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I always had this kind of "I want to help people, I want to do right in the world." I think my compass has always been purpose. But honestly, completely by mistake, I was on the subway going downtown Manhattan to a job that I got right out of college. It was underwriting for AIG. I was in a cubicle, sitting there, and I'm thinking, "I can't do this." The subway doors opened, literally, maybe I had been on that job for several weeks, two months. The subway doors opened, and a cop was hanging out, his beer belly showing because back then they had beer bellies. I see the guy, and I'm like, "Shit, I can do that," literally. I go home that night, called a recruiter, and I'm like, "Hello, are you guys hiring?" No clue what I was doing, zero, and I just went with it.

What I find fascinating about that story is that everybody who doesn't feel like they're in the right place in their life thinks that you're supposed to know what you want. Oftentimes, I find it's just knowing what you don't want, and you knew, "I don't want to be in that cubicle." I love the metaphor of the doors opening because I think your life can change just like that.

I was around three current sitting presidents because I started when Clinton was actually still president. But then you're also around the former presidents, so you get dished out to help with those, and then also foreign heads of state. When foreign heads of state come to the US, you're around them. So, if you think about it, you're going to school in a sense. You don't realize it, but you're actually learning because you learn theory, right? You become what you're around. As I was around them, I would watch the way they moved, the way they dealt with problems, the way they dealt with people. The most remarkable thing I would see is, you'd be with the president, whichever one it would be, and we'd be in the White House. They'd have screens in different areas, and you'd be standing there. He'd be right there, and there'd be a screen of the news, and they'd be just destroying him. "He's an idiot, he's this, he's that," right? Whichever channel it was, depending on whatever president it was, it changed. He'd be right there, and most human beings, most of us, would be like, "Oh my God, I can't believe they're saying this about me. I can't get out of bed," and that could not fly. I really learned resilience, and I learned not to take things personally.

Everything can't penetrate your soul; it just can't, you know. I learned to understand what mental armor is, what you can and can't allow in, and also to understand the dynamics of some situations. Resilience is key.

Ask for help. The president is not expected to know everything, and I think we think, "I have to know everything because if I don't, then I'm not smart. I lack confidence. People will see through me." What I learned is they're very good at delegating.

There was always that psychological thing, "I don't want to mess up, I don't want to make the wrong mistake, I don't want to make the wrong call and have somebody else's life on my shoulders."

We would laugh. You had to laugh. Everything can't be so heavy. If it's heavy, you're just not going to make it. They would make terrible jokes. I'm not funny at all, Mel, so I would sit, listen to them. If I tried to say something, they'd say, "Shut up, Papas, make sure we don't get shot at or whatever." I was around people who carried themselves well, so I carried myself well. I learned from that. They're steady, I'm steady.

They put you in really bad situations in training. They don't just put you out in the world, "Hey, let's see how she's going to do." They really try to stress you out in training repeatedly to see how you're going to react. Even then, you don't know how somebody's going to perform in a real-life situation. There are times when the person you would expect to just fly through something completely falls apart, and then someone else who you think will be a mess holds their ground. You don't know what people are made of until they're truly tested.

Anytime you force somebody to do something, you can win in the short term, but in the long term, you always lose.

I had to learn what drugs did what things to people, so I became like this expert in pharmaceutical drugs. That was pretty amazing. Then they teach you the body, they teach you language, verbal language. They teach you how to confront someone, how to deal with people who disrespect you in the room, or with people who have been through trauma. Sometimes we would have to open up that scar, get what you need, but then it was also your responsibility to close that scar before they left the room. There are just so many elements to that. The service also encouraged me to get my master's in psychology, forensic psychology as well. I think all those things together helped me understand people and human behavior.

People give off cues. When I meet someone, I pay attention to how they walk, hug, etc. I get a baseline on them. For example, when I walked in, you came right away, so you're comfortable, confident, warm, and welcoming. You feel people's vibration and essence.

I think we feel the energy of someone. If it's warm and inviting, we're at ease. If someone is stiff, formal, or tense, we think something's wrong.

Feel people's energy. People give off cues. It's a real thing.

It's good to be self-reflective but not so self-focused. We start to make everything about us, but most of the time, it's not. Allow people to be and look at them, listen to them. Ask simple questions like, "How are you today?" People reveal themselves slowly. If someone's off harmony, meaning their words and body language don't match, pay attention.

Those cues are for you to gather information, not to show off how smart you are. Despite my background, I never tell people what I see unless they ask. You want to make people uncomfortable? Tell them you're analyzing them. It's for you to understand people so you can make smarter decisions.

Here's the thing about eye contact: it depends on the person. Someone might have grown up shy, being told they were stupid, or hit a lot. How they look at someone is a marker of their experiences.

Eye contact matters in building trust. In important conversations, be deliberate with your body language. Show with your body what you're saying. I look at what people do, not what they say.

When it matters to you, you really want to be deliberate with your body language. You want to show with your body to people what you're saying. Those things need to be in harmony. And for me I really don't care what people say, I look at what they do

Everyone's so fixated on them. How are people treating me? What are they doing to me? And we don't pause to think that we're the other half of the equation. Did you pause to think how you're presenting yourself? Because it's a reaction. And you have to think thoughtfully about what I am doing, and what they are seeing, how I am showing up for this person. We sometimes become a bit more egocentric.

People's behavior reveals the truth

Confidence and being able to get a baseline is observing whether or not somebody else is worth your time, whether or not they're displaying interest

It is amazing to be in the presence of somebody who is emotionally settled because it makes me nervous about the fact that I might not be

You want warmth, but you also want to keep people on point from time to time, cause when we don't that's when we get taken advantage of, we get betrayed, we get rolled

My husband's very good with that. He's got this rule – nobody ever says “I should have.” At that moment you make the best decision you can with the information you have. and having faith and trust in yourself, instead of beating yourself up, that just reminds you that “I made the best decision I could with the information and the situation that I had.” and if you mess up, which we all do, I will do better but then do better

In training, they call you out, correct you, and move on. No time to feel bad.

The truth is typically simple. you don't need to swear to God to tell me the truth. You don't need to sell it to me. if you didn't do it, you didn't do it. I understand you're going to be nervous, but if I say to you “Mel, did you have Donuts this morning for breakfast?” and you're like “Evy, I swear to God, I swear to God, I didn't do…”

When asking a direct question, notice if they actually answer. People often dodge, which is a red flag.

It drives me crazy when you're asking somebody something, and then they change the subject or they say, "Well, I never had time," and I'm like, "I didn't ask you about the time. I asked you if you know what you're doing." There is a disconnect between the question I asked and the answer being irrelevant to the topic of the question. But there you go, you just got intel. Why aren't they answering you? Something's wrong.

I control the parts of me that I can, and then after that, I also have to surrender a bit and understand that Mel is the other 50% of the equation—50/50. If I'm so self-focused and make the whole thing about me, and I'm not paying attention to you, I'm not reading the room, I'm not looking at your colleagues, and even just the tone of the team—how are people feeling, how do they move in the room—because that's another indication of the synergy of the environment. Sometimes people can shaft you.

Of all the types of human behavior you've met, what was the thing where you thought, "Ooh, I’ve got to look out for that person"? The charmer. That person who's very overt and charming and trying to ingratiate themselves.

How do you get the truth out of anyone? It depends on what you're asking. Do you want them to verbally say something to you? Because if you can’t tell me something verbally, but you just showed me the truth, and that’s all I need.

If you are grounded, people reveal themselves, and you can really decode just about anything if you're paying attention.

Sometimes we invest in people and want to believe in them, and we want to trust them. Then, sometimes what is right there in front of us, we don't want to see it. "No, I don’t want to see it,” and then I get pissed off at you for not being what I want you to be, meeting my expectations. Then I get angrier and more frustrated, and I’m also mad at myself for being in that situation. On and on that cycle goes.

Sometimes you do have to call people out. In those moments where you have to deal with someone—let's say it's your team—you have to address certain things. It's okay to address things, and I think that's another important thing. First, you make the decision: Do I want to deal or not deal? If I don't deal, what are the consequences? It’s always better to deal with things when they’re small, especially with people or a circle of people you have to deal with, like a team or family member, where you're like, "This person’s not going anywhere." But when problems are small, deal with them, because what happens is they get bigger and bigger, and then you get angrier and angrier.

Not everybody is for you, but it’s your responsibility to recognize it and then to act on it.

I'm probably the name on someone else's phone that when my name pops up, their stomach twists because I'm not showing up how I need to show up. Or maybe you're showing up in a way that they don't want you to. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.

Paralinguistics is what you sound like when you speak—your tone, your pitch, your voice. So often people are so focused on what they're going to say. We have our talking points and need to make sure we hit this and that. I need to say this. It’s what we sound like when we deliver information that is more powerful than the things that actually come out of our mouth. When I left the US Secret Service and began doing the news, I learned paralinguistics more. I started doing the Today Show, covering shootings and crime. One of the things I learned was to make sure my paralinguistics were strong enough so that when I spoke, it resonated. Yes, it matters what you say, but half the time it’s how you say it.

Put more value in how you speak. Authority in your voice means we are more likely to listen and believe in someone and see them as a confident person or as a person of authority when they use a stronger, deeper tone of voice.

Pauses and silence are good because they let you catch up with your thoughts. You don't have to say everything that’s in your head. Nobody cares. Just give them your top talking points. The other thing you touched on is when you say less, you don’t have to think as hard. What I’m also trying to do is lighten somebody's cognitive load. If I’ve got all this stuff in my head that I have to say, my cognitive load is maxed out. So, I'm not going to speak well because I don’t have enough cognitive load to pay attention to my voice.

Your voice captures all the stuff you've been through in life, so just make sure that the voice you're using is really your true voice.

You don't have to be 100% brave or 100% confident. You don’t always have to operate at this level. It’s okay if you don’t. You become more courageous or more brave when you do things.

This is not about me and how I feel. I want to find out as much as I can about what's going on with this person. Once I get all the intel, I can move forward. That’s how you become brave—when you become focused on what you're doing. Ideas like, "I need to be brave to do this," "I need to be confident to do this," or "I need to be motivated to do this" are time wasters. If I can’t do something unless I have bravery, confidence, or motivation, I’m going to do nothing. We create obstacles and then don’t do what we’re supposed to do.

Let’s say you’ve got someone you love with a substance abuse problem. Most of us would go into that intervention or conversation thinking, "I’ve got to get the truth out of them." What I’ve learned from this conversation is that you don’t need them to say anything before you walk in that door and have that conversation. You need to be clear about your objectives and what you're doing, which is assessing the situation and gathering data.

People don’t heal until they're ready to heal. They don’t get sober until the pain of being drunk or stoned is way worse than the pain of trying to change. There’s nothing you can do to force them to change. All you can do is use the tools you have to not get so emotional, not try to control the situation, and not accuse. Just sit back and gather the data you need to know what to do next, because that’s all you can control anyway.

Somebody not reassuring you is an answer. Somebody not giving you a direct answer is an answer. Somebody refusing to answer your questions is also an answer.

I did this one interview; I don’t remember what the person did. They were involved in some kind of fraud or something. He wouldn’t come out with it. You would think in trying to get a confession from someone, you want them to say, "I did this." What I learned is that’s not what you’re after. I didn’t need that. He wasn’t giving me any information about what was going on. I never tried to get him to say, "I took this," or "I stole this money," or "I committed this crime." I wasn’t trying to get that. But I would get admissions—where people admit to little things. As you get these little admissions, they give you a picture. It’s like a puzzle. With him, I said, "You don’t have to tell me if you did it or not. Can you tell me what you’re worried about?" His concern was about his family. That was a huge red flag. He just gave me the admission—why he didn’t want to tell me what he did. I said, "Okay, you’re worried about your family?" He said yes. I think we needed to do a search warrant or something. I asked, "How do you want to do this? How can I help you?" He said, "I can get my wife to leave town." These were little admissions he gave me without him telling me directly that he did it. People don’t need to give you the smoking gun. They show you. Everyone is waiting for the person to say, "I did this," but it’s a waste of time. Most of the information you get is from little breadcrumbs. You put them together, and you get the whole picture.

I think the biggest thing standing in the way is that you don’t want to see the truth.

Handle your stuff. Don’t avoid your problems. Don’t blame other people. Handle it. If things aren’t right, they’re not right because you’re allowing them to be that way. It’s hard. I come with humility; it’s a hard thing to do. But it is on you to handle your stuff. When we don’t, we get pissed at everybody around us. "You should do this," and "You should do that." It’s a really hard way to live where your steadiness, bravery, confidence, and happiness are tethered to the instability of other people and whether they’re going to give you what you hope they will. Live in reality and truth. When you do that, you make better decisions.

Usually, the hard thing is harder in our mind. We all know what we should do; we just don’t do it.

Don’t listen to your enemies. Look at them; it will tell you everything.

Trust yourself. Nobody knows what's best for you except for you. Stop asking everybody. It's okay to ask people for guidance but if you're going to ask someone make sure that they have the expertise and knowledge to guide you

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