The School of Greatness
Former Secret Service Agent Reveals How To Read ANYONE To Know Who You Can Really Trust
Mon, 28 Apr 2025
Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Former Secret Service agent Evy Poumpouras reveals the hidden psychology of human behavior that was used to protect presidents and can transform your relationships. Through harrowing experiences at Ground Zero on 9/11 and a near-death childbirth, Evy discovered a neutrality mindset that keeps her centered amid chaos. She shares tactical communication strategies that extracted confessions from hardened criminals and explains why comparing yourself to others sabotages your authenticity. This conversation unpacks how to read people accurately, gather intelligence in everyday interactions, and maintain your integrity when others want you to break.Evy’s BBC Maestro Course ‘The Art of Influence’Evy’s book Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live FearlesslyIn this episode you will learn:How to stop chasing external validation and find peace through a neutrality mindsetWhy watching other people's work can secretly sabotage your creative authenticityThe counterintuitive way to de-escalate conflict when someone is at their angriestHow to read when someone is lying by using strategic silence instead of more questionsThe exact technique Evy used to get confessions after other interrogators failedFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1764For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Mel Robbins – greatness.lnk.to/1761SCDr. Ramani Durvasula – greatness.lnk.to/1577SCJefferson Fisher – greatness.lnk.to/1737SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX
Chapter 1: What mindset helps you find peace in chaos?
You can't look to other people to support you for you to go do something. If you're saying, you need to give me this so I can do this, they're not the problem. Your thinking is the problem.
She's the secret service agent who's protected presidents. And she looked after the Obamas, Clinton, and Bush.
With a master's in forensic psychology, she worked complex undercover missions. My girl, Evie Pompouros. Ask people questions, drop a question, and go quiet. Let them reveal themselves to you. If you want to know how to read people, and if you want to know to gauge who's trustworthy, who's not, who's reliable, let them show you. But if you're jabbering away, you're not going to see it.
The mistake we make is we think there's good and there's evil. Evil people do bad things. Good people do bad things. Good people take advantage. Good people will hurt you.
What's the tell or the question to know if someone is really lying?
Okay, I'll answer this question.
You have really kind of exploded in the last three or four years with your content. And every time you come on my show and the content I see online, it's around human performance, about optimizing yourself. It's also around human psychology and understanding people. It's understanding how to influence people in a positive way. Understanding when someone's trying to manipulate you.
All these things that you've learned through your... through your studies, through real world experiences, protecting presidents, through working in Secret Service, all these different things. I'm curious, what is the greatest skill that you've developed in the last four years, five years, since you've really kind of blown up in a bigger way of all the interviews and the content you do on TV?
What is the biggest skill you've developed in the last four or five years for yourself that has continued to help you thrive personally? Because you had tons of skills when you were working in the field, but what about in these last four or five years?
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Chapter 2: How can you tell if someone is lying?
Everybody's seeing what you do. And even grades, like they would post scores up so people could see it. So there was no, yeah, it's no, no. So you're, it's also the shame that you don't want of not performing. So it's not just for yourself. It's like everybody's seeing you not do what you need to do.
I mean, I know there's people here who've had maybe parents that didn't believe in them or siblings that were putting them down or just didn't have good experiences as adults where people weren't empowering them. So how did you learn to feel empowered when people were trying to force you to quit? They wanted you to be humiliated. They wanted you to look bad. They were happy if you failed.
How did you stay, I guess, confident or believing that you were above it and create an environment of, that I'm okay no matter what they think.
So there's kind of two lanes. One lane is it's people that love you and care about you but don't support you. And then the other lane is people that maybe envy you or jealous of you, do want your harm. This lane here, they need to not be in your life. And the moment you realize that, you don't have to tell them, but you should start to fade out.
You know who those folks are and you don't need to be like, hey, you know what? Save it. Save it, because you need that energy so that you can go do what you need to do. Right? The point is to fade out. And then before you know it, you're not there anymore. And they're like, where'd she go? I've been gone months.
Right, right, right.
The other lane is that people that you really want to support you and you want them to do that for you, but they forgive them. My parents were immigrants. My mother grew up in a village, like, literally a village, dirt poor. I mean, the bathroom was in the forest. And when I was a kid and I would go visit, like, it was a hole in the ground and a shack next to the chicken coop. Right?
And so my mother grew up dirt poor. My father grew up very poor, dirt poor. They were from Greece. So they couldn't... So they couldn't understand what I was doing. They didn't understand it. My brother, he's like, you can go be a cop. He didn't like cops. I didn't even like them. But life takes you in a weird path. So I just learned, forgive them.
you know i'm going to be transparent with you like you can't look to other people to support you for you to go do something it's nice if you can get it but like if you're saying you need to give me this so i can do this they're not the problem your thinking is the problem can you explain more of that It is, I'm not going to do this because I don't have support. My mom's not behind me.
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Chapter 3: What is the greatest skill Evy has developed recently?
Just don't do that.
Don't do that.
But can't you go on the, but then you have to always be on guard with everyone you meet?
You need to be aware. You need to have your brain on. You can't turn it off because you're like, oh, everyone's great because it's not. There's a naiveness to it, and that's on you. Like, it just isn't. It's just the truth. And so when you live in that reality and you look at people, even if they're nice, a nice person can hurt you. A nice person can take advantage of you.
Good people do these things. So I always tell people, look at the behavior. If that relationship becomes imbalanced, so if you become the giver, giver, giver,
they're taking taking taking you've helped create that imbalance you also play a role in that yes you also play a role in that and if you keep giving because you're thinking oh i'll eventually get back pause and stop people show you pay attention i always say look at the behavior of the person don't label people label the behavior labels are for clothing
label what they show you they will show you so if it becomes one way which you help to foster and that's okay correct it and then pull back you know and even today i'm always aware it's not that i don't you know i don't want to believe in people i do but it's kind of like president reagan used to say this trust but verify so
Let's say you started some type of giving-taking relationship. It doesn't matter if it's intimate or career or whatever, but you meet someone and they're taking, you're giving. How can you start to make a shift so you can feel better without being a jerk or saying, you never give me anything in return and being like, they're supposed to give you something in return. How can you shift that energy?
It depends what you want. If it's that much of a taker, Goodbye.
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Chapter 4: How do you stop comparing yourself to others?
I'm from New York. I was doing every, like, FFF, like, I'm trying to make this PG-rated, this interview, but inside me, I'm like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm New York.
Do you have any feelings for him still?
I'm going to key your car. That's what I was thinking. You're like, I'm going to key this guy's car. That's what we do in New York. It's like... I was playing it all out in my head. I'm listening to this because I need to know what's going on so I can make a decision. Because I don't want to get hurt again. First time, okay. Second time, it's on me. So he reveals everything.
He's like, you know, so in the end, it's like, I just don't know what to do. I don't know who to be with. This is where I got him. I got it all. I was just like, so it ends. I have everything I need now. So I still couldn't help myself. I'm not saying you should do this, but I was like, you know what? Let me make it easy for you. I'm no longer a choice. I suggest you go to her.
Wow. So...
Now, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you it broke my heart. But at least I had enough information so I can make a good decision for myself. Because I didn't show judgment. Because he could have started telling me this stuff, and I could have shredded him. I'm Greek. I'm from New York. Forget it.
How do you, I mean... How did you develop enough self-worth that once you were, I guess, hurt or left, that you didn't feel like you were going to go back to the same person who hurt you? Because I know I've made that mistake in the past, and I'm sure people here who have gotten back into a relationship where they're like, oh, this person, I knew they weren't right for me.
I knew there was something off. We broke up, and now we're going to go try it again, but something's still not off. How did you get the courage or the worth or the... the knowledge, I guess, to say, I'm going to be okay without this person, even though they're saying they want me back. And maybe I miss them a little bit, but I'm going to be okay.
Because you are going to be okay. In the end, isn't it always okay? It always levels out, right? It's always okay in the end. It always is. No matter what you go through, it's like this. But it's your choice if you want it to go like this or like this. There's something I adopted and I really have to say that being in the U.S. Secret Service helped me adopt it.
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