Stop Being A Doormat: Build Authority In Dating & Business | Evy Poumpouras

Nov 26, 2025

Evy Poumpouras, a former Secret Service agent and expert in influence and protection strategies, shares her insights on building authority and reclaiming control after trauma. She discusses subtle ways to assert dominance without aggression, like using directive phrasing. Evy emphasizes offering small choices to foster compliance and warns against projecting past relationship trauma onto new partners. She also highlights the importance of practicing conditional trust to avoid betrayal, advocating for a balanced and cautious approach to relationships.

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ADVICE

Plant Authority With Subtle Commands

Use subtle commands when greeting to plant authority without aggression.
Say, "Why don't you go use the bathroom" instead of asking, to guide behavior confidently.

ADVICE

Use Autonomy To Build Cooperation

Give people small choices to create a sense of autonomy before pushing sensitive topics.
Let them pick a seat or meeting time so they feel control and will be more receptive later.

ADVICE

Don't Project Past Trauma Onto New People

Don't punish an innocent new partner for past abuse; avoid projecting trauma onto them.
Treat each person as separate so you can truly connect and not recreate past harm.

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"I'm planting these little seeds, telling you I'm in control. I'm not telling you, but I'm doing it subtly." - Evy Poumpouras

Evy Poumpouras spent years mastering the psychology of influence and control as a Secret Service agent and interrogator. In this conversation, she speaks of techniques that sound almost too simple to work, but they do. When she walks you through how to greet someone with subtle commands instead of questions, how to give someone autonomy in small ways so you can push them on bigger things later, how to plant seeds that say "I'm in charge here" without ever speaking those words directly, you realize these aren't manipulation tactics. They're protection strategies. She talks about dating after abuse with the kind of honesty that cuts through all the self-help noise. If you've been a doormat, if someone walked all over your boundaries, the instinct is to either shut down completely or come out swinging. Evy offers a third path, one where you rebuild authority without taking your trauma out on innocent people.

The conversation shifts into something even more valuable when she explains the difference between conditional and unconditional trust. Most of us hand out trust like candy because it's easier, because it means we can turn our brains off and just believe people. But that's exactly why betrayal destroys us. Evy explains that law enforcement officers assume everyone is lying because they deal with liars all day, while average people assume everyone is honest. Neither extreme works. What does work is conditional trust, where you protect yourself by trusting someone in stages, in pieces, watching how they handle small things before you give them access to bigger things. It's more work, yes. It requires staying alert, keeping that more complex part of your brain engaged. But it's the difference between building something real and getting shattered when someone you trusted completely shows you who they really are. This is practical psychology you can use today, whether you're sitting across from someone in a job interview, on a first date, or trying to figure out if someone in your life deserves more access to your heart.

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