locking up multiple guys in a night. Uhm, you're looking for residential burglars. It's much more painstaking, meticulous patient work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I went from an area that I just loved to an area that I just wasn't, I wasn't built for and I, and I started getting bored while I was there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you know, I don't know that I looked so much for something else to do. Uhm, I was gonna, I was planning on, I wanted to become a member of the SWAT team. And it took three years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To get on the SWAT team, so I'm there, you know, two-ish years, and the guys, I knew most of the guys that were on the SWAT team, and they said, well you know, put in for the selection process, you know, just go through it, if you put in, then the commanders, cams and sergeants are gonna get to know that you're interested, they're gonna keep an eye on you, then next time around,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You got a better shot. So, cool. So, I put in for the selection process, ended up number one on the list.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Number one, no, shocked everybody. So the, the captains went to the lieutenant colonel and said, let's waive the three year rule. Our number one guy here isn't going to have three years for 10 more months. And the lieutenant colonel said, I don't care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Rules are rules, we're not waiving them. So, I'm in a precinct, I'm bored by, they're taking everybody on the list under me, one at a time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there was even the discussion of the possibility that if they took everybody, they still wouldn't take me, they'd be a whole new selection process. So I'm a little annoyed by this, and that my father says, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he introduces me to this guy with the Secret Service. And I talk to this guy and he says, you know, I've traveled all over the world with the Secret Service. And I remember thinking, somebody paid you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And paid for your flights? And paid for your hotel? To go all over the world?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I didn't know one federal agency from another. No idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Secret service, I will go down there. We're not hiring. Not hiring.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I see an article in a newspaper, uh, FBI's first billion dollar budget. I knew enough about budgets that I thought, it's gotta be salaries, they gotta be hiring.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I went down, I put in, it was the first of a three year hiring push. And uhm, and I got in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I would have gone to the SWAT team. The Bureau hired me on October 15th.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I remember, you know, I'm a dumb 20-something year old I put in for the bureau. And I remember literally telling people,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they kept, uh, the police department and had a, the chief at the time hated the FBI with a passion. Hated the FBI. So they had a rule that if you left the police department, the only job you couldn't come back from


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was if you became an FBI agent. You go take a job as a dog catcher, they take you back. You go take a job, you know, think of something, a hairdresser, you know, I don't know what.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the only job, and in my exit interview, they, they, they literally told me, they said, you understand you can never come back if you join the bureau. I'm like, wow, that's not my intention to come back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But so consequently, they had to, I had to keep my application a secret till it was in the final stages. They couldn't go interview any of my commanders until just, they were sure that they were gonna hire me at the last minute. And, you know, that led, I was still a mouthy twenty-something, so that led to a couple of problems as I was leaving the police department.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that, uh, a couple of bureau guys spotted him on the street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With these ladies of the evening on their way to a meeting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they said, you know, I don't want to work with this guy. And then he went on to, like the FBI, this is how bad it got under this guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if you're familiar with the FBI National Academy, but if you get sent to the National Academy, the bureau pays all your expenses, pays for your flights, like doesn't cost an agency a dime to send somebody to the National Academy, and it's a stepping stone in a lot of police departments to becoming chief for the next promotion. It's a big deal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they start talking about how they pay all expenses for cops. And I'm thinking,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It can't be that it's free. Like nah, it's free. That's how much this guy hated the FBI.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, running, shooting, mostly academic. The, uhm, uh, the physical aspects of it were not super challenging. You could, if, uh, it would help you at the time, you could be in no condition at all and they'd whip you into shape. They ended up having, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they weren't huge. Like FBI agents are not wrestling people to the ground on a regular basis. So they want you to be physically capable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it was more rigorous in a police department. Cause you might get into a wrestling match with somebody every day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the bureau's, uh, tactics is to outman, outgun the bad guys so that physical confrontations are unnecessary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they want you to be able to handle yourself, but it's not that big of a deal. They really want you, they want you to do the classroom work. They want you to be able to shoot well. My shooting improved significantly from when I was there. And it was, it was, you know, it was good solid 16 weeks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, I was a lot more, uhm, harsh, so to speak, more aggressive, more blunt than the vast majority of them were. Uhm, I was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty small. At the time, they hired in five categories. I was copster in the modified category, which is all others. Like, you're not a lawyer, you're not an accountant, you're not a scientist, you're not a female, you're not a minority.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you're not any others, you're not a language. You know, you don't, you're not already fluent. Got it. So everybody else goes into a large category, modified and, you know, it's a more competitive, theoretically, just more, more people there. Uhm, and I was modified.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothin', nothin' there then. I mean, I could, I was already in decent condition, took care of myself pretty well. I could study when I felt like it and I already knew how to shoot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you, that would, they had a problem with physical conditioning because they tried to, they wouldn't enforce the physical conditioning rules in the academy but then not once you joined, were actually in a field office as an agent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And somebody brought up, well if, if legally you're full FBI agents from the moment you walk in the door, you shouldn't get fired from the academy on something you won't get fired from if you're in a field office.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You should be, you shouldn't be fat and out of shape in the field office. They just weren't firing people for that. So, they, then they, then they just raised the physical minimums to get in the door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The theory then, and I think it's still pretty true now, be an FBI agent first, specialize afterwards. We gotta make sure that you understand how to be a generalist before you, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like if you were into collecting postage stamps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somebody's engaged in an act of criminal enterprise, making money from counterfeit posts. I get it, it doesn't matter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the cool thing about the FBI is that ultimately, if you take your time, you can have the best time investigating crimes around stuff you're really interested in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Spanish guys for a while, everybody had to, if you got hired in the Spanish program,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody was gonna have to do a stint in Puerto Rico. Those were the only ones at the time. Puerto Rico's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bureau's got its hands full in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doesn't know if it wants to be a state or a commonwealth. You know, infrastructure problems, uh, on the one hand, still, uh, you know, back in my time in the bureau, still a couple of active groups that are engaging in violence for independence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so this, just, this crazy combination of very difficult things to work in Puerto Rico. So if you're a Spanish speaker, you're gonna do time in Puerto Rico. That was the only language.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, policy which made, which made complete sense. Like starting your life over as an FBI agent is a big jump.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the easiest way effectively is to go into a witness security program. It's a complete new identity, no ties to your old identity at all. Because it's the easiest way to become an FBI agent. Like nobody, nobody, you're not around people you went to high school with, you're not around your neighbors, you're not even around family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most offices start you out working, working applicants because you gotta get used to laying the credentials on somebody in a low stress environment. So if you're doing a background investigation, you're walking into a bank because somebody that used to work in a bank wants to become an agent or something else where the background's required.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, but, uh, or if you're going into a bank to lock somebody up, that's a whole different, so they, they warm you up in applicants and then, depend upon where you are, where you're gonna get assigned to. I initially get assigned to foreign counterintelligence, FCI, working spies, which is not for me. Again, that's slow, meticulous work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The guy is ahead of the office. His kid is getting ready to go to college in Iowa State.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm not that far from out of Iowa State. I'm like, look, you know, I'll connect you with some friends. You know, we'll help make sure your landing is a soft landing. And, you know, I helped look out for his kid. Building some relationships. Relationship building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so then he initially, I wanna go to the drug squad, drug and organized crime. The different choices, they got a bank robbery squad, great squad, I got no shot at the bank robbery squad, drug and organized crime, or white collar. So I'm like, let me do the drugs and organized crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This guy, I'm told he's gonna send me to drug and organized crime. And then when the transfer comes through, I'm on surveillance. Which ended up being a great thing. It was better than FCI.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but then you, you know, that's, that assignment played into where I ended up in New York, in Surveillance. You get to experiment with stuff, and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In all the field divisions, surveillance is a light undercover. You got a name, different last name, you got the ID, you got credit cards. In the event that you got a, somebody you're following, whether it's a drug dealer or a spy,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If he gets on a plane, you gotta go with him. You gotta be able to pay for it, you know, you gotta be able to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I got a chance to do some undercover work there also because then they're borrowing the guys on the surveillance teams. You've already got an undercover backstop. You go out and do drug buying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's when I found out to be an undercover is to lie for a living and it didn't fit me, didn't suit me. Some, some people it's fine, it works for you, but lying for a living didn't work for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And until you try it, something that sounds sexy, you don't really know if it's for you. So I got a chance to try it a couple, a few times in Pittsburgh and I just realized it just wasn't for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, or even if, even if you're in a chase vehicle where you're following them, like they're moving for, of an 8 to 10 hour shift, they're moving for an hour max. So you're sitting around no matter what.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Roughly, at the time it was roughly two years before they moved you onto one of the top offices. They called it the top 12 at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But everybody was going to New York. At the time, uhm, every FBI agent everywhere in the country got paid the same amount of money. If you were, if you were an agent in Kansas City, if you were an agent in my hometown, Mount Pleasant, Iowa, you got paid the exact same amount of money somebody in New York got paid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So consequently, there were people in New York who were quitting right and left. They were having trouble staffing the office.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, look, you're, you're going to New York. I mean, the orders aren't here yet, but nine out of 10 of you coming out of this class, you guys are all going to end up in New York. So you're going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't be shocked when your orders for New York come through. So, I'm in Pittsburgh, I'm waiting for the orders to New York to come through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 1985. The day my son Brandon was born was the exact same day I got my orders to New York were printed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, since I got surveillance time, and since I've been a cop, the Joint Terrorist Task Force, the surveillance team dedicated to them,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, needed, needed bodies and I, because of my surveillance time, I got put right on. So that was, that was a huge break for a whole bunch of reasons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, I saved a lot of money. Didn't have to pay for suits and dry cleaning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a, you know, the cost of living is now increased so my living standard is taking a step back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the second thing was at the time the surveillance teams were the only guys that took cars home. Surveillance and SWAT took cars home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so this takes care of all my commuting expenses, which is another significant chunk of cash. So, and then I'm with New York city cops as partners, a joint terrorist task force surveillance team. But the coolest thing of it was we were the only surveillance team in New York that actually got out on the street with people, went into the subway. You had to be prepared.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To end up anywhere in New York City at one o'clock in the morning, toughest neighborhood, by yourself, no coms with anybody. Like totally on your own.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you develop, you know, it's a very dangerous time, 19, mid to late 80s, very dangerous. So if you're, if you're into this job, like this is great. This is Disney world every day. Like how do you end up in the South Bronx and the bad guys leave you alone?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we, you know, we could use payphones, you know, you had special number, you could use a payphone, not cost you. I called some friends of mine in Iowa to say, guess where I am at right now? I am in Bed-Stuy in a drug neighborhood hanging out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, you know, I think, I know there's some terms of art for anti-terrorists versus counter-terrorists. I think we're counter-terrorists.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was a very cool transition time. The terrorist task force started out mostly all domestic terrorism.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And had, every ethnic group had a terrorist group. Puerto Ricans had the FLIN, the Machiteros, Jewish JDL, bombers, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Panthers had turned into the Black Liberation Army, and the most dangerous one of all?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The May 19th Communist Organization, which was mostly white female lesbians.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were the smartest, the most organized, the most effective of all the groups. Like they, we had more respect


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the first, first generation of terrorist task force put them all in jail. I mean, knocked them out. They, they, you know, they won awards right and left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Books were written about all the cases they made. So I get there, and I join that just as that's going away. And simultaneously, just as...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Islamic radicals are starting to come to town. Like I get there just a couple years before the first World Trade Center bombing and we're seeing a shift, but the bizarre part of it was no one believed this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were actually in the process of disbanding the terrorist task force when the First World Trade Center bombing occurred in 93.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some of my supervisors, uh, a deputy chief famously said to one of my supervisors, you're telling me about pink elephants walking down Broadway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they took us, they disbanded the terrorist task force and they reassigned us all the gang cases.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gang crimes, you know, the different groups, wherever they originated from. At the different time, at the time, there were a couple of bank robbery crews that were, they realized if we call where we hang out a mosque,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then we just pulled another layer of the First Amendment over us. And it's that much harder to get, to get at us. So, they said, you know, criminals, and every religion has legitimate, uhm, practitioners.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's not the legitimate practitioner's fault that the criminals changed the name of the building they hang out in to a mosque.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what a bunch of them did. And we went from literally the first world trade center bombing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Couple of guys that were investigating some bank robberies were trying to get a wire in a building that the bank robbers said was a mosque and the prosecutors wouldn't touch it. They're like, we are not, we don't care what you find. We are not putting a wire in a church.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the trade center happened, and they turned right back around, and with all the probable cause we'd previously established, we got the whys that we needed right after the first trade center bombing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had been, I had shifted from surveillance to what we call going inside, being part of the investigative squad. So I was no longer doing light cover. And I had been doing, uhm, investigations, uh, overtly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For probably about two years, when the first Trade Center bombing happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, yeah, completely. Uhm, there were some cases that we had had working.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We just, we didn't imagine, we, we didn't have our arms around the guys that did the bombing. We actually had, we were looking real hard at a particular group that engaged in a test blast of the Trade Center Explosive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were tricked into the test blast. They didn't even know what was going on. The op-sec of the guys that hit the first trade center was really, really good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the first Trade Center bombing, who is in fact Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew. 9-11 mastermind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His nephew Ramsey Youssef did the first, he came to town. He brought the plans with him. He found a bunch of disorganized guys. You know, nobody, nobody really appreciated what he was, how organized he was. He pulled the whole thing together and left New York shortly before the bomb went off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The amount of damage that bomb could have done. Ridiculous, ridiculously lucky. And their intention was first time was to take the tower down. They placed the bomb in a position to try to drop one tower into the next. And when Ramsey came back, when we brought him back, collectively, I'm told,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That they flew by the trade center and he told the guys on the plane next time we're taking it down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we, well, we got, we got on them in a hurry. Uhm, we, we'd been working different aspects of the group for about five years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And everything they did, there was tremendous restrictions on terrorist investigations because they saw it as a political investigation. So the oversight, like we had to re-justify the cases every six months. And if you had, if they hadn't committed a crime or we hadn't turned up a crime in that six month time frame, the investigation just got shut down. You couldn't pursue it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, but consequently we had little bits and pieces all along that when they hit the Trade Center we could go back to the previous cases, well here's a piece here, here's a piece here, here's a piece here, and we now saw how the group had coalesced in the United States.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By not breaking the law in their own way. For example, one guy, uhm, one of the ringleaders got stopped in a car, pulled over in a car, stopped, trunkload of weapons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the, one of the passengers in the car had a federal fire license.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It had dealer tags on the car. Wasn't the right, the reason it got stopped was because the tags didn't match the car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had a legitimate reason for having a dealer tax. Dealer license plate you can put on any car you want driving around. You're golden. So, legitimate car stop within the laws of the United States. No reason to take anybody to jail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we start backtracking, we see same guys in a car with a bunch of weapons on the way to a firing range. So when we could bring all the pieces together, it all came together pretty fast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would say it would be fair to say utterly no interest in being a hostage negotiator when I first joined the bureau. I was on a SWAT team in Pittsburgh. I got to New York. I tried out for HRT.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I was ridiculously underprepared when I tried out for HRT. I was just like sad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, knew that I could do it if I worked at it, you know. You can't train a couple of weekends. You gotta train your tail off for a year. It's gotta become a lifestyle. I don't have to tell you that. I mean, that's what it is. It's a lifestyle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I tried out for HRT and failed miserably. And then started working out again and re-injured my knee, had my knee put back together for the second time. And then I thought, alright, so, and as probably as you well know, there's a shelf life, there's special operations, special forces.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're gonna expire at some point in time, you know, something's gonna break too many times and you're not gonna be able to do it anymore. Uh, so then I thought, alright, so we got negotiators, I've seen these guys out there, they're there all the time, crisis response. I'll be a negotiator because crisis requires a decision.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somebody's gotta decide what to do and decide now. And I wanted to stay in that game and do it, so I thought I'd, I thought I would angle myself towards the negotiation team and had to jump through some hoops but eventually made it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's something in you, there's four basic additional assignments. Something in you is going to resonate with one of those four. You can be an undercover, you can be a negotiator, you can be a SWAT, you can be a bomb tech. Each one of those is a little bit different breed of cat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And something in you is really going to line up with one of those things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was interested in negotiation. And what you do if, if, if they take you on the team, then they send you to Quantico for two weeks to get that training. There's three schools in the world that every hostage negotiator wants to go to. You want to go to the Bureau School, you want to go to London Met, Scotland Yard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you're either going to want to go down to Australia or you're going to want to go to Canada because both of those run great courses. So the bureau's course


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As opposed to the Scotland Yards course, the Bureau's course will turn you into the best hostage negotiator you could be. Scotland Yard will turn you into a great team player. Which I had no idea there was a difference then. But there is a huge difference.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wait, you volunteered on a what? Suicide hotline. Okay, got it. That was the hoop I had to jump through. Cause I went to the head of the negotiation team in New York. Said I wanted to be a hostage negotiator.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, this is in the book, the woman that you, that said. Turned me down. And so I volunteered on Hotline, so then when I get to the Bureau's negotiation school, and they're playing tapes, I say to myself, I've been doing this for a year and a half, I just didn't have a SWAT team outside. So I've already felt that it was something that I was going to be good at and enjoyed while I was there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had, like it's an, it's an invisible skill. It's ridiculously effective. And it's completely invisible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So write down what you think a good response is. They're gonna give you back this piece of paper at the end of the training.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They gave me back the piece of paper at the end of the training. Now I write like, it looks like I write with my feet. My handwriting is very distinct. Like there's no way you can fake my handwriting. So they hand me this piece of paper and I know that's my handwriting. And I remember thinking like, what moron wrote those responses?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was, that was how far they take you in two months and you don't even know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so, and, uh, one call that I did get, this guy calls in and says, look, look, I, you know, I'm just, I'm just, you know, I'm trying to put a lid on this night, I'm trying to put a lid on this night. Now before training, I might have said, have you tried watching some TV?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have you tried working out? Like when I'm really stressed, I know if I go get a good workout, it clears my head. Or have you tried meditation? Like jumping right in to problem solving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is the wrong way to do it. That is, that will prolong the situation. Like the speed accelerator, which is neuroscience based, I didn't know at the time, is to deactivate the negatives by calling them out. So I just say to this guy, cause I've been taught to just like, call out what you're hearing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And immediately his voice started coming down several notches. Instantaneously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that tiny, like, people listening to that conversation would be like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, if I'm watching, the person that he said it to, instantaneously came down. And since you don't see examples of that in real life, or on the movies or TV,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so uhm, it's probably a neurochemical reaction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a, there's, and from listening to Huberman and others, I'm fascinated by what, finding the science behind it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's been duplicated in a number of experiments that if I put you in an fMRI where I can watch electricity moving around in your brain and I show you a picture


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It induces some sort of negative thought. And what the picture is, it doesn't matter. The experiment's been done a number of times. They might have shown them puppies in the rain. A starving child in Africa. Anything that induces a negative thought. And so, seeing the picture, they watch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About three quarters of the amygdala and a couple of other things that are involved. So they watch it light up when you see the picture. Now they just say to you, what are you feeling? Just asking you to label it. Call it out. Simply call it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And every time they ask a person to simply identify the negative emotion that they're feeling, the electrical activity in the areas that it lit up start to diminish. Every time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not sometimes, not 75% of the time, every time. Now the amount they diminish changes. Which is why I happened to hit the nail on the head with this guy on a hotline. He starts coming down significantly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes you can call out somebody's negative emotion and there won't be any perceivable response. It doesn't mean it didn't work. It means you just need to do it some more. But it happens every time. Now what triggers it


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is, is it a neurochemical response? Is it a conscious response? It's probably some sort of neurochemical response.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what we learned in hostage negotiation, and on the hotline, actually we do this extremely aggressively now in all our business negotiations. Like, you and I get some contentious to talk about. I'm gonna call you on a phone, send you a text, send you an email saying like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I, I started in a funny kind of way. I started applying this when I'm running our international kidnap response. I go to an embassy that's kidnapping the Philippines. I think you read about earlier. I am unwelcome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because somebody from Washington DC shows up, the locals in the embassy, the message they get is they're screwing up. You're either screwing up or you're inadequate. Somebody from DC is not welcome. And I'm walking into a hostile environment every time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And because they were new to it, they didn't know exactly the response. They'd usually be doing something wrong. And I'd walk in, I'd start pointing out what they were doing wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my partner, Chuck Ragini, who you, uh, who's in the story, whenever we walk into a room, he would start to flinch because he knew that I was getting ready to lay into these guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And somewhere along the line, I learned to say before I started criticizing him, I'd say, this is gonna sound harsh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I'd criticize them. And they'd be, okay. They'd go from being mad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To, you know, it preempted the negativity by letting them know what was coming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've seen it work on a regular basis. Something about it makes it work. You could say, you could probably get away with saying this in the Navy, in the teams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could say, you know, Captain, this is gonna, I don't want you to think I'm being disrespectful. And you're probably not gonna get to say the sentence second. Sentence second. Second sentence. Or he's gonna have shut you off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if instead you said, Captain, I know this is going to sound disrespectful, he'd sit there and listen to you. He'd appreciate being warned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's something about that reaction, that tiny little shift, that I learned way back on the hotline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A year? I was, I was actively on the line for probably a little over two years, two and a half years. I stayed very involved when uhm, when the first trade center kicked off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Than our follow-on case, which was a larger, broader conspiracy on a couple of different groups that were all linked together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, through the course of that following year, I just didn't have time to volunteer on a hotline anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you know, and I didn't really understand why all I knew was that taking that approach accelerated things. Just complete acceleration in situations that I thought would have taken hours. And so I just saw...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, Kahneman doesn't win the Nobel Prize, like 2002-ish.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, just saw that it worked, didn't understand why, didn't really care. My first issue has always been what works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, understanding a mechanism is important sometimes. People need to understand a mechanism. Some people need to understand a mechanism. I care about number one, what works. Number two, secondarily, is it moral? You know, I, missionaries and mercenaries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Eh, mercenaries if it works. Missionaries if it follows your basic moral code. If it qualifies on both of those then I'm good. Got it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, here's what I'd add to that, because that description is really, the way we negotiate is, we're just looking for the best deal. Like you said, you're looking for the best plan. The real hard part in negotiating is, your goal, you need to see it merely as a suggestion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you get too goal oriented, you get tunnel vision and you miss better answers. Never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better. And by definition,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're never gonna know the best possible outcome. It's not possible. Cause the other side's holding stuff back. You're holding stuff back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Getting people to accept that intellectually is often really difficult with really experienced business people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'll say, when are you not holding something back? Uh, budgetary problems, pressures to make the deal, pressures to not make the deal, internal politics, personal pressures. Is there ever a time you're not holding something back? And no one ever said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I negotiate and I'm completely honest all the time. Nobody ever says that. People are always holding stuff back. So, if you are, they are too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're both holding back information that would change the course of the deal if revealed. That's why you're holding it back. Now, so, now what happens if you exponentialize this, so to speak? There's an overlap of the unknowns.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's impossible to know the best deal going in. It's not possible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you are stroking your own ego when you say stuff like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's one of the ones, again I was talking about Huberman before, like if I could get him to do a ton of experiments, like try this, try this, try this, I gotta find out this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and it does. And then who's attracted to it? I find interesting who's attracted to it. And then I also find it's different circuits in the brain. Like the majority of the people on my team, we get really good at labeling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I find, uh, as a performance skill, then, uh, in myself and others, we might not mirror enough. And then those that are really attracted to mirroring, and will use it almost exclusively,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Second, what is it that makes you tick, that makes you like that mirroring so much?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think it's, they're attracted to the simplicity of it and then they're not offended by simple concepts, which actually in many cases takes a more sophisticated approach to really like simple stuff. And I'm seeing regularly


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People that really are, mirroring is a sophisticated skill and if somebody rejects it off the top of their head, I think you're worried about appearing stupid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you're so confident in your intelligence that you got no problem looking stupid, then you're happy to mirror.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, like if you get somebody who has, who's dialed in enough emotional, enough emotional intelligence to make some good predictions for you, it's probably not bad even if they're not good at it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You just gotta make sure that that's not exactly the way you expect it to go down. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so this is a possibility, now this is how it's gonna happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's my, and that's one that a thousand percent I'll attribute to my son Brandon. Cause he, we'd be talking about this developing it after I left the FBI and kicking the ideas around. And he'd have an insider, he'd say something. And I know that using the word hypothesis in our vernacular came from him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I love about what I do for a living now is I get in interesting conversations with people. With fascinating people that I just like aspire to be in the same room with. So Ari Emanuel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the, the art, that, that Ari from Hollywood, the guy that, you know, uh, the character on, um, authorized is based around. So he gives me a call, he wants to talk about something, and he says, you know, Speaker's Bureau, Don Walker runs it, we'll get on the phone. Cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I get on the phone with Don and Ari at the same time, and Don has done his homework. But he's one of those guys that's not comfortable with silence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So fortunately he's so smart about what he's doing and he's done it for so long.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That everything that's coming out of his mouth is exactly what I'm thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, I've done a talk a couple of times that you get 7 to 10 seconds to get somebody's attention. Or you lose it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he must have talked for about three minutes and finally Ari goes, that's the longest seven seconds I've ever heard in my life. Cause Don just couldn't stop talking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, simple again. Seems like it sounds like it looks like. Seems like something's bothering you. Seems like you don't know when you're gonna need me. Seems like you're giving this a lot of thought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just hanging a label on something. It hits the brain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a different way than anything else does.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And even questions, like me and another guy, Steve Scholl, we're doing a lot of stuff with real estate agencies these days. Got a book coming out for residential real estate agents in about two months.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The full fee agent. Okay. And the agents we coach, for example, you go through an open house, you walk around, you look around, and the agent says to you on the way out the door, what did you see that you liked?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically, pretty good question as questions go. Starts with the word what. Not a great way, good word to start a question with. Calibrate a question if you will. And people stop and think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like just straight, like, from layman's perspective, bypassing the prefrontal cortex, entirely shoving up, uh, a listening device in the side of your head and hearing what's going on in your head. Another example, in the labels, when you're exhausted, when you're tired,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's hard to give a good answer. So I'm on my way back from a trip to the UAE a couple of months ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm in Seattle waiting to get on a plane, and I'm exhausted. Shoot a text to a buddy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take, take care of this. Now he could have come back at me with a good question, what makes you ask, to make sure that we're aligned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But instead he texts me back, seems like you have a reason for asking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I was so tired at that point in time that I saw the difference. Seems like you have a reason for asking. I must have thrown back at him a ten line text. Bang bang bang bang bang bang.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then afterwards I thought if he just said what makes you ask,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was tired enough that I'd have thought, you know, just, I'd have texted him back, just do it, stop bothering me. There's something about the way the label hits the brain that there's a complete mental change in the response and the amount of information you get out of somebody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What seems like, seems like this is important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The great skill works with your boss also. He's one of the students in my class at Georgetown.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's in a really, he's loud about it, you know. So this guy gets drug into his boss's office and immediately says, sounds like this is important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Boss immediately comes down three notches, starts thinking things through. If somebody's angry, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sounds like this has made you angry. Sounds like this is important. Sounds like this is upsetting. You want him, you want him to come down several notches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, the lizard brain is out of the driver's seat, and the human brain is back in, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, well, I love that question, how much gear is missing, because, like, on our list of calibrated questions, we hold people almost exclusively to what and how. And so, how feels good to the other side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And touching on what Kahneman would talk about, it triggers in-depth thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the how question to immediately even think about the answer, let alone answer it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You put them in a completely different frame of mind, which takes all, you know, all the steam out, takes all the gas out of the tank, takes all the wind out of the sails, whatever you want, of their reptilian brain, and you've now got them in a deep thinking mode. How's a great question? How is a great question?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, first of all, it was, we put the word tactical in front of it to destigmatize the word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because in common usage the word is thought of as sympathy or compassion. And it's not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In, in usage, it's been convoluted and distorted. I can empathize. You know, I've been there. I feel that way. I agree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was, that was not the original origin of the word or how it was meant to be applied. That was why I started collaborating with Harvard in the first place because Bob Mnuchin wrote in his book, empathy's not even liking the other side. It's not agreement, it's not liking. It's demonstrating that you understand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're trying to get Muslims to testify against other Muslims in open court.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were shocked by that, by a whole bunch of reasons. You know, if you want to be proud to be an American.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, have an Arab Muslim who's in this country just trying to work really hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And having gone through the process, we realized that your system is about the truth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so how do we get, how do we get those Muslims to come in and testify honestly?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would sit down with him and I'd say, right off the bat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You think for the last 200 years there's been a succession of American governments that have all been anti-Islamic. And here we go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, that's empathy. I never said it was true. I didn't say I agreed. I didn't say I disagree. I took no position whatsoever on that statement. I say, you think this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'd nail it on the head. And none of it is that hard when you really, really, ehm, you know where the other side's coming from, you're just scared to say it. Like I'd say it to these guys and you just watch them be shocked. And then dial in with me. Having said what was in the back of their mind. That's all it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, some of this stuff is ridiculous too, and especially talking about politicians, like I'm surprised more politicians don't get this. Mario Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo's father, Chris Cuomo's father, governor of New York.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw him address a hostile crowd of African Americans that were waiting for Winnie Mandela. This is just before Nelson Mandela gets out. Winnie Mandela is doing a world tour. They're keeping the pressure on the South African government. Make sure they let him go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's in New York. Heavy duty African American crowd, almost all African American. Mario Cuomo isn't just not African American, he's Italian, which in New York is a much different dynamic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, at the time, a couple of black guys had been chased out of an Italian neighborhood into traffic and had gotten killed by getting hit by cars. Tensions with the Italians are very high.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cuomo steps up into a crowd that is just short of throwing rocks at him before he said a word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He starts out and he starts going, you see a world that doesn't take your skin color into account. You see a world that doesn't give you a chance because of where you came from and how they perceive you. And he just started laying out thing after thing after thing after thing. That they were in fact feeling and thinking, not agreeing with any of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before he's finished with him, they loved him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like they were so in favor cause he dialed into them and what they were thinking and feeling and he wasn't afraid to say it. And to this day I'm shocked that more politicians don't do that. Cause it's not agreement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He takes no position on it whatsoever. This is what you see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, right, right. So first of all, uh, there's kind of three different things there, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to drive this state through the heart of common ground to start with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is my theory on common ground. First of all, the strongest common ground is usually ethnicity or geography, and geography is more powerful than ethnicity. Like, if you and I grew up in the same neighborhood, uhm, and I don't know what all combination of ethnic groups you are, cause like if you were in New York, you'd be one of five, and I wouldn't know which one


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now if you and I had the exact same ethnicity and you grew up in New York City and I grew up in Mississippi, we're gonna be like, I don't know what this dude is talking about. There's gonna be some resonance, but geography is stronger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now then common ground also. Why do I want to have common ground with you? So you understand me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we share core values, you understand where I'm coming from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if I just demonstrate that I understand, I don't gotta be what? I don't gotta be from your neighborhood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because what common ground is, does this guy or gal understand me? So that just shows somebody who understands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And common ground is unnecessary, not a barriers. Uhm, example, one of my favorites, uh, Bob Iger's book, The Rite of a Lifetime. He's sitting down to negotiate what ends up being the sale of Pixar to Disney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when I went to school, everybody writes up that purchases, you know, it was obvious. It was a great move. It was great for both companies. Not how this thing goes down. Iger gets put in charge of Disney.