I Don’t Read Minds. I Read Bullshit Before It Becomes a Headline — Transcript

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1. 0:00I don't read minds. I read patterns. And
2. 0:04some of you are painfully predictable.
3. 0:07People keep asking me how the hell I
4. 0:09recognize patterns so quickly. How I
5. 0:12read people so well. How I can sometimes
6. 0:15anticipate what somebody is going to do
7. 0:18before they even realize they're about
8. 0:20to do it themselves. Well, sweetheart, I
9. 0:23didn't acquire this skill by sitting on
10. 0:25the internet listening to some
11. 0:27self-proclaimed alpha male explain human
12. 0:30psychology between two testosterone
13. 0:32supplement commercials. My entire damn
14. 0:35life has been an education in human
15. 0:38behavior. And some of my professors
16. 0:42weren't professors. They were disaster
17. 0:44survivors, government officials,
18. 0:47pathological liars, poker players, and
19. 0:51grown men who couldn't conceal their
20. 0:53insecurities if you handed them a shovel
21. 0:56and told them to bury them. Let's start
22. 0:59with FEMA and the Department of Homeland
23. 1:02Security. Working in disaster
24. 1:05environments teaches you a particular
25. 1:07kind of situational awareness. You learn
26. 1:09to assess your surroundings, identify
27. 1:12risks, anticipate problems, and
28. 1:15recognize when something doesn't feel
29. 1:17right before it becomes an operational
30. 1:20nightmare. And one of the most valuable
31. 1:22lessons I learned was this. Bring your
32. 1:26mind to where your body is. If you're
33. 1:29deployed across the country sitting
34. 1:31there worrying about some
35. 1:33happening at home that you cannot
36. 1:34possibly fix from where you're standing,
37. 1:37you're wasting the mental capacity you
38. 1:39need to function. You discipline your
39. 1:42attention. You learn to
40. 1:44compartmentalize. You learn that your
41. 1:47emotions are entitled to exist, but they
42. 1:50are not entitled to run the entire
43. 1:52operation. For years, deployment meant
44. 1:55checking into the accountability system
45. 1:58by 6:30 in the morning. You didn't just
46. 2:01casually forget to announce you were
47. 2:03alive. Missing check-ins could trigger a
48. 2:06welfare response because somebody needed
49. 2:08to establish whether you were safe or
50. 2:11lying unconscious in a hotel room. That
51. 2:14kind of environment rewires your
52. 2:16relationship with responsibility.
53. 2:19Then there's poker. Oh, poker was a
54. 2:22whole different university of
55. 2:25psychological warfare. Texas Holde pot
56. 2:29limit Omaha tournaments, cash games.
57. 2:34Years of sitting across from people who
58. 2:36were trying to convince me they had
59. 2:38something they didn't, while
60. 2:40simultaneously
61. 2:42trying to figure out what I knew about
62. 2:45what they were pretending not to know.
63. 2:47You want to understand human behavior?
64. 2:49Sit at a poker table where people have
65. 2:51actual money on the line. Watch what
66. 2:54happens when somebody gets embarrassed.
67. 2:56Watch how arrogance changes when the
68. 2:58stakes increase. Watch somebody bluff
69. 3:00with absolute confidence. Then unravel
70. 3:03the moment another person refuses to be
71. 3:05intimidated. [snorts] You learn about
72. 3:07timing, hesitation, overcompensation,
73. 3:11risk tolerance, emotional regulation,
74. 3:14ego deception, and most importantly, the
75. 3:18difference between what somebody
76. 3:19represents and what they're actually
77. 3:21holding. And because I spent so much
78. 3:24time around men, I also received an
79. 3:27education in the male psyche that no
80. 3:30university could have possibly packaged
81. 3:33into a respectable curriculum. Good
82. 3:35lord. The things men discuss when they
83. 3:38think they're sitting in a room where
84. 3:40women aren't paying attention. They
85. 3:42gossip worse than high school girls.
86. 3:46Relationships, money, status, sex,
87. 3:49betrayal, competition, other men's
88. 3:52failures, other men's wives, who's
89. 3:54successful, who's pretending to be
90. 3:56successful, everything. You sit there
91. 3:59long enough quietly observing and you
92. 4:02begin recognizing how often male
93. 4:05behavior is governed by insecurity
94. 4:07disguised as confidence. And I was
95. 4:10already accustomed to male environments
96. 4:12because I grew up predominantly around
97. 4:14boys. Most of my formative experiences
98. 4:18involved male friendships and influences
99. 4:20with relatively few girls around outside
100. 4:23of school friends and my cousins. So by
101. 4:26the time I reached adulthood, I had
102. 4:28already spent years observing how men
103. 4:30compete, bond, posture, protect their
104. 4:33egos, and respond to perceived threats.
105. 4:36Then came my bachelor's degree in
106. 4:38psychology. Four years studying the
107. 4:41human mind, abnormal psychology,
108. 4:44personality disorders, narcissistic
109. 4:46traits, antisocial behavior, cognitive
110. 4:49distortions, defense mechanisms, the
111. 4:52relationship between personality,
112. 4:54environment, trauma, and behavior. And
113. 4:57no, studying psychology doesn't give
114. 4:59somebody permission to clinically
115. 5:02diagnose strangers through a damn
116. 5:04television screen, but it absolutely
117. 5:06provides a framework for understanding
118. 5:08behavioral patterns that might otherwise
119. 5:12look completely random. Then we return
120. 5:15to FEMA because that's where all these
121. 5:18different disciplines began converging.
122. 5:20I've dealt with survivors who lost their
123. 5:23houses, their livelihoods, their
124. 5:26security, and sometimes the people they
125. 5:28loved most. I've seen human beings at
126. 5:32their most vulnerable. And I've also
127. 5:35worked within environments involving
128. 5:37governors, state officials,
129. 5:39congressional communications,
130. 5:41white house level coordination, and the
131. 5:44complex political realities surrounding
132. 5:46disaster response. That is an
133. 5:49extraordinary range of human behavior.
134. 5:53On one end, somebody is desperately
135. 5:56trying to figure out where they're going
136. 5:58to sleep tonight. On the other, somebody
137. 6:01is calculating jurisdiction, political
138. 6:04consequences, public perception,
139. 6:06funding, and institutional
140. 6:08responsibility. Same disaster, entirely
141. 6:12different psychological incentives. And
142. 6:14eventually when I reached FEMA
143. 6:17headquarters and entered supervisory
144. 6:20leadership, I had another responsibility
145. 6:23evaluating people. Understanding my
146. 6:25employees strengths, weaknesses,
147. 6:27judgment, temperaments, and how they
148. 6:30might perform under different
149. 6:31circumstances.
150. 6:33Because managing people isn't simply
151. 6:35assigning tasks. It's anticipating what
152. 6:38happens when pressure arrives. Who's
153. 6:41going to rise to the occasion? who
154. 6:43freezes, who needs guidance, who becomes
155. 6:46defensive, who starts pointing fingers,
156. 6:50who actually knows what they're doing
157. 6:52and who's been surviving on the
158. 6:54organizational equivalent of a
159. 6:56spectacular bluff. And here's where
160. 6:59everything comes together. FEMA taught
161. 7:02me situational awareness. Poker taught
162. 7:05me to recognize deception and risk.
163. 7:08Psychology taught me to understand
164. 7:10behavioral mechanisms.
165. 7:12Leadership taught me to anticipate
166. 7:14responses and human suffering taught me
167. 7:17that the consequences of getting people
168. 7:19wrong can be devastating. Now apply all
169. 7:22of that to politics. Suddenly I'm not
170. 7:26listening exclusively to what a
171. 7:28politician says. I'm studying what they
172. 7:31avoid saying. I'm observing when their
173. 7:34position changes, what preceded that
174. 7:37change, who benefits from it, which
175. 7:40incentives shifted, and what they're
176. 7:43trying to make the public believe. I'm
177. 7:46looking for inconsistencies
178. 7:48between their statements, their
179. 7:50behavior, and their interests. And when
180. 7:53those inconsistencies begin repeating,
181. 7:56that's when I start paying very close
182. 7:58attention. Because here's something
183. 8:00people fundamentally misunderstand about
184. 8:03pattern recognition. It isn't magic. It
185. 8:07isn't clairvoyance. And it damn sure
186. 8:10isn't being right every single time.
187. 8:13It's recognizing that human behavior,
188. 8:15despite all its complexity, often
189. 8:17operates through recurring motivations.
190. 8:20fear, greed, shame, status, loyalty,
191. 8:25survival, power, recognition, the
192. 8:28desperate need to avoid humiliation. The
193. 8:30costumes change, the offices change, the
194. 8:34bank accounts acquire additional zeros,
195. 8:37but the underlying incentives can look
196. 8:39remarkably familiar.
197. 8:42And once you've spent decades observing
198. 8:45those incentives across completely
199. 8:47different environments, certain
200. 8:49behaviors become easier to recognize.
201. 8:52You don't always know what's coming. But
202. 8:55you can sometimes see where things are
203. 8:58heading before the people involved are
204. 9:01willing to acknowledge it. That's the
205. 9:03advantage. And that's also why I don't
206. 9:05confuse confidence with competence,
207. 9:09authority with intelligence, charisma
208. 9:12with integrity, or a beautifully
209. 9:15delivered speech with an actual plan.
210. 9:18I've watched people bluff with their own
211. 9:20money. I've watched people navigate
212. 9:23unimaginable personal loss. I've watched
213. 9:26people exercise institutional authority.
214. 9:29And I've watched people try to conceal
215. 9:31weakness behind manufactured confidence.
216. 9:34So when I analyze politics, I'm not
217. 9:38arriving at the conversation with
218. 9:40nothing more than partisan enthusiasm
219. 9:42and a collection of internet conspiracy
220. 9:44theories. I'm bringing a lifetime of
221. 9:47observation, formal education,
222. 9:50professional judgment, mistakes,
223. 9:52experience, and pattern recognition.
224. 9:56Does that make me infallible? Absolutely
225. 9:58not. It makes me aware of how much there
226. 10:01is to examine before reaching a
227. 10:03conclusion. And perhaps the most
228. 10:05important lesson of all is that the
229. 10:08moment you believe you can no longer be
230. 10:10deceived is precisely when you become
231. 10:13the easiest person in the room to
232. 10:16deceive. So no, I don't have a crystal
233. 10:18ball. I have decades of accumulated
234. 10:21experience, a fairly disciplined
235. 10:24attention span, and an exceptionally low
236. 10:26tolerance for intellectual And
237. 10:29after spending enough years watching
238. 10:30people show their hands, you eventually
239. 10:33learn that the loudest person at the
240. 10:34table isn't necessarily holding the
241. 10:37strongest cards. Sometimes he's just
242. 10:39terrified that somebody is finally going
243. 10:42to call his bluff.