**Gavin de Becker** (0:00)
I have inside information on Jeffrey Epstein and why the US government is reluctant to be more transparent. And I know this because when I was working in government, meetings were not how shall we tell the public, but what shall we tell the public. So often the best we can get in our skepticism is to know that we are not being told the truth.
**Steven Bartlett** (0:18)
I think people need to know the truth.
**Gavin de Becker** (0:20)
So put on your seatbelt, I'm gonna tell you everything. And all senior people in the US government know everything that you and I have discussed here today.
**Steven Bartlett** (0:27)
So you've been behind the scenes with some of the most successful, richest, most powerful people on planet Earth, but what is it you do, Gavin?
**Gavin de Becker** (0:33)
So I do protective coverage, you know, any of the ways that wealthy or prominent people might be targeted. For example, the Saudi Arabian government obtained a system which can get into your phone, used it on Jeff Bezos. So our work was to figure out how it happened.
**Steven Bartlett** (0:47)
Why would a government want to hack the founder of Amazon's phone?
**Gavin de Becker** (0:51)
So I'll tell you in a second, but we're all not as careful as we could be in terms of what we say, what we text, and there is absolutely no protection viable for the confidentiality of your phone. Do you have any skepticism about that?
**Steven Bartlett** (1:04)
I just have a lot of ignorance to how this whole world works.
**Gavin de Becker** (1:07)
Lucky you, but all power centers in human history lie. There are some examples of this where we'll start telling the truth about something. But years later, things like cancer causing asbestos and baby powder, 100,000 people dying from heart attacks from opioids, and we'll see it with mass vaccination.
**Steven Bartlett** (1:21)
So what advice would you give about how to navigate in the world we're living in today to avoid risk, threat?
**Gavin de Becker** (1:27)
I've got some core truths. So first of all.
**Steven Bartlett** (1:32)
Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins. 69% of you that listen to the show frequently haven't yet hit the follow button. And that follow button is very smart because it means you won't miss the best episodes. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also the fact that I think what 41% of you have chosen to follow the show, that listen to it regularly, is the reason why we've been able to improve everything. It's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make the show better. I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much.
Gavin, we have a mutual friend and that mutual friend actually sent me a voice note late last night. Here is what the voice note says.
**Tony Robbins** (2:30)
I'm calling it this crazy hour as I found out that you're interviewing a dear friend of mine, Gavin de Becker, I think in two days, I think on the 13th. He is an extraordinary human being, extraordinary soul. He comes from a very tough background. But what he's done to move from that background to becoming probably the single greatest security expert in the world, he designed the systems that are used to protect the Supreme Court. I've met him decades ago and there was a threat happening to a former girlfriend of mine. And then I was getting threatening letters and he deciphered the letters in microseconds, got the FBI involved and put a stop to it all. It was extraordinary what he did.
**Steven Bartlett** (3:12)
That was Tony Robbins for anyone that didn't recognize the voice. It would be crazy if someone didn't. But it got me incredibly, incredibly curious because he said lots of things there that I found fascinating. The first one I'm going to start with is he described you helping him with a personal situation in his life. And I guess this begets the question, what is it you do for people like Tony Robbins? What is it you do for famous people, for world leaders? What is it you do, Gavin?
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