Inside the mind of Elizabeth Holmes: The psychology behind deception and control

And I want to talk about a documentary, one that is certainly getting a lot of attention. Let me play it out for you so you can see what we're talking about here. And then we'll start a discussion with a clinical psychologist all about this. but what did she have to gain from me well isn't your family rich yeah i think that there's like a lot of different levels of wealth this is the documentary you can see everything it's all the buzz right now and if you're planning on seeing it one social media user even suggesting you need to do some research first because going in with context will certainly help you figure out the full experience here either do research on Elizabeth Holmes or Theranos now Elizabeth Holmes is and who is acting right there as her now she is the Theranos founder she's in prison right now but the 39 year old began her more than 11 year prison sentence back in 2023 and she was convicted of milking investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars making false claims about her company's technology. And she's currently in a federal prison in Texas. And, you know, this is a story that had fueled a lot of investors because how does deception happen? And so this documentary takes us inside her final days before prison and the behavior that is revealed about the psychology of deception and extreme pressure. There's a lot to break down here. So I want to bring in a clinical psychologist who can help us understand more on this documentary and how we recognize certain things. And this, we have clinical psychologist, Dr. Jenny Prohaska. I hope I'm saying that right, Dr. Jenny. You are. Okay, wonderful. So you train SWAT teams, first responders as well. You train a lot of people who perform under pressure, which is pretty interesting. Uh, so I think you can really help us break down what's inside her mind in this documentary and what stands out the most to you and how people can relate to it. I would say we never going to really know exactly what's in her mind, right? Um, I get the sense that she's not invested in us knowing exactly what's going on, uh, despite the title of the documentary. So I think that there's that, so we won't ever really know, but, uh, many times when people are really convinced that they have a brilliant idea, there'll be a grain of truth somewhere in that idea that they kind of glom onto and grab onto and can kind of convince themselves that what most of us would consider a lie, they might consider truth. Now, one of the things that stands out is the influence that she had on a lot of people. How does she convince so many investors, people that have gone through experiences, intelligent people, powerful people to believe in her? Well, I will say, I think one of the things that she presents with is a lot of confidence. And just because you're confident doesn't mean you're competent. And so she did have the ability to play that part really well. Based on some things I've seen and kind of other documentaries I've seen on her, it looks like she was very good at studying people and then replicating certain behaviors that she thought were really effective. The other factor we also have to consider is a lot of times, if you have one powerful person around you or endorsing you, people will see that powerful person's judgment as a sign or a vote of confidence even though we should probably make our own vote it seems like she till this day believes she didn't do anything wrong and so when you have someone who psychologically is thinking that they're totally fine and nothing happened and all these people weren't scammed in some way what are the thoughts that are going through their head and is this just a way to convince themselves? I'm trying to understand how this all works. Well, I think it's all a cost-benefit analysis. I think when people have really scammed or defrauded a lot of people, they have an invested interest in believing their original story. At this point, why would she back down from her story? There's a lot to be lost in doing that. So I think we just have to look at the cost-benefit analysis. Sometimes when people are so committed, they don't see any benefit in backing off of it. Is there an actual term that a psychologist or anyone can use to narrow down someone who may be believing their own lies, their own tactics of manipulation? I wish that was so simple. I would say no. And we have to be really careful not to diagnose anybody who's never treated or anything like that. But backing away from the clinical things, I think one of the things I'll point out with her is that it seems like her identity was always very fluid. And when people have very fluid identities, they can move in between characters pretty quickly. And I think that you're seeing that even from when she used to wear that black turtleneck, a lot of like Steve Jobs influences. Now too, in this documentary, she looks totally different, neutral colors, hair down. She's definitely able to be fluid with her identity. She may not have that kind of concreteness that some of us have when we go through life and get to adulthood. Is there something that we can understand about people who double down on their decisions instead of just admitting they're wrong? Is it worth the argument? Honestly, why do we need to hear that they are admitting they're wrong? We have to kind of stop and check ourselves because we can't control other people as much as we wish we could. We can only control ourselves. And sometimes that is even difficult. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Talk to me about any warning signs. Are there any warning signs that anyone can just that stands out when someone's like, am I about to get manipulated into doing something I shouldn't? So I think we are so out of touch with our gut and our intuition. And I think most people, one of the reasons they're kind of drawn to and attracted to watching Elizabeth Holmes is because she gives people kind of a off center or off kilter feeling. And that off kilter feeling, I think is a gut check that we don't really label as such. And so whenever you're around people that are giving you that kind of off kilter, off center feeling, it's a great time to stop and just question, why am I thinking what I'm thinking? And what evidence do I have for the beliefs I have about this person? Dr. Jenny, for someone who trains SWAT teams and a lot of high pressure jobs, what are the most important factors you tell anyone when it comes to training and how they can deal with high pressure or just really all of this, any of this? Sure. I always say like self-awareness is your foundation for everything. You need to know yourself really well. You need to know why you think what you think, why you feel what you feel, and those make it much easier to control. The more awareness you have about yourself, the more you can regulate yourself. And then you can also spend a lot of time kind of figuring out, hey, what's important to me in my life? And that helps make stress way more tolerable. If you have a why for why you're undergoing a significant amount of stress, that's pretty helpful. Yeah. You know, it's always good to understand why, and then we break it down from there. Dr. Jenny, how can people find you and follow you just to get the advice that they might need? Sure. Absolutely. Uh, so I'm definitely on all the meta platforms and also LinkedIn, um, Dr. Jenny Prohaska, and then also tacticallongevity.com. Awesome. We, uh, we got to stay in touch. I certainly think you have a pretty interesting title. Uh, we've had a clinical psychologist on the show, uh, before, but one that trained SWAT teams and such. I'm sure, I'm sure we have a lot more to break down. So, uh, hopefully you stay in touch with us. I hope so too. It's a great job.