The Jordan Harbinger Show - 557: Jack Schafer | Flipping the Like Switch Part One

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

Jack Schafer (@jackschafer) is a retired FBI special agent, current assistant professor at Western Illinois University, and co-author of The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over. [This is part one of a two-part episode. Keep an eye out for part two later this week!] What We Discuss with Jack Schafer: Why happy people make terrible spy recruits. How the Friendship Formula (Friendship = Proximity + Frequency + Duration + Intensity) can be used to build rapport in every human interaction. How to "name it and claim it" when manipulative techniques are being used against you to withstand and resist their effects. How to recognize friend and foe signals in others and make sure you're not inadvertently broadcasting the signals that mark you as an easy target for manipulation. What's really going on when someone grabs food from your plate without asking, or takes their sweet time getting out of the parking spot you're clearly waiting for. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/557 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy mad yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to checkout is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiratuality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger show. If people share the same space, there's a mutual liking that occurs. People are mutually attracted to one another who just simply share the same space. They may not communicate with one another,

but if they share the same office and they see each other daily, then that proximity causes that mutual attraction, mutual predisposition to like somebody. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills are the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts, entrepreneurs, spies, psychologists, even the occasional billionaire investor, national security advisor, or neuroscientist.

Each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about it, and I always appreciate it when you do, We've got the starter packs. Those are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash start. Those are a taste of everything we do here on the show, sorted by popular episodes. Now today, Uncle Jack, Jack Schaefer, back on the show, everyone's favorite FBI agents. He's not really my uncle, but you'd never guess by the level of snark in all of our conversations. He used to be one of our nation's top spy catchers. You heard him before teaching us about elicitation and how to get the truth out of people. Now, a two-parter on getting people to like and more importantly trust us. This is a great episode with tons of practicals for anybody in any profession where they work with or deal with other people, which I assume is pretty much every single one of us. There's lots here, tons of practicals, let's get crack in. And by the way, if you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing thinkers, authors, creators every single week, it's because of my network.

And I'm telling you, dig the well before you get thirsty, build those relationships before you need them. I'm teaching you how to do it for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And most of the guests you hear on the show, they subscribe to the course. join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. Now, here's Jack Schaefer. Let's assume for this one that people have not heard the last one. We don't have to go over all the principles again, but I would love to get some start off with some background on your job at the FBI recruiting and turning enemy spies. I know that's a gross exaggeration of you had a lot of other things to do or a gross simplification, I should say. Well, that's a lot of what I did, though. Is it? Okay,

so tell us about how that kind of works. And I would love to know how you get selected for something like that. Do they just say, this guy understands people, go turn enemy spies? Or are they just kind of like, Schaefer's not doing anything? Have him go catch Russians. It's kind of the second. And if you do well, you stay. And if you don't do well, they give you another job. Okay. So are they thinking, because it seems like you wouldn't want to just test that out on people because, well, there's got to be a way to put you through the ringer without saying, go chase this really important Russian asset. And then they go, whoa, that was the wrong. guy for the job. He made us look like a bunch of dipshit. Hey, Harbinger, you go try now. Like,

that's not really a good, right? You can't send 10 people after one guy. I'm trying to think. What they do is you go through a training program first. And they determine whether you have the skills, the social skills, because a lot of recruitment has to do with social skills. You have to be able to identify with somebody. You have to be able to empathize with somebody. And above all, you need to learn what that person needs above all because happy people make terrible spies. You cannot recruit a happy person. If you recruit a happy person, what are you going to give them? You look for somebody who needs something. They need health care. They want their kids to come to school in United States. Added income for retirement. You can give them that in exchange for classified

information. In fact, I spoke with a Russian KGB officer at the time, and he asked, we were talking about what it takes to recruit a spy. And it was kind of a casual conversation. And I asked him, if I put a bag of money in your lap, would you sell me classified information? And he looked at me, and he said, Mr. Jack, would you give out classified information if I put a bag of money in your laugh? I said, well, of course I wouldn't. And he says, what makes you think I would? And I asked him, what would it take to recruit you as a spy? And he said, nothing. I have everything I need. I need nothing. I have a good family. I live in a good apartment. Go to the best shops. I get all the privileges in Moscow that are available to somebody. I have no needs.

You need to find somebody that needs something. That was very interesting. Did you ask him for a referral? Yes, I did. Who in your organization is pissed off at you right now? I'll start there. He kind of smiled and said, I cannot do that. And I said, sir, you can do it. He says, well, I won't do it. I said, okay, that's a better answer. So we kind of bantered back and forth. And I learned a lot about recruitment just by talking to spies, the psychological makeup of somebody. So if I want to catch a spy, I look for unhappy people. If there's an American who's spying against America for a foreign government, I look for unhappy people. Because happy people do everything they can to maintain their happiness.

Sad people do everything they can do to be happy. Right, to get themselves into a different set of circumstances. Yeah. Yes. That's interesting. So you have to be able to read someone's vulnerability, but not just that sort of situational, momentary vulnerability. When I look at Russian spies, right, and this is from like news research.

So take it for what it's worth. When I look at the stories about Russian spies, they find some idiot who's been cheating on his wife in Korea and they get Compromot, right? They get photos and they say, I'm going to ruin your happy life or you're somewhat happy, possibly not so happy if you're cheating on your wife. Life, if you don't give us this. But it sounds like you're looking for more bigger picture vulnerability. Like this guy is depressed and he knows that his kids have no future because his situation,

he's in a dead end or he knows that the gravy train is up or that the Soviet Union is all but a foregone conclusion that this is over with. That seems harder to find than just getting some pictures of some guy shagging a mistress in another city. Well, that's where behavioral analysis comes into play because a lot of times what we do is we look to see, the first thing we look at is the people who are in a position to give us good information because you don't want to recruit somebody who doesn't have information you need. The second thing we do is we look at that person to find out whether they break social norms. Are they supposed to go out at night? If there's a curfew in that embassy or that consulate at night and those people are out at night, they broke a social norm. They've broken

rules. If they're not supposed to be cheating on their wives and going out and going to clubs, they've broken a rule. If they're not supposed to drink, broken a rule. Not supposed to smoke, broken a rule. So we look for people that break social norms. And then we test them to see how far or how many of those norms they'll break. How do you test them? You give them different scenarios. Like you would ask them to go in and bring out a telephone book, not a classified telephone book.

Just bring me a telephone book of your consulate. If they say, okay, then they broke a social norm. That telephone book isn't of much value to us, but they broke a social norm. So you're looking for somebody who will. So this is like, what is that called? the Chinese do this, and I read about this, I guess it was the Korean War. They would say something like, they don't sit there and beat you up and ask you to betray your country. They say, do you think America is perfect? And the person says, well, no country's perfect. Okay,

write down a list of ways in which you think America is not perfect. And then you write down this, and it's sort of this escalating set of compliance, right? So you say, hey, give me a phone book. And they go, all right. I mean, even if I get caught doing that, they're going to be pissed, but they're not going to be, as long as they don't know, I gave it to the FBI, they're going to be like, you took that out of the office? Yeah, I took it out of the, all right, I shouldn't have taken out of the office, right? So they can rationalize that small or medium level of breach. And then you say, hey, give me the names of the KGB. What does it call? The, uh, I heard about this in the Americans. It was the KGB, now it's the SRV. Yeah, okay, so give me the names,

give me the name of your bosses who are doing the intelligence work, who are, what is it called when they don't have diplomatic cover? Is it NOC, right, non-official cover? people that are supposed to be undercover. Yeah. Right. And then like slowly they're giving you this escalating, giving into this escalating set of demands, right? Right. And once you get them to do things for you, it's hard for them not to do something higher for you because then you'll tell them, what would your boss think if you knew you smuggled out a telephone book? You think you're in trouble now. You might be in bigger trouble. But most of the time, they want to do it. Because there's a reward at the other end, right? The dangling carrot of happiness.

We look for, like I remember one officer, KGB officer, needed health care for his kid. And they didn't have that medical treatment in Russia. And he said, can I get medical care in the United States? Of course you can. But there's a price. You have to pay for that. And that is give us classified information. So that's an incentive.

So you look for need. Some people just, it's ideological need. Sometimes, especially with ideology, and is similar what you, talked about with the Chinese, what we do is approach somebody and say, you're not a traitor. Your government is the bad people. Your people are good. Your culture is good. Your country is good. It's your government that's bad. So in order for you to be a patriot, you want to take your government down and restore that to a more acceptable society. That makes a lot of sense. So they're not really traitors, they're patriots.

Right. You want to help them rationalize their decision, but also reframe their decision into something else, right? Like, Jordan, you're not betraying your country by giving this away. You're saving your son's life. What could be a higher, what's a higher calling? Yes. Pushing paper for the CIA or saving the life of your son. And then it's like, well, this is obviously all I'm doing is giving them a phone book, you know.

Yeah. I'm being a good dad. Yeah, that's basically. You're just trying to look for ways to satisfy needs. And that's the first thing I look at when I look to recruit somebody is, are they happy or unhappy? If they're happy people, your chances of recruiting them are almost not. Very slim. It seems like then there should be almost an entire division of counterintelligence people,

making sure that intelligence officers are happy, satisfied. I mean, there's got to be a whole like, hey, is anything going on in your life? I mean, yes, they check for gambling debts and do that whole background check thing, but it seems like somebody should be monitoring the health and well-being of all of my family members if I hold a bunch of classified information, right? In foreign countries, they do take care of their elite intelligence officers by giving them the best departments, by giving them access to the best stores with the most goods, the education.

And what's interesting about the, what I learned about the KGB is people tend to hire people like themselves. So we hire those who are most like us. So if you know one KGB personality, typically you're going to know all KGB personalities because they hire people that are like them. But in the United States, it's more difficult because we have a diversity of cultures in our intelligence. So not one personality fits all, like in foreign countries, typically. Interesting. So in a way, having a diverse workforce of intelligence agents makes us harder to penetrate because you can't just sort of stereotype the personality when I've got people from all walks of life.

America is kind of hard to pin down when it comes to personality. Yes. It's tough. We don't have a universal personality like other countries do, or universal culture. We're more diverse. So it seems like from that premise, right, of recruiting other people and also testing different FBI personnel to do the counterintelligence or the recruiting of foreign spies, that sort of presupposes, and I assume you agree, that social skills are a learnable but also teachable skill, right?

So we're talking about sales, recruiting of spies, and dating kind of stuff. Would you agree with that? I absolutely would. and that's what kind of motivated me to write the light switch. And that is because I recognize all the tools I needed or what was required to learn to recruit spies. And I said, wow, all we're doing is developing relationships with people and then influencing those people. Those same skills that we can use to recruit spies, we can also use in business, dating, family, and all, anytime you have to interact with somebody, you can use these same skills.

I'd love to break that down the learnable and teachable elements of this. I know that's what you do in the like switch, but I want to, there's a few really cool, juicy morsels that I would love to talk about. One, you broke down a formula for friendship, which is great. I don't think I've seen that anywhere in such a practical type of delivery. Friendship, it's a friendship equation, right? friendship equals frequency, proximity, intensity, and duration. Can we discuss each one of those and what they do?

And that'll be in the worksheets for those listening who are like, wait, I got to write this down. Don't stop jogging. Don't stop driving. It'll be in the worksheets for the episode. Friendship equals frequency, proximity, intensity, plus duration. Take us through this. Yeah, there was some agents would come to us in the behavioral analysis unit and they would ask us, How do you recruit people?

And we told them just ingratiate yourself, develop friendships, and then, you know, intensify the relationship, and then use elicitation tools to find out what that person needs. So Joe Navarro and I got together and we thought about what goes into person relationships. What are the least common denominator that you need to maintain personal relationships? And so first thing we thought about was proximity. You need proximity to a person to have a relationship, either virtual or physical proximity. Because if somebody's in one city and somebody else is in another city

and they don't know each other exists, then they need proximity to know that each other exists. And without proximity, there's no relationship. What about now digital proximity? It's kind of funny. We were talking about this pre-show about There's people that I'm friends with that I've met on the internet 10 years ago and talk to a bunch. And I can't, when's the last time I saw you?

Never? We've never met. And it's mind-blowing. So I'm wondering now about digital proximity. I assume you've thought about this at this point where you can be talking with somebody via Zoom or squadcast like we are now. And if we had meetings every week, after a decade, I'd like to think that we'd be pretty close friends, even if we've never met in person. Right. So the proximity can be virtual proximity also.

because all you need to do is know each other exists. And there are certain things that attach when you have proximity. It says if people share the same space, there's a mutual liking that occurs. People are mutually attracted to one another who just simply share the same space. They may not communicate with one another, but if they share the same office and they see each other daily, then that proximity causes that mutual attraction, mutual, predisposition to like somebody. So the second thing you need is frequency. You have to be frequently by that person. But that doesn't necessarily make a relationship. What you have to do is also have

duration. So if you're frequently with somebody and you have duration with that person, then there's more likely a relationship will develop. So the more you spend time with somebody, the more influence you have over that person. So if you think back of all the good relationships you had in the past, those people spend a lot of time with you. Right. That's why you're closer friends with the people that you go hiking for a week with than somebody that you saw once a week for 20 minutes

while you're checking into your hotel or your gym. Yes, that's the principle there. And the last thing that we looked at was there has to be some intensity to a relationship. And the first one, proximity, it's either there or not. Frequency, you can measure with a watch or a hash mark. Duration, you can do the same thing. It's measurable. But intensity is not measurable objectively, but you can use nonverbals to measure intensity.

And one of the nonverbals, in fact, the strongest nonverbal intensifier to relationship is mutual gaze. We look at people we like and we don't look at people we don't like. And when we look at people we like, it releases oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone. So if you have a dog, if anybody has a dog, what that dog does, it typically will go up to you and stare right in your eyes for a long period of time. And it's like they're looking deep into your soul. What they're doing is they're releasing oxytocin in their mind, in their brain. and you're also, when you stare back, are releasing oxytocin. And that's what creates the bond between you and your animal.

It's almost like there's been some science around this, and I don't know how strong this science is, but people were saying these scientists hypothesized that dogs actually just learned to manipulate us over however many thousands of years of domestication. Like they know how to release oxytocin in our brain. They're just like, I'm going to lay down on the floor and stare at my human for three hours.

And at some points, he's going to look right at me and right in my eyes. And, you know, they're not thinking about it scientifically, obviously, but it's been working. So the dogs that are more likely to do that are the ones that got domesticated. It's probably the same with cats, but I think we all know if you've had a dog and you've had a cat, dogs are much better at creating that bond. Cats only, they want a bond when they're hungry and then they want you to leave them alone. Well, dogs need their human masters for food and care and love and all those things, attention. And they figured out a way how to do it. And that's why people are so attracted to their animals because of that oxytocin and that

bond it develops. So I found that quite interesting. So it works the same way with people. You know, you say young lovers, they look into each other's eyes for a long period of time. They're sitting there staring at one another. Well, they're just releasing that oxytocin, developing that bond between them. Yeah. Now, if I'm laying in bed and I look at my wife, she's either going to ask me what's wrong or she's going to ask me if I fell asleep with my eyes open somehow. What's wrong with you? Why are you staring at me? Well, there is something to that because if you see older couples in restaurants, they don't look into one another's eyes anymore. Something called that comfortable.

Quiet comfort? Quiet comfort. I know that person. That person knows me. They're not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere. So we can do what we want to do and still have that assurance that the person's going to be there. don't have to take those steps anymore. So people often mistake that for, well, that couple doesn't get along because one's reading the paper, the other one's eating or vice versa or something, and you say, no, that's quiet comfort there. They just very comfortable with one another. It's very true. I remember when I was dating Jen, we would go out and we would see these couples and both were on their phone or one would be like you said, reading the magazine or the newspaper and the other one's eating or looking at their phone. And we said, let's never be those couples

they're just wasting all this precious time they have with one another. Now we go out and I'm like, Jen, hey, do you want to do that? And she goes, what? Because she's on Instagram and I'm reading Reddit or I'm reading, you know, the newspaper. And I realize now it's not, oh, we don't care about each other anymore. It's, I don't need to have her brain secreting oxytocin in synchrony with my brain because we're married and it's not like we never do that. I just don't want to do it right now. I want to eat my food or I want to look at this article. I'm here all week, right? Yeah, that's basically what happens. But that oxytocin is the initial bonding agent that gets people together until longer bonds can take hold. It sort of crafts the lays the groundwork for the emotional connection and all the other things that older couples or more long-term relationships already have in place. So maybe the neural wiring is kind of already there.

It also occurs when we engage in reproductive activities. You know, both people release the oxytocin, and that creates that bond during that intimate relationship. And that's because you need a bond between two people if there's a baby in the offing in the old days. So they wanted that bond. Right. And I believe that it happens when breastfeeding and things like that. So mothers and babies are especially bonded that way. That's a touchy subject because a lot of women now don't breastfeed and they want to argue that that's not the

case and I will hold up my hands and say the science is whatever it is and I'm not up on that. So don't send me angry emails about how kids are not bonded with their mothers if they didn't breastfeed. I don't want to, I don't have a dog in this fight. So well, why don't we say that's one way right to develop it. You can also do it with touch, hold the baby, caress the baby, talk to the baby's eyes. So we can look at other alternative ways to create that bond outside of breastfeeding. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Jack Schaefer. We'll be right back.

Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. I love that you listen to this. I love all the feedback I get from y'all. Please do consider supporting those who support us. We put all of the sponsors, all those codes, all those URLs. They're all in one page. Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals is where you can find it. And don't forget, we've got worksheets for many episodes.

So if you want some of the drills and exercises talked about during this show, those are all in one easy place as well. That link to the worksheets is also in the show notes. Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. Now, back to Dr. Jack Schaefer. Tell me about how the Chinese use this approach, the friendship equation, knowingly or unknowing, they were recruiting a bunch of,

they are recruiting a bunch of scientists to give away classified and unclassified information. It seems like they have a pretty good mastery of this. Our earlier example was the Chinese during the Korean War. Obviously, they've only gotten better at this type of intelligence gathering. Well, they're very, very good at it. And what they do is, well, let's talk about the inverse relationship between frequency and duration. If you spend a lot of time with a person, you don't

have to spend as much duration with that person to maintain that relationship. So if you don't see that person for a long time, say you haven't seen your friend for five years, you see them and you go out and have dinner, the next thing you know, you're in the restaurant for five hours. And you go, my gosh, it's been five hours we've been sitting here. And that's because the frequency was low. Therefore, the duration of each time you meet has to be higher to maintain that relationship. So with that in mind, when a scientist goes over to China, he's invited to go over, and they typically have one person assigned to that scientist, the quote unquote translator or minder.

and what happens is that person now has proximity with you. But since the frequency is low, you're only over there for maybe five days or seven days. So the duration has to be high. So they wake you up in the morning and they're with you until they put you to bed at night. And during that time, what are they trying to do? They're trying to develop a rapport with you, get you to like them. And it turns out that one of the ways they do that is through common ground. So they want to find out where you're from, how many kids you have, what your religion is, what your pastimes are, what your hobbies are.

And to scientists, great surprise, guess what? The Chinese minder has the same interest to develop that common ground. And also what they want to do is they want to use elicitation to get your birthday, your wife's birthday, your kids' birthday, your holidays that you celebrate, and that's for use later. So they're going to elicit all that information from you. And then what they do is with the intensity, of course, they're with you all day. And they're flattering you. They're complimenting you. They're doing all the things that are good.

And it's funny that some ugly scientists go to China and all of a sudden they're the most handsome people in the world. And I just tell a scientist, I says, isn't that odd? Yeah. You've been ignored your whole life in the United States. but when you go to China, the models are coming out from the woodwork to come and try and date you. Yes. And then you go give your presentation. And of course, they use elicitation again. And they'll walk up to you because you're an expert. You've been called to China. Now you have to, there's a predisposition for humans to prove that they're an expert in a field.

So what better way to prove it than to talk about it? So a scientist will come up to a Chinese scientist will come up. to one of American scientists and say, I've been working on this problem. Can you help me with this? Can I get your advice? The Benjamin Franklin effect, right? Asking for the advice. Yeah. And then what they say is, oh, you made a mistake here. You're almost predisposed to make that correction because you have to prove you're an expert. Because what if you say, I don't know how that works, then you're no longer an expert. Yeah, or I can't tell you because that would prejudice. I'm not supposed to tell you how to solve this problem. Well, thanks, Jerk. Yeah. I'm asking you for advice and you're keeping it close to the vest. What's your problem?

Aren't we colleagues, right? Yes. And they developed such good rapport with you that you feel obligated through reciprocation. There's the need to reciprocate. So if they do something for you, you have this overwhelming need to do something back for them. So they use all these psychological techniques to put psychological pressure on you to make that correction. So you say, oh, you have to make this correction here. So they got the answer to one bit of knowledge. They do this with 100 scientists. They have 100 bits of knowledge. So we kind of get hacked by bits and pieces. Right. So it's like a jigsaw puzzle where if I think, hey, I'm just giving them one piece of this 10,000 piece puzzle. It's not a big deal. If they've already figured out the other 999,

pieces, this isn't really going to change anything. I'm just being polite by giving it to them. Yes. But if they do it 10,000 times and they get a different piece of the puzzle every single time, we've given them the whole puzzle. Yes. And now here's what happens is they'll say your lecture was so successful, we're going to give you the big ballroom next time. And why don't you bring your wife with you this next time? So she can see all the wonders of China, all expenses paid, of course. And so since there's no proximity, when that scientist leaves, they have to increase the frequency, duration, and intensity. So what they do is they'll send you a birthday card or a little birthday present to you, maybe to your

wife. If you're Jewish, they'll celebrate, they'll send you Hanukkah, they'll send you all the holidays. If you're Christian, they'll send you Easter, Christmas cards, Santa Claus to the kids. They'll send little presents. So while you don't have proximity, they take advantage of frequency duration and intensity to maintain that relationship. Right. So if we think about the friendship equation like a set of buckets on a scale, right, we have to keep them filled up. And if we can't keep one of them filled up, we have to overcompensate in the other buckets.

Yeah, that's actually a good analogy. So what would happen is I would debrief these scientists that came back from China and say, was there anything unusual? No. Did they ask you any classified questions? No. They were just so nice. And I'm going like, no, no, no, something's wrong. So now I ask, was there proximity? And who was it with? Well, one translator, the whole time, morning, noon, and night. Okay. So they were with you. And they were frequently with you. And the duration was

extreme. And there was a lot of intensity. And they got your birthday. And they got, oh, yeah, yeah, I told them that. That's not classified. Well, of course not. So based on, just asking questions about that personal relationship index, we can tell whether there was a relationship developed between that scientist and that the minder. Then I can tell whether they've been elicited or not. It seems like for them, and for anyone doing this, it must be kind of a lot of work, right? Because unless you know someone pretty well by the time they've already set foot on Chinese or American soil, you don't really know what they're going to be like, right? Like, what if I'm a physicist and I've got this decent reputation.

And then I go to China and you've set me up with this kind of intellectual guy who's married and has a little kid just like me. And I go, all right, man, I want to go to the nastiest, grossest establishments you have here in Shanghai. I want to do rails of illegal drugs all night long and I'm going to blow off the call tomorrow and you're going to lie for me because we're going to have an awesome time. They kind of have to, either that same guy has to go along with it or he's like, Got to go back and go, look, we need one of the 20-year-old guys to go out with Jordan because he's wild.

I can't be doing this. I'm 40. You know, what the hell? Well, what I do with before the scientists go, I do brief them to the personal relationship index. This is what they're going to do to develop a relationship with you. Be aware. Don't give out information that you don't have to. And when you leave, they're going to send you letters and cards and gifts.

So be aware of that. Report all those things because they are recruiting you to give over secrets. Right. Okay. That makes sense because a lot of people are going to report a freaking Hanukkah card. Why? And the reason is because you in your line in counterintelligence behavioral analysis, you're looking for the beginning of the ladder, right?

Because you're probably not going to see the later elements of the ladder. No one's going to report. You know, you were right. They gave me a bunch of holiday cards. But now I'm selling them pieces of the nuclear reactor. Right? You can only see the beginning. of the ladder, of the compliance ladder, the innocuous stuff. So if you are getting reports of,

you know, we got another fruit basket and it's delicious and it's definitely expensive, you know that they're going after me pretty hard if I start reporting my third trip to China this year, except I'm staying at the five-star hotels in Shanghai and Nanjing. I'm flying private jets from Beijing to Shanghai and all around the country. You know that they're coming after me hard. And I'm just saying, I'm just doing my job. I'm a big shot around here. But here's your stupid report, FBI. You know now, okay, Jordan is being pursued, take additional steps to make sure that he doesn't sell them parts of the whatever blueprints. Well, we just make you aware. I'll say, Jordan, let's talk about how Chinese recruit people. And after I tell you how they

recruit people, let's go over what you've done and what they've done to you in China. And then all of a sudden, you go like, whoa, it looks like they're recruiting me. Yes, sir, it does. So we can do two things, Jordan. We want you to continue to be recruited, or we want you to stop, shut the thing down. Stop going to China. Yeah, yeah. Or if you want to be our spy, if you want a spy for me, then we'll let them continue to develop

you until they ask you for classified. Then we'll know what they're looking for. And then what? Do I feed them fake stuff? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yes.

That's interesting. There's a lot of ways to handle. There's a lot of play action there when. you're being recruited. That makes sense. But if Jordan says, I'm too nervous, I don't want to do it, then I'll say, well, don't go to China anymore. Stop or lose your security clearance. Right. Obviously, the most fun option is to continue being recruited and wind and nine and give them fake stuff and then keep them super, super happy and keep cashing those checks, right? Or whatever. That's what we hope for. Yeah, sure.

Although I can imagine, like, as I get older and have more relationships with family and have kids, the less appealing it is for me to go to China and risk them figuring out what I'm doing and keeping me in a dry prison cell or not a dry. Because you're happy and you want to maintain your happiness. You don't want to do anything that's going to, what, jeopardize your happiness. So you have a wife and kids and a nice house and a nice job. why would you jeopardize any of that to do something risky to lose that happiness? So what's interesting here, though, is if the, let's, we can, it doesn't have to be Chinese. The Chinese people right now who are listening are like, come on, why are we always the bad guys? If I'm going to North Korea, well, that's a bad example.

If I'm going to Oman, right, and I'm being recruited by Omanese intelligence all the time, they're looking for unhappy people because I'm more vulnerable. Right. And so as a counterintelligence agent or a double agent or whatever you'd have me be as an FBI officer agent, it's also better if I'm not that happy because then I'm willing to do more risky stuff. So you're kind of battling over these very recruitable people, right? Because the thing that makes them more likely to take the extra risk for country is also the thing that makes them more recruitable to the enemy. Right. Because we look for risk takers. Yeah. And people who are happy take less risk. Yeah.

So that's a dance, right, that you're doing with intelligence all the time. This isn't anything confidential. All intelligence services use these same techniques because human behavior goes cross-culture. So what our job is to make people aware of how they could be recruited. Once they know how they can be recruited, then they become aware of it. And there's some call name it and claim it. So they can say, aha, I see the technique you're using. I have a name for it, and now I'm going to prevent you from doing that.

Name it and claim it. That's good. So that's kind of like the psychological awareness of whatever may be a cognitive bias or an event that's happening. If I name it and claim it, it's less powerful. It theoretically it's less powerful. It works less effectively against me. And you want to know how to practice that? Go to a car dealership, talk to a salesman.

They will use all kinds of psychological. sales techniques on their customers. So my son wanted to learn these techniques of behavioral analysis. So I said, let's go to a car dealership. We went into the car dealership. The car dealership talked to my son, and he says, oh, you're using the puppy dog technique. He said it out loud? Yeah.

He said, well, I said, name it and claim it. And I told them later, he's supposed to name it in your mind. Yeah, you name it in your mind, dummy. So he went, no, no, no, no, that's not it. He says, oh, you're trying to sell me a payment instead of a car. Because a lot of car salesmen say, I can sell you a payment of $400 a month. Well, I'm not interested in buying a payment. I'm interested in buying a car.

Let me worry about how much you cost. So then my son would say, oh, you're trying to sell me a payment instead of a car. And the guy finally says, wait a minute, you know too much about how to car salespeople work. And he just laughed. Yeah. Yeah, because either you're a car salesman yourself. or you're coming from Jack Schaefer's class, and we've had 13 of those people here this week.

Get out of here. Let's go buy a damn car. I got kids to feed. So anyway, my son learned that just through just doing it. That makes sense. Even sort of doing that with telemarketers, obviously a car dealership's a great place to do that because there's nonverbal stuff happening too.

Yeah. You sit down and they go, oh, I've got to ask my manager, the appeal to authority, right? Oh, he says I can't do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot going on. at a car or a mattress dealership, but car dealers probably, maybe they're easier to come by

and possibly more skilled? I don't know. I've never bought a mattress in person. Yeah, they're difficult, too. You can negotiate with a mattress. Yes, yes, indeed. One guy said, you're selling me a mattress without a bed frame? What kind of nonsense is that? That's like selling me a car without an engine. He said, all right, we'll throw in that. Thank you. And that technique is, you seal the deal, And then you ask for something extra. Yeah. My son recently bought a Lexus, and I was with him. And I said, sure would like a nice coffee cup with Lexus on it,

that black coffee cup with the Lexus logo. The guy goes, all right. Yeah, he's all right. I'll throw that in. Well, we only have 700 of these in the dealership, so let me see if I can find a clean one. Yeah. So what you do is you always add a little extra.

I'll buy the car. You say, okay, I buy the car. Oh, wait a minute. I need the undercoding, rustproofing. Oh, I need that. But can you throw that in? Well, all right, we'll throw that in. So that's just a technique to, because emotionally, that salesman says, I've sold it,

I've got my commission. It's mine to lose. Yes, mine to lose. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Jack Schaefer. We'll be right back. And now for the conclusion of part one with Jack Schaefer. I suppose you can push it a little too far, right? Like, oh, I need an extended warranty. Well, I can't really do that. So you kind of have to find that sweet spot where they can probably without any real

authority. I mean, the mug is obviously such an easy win, but even something like, can you throw a spare tie? I don't know if cars come with spare tires. They probably do. But if there isn't one, hey, can you throw one in the trunk? Oh, I'll have to go to the shop and get that. All right, go to the shop and get it. It's probably 200. I don't know how much tires are. 200 bucks if you get it from the dealer, cheaper if you get it anywhere else. Well, you can do that with real estate because we bought a house. And I said, well, we need this. We need that.

We need this. And I kept pushing a little by little by little. And it would be nice to have a patio cover. And the real estate lady said, that's it. Yeah. No more. None. Home Depot's three blocks that way.

Yes. Go get one. So we got as much as we could using that technique. Let's talk about friend and foe signals. These are interesting. And some of them are a little bit, I don't want to say, because things are obvious to different people. You know, smiles. We talked last time you were on the show about head tilts and eyebrow flashes and eye contact and extended eye gaze, things like that.

Touch, touch acceptance. But I'd love to talk about how these are used because in the book, you give the example, a couple examples I hadn't really thought about, which is how street people, so homeless or houseless people, use these. That's particularly insightful. I don't think a lot of people think about this? Yeah, especially in a big city, there's a lot of people on the street that are looking for handouts, and they can read people very well. If you give them eye contact and you give them an eyebrow flash, they know that you're a soft target, and they will follow you and hound you to you give them something. And how does the person know that you're a soft target? Because when we eyebrow flash, that is a signal, a long-distance signal that says, I'm not a threat. So that tells that

that person that you're not a threat. Of course, the other person that has targeted you is going to eyebrow flash back to let you know that they're not a threat. And then typically they'll tilt their head and they'll smile. And what the head tilt does is it exposes to carotid artery, which is a very vulnerable part of your body. So you're telling that person, I don't fear you because I'm going to expose my carotid. And, you know, back to animals, dogs do that. As soon as the owners come home, what does the dog do, sits and tilts his head and lets the owner know that they're not a threat. So it's a friend's signal. Or else a dog will flip over and you scratch their tummy. Right. That's a more obvious sort of showcase of vulnerability,

for sure. Yeah. The other example you gave in the book was interesting about bad neighborhoods, right? And it's the same advice that you get when you look at self-defense, where it's don't look down at the ground. Don't have your phone out. Don't have your headphones in. Look up, be aware, walk with a purpose, that kind of thing to make yourself less of a target. So you're kind of taking all the likeability, nonverbals, and you're sort of reversing those, or at least making them neutral. So when you pass somebody who's panhandling you or trying to wipe your windshield, what you want to do is give them what we call the urban skull. It's just the opposite. Not at brows, get that tight jaw and the cheap muscles. And that person will look at that and say,

that guy's not prey. He's not going to be a soft target. I'm going to not get anything from him. I'm going to go find somebody else who's more vulnerable. That's why tourists who go into big cities get in a lot of trouble. Because they're typically from small towns and everybody waves at each other and everybody's friendly and they share all these friends signals, eyebrow flashing, head tilt and smiling, and they get in a lot of trouble. They haven't learned the urban skull. When I, I wonder if you have any thoughts on this, because you did do a lot of counterintelligence during, I guess, the Cold War.

Yeah. When I travel, I used to live in the former East Germany. It wasn't East Germany when I was there, of course, but it was a few years after that. I've been to North Korea. I've been to other formerly socialist and currently socialist countries. One thing that the people seem to have in common is you don't see a lot of neighbors or people talking to each other on the streets. Interaction is very minimal. Eye contact and friendly nonverbal communication kind of doesn't really even happen. And even when I was in East Germany, I was there for a long

time, when I was friendly to neighbors that I didn't know, other kids in the neighborhood would say, why are you waving at him? You don't know him. And I'd go, well, isn't he like, he lives two houses down from you? And he'd go, yeah, but we don't talk to each other, especially that guy. And I'd say, why? And he'd go, you're too friendly. You just don't understand. And that had to be kind of an East German remnant leftover behavior. Because if you're in my neighborhood in the United States, even if you're three blocks away, if you're out cutting your lawn and your lawnmowers off,

or even if it's on, I'm waving, I'm saying hi, I'm smiling at you. But in East Germany, they were really not about that. It was like, don't even make eye contact with neighbors that you don't know. In fact, I was in New York a couple days ago. And I'm walking in Manhattan, Times Square. There's like thousands of people there, and nobody's looking at each other.

they're just looking straight ahead, they're minding their own business, they got urban skulls on, and they just go about, then you can tell the turrets. Yeah. They're looking around and eyebrow flashing and smiling and waving. So you know the vulnerable people and the people that are from New York. Less common signals of, I guess, friendliness or openness that I read and I thought were pretty interesting was one was whispering. You know, that makes sense, but you don't think about it too much.

only like close friends or couples or close colleagues maybe whisper to each other because you have to get closer and especially when you're talking about whispering right in someone's year that's pretty much only done with family or a significant other right or friends good friends if two students are sitting in in my class and they lean over and whisper to one another I know that there's a relationship there and so sometimes I'll call them out so how long you guys been going out well how'd you know we're together it's obvious yeah yeah yeah Yeah, yeah. It's obvious. You don't have to hold hands in class in order for Jack Schaefer to know that you're together. I was just saying, or what they try to do is one will sit on one side of the room, the other one will sit on the other side of the room, and they sit there and look at each other. And they always look at each other. Sometimes they'll stare and they'll do the nonverbal signals. I said, so you two guys are a couple, or you two girls or whatever are a couple? Yeah. How did you know? We just sat apart so we wouldn't be associated with one another. I said, you're doing it nonverbally.

Yeah, that must be really fun because you can see everyone in the room pretty easily when you're at the front of the class. Yeah. I always look for that and I try to, it's just my way of saying, and it's to be, I teach a behavioral analysis class. So it's my way of saying you're signaling, anytime you exist, you are signaling to people nonverbally what you're thinking and what you're doing or what you might want to do. Was it you who told me, it was either you or Robin Driecoe, I know you used to work with who said something like you're always communicating nonverbal, if you think you're not, right? Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

And that's what we look for, those nuances. You mentioned food forking early. Yeah, food forking was another one, right? And that totally makes sense, right? I don't go, I don't hang out with someone. If I'm having lunch with you for the first time, I don't go, oh, that looks good. Let me get some of those fries. Yeah.

You know, that's something I only do with close friends and family. And even sometimes it depends on the friend, right? What we did was, I discovered this because I was out with my family and I was with my daughter and my son and my wife. And I had the succulent shrimps. You know how you get shrimps? And I'm waiting. I'm leaving that succulent one for the last, just the last good taste of this shrimp, right? So lo and behold, what does my daughter do? That looks good, reaches over where the fork, stabs that last shrimp on my plate and eats it. And I looked at her and I wasn't, nothing, I wasn't angry. I wasn't mad. And I said, wow, I should be pissed. But I wasn't. I said, oh, that's because we have a

relationship. Right. You share each other's food. A relationship that's only slightly damaged by the fact that I was saving that shrimp, right? Or the last piece of chocolate cake. Yeah. You know, that you drive all the way home thinking how I want that last piece of chocolate cake. Somebody's taking it. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Like if you weren't my offspring, you'd be out on your ass right now. Yeah. And what I like to do sometimes is play like little behavioral jokes. We went out with a colleague of ours that I knew would not let anybody food fork, right? So I told the new guy, just reach over and grab something off his plate and eat it. The guy went ballistic.

He put his hands up. He put his hands up and says, don't touch my food. So I just wanted to taste it. It looks so good. He said, you order your own food. Don't taste mine. Where do you think that comes from? Like, where do you think those people who are so resistant to that type of thing?

Is that like growing up with a lot of brothers and sisters who take your food? I mean, what's going on there? I don't know. I grew up with 10 kids in my family, and we did a lot of food for it. I bet. Yeah, without forks. Yeah. Yeah, without forks.

Yeah, we'd reach over and just grab stuff. Yeah. So I don't think it's a large family. Maybe it's a small family. Maybe, yeah, the only child. They're not used to people interacting that way. Yeah. Maybe that's it.

I feel, you know, I'm an only child, as many people are, love pointing out. But I don't mind if somebody reaches over and grabs a handful of food. Although, I don't know, did I grow up that way or did I learn that? Because stabbing people with a knife or a fork after they reach over to get your fries is a good way to have no friends. It's hard to say. I don't mind it, but I do see other people get super upset about that. And there's people who, you know, don't let. Can I use your computer?

No. Oh, he must be joking. I'm not joking. Don't touch my computer. There's a lot of people who are much more territorial than others about everything, from food to desk space. Yeah. So it's something that can be observable. So if you're observing a couple together and they're sharing each other's food, then it's like the lady and the tramp thing where they grab the spaghetti and they end up kissing, you know, because they're sharing their food.

What is it with territoriality and territorial boundaries? One thing, in fact, I think this is from the book as well, from the like switch, that people are slower to leave a parking space. You know, it's something like you're pulling into the parking lot at Target and you see somebody go to their car and they sit in the car and you're going, what is taking so long? Like, okay, you get in the car, you get your keys out, you navigate to where you're going to go. But it's like, it's been like a minute I'm sitting here with my turn signal on blocking traffic. What's your problem? And then they're in there, they're reading something. They're laughing at their phone. They're on their phone making a call. And you go, would you have done this if I weren't waiting? I don't know if you would have.

I feel like you're taking your time. Now, people generally would not do that when their body extends to their car and their car extends to the space. This is my space. I own it and I'm not leaving it until I'm good and ready and you can wait. And it kind of gives them a sense of power. I feel like small people do that. Like how small and passive aggressive do you have to be to go slower when someone else is waiting for you? When I see somebody waiting for me, I typically try to go as fast as I can do safely because I know how annoying it is to sit there and wait, especially if you got a baby crying. It's like, I just want diapers. Get the hell out of the way. Well, I do that too, but there are people that own space and they won't give it up.

I could see that. I could see that. It's especially, I always wonder if the people who are in those giant cars, those lifted trucks, you know who you are. Is that a space thing? Like, how often do you drive this thing in a mud pit for fun? Like, I don't know if I believe you. It's a territory thing. Yeah.

Or a phallic thing. I'm not sure which one. Yeah, that's possible. And I know I'm going to get like one star review from lifted trucks. guys. It's not all of you. I know some of you are driving around in the mud and it looks fun. The rest of you, though, I've got your number. Stay tuned after the show. We've got a trailer of our interview with Molly Bloom who ran infamous underground poker games in Los Angeles and New York that were attended by

A-listers, mobsters, and eventually landed her in hot water with the FBI. If you've seen the movie Molly's game, you'll know she was a master of psychology and used a lot of the tactics and techniques that she taught us here on the show. Coming right up. I went to L.A. and needed to get the first job that I could and got hired by this guy who was a pretty demanding boss. I was his personal assistant. He said, I need you to serve drinks at my poker game. So I'm like, okay, great. And I bring my playlist and my cheese plate. And I'm thinking, you know, the players are going to be these overgrown frat boys. But then, then Affleck walks in

the room, Leo DiCaprio and a politician that was very well recognized and heads of the studios, heads of banks, and all of a sudden I had this light bulb moment that poker is my Trojan horse. I just need the control and have power over this game because it has this incredible hold over these people. Why do these guys, with their access to anyone and anything, come to this dingy basement to play this game? What is the most money you've seen someone lose in one night? A hundred million dollars. How did the mob get involved? Around Christmas, door open and this guy that I'd never seen before pushed his way in, stuck a gun in my mouth. Then he beat the hell out of me and he kind of gave me this speech about how if I told anyone about this or if I

didn't comply, then they would take a trip to Colorado to see my family. Then the feds got involved and the first thing they did was they took all my money. I moved back to L.A. had gotten a pretty decent job. Ten days later, I got a call in the middle of the night. This is agent so-and-so from the FBI. You need to come out with your hands up. I walk into my hallway. When my eyes adjust, to the high beam flashlights, I saw 17 FBI agents, semi-automatic weapons pointed at me. If you want to learn more about building rapport and generating the type of trust that Molly Bloom needed to run her multi-million dollar operation and hear about how it all came to an end, check out episode 120 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. All right, this is the end of part one.

Don't forget part two coming up in a few days. Links to Dr. Jack Schaefer's stuff will always be in the show notes. That means his books. Please use our website links if you buy books from any guest on the show that does help support the show. Worksheets for the episode in the show notes, transcripts in the show notes, and a video of this interview is going up on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. We've also got our Clips channel, cuts that don't make it to the show, highlights from the interviews you can't see anywhere else. Jordan Harbinger.com slash clips. It's where you can find that. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, or just hit me on LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage

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