The Ben Mulroney Show - Paul Nadeau - the most interesting man in the world. Let's talk.

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

GUEST:   PAUL NADEAU / former hostage negotiator, United Nations peacekeeper, TEDx speaker, and decorated detective with 31 years of front-line service If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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He is the most interesting man in the world. You're listening to the Van Mulroney Show. Yes, indeed. The most interesting man in the world. Well, it used to be Chuck Norris. May he rest in peace. It was the Dasekis man. And now, without a doubt, after this conversation, you're going to want to vote for this guy as the most interesting man in the world. He's a Canadian, Paul Nadeau, former hostage negotiator, United Nations Peacekeeper, Ted X Speaker, decorated detective with 31 years of frontline service. He is the author of The Hostage Effect, Breaking Through the Chains of Mental and Political Domination.

Paul, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you, Ben. It's really great to be here. I mean, I have heard some crazy stories about you. And we're going to get into all of those. But walk me through, because that's a lot of hats to wear over the course of a career. And all of them are, first of all, I should say thank you for your service. Thank you so much for your service.

And each one of those deserves a thank you. So walk me through how you, it's almost like you forest gumped your way through life. where you were this guy who ended up, I don't know, everywhere you went, interesting things happened to you. I have to assume it was intentional. It was intentional, but much of it is like Forrest Gump. I compare myself to Forrest Gump. Hey, how the heck did this happen? Yeah. I started out wanting to become a police officer, and that came from my past. I had a very abusive father, and I remember at the age of seven after a beating from him, I looked up at him and I thought, when I grew up, I'm going to be a police, officer so I can arrest you.

Sorry, don't get to laugh, but... Well, yeah, but he never gave me that opportunity. He ended up taking his life before I got onto the police department. But after getting onto the police department, I applied myself to every aspect. I wanted to become a detective. I wanted to learn how to investigate. I wanted to catch the bad guys to make the world a better place. And I suddenly found myself in situations very much like Forrest Gump thinking, how did I end

up here. And it really defined my career, and I continue to work towards making the world a better place. So, Paul, I mean, we constantly hear the refrain that those traumatic events of our early life, they're used a lot as mitigating factors for bad behavior later on in life. And I hear about it in court cases when somebody is a, you know, somebody is accused of a terrible crime or convicted of a terrible crime, there's this push to say, oh, well, the systematic oppression and marginalization that they felt excuses and explains that.

Now, I'm not asking you to get political here, but I'm asking, in your personal experience, you could have defaulted to the easy way out. You could have said, well, you know what? This is how I was raised, and I'm going to perpetrate that same behavior forward. But you didn't. No, and you're right about that. I have heard that argument so many times. As a detective when I was sitting in the courtroom, the prosecutor was a good friend of mine. One of the prosecutors, Greg O'Driscoe. He's the major, he's the crown attorney in the city of Oswald, Durham region. And his background, he was as abused as I was, if not even worse. And we used to sit there and listen to defense attorneys, get up and say, well, my client was abused.

as a child and that excuses his or her behavior. And we used to sit there and say, it all comes down to choice. It comes down to what do you want from your life? Okay, so how long were you on the police force for? 31 and a half years. 31 and a half years. And how did you, how did you pivot to UN peacekeeper? Oh, that was, that was a tremendous opportunity. In 2000, after 9-11, in 2004, the United nations were looking for peacekeepers, and they had sent out invitations to police departments for active members of police services to represent their country and go down. And I happened to see one for Jordan. I applied for it, and I spoke to my family, my wife and my daughters, and got permission to go, and I found myself in Jordan in 2005 doing some work for the United Nations.

I'm sorry. And I'm, you know, I skipped ahead because I'm assuming that it was while you were an active police officer that you became a hostage negotiator. Yes. And that is a very specialized role within the police. It is. And so talk to me about how you, so you're a detective. Yep. Right. And what you have to apply for this? You do. You do. Okay. So what happened? So you saw a role, a job posting? I did. Okay. And so walk me through that. Yeah, and that's exciting. I talked a little bit about my past. Because of the abuse that I suffered at the hands of my father, I really had to communicate with adults at a very young age, ask for a job at the age of 12. That's what I was doing. So I learned how to communicate with people. When I became a detective and I started to interrogate bad guys, I was able to connect with not only the criminals, but the victims who had suffered some horrendous things. So I had the ability to communicate. with people. When this job popped up, I thought, wow, I think I could do that. My boss said, of course you can. So I went through a number of different steps with the RCMP who interviewed me to determine whether or not I was a good enough communicator to be able to become a hostage

negotiator. So you're a municipal police officer, but you're training with the national police force to then be set back to do that work within your community? Absolutely. Wow. Yeah. And how often did you have to negotiate as a hostage negotiator? It's not as often as one might think here in Canada. But keep in mind, too, that we negotiated not only with hostage takers, but with people who were in crisis. People who were at the edge of committing suicide. So it wasn't a full-time job. I have a friend, Gary Nessner, who's an FBI former hostage negotiator, his job.

and Chris Foss, you might have heard of Chris Foss. They would do that on a pretty much full-time basis flying across the world. Here in Canada, it's not as often, but it's often enough to be disturbing. So what I want to do, because I have got, you know, as I wish I had three hours with you, and then I wouldn't have to worry about the clock. Of course. There are certain things I want to do. And so there's one story I want to get to before this break.

Then I want to talk about applying your knowledge to some questions I have for you, specifically about, you know, the dangerous world we live in. And then in our third segment, I've got some other questions, which I'll tell our audience about in a bit. But I want you to tell the story of being on a plane that had a hostage taker on it. And look, if I went to Hollywood, like, if I saw that movie, I would say, there's no way that would happen. Only Hollywood would come up with a scenario where there's a hostage taker on a plane. there has to be a hostage negotiator on the plane, but it happened to you. Again, the Forrest Gumpism.

So tell this story. Oh, God, I got tears in my eyes because you're absolutely right. It's one of those Forrest Gump moments. When I was deployed to the Middle East, I had come back to Canada for a holiday to spend some time with my family. And I left Toronto and ended up in Paris. And I was waiting for the flight to Jordan. Yeah. And we're all on the plane.

We've been on the plane for about half an hour. Nothing's moving. And it's hot. It's a summer day. It's really hot. And I'm sitting there wondering, when is this plane going to take off? And I start looking out my window, and I see all these emergency vehicles converging on the plane and surrounding us. And I thought, all right, well, this is not very good.

We had not left yet, so we're still on the tarmac. Then I see the captain of the plane, a French-speaking captain. come out surrounded by uniformed officers with their guns out pointing at one particular passenger. And the French pilot, hey, you threaten to kill everybody bomb our plane. And he started into this rant with this individual that looked quite upset. And I thought, what's going on? And it became very clear that a threat to blow up the plane had been made. And the captain was not negotiating properly.

And long story short, I kind of thought, all right, I've got to raise my hand here. And I had to do it very carefully because we had armed officers with guns pointed out. And I didn't want to go, hey, here I am. And then find out, oh, hey, that's one of the terrorists. So I raised my hand and I said, Iskhe can I speak with you for a moment? Yeah, can I speak with you for a moment? Exactly.

And I identified myself as a hostage negotiator. I said, do you mind if I take over? Oh, no, please. And so I went and I sat beside. the guy who had made the threat. Whether he was a terrorist or not, it took me about 45 minutes to talk him peacefully off the plane

and into custody. I mean, that is... Okay, so that's... We've now laid the groundwork for what is going to be a continuation of an incredible conversation with... So the newly minted most interesting man alive, Paul Nadeau, don't go anywhere.

The Ben Mulroney Show continues. Very excited to continue my conversation with someone I'm calling the most interesting man alive. Jay Paul Nadeau, he is the author of the hostage effect, breaking through the chains of mental and political domination. Where can people buy the book? Amazon right now and Barnes & Noble.

Well, congratulations on the book. Thank you. I'm going to crack into it very soon. But in the meantime, I think we're going to get people interested in it by learning about you. And you've lived enough, I mean, you've lived enough careers for many lives. And all of them, police detective, hostage negotiator, international peacekeeper. I mean, I have to assume you've seen the worst in people. And yet, my interaction with you. And for those who don't know, you got here like an hour early,

so we've been chatting in between breaks. I mean, you command the room and you exude positivity. Where does that positivity come from when I have to assume just one of those careers would have shown you enough of the bad side of human nature to make you a cynic? Yeah. And what a great question. It comes really from choice. What is it that my intention to deliver to this world is? Am I ready to be bittered by individuals, by the failure of so much, or do I want to stand up, resist it, and try to make the best of it while giving a message to the world that we can do this? I see so many people who are broken by this world. And when I've seen criminals, I've actually been able to reach criminals and just change their minds by the way that I treated them. Well, let's talk about that because, you know, it's not every day I get to meet a hostage negotiator. What's the first thing a negotiator has to do when they are entering that arena

of negotiation? The first thing that you have to do is understand what your intent is. Your intent is to make sure that everybody lives. The hostages, the hostage taker, you, everybody. Your intent has to be focused on understanding. why you're there in the first place. So the first thing that most hostage negotiators will do is ask a simple question, which I think we can do in our daily negotiations as well. Can I ask, can I guess what it is? Yes.

What do you need for everybody to walk away? Pretty close. Very close. I'm here to help. How can I help? And that's exactly what you said paraphrased. I'm here to help. I'm here to listen.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood, Stephen Covey said, and that's what hostage negotiators do. But in that effort for everybody to walk away, does that mean that every avenue is open to you, including lying to that person? No. No, huh? Explain that because I would think,

I would think if you got to lie to somebody to get them to put down the gun or let everybody go, like you'll do whatever you got to do. No, and that's something that, if that happens, it's very, very rare, and it's a choice that you have to live with. And what I mean by that is that,

you're dealing with a hostage taker right now. If you lie to that person and that person has released three or four years from now from prison, which we know is a revolving door right now. So if that person is released and goes out and commits another crime and takes more hostages and you come over and say, hey. But isn't that a problem for tomorrow? Like, isn't that like you've got a problem in the moment, right? Yep. And if solving it requires telling that guy what he wants to hear, isn't that a problem for another day?

It's a problem for the moment because you may be caught in that moment lie. And I, for one, found it very, very difficult sometimes to tell the truth and to say, listen, I understand where you're coming from, but we just can't get that jet for you. We can't get those women for you. We can't get that drug for you. Yeah. What about, I mean, we've seen, I think more of us have seen hostage negotiation in movies. Yes.

than we have in person or on the news. So, and I was thinking about, what was it, the Sam Jackson movie, the negotiator. Oh, that was such a good movie. It was a good movie, but was it accurate? Like, what does Hollywood get right and what do they get wrong? Oh, interesting that you should ask, I was on Vanity Fair. I did a Vanity Fair segment back about two and a half years ago in New York in which I watched different movies. Okay. And I commented how accurate or how inaccurate they were.

And I've got to say Hollywood gets it right in some, and they ridiculously get it, Hollywood in that another one. What's the ridiculous stuff that they get wrong? Oh, shooting somebody's gun from, you know, 50 feet just to make sure that the hostage takers then unarmed, saying something ridiculous and stupid. I've watched so many different movies and said, you know what? Nah, no, no, it just doesn't happen. Yeah. Well, okay, let's take the hostage-negotiary hat off. Let's put the blue helmet of the peacekeepers on.

And talk to me about the most challenging moment that you had because you were in Jordan as well as the Israel-Palestine region. So I can't imagine that every day was a walk in the park. It wasn't. Imagine this. It's two thousand after it's post-9-11. And we have a police academy, the largest police academy in the world. 3,000 Iraqi police cadets from the ages of 16 to about 7,000.

And we have Sunnis, Shiites, and terrorists in our classroom. We couldn't identify the terrorists because they just simply grabbed a police uniform, applied for the job, and there they were, right in the academy. Were you able to spot any, I mean, you're an expert in human nature and the human condition? And were you able to spot sometimes someone might have been an outlier? Some, yes, yes. Some was quite obvious. Yeah.

But one in particular, actually, I didn't spot. And to, I guess, a blessing for me, he ended up saving my life. This terrorist ended up saving my life. I was about to be killed and he saved my life. All right. We said we weren't going to talk about that on the radio and you did. So tell me that story. Well, my approach to my police cadets was I would start off by saying, listen, I'm not here to tell you what to do.

I have a classroom of 60. Imagine this man. Have a classroom of 60s, Sunnis, Shiites, and terrorists, 16 to 70. And I'm saying, listen, I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to share my experience. I'm here to treat you with dignity and respect, and I would expect the same thing from you. And in that speech that I gave, I then make it very interesting for them to be there. I got them singing.

I got them telling stories at the end of the day. So there was this mutual respect. and later during my mission there, a kill order had been made to kill internationals. And I was on that list. And my partner and I, I had moved on to the advocacy and counseling division. And did you know that you were on a kill list? I knew that we, that all internationals were on this kill list. So specifically, I did not know that I was on it.

But that particular morning, when I was walking with my partner from the advocacy and counseling division, we were surrounded by about 40 of these armed insurgents. Now, they weren't armed with guns. They were armed with rocks and everything that they could pick up. Sometimes that's all it takes. Well, 40 guys, all hooting and hooting and I, like imagine, you're my partner. You and I were in the middle of the day. I would a turtle like a son of a bitch.

Oh, there was no way to turtle. They had us surrounded, Ben. And you would turn to me, and this is what my. partner did, he turned to me and he was taller than me, patted me on the head and he says, this is going to hurt little buddy. And we knew we were about to die. We knew we were about to die and they started to attack us. And as we were being beaten and as I was fighting to survive, because I didn't want to give up, not until the last breath. All of a sudden I hear this voice, Mr. Paul, Mr. Paul, Mr. Paul, and he's shouting something in Arabic. And everybody stops.

And it turned out to be the student of mine who was actually part of the terrorist organization whose job it was to kill me and others. And he intervened and they backed down? And they backed down and he reached up to me. He spoke English. He says, it's time to go, Mr. Paul. And did you find out from him what his motivation was to go against that kill order? No, but I know what it was.

It was a way in which, like, we had coffee from time to time when he was in my classroom. We had a mutual respect. I didn't know he was a terror. So I'm talking to him as though I'm talking to you. We're talking about our family. we're talking about this, we're talking about that. Later, I see him about three weeks later when I'm about to be killed and he's saying, no, no, this guy gets spared. Yeah, wow. Yeah, imagine that. Okay, well, listen, we're going to take another short break when we come back. We're talking about the book.

And then I want everybody to stick around because I've got some questions for you about how we can apply your knowledge of negotiation with the terrorists in our own lives, specifically our kids. I want to ask you about how people can negotiate for a raise in an environment where money is hard to come by. And most importantly, what advice would you have for our prime minister to negotiate with a president who some believe is taking our economy hostage? So that's coming up next on the Ben Mulroney show. Well, we're continuing on my conversation with the author of The Hostage Effect, Jay Paul Nadeau. He's lived the most interesting life you can imagine as a decorated police detective, a hostage negotiator, as a UN peacekeeper, and so much more. and he's written a book with using his knowledge to talk about the hostage effect,

breaking through the chains of mental and political domination. So what did you see in the world? What did you see in people's lives that you thought, I'm going to write this book? It was the hostage effect is a silent conditioning. It's almost like a virus. It makes us feel anxious, afraid, and a lot of it is tied into our political, our political environment. But when Donald Trump was elected, I felt this, this indescribable fear, I guess, that the world is about to change in many different ways. And a friend of mine reached out to me, and she called me and she said, are you feeling what I'm feeling?

And I said, of course I am. I think most of us are. We're feeling like hostages in our own countries. And that's what she said, if ever there was a time for you to write a book about, how hostages feel. We're all hostages now as a time, and she was right. Now, in the book, you argued that the same psychological tactics that are used to manipulate hostages are being applied to us in our everyday lives. Is that by design, do you feel? Do you feel like there are powers at play that are trying to, I don't know, keep us constrained,

at least psychologically? Yes, I believe that there is. I believe that our own government is saying this. This is what you shall say. You shall not speak this topic, you shall not do that, you shall not do that. There's so many, you shall not, that are being imposed on people that people are almost afraid to speak out. Well, that was one of the most powerful things that Jordan Peterson said that got him in trouble. And again, I'm not asking to get political, but, you know, he said, compelling speech is not, is not part of a free society, telling people you can only say these things. And if you say anything else, you know, free speech is about what you is about allowing you to say what you

want. It's not freedom. It's freedom to say what you want, not a list of things you can't, you can say. Right. And those are two different types of freedom. But let's move on to, and if people want to learn more, the book is the hostage effect. Jay Paul Nadeau, and you can go to Amazon. But let's, let's apply your knowledge to some everyday things. Like people with a heart around it refer to the terrorists in their lives, their kids. And I guess what it comes down to is how do you communicate rationally with an irrational actor? And children of a certain age are irrational. You know, they are governed by emotion.

They want what they want. And they, how do you interact with an irrational actor? And it's not always easy to do that. We first have to put ourselves in their shoes and remember what it was like for us when we were that age and we were irrational and we wanted this and we wanted that. I said a little bit earlier that one of the greatest things that, a negotiator can do is to listen first and to ask for the perspective of the person that they're about to talk about to. Tell me why you want X, Y, and Z. And have that open communication to the

point where you're really trying to understand, but also have a plan. Yeah. As a hostage negotiator, we always prepared well in advance for anything that might be thrown at us. And this is why we did all these role plays before we actually got the crisis call. And we were ready for a rebuttal or ready for that communication. But seek first, man. I ask questions and just let's see if we can if we can find a solution and all this mess. And now what about if someone's listening and they feel that they've been working hard at the office and they don't feel that they've been rewarded properly financially for the value that they're bringing to the company. How best can an employee plead their case for a raise?

The first thing they have to do is be honest with themselves to see whether or not they are delivering value to the company. Like, do you know yourself well enough? Compared to other businesses out there, are you doing more than what is expected that would be, that would be, that would be rewarded. Like, are you actually of that value?

And if you have done your homework, you've taken a look at other people who've got jobs similar to yours, and you say, listen, I'm outstanding. And you prepare this I'm outstanding kind of thing to give that the boss, the idea that, listen, this is why I'm worth what I'm asking for. And this is what it would mean, if you don't. So have that plan. And the last question I have for you, and so I want this to

take us to the break, of course. Is the biggest negotiation that matters to so many Canadians is the one that Mark Carney was elected for, which is to sit across the table from some who feel he can sometimes be a toddler. He can sometimes be irrational. But the one thing I think you can say about him is he's a zero-sum negotiator. Like there's got to be a winner and there's got to be a loser. How do you explain to a Donald Trump that's not you versus me, but it's us versus the problem? How do you get there? And that's that honest conversation is knowing your value and say, and also you have to recognize that he is a particular type of individual. And you have to stroke that particular individual and say, listen, I want to work with you.

And so take the lead. Let me know what you expect of me. And let's see if we can find that sweet spot. where we can both work. And I really appreciate you. I really do. Yeah, I've always said flattery unlocks him, but then you then have to figure out

how to navigate the maze behind that locked door. But what do you see in Donald Trump, in your experience, that the layman doesn't see? I see someone that if you do flatter the individual and you actually communicate the fact that working together is the best solution, I believe, and I'm not always right, but I do believe that you could get far closer to an agreement that our current prime minister has. Like instead of negotiating and sitting and trying to resolve things, what I've seen is someone running away.

What about Donald Trump in the Middle East, specifically with Iran? I joked a while ago that he would probably have success in Gaza because he doesn't speak their language, but he speaks a version of crazy that they will understand, right? He's playing the madman game. Like they believe he's crazy enough to do what he says he's going to do. And that's the type of crazy that a terrorist understands. What about when you're negotiating, when you're trying to fend off or fight an offensive war against? a terrorist regime like Iran.

Like what's, what tactics do you have when they are hell bent on death to America, death to Israel? What are you supposed to do? Well, number one, you're supposed to try whatever you possibly can. And you're absolutely right. Some regimes will never listen. It doesn't matter what you say, what you put forward. Some people will not listen. Imagine some of the people in your life. They will not listen because they are so hellbent on what they believe and nothing. But at first you don't succeed, try, try again, but you have to give it that effort.

See, and that's the debate that's going on these days, right? You've got certain people are saying that not everything was, not every diplomatic avenue was taken to which I think the other side would say, well, anytime a diplomatic avenue was taken, people would be, they would be lied to so that the regime could continue on and have the, the time and the runway to build up what they hoped would be a nuclear bomb. And once an organization like the Iranian regime has a nuclear bomb, that changes the paradigm completely. So you have to take them at their word and you have to assume that if they get that bomb, they're going to do what they've always said they were going to do, which is blow up Tel Aviv. Yeah. Yeah. And negotiating with a regime like that is next to impossible. And so you have to find alternatives. But I'm a living example of some people can be reached.

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