How To Ask Better Questions

How To Ask Better Questions

[Intro Music]

Hello everyone and welcome to The Human Behavior Podcast. Do you ever walk away from a conversation feeling like you missed something important? Well, you probably did, and it's likely because you didn't ask the right question. On today's episode, we're talking about how to ask better questions. Not just to avoid awkward small talk, but to actually understand people, spot intent, and make smarter decisions at work, at home, or in the middle of total chaos. Whether you're managing a team, raising a teenager, or just trying to read the room, this one's got something for you. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Don't forget to check out our Patreon channel for additional content and subscriber-only episodes. If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving us a review and, more importantly, sharing it with a friend. Thank you for your time, and remember, training changes behavior.

[Podcast begins]

And we are recording.

All right, Greg. Hello everyone. We've had a little bit of time off, a little bit of a break from episodes for a few weeks. I apologize for that. We'll be back to our normal schedule now. Had a lot going on. My move across country got very, we were in a, I don't know, a kind of transition period for quite some time before I finally got into the house and everything. So that added a number of stress, but we appreciate everyone tuning in, especially all our new listeners. We got an interesting talk today, Greg, about asking questions.

So, the kind of general theme that we're going with through the show is how to ask better questions. And we're going to get into a bunch of different areas on this because, you know, we've talked on different podcasts before, and even in class with some of the stuff we do, like how small talk is actually kind of important sometimes and how people communicate. And everyone's like, "Oh, I should skip the small talk." It's like, no, there's certain social elements to that. But what it comes down to is a lot of times people don't get the information they want because they're not asking the right questions.

And then I see this too, Greg, we'll get to this a little bit later, but this is a big, with the different large language models, ChatGPT, and all these different ones, like they're only as effective as the person using it and the prompts that you give and the questions that you ask and the context that you give. So, you have to frame it. And so it's not unlike trying to get information from a person, whereas the ChatGPT things are just giving you the answer that they think you want, not necessarily the right one every time, but the answer they think you want. That's often a lot like human communication too, right? So, there's a lot we're going to get in here, but we want to get people kind of better at understanding maybe how to improve your ability to ask the right questions at the right time for the right reason, right? Because it can do a lot of things for you, reduce some uncertainty. It helps obviously influence the outcome of any situation that you're in, whether you're talking to a human or an AI bot or something. The quality of your questions determines the quality of your results.

So, I figure, Greg, no better person to talk about this with than you, the king of questions and the, and the king of talking to everyone that you run into, whether they want to have a conversation or not sometimes. But you know, I'm going to throw it to you to kind of start off, Greg, because like you're the guy who can get the life story out of someone at a gas station. You know what I mean? Like you'll get the most amazing information out of people and they give it up willingly. And you're not deliberately being persuasive, you know? I mean, you're not necessarily going for something unless it's specific to an investigation or questioning, right? But even just your daily conversations, like I just notice like there's structure there and there's things that you're doing that I don't always know, but I can tell, right? You're, you're, you're not just having small talk here. You're, you're having a deliberate conversation. So, like how do you ask those kinds of questions that get those real answers?

Yeah, and I like the way you preface that. And so I'll, I'll, I'll give something that Brian and I were just talking to some clients, and one of the things that I brought up on that call was that practice and rehearsal are two very different things. Practice is that individual skill development and the preparatory steps that you would take, and then the rehearsal is the performance. Well, the edge that I have on most people is I've been doing it longer, and I do it deliberately. I'll get to that in just one second.

And what I mean by that is that, for example, Brian and I have the benefit of being in a lot of different places. We travel a lot. We take different means of transportation. So therefore, on one day, we'll be at the airport. We'll then be at a rental car place. We'll then be at a gas station. We'll then be at a Target, and then be at a hotel. That's more than most people can do in a month sometimes. And we'll do that day after day for a while. So what does that benefit? That benefits me because I get more rehearsal than you do. And in between those, Brian and I get to break down the skills. So that's the practice.

Second thing is, Brian and I get an opportunity where sometimes we're at a place very early or very late, which means that the other person doesn't have a great deal of cognitive load. They're cleaning up or restocking shelves or anything else like that.

It's not rush hour time when...

It means you're vulnerable. Yeah. And so, that means that we can choose when to encounter people, and that's completely different than engaging when somebody says "next" and there's 30 people behind you holding a number in line, right? So, we had that going forth.

And then to just clarify that, I would say, do you have authority? For example, are you acting under color of law, asking a question on a traffic stop, for example? Completely different than an interview or an interrogation or a casual street contact. And most of the time, you know me, you've seen me, it's always a casual street contact. I'm just probing people. I just love to improve my baseline by getting to know them.

And the second part of that authority here would be agency. Do you have agency? And what I'm referring to when I say agency is, do you have the competence to make your own choices and to act independently when you're in a location? That allows me the sense of control and the ability to influence outcomes and direct outcomes, which means most people are ghosts. It's The Walking Dead. You're going through your life getting gas, getting on a bus, doing your, and you don't pay attention to around you. So these are skills to be more curious, Brian, and to attend to those things that are around you.

Yeah. And that, that's, I appreciate you adding that in there because that, that, that's a good baseline, good context for the relationship dynamics when you're talking to someone, right? That obviously matters, right? If it's a husband and wife, or you're like you said, you're a police officer who was called to a scene, you're just a police officer walking out of the store, right? But you're, you're a sign of authority. Or is it me going up to the, whatever it is? I'm walking up and they're blocking the street for construction and there's a guy holding a sign. Okay, there's an implied sort of, this person has the authority to block this area, and if I'm going to go up and ask him a question, right? So, that, that always, always shapes the conversation, how it's perceived, right? You know, you have people come in like, "Well, I was just asking a question." It's like, "Dude, you walked in here. You're twice the size of everyone. You're jacked. You're wearing a tank top." And you naturally speak really loud. So, everyone got real nervous. And that person was never their intent for any of those things to occur. But right off the bat, you're starting at this kind of, you're starting with a dynamic that could spiral out of control. So that's a, that's a, it's a great place to start actually, before we get into about questions. So, that's always an important thing about that context and what is the relationship between you and the person you're discussing, because you and the person you're talking to are having a discussion with, because that's going to play into not just how you're approaching, what type of questions you're asking, but like also it frames what's appropriate, what isn't appropriate, what the social norms are, it literally frames everything, is that context, right?

And so I would add to that context, Brian, I would add one more thing before we go on: remain aware of time and distance. We always talk about the gift of time and distance. If somebody's too busy or too focused, you might become an obstacle to their mission. And unless you have both authority and agency, you don't, you don't want to do that ever. Like, as a hostage negotiator—they don't call that anymore, it's a crisis negotiator, but I predate all that stuff—you had to get in and be an intervention, right? So my intent was completely different than just having casual conversations to build rapport for the ultimate goal of knowing more about my AOA (Area of Operations) and building a more complete baseline.

And so you said the kind of magic word there, of what is your intent in the conversation. And so that's an important aspect, but we're going to kind of keep it to, if I go in going, "All right, I need to get this information from that person," like, well, they might pick up on your intent there, which is why we sort of start before that, right? In a sense, is like, well, if you have a specific intent, okay, then there's a maybe a process or something that you learned or something that you can do to get those questions. But like, what I'm going to is big picture here just about in general because you may not know, right? Or you may not know that this conversation you had. How many times have we been to a hotel and just small talk, you know, talking with the people that work there and found out like, "Oh, that restaurant that everyone talks about that's really good," like, "Oh, it's terrible," or "They just had a bad," you know, "they just got found like they got just shut down for some food safety thing," or something like that. All of the, or "Hey, that road that way you're going to take in, that's going to be under construction tomorrow. It's going to be a parking lot. You're going to want to go this way." Like those little things, when you don't have any real intent in mind, you can still get really valuable information.

And so I'll tie it into sort of like a little bit of the science of asking questions and some of the behavioral principles that we talk about because we talk about cultivating curiosity a lot. And so, you know, curious people ask questions. What was that? It just reminded me of, what was that, is that Will Ferrell sketch on Saturday Night Live where it's like, "They call me Whiskers. My friends call me Whiskers 'cause I'm curious like a cat." So I don't know. But with that curiosity and asking questions, can it be sort of tied to survival? Is it a survival trait?

Of course it is. So, look, okay, first of all, everybody knows I'm a history buff, and you know that I speak in parable sometimes. WTF, where the F is Roanoke? Look for it. Okay. Look, we have a long, rich history of coming into places and exploiting people. We would come in, and the Native Americans would either kill us and eat us and cook us and steal our stuff and burn down our boats, or they would welcome us with open arms and give us their food. And we repaid those ones that didn't kill us and eat us and cook us by giving them blankets tainted with, you know, eight different types of diseases, the, the, the, you know, teaching them glory hole, doing all this bad stuff where, you know, they, they ended up dying out. So, the idea is curiosity is a survival mechanism because I have to understand my surroundings, and I have to get up and out of my cave, or I'll turn into the gosh damn Habsburg dynasty. So, the good thing about that survival situation is I must get up and investigate. The bad thing is sometimes I skin a knee or break a tooth or die. So, we've evolved to the point now where it's much less dangerous and much more encouraged to do it verbally and with our posture and body language than it ever was.

And, and warning danger, Will Robinson, about body language. So many charlatans out there start with that stuff. What I'm saying for body language is scientific. If you're happy, your face should be happy and your body should be open. If you're sad, your face should be sad and your body should be sad because an inongruent signal in a survival situation is the first way to shut somebody down immediately. People read scammy encounters, scammy language. People's defenses and/or hackles are already up. Why? Because it's a survival trait. It's learned. If I'm at a gas station and you walk in with a briefcase, okay, people don't bring into Walmart. Do you get what I'm trying to say? They're supposed to be buying it there. So those type of environmental—let's call them triggers, Brian—those psychological or sociological triggers are hugely important for me to pay attention to.

Yeah. So that, and that curiosity, like you said, it can be, you know, curiosity out of just we, we want to cultivate as a general curiosity of your environment and of people, not, not a curiosity based in fear, right, that everyone's going to kill me or hurt me or...

Back to Will Ferrell, "What, what? I wondered what color panties is she wearing right now?" You remember in The Circle of Trust?

We're in The Circle of Trust, yeah.

Exactly. What the hell is going on? No, but seriously.

And, and, and so the, the, the questions come into getting into sensemaking, right? And, and even cognitive load management and how you understand the environment, because asking good questions and asking questions in general help you understand what's going on, right? Whether it's the, you know, like I remember we were in, we were leaving one place going to another. I think we had a tight timeline, like had to get gas right off the freeway, and it was like kind of not the best area. So like I think you had walked back out to the car. There were people wandering around the parking lot. So I was up there paying, and I was looking around for what I needed 'cause it wasn't a normal spot, it was a different place. And so I'm getting up there, and I'm paying, but I keep looking out the window 'cause I'm just checking for security 'cause there are some interesting characters in the area, right? And then I'm looking in here, and the guy checking me out, the gas station attendant is like, "Hey man, are you good?" And I'm like, "What?" Yeah. "Yeah, I'm fine," with sub like...

He read you, buddy.

And so he, his file folders were like, "All right, this dude's gonna reach in and grab the cash or rob me and then book it out of there or whatever." But he was going, "Hey, this guy's kind of amped up. There's something up here. Like, this doesn't fit the baseline for what I should expect to see, or it only fits certain elements that like to come in here sometimes. So, I better, I better ask that question." And so, that was him trying to figure out what was going on. And so he was doing some sensemaking. That triggered me to be like, "Oh, I probably look like a cracked-out, like, you know what I mean? I'm looking around. I just gone to the bathroom. I kind of moved in there quick 'cause we had a tight timeline." So like this guy's like, "Whoa, what's, what's the rush here, man?" And so it, it was just interesting that he, he picked up on it, and then it caused me to go, "Oh, okay. Like I'm kind of giving off the wrong signals here. I don't want, I don't want to do that."

But see, there again, now you have agency. Now you're self-aware of the impact that you're having. You're no longer the flying wall, Brian. And just the level of focus that you exhibited was different from all the other automatons, the robots that were just going in there and grabbing their Zagnut and their gosh damn power drink and walking out to their gosh damn car and going home to beat their old lady or their husband. And the idea is that that to him was read as potential danger because when he encountered it before, I'll guarantee it was only two things. It was a copper, you get what I'm trying to say, doing a rolling surveillance, or it was a bad guy getting ready to jack him. So, and you inadvertently had wandered into that territory, but you immediately were able to self-assess and bring that back around.

Yeah. And then, then it's, you know, now we're getting in conversation, and now we're talking, now I'm finding out about that area. So, I'm using that too going like, "All right, well, why is this guy asking these questions? Okay, maybe this place gets robbed before. Maybe he's been through that experience." It's all, but this is all that sensemaking and adding to that baseline. So when, so, when you, when you do this, I, when you approach someone, like sometimes it's to maybe ask directions or whatever, or you to ask a question about something. You know, when's the flight getting in, or did you hear what, whatever it is. You know, I, I'm curious as to like when you're having these, these conversations, like how do you structure it in your mind, in a sense, meaning when you walk up and it's like, "Oh yeah, we're, yeah, we're in town," or you just making this kind of like either goofy story or trying to tell a joke to disarm the situation. Like you set it up as a friendly thing unless it needs to be serious. But, but what are you thinking in that moment? Is it about what the next question is, or are you thinking about what they're saying to lead you? Or do you have that mental kind of process that you do? 'Cause I've seen it in a bunch of different settings and it, and it's, you know, an architect, you know what, I don't, how would I say that? Like, it's almost...

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it is almost like you designed it, but it, but it's natural at the same time. So...

Yeah, but it's natural only because I've done it so many times, Brian. So, you're asking the right question and I'll, I'll go back to the asking, "What's your intent?" So, my intent's generally to gather information to make a more robust baseline, because the better baseline I have for any environment I'm in, whether it's a rental car, the driveway, the, the better conclusions I'm going to reach, which means the artifacts and evidence are going to play into weighing heavily on my decision.

You're Dirty Mike and the Boys. Those are the same. (referencing The Other Guys)

Exactly. You know, it's a soup kitchen. So, my intent is to build rapport for this contact, but also for future contacts. That's why I try to memorize names or specific things about an individual or if they're coming on or just getting off shift. I may need that person in an hour and knowing those things might be the difference between wrestling information out of somebody and getting them to willingly give it to me. Is my intent to get into your pants? And I apologize, but let's get scientific here for a minute. There's very different chemicals that work in my brain if I'm interrogating a homicide suspect or I'm putting a make on my favorite waiter or waitress. Right. Yeah.

So, the idea is that when I see somebody with a definitive style, I'm always cautious. So, my style is much more flexible. And what I mean by that is, do I smile at this person or do I act perplexed? Am I making eye contact or looking away like I dropped something? Am I going to be positive or am I going to act very vulnerable? These are all psychological stances I have to adopt. And what I do, Brian, is I throw one out. So, I'm fishing. I'm fly fishing. I pick the etymology of the lure based on the environment that I'm in. I draw some reasonable inferences about the area, the state, the time of day, the type of work, those things. That, again, Brian, is my practice phase for the rehearsal. I do the research, right? And I accumulate that research. Some is pop culture, some is geographic information, some is psychological or sociological. Look, folks, if this was easy, everybody could do it.

And then what I do is I cast something out. And generally I, I try to involve myself. So I'm looking through a couple of dollars in my pocket or I'm fumbling through my wallet for my credit card. I know what I'm doing. I, I'm intentionally doing that to build the time-distance gap between the person and I. And then I look up as if I'm perplexed and go, "How do you make this look so easy? Is it always this busy?" Now, I ask two prefuncter questions right there. I cast two lines out to it. And that person immediately wants to talk about the hero and their story. And generally, the hero in everybody's story is them.

So they go, "You know, I tell you what, the military prepped me," or they go, "Man, I've worked midnights for 16 years," or, "Dude, I'm brand new here, so I'm faking it till I make it." Whatever it is. Now those people in Greg's mind are either open or closed. If that person's open, meaning I got rapport back from them, then I know that I can do a follow-on. And then what I have to do, like you said, joke. You've been with me a long time, and I've never told a joke, but I have humorously tied something to somebody, right? So I, I usually make myself the foil or the foil of the joke and make fun of myself. Okay. But, but what people I think hear sometimes, Brian, is it's a classic joke, you know, like, "Hey, two dogs walk into a fight." You get where I'm going?

Yeah. You don't walk in with a, "Hey, did you hear the one about the guy?"

Exactly. Okay. "To a bar and the bartender..." You know, "I forgot my glasses." You know what I'm saying? And then I walk around the counter and I pick something up and go, "Maybe this will help." And then I get the person looking at me like, "Okay, this guy's an idiot." And then I go on. So, what I like to refer to that is, and if you've ever heard me for a long distance of time or length of time, it's psychological disarming. And Brian and I use sociological disarming, understanding the geographics and the proxemics and some of the other heuristics that are intrinsic upon an area and then exploiting that. And you know, it's not a cold read. I, I'm not looking at the like, look, anybody can wear anything anytime, and anybody can have a purple shock of hair, and that's because they liked watching Trolls the movie, not because they're a cancer survivor, or you, you get what I'm trying to say, the reason behind something. But what we do is we try to read into that. And every time I read a charlatan, they go, "Well, remember, and you know, tough guys wear pink or whatever that means it's a breast cancer survivor." I know a lot of breast cancer survivors, they don't play into that. And I know other people that do it just because they like the color pink. I have a pink phone so I don't lose this son of a... Right?

So, what happens is we don't want to add credence or credibility to things that are outside of the purview of that initial contact. Initial contact: is this person open? If the person's open, go ahead with it. Avoid scamming. Avoid language like, like for example, I remember Shel's first dope thing on the street. It was all recorded and she's a UC (Undercover) and she's going up to buy dope and, and so she goes up to the person, "Perchance, do you have any cannabis sativa that's for sale at this juncture? I would also be interested in any elements of cocaine hydrochloride." Right. Okay. Completely off-putting with those statements. You come in and you're a know-it-all Joe, you're going to immediately piss everybody off and they're going to put you in a pillar. They're going to drag you outside and they're going to beat you. But you've seen me before where I go like, "Hey, we're going to go to the IHOP across the street. What's wrong with that decision?" And it's open-ended and I throw it at the person and now I'm, I'm expecting what I get. I'm going to get either, "Hey, I'm not from this area. I don't know. That's the best place. I eat there all the time. Order the number three," or, "Oh my God, Tom Palace shooting every right." But the idea is that a looser frame going in...

Yeah.

...allows me to get more detailed and specified going on.

You, you hit something right when you, when you started to answer the question, which was pretty profound because it's actually how humans, you know, kind of why we establish relationships and why we talk to each other in the first place and why we've been able to survive so long. But you actually said when I'm, you know, having a conversation with them or asking a question, like it, it may be because, you know, something in the future, like, like you're going into...

This isn't the random guy I'm never going to see again for the rest of my life and I...

I may be running through this parking lot looking for cover in an hour.

But, but if I look at just how humans interact, right? You know, people aren't more likely to be rude to someone who they know they're never going to see again or know like this person offers no value or whatever. Yep. But like, when there's an incentive for us, like, "Oh, this is someone, this is why we tolerate, you know, at work because you're like, 'Well, I have to work with this person. I'm going to have to talk to them, so I have to figure out a strategy to make this work,' right?" So, there's an incentive there. And what I'm, what I'm like taking from this is like you're going into it going, "I may never know. This person may save my life in 10 minutes, or they may give me some piece of information that keeps me alive or gives me some edge or gives me some..." And, and it's not in, in a like, "I'm trying to use everyone," but in a sense you, you, it's because it's a two-way street or like maybe that person's going to rely on you for something, you know, whatever, whatever it is. But, but you're automatically going into this is like, "Okay, this isn't an, this isn't just an interaction of me with the front desk person as I check in my hotel. This might be the, this might be the person I marry someday. This might be the person that I, you know..."

With you, that's always true. Let's just put that right out there. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. You only, only at the hotels that, that have, that, that have the, you know, the fence up blocking the parking lot, everything.

Exactly.

But, but, but so, so that's a really interesting way to look at it and go in. So it's like, it's not just, this is a, this conversation ends here. This conversation, I may run into that person next week and they may give me a deal on a plumber because their brother is and he, you know what I mean? Like, you never know how that stuff is going to interact.

Let me go somewhere else with this conversation for just a moment and show you how spot-on Brian is. So for all the surveillance teams out there that are looking for criminality, you're a copper, you're on a survey team, you're HR, you're looking for untoward behavior at the workplace. What happens is when you set yourself up with what you're looking for, you limit your observations and perceptions to those things. So, you're creating a bias. And I don't want to say it's unconscious because there is some conscious ability. I hate the word subconscious, but what's happening is you're limiting yourself. So, when I'm on the glass, look, two ways of looking at binos (binoculars). Hold your binos in your hand. You look at them at the big end first with the small end facing away from you, and your problems are way down the road. You got nothing to worry about. You flip them around. Holy, the enemy is under wire. Exactly.

That's just a problem for future...

We got all the time in the world. So, right now, the surveillance teams are laughing. But look, what's happening is we're limiting ourselves. We're looking for a hand-to-hand drug transaction. So, what we're not looking for is the guy over there that's likely carrying a gun and acting as the muscle. So, when I go up to make that custodial arrest, I missed that person. And now I'm ambushed. I'm looking for a person that's going to carjack, and they're walking through cars that are stopped for a red light. And then what happens is I see the guy, and he's moving. He's got something in his hand, and I pull out my gat. But then I find out it's a squeegee, not a rifle. Okay. The idea, Brian, is that what we can't do is we can't set such rigid standards on complexity that our cognition is inhibited. We have to allow ourselves to be so curious as to say, "What's happening here?" And allowing ourselves to see it rather than saying, "I'm looking for a guy with a mustache, and nobody else matters in that situation," right?

Right. And, and that's, that kind of actually goes into kind of different, different styles people have because what you're going to is what, what I, I, I'll fall into sometimes not meaning to, or like, you know, my style a little bit is I, I like the kind of precise, strategic question. I like reducing the ambiguity. It's like, "Hey, just, just let's go on this one thing." And you're like almost polar end opposite. We're like, I'm going to take this guy...

Where's it going to lead me?

Like I'm, you're, you're going from Chicago to New York, but you're going to go west around the globe and get there. And, you know what I mean? Where I'm like, direct flight.

Give me the direct flight.

But, but one, but, but I, I think they're both effective depending on the circumstance, right? Because sometimes you need to get right straight to the point. Sometimes you, you can, you can ask questions. And, and what it is, is you, you know, it falls back to everything you were just talking about. But with the, with the curiosity part about the questioning, it's not, it's, I, I, I don't, going into it, I don't know what I'm going to find, but I'm going to find something, and I'm going to let evidence lay itself.

That's curiosity, buddy. In essence.

And, and because of, because of time, and because of, you know, it's, it's caloric efficiency, you know, we, we want to get right to the point sometimes where we want to get right there. And that, that really doesn't, you know, allow that room, you know, and this for it doesn't allow room for, for a little bit of free play and exploration and letting someone slip something out that either maybe they, they otherwise wouldn't have. And I don't mean that in a negative or positive way, just they, they, they reveal information that's beneficial to you in some later on. And, and you know what? I have to accumulate those pieces because right now it's not important, but in a few minutes, I'll figure out it is important. So I'll give you one, I'll give you one from work. Bad situation, killing, mayhem, running, all this other stuff. And this one guy is just not giving up anything. And everybody gives up everything to me over time. And usually it's right up front, and then I can exploit that over time. But this person's not saying and not saying and not saying. And so we're going through the booking process, and I'm telling the coppers, "Let me stay in with this guy for a minute." Going, "Man, this doesn't make any sense, man. You can help yourself out. You can let yourself go. All I need to know is what the truth is. What's your truth?" And I'm going on all my channels, and it's dead end, dead end, dead end, spiral, spiral. And then, you know, it dawned on me, "Holy, we're talking about this guy's mother, or his brother, or his wife. The relationship has changed." And I missed it. And I go, "Hey, you can cover for your brother the rest of your life, or you can get out from under this." And man, the guy broke down immediately. So again, I was fishing, Brian. And I had a couple of choices. I didn't say mom. I didn't say dad. I said brother. And it worked. So anybody out there that's in the business will see that and understand that.

So what I'll do is I'll liken that to two movies that I know that we both like that we see on the road all the time: Great Outdoors and Tommy Boy. Both have Dan Aykroyd in it in a role. Dan Aykroyd at the bar talking to the guy that got hit by lightning: "Hey, what's with the hairdo, pal?" And neo skunk thing going, or whatever, right? And then also in Tommy Boy when he's on the elevator: "Hey, what's that smell? Pine scent." You know, okay, now identifying it's the first part. Now getting rid of it. What happens is that approach is way too abrupt, and that's way too abrupt even in an interrogation, right? You...

One more, with the, with the Wayne's World where he comes out of the concert and talks to the limo driver, the big record executive. He tells him his whole plan and he's got a trip up through Chicago and here, and then later on they do that interrupt the, the broadcast, and they beam it into his limo, and they go, "Wow, it seemed like pretty useless information at the time, you know."

Exactly. Or, or that other film, knowing what we know now, that was exactly the wrong thing to do. No, but that's what I'm talking about. Look, so, when you get into the situation, if you're condescending or off-putting, it has to be intentional. And you've seen me do that before where I get into somebody to get a reaction. Okay. Rare, laser-focused, and deliberate. Okay. And I'm doing that because I have to see the response. And remember, people treat stuff like grief differently. I watch these people watching a TV show, and all of a sudden they go, "Well, that guy clearly did it because they're laughing about this." No, no, no, no, no. You've been in combat. You've seen Marines that have just gotten their buddy's head explode on their lap, and they're making a gallows humor joke about something else because that's their only way to deal with it. And you've seen other people that totally lose it over something that's minor. "Hey, it's a splinter, dude. Get it together." So, don't take that.

But what I'm talking about is what type of sociological or psychological or physiological toll, what weight, what resonance does this add? It's like discordant music. You can hear it right away. You're not sure what it is. You got to walk around the orchestra for a minute to catch which one's playing it off key, Brian, but it's there. And so the more I build up on that, the less likely this person is being genuine or telling me the truth. So again, it's not that, that look, body language is part of it, but it's a very small part of it. So if the person is, you know, kicking their foot, maybe they want to get out of the interview room. If the person is, you know, pulling their hood up over and falling asleep, maybe they've done it and they know they're going to jail, and they don't give a crap about the questioning. But if I put too much weight on that and I don't focus on what's the overall picture that they're painting, I'm going to miss something right in front of me.

And that, that's, that's a, that's a good point without kind of getting the specifics, but that, that's so determined by the context. It's like, you know, you see someone's interviewed, and, you know, they, they're looking at their body language and like, that's part of it, but you have to take everything else is, is about the context and about the environment and about what, what the, what the actual, you know, topic is that you're discussing. All has to do with it. You know, what, what the relationship dynamic, all of that stuff is far more important to understand than what they did with their right foot when you brought up that question. You know what I'm saying?

Exactly. Exactly. Unless it sets a pattern of behavior. Unless each time that you saw this, the person was building towards that. And even then, Brian, it's a suggestion. It's not an answer. And so that that funnel, the probability to narrow that down. Look, I'll give you an example. Shared enemy, it's one of my tactics. So we pick something, I pick something that might be nebulous to everybody else, but it's very important to them. So, you know, whether I'm in Trump country or, you know, I'm a Dem, or whatever else, I can do that. But those ones are too entrenched and ingrained in people's minds. I might piss somebody off and get shot. Yeah. So, I back that off. I don't read the hat. And I do something like this. I go, "Holy smokes, it's so busy in here. You're making this look easy." Boom. That's not a question. That's a statement. Three, two, one. "You must really have to be good with people in a job like this." Three, two, one. Open-ended comments, Brian. Those aren't even questions. And what I'm allowing that person to do is fill the gap. Nobody likes a pregnant pause. Everybody wants to be filling that with some kind of talk. And even if the person is casually paying attention to me, if I can get them to orient slightly to me now, I look to that person and maybe ask them an opinion, maybe go the next level and, and, and say, "Hey, listen. Do you, do you live around here or do you just work around here? Because I got to tell you, I have no idea where to go to dinner tonight." Whatever that follow-on is, is Brian, I'm setting up a series of things to show the person that I'm approachable and affable without setting a series of questions which feel like I'm trying to corral them or scam.

Yeah. And, and, and, and what you're doing is by, by when making it a little bit more ambiguous. It'd be like, you know, the difference between me saying, let's say like, you know, you and Shelly did your hike, you know, on Saturday or something, right? So, like if I go, "Hey, Greg, uh, did you, you know, if I, if I don't know that well, like, did you, did you go for a hike on Saturday?" You're kind of already going like, "Well, what, what do you ask me about what I do on Saturday?" But if I go, "Greg, you know, hey, what do you, what do you guys like? What do you and Shel do in your free time?" "Oh, we love to go up antler hiking and we go do this and we walk around here." Now you're telling me, "Oh, cool. Did you have, have you done that recently?" Then I find out, "Yeah, we were there over the weekend, and we were there on..." So, it's just, it's the, the approach is, is different because one, you know, I get you get to be, you know, if you make that person the, the, the main focus, the main character, the hero of the story, and let them, they'll tell you their story. They will tell you what's important to them. They will tell you...

But you're exactly right. But, but Brian, here's where you can bring in humor and, and without being off-putting. So, guy's on the portable oxygen behind the counter, looks pale for the gosh damn hotel that we're checking into, and he's going, "Third floor or fourth floor? What do you recommend?" Clearly, you go out hiking a lot. And then the guy pauses for a second. I go, "No, man. I'm in the same boat. This is kicking my ass." You know, if there's no elevator, give me a bottom floor. What you're doing is you're trying to be relatable without being mean. It's okay to get a person like, "Hey, I bet you're not going dancing tonight." Okay. What, what you're doing is you're opening up certain doors. But you got to be careful with that because if the person feels as if you're making them the center. So the way to do that is look at the situation and turn it back on me. What would I feel like in that situation? What are the things important to me?

Well, well, I want to, I want to kind of get into that specifically here in a minute about like kind of good versus bad questions, or it really shouldn't be good versus bad. It should be like better versus worse questions, or like, you know what I mean? But, but...

What a distinction.

Well, I mean, it's like, yeah, this is probably not the best, but it's not necessarily bad. But, but, but first, you know, because everything we're talking about, you know, I mentioned at the beginning, you know, how this relates to all the different large language models and AI systems and and bots that people interact with, right? Because, you know, it, it's like using those, one, I know you don't use any of them, but like I've shown you how to detect when everything you're reading on LinkedIn, it's created by ChatGPT.

And it's above me. I'm not, I can't do that.

Didn't even bother taking out the em dash, which is now something that everyone has. But anyway, you know, prompting like ChatGPT, that's a skill. What we're talking about is this language and questioning and setting up the context is, is a skill. And so one of the things I always, it says, you know, you don't get good answers from lazy inputs or the classic, you know, in equals out. And so, what, what you're doing is it's because it's designed by humans and because it's trying to answer like a human, you're going to run into the exact same issues that all human communication falls into. All of the different, you know, issues that can pop up, like a lack of context, or me just giving an answer that I, that I think you want, not necessarily the right answer, trying to help you out and give you the answer that you're looking for. And so it's, it's, it's always, you know, kind of interesting like on those interactions, when I use them, you really have to define, "Okay, this is who you define roles. Like this is who you are. I want you to act as if you are a social media manager. I'm going to give you this element of The Human Behavior Podcast. I want you to tell me out of this script, what would likely do this." And you know, so you get very specific because I'm adding in all this context, and then it's going, "Oh, okay. I see what you're getting at. Try this." And then you can refine it from there. Well, when you're, when you're kind of talking to someone or you want to ask good questions, it's, it's similar. I don't have to get out and write down a script and say, "You are this person. This is what I'm trying to do," right? It happens a little bit more implicitly with human communication.

And like some of, like you were talking about, even with how we say something. So the, the how the body language plays in it. And you talk about if there's inongruent, right, if I'm, you know, smiling, you know, when in a really tense situation, that's inongruent. Or if I'm, you know, laughing when I'm telling you something horrific, or I'm crying when I'm telling you something, you know, that's really funny, like, well, that's inongruent. My brain's going, "Something, something isn't right here. This doesn't fit." And so if, if me when I'm asking you a question and I'm trying to get information, but you're clearly picking up from me that clearly I don't want to be there because I'm not even facing you, and I'm barely even like making eye contact, like I'm not going to give you a very good answer because I don't know why, but I'm, unconsciously, all humans are picking up on this and they can't articulate it, but that's going to feed into it. So, like I want my question and my, my body language, my approach, my style to be congruent, right? In order to get my, my intent across, in order for them to...

That's a you thing, though. That's a you thing. And we can't put that on the person that we're speaking with, right? And you know that. And the biggest fear is ends justification. So, you know, we're in hotel rooms a lot. And when I'm not reading three books at a goddamn time, I'm watching shitty commercial TV because now when you go to a hotel, you don't get the movie channels anymore. You got like, you know, 247 and 9, whatever they don't have to pay for. And so, every channel there's some gore porn about a homicide that happened 25 years ago. And every single channel has the homicide on, but it's a different thing. Buried in the backyard. My sister did it. You know, who was the vampire in this situation, right? But it's all the same caper.

Same. Yeah.

I'll sit back on the bed trying to fall asleep on my enormous pillow, and while I'm watching that, I'm listening to a detective. And the detective goes, "Well, we knew right away when they were laughing around at the funeral that they were the one that did it." No. What happened is all the artifacts and evidence, you put together a circumstantial case, it worked, and the fingerprint and DNA evidence got this guy. So therefore, the shitty interviews that you did, you think that those are justified. That's not the way it works. So, think of everything as that initial street contact when there's no color of law that applies where you just walk up and go, "Hi," to somebody. And the person goes, "What, what's this about?" And you go, "I just want to say hi to you." And then you start talking to them. That's not protected. You can say anything you want there. But the person also has the right to say no.

Then take it up the level to a traffic stop. And you're going, "Yeah, but I'm not a cop." I don't give a crap. What I'm asking you is perspective. Put yourself in his shoes for a minute. Now, when I'm on that door and I'm asking you questions, where do I need to get from here? Okay. So, now I got to break the ice a little bit. "Hey, in a minute I'm going to ask for all your identification. But I got to tell you, back there when you slid through that intersection without stopping and gunned the engine, it was pretty cool if I wasn't watching." And then all of a sudden, you get the person going, "Oh shit." And some people go, "No, be definitely serious about everything." Look, use what works, but your practice and rehearsal has to work for you. Because if you, what Brian just said, if you're giving off incongruent signals, you're going to come off scammy and they're going to shut down right away.

And my thing is, when you're at that, look, you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. So, a difference between interview and interrogation. Everybody knows if you don't do your homework, look it up. But now, I'm in interrogation. Everything matters. But you control the narrative and the time, and you want them to elicit, want to elicit the information from them and have them lock themselves into a story. So going in and going, "Let me warn you right now before we start. The coffee in this building blows, okay? And I can get you a water bottle, but it's going to be room temperature and probably three other people have, you know, drunk and drank from it, but I can easily send somebody out. What is it that you want?" And then the person says something that I can't do. "I want a steak dinner and some prime rib." Yeah, I get it. But let's rein that in a little bit. "What do you say have somebody go to Steak 'n Shake and get you a soda?" And then the person goes, "Really?" And you're like, "Yeah, what am I doing?" Two things. Building trust, building rapport.

You're already talking.

It has nothing to do with the case in chief or the case at hand. And so am I trying to gain an advantage of this person? No. I'm trying to talk to this person. Now, if I go, "If you tell me who you were with, I will, you know, give you a hand job, give you a steak dinner, give you all that other stuff," that's all illegal. But all I'm trying to do is establish rapport. So, what's different about that establishing rapport at the gas station? Pick up something on the way to the counter that's less than a buck. Well, nothing less than a buck now. Less than five. Okay. And we're pushing on that. Ever hear of a Zagnut? Holy. Where did that name come from?

I recently just had one 'cause there's this candy shop near me that sells like, they even have like candy cigarettes, like the...

I think that's amazing. So, that right there, conversation starter. Throw it up on the counter, look the person in the eye and go, "Where do you think they got that name?" And then the guy's going to say something or the female or whoever the kid is going to say maybe, "The guy's name is Colonel Zag." "Hey, you know what? That's a pretty good thing." And sometimes by, by understanding history, by, by knowing a little bit about pop culture, you might have the answer, but don't always give the answer because when you give the answer, you sound like a know-it-all. Like, like me, I just joked about medicine and ailments and all that stuff. Why? Because I'm always screwed up with a cane or I'm walking with a limp or I'm pissing in a bag. It's okay to share that with a person because I'm sharing that I'm vulnerable. Now, you're saying, "I never share anything. I'm not going to shake your hand. I'm not going to give you any information on me." Well, if you want to be a human...

Exactly.

That's the key. If, if you want to be a human, you might as well share human emotions. That's why when we're in a situation, and Brian showed up again where they're saying, "How did those two people get beat down by that crowd of people and nobody stepped in?" And some expert came on and said, "Well, it's crowd dynamics and crowds are..." That's wrong. Crowds are designed to save humans because without procreation you can't go forward. So what was different in that one? The level of violence was so high that the person goes, "Hey, if I step in now, I'm going to get my ass kicked." Okay, do you get what I'm trying to say? So the idea is what is it that I want to interject into this petri dish and what might I get out? And if I don't think before I do that, then I'm going to throw something out there that's really horrific. Because if I come in joking about it going, "Hey, uh, who died for all these gosh black balloons?" And the guy goes, "My mother, she just died of cancer." Then I'm toast, Tommy. I can't go any further. You see what I'm saying, Brian? So, a measured opaque tabular raza (tabula rasa) question at the very beginning to establish something is much better than a defined laser-focused question.

Right. And you're getting into the kind of good versus bad questions, right? If I, if I go and, and, and if I go, you know, too laser-focused right off the bat, then it limits my potential spirals and my potential other follow-up options and limits everything. So, it's like if I'm looking at how I, I have to start, this is why small talk exists. This is why people talk about the weather because we all experience it. If I'm talking to someone and we're in the same, you know, room or we're across the country, it doesn't matter on the phone. Like, we talk about the weather because it's something that every human being is affected by in some manner. So, it's like it's, it's the most common thing. It's the simplest thing to talk about, but it just opens up the, the, the, the line of question. It starts the conversation, is all it is.

So, set it up exactly what Brian just said, and then set it up a little dumber than you normally would be saying it. And that's to be humorous, not to be off-putting. And I'll give the example. "Hey, uh, I'm not up to speed on all this new internet jazz." Okay, that's a funny comment because right away what I'm saying is I'm archaic. I'm old-fashioned. I'm from The Flintstones.

I need some advice or I need some help.

So, the second part of that is opening it up to you. "Hey, my name's Greg. I just checked into a hotel across the street, and I'm heading out for dinner. What do you recommend?" And then the person goes, "I'm not from around here." "Yeah, I know. But you eat food, right? I mean, like, what kind of food would you recommend?" You see where I'm, I'm going somewhere with the conversation without being condescending and without being so probative that the person right away shuts down. You know, because I, I think that when you're in a business, and a person comes into that business and starts asking questions, it might be because they're nervous. Give you an example of that. I think it's, and I, I might be wrong on my film for a change. I think it's American Graffiti where the kid goes in and he wants to buy the bottle of booze, and he goes, "I'll have a comb. I'll have that magic marker. I'll have some Chiclets. I'll have the pint of old rocking horse. I'll have some gum. And I'll have a notebook or whatever." And he tries to couch the behind the counter with a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn't matter, hoping the guy, you know, falls for it. Well, the idea was the guy came and said, "Hey, you got to have your ID anyway." When you're saying, "I have no expectations of this conversation," the conversation will go better. But when you're saying, "I want to be probative at a level to build a baseline." Now, I got to bring my A-game because if not, I'm going to close a door I might need later. And that's too risky. I'm not going to, I'd rather shut up and try again. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And that's the yet another thing, and you've seen me do that. I walk in, the person's talking with somebody else, all that other stuff. I'll go, I'll hold the door for somebody else, and I'll turn around and go, "Hey, hold on a minute. I, I was just here buying gas." "Oh, yeah. I remember you." "What's with this thing? Why do they have the numbers on the glass on the inside?" "Well, that's so if somebody robs a place, they walk out." Now, I'm talking, Brian. And talking is the key to that intervention that, that escalation or de-escalation.

Yeah. And, and so, so kind of being able to, when you're asking questions, like being able to explore other elements that maybe don't seem important to you, but if the person's bringing it up is important to them, then I want to go, "Why is that so important to this person?" Right? And I don't want to ask, "Why is that so important?"

That seems like it's a very important topic. And then you take out your notepad, you know, like, you know, a little Jimmy from the newspaper.

I think it's like kind of like going back between like these sort of open-ended questions versus more of a leading question, you know, a probative one versus something that, that allows you to go like, you, you, you go back and forth between that and get, get better at asking those. And, and like you said, like, what's the, the, the follow-up here? Like, I may run into this person again down the road. I, I don't know where. So how do I want to treat them? How do I want them to remember me? And then with the questions is, what do I, what am I really trying, if I, there is information that I need from someone. It's like, "Okay, I can't just walk in there necessarily and start asking about that." "Well, what are some peripheral things that I can talk about that would lead that to that topic? What are some other things that I can do to, to, to set myself up and and continue..."

Set yourself up for future conversations or to go deeper in the one you're in? And those are both okay things to do. You're, you're, Brian. If, if I'm trying to do it to get into your pants, again, the chemistry is different, and I have an ulterior motive. So then that person sooner or later, and mostly times sooner, is going to catch on to it and go, "Yeah, I get it." Do you think that the group that you're with is the first one to flirt with that waitress? Do you think she doesn't understand the rule of tips? And so the idea is that don't go there because if you go there, you're going to screw something up. But if I walk into any place on the face, I don't care if it's a restaurant, gas station, convenience store, anything else, and I walk in and go, clearly make an announcement of it, "I failed 8 Minute Abs. Point me to the fat grams." Everybody around me is going to look at me like I'm an idiot, or some people are going to laugh, and the guy behind the counter is going to go, "Right over there," because he knows what I'm talking about. And what did I just do? I established that the show has started, Brian. And here comes the next act. And now I'm making it about me. But guess what I'm going to do? Very shortly, I'm going to switch to it about you. "So, clearly I had a couple of drinks and headed back to the hotel, but I need a, you know, Cinnabon. Where should I go?" Those kind of things are okay. Vulnerability is okay. What you don't want to do is go so far in the vulnerability scale that you get mugged or robbed or raped. Okay? You know what I'm saying? You don't want to act like a disheveled homeless Pete because you're going to be treated like one. So I got to act like I'm sane, sober, and rational enough to get through this conversation. And that, you know what? But at the end of the day, if you don't talk to me, that's okay, too. And you're saying that, well, what about an interrogation? That's the ultimate place for it. Look, you don't have to talk to me. But if you want to talk to me, this is the last time we're likely to see each other. So, if you want to tell me about timelines and friends and what was going through your mind, now's the time. This is for you. You start saying that to the suspect that's sitting in a chair or the person that you think is going on. Now, you're going to establish a rapport because if they're smart, they're going to lawyer up right away and shut you down anyway. Okay? So you might as well have a way of establishing some rapport early on.

Yeah. So, and, and that, that's one of the ways I, I look at it too is like I try to give someone, if I'm going to ask a question, I want, I, I want to give you a range of options in which to answer my questions because if I think of like if I ask you something very specific about your thoughts on something very specific, like, now I'm cornering you into this, and then automatically some people are like, "Why are you asking about this?" Or, "What is this?" But if I, if I give you a, if I ask you a question that allows you to give me, you know, a number of options, you know, something. "Greg, what do you guys like to do on your free time?" "Well, you can talk about anything. You can talk about whatever you like to do. You drive down here. We go on these hikes. We take the dog." Like there's the, I'm letting you like lead the conversation in a sense, right? Yep. And so it's one, it's less threatening. You're more likely to be open and honest. And then that leads to the follow-up like, "Oh, do you, do you ever go down here for a hike? I heard that place is pretty, pretty tough, a hiking area." "Oh yeah, you know, you can go there," or, "No, I haven't been there, but I have been over here. And let me tell you about that." And so I'm just, you're letting that person kind of take whatever path and then you, all you're basically doing the way I look at it is like I'm looking at the path they're taking me on, right? That's the analysis I'm doing. It's going, "They're dropping all this stuff. They're putting a marker here. They're putting a marker here. They're putting a marker here." So I can map that out in a sense during a conversation and go, "Where is this likely headed?" And then if I do have some intent, you know, I do, I need to steer it in a different direction, or do I need to let them continue going, or is this going to lead nowhere because this person's completely nuts and they're talking in circles? Whatever the situation is, like you're...

And now I'm looking for an off-ramp. Exactly. Exactly. So, remember, you have to be smarter than the average bear without being so clever that you're off-putting. So asking a question to somebody which is implied like, "I cannot open this gosh damn app. What's the worst app on your phone?" And the person goes, "Oh, by far, it's so-and-so." I've just established that you got a phone. I don't know that you have a phone right now, but if it comes up later in the conversation that I say, "Show me your phone," and you have that app, I've also established that you tied yourself to that phone with an app. So those type of things don't happen spontaneous. Nobody out there that we're talking to is a flipping Sherlock Holmes. And when they were writing Sherlock Holmes, how long did it take to write that novel and do the research on it? So, you think you're going to come in and you're spontaneously going to be able to whip out some of this stuff? Brian, it's taken me 50 years to get good at having a basic one-minute conversation with a person at a gas station.

So that, that's kind of what I want to give some folks for, for some of the, some of the takeaways on here. Like, you know, and I don't, what are some of those questions they can do? So like, what's, what's one question everyone could ask more often? Or how do I start learning how to do that? Like, what, what's the, what's the easiest way? Like, let's say like, I'm not good at getting information or I'm not good at asking questions or, you know, maybe they're anxiety and social awkward, whatever like, that, that's fine. Like you can still do that. But like, we met people who pulled themselves out of some dark places by forcing themselves to go have conversations with people. But like, and that was one, yeah, and he's like, "Look, I just, I was horrible at this, so I would go to the mall during the day when all the old people were there. I'd see an old woman having a cup of coffee. I'd go sit near and said, 'Hey, I'm just here alone. Do you mind if I, you know, talk you up a little bit?'" 90% of the time they always said yes, 'cause they had no one to talk to. And I just got better. And it was like a really cool exercise that person had to do. But maybe I'm past that, right? Maybe like, "Oh, I don't have that problem." But like, what can I do or, or what can I take in a sense?

So, stop trying to be rigid and play to your strong suit. For example, a preliminary question like, "Hey, just coming on shift or just getting off?" When you're walking up and asking it from 30 feet away as I'm pulling out my ID to check in, and the person will say something like, "Why?" Or "You already look tired?" Or "Is this place always this busy?" Or "Am I..." Whatever. The idea is those are what I call establishing questions where there's no question mark at the end of them, but I'm working up to what is going to happen next. Again, the, "You make this look easy," or, "You know, I, I've been to three hotels so far. I hope you got my reservation." I'm putting something like that on me. "I remember you from last time I checked in here." "Well, that's impossible, sir. I just started working tonight." All of those are throwing the line out to see if the person's even a modicum interested in answering me.

Staying away from the off-putting. Always be humorous or funny or happy, because if you come in and you're a sad sack and you're down or you're aggressive or accusatory, you're shutting doors before you even open them. Pick out a shared topic. The long drive you just had, the traveling that was kicking your ass. My kids are at home. I hope I get to talk to them. The medicine I'm on makes me drop my shoe. You know, I've got this, this ailment that makes it impossible for me to enjoy a meal. And I got to do zero Walmart around here. Those type of things right there are making you look vulnerable and allowing the person to help you. And most people really want to help you, Brian. So if I can do that initially, then I can set it up for, "Hey, what do I need to look out for when I go across the street?" Those type of questions, right? So, you're saying, "Yeah, but I need to get to this." Yeah, but you can't go directly at it. Because if you go directly at it, they're going to go, "Hey, it's a Red Baron trying to shoot me down over Schweinfurt," rather than this person just is acting out nervous or relaxing or doing what else. Like, like you've seen me at restaurants before, and Brian and I are one of the ones that, that we work hard enough at a place that I don't mind having a gosh damn, what do you call the appetizer, you know, with a Manhattan at the beginning or something. So my most common question to a person when they come over is, "What's your most popular appetizer?" Then my second question is, "Have you eaten it?" And those have nothing to do with what we're going to order.

Okay, that's to establish a rapport with that person.

And do you get what I'm trying to say? To see where they're at. And guess what we get most of the time now? We get most of the time now that the person is so down and in and they don't understand how to, to do a conversation that they stand there stymied, staring at us, you know, wondering what, what do I do next? You know, so those are the type of things that you want to avoid. Always open-ended. Okay? Never accusatory. Even if you're going to accuse the person of doing something, man, that's got to be the fifth or sixth thing you do because if it's the first thing that you do, you're going to have a short conversation, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And, and that, that's my thing is like, you know, I would do it with if, if...

There's some interest that you have.

Yeah.

And that you know a lot about, and then that helps with a conversation with, "Oh, is that the band about this? 'Cause I used to listen to these guys," or whatever about something that someone's wearing. But like, again, like you said, if it's inauthentic or I'm trying to, I don't know enough about it, it's going to come across that way. But like, so I had a buddy who's always into shoes. So I was like telling him, he's like, "Dude, just start asking people about their shoes." Like, "You know everything about shoes and style and this stuff. Like, just go like, 'Hey, those are cool,' 'cause you can do this and I blah, blah, blah." And I was like, "Holy crap, that worked." It's like, "Yeah, if you, if you find something you're interested, it's going to come across..."

And it's got to come across genuine.

Yeah, because it, it is genuine.

Jagger Yag's got, I don't know if I can say his name. He got us into one of the biggest scrums at Bragg that I've ever been in my life. So there's a, a dancing club there where people are in a hurry to take their clothes off for, for donations. I'm not going to go any further.

Never heard of something like that.

I'm not going to go any deeper. And one of the waitresses who, who is on and off, uh, dancing is, is...

Are the waitresses also dance at this establishment?

Larger. Yeah. And, and some of the waiters at the ones I go to. But she's larger than the normal clientele, I think that Yaeger's encountered. And so when she came by and dropped off his long neck, Yag said something like, "Hey, you're quite pretty," (off-putting). "Are you single?" (off-putting). "And when's the baby due?" or something? He made the association that because she was larger that she was pregnant. And that led to just bad news all the way along.

The other one he did on the West Coast when we were at Penn and we went out and we were listening to a local band. And he was trying to talk to the Madison chief of staff, and he looked at the band and he goes, "Could you guys turn it down? We're trying to have a conversation here." Okay, those, the reason I love Yags is he's known for those. Okay, he's known for coming out swinging, and it's always created a scrum. But you know what the end of those scrums were? We could rein it in and laugh about it later and get some information out of somebody. So what I'm trying to tell you from that one is my final, you know, piece of advice for this segment is if you make a mistake, okay, that doesn't mean the mistake is a fatal mistake in your conversation. You can always back up. You can always say, "I'm sorry." You can always start over. You know what I'm saying? And you can always tap out. Folks, I've been with Brian long enough that if I'm not getting anywhere, I look at him and I go, "You try." And Brian tries his angle. And between both of us, there's enough STDs and STIs out there that we're probably going to hit on common ground.

That was one way to put it.

Okay. So, on that note, no, we, we, we covered a lot on this, right? And so, which we, we implicitly were talking about some of the most important parts of the conversation are the context that you're in, how it's being delivered, what the dynamics are, and, and that, that, that's all more important than really just trying to ask the perfect question or trying to, you know, elicit information out of someone in some manner or use the perfect flow. It's just getting better at knowing your style and how you are and what you like, and then realizing, you know, hopefully that other people think differently. And then you have to sort of let them tell you what whether or not you're having a conversation that day because then they're, they're teaching you either, "Hey man, I'm too busy," or, "I'm not putting up with you," or they're, they're going to tell you whatever you, you need to know. And so...

And what have you seen? What have you seen? You've seen that the baseline is that people want to tell their story, and what we do is we pass the narrative and then they fill in all the blanks for us. They do...

The humans are in on transmit. So let them...

Don't you just tune, tune. You got to tune into the right frequency. Not, not put... Don't be afraid of trying the knobs. You get what I'm saying? Adjust, adjust. And then, uh, don't be afraid of shutting up once in a while, too. I rarely shut up. Okay. But the same thing is that you've seen me in conversations when it's important, I always shut up.

That, that's the other thing, and you kind of mentioned it earlier, is that, that's sort of a lot of people don't like awkward silences. I, I thankfully, I don't feel awkward in any of those silences. And so...

You're awkward all the time. So...

Well, and so, you know, but people will fill it with something, or they feel like it, or, or you will feel the need, people will feel the need to like, "Oh, I should, I need to say something," or ask questions. You really don't. And you, a key, a key is listening to Brian long enough and watching him turn his head slightly and go on...

"Go on." That will get people to dull everything. Try it one time. Look, we say these things because we vetted them and they work for us, and all we're saying is try it. Your way might be stellar. It might work for you all the time, but we're talking about being able to talk to your kids or your neighbor's kids or your neighbor who has your kids in the basement, whatever is going on, and doing them all with equal aplomb.

All right. Well, I think we'll, we'll give in some other examples and stuff for, for Patreon. I think we'll, there's a couple things that we can do on there, kind of how to set that up, and, and we'll do that for, for our Patreon subscribers. And so, but you know, we, we covered a lot. As usual, folks, if you have any questions, you can always reach out to us at thehumanbehaviorpodcast@gmail.com. Check out obviously more on our Patreon. Any, any other final words, Greg?

No, I'm hot.

Yeah.

So, I don't know if anybody cares. I'm dressed like I, I look like Marlon Brando on Apocalypse Now here. (laughter) The, the, so, I'm feeling well, buddy.

Well, we, we appreciate everyone for tuning in and, and for our newer listeners, too. You know, we appreciate it, folks. If you can't go to the Patreon site, you know, just share, share the podcast with a friend, tell them why you liked it. It really helps us out a lot. So, we do appreciate those of you doing it and thanks for those who continue to reach out to us. We appreciate everyone. Thank you for listening. Don't forget that training changes behavior.

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