Never Split the Difference: Life Lessons with Chris Voss

0:02This is Mick Unplugged. Let us uncover the because, that thing that drives you, that thing that fuels you. I'm ready if you are. Let's go. But I'd be humbled today, man. Like, I told you when I finally got to meet you face to face, there's three people that really changed my life from a business standpoint. You, Damon John, Robert Irvine. Like, you're my three keeks. and life would not be the same without E3, man. So I just wanted you to know that. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I always ask folks about your because. You know, Simon Sinek did the start with whys. Great concept. But I believe that there's a different fuel that gets people to a crisp gloss level.

0:54And it's your because. Your why to me is somewhat superficial, but your because. That's that thing that's deeper than your why. your true purpose, your true passion, that thing that keeps you doing what you do. So if I say, Chris Voss, what's your because? Why do you keep doing the things that you do? Well, yeah, we're ultimately sad and we're selfish. I mean, it makes me feel really good to actually help people. Well, we're talking a little bit on the way over here. I think everybody's capable of really incredible stuff. Like not everybody, every person on our, in fact, I do think of myself as just like this regular guy.

1:30You know, like I was a B-plus student in high school, B-minus student in college. You know, it's not like I'm on the honor roll, you know, not a super high IQ, average-looking dude, not a great athlete. But everybody's capable of being extraordinary if they just say, okay, I could do this. and it frustrates me the more people don't see that and i i think that because i'm a regular dude like if i could do well you could do well yeah you know there ain't that much to it yeah and i i like helping people have better lives it's just enormously gratifying to me now you You say you're a B plus student, right?

2:20B minus in college. Is that what you said? Yeah. But you're a plus fucking human being, bro. And I really mean that because, again, the lives that you impact. And we'll talk about your history and all the things that you've done. But I get to see it in this view, right? I see the lives that you impact. We were talking about your extraordinary staff and team that you have. and then the circle of friends that you have. Sometimes, Chris, I don't think you realize how just impactful you are as a human. I really don't. Ah, thanks, man. I appreciate that. I try to be around good people. I try to be around really good, hardworking, regular people that are fun to be around.

3:05And everywhere I've gone, if we've managed to coalesce a group of fun, hardworking, regular people, like extraordinary things happened. When I was in New York, working on the terrorist task force, you know, the hardworking regular guys. We found each other in terrorism. And New York's a big enough place, like it was the same thing, the organized crime guys, white-colored crime guys, you know, whatever. The regular hardworking guys got together and made extraordinary cases. You know, we made, in terrorism, we made cases they wrote books about and they made movies about. The organized crime guys did the same thing.

3:47If you get those regular people together, just have a ball. Just laugh at stupid stuff. Yeah. Don't take themselves too seriously. Work like crazy. And then you get a chance to do extraordinary stuff. That's fun. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about this journey you've had, though. Not everyone can say they were the number one rated FBI hostage negotiator. Of all times. We can. hand there's situations that you've seen that not even the elite have seen but you always focus on the mission at hand and I remember talking to you and you were like the mission is the mission until the mission changes right yeah talk to us about how you got into hostage negotiation yeah it was just one thing out of left field after another like I never even imagined being a hostage negotiator.

4:40It wasn't a goal. Being an FBI agent wasn't even a goal. Kind of found myself there. By the circumstances lined up. When I applied for federal law enforcement, I originally applied for Secret Service. Because that's what I heard about. And I was told Secret Service travel all over the world. I'm like, wow, that's cool. While I grew up in Iowa, it was a big deal going to another state. I crossed the river into Illinois. That was a big deal. That was a big deal. So traveling. And Secret Service wasn't hiring. I was put on my application. I was slated to go to the SWAT team in the police department, just a bar left.

5:17If the Bureau would have delayed by three weeks hiring me, I'd have stayed with the BD because I was two weeks away from going to the SWAT team. Got on a SWAT team in Pittsburgh. I remember an exercise we did. It was this supposed bad guy takeover of nuclear facility. We got negotiators inside. And I can remember being on the outside on a SWAT, knowing that we had somebody in there that was supposedly negotiating and just like, oh, okay, somebody's talking to him on the phone. That's negotiator. You know what tells that guy, though? His job is to buy us time as we get ready to assault. So absolutely oblivious to what it was about.

6:02And then had multiple knee injuries and decided, well, I'll go be a negotiator instead of continue to tie my knee apart, Juan. I didn't figure it'd be hard at all. And I didn't imagine how rewarding it would be. And I was lucky enough, I couldn't get on, so I volunteered on Suicide Hotline. Then on the hotline, I was astonished at the magic of emotional intelligence, the magic of empathy, just astonishing. and so that paved the way for me to become a negotiator and then I was lucky enough I was involved in a really rare event that turned out really well bank robbery with hostages which almost never happens you know the movies make it seem like it happens every day in New York or in LA bank robberies happen every day they just don't have hostages bad guys know the police run away and they get out of there so catching somebody on the inside Like it hadn't happened in New York City for 20 years.

7:05Oh, wow. When on the one that I was on. That's how rare they are. Okay. So, and it turned out really well. It was combined effort, FBI, NYPD, blended negotiation team. First bad guy to surrender, surrender to me personally outside the back. and so then i uh fbi hostage negotiator is part of our protocol of staying good is teaching if you're not doing something even if you're doing it on a regular basis you want to really immerse yourself uh try to teach it yeah because you're going to get called out i mean you really got to stay the hell out of it you got and you're going to get called out so i started teaching at Chase Bank all over the place and it was a lot of fun and because I like teaching I like doing it that just I can continue to pursue it I was in the right place right time a lot of times I worked my ass off and working your ass off really determines whether or not you're in the right place right time there you go I totally agree with that you know when we were in Chicago my cousin Rami asked you a question of if you had to do it all over again what would you tell the younger version of chris voss and you said i tell him to be nicer right but talk us about what that means um all right so there's uh how you approach conflict there's basically three types we believe uh i believe my team believes that this is true and we have the anecdotally we've got enough data to sort of back it up, even though we have a rigorously testicle.

8:53So your approach to conflict approach is fight, flight, make friends. Assertive, analyst, a commenter. Caveman responds to threat. Fight it, make friends with it, run from it. And the world really does pretty much split evenly into thirds. Doesn't matter gender, ethnicity, religion, nothing. It's kind of the caveman environment. So as an assertive, natural born assertive, I'll tend to be too blunt, too direct. And so I wouldn't change sticking to my values or what I stood up for, what I believed in. I'd just be nicer about the way that I express. I'd be kinder, if you will. Nice or friendlier, you know, whatever word works.

9:47I always believed in you need to know where I'm coming from and sort of primary currency is respect. If you respect me, we could probably make a D. Even if you don't give me the deal that I originally wanted, if you treat me with respect, I'm going to be enormously collaborative. And one of the poster children for assertives these days that everybody knows, of course, is Trump. Jeff Bezos also is, in my view, is an assertive. Look at how collaborative Donald Trump is when the world's leaders show up to the White House to treat him with respect. You know, he's basically dismissive of almost every European leader in his first Trump, unhappy with NATO for legitimate reasons.

10:41You know, we're paying their bills and they're badmouthers. And so he goes and meets him in meetings and he goes to Europe and, you know, they're not happy with the way they treat him. But watch what happens when somebody shows up to meet him in person and treats him with respect. How enormously collaborative he is. Yeah. And it's taken a long time to come to accept that. But look what just happened in the White House. Yep. You know, he goes and he meets Putin in Russia. The media puts all this span, you know, Donald Trump's in the direction of Putin, he's going to give Ukraine away. Yeah, Russia's influence.

11:18But Putin's respected him enough to meet him in person. And so the other European leaders, some of them, you know, who is it? The guy from Finland. And Finland is a prime minister, I think. Yeah. who's got to be a wacky guy because one of the quotes I read where he said, I'm finished by birth Southern by the grace of God, because he went to college and ran this stuff. Right, right. And he plays golf with Trump. But he plays golf with Trump, and Trump feels respected by him, so the guy's got influence. So the rest of the European leaders are like, if we show up at the White House and we wear suits and we treat him with respect, he'll listen to us.

12:06Well, he certainly doesn't want to be treated with respect. When I left the bureau, the girl that I was dating at the time put together a gone away party for me, a surprise party, because I was at odds with the guy that I was working for at the time. And I kind of stormed out the door without saying goodbye. not you I just like I'm out of here I'm gone adios I didn't even say adios I just packed my shit and I left and so she was like you know I gotta you need to go on a white party and when she put it together afterwards she said you know everybody I try to contact everybody that you ever worked with and what I noticed is every single person I spoke to told me how much they respected you But what I also noticed is I don't remember any of them saying I liked you.

13:02And that had never been pointed out to me because respect was always my currency. You might not like me, but you're going to respect me. And so then I wouldn't change how I did anything for me as an assertive, but I go back and I'd be nicer about it. I'd be kinder. I've heard other assertives that have learned that lesson. Most of them, they'll use some term there, be kinder, be nicer. A friend of mine in New York, Conrad Gomez, great dude, he says kind is the default game theory long-term success option. Long-term success strategy is kindness. So that's for me as an assertive. Now, the other two types, gameless, super smart dudes, they tend to come off as cold and distant.

13:53Yeah. So, since they're not assertive, they just need to open up in a friendlier way.

14:04Accommodators, relationship, hope-based people, they need to be more assertive. Okay. My girlfriend is an accommodator. When I'm coaching her, I'm coaching her to be more assertive. So each type has a lesson that will enhance, add to enhance, don't change, enhance, to make you better, which is not changing who you are. Right. My girlfriend's core values are solid. I don't want her to change her core values. I want her to be clearer with the people that she deals with. Okay. the ambulance. I don't want the ambulance to change their court values. You think so hard about stuff. You're not cold, but you come off as cold, which interferes with people warming up.

14:59So that's a really long answer for my improvement is to be nicer, kinder, frellier on change. Just be nicer about high tips. No, I love that. I love that. So you talked about your girlfriend. I'm going to talk about my wife. Sorry, babe. Is my girlfriend is vision impaired, by the way. Really? No, I just played that shit. She's so better looking than I. It almost made sense. You picked for a second. OK, that explains.

15:33so there's a book that sits on our coffee table at home one book the book is titled never split the difference i was gonna get out of here you already know what i thought it's gonna be a book by damon john or something like that i don't know it's on one of the side tapes it's on one of the side tapes but my wife reads this book so much because she says, I need to tap into your brain because I know there are moments, and your name is a verb in our household, where you're bossing me. I'm like, I'm bossing you.

16:13And then she'll slap me. You just did it again. It's about my girl. But never split the difference. It's deep on so many levels, right? I get it for leaders. It's my number one book. My team has to read it. You have to read that book within your first 90 days. I told you this week. Your first 90 days of employment, you've got to read the book. Because if you don't read the book, if you don't understand the book, you're not going to fit into our culture. We have a Chris Voss culture at all my companies. It's great for relationships. It helps you start to understand people, the decisions they make, the choices that they decide upon.

16:58and I'm saying all this to say, when you were writing the book, did you know it was going to be that damn tight net? No, no. But you know, it's that gift. It's been a gift. It's very gratifying. It's been a gift. I've been very happy with it. And I'll tell you the thing that I'm happiest most about it. To me, it's a proof of concept of human nature because the book's about collaboration with people, trust, long-term relationships of trust where you collaborate, both people do well and are happy. And it sells well globally, which to me says everybody in the world, the vast majority, not everybody in the world, but the vast majority of the world wants to collaborate.

17:40You know, we're not against each other. We're not at odds.

17:45The criticism of the legacy media is legit in that it's there to keep us divided. And many of the social algorithms are there to feed what makes us angry and continue to feed our anger if we bite. And then even if we don't bite, it tries to get us to bite anyway. You know, I read a lot of reporting on President Trump, mostly because I'm trying to read between the lines to see what he actually said, as opposed to what they're saying he said. And so because I read a lot of these, I get a fair amount of stuff fed to me. Can you believe President Trump said this? President Trump doubles down. You know, the inflammatory stuff.

18:37Because they're the guessing. that I want to be angry. I'm just trying to see what the hell he actually said. Right. And so the majority of us don't want that. You know, the majority of us, more of us want to collaborate than not. It's a legacy media and social media is designed to keep sangria at each other's throats. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So true. So true, so powerful. And we agree on so much. Right. Like I'm all about emotional intelligence when I speak to leaders. That's what I'm there with. You've got your empathetic leadership amongst many things. Why do you think leaders today are missing the vote on you?

19:25Because they don't see it around them. First of all, it's not in the media. It's not getting fed to. in entertainment. It's not in entertainment. You know, how are we picking up what social behaviors affect? Every movie and TV show, when somebody's down and upset, somebody looks at them and says, I know how you feel. I was once at the same place you were in. And the other person goes, oh my God, thank you, and I feel so much better. And in real life, when you say, as soon as the words I know how you feel start to come out of your mouth the other person starts to withdraw there's some people that teach communication called story stealing and they're like no you don't know how I feel and the circumstance you get ready to tell me about it's got nothing to do with my circumstance and you get ready to give me advice and I don't want to hear and so we see that in the media but in movies and TVs it works so then actually when it does work it's invisal like nobody knows what happened and it's i know how you feel stuff is this this common ground nonsense and so my latest example of white common ground is just at a wedding wendy and i had a wedding in ireland recently and talking to the bride at the end of the day the wedding laid on and they have been what they've been through, you know, they go all the way to Ireland to get married.

21:07Like a couple of days before they get married, the church tells them they can't get married in the church because she's Catholic. The enumment didn't come through in time. Catholic Church is not going to let her walk in the door, get married. And so just a couple days before, they got to switch churches. Wow. As if everything else didn't happen. And all the things like a wedding to a man is like, look, I got to show up against them in front of some religious guy. We're going to say a couple of words, then we're going to go get drunk. Right. And they're going to make me wear a tuxedo, which is uncomfortable.

21:37I don't want to do any of that. What do you mean to a woman? Women consistently say, I've been dreaming. I've been imagining this day for 15 years. Like, there's a man on earth that ever says that. Yeah, well, I'm imagining this day for 15 years. We met 15 years ago. I was just trying to get a second date. And you're imagining getting married to me? Like, it's so vastly different. Right, right. So I'm talking to the bride, end of the day, what are the bride and groom going to do at the end of the day? They got to walk around and say hello to everybody. They're exhausted. Like they're unconscious on their feet.

22:11And they have an obligation. And this is my first conversation with her. So she walks up to me the next night after she's got a good night's sleep. We're in a hotel restaurant. She says, I don't know what you said to me last night. I just remember how good it made me feel. And she gives me this big hug. Now, what I said to her the night before was all empathy. I said, you know, you've been through hell. You're here to celebrate a union of two families, and the man that you married is there to have a party. She's got no idea. I said, you know, and I laid out to her every single thing that she went through, which is empathy.

22:53Now, I couldn't say, I know what it's like to be a bride. or I can't say, I know how you feel because I once got married or like there ain't no way I know how she feels. You know, I've never been a bride, I've never been a bridesmaid, never been a maid of honor. I never had her experience, but I laid it all out to her and that's the magic of empathy because she didn't even know what I did. She didn't remember a single word that I said. 24 hours later, not knowing a word that I said, she walks up to me, she feels bonded to me. she walks up to me, she gives me this great big hug, and she says, I don't know, whatever you said last night just made me feel so good.

23:37So your original question, why don't more leaders see that? Nobody sitting around us had any idea of the emotional reaction she was giving me. There was another young lady that was a friend of the bar probably sitting on this side of me. My girlfriend's on this side. There's a couple of other people sitting there. Absolutely nobody watching has the slightest idea that I'm hitting her with this wave of empathy, how she's connected to it. They just say like, well, you know, he seemed appreciative. Quick conversation. And so that's why leaders often don't see it, because when somebody does it in front of you, you have no idea what just happened.

24:27That's empathy. But that's also an example of the impact that I was talking about earlier that you have on people. And you're literally being yourself. Right. Like you're not trying to over empathize. Right. you saw the moment you saw the need and you did what you were called to do in that moment without hesitation that's best boss that is freaking well i you know well uh the the it's it's gratifying it's i'm a big believer in karma and i'm i think the more of it's selfish the more deposits i make at a karma bank the more fun my life is. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. While I have you here, I can only ask you this question, and I'm kind of asking selfishly for me.

25:23But a lot of leaders truly don't understand negotiation. If I talk to a leader about negotiation, Fortune 100 leader, their immediate thought goes to salary negotiation. Right. Every time. And I'm like, that's probably 10 on the list. What about time? what about effort but people don't understand that those are things that you're also negotiating so for the leaders that are out there i'd love for you to take a moment and and talk about why negotiation is important for a leader and what you miss when you don't do about um because when you start talking about time and effort where you're really negotiating with somebody is their future.

26:13Where's that time and effort going to take them? And how painful is it going to be? Like all the emotional things, but you're really asking somebody to trust you with their future. And this trust is this, you know, this bond, this sort of imaginary bond. To get somebody to trust you with their future, They have to feel that you understand what's important. Not that you agree to it. Or that you're aware of what they're afraid of. Or that you even appreciate. And so one of the things that I've been over just over the last few years, I've been trying to, my appreciation dividend has grown very high.

27:07Because I'm trying to remember on a regular basis to appreciate people as much as possible. Yeah. And I would have, simply from the way that I was raised, I was just expected to do a good job. And, you know, my father didn't show me a lot of appreciation. It was a tremendous amount of love in my faith. It was unquestioned that I was loved unconditionally by my parents. But the modeling that was done for me, there wasn't a lot of appreciation. And so I just took it for being like, look, do your job. Do what you're asked to do. Do your job. Have integrity. Do all that stuff. And just do it. Yeah.

27:51And so I've been guilty of expecting people to just do a good job most of my life. And now as I'm showing more appreciation for the little things, I'm getting people working hard and working longer hours and having more fun. because even if the future is uncertain, if I'm appreciating them in a moment, they're there for you. And so all these little intangibles that were not modeled for me well the vast majority of my life, I always had a lot of support. I was always lucky enough to have a tremendous amount of support from people, from people in the Bureau, A vast majority of the people I worked for gave me massive amounts of support.

28:47Not a lot of appreciation. And so the success was supposed to be its own reward, doing a good job. And in many cases, it was. But that was for me. Personally, I'm very hard working. I believe in working really, really, really hard. I don't think, I think expectations. Leaders should think about what do I expect? What kind of behavior do I expect? And maybe am I coming off as cold or uncaring unintentionally because I'm not. And so I think that's what leaders miss out on, a fair amount of them. Totally agree. I totally agree. I'm going to get you out of here on this, Chris. Again, all the things we have in common, right?

29:34Leadership. We both love our significant others, right? We both love the New England Patriots. On the boat. Can I have a phone of Fred? I had to figure out how to weave that one in there. Let me get Eli on the phone. Who is that? Eli. Who? I don't want to hear that. Eli's coming. What was it? You know, a couple of Super Bowls. English. It's English. Professor. But we both love bourbon. Yeah, amen. Our good friend Nick Natan. told the story, every time you guys got together, he's got a frou-frou bottle, a glass of wine, you've got a bourbon. And so he said, hey, we should start a bourbon together, right?

30:24How the hell does that happen, bro? Yeah, you know, that's kind of, Nick is a classic guy who has a pretty good game plan to figure stuff out. Yeah. he really understands implementation. He understands teamwork. He's a great marketing and sales guy. He's fun to be around. And he's always fun to be around. And that's really kind of how it happens. When he threw out that idea, if I didn't know him already, and we're in the event Chicago, we were there for strategic coach, and Nick and I both get coached at strategic coach Dan Sullivan. And one of Dan's rules is if somebody comes up to him and says, I got a great idea, Dan turns on his heels and walks away.

31:11Because usually people with a great idea have no idea how to implement. They've had a great idea is enough. And, you know, Damon and the Shark Tank crew have openly said on Shark Tank, a great idea might be worth$20. Yeah. Because there's no implementation. You would have already done it. You don't have to tell someone you've got a great idea, Sheldon. You just did. You just did. Right. So Nick is the opposite. it. He's already got a game implementation game plan when he tells you about what he wants to do. And so, and it didn't even occur to me, the necessary element that we would have to add to our team if we want to do a bourbon would be Roy Milner, who's a Louisville bourbon insider, a Sherpa, if you will.