How To Negotiate: Tips from a Former FBI Hostage Negotiator (w/ Chris Voss)

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2:30Haley: That's 50 % off your first year. Just go to monarch.com with code TRADING. I became an FBI agent and it was the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator. Kidnappings, ransoms, lures. So you got a new job and the employer asked for your salary number first. What should you say? Seems like you have a range in mind. Oh, that's fire. I ask for what I want. If I ask for more than what I wanted, there's deception involved. And I want you to know that when I ask for something, I actually mean it. Yeah. This is Financial Tea. What's up, Sippers? Welcome back to Financial Tea. This is a podcast where I teach you how to build wealth with a side of market drama, money scandals, and of course, financial pop culture.

3:23Haley: And if I seem, you know, maybe a little on my toes today, it is because I am sitting next to our guest, the former FBI hostage negotiator, Chris Voss. Chris worked as an FBI hostage negotiator for 24 years before coming a CEO and a bestselling author. His book, Never Split the Difference, has sold over 5 million copies. I think that I bought at least a million of them because I give it to everyone I know. It's really an amazing book on negotiation. And he then sort of pivoted his career to adapt these negotiating techniques for the business world. And so that's why I'm so excited to have you here because obviously getting rich is so much about asking for more.

4:12Haley: And so that's something you're really good at. And I can't wait for your advice. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me back. Just to walk it back, though, because I'm a Chris Voss nerd. I know your work very well. But for listeners who aren't familiar with your crazy life and all of the things that you've done, could you introduce yourself to us and sort of explain your career path? And, you know, hopefully we get to hear some of your cool stories, too. All right. I'm a simple, uncomplicated guy that grew up in a small town in Iowa. I became an FBI agent, and was the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator, which is, for lack of a better term, kidnap negotiations are buy-side negotiations.

5:02And in every negotiation, there's a buyer and there's a seller. Domestic U.S. hostage negotiations are sell-side. Hostage negotiator in New York City, FBI or otherwise, are the ultimate cold-calling salesmen. Kidnappings, ransoms, lures, complicated legalistic ideas. But I did both buy-side and sell-side negotiations under the most extreme circumstances and came to realize that humans react the same under all circumstances no matter how much the pressure is.

5:38Haley: What is the most intense or high-stakes negotiation you've ever been part of?

5:46Well, there have been lots of them. One that I was actually thinking about a lot this morning was hostage negotiation, Burnham-Some-Barrell case. 9-11 happened in the midst of that negotiation.

6:01Haley: Whoa. And so most of the FBI is wrapped up in responding. And I'm in D.C., so the Pentagon got hit. And thinking about the anniversary and everything that happened in that. And so I'm in the midst of a kidnapping of people getting killed in the Philippines. People have been getting killed. An American had already been murdered once. And there were a bunch of hostages. So that was 13-month painful. It's very selfish for me to say it was painful for me. because no member of my family got killed. But it was tough. There was a lot going on. And then suddenly it was tough getting resources to support them.

6:44Got them, fortunately. My whole time in the Bureau working kidnappings, I was lucky enough to be supported all the way up the chain of command, like all the way up to the director, full and complete support. support, they were mission-oriented, which means you need us to support you financially. You're going to get the resources you need to attack the case. And I was lucky the whole time to have complete support all the way up the chain of command. So that ended up, Martin Burnham was killed by friendly fire. At the end of that case, his wife, Gratia, was wounded but lived.

7:22Haley: Wow. That's really intense. And it is very important, like right now, thinking about that anniversary, to think about those times. I can't imagine being in the Bureau during that. You got all this experience in the real field doing these high-intensity negotiations, and now you help people with business. And so what do you see when you talk to people who are trying to use your tips in the workplace? What causes them to mess up negotiations the most? You kind of get caught up in your story. A quote I've repeated a thousand times these days. Robert Evans, famous Hollywood executive, did The Godfather, Love Story, a bunch of other stuff.

8:03Used to say there's three sides to every story, my side, your side, and the truth.

8:07Haley: Yeah. And so to negotiate effectively, you've got to negotiate through the other side's story. And you've got to genuinely, continually show an appreciation for that. And if you haven't started on that from the very beginning, you can't pivot to it in the middle. you're caught up in your story and especially under pressure people get so caught up in their story and so getting people to make the pivot it's very uncomfortable from the beginning because the other side story contains bad stuff about you wow that's so interesting and then to proactively address it if you've never done it is so uncomfortable and i'm i'm coaching a negotiation recently guy brings me in at the very end just as it's falling apart and because he's convincing the whole time selling his story telling his side of the story selling his version focusing on his story so I want him I counsel him to do completely opposite and send a one line response in an email which is to say to the other side clearly I've disappointed you

9:24because the last email he got was the other side saying goodbye.

9:28Haley: Whoa, that is a crazy chess move. But in point of fact, I assessed the other side of being genuine from the beginning. So if they were genuine from the beginning and they get to the point where they're saying goodbye, they are in fact disappointed. Yeah, because they wanted it to work. They wanted it to work. Now, they may not blame you, but you've got to dig out at some level they do. Yeah. Deep down inside. A failed negotiation, the other side is always going to feel disappointed in you. And the perfect response to that, to dig it out, to recognize it, to show yourself as being fearless, is to simply say, clearly I've disappointed you.

10:14Now, the next two moves are critical. You never think more than three moves in advance in a negotiation. Anything more than that is a waste of time. How do they respond to that? They're either going to correct you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Which now, if somebody corrects you, you're now back to being collaborative. Nobody realizes that. But as soon as I get you to correct me, we are now collaborating. You're no longer saying goodbye. You're now collaborating, mentoring me. We're out of the goodbye mode. so ideally I'm wrong and you're going to correct me now if I'm not wrong and you're deeply disappointed in me and I say that the other positive reaction is oh my god that's so true that I'm you know I'm almost embarrassed to admit that that's true but you hit the bullseye yeah now with that it's disarming it's disarming you've hit another

11:13Haley: neuromechanism that's to your advantage yeah one of your best known questions in a negotiation is how am i supposed to do that yeah so what has to happen before you use that so it opens up the deal more instead of sounding combative because i think you could say that in sort of a bitchy way i could be like how am I supposed to do that? Yeah, exactly. There has to have been an attempt at collaboration to start with for that to be as effective as it can be. We struggle with that internally in a company because it's the first line in the book, basically. It's the first lesson you learn. It's insanely effective.

12:00Like eight out of 10 times, there's 180 degree turn to the negotiation. even as your first response to the other side's offer. You know, your landscaper says, you know, it's going to cost you$400 a month. And you say, how am I supposed to do that? And the landscaper says, okay, I have$300 a month.

12:15Haley: Yeah. And so you get addicted to it. And that's why so many people have picked it up. It's a little unfair. But two out of ten times, there's a complete backfire. So how am I supposed to do that is really about triggering collaboration. It's about triggering information. It's about if you're genuinely saying to the other side, I'd love to do it, but what you've asked of me is impossible, and I need you to see that. My son Brandon used to call it forced empathy, forcing the other side to look at your situation. and so forcing the other side to see you through an empathic lens is transformative for them and the situation eight out of ten times roughly now two out of ten it gets slammed right back in your face and people are shocked like i don't care what happens to you i don't care if you lose your job i don't care you know you get fired you know i don't care what What happens to you?

13:20You're going to make this deal. Well, that data is one of two things is happening on the other side. The other side is under intense pressure or they're victimizing you. So your counterpart reacting negatively is either under a lot of pressure or they're predatory. You need to know which one it is. So if they start screaming at you in the moment, if they're really under pressure, the appropriate response is, sounds like you're under a lot of pressure.

13:48Haley: oh my gosh so much of it is just saying the thing naming what's happening instead of having your guard up so much right now they'll react though with relief instantly if they're under genuine pressure yeah they'll appreciate that you'll make the deal if they if they if they shrug it off like now it's predatory now you know who you're dealing with and my person packed into to a corner trying to collaborate. I can make this deal. Predator is always going to be a predator. Do you want that partner? Looking to strengthen your health and well-being? Tune in to The Dr. Tina Show, one of Apple Podcast's top alternative health shows.

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15:24Haley: So I want to take a step back because part of your negotiation strategy is first perceiving the other side and understanding like where they're coming from. The two situations that I really want to talk to you about are negotiating salary and then also negotiating with a spouse about money. Perfect. And so how are you supposed to do that due diligence to understand if it's even worth negotiating with this person? Because, you know, I often give people the recommendation with a job, sometimes you've got to walk away. or with yesterday I was talking to a woman who had a nine-figure trust fund and she was negotiating a prenup and the guy that she was negotiating the prenup with wanted you know finders fees on any on any investments that he brought her he wanted her to pay for their lifestyle he didn't want to share any of his earnings if if they broke up but he wanted some of her money and it was to me in that moment I was like is this even someone worth negotiating with because it seems like he's not even worth the time you know he's already showing you his cards so how can you do that diligence um gut instinct which is you gotta does the other person want a long-term trusted a relationship with you?

16:55Are they willing to collaborate? What's your gut tell you? And your gut versus your heart versus your head. In a romantic relationship, what do you wish? How should they be? What's your gut telling you? The problem is people are given the benefit of the doubt when their instinct is hitting the alarm bells because your heart's in the right place. you you want to be given the benefit of the doubt therefore you want to give the other person the benefit of the doubt and while that's good to protect your heart uh you know the hope-based strategy hope is a drug hope is not a strategy hope is hopium hopium so you got to be you got to be cautious is is hope for the way things should be overruling the data you're getting back yeah so romantic relationships somebody that has put all those caveats in is not on your side exactly and i would tell people if if your employer is not on your side if your romantic partner is not on your side move on yeah it's hard but you the the right person is waiting for

18:09Haley: you around the corner the abundance mindset the right job is waiting for you around the corner I remember I was approached a girl, a female in my class at USC. You know, I'm trying to get a raise from an employer who's renowned for paying women less. You know, how do I get a raise out of this guy? And I said, I'm going to talk to you like I was your dad. Get another job. Yeah. Move on. I wouldn't want you to stay in a relationship with a man who treated you like that. Yeah. And the employer should be no different. so trigger back to the question you know how do i negotiate uh how does your diligence before your gut instinct you know what's their reputation what are you seeing what are you seeing them and i had a female friend of mine tell me probably about four or five years ago that one employer was like yeah i love i love hiring women because they work harder than men do and you can pay them less oh my gosh I thought all right well you know at least it's honest probably true yeah because women are struggling so hard in a workforce that they will probably knock themselves out more than men and probably take less money and so if you're total sociopath that's probably not a bad strategy if you're a sociopath now you're going to go out of business eventually you're going to get sued The social path is destined for demise.

19:39But in the short term, it might not be a bad strategy. I'm a long-term guy, so I would never counsel that because you're going to go down the tubes with that sort of value.

19:50Haley: So if you're negotiating your salary, say you've got a new job, and the employer asks for your salary number first, how much do you want to be paid, what should you say? Seems like you have a range in mind. Ooh, that's fire. Yeah, because they do. Okay. And you've got to know what their range is. Now, there's a real issue. There's differences between how much is this job worth based on everything that goes with salary versus what's the salary number for the job market and how accurate is that? You've got to find out what's in the other side's head. They have a range. Their range may be constrained, either artificially or by real constraints.

20:37Let's say they can't pay you what the job market is worth. But the opportunity for growth exceeds everything else.

20:46Haley: Yeah. Or the fringe benefits, the travel. Who are you going to see? What are you going to get exposed to? I love it. so something that I deal with a lot as Mrs. Dow Jones is I speak to young people and they just feel really pessimistic about the current job market and they sort of feel like they should just take whatever they can get and are hesitant to negotiate because there's so much scarcity and opportunity and so they sort of are just like okay whatever I need a job so I'm going to take this one even though the terms are not what I would like what advice would you give them You know, I got to tell you, the employees see the job market vastly differently than the employees' perspective are.

21:33You know, I hear over and over again, you know, there's a scarcity of jobs, there's a scarcity of jobs. I find there to be a scarcity of championship players. Ooh! Like if it's be obsessed or Grant Cardone, one of his lines, be obsessed or be mediocre. If you're mediocre, yeah, you're having trouble finding a job. I'm not looking for mediocre people.

21:58Haley: No. I'm having trouble finding people who genuinely want to be obsessed, genuinely want to be a championship player. I don't care if you have no experience and no education, if you're obsessed and you want to be a championship player, if you have initiative. Like, I'm having trouble finding those people. and I run across anybody that wants to learn, grow, and coach and take initiative, I'm hiring them. So negotiation, I feel like often carries sort of a double standard, especially with men and women, because tactics that make men look assertive on women can sometimes be labeled aggressive or difficult and so how does tactical empathy level the playing field against that gender bias in the workplace because I think for women it holds us back a little that we're worried of being seen that way and so we just try and be nice and not cause ruffle any feathers well um we just decided uh my head of coaching Derek Gaunt and I we've always had nine skills but what is a ninth skill and we just finally landed on tone tone and that's what makes you look like a jerk or not not what you said but how you said it and if if you if you can master tone you'll be shocked at what you can get away with shocked shocked um i could say all right so when i said that before you thought i was lying That's an attacking tone of voice.

23:40Haley: Yes. Or I could say, so when I said that before, you thought it was lying? That's going to land. Yeah. I always say to people, grr gets grr. Well said. I love that. If you reflect grr out, that's what you're going to get in. Yeah. Yeah. So with your tonality, like the masters of negotiation really start with great tone. and curiosity uh i'll give you another example jonathan smith our us coach is also a negotiation coach and there are three kind of yeses commitment confirmation counterfeit and if somebody gives jonathan a counterfeit yes he'll go like that's not like a counterfeit yes which is you're a liar it lands every time yeah they go like ah yeah you got me yeah you know it's it was it's all tone the world sort of expects men to be jerks and so well he's he's not a jerk he's just aggressive and but a woman gets labeled with a different term and gets written off because of it so nobody should have a bad tone women get punished more for bad negotiation than men do Thousand percent agree.

25:00Haley: Yes. I don't coach bad negotiations, so that's not my problem. I'm going to coach you up to negotiate harder than anybody else. But, yeah, there's nothing wrong with being hard and nice at the same time. An iron fist inside a velvet glove. You need that velvet glove. Something I often tell people who are intimidated by negotiating, I say two things. First of all, and I want to know your feedback on it because maybe I'm giving bad advice. I like everything you've said so far, so I'm looking forward to this. Okay, good. Well, maybe you'll like this. So first of all, I say, so I'm an employer too, and I say that you should always negotiate as an employer, like as someone sitting on the other side of the table, it's a red flag if you don't, which I think if you are someone who's anxious about negotiating a salary, it's a good thing to keep in mind that it's actually the right answer.

25:53Haley: like you're you have to negotiate it's that makes you look like a more valuable employee and it's something that is expected it makes you look like a great ambassador when you can stand up for yourself yes and you know how to play the game so that's one thing i always say then the other thing that i say to people who really don't want to negotiate and are like you know it's just not in their wheelhouse the salary thing is i say every negotiation just think about it they are going to go back and forth three times yeah that's that's a good rule like like like going high they're going to come back come in a little bit lower they're going to come back then usually you can accept i mean obviously it's not always that clean but it's sort of it's nice to have like a little framework because it takes the air out of it if you're someone who's got scared about negotiating right yeah yeah yeah no it's pretty close i mean and then also in your assessment from the very beginning.

26:48You've got to assess whether or not you've got those three moves.

26:51Haley: Okay. What are the three moves? Well, you said back and forth three times. Oh, yeah, yeah, three moves. Okay, sorry. You need to have some sort of an assessment early on. Have they outlined quite clearly the salary is not negotiable? And then how do you probe that? So you say, sounds like the salary is not negotiable. What you're doing is you're showing that you're listening and paying attention. Yeah. Now, their reaction to that is going to tell you whether or not it is. If they come direct back, then it's not. Yeah. And so you do diligence. You found out whether or not that was an immovable term.

27:28Now, if they hem and haw in any way, shape, or form, then there's room. Now, why am I saying this? When I was an adjunct professor at Georgetown and at USC, an adjunct anywhere. salary is not negotiable yeah it is what it is yeah you need a little bit of a track record of the industry as an adjunct professor at a university your salary is not negotiable so if you want to negotiate on something that quite clearly isn't you're inviting them to withdraw so you need to have gone you need you got to probe a little bit up front and if it's not negotiable there are other things is the job worth it yeah but getting back to your original point 80 of the time it is so you should just based on sheer numbers you should walk in prepared

28:18Haley: to negotiate the salary and what about if they give you a salary package where it's like you know equity and you know things like that but not actually the cash that you need yeah well it delves into details isn't it yeah it is how easily how easily are those things pulled away from you There are a lot of people that are playing games with those details. I know. I see this all the time. And so I get consulting agreements with a lot of those details. Run it through Claude. You know, run it through your AI and see, especially complicated. I got an eight-page consulting agreement sent my way the other day because they're used to these eight-page agreements that have all these details that make the terms never are going to be implemented.

29:12And so they don't know any better. This is how it is in our world. This is what I'm going to give you. And I said no. I ran it through Claude. Claude pointed out all the inconsistencies and why none of this would ever happen. And I just showstopper, no. No, I'm done. So if they want to give you, they don't want to give you a salary, but they want to give you a complicated job proposal, the more complicated it is, the more likely it is so they don't pay.

29:41Haley: I 100 % agree. Which then means you don't want to work there. Yeah. Because these are people that deceive. Yes. And we didn't lie, but we, and we know we got that impression. there's a lot of that out there and a lot of people think it's okay fine I just don't want to have anything to do with those people yeah we had the former CEO of Goldman Sachs on the podcast Lloyd Blank fine and something that stuck with me about how they compensate their employees is it's like if they win all everyone wins you know like it's everyone has a piece of the pie and it feels really fair. You know, like it feels like no one's trying to deceive anyone.

30:26Haley: It's like we're all on a team together and we're all going to get a piece of that, of those winnings. You mentioned AI and technology has obviously really changed the game. And how can we use it to be better at negotiating? Like, should we have it do our resumes? Should we practice with it as a bot? What are your AI hacks for negotiating? You got to, you got to train your AI to negotiate with real good negotiation. and actually AI is not that great at negotiation. It's great at assessing a legal document for issues. Most AI is written by people who are not good negotiators. What's the programming?

31:04Yeah. They weren't that good at negotiation and they think being the more loquacious you are, the better negotiator you are. Not true. Yeah. So we use AI in a lot of our assessment, but we re-educate it with our stuff. and you can train you can train i use we use claude we use perplexity we're using multiple because they're all better at different things for different reasons you got to train your ai just like you got to train any employee but it's default negotiating stance is highly flawed and so a lot of people are feeding their claude my stuff now that ain't bad but it's only as good as it was when it was written.

31:51The emphasis on genuine gratitude and a bunch of other things, we discover new stuff constantly. What does that mean? You educated your Claude on something I wrote a year ago. It's already outmoded. Now, it's better than the year before. You need live negotiation training to be up to speed in the moment. Now, you're going to do better by using your Claude and your perplexity to help you negotiate. you will do better than unassisted so it's a good idea to start it'll get you to be a b player if you're a c player already all right so that's an improvement if you're a d player if you're an f player if you're an f player being a c player is pretty good yeah you will never be an a player in negotiation based solely on your ai yeah you'll be better you'll never be the best

32:44Haley: and how do you become the best because you say it's a skill you really have to use it all the time like it's like you know being an athlete you need to practice you got to practice it I mean this this is going to be completely self-centered you're not going to be the best if you're not learning from me and my team yeah we're we're obsessed with it like there's a lot of business practices that we're not great at a lot because we're so obsessed with negotiation. And we were talking earlier, we're coming up with a series of certifications and skill testings. Like we're evolving that as we go. Yeah.

33:24So you got to be around people who want to get better at negotiation. And then you got to practice that. I take my salespeople to the grocery store to have them engage with the person, the cashier. Why? Why? Because the cashier ain't trying to talk to you. Most negotiators are not trying to talk to you. They're trying to get to where they want to go. How do you get the person who's not trying to talk to you to open up and start telling you stuff about themselves that they haven't told anybody else? Cashiers in a grocery store is a great practice spot. I go, come on, we're going on a field trip, and we're going to go find some weird vegetable, and nobody knows what it is.

34:06You're going to get directions, and then you're going to get the cashier in the checkout line that's crowded to explain to you who they really are in less than three minutes. But what am I saying? You've got to practice. You've got to be around people that love communication.

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35:24Haley: So we're talking a little bit about your fiancé, Wendy. Yes. And, you know, a lot of people watching are in relationships, too. and one of the hardest things in relationships to talk about is money. And it's also the number one reason that people get divorced. And so how should we go about having those difficult money conversations with a partner or, you know, with family? A lot of people have aging parents they've never talked to about their finances and they really want to know what's going under the hood, but they don't even know where to start it. So how do you approach interpersonal negotiations where a lot more than money is on the line?

35:59Haley: There's also, you know, your actual relationship. So it's two things. It's actually listening to your gut and then what do you say, what your gut instinct is telling you. And remember, by definition, if we're flawed humans, the longer you've been in a relationship, the more likely you've wounded the other person you don't even know. Yeah. So they're going to be mad at you for wounding them and they're also going to be mad at you for not knowing it. That's eminently predictable. So how do you deal with that up front? You probably say some of the effect of, I don't know why, but there's no question in my mind that I've hurt you.

36:44Makes me look like an ignorant jerk. I know that that's true. And I'm not necessarily asking you to forgive me, but I'm asking for some guidance. so it just goes with the territory of human beings the longer we've been in a relationship a colleague a spouse a parent we've hurt them we don't even know it and and they don't they don't know it either so the elephant in the room is have i hurt you in the past like i i know i have i just you know i'm an idiot i don't know i know i've disappointed you um and i i know that you're doubly disappointed because i you know i don't know i mean start talking about what's the nature of humanity now if you're getting if you're getting into that your gut is telling you also telling you that they're going to react negatively like you know what they're thinking you want to deny it the two millimeter shift is instead of i don't want you to think this you say I know you think this anything that you want to deny walking into the conversation your gut instinct has done a great job of picking up that it's there so absent any other training understand the two millimeter shift is going from denying to saying I know and it's a classic conversation I don't want you to think that I'm being disrespectful.

38:20Where your gut is picked up that they're going to perceive it as disrespectful.

38:23Haley: Yeah. So the two millimeter shift is, I know that this is going to sound disrespectful. But so much of your advice is about sort of like naming the elephant in the room, like putting yourself in the position of the other person and saying it, which is very disarming. And then sort of makes them feel like, okay we're on the same side but when you're negotiating like a prenup or something like that it's hard to feel like you are on the same side because you feel really protective of your assets right so how can you go about talking about like being like if we were getting a prenup me and you because we're obviously getting married sorry Wendy yeah this is the thing but you know if we are getting a prenup how could I uh talk to you about you know asking for first of all asking for one and then asking for what I want without offending you if I have say I have a lot more money than you don't ambush him with the prenup to start with okay um I think what a lot of what what happens a lot of times in a relationship like the person who needs a prenup is so horrified that they're going to wait till the last minute and then ambush the other person with it and so you got to warn them it's coming and give them enough time to think about it so that then when the time comes they can't claim they were ambushed now then how should you warn them and so you know as as we get into this you know my problem because what's the other side's reaction always going to be well that's your problem yeah it's not my problem it's your problem yeah and so you start off with like this is my problem this is not your problem this is my problem i can't do this without this yeah oh that's so good chris so that's what you say is so sort of obvious but i wouldn't have thought of it like it's not obvious like simple and i'm just like why aren't we all more honest in our communication because it is true it's literally like i can't i really want to do this but i can't if we don't yeah which is true yeah like you're not lying no and uh you you know we love straight shooters we love people who tell us the truth tell us the hard truth but tell us in an emotionally intelligent way yeah so the emotional intelligence here is the other person doesn't feel ambushed so but then should you let it sit like should you let it marinate and then come back with the terms or same day you bring the terms too you know you got i i would read the situation personally like first conversation we're just you know you just asked me to marry you we've never talked about it before yeah let you know let the other person marinate on it for a while it'll give them space so should you say i can't do this if we don't do this i'm gonna give you space i don't think that's a horrible thing to do yeah you know you're getting caught off guard by this you could say this is what you say you're getting caught off guard by this yeah you're gonna need some time to think about this.

41:29There's going to be a lot of reasons why you're going to think it's unfair. So I'm not going to pressure you to make a decision right now. I want you to know that this is what my position is. And then you're going to have to bring it up again at some point in time. But again, give people enough warning. Don't do this day before the wedding. Day of, week of, month of. But people are constantly doing it.

41:50Haley: Oh, 100%. I know somebody, the day walking down the aisle was basically signing the pre-op. Which, by the way, then can't be upheld in court. because you can say that you signed under duress as it should not be 100 i completely agree so it but you're not doing anybody a favor to plant seeds for discord on your side or on their side and if what's the right when's the right time to out like to plant the seed like it's you know in my head i was thinking okay you should ask them to dinner or like on a walk or something to talk about it but it sounds like a really short conversation so it should be like you're both going to work and you say well no a walk isn't a bad time because walking is a great time to process information yeah i love walking um if i if i got a hard conversation i gotta have with an employee like we go for a walk yeah because you process information better while walking yeah so i would distinguish that from going to dinner or any other time you know going to dinner is off in a disguise i'm gonna put you in a public scenario where you're being held hostage and you can't get upset because we're in a restaurant yeah like somebody getting fired in a restaurant so i you know i wouldn't i wouldn't counsel breaking bread is the bond with people so i wouldn't counsel doing that over a meal um i would you know early in the day when people have more gas in a tank they're less likely to be have overcome by the negativity of the day giving somebody enough space to think about it now how you calculate that a walk earlier in the day possibly have something positive already scheduled for later in the day yeah you know put it in context so you want it to land in a way that the other person feels respected and then what do you do next like and like at what point should you get a lawyer and like should that be something that you talk about with the person like you say okay i'm gonna give you time to let it marinate what if they don't ever bring it up again how do you bring it well they're not gonna bring it they're not gonna bring it up again if you're the one who's seeking a prenup yeah so how do you bring it up again i gotta talk about this i'm sorry yeah on another walk yeah now they know don't gonna walk with chris now now we got to grapple now we got to grapple yeah Yeah.

44:09Haley: And I do recommend going like figuring out the terms together and then getting a lawyer to make it happen. The sooner you can get some sort of legal advice for a deal that is not going to seem vindictive or punishing. I mean, what's your intent to begin with? Now, I wouldn't. Lawyers are horrible negotiators. I know. I mean, they are. So whenever I talk to a lawyer, I talk to them. I want legal advice, and I want it coming from this perspective. And as soon as they start counseling me, well, you know, let's ask for these terms and be willing to settle for these. That's bad negotiation advice. I ask for what I want.

44:57If I ask for more than what I've wanted, there's deception involved. And I want you to know that when I ask for something, I actually mean it.

45:06Haley: Yeah. so I'm gonna I'm gonna look to be adjusted some too and a prenup like what do I think is fair what is really legitimate might be two different things yeah and you also always say in your book like a good negotiation both sides feel like they win but they also both sort of feel like they lose a little I'm not I I don't like the idea of people feeling they lost because that plants seeds it's a downward spiral yeah well you both have to get a little something up is what I'm saying you need to be able to collaborate. It's not necessarily giving. What's the best combination? Let's talk about what the best combination is here.

45:48It's the other side. How scared are they? Are you trying to trap them? Does this look like a rigged game to the other side? I think there's a bunch of prenups that are out there that probably are just written by a vindictive attorney.

46:09Haley: Yeah. So where's your attorney coming from? But make it a collaborative process. Okay. So say, here's what I want. What do you want? Here are my issues. Here are my issues. Here are my fears. Here are my fears. Here are my problems. And seek to be genuinely collaborative. and then you know it's it's a tough call but but you've got to show the other side respect every step of the way you don't have to agree yeah but you do have to show the other side respect okay that's really good advice okay chris this has been an amazing episode i really hope you come back because there's so much more that i want to ask you and time has flown but you know just to end things i wanted to know is there something that you never get asked but have always wanted to get the chance to answer um i'm not sure if i never get asked this but i don't think people are aware of it enough like the vast majority of us want to collaborate and the vast majority of us want to feel understood they want to be comprehended you don't want me to agree with you deep down inside you don't care really if i agree with you but you want to be understood do not underestimate the value of making the other side feel understood.

47:25It will always accelerate your conversations. It will always strengthen your relationships. Always. You don't always have to make the deal, but you can use the process to strengthen a relationship and don't underestimate the value of that.

47:39Haley: I love that. That's such a great place to close. Thank you so much for being here. Guys, if you have not read Never Split the Difference or listen to it on audio, it's such a great book on negotiation. It will change your life, not just how you negotiate your salary, but how you deal with people. And then if you want amazing coaching, Black Swan Group has so many great courses. I think it's such a great investment in yourself. I always say invest in your human capital. I can't think of better human capital to invest in than how to communicate about hard things because it keeps us all held back that we can't have hard conversations and you give us the tools to do so.

48:15Haley: So I'm so grateful that you're here. And please guys rate, subscribe, review if you like the show, follow on YouTube and see you next week. Stay rich.

48:51Haley: Nothing more than talking about reality television and tearing in a new one. So whether it's 90 Day Fiance, Love is Blind, Love After Lockup, or any other trash TV show about lonely hearts looking for love, your gay besties got you covered, y 'all. New shows every week. Follow and listen to Reality Gays wherever you get your podcasts. Reality Gays, let's love!