Now that so much of our communications are digital, such as texts, emails, and chats, we miss out on the tone and facial expressions to help us understand the intent and content in communication. It’s important to know ourselves well enough to know what areas we’ll be more easily influenced and are susceptible to being deceived. The greater our desire for something to be true, the easier it is for us to be scammed.
Today’s guest is Mark Bowden. Mark is a world-renowned body language expert, keynote speaker, and best-selling author. He is the founder of the communication training company, TruthPlane. Mark is also a member of The Behavior Panel on YouTube.
“What are you greedy for? What do you want that, if it’s offered to you, you will just lose your frontal lobe?” - Mark Bowden Share on XShow Notes:
- [1:08] – Mark shares his background and what motivated him to specialize in human behavior.
- [2:34] – There are parts of the brain that are activated when we first meet someone new.
- [3:56] – Think about how many people you see on a regular day. Some you will notice and some you will not.
- [7:03] – There are certain parts of the brain that can overwrite natural instinct.
- [10:02] – Mark demonstrates how body language changes when there is perceived risk.
- [14:50] – Body language signals can be perceived inaccurately. People can also change their body language to send different signals.
- [17:15] – So many signals that our brains rely on in communication disappear when we cannot see the person we’re talking to.
- [19:16] – Mark gives an example of how the human brain perceives the bait of a scam.
- [22:48] – The first step in critical thinking is to suspend judgment.
- [25:58] – “You can only con a greedy man.” Think about what you want so much that if it were offered, you lose your sense of judgment.
- [28:33] – If anyone ever tells you that something seems like it isn’t true, suspend judgment and look into it.
- [30:32] – It’s a risky world. There are people who have dedicated their lives to deceiving others.
- [35:13] – Part of critical thinking is asking other people whom you trust about what they think.
- [39:56] – Sometimes we will set people up to see how they will respond.
- [43:11] – It is best to have an open mind and be willing to see things for what they are over what you want them to be.
Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.
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Transcript:
Mark, thank you so much for coming on the Easy Prey Podcast today.
Chris, it’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Thank you. Can you give myself and the audience a little bit of background about who you are and what you do?
I’m Mark Bowden. I’m an expert in human behavior and body language. I help people all over the world to stand out, to win trust, gain credibility every time they communicate, and I’ve done that, including people who run G7 countries.
What got you interested in the field?
I’ve been fascinated with body language, communication, forever, really. I started off in visual arts. I was a huge fan of drawing, looking at pictures, and especially moving pictures. I grew up with TV, film. Trying to work out how do people really create those pictures and those moving pictures that affect us as an audience, how are they affecting us, and learning about that, knowing about that. What can that tell us about the real world out there, how other people are affecting us, why we’re thinking certain ways about other people, and why they might be thinking about us?
Through that fascination and learning in that area, you’re getting really adept at how you create moving pictures that change people’s minds. I got into communication influence both in business, in politics, in film, in theater, in TV. I’ve been there ever since.
Cool. A lot of what you talk about is body language. Let’s start there, and then let’s move into the verbal afterwards. What are some of the initial reactions that we have when we first meet somebody?
There’s a part of your brain that I would say is about 500 million years old. Brainstems are complex—reptilian brain, primitive brain, amygdala—people call it all different names. All of them are relatively wrong, because you’re taking a very complex piece of architecture, narrowing it down to some specific areas, and segmenting it. It’s all one brain, essentially.
There’s a part of your brain that makes snap judgments about everything around you, including the people that you meet, especially interested the first time you meet that person. It makes a snap judgment as to whether that person might be a friend to you, a predator to you, a potential sexual partner for you. Is there risk or reward? If none of those things, it’s indifferent.
Some people that you meet, you’ll never remember them. You’ve met hundreds and thousands of people. Most of them, you just don’t remember at all because they didn’t trigger that primitive brain with any idea of “This is a benefit” or “This is a risk,” and we should keep an eye out for that person over the long term. Or certainly, “While I’m with them right now, I need to really keep my eye on them.”
Just walk along the street anywhere where you live and notice how many people you pass by and how many people you actually pay any attention to. That’s where I’d start us there, Chris. You make that snap judgment about somebody. Is it risk or reward? If none of the above, indifference. Though you could still stand there having a conversation, it’s just you’re not really there. Your attention isn’t really there.
In studies, how accurate is that snap decision? Is it reasonably accurate, or is it just entirely unreliable?
Chris, you’re alive right now, and so am I. I’ll make that judgment. Yours is accurate enough that you’re still alive. You probably like most people, been in a few little scrapes. I’m talking even about how accurate is it about that you should step back because there’s a fast-moving vehicle? How accurate is that? It defaults to a negative, because if it defaulted to a positive, if your instinct went, “Yeah. You know what? I think I’m OK,” you’d be dead right now. It defaults to negatives. It does that about fast-moving vehicles and it does that about people.
You default to a lot of negatives about people when you don’t have to, but it’s good because you’re alive right now. Your instinct wants to be safe today, accurate tomorrow. -Mark Bowden Share on XYou default to a lot of negatives about people when you don’t have to, but it’s good because you’re alive right now. Your instinct wants to be safe today, accurate tomorrow. Those snap judgments that you make about people, they’re not particularly accurate, actually, but they’re good enough to be that you can judge the next day. “You know what? I think that person was actually OK. I think I judged them incorrectly.”
Does that mean when we’re on the opposite side of the equation, we do more to present ourselves as not a threat, like, “How do I present myself as not a threat” would be our standard state of being?
Again, we’re indifferent to most people around us because we can’t see everybody as a friend, a mate, or an enemy. The brain is not a fact machine; it’s the best-guess machine. It makes best guesses all the time. It does what I call minimum specifications. It goes, “What are my minimum specifications to see you as a predator?” It’s minimum X, Y, and Z. “OK, are you fulfilling that?” “OK, then is predator now?” “Yeah, you are a risk to me now.”
The brain is not a fact machine; it’s the best-guess machine. It makes best guesses all the time. -Mark Bowden Share on XNow, are you a risk to me? I don’t know. We’ll find out, but I’m not going to find out because I’m going to back myself out of that situation. I’m going to get out of it. Did you give me the maximum specifications for that? No, I’m just looking for minimum specifications for that. It’s not looking for accuracy, it’s looking to pick up the min spec for is predator, is mate, is friend now. It will work it out better over time. If predator now, I’m out. You’ll never see me again.
There must be a certain amount of the brain that can override that because if you’re on a movie set and someone pulls out a knife, you don’t go, “Oh, my gosh, I’m in danger. They’ve got a knife, they’ve got a knife. I need to run out of here.” There’s a part of your brain that goes, “I’m on a movie set; I’m sure that’s a prop. I’m OK, and I don’t need to run away.”
Yes. On a movie set, there are some signals that tell you that it is a governed psychosis that everybody’s having. Everybody is going, “Oh, imagine that was a real knife.” Everybody’s doing that.
There are some signals for that. I’ve worked on movie sets. You get picked up in the morning by a driver who takes you there. It’s like, “That’s not normal. I’ve got a chauffeur, oh, OK.” When you arrive there, there’s security and it’s like, “Oh, Mr. Bowden. OK, yeah, through you go.” You go to make up; you sit and make up.
There’s somebody like, “I don’t do that every day.” There’s a whole bunch of signals like a whacking great camera, like a big Arri, massive great lens that everybody’s taking a lot of care over. It’s like, “OK, don’t go near the lens.” There are a lot of signals that say, “OK, we’re making it up.” At that moment where the knife comes out and you start performing the behaviors as if it was a real knife, actually your body and your mind starts experiencing like, “This is a real knife.”
When the director shouts, “Halt,” you stop. It’s OK. That’s the signal to stop the psychosis. If you don’t stop, everybody’s going, “Is Mark alright? You OK?” Or they go, “Oh, yeah, that’s Mark; he’s a real artist. That’s the actor that has the boundaries between the psychosis on that ordered, on that regulated.” It’s, “No, Mark’s a real artist. He shows up as if there’s a knife. He leaves as if there’s a knife.”
He stays in character.
He used to think it’s a real knife. For the filming, this family can’t go near him. Most actors aren’t like that because they have to go off and be cobblers in Italy. They’re very choosy about what they do because it’s a weird state that they’re getting into, but most people aren’t doing that.
A lot of this is body language that we see certain movements in the body. What are some of the signs that we see that build that friend, and what are some of the signs that we said build that foe?
To look for predator, to look for risk, we’re looking for the signals that you are at risk or there is a risk in the room, and you’re picking up on that risk.
Actually, do this with me, Chris. If there was a physical predator in the room for you right now—it could be a person, an animal or something like that—what do you think your body would start doing right now?
Increasing blood flow, adrenaline, getting ready to move, and I probably turned to face it, not the camera.
OK. Your eyes are going to go to the risk. You’ll be looking at me right now as you’re looking at me, but your eyes would keep flicking to the risk, because I’ve got to have this conversation with Mark, but at the same time there’s risk in the room. Your eyes would keep shifting, and you would look shifty. It’s like, “Why is Chris so shifty right now?” Your eyes would keep shifting.
Now, if I can’t see the predator, if your eyes shift, and my eyes would shift as well and go, “What the hell is he looking at over there?” And if I see a predator, I’d go, “Oh, I see there’s risk over there.” If I don’t see that risk, I’d go, “Hang on, he’s performing like there is risk right now, but I can’t see the risk. He’s the risk.
I make you the predator because I can’t see the risk. It may be that the risk is there, I just don’t know how to observe that risk. You may know about risks and what they look like that I’ve never seen. I don’t know what they look like, but my brain is a best-guess machine, not a knowledge machine. It goes, “Chris is risk now; Chris is predator.”
I start backing off this situation. I start blading away from you. I’ve moved my center of gravity. I might move it towards the predator because I don’t know it’s there and blade onto you, so now you’ve got your shoulder.
My chin might tuck down to protect my carotid arteries, my windpipe. You might start mirroring that. Now, I’m doing predator behavior. You’re now mirroring that. I’m going, “Oh, Chris is now protecting himself now.” We start escalating each other.
What we detect if we’re thinking there is a predator now is the behaviors that people do when there’s a predator. They protect areas of their body, vulnerable areas, kill points on the body—carotid arteries, windpipe, blood vessels around the wrist underneath the armpits, inside of the leg, kidney area. We’ll start protecting vulnerable joints on the body—the fingers, the hands. If somebody is a predator and they’re trying to convince you that they’re not a predator, they will expose those areas.
When we’re not a predator, when we’re very open, yeah, we’ll just be physically more open naturally. You can think of it in terms of openness and closed. But if you’re seeing openness or you’re seeing closeness, it doesn’t mean that person is open or closed. It’s just your response to it is most likely to be, “This person’s good. Look how open they are.” “This person is not good. Look how closed they are.” It’s not necessarily true what you’re detecting. I hope that makes sense.
In the same way that if I’m displaying foe energy or foe signals, the same thing works on positive. The more I open my hands, the more I smile, the more I make safe gestures, in theory, the more safe that you feel, and then you start reflecting that back.
And we’ll escalate each other. Now, the key is, do you have malicious intent towards me, my family, or my group? Are you putting on these behaviors? And are you good at putting them on? Because often people will say, “Well, the body never lies.” Yeah, it does; it’s brilliant. We’re all good enough liars that we’re alive right now.
We have friends and family around us because that relies on a level of honesty and deception to keep people around you, relies on a level of honesty and deception to keep those bonds safe. The key is knowing when to do it. When you transgress, when you tell the truth when you shouldn’t, or you tell a lie when you shouldn’t, you break those bonds.
Got you. If we have layers of signals of I’m a friend, I’m a foe, are there layers of signals of you’re sending fake friend or fake foe? Is this something that, yeah, maybe some people can do it, but we don’t perceive it very well?
Yeah, some people can do it and we don’t perceive it. Some people are better at being dishonest than others. Because the stakes might be higher, so there’s more risk for them, so they get better at it. Stakes might be, that’s how they make their living. How they survive is being a good liar. They might be really good at it.
What you’re looking for is, can they keep it up under duress and stress for them? If you’re going, “OK, this person is making me feel good. I’m feeling like they’re a friend.” There’s no risk to you or no perceived risk to you. Carry on; they might be a friend. It might be great.
But if you go, “Hang on. I’m feeling like they’re my good friend. It’s feeling really good.” And actually, at the same time, there’s this risk that’s going on. We’re talking about something that has a lot of value.
You maybe want to go, “I want to test right now how accurate this is right now, so I’m going to put them under some kind of duress stress.” If it is a pretense, can they keep up that pretense under stress? Without saying, “Well, here’s the situation; how you do that may vary.” But let’s just say, look, maybe you asked them a tricky question about the situation that they maybe haven’t prepared for and see how they respond to that. Do they still stay open, or do they start to show you more closed, potentially predator signals?
Got you. Let’s transition from body language to verbal language because all these cues have been evolutionary, and all of a sudden in the last hundred years, we’ve now started to have non-visual communications with the telegraph, TV, phones. Now we’re chatting with people, and we don’t even do FaceTime with people anymore. Everyone just texts. So many of those signals start to disappear, or we get less used to them. How does this apply to purely verbal communication?
You’re right. Language is potentially about 200,000 years old. Being able to send it en masse rapidly over distance, language over distance rapidly, that’s super new. That’s really pretty quick. Back in the day, you had to have somebody run very fast with the message, hence we got the marathon. Can that human being run 20-plus miles very, very fast and deliver “the army’s coming”? You’re hoping somebody at the other end can read it properly and go, “Oh, I get what’s happening here.”
It was literally a magical thing to be able to write something down and transport it, because it changed the reality of the person over there from a reality that was over there. This is what we’re doing now with these mobile devices. You can change my idea of reality, how the world is.
I was looking the other day and it was text. Somebody said they had a certain piece of equipment. They were selling that equipment at a certain price. I’d quite like that equipment right now. The price is like, “Wow, that’s a really good price. That’s half the price that it should be in the secondary market.”
Obviously I’m interested because it’s like, “This person doesn’t know what they’ve got. They just don’t know what they’ve got.” It would be very easy for me to go, “Yes, please, immediately,” because I’m going, “You know what? I think that person just doesn’t know what they’ve got. I’m smart. I do know what they’ve got, and what it should cost, that it’s half what it should cost.” But I’m only reading text on this, so they’re changing my reality with words.
I said, “Hey, send me a picture.” He sent me a picture so I can visually see what it is. Now, even then, do I know it’s a real picture? I’ve got to test that so I could go, “OK, send me another. Send me a picture.” I could say, “Hey, put something with the date on it next to that.” I could do all kinds of things like that. Anyway, I looked at the picture and thought to myself, “Yeah, it’s a fake. I know what to look for. Of course you’re selling it for half the price; it’s worth nothing.
You’re making X amount more than you ever should. Of course you know how to get me interested in this,” which is the classic con, which is you’re making me feel confident about myself. You’re making me feel like I’m smart so that I will lose that frontal lobe thinking. I’ll lose that smart brain, that 200,000-year-old, really smart brain that goes, “Hang on, critical thinking here, give me more evidence, and let me put that evidence against other evidence that I have of what the real thing looks like.”
The text, the words were speaking to my primitive brain that wants to be smart, get something for less than it should pay for it, and feel very confident that it really knows how the world runs. I know something should cost X that isn’t costing X. That means I now know I’m smarter than that person. I’m going to buy that because that confirms how brilliant I am.
I’ve got to go, “Mark, you’re feeling too good right now.” Some people would say, “Mark, isn’t that too good to be true? It’s like new, but they’re selling it at half price. How isn’t that too good to be true?” Part of my brain is going to go, “No, you don’t understand. They’re not smart; I’m smart.”
Anyway, visual proof is one way. It’s not the perfect way, but it’s starting the process of, “Send me more evidence that more of my brain can take in data to do more critical thinking around what’s going on here that is either making me feel very scared or very hopeful about the world.”
I imagine that’s a hard thing to do, to be able to separate ourselves from that position of being emotional and saying, “OK, give me more evidence.” What other techniques that we can use to train ourselves, to look for more evidence, and to avoid confirmation bias?
Yeah, exactly. Critical thinking, down in my fourth book that I wrote with Tracey Thomson, Truth and Lies, which is a book on critical thinking disguised as a book on body language. Understanding how to do critical thinking is way more important for everybody than understanding how to read body language. Critical thinking is the key.
Understanding how to do critical thinking is way more important for everybody than understanding how to read body language. Critical thinking is the key. -Mark Bowden Share on XFirst step of critical thinking is to suspend judgment. My judgment in this case is I’m smart. Yeah, I probably am. Yeah, I’m smart; they’re stupid. They may be, possibly, maybe. OK, maybe. Suspend judgment. That doesn’t mean go, “No, Mark. You’re not smart.” It doesn’t say, “Think the opposite.” It just goes, “Yeah, put that to one side for a moment. You can come back to that judgment in a second.” So suspend judgment.
Then just ask, “What else?” The what-else question. What else? That’s what I’m doing by going, “Send me a picture. What else can you tell me? Tell me some more.” I could have done that textually. I could go, “Yeah, sure. Just describe for me the circuitry inside that. What do you see there, a choke or two capacitors? What do you see?” Now I’m doing, to be able to know there’s a choke in a real one and not two capacitors, that needs an understanding of something of electronics.
Understanding of electronics happens in my critical thinking brain, my neocortex, not in my primitive brain, the brain that’s going, “You’re really smart, Mark. You’ve got one over on this person. You’re smart; they’re stupid. Ask what else?” If somebody is being honest with you, they will usually, probably, not always, but probably be fine in going, “Oh, yeah. No, it’s a choke.” They might even go, “I’ve never even looked inside.”
“I don’t even know what a choke is.”
Yeah. “I don’t even know what a choke is.” “OK. Look, just get a little screwdriver. Just open that screw and then slide off that panel. Take a picture.” Again, I’m going, “OK, ask what else, ask what else, ask for more, ask for more.” Ready to might start showing more risk behaviors and somebody being honest may show less risk behaviors. I hope that makes sense to you, Chris.
Yeah. I’m just trying to find ways to help people. They’re on the phone with someone who might be a romance scammer. How do they start to parse out, “Is this person really interested in me, or are they pretending to be interested in me? Is it just a long con to me?” They start talking investment in cryptocurrency—just hang up the phone and run away. But the challenge is that the investment in the cryptocurrency conversation might happen three months down the line after you’ve had all of this supposed evidence that they’re a friend.
Here’s what I think people need to do. This is a con. I used to work with one of the UK’s most brilliant conmen. He said—and it stuck with me—“Mark, you can only con a greedy man.” He said, “So you've got to work out what are you greedy for? What do you want that if it’s offered to you, you will just lose your frontal lobe and you’ll start saying to people, ‘No, this time, it’s true’”? People are going, “What they’re saying, it can’t be true.” But you’re going, “No, this is the time.”
I understand why; of course, I understand why. Let’s just call it romance; they’re looking for romance. OK, dig deeper into that. What are you really looking for? Yes, there is somebody out there who maybe will be able to provide you that, for real, for true. But if you are really looking for that, maybe greedy and desperate for that—and there’s nothing wrong with being greedy for romance; of course you should have that. Greedy for love—it’s like, yeah, of course you should have that. But you need to know that about yourself. If you know that, yes, of course you can desire that, of course.
You should try and get as much of that as you can, but you’ve got to know that is your Achilles heel. The good con person knows that. It’s true of you and everybody else they con because it’s the same methodology. Each time they’re looking for the mark, the mark is going to show certain behaviors of that’s what they want. “If I show them that, if I give them that, they will suspend the critical thinking of this situation.”
Here’s the big key as well: When you’re telling your friends and family, people you trust, and you go like, “Here’s what’s going on,” and if many of them start going, “Listen, that’s a bit odd. What’s going on there?” And it’s not just one person, or they’re pretty adamant about it. If you’re going, “No, you’ve got it wrong,” and they’re going, “Listen, I just want to tell you this again.” “This seems odd to me. You sure this is all right?” You go, “Look, you don’t understand. This time it’s for real. This is the real thing.” Just check it out. Why not suspend judgment? The love of my life is going to be forever. Suspend that judgment and ask for more. Ask what else. Get more data through different channels. The information is probably coming through one channel. Can I get more data about this from this channel? Especially if they are not expecting you to ask for data around this from a specific channel, it won’t be prepared. If they hold, “Oh, yeah. I can’t send you a picture of that right now; I’ll send you a picture of that next week.” I’m like, “Oh, OK. No, I’d like that now.”
Start to break down that confirmation bias.
Yeah. It’s really hard because they know what you want so much, and it’s their job. They’re living to exploit that, so know that about yourself.
I guess that’s the challenge. Maybe I’ll say this in hopefully non-offensive ways that if we’re a layperson, and we’re not learning about techniques that people use to try to exploit us, the person who’s been a conman for 20 or 30 years has got 30 years more experience doing this than us trying to protect ourselves from it.
Are we ever safe from someone who has a magnitude more experience in being able to manipulate us? Not to say that we can never be safe. I’m not trying to imply that. But if they’ve got lots of practice of trying to work around our, “Hey, let me ask for more information,” it’s got to be tough to figure them out.
Yeah, it’s a risky world. I’ve got so many years of experience in crossing the road, Chris. Still, I’m careful. Am I anxious every time I cross the road? No, I have to cross a lot of roads. It’s getting that right level. It’s understanding, look, what is the probability of this? And how do I need to live my life lessening how that probability might exploit me in some way? But you can’t walk around.
There are some people out there that walk around anxious of dating. Yeah, it’s a risky world out there. I have these conversations with all kinds of people all the time on podcasts, clients, and whoever it might be and going, “But how do I know it’s the right person?” It’s like, throw the dice. It’s a risky world, but if you don’t throw those dice, you will never know.
How do you go to the casino not thinking you’re a card shark, not thinking, “I can win the casino”? “I’m so smart; I can win the casino.” There are people out there who can exploit that because they know you’re greedy for that feeling. How can you walk into that casino going, “I’m susceptible to this; I’ve weighed up the risks, and I’m going to walk in trying to understand the risks as much as I can, because if I don’t play, I can never win at this, but there is a chance I will lose again and again and again.”
That’s a philosophy I’ve always walked in a casino with. This is entertainment. What’s the maximum value for my entertainment? Is this going to cost me a car in an hour, or is this going to cost me a movie in an hour, a value in my hours time?
I think it’s a good way of saying it. What do I want to spend on the excitement of this? When it starts happening that I think I’m getting pulled deeper, how am I going to critically think myself out of that? They’re doing all kinds of stuff there to make sure that you get pulled in.
I, Chris, have never gambled in a casino—never ever. I just don’t understand how I can definitely win, so I’m not willing to give it a go. Am I like the person that goes, “I’m never going to date because I can’t guarantee that I’ll meet the love of my life, so I’m never going to date”? Am I that kind of person with a casino? I know I can get my excitement elsewhere and no, I can get it. I’m like, no. But If I spend this on this, that’s what I want.
There are even disappointments in that as well. I spent that and it wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. I can get it better over there. When you walk into a casino, sometimes you have a good day, a bad day, a good night, a bad night. It’s like, “Oh, that wasn’t as good as I’d hoped.” There’s risk everywhere. There’s risk to me crossing the road, but I have to cross the road. What can I do to manage that risk?
Exactly. It’s so interesting the way that we respond to the stimulus around us and the way that we choose to accept that stimulus or ignore it.
Right.
I guess I was thinking one thing, that comparison between when you’re only interacting with somebody online or over the phone versus in-person setting. You also see how they react to other people and not just you. When you’re dating someone, meet their friends, have them meet your friends, you see how they behave with people other than just you, and your friends see how they behave with other people than just you also.
Yeah, I think that’s really smart. That’s really smart to go, “OK, how do I critically think? One of the ask for more, ask what else, is ask other people. What do you think?” That’s part of critical thinking. What do you think? What better people to ask than some people that you trust?
“Hey, come and meet this girl that I’ve met, this guy that I’ve met. Come and hang out and tell me what you think.” They’re not greedy for what you’re greedy for, potentially. They might be. That might be where you connect potentially, but probably not. They’ll have other things that they’re focused on that you’re not focused on.
They have your best interests in mind. They have that critical thinking. They care for you. Take in that other data and then do decide what you’re going to do with that other data, knowing that a really good con has seen this coming.
The key is to meet that person face-to-face. Meet them in a place that they can’t control. Their image, what they do is very controllable through the electronic devices. They can go, “OK, I’m not going to answer that right now; I’m going to think about that. I’m going to construct something and then I’ll get back.” They can go, “Oh, I was in a meeting. I didn’t get back. Sorry. I was in a meeting. Didn’t get back to you immediately. Yeah, here’s the picture.”
“Give me an hour to go out and figure out how I can take that picture, or I’ll get AI to fake it for you.”
Exactly, yeah. You need to take them into an environment whereby they have less control. Isn’t that why we’ll often meet people at a restaurant because there’s stuff you can control in that, and there’s stuff you can’t control in that? Don’t we decide on some of our most important relationships over food because we see how people deal with the control and the not control of that?
I was having a conversation with somebody about this recently. I can’t remember who it was. It was very interesting. Actually, that was interesting. I was meeting the new partner of somebody that I’ve known for ages. We all go to a restaurant.
It was interesting. I said that to him. His why meeting at a restaurant is interesting because you quickly get to know people. The waiter made a mistake and didn’t bring him his food. I’d heard him order it. It was very clear in his order. I heard the waiter take the order. The waiter came back; there’s no food for the guy. The waiter’s there going, “Oh, no, you didn’t order that.”
This guy doesn’t make a fuss. He’s like, “OK, no problem. Just get the chef to make me whatever he can make fast so I can eat with everybody else.” The way to go is, “OK, I’ll do that.” Within five minutes, food shows up.
He could have gone, “You know what? I gave you the order, man. Come on. Sort this out.” He didn’t. That tells me something about his character. He’s the kind of guy who, if he needed to do that, he would be able to do that. He’d be able to be forceful about that. I know his background, I know what jobs he’s done. I know that he’d be able to be forceful about that, but he chooses at that point to go, “It’s all right. It’s OK.”
He knows that guy is making up; I know he’s making it up. Everybody at the table knows this guy is not apologizing when he should, but he doesn’t go, “Look, you’re making this up. Apologize. Get this together.” That tells me something about his character. I didn’t set that up. We couldn’t set up. That happens, and it happens at restaurants. Mistakes happen.
That is a very foreseeable circumstance.
Right. Anyway, I was talking to him about that because he was interested in deception detection and the areas that I’m involved in. He said, “I guess there are situations where you can’t set that stuff up.” I’m like, “Yeah, you do; you set that up.” I didn’t, obviously. But if I can construct a meeting where we make trouble happen to see how somebody will respond to that, if we think it’s advantageous to do that, we’ll do that to go, “Hang on. Can we catch them by surprise and see who they might be at that point?”
I wonder if that is subconsciously why we like to eat out in public with people. Subconsciously, we want to see them exposed to stimuli that they weren’t expecting to see how they responded. While we weren’t consciously planning it, maybe we were unconsciously planning it.
I think you’re absolutely right. I’ve got exactly the same theory. Unconsciously, we know it’s potentially full of surprises. We know food is very primal. Drink, very primal. It’s a need. It’s not nice to have food; you have to have it. People might start behaving in a more authentic way around that. That’s not to say a good con will know this. They’ll know, “OK, this is the dinner with the friend. OK, here’s what I do at the dinner with the friend. Can I look out for the surprises, or can I create the surprise that they would never expect to see what goes on?”
In the back of my mind, I keep envisioning scenes from the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
That’s interesting. What’s coming to mind for you about that? What is the surprise that you’re thinking of?
For those who haven’t seen the movie, it gets a little bit convoluted. The conmen are trying to con the conmen. Everybody’s trying to con everybody, but they’re introducing stuff that is totally unexpected and someone’s having to go along with it to move the con forward.
Right. They’re doing exactly what we’re talking about here. In the end, neither of them have sussed who the real con is. The question would be, if you go back to that film, what are the two conmen greedy for? That means they don’t see what’s really, really going on. Isn’t it their battle to win against each other that makes them blind? What’s potentially really happening there?
That’s their greed or their need.
Their greed for the win. It’s about being the winner of this. That means they’re blind to everything else going on.
The other things are just a means to that end.
A means to the win, yeah. It isn’t the money; it’s the win, and to win in the competition that makes them not see what’s really going on.
As we wrap up here, any parting advice for people just to be in a position where they have an open mind to have a better chance of seeing things for what they are as opposed to what they want it to be?
I’m going to reiterate something I said. It’s a risky world, but you must play. In going into that casino, knowing you must play and knowing that there’s risk, just go in knowing what you are greedy for. What is your Achilles heel? What will you suspend all rational thought around because you want it so much? Know that it's OK to want that, but know that that is what a con person would exploit. That’s what they’re going to exploit about you.
What is your Achilles heel? What will you suspend all rational thought around because you want it so much? Know that it's OK to want that, but know that that is what a con person would exploit. That’s what they’re going to exploit… Share on XBe aware, not necessarily on guard, but be aware of that little bit of self-knowledge. I think you’ve brought up some great stuff here around where you can get more information, more viewpoints from friends, family. Surprise them for more. Surprise people for more information so they can’t prepare for. It’s OK to do that because there is risk out there, and you must check out that risk.
At the same time, know that it’s risky to check out the risk. Somebody might go, “What’s up? What do you want that for now? What’s going on for you?” There’s risk. It’s a risky world. Not so much that you shouldn’t participate, but it’s a risky world, and it’s risky assessing the risk.
I like that. If people want to find you online, where can they find you?
Just put Mark Bowden into that Google thing and I’ll come. Just find me.
They’ll find you everywhere. Mark, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
Pleasure, Chris. It’s been a great conversation. Thanks for having it.
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