3 Questions To Catch Any Liar | Former Secret Service Agent | Ep 98

🤔 Ever wondered about the real science behind a "lie detector test"? Our guest, a seasoned "polygraph expert", sheds light on the myths and realities of these controversial examinations. Learn about "self control" during an "interrogation", how often people actually "beat a polygraph", and fascinating "psychology facts" that influence truthfulness. This episode dives deep into the intriguing world of deception and detection.

🗣️ Brad Beeler gave more criminal polygraph exams than anyone in Secret Service history. For 17 years, he sat across from murderers, bank robbers, child predators, and liars of every kind. And he learned something: catching a liar isn't about reading body language.

It's about asking the RIGHT questions.

Brad gives you 3 questions that reveal liars almost every time. These questions work because of how our brains process lies - and most people have NO idea they're being tested.

Bonus technique: The Tall Tale Trick

Plus how to perfect the World's Perfect Handshake.

And why lying is neurologically HARD to do.

Brad's #1 Communication Rule:
"Be the most interested person in the room. Ask 80% of the questions. Let people teach you about what they love. That's when they let their guard down."

About Brad's Book:
"Tell Me Everything" (February 17, 2026) - Not just about polygraphs or interrogation, it's a communication book. How to get anyone to open up, tell the truth, and connect on a deeper level.

Resources:
Instagram/LinkedIn: @bradbeeler1865
Website: https://bradleybeeler.com/
Book: "Tell Me Everything" (Pre-order available)

Chapters: 

[00:00] Cold Open 
[01:46] Meet Brad Beeler 
[06:30] The World's Perfect Handshake 
[09:51] The 3 Questions That Catch Liars 
[14:51] Why Lying Is Hard 
[16:47] The Tall Tale Trick 
[19:30] Why Polygraphs Aren't Admissible 
[22:51] "Tell Me Everything" - The Book 
[24:23] Be the Most Interested Person 
[29:00] High Profile Cases

Connect with Gurus and Game Changers: 

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GurusAndGameChangers 

📲 Instagram - Stacey: https://www.instagram.com/staceymgrant/ 

📲 Instagram - Mark: https://www.instagram.com/mark_lubragge_onair/

✨ Subscribe for more game-changing conversations

Transcript

Mark (00:01): 

Are you a truthful person? 

Stacey (00:03):
 I am very truthful. 

Mark (00:04):
 If you did something wrong, could you lie through your teeth convincingly? 

Stacey (00:09):
 Never. In fact, everyone, and it's not because I wouldn't try. So 

Mark (00:13): You're not a good 

Stacey (00:13):
 Person because I do like to say, don't like the facts. Get in the way of a good story. 

Mark (00:16): You do like 

Stacey (00:17):
 I do like to say that. I say that quite often. I do exaggerate things, but I can't lie. I am a terrible liar. Are 

you a good liar? I think you are. 

Mark (00:24): I'm a good liar. 

Stacey (00:24): You are a good liar. 

Mark (00:25):
 I am. It's just a fact. I'm a good liar. Or maybe I'm not and I'm just lying right now, which would make 

[00:00:30] me a good 

Stacey (00:30):
 Liar. No, you're a good liar. I can tell. I'm a good liar. You're a good liar. What are you lying about? I 

Mark (00:34):
 Just have a lot of practice. No, I'm kidding. Oh, 

Stacey (00:36):
 No. Well, so if I gave you a polygraph, if I gave you a polygraph, 

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Would you be I would not beat it. You would not beat it? I don't think so. I think I would be, it's measuring your heart rate and all. I think I would just be jazzed up about the fact that I was lying. At least that's what I think. But thats why we have the pre expert. 

Stacey (00:56):
 He's the expert. I really am interested because I don't know a lot about polygraphs, 

Mark (01:00): [00:01:00] So 

Stacey (01:01):
 I probably will ask a lot of annoying questions to Brad. What is it? What happens? How do you do it? 

How do you know? 

Mark (01:07):
 Right. I think, I don't know. I think I, I know, and I'm way off. 

Stacey (01:11):
 All I know is what I see in movies. Yeah. So we're way off. We're way off. So I cannot wait to talk to 

Brad Eller. Hey, 

Mark (01:17):
 Secret Service. 20 plus years doing this has given more polygraphs than anyone I think in the service, 

right? 

Stacey (01:24): 

That's what he says. What he says. We're going to ask him. Let's do it. And well, he is got a new book coming out too. He's got a new book coming out. It's called Tell [00:01:30] Me Everything. So I'm very excited to talk to Brad Eller today. Hi, 

Mark (01:35):
 I am Stacy and I am Mark. And this is the gurus at Game Changers podcast. Hey, Brad. Brad, welcome to 

the show, buddy. 

Brad Beeler (01:46):
 Stacy, mark, thank you for having me. Truly appreciate it. It's an honor to be here. I've been really 

looking forward to this. Alright, 

Mark (01:51): Excellent. Let's roll. 

Stacey (01:53):
 Yeah, so I really am curious, how did you get into administering polygraph exams? 

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When I was first [00:02:00] started with the Secret Service, as was in Chicago, and I was blessed to have a couple really good polygraph examiners there. And a lot of people may not know, but the Secret Service has a kind of dual role mission. We do protection, we also do investigations. That's actually how we started in 1865. And since that point we've been trying to reach out to the local law enforcement to help them with a lot of their investigations. And so that's what a lot of our polygraph program did. So I got to see the men and women in our polygraph program doing an amazing job with the local community work in homicides, child [00:02:30] sexual assault cases, those types of things to see the impact of what they were doing and being a force multiplier. So got to see the men and women do a great job there and thought, wow, this is awesome. They come out of the room with and how they're able to exonerate people. That's something I want to do. So went to the polygraph school, 12 weeks, three month internship after that, and it was one of those things where I was just lucky to continue to do that for 17 years after that. Wow. 

Stacey (02:54):
 And can I follow up? Yeah, go. And you have done, or I guess you say [00:03:00] performed, processed 

more polygraph exams than anyone else in secret service history, correct? 

Brad Beeler (03:08):
 Yeah, the most criminal exams as far as total, I don't know, but as far as the most criminal examinations I 

did. But 

Stacey (03:14):
 Why you specifically? Are you really good at it? What is it about administering one of those tests? That's 

Brad Beeler (03:20): A great question 

Stacey (03:20):
 Because I feel like when you see it on television, someone's sitting there and looking at it, but we don't 

know the skill that's involved. 

Brad Beeler (03:28): 

I was lucky that I had great mentors [00:03:30] that kind of taught me the way to do things. And I guess I picked up a couple things along the way. When you do something long enough, you get decent at it, you're pretty good at your job, podcasting and the other jobs that you have because you do it and the more you do it, you get better at it. So it kind of built upon itself, I think. 

Mark (03:45): 

But is there an administrator effect that, let's say if you were to give me the test and then five of your colleagues, could you all read it differently? Could it lead to a false positive? Could it lead to a false accusation? 

Brad Beeler (04:00): 

[00:04:00] Yeah, we pretty much have a good, especially in the federal side of the house, our training is pretty universal. And so I would say, I don't know that I would see a false positive or a false negative. One person may get an inconclusive result or something like that. We have some pretty broad parameters 

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if you want to think of that as far as guardrails for passing. And then way over here is failing and then somewhere in between is an inconclusive result. So we try to do that to avoid any false positives or false negatives. But part of it is preparation, [00:04:30] part of it is being in the right head space, getting them in the right head space, and the more you do something, the more things you're used to dealing with as far as if something goes astray. So maybe that was been helpful over 17 years. 

Speaker 4 (04:42): So 

Stacey (04:42):
 What does that look like, getting in the right head space, getting them in the right head space? I know 

when I see it looks like they're just little things attached. Tell me, explain. 

Brad Beeler (04:51): 

Yeah. So I will take an hour typically before the polygraph where I've spent a lot of time on the front end prepping, if [00:05:00] you're going to podcast somebody, you're going to do some prep on what they're bringing to the table. It's similar way to do this before I do a polygraph, and that could be with an applicant or it could be with a criminal. I want to know what makes them tick. I want to look at their social media profile. 30 years ago, everybody put something in a diary. Now they put it online. So what I want to do is I want get that Instagram, that Facebook and I want to create, if you want to use this as a metaphor, almost a curated reel of potential topics that we talk about so that I'm hitting that dopamine button and that I'm not hitting that cortisol. So [00:05:30] when I meet them, I'm giving 'em the world's greatest handshake. I'm giving 'em a little head tilt. I'm giving 'em a little eyebrow flash. I'm using their first name, not my title. I'm introducing myself by my first name and not my title. And that's kind of setting the stage. And then I'm asking them about things they like to do, leisure activities. So what I would do by asking you questions along those lines, you are not feeling like I'm interrogating. You 

(05:54): 

Are answering questions. And we'd go deep enough with that. If we'd spend enough time, you would start teaching me about what [00:06:00] you're doing. When people are teaching people things, they really let their guard down. They really show what their interests are. As a result of that, I can find a connection point. 

Mark (06:09):
 How do you tell if the machine tells you they're stressed? It doesn't tell you they're innocent and stressed. 

It tells you they're stressed. 

Brad Beeler (06:17): 

Some things are very interesting. One looking at the breathing rate, shaking the hand. Okay, the world's perfect handshake. Mark, if I can walk you through this. Okay, the world's perfect handshake because it's the first thing [00:06:30] you do and it's the last thing you do in every interaction, and it's one of those things that we all take for granted to hack the world's perfect handshake. Politicians have already figured it out. I spray and a persch print on my hands. Now automatically I have a dry handshake. If I'm seated and I know I'm about to stand, I'll sit on my hamstring and especially if it's like a claws seat, now 

Mark (06:50): It's warm. 

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Brad Beeler (06:50):
 So now my hand is warm (06:52): 

And my hand is also dry. If I also want, I will hold my right hand a coffee cup. I will not hold something that's condensing like [00:07:00] cold in my right hand because now you're going to get a cold and a wet handshake, which primitively we're going to view that as, oh, he's nervous. This is not good. I'm in a tough space. So now I have a dry and I have a warm handshake. I'm going to approach you. I'm going to be looking in your eyes until that point that we connect, it's going to be right at the naval level. I'm going to be at a two o'clock position that exposes the white of, it doesn't matter your race, color, cred or ethnicity, your hand is going to be the lighter part, lightest part of your body. By doing that, it shows I don't have a weapon. 

(07:29): 

I'm going to give them a [00:07:30] subtle smile. And because I'm at that two o'clock position, or most people pronate, so they're going to be at a 10 o'clock, it's an easy connection point. Then I may offer them something to drink, something to eat. A mammal that is at an elevated heart rate is not going to eat anything. So it's very diagnostic of me. If I give a mammal some food or water, I'm like, oh man, I can't eat right now that says to me, I'm going to maybe have to take a little bit more time talking to them to get that heart rate down and get that connection. But also that's [00:08:00] what you would do to a friend if they came to your house, you would offer 'em something to drink, something to eat. So obviously I'm going to do that as well. So I've got a great handshake. I've offered them something. I look the part, okay, I'm not wearing my ac DC concert t-shirt and my raggedy jeans and clothed cognition is real. So I looked the part, I get to know them. I ask them about leisure activities, connection points. At this point, now I can make a pretty good assessment. Hey, is that breathing rate 18 to 20? Is their hand dryer now, are there movements a lot less [00:08:30] jittery? Okay. Think of when you were in a stressful situation, a fight or flight situation, just how you were with your mannerism. 

Stacey (08:36):
 If the cortisol is elevated, then the test might be not as accurate. 

Brad Beeler (08:43): 

It might just be a mess from a physiological standpoint, they still know if they did that bad thing or not. It's just a question of how does that look on the paper or how does that look on the screen as far as their physiology, IM printing on the screen so it's garbage in, garbage out. If I have somebody that's [00:09:00] freaking out, it's going to be hard for me to get physiology to make a call one way or the other. So that's why I really take a long time to do a pretest to get them once again, calm down. 

Stacey (09:09):
 How long will that be? Like half an hour, hour 

Brad Beeler (09:11):
 At least? At a minimum, half an hour, but probably like an hour. 

Stacey (09:15):
 Wow. I wonder if they're wondering when is this thing going to start? We're going to chat. 

Brad Beeler (09:19): 

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Stacey (09:20):
 This. Everybody's going to chat 

Brad Beeler (09:21): Up. 

Stacey (09:21):
 Okay, so then what happens? So then after you've gotten the person down to the normal cortisol levels 

and you feel like it's time to take the test, what do you do? 

Brad Beeler (09:29): 

What I might do is I [00:09:30] ask them some investigative questions that I would ask anybody. So say for instance, this was a felony case, a serious case, and I would ask Mark, Hey Mark, can you come up with three reasons why you think somebody would rob a bank? Let's say it's a bank robbery case. What would you say if I just threw you that question cold? What do you think? Three reasons would be? 

Mark (09:51):
 They needed the money. 

Brad Beeler (09:52): Okay, 

Mark (09:54):
 Three reasons. Somebody would rob a bank. They needed the money. [00:10:00] I mean, isn't that the 

fundamental reason why somebody robs a bank? It is me not coming up with three. 

Stacey (10:05):
 They're hungry. They're hungry, they need money. Wouldn't 

Mark (10:07):
 You get food if you were hungry and not rob a bank? 

Stacey (10:09):
 I mean, if you're hungry and you don't have, 

Mark (10:11):
 Where do you want to eat? 

Brad Beeler (10:12): 

Hey, this is great. The fact that you're having to search is kind of showing that you're innocent. Here, what I'm looking for is an outlier. This operates on something called availability bias and recency bias. So if I ask a criminal that question mark, many times they're going to say what you started off with, maybe they need the money, but they may be very specific with it. They may be like, I don't [00:10:30] know, 

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Christmas is coming up and maybe they need to pay the light bill and maybe they need to buy their sister something. Whatever it is, it's something very specific. So I've used a homicide before where I've asked that question and somebody said, I don't know, disrespect. I don't know. Maybe they were just showing off their guns to their friends and then things kicked off from that point. Whoa, that was very specific, right? Would 

Mark (10:53):
 Not have occurred to me. 

Brad Beeler (10:55): 

And that's ultimately the reason. It's a heuristic shortcut that our brain uses. We [00:11:00] don't see it coming as an investigative question, and it helps me target my message. If I go on to elicitation mode, another question I may ask is, Hey, play a judge for me. Mark, what do you think should happen to somebody that robs a bank? 

Mark (11:13):
 Well, they should certainly go to jail. 

Brad Beeler (11:15): Perfect. Great answer. 

Mark (11:17): Great 

Brad Beeler (11:17):
 Answer. And that's typically an innocent answer on a serious felonies. If I ask that question, A criminal is 

going to want and provide an answer for what they hope 

Speaker 4 (11:27): Would 

Brad Beeler (11:27): Happen to them. (11:28): 

And so many times what I'll say is they'll [00:11:30] say something like, Hey, what do you think should happen to somebody that robs a bank? Oh, maybe they should just pay the money back. Right? I love it. Maybe probation, right? Slap on the hand. Yeah. And then the last thing, mark, I would ask, and this is very effective and I do this with my kids, is you would ask a behavioral analysis question. And what we do is there's a couple different ones, but let's say for instance, you have an alibi, but in between your house and the bank that was robbed [00:12:00] is numerous cameras. And you said, no, you know what? I was at home all afternoon doing barbecue, and nobody's there to verify, but that's your alibi. I could say something, Hey Mark, we're early on in the investigation, but is there any reason why whatsoever that between your house and the bank on Johnson Street, that if we looked at all the video surveillance, is there any reason whatsoever that we might see you on that surveillance camera, driving, biking, walking, whatever the case may be? [00:12:30] What would your answer be if you were innocent? 

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No, there's 

Brad Beeler (12:34):
 No reason. Yeah, and would say, and here's the thing, mark, you would say no with a downward 

inflection with an exclamation point behind it? No. You wouldn't say no, 

Stacey (12:42): No. 

Brad Beeler (12:42):
 With a question mark, do you believe me 

Stacey (12:44): Up speak. 

Brad Beeler (12:44):
 And what happens a lot of times as you throw that out there and people will be like, I hope not. 

Stacey (12:50):
 Well, my cousin's house is between eight, and 

Brad Beeler (12:52): You know what? So 

Stacey (12:53):
 You might see me. I mean, I 

Brad Beeler (12:54):
 Walked the door. I did, you know what, Stacy, you're right now that you asked me [00:13:00] about that. I 

wasn't thinking about this before, but I did go to Bob's house. I did 

Stacey (13:03):
 Go to Bob's house. It's right on the route. So you might see me there, but that doesn't mean I got right 

back to my barbecue. That's funny. That's 

Brad Beeler (13:08): 

So easy truth. So those are three good kind of invest. And then the last question I'll ask Mark would be like, Hey, guess what, mark? Sometimes people aren't honest with me. I know that's surprising, but sometimes people aren't honest with me. Why should I believe you? 

Mark (13:20):
 Oh, wow. Yeah, because telling the truth, 

Brad Beeler (13:24): 

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Mark (13:24):
 What I would say. That's 

Brad Beeler (13:25): 

The greatest answer. And if it's any answer other than that, it's a huge red flag. And there's no absolutes [00:13:30] when it comes to this stuff, right? We could go through detection of deception, delay, equivocation, all these things that we look for, but at the end of the day, there's no 100%, I'm increasing my chances. 

Mark (13:40): And 

Brad Beeler (13:40):
 Anytime you see a TikTok where somebody says 100% this and 100% that, just skip. Okay, just move on 

to the next one. 

Mark (13:48): I'm sorry, go 

Stacey (13:49):
 Ahead. No. So when you ask those questions, what is the physicality of the lie detector machine? Is there 

things on the wrists and the head and Yeah, they actually got 

Brad Beeler (13:59):
 The components [00:14:00] behind me here. If you can see, oh, 

Stacey (14:01): Let's see. Let's see. 

Brad Beeler (14:02): 

Yeah, you got the, I think it's attached to the wall unfortunately, but I've got the Pneumo graft tubes, which go to the upper chest and the upper abdomen. Those are going to rise and fall with the chest. So it's going to pick up the rise and fall and the rate of breathing. Then I'm going to have a cardio cuff. It's going to look at blood pressure, blood volume, and heart rate. And then I'm going to have two stainless steel finger plates that are going to run the tips of the two fingers. And what they're going to look as s galvan skin activity. So not necessarily sweat, but the precursors, electrical precursors to sweat. It's going to go into a [00:14:30] box where it's going to be taken from analog information, digitalized and projected under my screen kind of in real time. So I'm going to see a real time diagnosis of what's going on. So I'm seeing that, and everything's a yes or no question. So if I say, did you shoot that man? You've got to make a choice. Said 

Stacey (14:46):
 No. And said, if it goes like this, it's a lie. And if it goes like this, it's not a lie, right? 

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Yeah, because lying is hard, Stacy, it's very technical. 

Stacey (14:54): It's very technical, 

Brad Beeler (14:55): 

Just like this. Right? Put line is hard in that. If you did that, it's [00:15:00] easy to remember the truth. The truth is easy. Lies are hard because a lie, you have to remember the truth. You have to suppress the truth. You have to almost think of it like a film reel. You have to go to that point in time. You have to clip out the truth, suppress it, insert new untruthful information, and then try to push that across as that being a fact. And then I have to do it in such a way in which if you trip me up some way, I can still account for that and it becomes difficult and you feel like you have a spotlight on you. 

Stacey (15:30): 

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Brad Beeler (15:52):
 I ask you yes or no questions. So if I allow you to have an open format, Stacey or Mark, do either one of 

you have dogs? 

Stacey (15:58): Yes. 

Mark (15:59): Yes. 

Brad Beeler (15:59):
 Okay. [00:16:00] When you let your dog go on a walk by itself, it takes you wherever it wants, right? 

Stacey (16:05): Yes. 

Brad Beeler (16:05): 

Sometimes wherever. That's an open-ended statement. That's great. It's great to get information, but if you're a bad guy, you can choose to go this way, that way, whatever the case may be. It's hard to see deception within an open statement to tell the truth. Someone should give you a yes or no response, and they should do so in a timely fashion. So if I say, did you shoot that man? It should be yes or no, should be said with [00:16:30] a definitive inflection, not an upward inflection. And there should be no delay. There should be no equivocation. There shouldn't be no attacking me for asking. There shouldn't be any cloaking of self-righteousness. This truth should stand for the truth. So yes or no answers in a timely fashion is the best way to do that. And if you, I'll give you a little trick here. Do you guys know anybody that tells tall tales, mark or Stacey or maybe suspect they tell tall tables. 

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I don't. 

Brad Beeler (16:54): 

Let's do this on Stacey. Let's say next time Stacey is telling you about, I don't know, some high school [00:17:00] exploits where she, I don't know, got 4.0 or she did this, or she won state track tournament, whatever. Yeah, 

Mark (17:06):
 Back of a cop car. Yeah, 

Brad Beeler (17:07): I 

Mark (17:07): Remember. 

Brad Beeler (17:08): Don't let the facts 

Stacey (17:09):
 Get in the way of a good 

Brad Beeler (17:09): 

Story. She's telling you a tall tale and you're just letting her tell it. One of the ways you can get around this is, and Mark, if you've got a friend that let's say hit tells you he hit 47 home, runs his high senior year of high school, and for a fact, I highly doubt that. Let him tell his story and here's all you do to follow up. Wow, dude, you hit 47 [00:17:30] home runs your senior year of high school. What did that just turn into? An open narrative now turned into a yes or no statement. The spotlight is on, and I'm going to tell you, you do this with your kids. You do this with your coworkers, and what's going to happen is the vast majority of the time, if they're not honest, they will correct the statement. 

Mark (17:47): They 

Brad Beeler (17:47):
 Will say, well, I don't remember how many it was, but it was a lot. 

Mark (17:50): Wow. 

Brad Beeler (17:51): Try this at work. (17:53): 

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Somebody goes in and they're like, yeah, I told Stacey. Say, Stacey's the boss in this situation. Mark, she's your boss and [00:18:00] you're telling this story to somebody and you're like, yeah, I told Stacey, you know what? No more of this bs. I'm not having it. And somebody says to you, wow, mark, you told her that. Well, in so many words, I mean, she knows where I'm coming from. I thought it and then I walked out. But that way you don't lose face. I mean, it's an easy way to get, I don't want to say the full truth, but it definitely will come down off of their story that way. 

Stacey (18:21):
 That's cool. That's a party trick right there. 

Brad Beeler (18:24): That's crazy. 

Mark (18:25):
 So you have 100% confidence when you're doing a test. You [00:18:30] have 100% confidence with all 

that pre-work and everything that you're getting the right reading, whether somebody's truthful or not. 

Brad Beeler (18:37): No, 

Mark (18:37): You're 

Brad Beeler (18:38): 

Not. No, it's not perfect. I view this as polygraph is kind of like a mammogram trust but verify, right? My wife fortunately just beat cancer last year and the mammogram was inconclusive and thankfully what the mammogram being inconclusive led to was additional MRI tests that were much more sensitive and it [00:19:00] picked it up and we caught it and we got chemo and she's through it. Now, I view polygraph as the same way. It's not perfect, but let's say this, if I told you a story right now, research shows there's only about a 55% chance you would be able to listen to my story and tell me if I was telling the truth. 

Stacey (19:17): Oh yeah. 

Brad Beeler (19:18): 

If polygraph gets me up into the upper eighties, I will take that all day of the week. I won't use it in court. There's different levels of training. There's different examiners out there and there's different, but it's a [00:19:30] force multiplier. If it's used as part of an investigation at the right time, at the right place with the right person, with great quality control kind of bookmarked on top of that, it's 

Mark (19:42):
 A tool. You don't think it should be admissible? 

Brad Beeler (19:44): Absolutely not. 

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I think you said earlier on that it is possible to be a polygraph, but it's hard. It's 

Brad Beeler (19:51): A 

Mark (19:52):
 Tiny percentage, right? 

Stacey (19:53):
 A tiny percentage due. 

Brad Beeler (19:54): 

So it's an interesting that you bring up as far as beating the polygraph. When somebody goes online and does this or [00:20:00] that to affect a polygraph, they don't know what I'm seeing. They don't know if they're doing too much. They don't know if I'm doing too little 

(20:06): 

And they don't know that I know. And I've seen thousands of times what normal physiology looks like. It's like a mechanic. If you came in and they're used to seeing what a engine should sound like when it doesn't sound like that, they can usually go as if they've been doing this for a while. They'll be like, your carburetor's jacked up here there and whatever. This cylinder is jacked up. It's the same thing way with polygraph. The same things that they read are the same things that we see good physiology, [00:20:30] we know what it looks like. So when we get bad physiology, it's just unfortunate. There's a lot of bad information on the internet 

Speaker 4 (20:36): And 

Brad Beeler (20:36):
 A lot of people that feel like they have to help themselves out because they don't want to feel false 

positive. They really didn't need to do that. And sadly they do. 

Stacey (20:44): What do they do? 

Mark (20:45):
 Yeah, how do they beat it? 

Brad Beeler (20:45):
 Well, without getting specific, specific, they just try to change the physiology, 

Stacey (20:50):
 Like use a drug by a drug or something or 

Brad Beeler (20:53): 

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Yeah, maybe a drug or you hear the old tack in your shoe, whatever the case may be, and it's just sad that people do that because it's so obvious [00:21:00] when somebody does something like that. Could somebody mess with a polygraph? Could somebody give us bad physiology? Absolutely. But what does that say to you? It's the same as if somebody is taking a drug test and they adulterate the drug test. Well, what is that saying? Well, there's probably something in 

Stacey (21:15): My 

Brad Beeler (21:16):
 Urine, so it's going to lead to further investigation as a result. If 

Stacey (21:19):
 You're worried about beating a polygraph, you're probably guilty. 

Mark (21:22): Well, it's probably 

Stacey (21:24): You're 

Brad Beeler (21:24): Either guilty, (21:25): 

You're either guilty, or you've went down a rabbit hole of, oh my God, I have to help myself out. [00:21:30] I don't want to be a false positive. You can say it till I turn blue. The chances of you being a false positive are so extremely low, but the chances of you being caught doing countermeasures to avoid that are much, much higher. False confessions do happen, but we've learned, I am not going to do this on a juvenile. I'm not going to polygraph a juvenile. I'm not going to do an extended amount of time. I'm not going to act like I have fake evidence. I'm going to have hold back information, and if somebody is on drugs or coming [00:22:00] short off of drugs that I'm definitely not going, I'm going to be extremely careful with individuals like that. So there are safeguards we built in to hopefully keep that from happening. 

Mark (22:11):
 This is crazy. Wow. Can you beat a polygraph test? 

Brad Beeler (22:16):
 I don't know if I could beat it or not. You do something long enough, 

Mark (22:21): You 

Brad Beeler (22:21): 

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Could definitely impact it, but a good examiner's going to see you doing something. So I say having seen both sides of it, I would say even [00:22:30] myself, it'd be extremely, extremely difficult. So you can imagine somebody that's just coming in off the street after going reading a Reddit post or reading Google trying to do it, 

Mark (22:38): Here's how to do it. 

Brad Beeler (22:40):
 I think a competent examiner would catch me every day of the week. 

Stacey (22:45):
 So tell me about your book. So what made you write the book and what's in the book? Tell me 

everything. 

Brad Beeler (22:51): 

Yeah, thanks, Stacy. I appreciate it. Thanks for letting me plug it. It's one of those things where I started writing a book about polygraph, then I started writing a book about [00:23:00] investigations and one thing led to another, and in talking to an editor, they looked at it and they're like, man, this is not an interrogation book. This is not a polygraph book. This is a communication book. And what you view as a polygraph, the preparation, the introduction, getting their headspace right, getting yourself right, calibrating the instrument, adjusting like jazz where you're kind of adjusting with what one person is saying and you're kind of altering what you're doing, your interrogation, [00:23:30] the way you talk to people to get them to open up. All of that is human communication, and it can help someone in sales, it can help a parent, it can help a teacher, it can help a coach, whatever the case may be. And that's what we tried to do is we dialed it back for being so specific to try to make it a 20,000 foot view on human communication in general, and was just blessed to have a great editor and a great publishing house and getting it picked up by Simon and Schuster. It was just really good to have that and still got about five months to go. So that's why [00:24:00] we were doing podcasts and getting it out there. 

Stacey (24:02): So it's not out yet. 

Brad Beeler (24:04):
 Not out yet. It won't be out until February when you self-publish, kind of make your own schedule, but 

when you go through a publisher, you're kind of on their timeline. So 

Stacey (24:12): Of course 

Brad Beeler (24:13):
 That's kind of where we're at. 

Stacey (24:14):
 That's fantastic. So thank you. From your book or from whatever, what are maybe two or three 

communication techniques that you would tell our audience to use? 

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Brad Beeler (24:23):
 Wow. Be the most interested person in the room. (24:27): 

All right. I truly believe that is the best thing [00:24:30] you can do. Dale Carnegie said that exact quote 80 years ago, and it rings true today. That can be at sales when he was selling vacuum cleaners in the thirties, or it can be today when you're just trying to meet somebody at an office function, if you ask 80% of the questions in an interaction, if you are truly interested in what other people do and you don't make it about you, it's amazing how you will make other people feel. It's like if, let's say you were a runner, [00:25:00] Stacy, and I asked you and you're like, oh yeah, I'm running a 5K this weekend, and I immediately follow up with, yeah, so am I right? I've lost everything there. Whereas I say, oh, what got you into running? What kind of shoes do you wear? What kind of OnCourse nutrition do you do? 

(25:15): 

The next thing you know, we're talking about, Hey, I did an Ironman and you're going to hopefully do an Ironman, and we're talking about all this stuff at a deeper level, and you're associating with me with that dopamine that I'm allowing you to talk about is that talking about leisure activities, letting people [00:25:30] teach you and letting people kind of have the spotlight on stage is going to help you level up so much in your communication skills, and this is too much in an about me culture and immediate gratification culture and immediate tweet feed Instagram, I got to get it out there. Look at me, look at me, look at me. Is that very few people ask those true follow up questions. 

Stacey (25:54):
 Love that. That's the number one thing. Are there other things as well? 

Brad Beeler (25:58): 

Yeah, I think truly [00:26:00] staying focused on that leisure activities, people don't have a lot of choice job wise, depending on where they grew up in the country, but depending on their educational levels, you can't pick your parents, but what you choose to do in your free time is a really big point of conversation, and that's where I like to spend the vast majority of my time when I'm talking to people is what they like to do in their free time because they beam, they light up. When people talk about that. If I'm going to have a sensitive conversation with somebody, I'm not going to do it in front of other [00:26:30] people. 

Speaker 4 (26:31): I 

Brad Beeler (26:31): 

Do it private and I'm going to do it in private, and I'm not going to do it with hard eyes. I'm not going to do it with contempt, soft eyes. I'm going to have that eyebrow raised. Alright. Botox maybe helps that with some people, but I'm going to have soft eyes. I'm not going to be judgmental. I'm going to be curious. All right. Ted Lesser was a famous quote. Be curious, not judgmental in that I'm never going to be judgmental. I may see the sin and I may hate the sin, but I'm not going to hate the sinner, 

Speaker 4 (26:55): And 

Brad Beeler (26:56): 

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I'm going to bring that into the room because I'm talking to people that are trauma, molesters, murderers, rapists, [00:27:00] and I'm not going to judge 'em. I'm not going to furl my brow. I'm going to keep my eyebrow open. I'm going to be curious as to why they did what they did. Okay. Then hopefully that'll open up for the what, 

Mark (27:11):
 When is your book? Five months away and the 

Brad Beeler (27:13): 

Yeah, yeah. February 17th. Tell me everything where we're kind of chronicling. Just my time in polygraph, and I don't get too wonky as far as polygraph. It tries to, like I said, I try to keep it to where if soccer mom or a business person looked at this that they say, Hey, [00:27:30] I got some good takeaways here 

Stacey (27:32):
 For every day. And then what's next for you? What are you? 

Brad Beeler (27:35):
 Horizon? Yeah, so I'm still kind of, yeah, I'm still speaker 

Stacey (27:38): Circuit. You 

Brad Beeler (27:39): 

Should. Yeah, dude, I enjoy doing that. I still enjoy talking about polygraph. I'm still with a federal agency now that I consult with, so I'm still a special agent right now. So it's one of those things where I kind of can't walk away from law enforcement. I grew up wanting to be in law enforcement. It's one of those things where I still truly enjoy it. So we'll see what the future holds. [00:28:00] I just enjoy my time and my son's going down to college, down to Citadel here in Charleston, and so we're kind of locked in here to South Carolina, so we enjoy it down here. 

Mark (28:10):
 How can people get ahold of you if they need to 

Stacey (28:12): And do 

Brad Beeler (28:13): 

No, I appreciate that. Yeah, no, absolutely. So a couple ways. Brad Beeler, 1865 is my Instagram and it's also my LinkedIn, which is always a good way to talk with people. Bradley beeler.com. Of course, you're in office, so I had to get a website. Somebody already grabbed brad beeler.com, [00:28:30] so I just go with the full birth certificate name. But those are really the best ways to get ahold of me. And then I'm sure I can give you some information for the show notes as far as, 

Stacey (28:39): Yes, please. 

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How to use those. 

Mark (28:41):
 Perfect. This has been an awesome conversation. I love it. 

Stacey (28:45):
 I'm blown away by all of this. You really got it. Your stuff. 

Mark (28:50):
 Sit in the bar and just drink. 

Stacey (28:51): I know. Talk 

Mark (28:51): About this for hours. 

Speaker 4 (28:53): Got 

Stacey (28:53):
 To get down to South Carolina and just check. Hey, 

Mark (28:55):
 Real quick. There you go. Have you ever worked on a really high profile case that you can share with us? 

Brad Beeler (29:00): 

[00:29:00] Yeah, I've been blessed. A lot of 'em would be cases that you're not going to see. Maybe on Nancy Grace, I would say I was blessed with my partner, Eby Porus. We did one of the last polygraphs on the Adam Walsh disappearance case. Oh, wow. We've always had a connection since 1994 with ncmec, and obviously out of that tragedy in 1981 with Adam Walsh disappearing. It was one of those situations where we got involved and [00:29:30] we're able to clear somebody, and they ultimately closed out the case with O'Toole being the killer. So as far as being read into those big cases, but some of the biggest cases you work are the ones that don't get any media attention, if you know what I mean. I got it. 

Stacey (29:47):
 That's awesome. Keep on doing it, keep on you on doing. Thank you for what you're doing. 

Mark (29:50):
 Thank you very much. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing the book come out. Thank you. Alrighty. 

Be well a day. 

Stacey (29:55): Have a great night. 

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Yes, sir. Thank you. Take 

Stacey (29:56): 

Your tie off now. You Thank you guys for [00:30:00] watching. We'll see you soon. You're still here. You're still listening. Thanks for listening to the Gurus and Game Changers podcast. While you're here, if you enjoyed it, please take a minute to rate this episode and leave us a quick review. We want to know what you thought of the show and what you took from it and how it might've helped you. We read and appreciate every comment. Thanks. See you next week.