Poker tells made Zachary Elwood's name, then made him a skeptic of his own industry. Zachary Elwood, host of the People Who Read People podcast and author of the Reading Poker Tells trilogy.

Join us as dig into what years of high stakes poker actually proved about deception, why most popular body language advice collapses under scrutiny, and how a game with instant feedback taught him to distrust claims the rest of the field still sells as fact.

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Music by Robert John Collins

#Zacharyelwood #podcast #readingpeople

Cains Jawbone is a 1934 literary puzzle by Edward Powys Mathers, pen name Torquemada. 100 pages of dense prose, six murders, six murderers, printed deliberately out of order with no map, no key, and no instructions. The number of possible arrangements is 9.3 followed by 157 zeros. Only four people in history have solved it correctly.

This is Episode 1. I'm a licensed private investigator, trained mentalist, and memory competitor, and I'm treating this exactly like a criminal investigation: evidence gathered, weighted, corroborated, and tested before any conclusion gets made. No guessing. No rushing to a solution that feels right. Every connection has to be earned.

We start here. With method. With one page. With the question of who is actually speaking.
Follow along. This is going to take a while.

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#CainsJawbone #Torquemada #truecrimepodcast #investigations
00:00 Introduction
01:24 Introduction to the jawbone
27:32 Technical aspects of puzzle solving
33:18 The studio solving room
47:07 Closing

Trust is not something you give. It is something that gets taken, using documented mechanisms, before you have processed a single piece of evidence. Ben Cardall and Bob Pointer map the full architecture of manufactured likeability: the Halo Effect, affinity bias, the chameleon effect, the Liking Principle, and the mere exposure effect. Then they show you how to audit your own responses and spot engineered rapport in real interactions.

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#criticalthinking #interviewing #trust

Music provided by https://robertjohncollinsmusic.com/`

Lie detection has been the wrong goal all along. Mark Anderson spent decades in law enforcement, and his conclusion is blunt: the mindset you carry into an interview matters more than any signal you think you're reading off someone's face.
In this episode:

Why curiosity over certainty is an operational principle, not a motivational slogan, and what it actually changes in practice

The lie detection problem: why watching for behavioural signals produces confirmation bias rather than accurate reads

How behavioural observation functions as question fuel rather than a truth-or-deception verdict, and why that distinction matters operationally

The power and control dynamic in investigative interviews, and why maintaining control by giving it up is the move most interviewers won't make

Bob Pointer on talking to the mask: why addressing who the person wants to be seen as is more productive than trying to strip it away

System 1 vs System 2 thinking in the interview room, and how pressure to act on instinct produces the worst outcomes at the highest stakes

Why red-teaming your own interview mindset reduces confirmation bias more reliably than technique training alone

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#criticalthinking #interviewing #markanderson

Music provided by https://robertjohncollinsmusic.com/`

Most people think critical thinking means finding the right answer faster. Kent Axell has spent a career proving it means knowing exactly which doors you're closing behind yourself, and why that distinction changes everything from a Las Vegas stage to a jury room.
In this episode:

Why magicians develop critical thinking skills that investigators and analysts rarely get trained in

The assumption gradient: where useful belief ends and self-deception begins

Why "I don't know" is a more powerful position than certainty, and how the skeptic community gets this wrong

Disclaimers in mentalism, what they actually communicate, and why technically honest is still functionally deceptive

The Chris Voss story: what happened when a master negotiator watched a mentalism show and still ended up in the wrong box

Why "body language" as a term sets people up to believe in something that does not work the way they think

Vincent Denault's research on how public misconceptions about behavioural reading are actively influencing police training, jury evaluation, and interrogation

If the gap between what people believe they can read and what the evidence actually supports concerns you, this episode goes there.

Kent is at @kenttalksmagic on youtube
@kentaxell on instagram
Ghost stories is at https://www.1923lv.com/ghost-stories-show-las-vegas-with-kent-axell/

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#criticalthinking #kentaxell #magic

Music provided by https://robertjohncollinsmusic.com/`

Pete Rushmore built a business, hit the metrics that were supposed to mean something, and felt nothing. Not because he failed. Because the vision he was chasing was answering a question he'd never actually asked.

This episode follows the performance trifecta he developed out of that realisation: direction, skills, energy, and why energy is the foundation even though it's the last thing anyone looks at.

Motivational mapping, self-determination theory, the gap between what people say drives them and what actually does. Bob and Ben both have opinions. Pete handles them graciously.

https://www.omniscient-insights.com/rls-program - FIRST MONTH FREE

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Music provided by https://robertjohncollinsmusic.com/`

#criticalthinking #sherlockholmes #reasoning

Desmond Morris spent 98 years watching humans the way scientists watch animals. No assumptions. No sentiment. Just systematic field observation turned into a working method.

If you have ever read a room, clocked a liar, or known something was wrong before you could explain why, some version of Morris is in that skill. You just never knew his name.

In this episode, Ben and Bob Pointer break down the man, the method, and the books that changed how serious practitioners read people.

You will learn:

Why The Naked Ape was banned, bought by 12 million people, and still more relevant than anything published this decade

What ethogram methodology is and why it produces more reliable reads than any checklist-based system

What The Human Zoo got right about behaviour under pressure that investigators still rely on today

How Morris distinguished incidental movement from deliberate gesture, and why that single distinction will change how you observe

What Manwatching gives you that no body language course ever will

Why proximity and touch, mapped by Morris in Intimate Behaviour, remain two of the most underused intelligence streams in modern practice

98 years of watching. This episode is the debrief.

Subscribe for weekly episodes applying the Sherlock Holmes method to real human behaviour. Podcast available on all major platforms.

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Music provided by https://robertjohncollinsmusic.com/`

#criticalthinking #sherlockholmes #reasoning

221A was the case so far. The evidence reviewed. The record examined.
221B is the next chapter. And if you have been listening, you already know the case is getting bigger.

In this solo episode, Ben maps the forward trajectory of The Deductionist. Not predictions. Not promises. A reasoned projection based on what the work has shown, what the culture is demanding, and where Holmesian methodology actually needs to go next.

What gets covered:
Where the framework goes when the mainstream finally catches up to what this show has been saying for years
How the methodology evolves when the cases get harder and the observers get better
What is coming for the show, the audience, and the mission
Why the cultural moment this podcast was built for has arrived, and what that means for everyone already in the room

221 episodes in. The work is not done. The interesting part is starting now.

Subscribe for weekly episodes applying the Sherlock Holmes method to real human behaviour.

Podcast available on all major platforms.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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Everything else you need -- https://linktr.ee/bencardall

Music provided by https://robertjohncollinsmusic.com/`

#criticalthinking #sherlockholmes #reasoning