The Security Circle

EP 090 Gavin Stone Former Spy: Revealing Body Language Insights for Security Professionals

• Gavin Stone • Season 1 • Episode 90

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  •  Best Selling Author
  •  Former Spy
  •  Ranked #9 in the world Body Language Expert
  •  Guest host on NBC News Radio
  •  Trainer/Teacher/Mentor
  •  Hypnotist, Mind Control and NLP Practitioner


BIO

Gavin Stone served as a security and intelligence covert specialist. He has over 20 years of applied experience, globally de-
ployed by government organizations such as the British Ministry of Defence, corporations, and ultra high net worth VIPs. His speciality is HUMINT, within which he is adept at the full required spectrum of tradecraft skills. Of particular note is Stone's expertise in surveillance and anti-surveillance, together with time-sensitive human analysis in high-risk dynamic
situations. Stone's ability to relate to diverse people from all parts of the world enables him to understand them. Impeccable and life- long trust with clients results; so too the ability to mingle with and get results on undesirables. Stone knows how to accu- rately watch people from afar or gain insight from a breath away. And when the latter is needed, he can deploy proprietary
and exceptional skills in elicitation, deception-detection, influence, persuasion, and damage mitigation. Throughout his remarkable career, Stone has been called on by clients to consult and train their seasoned operatives and new covert recruits. His training methodology is bespoke, always recognizing the need to understand his client and the trainees. His cutting edge insightful approach has garnered him industry-wide praise for his ability to convey highly com- plex expertise in a way that is memorable and rapidly applicable. Stone has numerous academic qualifications include, but are by no means limited to, psychology, statement analysis, mind control, and neuro linguistic programming. His trade- craft field expertise is bolstered by manifold vocational qualifications pertaining to security and intelligence. He's ranked #9 in the world as a body language expert by Global Gurus Top 30. He has held vital security clearances, to the level of Top Secret. Stone is a best selling published author of the non-fiction book 'How To Tell If Someone Is Lying' and two highly ac-
claimed spy fiction novels. More books are underway.


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Yoyo:

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education, information, and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members mental health and well being. How are you today? Our listeners are global, they are the decision makers of tomorrow, and we want to thank you wherever you are for being a part of the Security Circle journey. Thank you for your company. I have a very special guest with me today. His name is Gavin Stone. He is an intelligence officer. Well, I would say, is he still an intelligence officer? Let's ask him. He's a mentor and a trainer and ranked ninth in the world for what? Body language expert. Let's find out about that. He's a media talent, I can tell already, and a public speaker, and a best selling author. Gavin Stone, welcome to the Security Circle Podcast. How are you doing?

Gavin:

Thank you. I'm great after that introduction. To be fair, after listening to that, I'd hire me.

Yoyo:

I also do answering cheating messages as well.

Gavin:

Yeah, I might have to hire you for that and get you to do my, um, kind of, um, verbal bio.

Yoyo:

Verbal bio. Actually, maybe that's a new business. Um, but yeah, listen, great stuff. first of all, I've got to tap into this, Body language thing. Could you, I guess there's many people that are good at body language, but a body language expert, what does that mean? Where's this all come from?

Gavin:

Okay, so I'll start way back at the beginning when I first started working in the world of intelligence, back when there was just me and dinosaurs on the planet. And, um, what I used to do, if you can imagine, there's a routine you have to go through when you're meeting with your asset. and it's a very step by step process. And you get used to what comes first and you know, what's normal. one of the first things you have to do when you meet your asset, very first thing you do before anything else is set up the next meeting. Because you might not have time. You might get interrupted. Any number of things could go wrong. Uh, so the very first thing is to set up the next meeting. So I was like, no matter what happens from there on out, the next meeting set. After that, you have to establish that you are the only kind of person that they're sharing information with. So there's a set of questions that you have to go through, you know, have you approached any other intelligence agencies? Have any other intelligence agencies pro approached you and block? And so you ask these particular questions in a particular order, and most of the time they know the drill and they, they'll be there going, no, no, no, no. And they, they just want to get to the meat and bones of things. you'll soon be able to spot little things that look wrong, very wrong, when somebody's talking to you, and, and I remember on this one occasion, I'd gone in, we'd arranged the next meeting, and I said, right, um, yeah, usual questions, have you, and it was like, no, no, I would never do anything like that. No, no, no. And I'm like, okay, that one stood out a little bit. Something's not quite right there with that answer because there was a volume change, there was a tone change, there was a speed change, it was absolutely everything, an entire posture shift. There was lots of things that, you know, kind of stood out and were, you know, like what we say is little red flags. Um, and, uh, and I thought, Hmm, I'm going to go and revisit that in a moment. Um, the first thing obviously is to get the most, uh, important thing is to get the intelligence. from the person, um, and then go and go back. And it turned out that, uh, that he had been approached by another individual to share information. Uh, and I managed to get him to share that, which was useful for me. It was useful for the people that I was working for. Um, and it just meant that we could now utilize him as an asset, not just to obtain information. Um, but who, who else was getting the information, what information they were getting, and we could more or less tell him what to say to them, you know, work it along those lines. So that's what's when someone becomes what they call a double agent. So that was where, um, I kind of, and I say this kind of thing a lot with people, they, um, everybody's naturally very good at body language, but they don't know how to quantify it, or they don't know how to label it, they don't know how to file it. So they can, you can ask them, you'll say, well, you know, what, what made you think he was lying? And they'll go, I don't know, it was just something, I couldn't put my finger on it. So we all know, we all know naturally something doesn't feel right. That's when, you know, like I say, most people just go, I don't know what it was. Me, I'll, I'll go back, I'll study videotapes, I'll look at all manner of different things and having a keen interest in it anyway from a young age, uh, allowed me to then start labelling each and every movement and, and what it meant and, and, uh, what it could mean.

Yoyo:

Other than those that work in the intelligence network professionally, some humans are naturally good at reading body language and they use this to coerce, connive, murder, you know, groom. in fact, people who groom children, for example, they are so good at reading body language. They have, it's like a sixth sense, isn't it? Yeah. have you seen this technique being used in a subversive way?

Gavin:

Yeah. in fact, I've even done, um, kind of lessons on it and that kind of thing. Um, yeah. I mean, child safety is a massive, massive thing. In my opinion, it should be, you know, like number one priority for everybody and anybody in the world. Um, so I teach people to look for certain body language signs of from, from the child's point of view. So hypothetically, if you're at home and you know, you have, uh, your child's playing happily with their toys on the rug, whatever. Um, and. There's a particular person. It might be a neighbor, might be a family member. And it usually is someone close to the family. Um, when that particular person comes in the room, look for the child's elbows. If the child's elbows tuck in all of a sudden, um, even more so if the child goes very, very quiet, you know, if they're normally playing, they're going dee, dee, dee, dee, dee. And then all of a sudden, like nothing, no words, no, no eye contact with anybody. And they're just sitting there and they're playing, but there's no noise. And, and the, the, the, the elbows are very tucked in. That is a warning sign. that that child has a history with that particular person that that is um,

Yoyo:

questionable even. Yeah.

Gavin:

Yeah. So, um, and that's one of the things. And then if you're looking at it from a parent's point of view, if you're, if you're a parent, you walk in, say along the beachfront or wherever you might live through the city center, you're walking along the road and you've got your wife on the one side, your child on the other, and there's a gentleman walking the other way. And watch his eyes. And if his eyes are looking at your child and then they kind of look up to you and then dart away very quickly, that in itself is a sign that, he was looking at your child and when he's looked up to see if you're watching him, seeing you are watching him, and then he's kind of panicked and his eyes have darted away very rapidly.

Yoyo:

Now,

Gavin:

if it's in innocence, it'll be something where the person looking on kind of smile and say, Oh, cute kid. You know, That kind of thing. Um, you have to be very, very, very careful with this. And this is why I'm cautious because a little bit of information is very dangerous, right? Yeah, it could be something that is in innocence where the guy is looking and go, huh, that's the same t shirt my son wears. And then all of a sudden he looks up at the parents and goes, shit, you might think I'm looking at his kid and then freaks out and panic. So be very, very careful because sometimes it is something that's in innocence and without more context, it wouldn't be enough, certainly not enough to, to, to warrant, um, you know, further action towards that person. But it's certainly a warning sign that it's enough. For you to say, okay, I spotted that. I'll be aware of that. If I see him again or, or anything further, you know, then, then I'll, um, maybe do something about it or take things to the next level.

Yoyo:

Quite a lot of our listeners work in a, quite a senior security professional role. And they've probably quite often been drawn into a number of different, scenarios. I mean, I'll start off, I was, A security lead for a big, big company in the UK. And I received, a USB stick anonymously through the post to my desk and on it were some recordings of my junior manager. being really horrible to some other people in the team. So there was a culture there where nobody felt that they could speak out, snitches get stitches, that sort of thing. and I hadn't detected it. I hadn't noticed every, I did notice that every time I walked in the room went quiet, but that's not, I, that, that's not enough to think something's wrong. I found that very good, very junior security officers were very good at just being very Yeah, they didn't muck about, they were serious, they were attentive, especially if I was in the room, they'd look at the screen, they'd be watching the CCTV. So I didn't realize that every time I left the room, my junior manager who I'd appointed was being horrible. I mean, you name it, all the worst names, racist slurs, all of this was going on. Don't look at me, you effing P, those kinds of things. And I walked in the room and now on reflection, I can understand why. When I walked in the room, there was this kind of relief, the abuse would stop, but I look back and I think a lot of us have got these experiences that we didn't at the time have the skillset to pick up. It's difficult, isn't it? When you don't, when you know, I didn't even know something was wrong and I feel awfully guilty sometimes, especially being an ex police detective as well. I think surely I should have picked up the signs, but I guess the point I'm coming to is that people who are mean like this. They do it in such a calculated way. They do it in such They do it so they don't get caught and they put people in fear of speaking out and he did it really, really well. Once, once I took that USB recording, because obviously I didn't listen to it in the office. I thought it was a bit weird, so I listened to it at home. Once I listened to that, I obviously got the HR director in, we suspended him straight away, and then all of a sudden, then I noticed the difference. and then I found all of the credit cards that in his top drawer, where he'd been, instead of putting them into the property register, he'd been stashing them for some other surreptitious reason, I'm sure. An all round bad egg, but those bad eggs can be around us and we don't know that's what I'm getting to.

Gavin:

Yeah, and this does happen all the time, like you say, with all types of criminals and elements. And again, this is one of those things that these people, nobody's the villain in their own story. So to them, they're not doing anything wrong that, they're kind of, they, they know that what they're doing would be frowned upon, but they're doing it in their mind for whatever, crazy justified reason. But yeah, it, it, it is very easy to miss. I've seen it in a lot of different group cultures from everything, from the military to corporations. this kind of thing happens all down the line. There is always that one bad egg and, it is. So, so hard to miss and the kind of the best way to spot it or not to spot it, but to be able to, get a feeling of who's calling the shots in the room. There's a psychological thing. I don't know whether you know this or not, but when there's a group of people watch their eyes when a joke is told and when they, when everybody laughs, when people laugh, their eyes naturally go to the person they like the most. Okay. Yeah. So, and, the reason being it's kind of an approval thing to see if they like it and they laugh, then I can laugh too, if they don't like it and don't think it's funny, then, then I can kind of, you know, follow suit. Um, so when I say like the most, this doesn't necessarily mean sexual attraction. So, um, before ladies start beating their men up for, for, you know, looking at them. It might just be the person they get on with the most or that kind of thing. So, um, so be very careful, like the most doesn't necessarily mean physical attraction. So, uh, but that's what will happen. You know, you watch, watch the group where their eyes go. that's what the person they like the most in a humorous situation. On the flip side of that, this also works, if you've got a room, when I teach my lessons, when I do my classes, I have everybody sitting in a semicircle with no desks, nothing between me and them, and I have this semicircle around me, and it doesn't take me long to figure out who's kind of calling the shots, as it were. The speaker. Yeah. and what happens is if you've got this situation, and it's not always the one who's like the designated team leader or whatever the case may be, that's not always, you know, just because they have the position doesn't mean to say they have the say. so if you've got them sitting in a semicircle, and you were to say something along the lines of, it appears there's been some inappropriate behavior. Watch where everybody's eyes go, they will all look at the person who's doing it

Yoyo:

because they'll all know.

Gavin:

Yeah. Even if it's very subtle, even if it's only a glance and then a look down. Mm-Hmm. It might not move their head, but their eyes will move over and then they'll look down and think, oh, you know, and so, because they're all consciously aware of who's causing it and therefore, uh, they'll naturally look at that person, then look down, they might then look back up at you as if say, does she know as well? Do, do we, you know, are we all in on, on the same page here?

Yoyo:

I'd hate to be sitting next to that guy.

Gavin:

Yeah, yeah, very much so. and the one person generally who, um, is the kind of shenanigator, shall we say, um,

Yoyo:

yeah,

Gavin:

he will be the person whose eyes don't move. He'll just look at you. He'll, he'll be just keeping it

Yoyo:

cool

Gavin:

on you. Yeah. And the reason his eyes are locked on you is taking in information. It's kind of, you know, do they think it's me? Do they know it's me? And they're trying to learn, am I about to be called out for my behavior?

Yoyo:

A lot of professional speakers and say comedians and, you know, people who are on stage, they spend a lot of time making sure that their body delivers and matches according to what they're saying,, whether they're an actor or whether they're a professional, but I, funnily enough. I watched back a video of me attending a work meeting and oh my God, I was embarrassed when I saw myself. I was like, do I look that depressed? Yeah, because in, in my, in myself, I don't feel that I look that depressed. I feel, but when I'm aware of my posture and my head position. Tilt and looking engaged, but there was some moments there where I'd let my guard down where I was making notes. My mind had drifted off somewhere else. I was thinking about something else. I then went and did something. I was fidgeting a lot. I can't sit still. And I don't know what that's telling or, but I just can never sit still. And I'm thinking, good God, if you sped this up, this video, I'll be there like this. it made me think it was good lesson for me to think, okay, you are on camera. You are being recorded. Just remember that. We reveal a lot about ourselves, don't we, when we let that guard down and we don't realize we have.

Gavin:

Yeah. the best advice, and this was actually off a friend of mine, uh, who, who kind of, we were talking about this kind of thing about body language and,, the delivery and perception people will see when they're watching you. we were trying to decide that the best way to, in introduce people to controlling their body language. And he said, the best thing you can do is always move like you're walking through water. Controlled slow motion movements. So people who move very fast. I don't know whether you know this or not, but, like your body language and walking speed will increase by 15%, the more the size of a city doubles. So as a city grows, your walking, the walking speed of the people within that city will, will increase by 15%. This is how you can tell country folk from city folk and that kind of thing, because city folk walk faster. And not only do they walk faster, but their actions are faster. So, and this has a mixture of the kind of get it done yesterday city life. And, also the knowledge of, you know, not only you're on the meter, but time is crime. You've got to be aware that there are people around you. If you, if you're looking like, you know, too comfortable, you're potentially a victim. So there's a mixture of psychological reasons behind, why it's done in the country, they don't have to worry about things like that, you know, in these small rural villages, it's something that can be a bit more relaxed. There's no rush to get anything done. It's all going to happen. They don't have to worry about, uh, the crazy rush hour and that kind of thing. Oh

Yoyo:

no. When I used to rush out, I travel in a lot. Um, I used to get, and many of us used to get so annoyed at all of the, tourists and holiday makers in city London just walking at a complete like, hello Kiki, can you go with the flow? And of course, we were doing that 15 to 20% faster than everybody else, but we're all doing it together and we're all going somewhere and we wanna get somewhere quickly. and yet these people are like, oh, which do we need? Do we need the Piccadilly line dear? And I'm like, huh.

Gavin:

Yeah, so

Yoyo:

natural behavior. Yeah,

Gavin:

it is. Yeah. and because again, tourists, from outside of the area, they, they don't, you know, know the norms and customs of inner London, as it were, they're just living their life and they are a lot more relaxed so they can move a lot slower. So, um, so that in itself shows, uh, if your body language is slowed down, it shows a more relaxed and in control kind of, uh, posture. So if you slow your body language down, slow your speech down, slow everything down as much as possible, it, it invokes more trust, and it shows more control and it, and it gives people the impression that, that they can kind of, that you know what you're doing yeah. If we look at the likes of, and whether you like him or whether you don't, it's irrelevant, Donald Trump. He's had people that have come in that have, taught him exactly what to do. And he does a lot of these things, which, like the OKLs and all that, you know. Now that's all been done very, very deliberately. I know there are a few conspiracy theorists out there who will say all sorts of things. Signaling this and that. the truth of the matter is, I Celebrities, actors, all manner of public speakers, they get body language experts in the likes of Mark Bowden, who will come in and say things like, look, hold onto the podium, one hand at a time, never be flapping around like a Kentucky Fried Chicken on the run. if you're going to lift a hand, lift one hand, do your signal, put it back down, hold onto the podium, treat this podium like a steering wheel that you've got to have at least one hand on it all the time. Um, and they get trained on keeping their feet. You know, right smack bang planted behind it, uh, and they'll move this hand and then they'll put it down and then they'll hold the podium and then they'll move this hand. So you'll see that and, and that's the kind of method that they're taught, uh, rather than looking like, they're a crazy lunatic escape from the asylum, you know, flapping and waving all over the place. And again, they're taught to, to slow these kinds of things down. And that's like kind of the best lesson. If you. of struggling yourself personally with your physical deliverance, hold a cup in your hand. Keep the cup on the desk and use just your other hand to gesticulate. I've got to be careful how I say that word. and then, if you need to, you know, kind of raise a cup or drink from the cup, make sure you're placing it back down on the surface and keep your hand around it. And the only time you're going to then, use that other hand, you're going to swap the cup, put the cup in the other hand and that was going to give you the kind of, the psychological anchors to be able to say, yeah, keep one hand free, one hand out the way.

Yoyo:

And I learned also to have one of your feet pointing in the direction of maybe where you might turn to face. So you have this very smooth, you're not kind of twisting your upper body. You're just moving your whole body, move your feet to who you're talking to. Let's look at the workplace then. And Give me a sort of like a use case where you've been called in, the employer's a bit worried and they need to have their doubts either quashed or confirmed.

Gavin:

Right. About

Yoyo:

something. Yeah.

Gavin:

Yeah. I was going to say, is there anything in particular we're talking like subject wise or?

Yoyo:

where you've had to come in and look at their body language. Because, and bear in mind, when I used to, bear in mind, when I used to interview people in a, as a detective,,being in custody, being in that environment, if they weren't used to it, they were put under an extraordinary amount of stress, their bodies were under an extraordinary amount of stress, so you could watch for the stress signals, you could see them, you're an expert, when an employer asks you to come in because they're worried about, an internal situation. Tell us what you're looking for.

Gavin:

Okay. there's a mixture of things that come to mind., I'm going to mention one to start with, which is more body language related than kind of internal issues related. Then I'll come to another one. So, I remember getting called in by a company that, we're having a lot of issues. A hell of a lot of issues with crime and, and, and undesirables in all manner of things. And he, they've got, I think they've got two security staff on the door to start with. They're still having crime issues. So then the, they bumped it up to four security staff. this went to six, which went you, and, and before you know it, they've got these crowds of security staff and he, the CEO of the company was kind of pulling up outside and he was looking at the security staff and he thought something's, they look more like. Jobs in uniforms and more like the kind of people who are trouble than the actual and they'd all got, you know, great kind of CVs and backgrounds and that kind of thing, but there was something not quite right. And he couldn't put his hand on it what it was or put his finger on it what it was me and he said, you know, kind of. Can you come in and have a look? He said, because the crime, despite how many security guards I'm bringing in, the crime's not stopping. I'm still having the problems and my security staff, they just don't look like they're making the area secure. So I went in and I had a little look and I studied them from the outside. It didn't take me too long. And I said, right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to change the uniforms. And he said, but these are the uniforms that the other security staff have got. They've got, they're straight off the shelf. I said, I know. I said, but the problem is where the pockets are located, they're slouching and they're putting their thumbs inside the pockets. And they're, which is causing them, because the pockets are slightly lower down, it's causing this slouched shoulder posture. and then they look,, they're looking more relaxed, more like they don't want to be there. Then, you know, kind of than secure. And what we did is we kind of redesigned and had some custom uniforms made and the uniforms that were made, they totally changed the posture just because of where the pockets were of the security guards. Now, most of the time, I would advise not to put your hands or thumbs in your pockets anyway. But these particular ones where the pockets were, it meant that it was either really, really awkward for them to do it. So they wouldn't do it. Or if they did it, they looked like they've got this kind of more strengthened, wide kind of, you know, the posture of, and I call this particular action, um, the, the, carrying two rolls of invisible carpet, this kind of posture that the kind of, alpha wannabe male comes along walking like, you know, uh,

Yoyo:

yeah.

Gavin:

Every time I see them, I kind of laugh because I can just, you know, kind of visualize these two rolls of carpet under their arms. Um, so, so

Yoyo:

yeah, so

Gavin:

that's what, um, that that's what we did. And we changed the uniform. So, if they did kind of insert their hands and the, the, the pockets again, weren't really, really deep. So they couldn't slouch into them or anything else. They could just put their hands in them and it would give them a more. upright and authoritative looking posture. And that one has changed absolutely everything. It actually ended up going back down to two security staff. So sorry to the guys who got laid off. Not only did the, did the, the situation improve and his guards look better, but the crime rate also dropped as well because they looked a lot more serious and like they were going to stop anybody from doing anything that they shouldn't.

Yoyo:

Yeah, I changed the uniform once of a site that I was working on and just seeing how everybody just loved coming to work with new ties and their new suits. It matters a lot what people are wearing. Take us through another use case then.

Gavin:

It's kind of body language related, but it's also down to, I've got to be really careful with what I say. Here's a corporation that I got called into where there was funds that were going astray, shall we say?

Yoyo:

And

Gavin:

I was called in and they said, can you locate the person who's behind this? We know Roughly what department it is and where the money's going from. But we don't know who exactly is doing it. And I said, yeah, sure. No problem. And with my kind of background, they were expecting me to bring in all sorts of gadgets or key loggers or hidden cameras and all this kind of thing. And they said, yo, is it going to be an expensive bill for the electronics and whatever else? What do you want from us? I said, I want a room with two chairs. They're like, what? I said, I want a room with two chairs. And, I said, I just want to speak to everybody in that department. and, I said, is that all? I said, yeah. I said, yeah, I'll need a few minutes with each one. And that was it. and I sat them down and I kind of spoke to each of these people and I made some notes. And kind of, you know, and at the end of it all out of, I think it was 23 people or thereabouts, I'd narrowed it down to three people that I was wanting to have it like a second, conversation with. and by the time I got it down to those three, I managed to find out the particular individual behind it. and got a pretty much full confession. and that was it and it was job done. So

Yoyo:

what was that person going through, during the first, second, and then finally the third confessional process?

Gavin:

The first time for them, I should imagine they were like, kind of, okay, everybody's going through this is it's not too much to worry about. So they hadn't got their guard up there, even though they knew they were behind it, they just thought, oh, this is just a standard kind of thing. I can blank my way through this. All I've got to do is make the right noises. So when they sat down in front of me, they'd probably got a certain, um, level of confidence. But what they've got to remember is they've also got that guilty knowledge and that leaks through. so I can I can see where I can see the cracks. I can see the leaks and that's when I got enough boxes ticked on my notes as it were to be able to say, I want to have that person back.

Yoyo:

What were the leaks you saw?

Gavin:

Oh, we're going back a few years. so I can't remember, but I do remember, at certain questions, he would tuck his feet under the chair. So for anybody who doesn't know much about body language, the further away from the brain a body part is, the harder it is to control. So, uh, yeah, sorry for

Yoyo:

tall people.

Gavin:

Yeah. with that in mind, you, this is why you'll see a lot of people who have nervous energy, they'll start tapping their feet and shaking their leg and that kind of thing to, to get rid of that nervous energy and it'll be their feet that are shaking and wobbling and tapping and that kind of thing. and there are one or two other things. you've got blink rate, for example. and this is just, everybody has a different blink rate, you know, it's one of those things. Um, but what you do is you just work out, um, what the average is for that person. So yours, for example, is 14 per minute. and I've, I've had like extreme care. The average person, is kind of about 15 to 20 per minute. or thereabouts. and then, uh, I've seen in extreme examples when people have been deceptive, it's gone up to over 200 blinks per minute.

Yoyo:

Yeah.

Gavin:

Yeah. and the reason for this, it's actually, um, in a high stress situation, our stress increases, your blink rate increases because it's if you think of it like kind of like wipers, Cleaning the screen of your car. This is what happens when you blink without getting too sciencey on everybody and going into biology. Um, basically it's in the human body's self preservation interest to kind of blink, clear the screen and make sure they've got the best visual, optimization for them as they can, in case they either have to go into fight flight mode and run or fight or whatever the case may be. They need to be able to see as much as possible and take in as much as possible. So in high stress situations, your blink rate will go up. There are other giveaway signs, what we call digital flexion. So if somebody's hands on a work surface and their fingers start to curl, that's a sign of discomfort, as opposed to be like more flat and relaxed. and obviously the more this discomfort continues, eventually if it turns to anger, then it will ball up into a fist. So these are all, um, little giveaway signs that you can look for. Um, the main thing is, is just to understand that there is no one size fits all the majority of the time with body language. What you're looking for is a baseline for that person. What's normal for them.

Yoyo:

Yeah. So if

Gavin:

somebody normally folds their arms. It doesn't mean anything, but if somebody never folds their arms and you ask them a question now they've folded their arms, that with two or three other what we call clusters of, body language tells, that's all of a sudden when you can say, okay, I've ticked three or more boxes here, what's going on there? that's not their baseline. And that's what allows me then to dig further.

Yoyo:

You've kind of led me into thinking about something here, because, not only my own, personal blink rate, but with the policing popularity being less popular now, And I think you probably know where I'm going with this, than it has been in the past. There will be a certain part of the population that will naturally react to the police presence, even if they're not guilty of anything. How do you differentiate in your profession as a body language expert, the natural kind of, resistance, but then guilt is a completely different thing. You have to learn to differentiate between the two, don't you?

Gavin:

Yeah. so yeah, what will happen is unfortunately, there's not really, even what is known as a lie detector machine is not a lie detector machine. What it is, it's actually a stress detector. And when the stress levels go up, it's down to the polygrapher who's operating the machine to make the decision. Is this because of stress or is this because of a lie? So you're still at the end of the day. Relying on a human, not a machine. and that goes down to somebody like myself. If I get called in, I'm not necessarily able to spot a lie per se. I'm able to spot, stress indicators that will indicate that person is under stress at a particular line of questioning. But, on the flip side of that, I can then use the other, flip to other tactics, and that is what I call guilt revealing questions. Now these are really useful. These are going to make your audience's mouth water. I can already see you want to know what these are. So I'll give you a perfect example of this so if you've got somebody in and they've committed a particular crime, let's say a really heinous crime against a minor or something, and you've sat them down and the guilt revealing question comes around penalization. You just simply turn around to them and you say, What do you think should happen to the person who did this to this child? And wait for the answer. And if you get an answer like, they should be strung up, they should be imprisoned for life, you should bring back the death sentence for these people, that person stands a chance didn't do it. If on the other hand they turn around and go, counseling I guess? Then you go, ooh, okay. Because if they did the crime, they don't want to be their own sentence. They don't want to be their own judge, jury, and executioner. and they, it stands a chance in their mind that they're thinking, well, hang on a minute, I, you know, I know I did this crime and they're asking me what they think, what they should think or what I think should happen to me. So therefore that person is going to think the way they do and say, well, I don't want to be hung. I don't want them to bring back the death sentence for me. What would I actually like to happen to me for doing this? And then mine will go, I suppose counseling would probably be the favorite choice if I had to pick one. And they're going to lessen the severity of the sentence that they would give themselves.

Yoyo:

you're spot on. I almost had the most identical situation with a, an ex teacher who, gosh, how did we? Oh yeah. I had a 32 year old man come into custody. and basically want to make an allegation of a historic sexual abuse in school. And nobody wanted to touch it. It was like, Yoyo. Can you go out and deal with it? I'm like, yeah, okay. I'll go. So I sat down with him and I kind of took his account. And basically it was the photography after school class. It was the teacher and the teacher. And I said, you know, why now? And he said his son's the same age as the time he was being sexually abused. And this teacher, yeah, and any dads out there will know what that feels like if they've ever been subject to sexual abuse. And this teacher had a very unique M. O. So it was quite easy to establish if there were other Victims and there were, but when I interviewed him, we'd obviously done what we call a section 18 on his house. We'd gone through everything. I knew everything about him. It was very easy to sort of profile what he liked, what he collected. how he spent his spare time. he was a classic pedophile, labeled everything, stored everything, documented everything neat and tidy. We, a really good job on him. And I sat and interviewed him and I knew what, I knew what his propensity was. I knew what his temptation was and his obsession. and I just said to him, what would you do if you were me? And it was just really weird how you, you've literally described the same question. And he just kind of went. Well, um, you'd obviously have to, you know, follow the process, the judicial process, you know, he just, he was bluffing around the response, you know, the process to go through and everything and, but obviously, clearly, somebody needs help somewhere, it was very kind of like loose, just as you described. Yeah. and he had amazing stress signals, his lips will when they go white and sticky and massive dehydration in the mouth that we were told then was a massive sign of, of hiding. Yeah. Um,

Gavin:

that's the blood leaving to go to the most important parts that you're going to need them in the time, the legs, the muscles, the arms, because of the flight and fight response. You know, you, you'll notice that lack of color, the lips getting very thin and very white. Uh, you will notice the lack of saliva and that kind of thing. There's so much that's going to happen. So many stress signals because they've literally gone into survival mode.

Yoyo:

Looking at the workplace though, when an employer reaches out to you, they are, I'm going to be kind of candid here, they've got to be some kind, they've got to be some kind of desperate because they're like, we don't know what to do. so you're providing a very unique service, aren't you? A very confidential specialist service.

Gavin:

Yeah. so it's, it's something I've done. I've been called him for so many different jobs all over the place. I actually enjoy it and I enjoy it when things are a little bit different rather than the run of the mill, kind of somebody stealing from the petty cash, can you find out who it is? It's like, and again, or whatever the case may be. But I do love a little bit of a challenge when they come in and say, look, we're not sure what's happening here, but there seems to be some kind of a problem in this department and it's not operating or whatever the case may be. I'm finding those things out just because of the fact I've got an interest in human behavior. You know, I'm qualified in psychology. I'm qualified in all manner of different things that I love to kind of expand my own experience even more. but yeah, overall. It doesn't matter whether it's the likes of Sainsbury's that can turn around and say, look, can you help us out? Because since the self checkouts, theft rate has gone up by 30%, which is actually, an accurate figure at the moment. Um, and, and we want to know how to do something about it and what we should do about it. Or, or whether it's, You know, a corporation and I have been hired for jobs such as penetration testing. I don't actually do them anymore. Uh, but penetration testing where they'll turn around and say, look, people are worried about security and people getting into the building. can you figure out how it's done? So I don't physically do the penetration testing the way I used to do it. but what I can do now is I'm by now experienced enough to look for flaws and say, yeah, I can see where, where things are going wrong.

Yoyo:

Oh, God, we were doing some penetration testing years and years ago, and I found out a colleague manager of mine was going above and beyond at two o'clock in the morning and going through the, the wooded area outside the boundaries of this business, climbing over walls and everything. And we were like, what are you doing? That's not how you're supposed to do it. But it was, I took it very seriously. Let's go to the research that I did. You said that being an intelligence officer is the most dangerous way in the world to make friends.

Gavin:

Why

Yoyo:

is that,

Gavin:

Gavin? Yeah. So, I mean, effectively, if you're operating in a foreign country and you are, uh, recruiting an asset, um, not only is your own life potentially in danger, uh, But everything that they do just by meeting you could have them having life in prison or even executed in some parts of the world. you're not just responsible for your own life, you know, which in all fairness, you've been trained to deal with. So there is that situation where you've got all this training in the world. So if something goes wrong, you know how to get yourself out, you know, you have an exfiltration plan in place and you know what to do, the person you're meeting, they don't. So you've just become responsible, not only for a human life, but again, in some countries, if they find somebody spying, it's not just the person who's spying, it's their entire family who are in danger. So now you've stepped things up a level again. so yeah, the, You've got to look at the fact that from the minute you recruit somebody, there are high risks for yourself, for them, and for their family. but on the flip side of that, the relationships that are formed when doing this are, and can be absolutely phenomenal because you do become very close to the asset, in many ways, and you, you get to know a lot about them. You have to know a lot about them in order to be able to operate fully, and get the most information about them. You have to be able to profile that person so much that you know them better than they do to be able to, leverage their motivations to be able to get more for you. You do become friends with this person, even though they might not even know your real name, you do become friends with this person, but there are a lot of dangers along the way.

Yoyo:

There is something very Pied Piper of Hamelin about you though, because you have this way about you that makes people warm to you and naturally feel very comfortable around you, unless of course you're bringing them in for a surreptitious interview in the workplace.

Actually, the first thing they'll do is want to actually relax them anyway. Right,

Yoyo:

relax them before you eat them, because otherwise the meat is chewy, right?

Exactly.

Yoyo:

That's why, yeah. But I should imagine you're the type of guy that you'd have been milling around the workplace before then anyway. You'd have met everyone by the coffee machine. All right, how's it going? You must be Ken. So you've already, we used to do that in custody. Very honest, a very small level. And a lot of. the male suspects, they didn't realize that the woman was the lead interviewer. So they would treat us like we were the junior, lesser experience. So we would take advantage of that. And we'd go and take their fingerprints and go, all right, are you doing? How's your cells? All right. Yeah. If you've been able to get any sleep, we do this kind of like softly, softly lure them into this kind of, and then the next thing you take a great big a four folder. Paperwork into the meeting, the solicitor gulps. And you think, then John, let's get started. Shall we?

Gavin:

Yeah. Funnily enough. So a really good friend of mine, Lena Cisco, she's a former us naval intelligence. she's a Marine certified, interrogator and used to work Guantanamo Bay, uh, post nine 11. So her interrogation skills are second to none. and again, she used to use that. to her advantage in so many ways on what she found is. So there are that that in Guantanamo Bay from where you're taking the detainee, to the what's technically the interview room. It's actually like a little portacabin. But it's quite a distance quite a walk from where the detainee usually is. And she'd walk with the detainee and usually with a couple of Marines who escort him to the interview room, and she would get more information from them on the walk to and from the porter cabin, than what she would, whilst actually in the interview, and that, that comes back from the origins of this particular technique from World War II with Hans Scharf, when he was, an interrogator for the Germans and would bring the prisoners of wars for a walk in the field, and that gives so much information unwittingly. You know, and he managed to get that from them.

Yoyo:

That Colin Powell used to do this. He used to walk around the military bases, just talk to people.

Gavin:

Yeah.

Yoyo:

And you'd find out everything. Yeah.

Gavin:

Yeah. And so here's a, here's a little trick for anyone with teenage kids, then their teenagers aren't talking to them. if you want to have a conversation with your teenager, get them in the car, make sure they haven't got their phone. Right. Or any other electronic device, stereo off, put them in the car and drive. Right. And go out of town. Just tell them you're going to the mall or something, somewhere for the day, wherever, you know, you take them for a drive. And when you hit 20 minutes and 20 minutes is the magic number, all of a sudden you'll be having full conversation with your teenage child.

Yoyo:

Wow.

Gavin:

They just open up. And what's happening is there's a lot of psychology at play here with the fact that you are not. in a confrontational stance. You're not standing facing them face to face. They're sitting next to you. this is why people share information with strangers on the plane that they've never met because they're sitting next to you. It's a, it's like a completely neutral, kind of position. the kind of the, they're in this relaxed, they don't feel threatened. They don't feel intimidated. They don't feel like they're getting interrogated. and the conversation will probably start very light for the first 20 minutes. You're probably going to have to do all the talking. You're going to be saying, isn't it a wonderful day, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And you're just going to have to fill all the silence and it doesn't matter if it's a one way conversation for the first 20 minutes, it really doesn't matter because after 20 minutes, they will start to reciprocate. And then before long, you'll be in a full flow conversation. I gave this advice to a particular lady a while ago, and she called me up, I think it was about a month or two after, and she said, I am so, so grateful. She says, me and my son have never had a relationship. and a bond like we've never had just because of what you told me.

Yoyo:

Yeah, and when we had the brief, the pre chat, you told me that and then I relayed that to a lady friend of mine who was having some challenges for the same reason with her daughter. And she, what she did was she did, she went out for a walk with the dog with her, where they were walking side by side, and they were together alone and not looking at each other. And she said it worked. It was brilliant.

Gavin:

Why

Yoyo:

does it work?

Gavin:

Because you're, so there's, like I said, there's a mixture of psychology at play with the fact that, like I say, you're not, naturally, and I've done this, you can, if you want to interpret it, There's, there's particular ways to do it. You can try

Yoyo:

not to Gavin,

Gavin:

try not to. But if you are in a situation where you want to, have them feeling really off guard, stand directly facing them. So, you're face to face, you don't necessarily have to be close, but you can be face to face that in itself, you'll notice straight away, they'll tend to try and want to turn one way or another, or move to the side, or, they'll check one to change their stance. If they do that, just stand again to confront them in that same situation again. And then if you really want to take things a step further, look at their phone, their forehead or their hairline. Oh,

Yoyo:

really?

Gavin:

Yeah. they will start to become extremely paranoid. and I gave this, to somebody as well who, who worked in, in customer services, the one. So it's a wonderful little psychological trick. she used to work in customer services and she used to get a lot of irate customers that would be screaming and shouting about a particular thing. They just wanted to rant. irrelevant to what you offered them, whether it was a refund or an exchange or whatever, they just wanted to rant. And I said, if somebody starts doing that to you, all you've got to do, nice and, not, in any kind of like smarmy way or anything else, just turn around and say, You've got a little something in your teeth, just say, look, All of a sudden you'll watch them going,, I want to read a refund on this item. And you'll see a completely different, they'll throw them out. And then within about kind of a minute or so, they're no longer irate. They're too busy. Concentrating and bifurcating their attention to whatever they think is in their teeth that they can't get, to be ranting. And what it does, the way it works, it actually re engages the rational mind. So there's different parts of the brain.

Yoyo:

Cool.

Gavin:

I know it's crazy, isn't it? There's different parts of the brain that operate under different circumstances. And the emotional part of the brain, when a person has gone into rant mode, that's the bit that's then kind of taken lead. Again, I'm not going to get all neuroscience y on you, but.

Yoyo:

No, but is that why they used to give lollipops at the end of nights nightclubs and things because it gave the rational mind when they were like sucking a lollipop.

Gavin:

yeah. I actually helped a DJ out once with a similar thing. a DJ turned around to me and he said, right, he says, I've got two problems. Number one, he said, at the end of the night, he says, when it's time to put the music on, they'll go boo and they'll want the encore. He says, and as a DJ, he says, you have to give them the encore. He says, so you give them a few, a couple of more records, he says, and then you turn it off again. And he said, and then what happens is you get the boo again, and they're going encore, encore, he says, and they can actually get quite good. I write about it. If you don't care, the thing is the club wants everybody to go home and whatever else. And yeah. And I said, what do I do? He said, because they get really, really aggravated with me. If I don't play one more song or whatever the case may be. I said, okay. I said, I'll tell you exactly what to do. I said, at the end of the night, I said, do your last song, right? So switch it off. They'll all boo. They'll all shout for the encore. You do the encore, you do a couple of more songs. I said, but then instead of switching it off, I want you to play an operatic song. You put a bit of opera on, automatically, right? And as you do, turn the lights on. DJ flashing lights off, turn the hall lights on, and watch the change in the room. All of a sudden, everybody would just naturally go back to their chairs, and back to their seats, because the show's over, because the fat lady's singing. And that's what it comes down to. It's just a matter of, there's still music going on.

Yoyo:

Yeah,

Gavin:

but it's not dance music. If ever you've been to a disco, you'll notice, I said disco, I've shown my age now, disco, whatever nightclub, rave, whatever it is, you'll notice there are floor fillers where people will get up and one particular song will just fill the floor. And then there's others that they can play one particular song and all of a sudden, yeah, everybody's sitting back down again.

Yoyo:

Yeah. That's the song.

Gavin:

They're not moaning. They're not complaining. They just go, I don't want to dance to this. I'll come back in a few minutes when something better is playing.

Yoyo:

And when

Gavin:

you, when you play an opera song at the end your night, they won't complain. They won't moan. They'll just go and sit back down.

Yoyo:

Bit of Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé with Barcelona. I think that would go down very nicely at the end of the night.

Gavin:

Might do quite well. and then the other issue we had, was, there was a particular kind of venue that he used to have to play. and it had a bit of a reputation and occasionally there'd be a fight start within the crowd. and what would happen is it. Instead of it kind of fizzling out, more and more people would get involved. And, team angry came up with team guilty and they'd all be bashing it out and glasses flying everywhere and it just get out of hand. And he said, I really don't. He generally starts off with two guys bumping into each other on the dance floor and before you know it, he says, they start by, I mean, shouting and swinging for each other and whatever else. he said, and at first you think, okay, it'll sort itself out in a moment, but then the whole crowd gets involved. What do I do? I said, I'll tell you exactly what to do. I said, have it on standby immediately. cause he said at one point I stopped the music. He said, and that seemed to only make things worse. Cause it seemed to give people an invite to say, Oh, our fun's been ruined. Let's go and sort this out. I said, have this song on standby. I said, and the minute any kind of conflict starts and it starts to get physical. I said, I want you to play the Benny Hill theme tune. We

Yoyo:

can hear that. That's one song you can hear wherever you are.

Gavin:

Yeah. and of course what happened was you've got this kind of, scenario now where instead of the crowd, Getting irate. You've got these two guys doing this, sparring on the dance floor. And Benny Hill's playing away. And instead of everybody getting annoyed, the whole crowd giggling and laughing at these two fellows while they're going, it was just something. And he thanked me, said, that is absolute genius. And he did it a few times and it totally changed. the whole thing, because while everybody was laughing at them, it didn't take long for these two guys who were fighting, we looked like a pair of idiots here, and the bouncers had come, they'd take them out and job done, and that was it, then they could carry on with the night,

Yoyo:

these fights, they don't tend to last long, as long as it stays contained. Yeah, yeah. I remember when we were on our, whenever you're, like, even whether in a security role or a police role, by the time you've arrived, it's all finished anyway. Oh, yeah, yeah. So hopefully, the DJ never had to play too much of Benny Hill's. No,

Gavin:

just, just long enough to make everybody laugh, and whereas before, everybody was getting involved, and the bouncers would get involved, and the whole crowd would get involved, and everything would get out of hand. Now it was just two people. Oh. That was the signal for the bouncer to say, right, let's go over and clear this out. As soon as they heard Benny Hill, they'd then come out, drag them out, job done. it was usually sorted back and sorted out outside and then either be let back in or told to go home or whatever the case may be. But it worked wonders. Just a simple psychological trick, just changing things a little bit. And just a different reaction to the norm. and it has a totally different outcome. I suppose that's why I get hired.

Yoyo:

I mean, they say podcasts should be giving, this is a giving podcast. Before we finish up, you have written a book called The Unforgiven Spy. You've told me that, there's a lot of, real experiences. that you've been able to use in that book, which is great. What time do you recall was the time that you felt the most in danger in the role that you were in? Because let's face it, you must have been in some quite hostile countries, regimes, around hostile people, there's a, there's an instinct to survive for sure. Take us through, one, one story.

Gavin:

there was actually, this is gonna actually sound completely crazy. The opposite to what everybody's probably going to be expecting., I have been in some of the world's most dangerous and horrible places amongst some of the scenarios that, would frighten the life out of most people. and yet the one time on a one particular job that, that was for me personally, the most scary, was actually in the UK. Um, I know, yeah. Not expecting you to see that. You wouldn't think so, would you? And I, you and I've been out in the Middle East, I've been in Africa. I've been in all different parts of Europe and all different parts of nasty corners of the world. And it was actually right here in the uk. And it was all to do with a, an organized crime thing that was happening. And without going too deep into the ins and outs of it, there was a man behind it, who sent some thugs down,, turned out a kind of, there was suspicions of who I was. and these thugs came down. There was a lot of people. Uh, and that kind of got me. Came to me and where I was and the situation I was in was very, very scary. they give me a good softening up. they kind of pushed me into a, like a, it was, there was an open door and a closet with a load of shelves behind it. And I remember the guy just slamming me into it. slamming the shelves down over my head and we were, I was about to try and find my way out and he pushed me back and then he we started to try to communicate and, while he was doing that, the other guy was on the phone to the boss, the two of the main guys who were doing this, the other guy was on the phone to the boss, and so I'm just going to get rid of that. And basically the first guy who kind of got me in position, he got this, I don't know where he managed to pick it up from, it might have been mine, it might have been his, but he got this great big carving knife, and he got me by the throat and he was literally waiting for the order. And he was saying to, to the guy who was on the phone to the boss, does he want me to kill him? I'll kill him now. and the other fellow on the phone was going, hang on, I'll find out. And I'm thinking, this is it. I thought this is how it's going to end. Um, and I remember, you know, thinking, wow. Yeah. And I was only young at the time. It was like very, very early on. I've had years of experience of these things and loads of training and being in loads of different scenarios. Like I said, this was very, very early on. And I thought, wow, already? I thought I'd live a bit longer. Um, and it kind of, uh, and I remember thinking, how am I going to get out of this? and as it happens, the guy on the phone turned around and said, no, the boss wants you to bring him to him. Oh, okay. I'm not dead yet. Well, again, a little bit longer. Can I do something to change the dynamic of this? they basically turn around and said, right, um, get in your car, drive over and see the boss. Uh, and I said, okay. And I said, Don't go anywhere else. If you do, you know what's going to happen to you. And like I say, we, it was a really scary moment. I got in the car and I managed to get over to him and get it all sorted out and get it straightened out. Let's go back to

Yoyo:

that getting in the car moment. Because there are certain people that would say, Screw this shit. Right. I'm, I'm gonna come out from this clearly undercover role and I'm gonna go to a place of safety. I don't need to go back. But you went to go see the plot.

Gavin:

Yeah And I wasn't sure whether I was gonna ever make it. And do you know the crazy thing? Yeah, and this is gonna sound really really tough now. I, I was I looked like I'd just been dragged through a hedge. I'd got that kind of, bloody nose and cut lip and whatever else and blah blah blah. And I remember getting, looks like I was only younger and I, and this is one of the reasons maybe why I, I do what I do. but I remember getting into the car thinking, shhh, don't believe it. There's hardly any petrol in this thing. And, and remember driving it was a voxel Carlton, which were like kind of government loved cars at the time. they had all, all the voxel Cavaliers and Voxel Carltons were what the police and the government loved. And, I remember getting into this car and thinking, I need to get some fuel. And then this crazy thought pops into my head where these two thugs have said, don't go anywhere else. And I thought, well, I've got to get fuel surely. and I thought, what if they're following me and they see me going a different way, knowing I'm going meant to be going that way and I'm going this way. And, and I thought, well, I've got to get fuel. so I'm having this crazy conversation in my head. All about fuel and that kind of thing, instead of, I'm going to see the boss who's probably going to kill me. and again, I was in a mess, I put some fuel in the car, and I'm in the right state and I walked into the, uh, the gas station to pay for the fuel. And I remember like thinking to myself, here I am covered in blood, look in the right mess, buttons ripped off my shirt, all manner of things. And the lady. Yeah, lady behind the checkout never said a word. She's just like, number 10. Yeah. 20 pound. Thank you. Okay. And that was it. Do you want a receipt? I'm like, no, do I look like I want a receipt? I don't even want to be here where I want to be right now. He's in a pub getting drunk because I'm having a really bad day. but nobody, not a single soul asked if I was okay. Nobody cared that I was bleeding and it was like kind of, wow, that's the world we live in. so yeah, got into the car and I was thinking all the way there. Okay. What am I going to say, when I get there? And, but by the time I'd got there, I'd really calmed down and everything had changed. it was, it managed to get resolved. And I talked my way out of it. Um, but that wasn't the scary moment seeing the boss. The scary moment was when he got the knife and said, is the order to killing kind of thing. So.

Yoyo:

So what was your approach then? You're in the car, you're thinking, what am I going to say to the boss? What did you do and how did you get yourself into level ground?

Gavin:

Just a bit of reverse psychology. and I just turned around and said, look, I'm glad we had this moment. But, if you were going to kill me back then would have been the time to have done it. Not now, because now I'm going to make a mess on your carpet. You know, the bottom line is, you know, and I kind of leveled with him where I said, look, you know, if I was who you think I was, why would I come back? Why would I come here? I would have driven straight to the police station and said to them, okay, it's time to make the arrest, and, I basically just turned around and said, look, there's lots of things I could have done. I could have gone to the police station, even if I wasn't a police officer, uh, or anything or anybody working undercover or anything to do with any of that. I could have gone to the police station and said, this man wants to kill me. I said, I didn't, I come here. I said, so at the end of the day, I said, do what you've got to do. I said, either, kill me now or let me carry on working and doing my job. And luckily it led all, all the parties involved did get arrested and did get a custodial sentence as well.

Yoyo:

Um,

Gavin:

but yeah, that, that, when you go to scary ones, that, there have been other scary moments, but that was the most scary for me. I've had, guns pointed at me. I've had all sorts of things. I've had some really, really hairy moments where, you know, but that was later on in my career, later on in life. And I was just a bit better equipped to handle it at that point because I'd been exposed to it a lot more.

Yoyo:

Do you remember, I don't know if you've seen this, It's an observation test, and it's usually, it's a visual thing, it's a video, and I'll describe what happens. But basically, you're told to watch how many times the basketball is passed between a group of people standing in a circle. Yeah. So you're literally watching one, two, three, four, five, right? And then, so those people who have seen this, they'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Yep. And then you get told to watch it again, and then you get told to watch for the monkey that ran into the middle of the circle. How did I miss that the first time? But the lady in the garage reminded me of that. Probably, she was so focused on what she was doing. And as security professionals, sometimes we can be very focused on what we're doing and we can miss what we really need to be looking for. Can't we?

Gavin:

there was a particular security company that I knew operated down in the Southwest and they had a problem with security guards who were meant to go in and check a particular site. It was a big. industrial site that I had to visit and they wanted to ensure, because some of the security guards were kind of pulling up, having a glance. Yeah. Everything looks okay. Yeah. It hasn't burned down and their drive off. They wouldn't check doors, locks, windows, all the things that they should probably be doing. really check as a security guard. so what happened was they started using this thing called a diaster. so you've got a diaster gun and little diaster points or that was located all around the building. and you had to go in and you get into reception, you click diaster one, and that would register on the gun that you've now been into reception. And then you'd go to two and three and they were all located in different areas. And when you got all 10, you could then get back in your car, write your So everything's okay. And off you go. and I remember watching back the CCTV footage of one particular guy who walked past two fellas who were burgling the place and had stopped as the security guard came in, clicked all the diesters, doesn't went back out again. I was like, Oh, you've got to be kidding me. And that was because the security guard was so preoccupied on remembering the dices, the order of them, what they had to do, the time that is meant to be between each one, because I say, if you do it too quick, then, you weren't paying attention. If you take too long, they don't want to know what you were doing and why you were messing around. So, so he had all these things that he was focusing on. He, there were several patrols in the night that I had to do. This was one building or one complex of many. Um, and like I say, all his concerns were. Finding the next dice, clicking it and getting everything, locking everything up, resetting everything and going back out again. And he actually walked past two people who, like I said, they were burgling the place and they just stopped. Let him walk past, do his job, and he walked back out again.

Yoyo:

Yeah, and I should imagine a lot of people will be resonating with experiences very similar to that. Gavin, this is so cool. Listen, we're going to get you back. We'll do a little teaser for everybody who's listening and we'll say, we'll get you back. We'll talk about why James Bond is nothing like real life. And we'll talk about also, here, statement analysis. We're going to look at that. And then we're going to look at corporate espionage. When you come back, we'll put the links to your books on this bio. And Gavin, all I can say is I can't wait for next time. Thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle Podcast.

Gavin:

Thank you for having me. I hope somebody gained some value from it.

Yoyo:

I have,