Chris Voss: #1 Secret Formula FBI Negotiators Use To Always Get What They Want & 4 Ways to Apply These Tactics to Your Life

28:02It's astonishing. And so since it was invisible, we didn't really see it when it happened. One of the guys on my team, Derek Gaunt, wrote a book about leadership, applying tactical empathy to leadership. It's called The Ego Authority Failure. He's got a great stat at the very beginning of it where rapport-based interviews in law enforcement gets you to an agreement slash confession 14 times faster than anything else. But nobody knows it happened. So then to get good at it, you're never going to get congratulated in the moment. That's the other thing. In the moment, it's not that satisfying, very much the way the slot machines are satisfying in Vegas.

28:44You know, you lose 83 out of 84 times on those slot machines, but the wins are so satisfying, that's all you notice. So to be really good at this, you focus more on how suddenly we're in a better place. And nobody's congratulating you because they didn't see it happen. So it really has to be intrinsically self-satisfying. The reward is getting it done faster and better. Very few people are going to congratulate you on it in the moment. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead. Save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter. Park faster.

29:22ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, We're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year, prostate cancer. I first found out about my cancer at the age of 45. Anything with cancer, you just think death sentence. In this episode, we'll explore the science behind detection, along with the practical steps men can take to protect their health. Listen to Health Discovered on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Health Discovered, and start listening.

30:03Have you ever brought your magic to Walt Disney World like, hey, we came to play? Did you tip your tiara to a Creole princess or get goofy officially, step up like a boss and save the day, or see what life's like under the tree of light? Did you? If you could. Would you? When we come through, it's true magic. because we came to play. Bring the magic at Walt Disney World Resort. I think that's the only mindset shift we need is that if we want a real resolution, we want to feel like we've really accomplished something, we're really moving forward, it requires us to move from that point of view of if we negotiate effectively, if I take time to summarize the other person's opinion and they take the time to do mine, we're actually going to get somewhere.

30:53Even if it's a slower process, even if it's a harder process. How do you prepare for a negotiation? Because I think a lot of us also think, great, I'm going to walk in there. I'm going to try to figure it out. I'm going to say something. But walk us through how you'd prepare for some of the biggest negotiations in your life. What do they look like? Well, I'm going to think of how I would summarize their perspective. That's going to really get my wheels turning. I'm going to get a lot of clues. How do they see things? I've done it enough that it's almost become second nature. You got to do it a lot like anything else.

31:28It simply requires practice. There's this magic hack for life called gratitude. It's amazing what a difference it could make. And it sounds stupid. I was once in a highly adversarial negotiation. The other side was, it wasn't adversarial. The other side was very deceptive, which is one of my buttons. You know, I don't like deception. One of my main currencies is integrity. So that's a violation of one of my core values. But thinking that put me in a very negative place. And I thought, well, how did I get into this in the first place? The only reason they're trying so hard to do this deal with us is because we're good.

32:13It was a training company that wanted to make our training offering part of their platform. so I thought this is a byproduct of success I'm actually lucky to even be having this conversation so you know I found gratitude in the moment and then it opened up my mind because you're 31 positive smarter in a positive frame of mind so you know whatever your hack is and different people have different ways gratitude exercise first thing in the morning meditation whatever you could do to clear out your natural negative survival mechanism so that you can be more appreciative of life. And that's one of the ways.

32:55And then if I think about that, then I can summarize your perspective. And another thing that I'll usually do is I'll think of the questions that I might normally ask to elicit a yes, and I'll switch them so that I'm eliciting a no. Do you agree becomes do you disagree? There's a Pavlovian response to yes and no. People, if they say yes, they feel like they're being led into a trap. Whether they are or not doesn't change the fact that as a general term, somebody who's trying to trap you is going to litter that path with yeses. So when you say something like, does that make sense? And they say yes, that's moving in the wrong direction.

33:37Well, it's going to trigger that Pavlovian response because the person that cheated him said something to the effect of, would you like something for free? Would you like to make more money? Would you like to live in a big house on a hill? And that led him into a trap previously. So it doesn't matter that you have integrity. It doesn't matter that you are not doing it. It got done to him enough times already that they're going to have a negative reaction. the ridiculous flip side is the pavlovian response to saying no is that people feel protected they feel safe when they say no would you like no when i when my son was a teenager dad can't i know but then i i looking back on i realized every time i said no I felt, all right, so I walled myself off from being walked into anything here.

34:35And I would look back at him and say, okay, so now what was it that you wanted? Now I could hear more having protected myself. So I may say to you, you know, look, does this sound like a stupid idea? And then you won't have been triggered and you'll listen to me. You'll actually, to some degree, listen with a critical mindset. and you'll think, well, you know, I don't have any problem with that, but your follow-on is actually what's important. Now, I don't think it's a stupid idea, but I think here are some things that I want you to think about. You give me those freely. Now we're in an actual collaboration.

35:15So your original prep question, how do I prep for negotiation? I'm going to try to do what I can, put myself in a positive frame of mind, work at summarizing the other side's perspective, Think of a couple questions where the answer is no, where it moves things forward, as opposed to the yes, and I've avoided that psychological feeling of the other side feeling I'm trapping them. Yeah, those are the things to do. What are some of the biggest mistakes you've seen people make walking in preparing for a negotiation? Well, the inadvertent thing to start off with is, you know, number one, they're going to ask a yes or any question.

35:53And then number two, they're going to make their pitch, the value proposition. You know, I got to tell you what's valuable here. Now, that's important, but you're out of order on the sequence. Because the other side's dying to have their say, too. If you go first, you kind of rolled over. But the whole time you're gone, they're thinking, but I got something I want to say. I got something I want to say. It's a voice in the back of their head, which is interfering in them listening to you. So I'm going to start out by trying to hear you out first. I'm going to want the information from you. I'm going to want your perspective.

36:31I'm also going to want to know what you think is important. Going into this conversation, let's say we're collaborating to do a deal, or you and I are significant others, and we want to go get something to eat. I'm going to want to know what's on your mind first. because that's the order of priority for you. Then I'm going to know on my list what matches up with what you want instead of maybe I start out with something that's number one on my list, but it's number nine on yours. Now you're distracted by the other eight things that you think are important. I'm going to try to dial into you as quickly as I can because I want to talk about what you think is important because that starts our collaboration.

37:16So really understanding where the other side is coming from is information you need for the analyst and for the relationship-oriented person makes the other person feel good so you're building a relationship. Have you had, I'm sure in your experience, you've been speaking to such incoherent individuals on the other side that there isn't a one to nine on their list. There's like a Z to A, right? Like it's topsy-turvy because they're not coming at it from a logical rational. A lot of the people, sometimes when we're negotiating, we feel like, what are you talking about? Like, what language are you speaking in?

37:52And we can feel that even with our partners. People can feel that at work where they're just like, I'm talking to a toxic individual who has no idea what they want. They're so off the rocker. Like, you know, when you're speaking to someone on the other side who you actually can't figure out and you're feeling like, I can't even read this person. How do you navigate that? Well, I liberate myself from the idea of rationality or logic. I really see those two things as beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And so when I let go of that, and then I think in terms of patterns, and then other than someone who's actually paranoid schizophrenic, where their wiring is actually wrong, and someone who's suffering from, in layman's terms, wiring issues versus chemical issues.

38:45What we used to refer to as manic depressive or bipolar, you know, they change those terms all the time. Those are principally chemical imbalances. Paranoid schizophrenia, somebody's actually hearing voices. It's a problem, but you don't know what the voices are saying. Those people are, in fact, unpredictable. They manifest themselves very rarely. In a hostage negotiation, we also found out that, unfortunately, one of the downsides of being a meth addict, someone could be clean for years, but methamphetamines does actual damage to the wiring, and they'll have an episode, when they've been sober for years, that mimics a paranoid schizophrenic.

39:25So the people that are actually messed up in that fashion are very rare. Mostly it's chemical imbalance. If you look at it like that, and then you say, all right, so there are patterns here. Let me look for the patterns. And then they're eminently predictable. If you let go of the judgment that it's rational or irrational, and you just start looking for patterns, and then listening for them. Now, they could be so upset with negative emotions that they are in a state of confusion. Very much like the guy that called in on a hotline that night. So I'm just going to sort of pick off that negativity one at a time, and I'm going to feed it back.

40:04and I know that's going to clear your head. In a business scenario or even a personal scenario, people who feel under a tremendous amount of pressure tend to be very demanding and can be very attacking, which feels predatory. It even feels like, you know, the magic phrase gaslighting, when in fact they're under a massive amount of pressure. A company that I just did some training for, coaching and training. They're based out of the Middle East, but their executives are international in nature. And they happen to be in a discussion in a deal in South Africa. And the person on the other side of the table, they called a bully, very attacking, not sticking to the written agreement.

40:53So of course, in a negotiation, the lawyer's on the table to the side that I'm coaching, what's a lawyer going to do? He's going to open his laptop. He's going to read you the agreement, which does not help. It's a great way to pour gasoline on a fire. Let me remind you of what our agreement says. Thinking that would help. So now the guy gets worse and he starts adding profanity and telling them that he's going to rewrite the agreement. They keep their poise. And when you're being attacked that much, if you don't come up with a great thing to say, the most graceful, the smartest move is to withdraw quietly.

41:41So the lead said, it's probably not a good time for this discussion. We'll be happy to leave. Guy settles down a little bit. They hit him with a couple of labels. they get to a good place in a conversation but then on the way out he says to the guy sounds like you're under a lot of pressure and a guy completely relaxed he says oh man he says you don't understand what's going on over here I've got all these demands I get people coming at me from all sides and the recognition of the pressure that it sounds like you're under a lot of pressure. For someone he perceived as an attacking, gaslighting bully, the guy was being driven by an internal pressure that he was having trouble keeping control over.

42:33And that changed everything, that offhand label, and it turned everything around. Can you negotiate with a narcissist? If you look for the patterns, and then, you know, the narcissist is demanding, So the short answer is yes, but how are you going to do it? You've got to make what you want the path to where they want to get. Ultimately, narcissists are self-centered, so let them be self-centered or whatever it is that they're after. Make your want a step on the journey to their goal. And if you can change the sequencing around, that's how you can get the upper hand on a narcissist. One of the— If you're a host, of course you can negotiate with a narcissist.

43:18If you've been trained by the Black Swan group, Chris Voss, yeah, we'll train you. We'll teach you. It's whether you want to or not. It's whether you want to negotiate with a narcissist in your life. Well, and actually that's a great secondary point because this is going to be repetitive behavior. One of the things we advise people to do is terminate the relationship. You know, are they dragging you down? you can do a couple things to try to, the psychologist or therapist would call it boundary setting. Sometimes you set a good hard boundary, and the other side says, oh, I respect that. They're looking for you to set gently, not aggressively.

44:04They're looking for that boundary. Set a couple boundaries, gently, politely, but firmly. And find out if they're going to straighten up. Then you can continue the relationship. You make an attempt to set the boundaries, a couple of gentle attempts. They don't pay any attention to it. Whether it's personal or professional, that's a preview of the future. You don't need to be attached to that. You're not going to be who God put you here to be by being attached to people that drag you down. And I think a lot of us do that. For good intention, very good reason. And we're not required to continue once, you know, be willing to be smarter today than you were yesterday.

44:55Do we ignore the patterns? Is that what it is? I think we do. I think a lot of us do. Again, for different reasons. The relationship-oriented people, the accommodators, they're very hope-based. and they have this tremendous faith and hope, so to speak. And there's a lot of feedback in that. You know, I think the world is largely a very supportive place. If the world wasn't largely on our side, we wouldn't have continued as a species. We'd be dead. We'd have gone extinct. You know, we're not the most durable. You know, we don't have, you know, a fair fight with most of the predators on a planet with just what God gave us.

45:34We lose most of the time. So that means that I'm a firm believer that the world is largely very supportive and on our side. So that reinforces the accommodators because the numbers are on their side. They're just not real good in anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of the people that are situations that are harmful. So we have reason for sticking in there. and then allowing wisdom to get as smarter as we go, then we eliminate more and more of the people that are dragging us down. If you feel like you're one of those people that people always take advantage of, I can imagine a lot of people that are listening may feel like they've been an accommodator, but now they've started to feel like people always take advantage of me.

46:20I feel used. I feel like I'm the one who's always getting the short end of the stick. Like, how do you shift that pattern for your life? Because you've now made people believe that that's who you are. Right. And all of a sudden now you want to change who you are. How do you go about that transition and shift in a healthy way so that you no longer feel that everyone's taking advantage of you? Yeah, the healthy way to start with is first the recognition is that you're not really helping them. You know, if they're taking advantage of you, you're effectively a crutch. and nobody becomes their best self by leaning on a crutch.

47:01So not only are you not helping yourself, you're not really helping them. To do the best for them is to let them get out there and fend on their own. You know, let them deal with it. They need to deal with reality. You're not helping them by letting them lean on you. All right, so let's say you're willing to accept that. Now, how do you get out of it? And again, I'm going to refer to one of my negotiation heroes, Oprah Winfrey. I'm in a discussion with one of her top executives. And I was telling this executive, yeah, our philosophy is the last impression is the lasting impression. So always end positively, no matter what, but end.

47:44And she said, yeah, that's exactly Oprah's philosophy. She says in the entertainment industry, it's usually in a limo out in a taxi. with Oprah, it's in and a limo, out and a limo. No matter what, at the end of any relationship, we have to make people remind them that we love them and that we value them. And then we have to effectively, we might need to part company. And I'm having a conversation, a confrontational confrontation. Oprah Winfrey has taken people to the woodshed, but she does it in such a positive way and a way that she underscores to them that they feel valued, that they're okay with it.

48:22In this conversation, she finishes by saying, whatever you do is your decision. And I want you to know that if you decide not to participate in this interview, I will always love you. I will always be supportive of you. I will always have your back. And so that was her way of saying, it's my way or the highway. And if you choose the highway, I'm still on your side but we are going to part company at this point in time and finding a way to gently say enough should you ever change your mind I'm here for you and then withdraw and that's it always feels hard to do that because somewhere deep down inside of us we don't want it to be the end of the road we don't we want to be hopeful we want to save we want to accommodate we want to mold we want to become whatever the other person needs us to be and so we keep doing that we keep shape shifting yeah the desire to take yourself and them to a higher existence to a higher level of being to make the unique and amazing dent in the universe that each one of us is capable of doing and we love bringing that out in other people it's very addicting I'm sure when people meet you they feel like they can learn from you how to control a situation but you don't strike me as someone who believes that is the way it ever goes and that that's what you're trying to teach but i can imagine people come up to you and companies come up to and be like chris basically show us how to control this in our favor some do yeah yeah again a third about a third you know these sort of love control yeah how do you reframe someone who comes with that controlling mindset who thinks that you can control i've had i've had coaching clients who I don't coach in what you do, but I've even had clients who are like, Jay, teach me the right thing to say.

50:19Like you always feel like you know the right thing to say. Can you teach me how to say that to someone in my life so that they do what I want? And I'm like, wait a minute, that's not how it's meant to go. Right. Exactly. All right. So the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control. And then people will say like, oh, that's better than control. So that may be one of the things that cracks them open. Another thing is control is highly inefficient time-wise. Like, let's say I could control you completely. I got to be with you all the time to do that.

50:58You know, I could control maybe one person. I can positively influence a lot of people if I give up the need for control. because I'm going to need you to be self-directed. I'm going to need you to be able to think for yourself. There's going to be a point in time when we're not together. If I'm not there to control you, you're going to fall apart. But if I collaborate with you, if I empower you, when I'm not there, you're going to think for yourself. There's a phrase, batteries included, so to speak, which has been passed on to me by some very smart people. I need people who are batteries included.

51:35We all need partners that are batteries included. We're aligned on core values. And we get more done because I don't have time to control everybody. So when you start understanding the costs of control, then you start thinking like, yeah, you know, there's got to be a better way. And it's guidance. It's helping people think. It's making them feel empowered to find the right outcome. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster, ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park.

52:19This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, we're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year, prostate cancer. I first found out about my cancer on my birthday at the age of 45. I found out my cancer has spread to my pelvic bone. And from there, life just changed. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime. And the risk increases with age. Anything with cancer, you just think death sentence. And the only thing I could think about was, who's going to take care of my family? You have to go out there and build your support system.

53:01You got to build your team. In this episode, we'll explore the science behind detection, along with the practical steps men can take to protect their health. Listen to Health Discovered on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Health Discovered, and start listening.

53:23Have you ever brought your magic to Walt Disney World like, hey, we came to play? Did you tip your tiara to a Creole princess or get goofy officially? Step up like a boss and save the day? Or see what life's like under the tree of life? Did you? If you could. Would you? When we come through, it's true magic. Because we came to play. Bring the magic at Walt Disney World Resort. You talk about mirroring as being a really good technique in trying to get to that collaborative, same page space. How do you do that in an authentic, genuine way? Is negotiation ever genuine and authentic, or is it always three steps ahead, three moves ahead?

54:10Yeah, well, great question. The negotiation skills and tools are neutral. So intention has a smell. Am I trying to collaborate with you, or am I trying to take advantage of you? A scalpel. And one person's hand saves a life, and another person's hand, it takes a life. So first of all, look at effective negotiation skills, which emotional intelligence is effective negotiation. Tactical empathy is effective negotiation. What's your intention? Like my intention is for us to have a great long-term relationship, highly profitable, through the infinity. and if somebody's arguing with me, I'll say like, look, all right, so I would love for this moment to be something that we look back on 10 years from now.

54:59This argument, we look back on 10 years from now as to the moment we discovered collaboration and made both of us prosper for 10 years. That's also changing somebody's frame from short-term to long-term to what's my intention. and my intention is long-term collaboration like there's there's some sales methodologies that say your money's in their pocket it's your job to get it out that's not long-term collaboration and you're going to sense that like no matter how charming i am in the moment no matter how much fun i am to be with no matter how much i make you laugh you're going to notice a diminishment of your pocket before long.

55:47And this is coming to an end. So if my intention instead is for this to be great, for us to have a ball, for this to be this adventure that we both benefit from, now you're going to, even if you say, oh, that was a label. I heard that before. Or you just used a mirror on me. You know, you asked me about mirrors. That was a mirror. Then you're not going of mind because I'm trying to take you to a better place. Let's, let's take a scenario. Like, let's say someone's negotiating for a promotion or a higher salary. Let's go down that road and act out what that would look like. So I'm doing a training for a company probably about two, three years ago.

56:31Got the CEO and all his top salespeople on a Zoom call. We get to Q &A and one of them says, how do I negotiate a better salary? Boss is there listening. And I said, ask him this question. How can I be guaranteed to be involved in projects that are critical to the strategic future of this organization? And he interrupts immediately and I says, I wish everybody here had asked me that question. So the job negotiation is really about our future. collaboratively. Now, as much as you'd love for it to be about what your contribution up to now has been, your contribution up to now, your boss is going to see that you're even.

57:22Here's what I asked you to do. Here's what I agreed to pay you for doing it. Here we are. You did it. I paid you. We're even. That's how your boss is going to say it. Your boss is worried about the future. He's worried about his own future, her own future. Worry about the organization's future. If you shift to how do I make everybody successful, but not just in our routine stuff, in the most important stuff here, you show them two things. You're a team player. You're going to put the team first, and you want the high-profile stuff. You want to play in a championship. your goal is to win a championship my goal isn't to win a scoring title my goal is to win a team championship now suddenly it's about the future a prosperous future like what i mentioned before we're now negotiating a prosperous future together that changes everything yeah i love that i mean just hearing you say that i was like the amount of times in my head i'm thinking as a leader like I want people to focus on business critical activities.

58:35Like I want people to report to me on things that are like actually critical to impact and having an effect and moving the needle as opposed to, yeah, we're doing the, you know, we're doing the little stuff. Everyone needs to do it. But as a leader, you want your team to be focused on and moving towards those bigger things. Yeah. Yeah. And it's hard because me included when I was a employee too, it's, you want to be to be rewarded for your effort. You just want to be rewarded for your energy and showing up and all of these things. But that isn't how reward generally works, at least in the workplace.

59:12Well, at the maximum reward, you know, some reward works that way. Yeah. Much of that is very valuable. You know, can you follow directions? Like my girlfriend, Wendy, members of her family, they got this great camp upstate New York. It's a wonderful place. We're up there visiting at the end of the season every year. They bring family up and they get together. And so they kind of, they see me as maybe this, you know, this white collar guy, you know, who never got his hands dirty, hadn't been outside, which is not my background. But they're seeing me as an FBI agent, you know, you're probably, you're white collared, you never got dirty.

59:52So we're getting ready to get out of there. And a gentleman that runs it, a very generous guy, he says, you know, you're welcome back anytime. And so I say, you know, I'd come to work for you any day. because I like to be useful. And he goes, really? Come to work for me, huh? What do you know how to do? And I looked at him, I said, follow directions. And he went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We need more people like that. So there's a lot to be said for following directions. You know, the mundane routine stuff that needs to get done. You'll do well if you're great at following directions. but you're not going to make as much as you could make to have the maximum impact on the organization.

1:00:37As you said, the business critical activities, because also you as a leader, you're having trouble keeping track of all the business critical activities. You need the team seeing stuff that's coming at you, you know, from, from your six that you don't see rolling up on you. And you're going to want people on the team to understand the day-to-day and a business critical. So when that meteor comes screaming in and you don't see it coming, they catch it for you. And so that's what really takes people to the next level. Yeah. I think one of the things I find is that as a leader, like I enjoy rewarding people who are performing phenomenally.

1:01:18Like it's exciting for me to see someone who's performing phenomenally and they're developing themselves. And I can see that they're proactive and resourceful and they're growth oriented. And as a leader, I get excited to be like, what can we build together? That's my mindset. But I had a friend recently who went through a scenario where he had gone up to his boss and said, I want to work on really important things at the company. I want to be associated with the biggest results we have. He was told to work on these projects. He went and got those results. They promised him a promotion. And then two to three months later, they went kind of quiet on it.

1:01:53And then they said, oh no, we actually don't have it anymore. He's now been at this company for two years and he hasn't received a promotion. He hasn't received a direction on this is where it's going. He's getting in some of the biggest results at the company, but he's now not seeing any career growth there. And he's thinking of leaving. Right. He should leave. Yeah. But I think his boss is thinking, oh, this guy's going to hang around. So in that scenario where you're like, wait a minute, I'm hitting it. I was promised something. It didn't happen. Now I don't know how to negotiate that. I don't know how to have that conversation.

1:02:23how do you navigate that? Okay, there's two things. First of all, yeah, it's going to happen. Black Swan method, tactical empathy, emotional intelligence-based negotiation. It doesn't work all the time. It just works more than anything else does, which means there has to be an acceptance of occasionally it'll fail. Hostage negotiators got a 93 % success rate. People are not going to make the deal we call seven percenters. they're going to happen. So you move on. Now, if somebody's promised you something and they failed on their promise that you earned, this is also an indicator of a company that's got culture problems, they got leadership problems, they got management problems.

1:03:05A long time ago, I heard the stat, 40 % of the Fortune 500 is going to be gone in 10 years. People with those kinds of problems are going the way of the dodo. They're going extinct. So your time there is coming to an end whether you like it or not. They're going to go out of business. They're going to get sold. They're going to think of a stupid reason for firing you. Except that that time frame now has its limits if someone has failed to keep a promise that they should have kept. So that acceptance is, am I going to go someplace else? Start looking for someplace else. Because you just added to your resume.

1:03:42You've made yourself more employable with these accomplishments for somebody who's dying to employ you, who's going to keep their word. They're going to keep their core values. If they lied to you, if they failed to keep a promise with you, that's the way they do business. They are going out of business. There is a problem. You've just been alerted to the problem. Now, short term, interim, how you potentially try to right the ship before you get out. No oriented question. Again, I'd sit down with the boss. I'd say, I'm sure that I seem very selfish and that I seem ignorant of the pressures that you're under and unappreciative of them.

1:04:31Do you want us to fail? No. Right. So, no, no, no, no. Why? What are you talking about? If you make it impossible for me to stay, how am I supposed to stay? How am I supposed to stay if you made promises to me, I fulfilled my end of the bargain, and you're showing me that I was wasting my time? You know, it's a way of letting people see reality. Before you can be assertive, and this is being assertive, not aggressive but assertive you got to be empathic so you demonstrate some understanding where they're coming from ask the no oriented question which is a way to trigger decision making in a non-threatening way and let them know what the reality is reality situation is you can't count on a leader that doesn't keep their promises to you you want to get to that moment in the conversation you got to get there gently how do you get there gently, demonstrating an appreciation and an understanding of the other side's point of view.

1:05:40Give them a chance. Give them one clear chance to make things right. Let them know the reality of the situation is you can't stay in a job where they're not going to keep their promises. Even if you want to keep that job, how you do anything is how you do everything. They're breaking promises to you. They're breaking promises to everybody else. You're going to, be tainted by their reputation and you're going to be taken down when as the titanic hit an iceberg that ship's getting ready to hit an iceberg and it's going to sink yeah i mean that resonates and that kind of like a when you've been hard done by that approach feels like you're having to turn up the dial on you're starting off empathetic but then there is a turn up on like well this is the reality here's the reality this is the reality of the situation And I think that's a really powerful approach.

1:06:34So, Chris, of course, you're aware of the gender pay gap. Women paid less. What are women doing wrong or what can they do better in negotiation? What needs to change? Of course, there's a systemic issue, but individually? Individually. So I would answer this as if the woman asking that question was my daughter and she was asking me about a relationship. And she says, Dad, I'm in a relationship with a guy who's beating me. How do I get him to treat me better? My answer is get out of that relationship. All right, so paying any talent less than what they're worth is a bad core value, a bad culture value, and you're working someplace that's going to go out of business.

1:07:18So this relationship is coming to an end. My advice, my guidance is the same as it would be for any other job negotiation. Talk about how you're going to make the best contribution possible. Talk, find out what it takes to be successful there. Express that you want to be paid in a big, play in a big game. So what you're doing, if you're working in a place that's going to pay you less because of your gender, you're padding your resume. There's somebody out there that wants talent and they don't care anything about your gender. They don't care anything about your demographics. They want talent. You're in a relationship, you're in a bad relationship.

1:07:54and because it's a bad value to pay talent less, then it's coming to an end one way or the other. Just the same way as it's a boyfriend who's, if he's not physically abusive, he's at least verbally abusive. That's coming to an end. Prepare yourself to move on. There are people that want talent. In my company, I don't care. I want talent. We're not the only ones that are out there. There are a lot of companies that are taking advantage of women. The sooner you leave them, the better off everybody is. Find the company that values your contribution and move to it. Nice advice. Great. Tell us about some of your 7 % experiences.

1:08:38You said the 93 % and the 7%. Tell us about some of your personal experiences being in the 7 % when it's not working. Yeah. They're actually far more common than I ever imagined would be in the business world. Like when I wrote Never Split the Difference with Tal Roz and my son Brandon Voss, tremendous contributor to the book, it never occurred to me that there would be a lot of negotiations where the other side had no intention of consummating a deal. And we call that now proof of life. Is there a deal and is it a deal with you? Maybe there's a deal that just ain't with you. Maybe they're just kicking the tires.

1:09:14Maybe they're just looking for free consulting. And I started to wake up to that. And this is what falls into this category, 7%. somebody who's never going to make the deal. Right after I got out and started talking about negotiating and a gentleman who wrote a book, I think it was Bare Knuckle Bargaining. And he's talking about this thing in business called the rabbit, where you're the rabbit, you're just there to drive the price down on the people that are really going to get the deal. And I can remember at the time thinking like, no, I'm a time is money guy. That's a tremendous waste of time.

1:09:47Why would I ever engage in a negotiation with someone if I wasn't going to make the deal? I thought it was something from a Vince Vaughn movie. You know, I thought that's too stupid. And so we started discussing it with sales teams. And one guy says, oh, yeah, that's in a challenger sale. It's in that book. It's 20 percent. 20 percent of the time. They're not it's not 7 percent of the time. It's 20 percent of the time. And in the book, they basically take a survey of a thousand executives and basically say, how often do you engage in a negotiation where you're never going to make the deal with the other side for whatever reason?

1:10:20You're just not going to give them the deal. And a business executive's admitted to 20%, which means that number's got to be low because they ask people, how often do you lie? And they're not going to exaggerate how often they lie. They're going to underestimate. And so we started implementing the methodology on a regular basis. We see it all the time. Some of it is a due diligence issue. The Black Swan group, we have a reputation, deserved, for teaching a business negotiation methodology that is more successful than anything else. Why would a company talk to us? Well, they've got an education provider they're going to stick with.

1:11:04So what they want to do is they want to get all the free consulting possible out of us. So we get this all the time. Tell us, you know, tell us how you do what you do. You know, give us some insight. You know, how can we hire you if we don't know how you're going to do it? That's a tell of somebody who's pumping us for information. They're going to want us to give them time. And, you know, if you just tell us everything, then we'll hire you. Not only if you tell us everything, will we hire you? we'll refer you to people that'll hire you know they paint this this vision of riches you know I call it being taken hostage to the future prosperity that never materializes we kind of cooperated a little bit in the early days but now we just yeah we get back to this thing like all right so I'm gonna I'm gonna see what's important to you and if you're really focused on one specific aspect, if I sense that you're not focused on a long-term relationship, you're a seven percenter.

1:12:12And then what am I going to do? I'm going to do, I'm going to go all Oprah Winfrey on you. I'm going to say some really positive, very true things. We'd love to be the negotiation provider for you that gives your company prosperity that you've never seen before. and when you're willing to make a commitment to us come back we'll make a commitment to you yeah and they usually go you usually hear crickets on the other end of the line and that's the end of the conversation yeah so chris as a follow-up to that i'm sure that for years you've had calls where a company will call you and say to you chris we actually want that but we want it at half the price right and i'm imagining that a lot of people are listening right now, whether they're entrepreneurs, whether they have a side hustle, whether they do a bit of design work here and there, they've had that call as well, where a client calls, they want this client, they're excited by it.

1:13:08Like, and I want you to tell us the difference between the first time a Fortune 500 company reached out and now when you're established, because that obviously changes as well. Walk us through how do you negotiate or how do you deal with you really wanting to work with this client, but they're like, we want 50 % off. Like that's what, that's our budget. That's our max. Yeah. Well, we, it's simply, it's accepting that working with them and have price is a bad idea and it's not good for the health of the business long-term. And then as soon as we accepted that, then realizing that the less time we spent with people that want half price, they're actually obstructing the people that want to pay full price you know a good friend of mine a phrase that we use joe polish he's got a phrase they're half clients and they're elf clients half is hard annoying lame and frustrating elf is easily lucrative and fun so in our in our early days especially those two again those are brilliant hard annoying lame and frustrating halves yeah and then elves easy lucrative and fun i love that And Joe says, don't work with the halves, work with the elves.

1:14:20And I heard this, and so in the early days, if you're working for me, you figure that I want you to make every deal. And I get with my sales team, and I say, all right, so the halves are going to have predictable behavior. Once we start looking for it, it's going to jump out at us, and we'll be able to see it in the first half hour of the conversation. Now, they're very good at this. and that, of course, was the truth. And then I said, we're going to walk away politely from them early on. I don't want you wasting a lot of time. So the young lady that's running my sales team at the time, and, you know, comment on gender, if I may.

1:15:00We find that women pick this style of negotiation up faster than men. At the top level of performance, we see no difference. It's gender agnostic. I believe that women are conditioned at an early age to be aware of soft skills. and they have a little bit of a head start. And that's why they have a tendency to pick it up faster than men. So a woman running the team, she wants to make every deal. So before she starts walking away from the halves, she starts pulling data. You know, you want your sales team to start looking for data. How long is it going to take to make the deal? How long is it going to take to implement the deal?

1:15:38What's our profitability consequently? She gets back to me a couple weeks later. She says, here's what we found. Number one, it takes us two to five times the amount of time from the initial conversation to the end of performance with a half. Two to five times as much time. So let's say it only takes twice as long. That means we've automatically taken a 50 % cut in pay, maybe on top of the discount they wanted, on top of everything else. She said then, consequently, it doesn't really matter whether or not we want to do business with them again. They don't want to do business with us again. So they don't repeat.

1:16:23So these people that are demanding discounts, you're taking a 50 % cut and pay at least, and the business is not going to repeat. So you're taking a discount, theoretically, for a long-term relationship, and you're not getting it. They're not appreciative of the fact that they got a discount. They want to take advantage of everybody. They're going to look for somebody else to victimize after they get done with you. And they are standing in the way of the people that want to do business with us. It's very dark in the early days of an entrepreneur, the concept of walking away from customers. It's horrifying.

1:17:04I got to make the rent. I got bills now. You want me to walk away from these people? Well, it's going to take you twice as long to get paid. So they're not going to help you pay the rent now. And they're going to be slow payers, even if you agree on a deal. Then afterwards, getting money out of them, you're not in a loan business. So there's all these problems. And then as soon as we stopped dealing with the haves, we found that the elves started showing up. You know, there's this invisible line of people waiting to do business with you. And the people that are going to take up the most time in a line stop the people that take the least amount of time.

1:17:47That's a scary thought for anybody, entrepreneur, to accept. And it's a leap of faith. And if you start looking around, you'll see entrepreneur after entrepreneur experiencing it kind of is a law of the entrepreneurial universe. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, we're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year, prostate cancer.

1:18:31I first found out about my cancer at the age of 45. Anything with cancer, you just think death sentence. In this episode, we'll explore the science behind detection, along with the practical steps men can take to protect their health. Listen to Health Discovered on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Health Discovered and start listening. Have you ever brought your magic to Walt Disney World like, hey? We came to play. Did you tip your tiara to a Creole princess or get goofy officially? Step up like a boss and save the day? Or see what life's like under the tree of life?

1:19:14Did you? If you could. Would you? When we come through, it's true magic. Because we came to play. Bring the magic at Walt Disney World Resort. Yeah, for sure. I think that's such great advice and it's so refreshing to hear that because I think everyone feels that way where they're just like, I have to do this. This is going to be our big winner. It's going to be our big ticket. But it always ends up going the opposite way when they're being a half. And it's such great advice because it could save you so much stress, save you so much pressure. And you're going to feel like you did a great job, but you only got paid half.

1:19:52You might feel bitter. You're now resentful. They didn't renew. it turns into a whole bigger emotional thing as well it was blood money yeah when it doesn't need to yeah yeah i want to shift away from work to relationships because i feel like so much of what you say applies to marriage it applies to dating it applies to you know everyday interpersonal relationships and friendship we touched on a bit at the beginning but i wanted to talk about this idea that i think a lot of the time we actually get an easy negotiation in the beginning what it feels like right and then things start to get more constrained so i have a friend who she met this guy and he promised her the world and he was like yeah it's gonna be amazing and i love you and you're amazing and this is incredible and it almost feels like you've just won the lottery right it's like you're getting everything in this negotiation he gives you time he gives you energy date nights are amazing everything's great and then six months in he starts to pull back and go no I need to focus on this now no I can't call you every day no I can't now not that any of those things are even unreasonable they're actually reasonable things but it's just that it's so different from what you thought you signed up for what do you do as a negotiation in that setting when you were promised more or someone over delivered in the beginning and now they're under delivering that's a real aspect of human nature and so at some point in time there needs to be polite withdrawal You know, polite boundary setting.

1:21:25I think both people have, you know, I don't know. I hate to say that any gender is more guilty than the other. Yeah, same. But I think that men probably have a tendency to start adding to the neglect first. And then how do you get advice? Like, how do we sustain this? How do you want me to feel about where we are now versus where we were? How questions, how and what questions are remarkably powerful questions. We refer to them as calibrated question. The word what is primarily designed to uncover problems. The word how is primarily designed to create answers. So you could say, what got us off track?

1:22:20Because you're off track. Now, it also feels very deferential. You know, how and what makes the other side feel in charge. People love to be asked how and what. The real issue of both those questions is not what the answers are, the thinking you made them engage in. The answer is secondary. At some point in time, I can say, what do you want from me? that's going to force you to see that there appears to be a disconnect between the two of us. It doesn't matter what you say. That's a secondary benefit. But the primary benefit is that I asked a question in the first place. You know, at the very beginning of the book, one of the more famous black swan phrases is, how am I supposed to do that?

1:23:08And I saw that as the first way to say no, You know, to telegraph to the other side that there's a problem coming. And then my son Brandon points out it's forced empathy. If I say, how am I supposed to do that to you? You're forced to look at me and take stock of the position that I'm in. Your response to that is going to tell me exactly how much you care about that. That's a game changing phrase. And I realize now it's about implementation. I'm saying to you, like, look, where we are, it's impossible for me to continue. How am I supposed to do that? Like eight out of 10 times, that immediately changes the complexion of the conversation.

1:23:55It's so ridiculously effective that in the two out of 10 times, it doesn't work. People are just like, oh, how am I supposed to do that? And it backfired. It failed on me. They looked at me and said, I don't care how you do it. You're just going to do it. And my answer to them is, no, it didn't fail. It gave you an answer you weren't expecting. If it's an implementation question, how am I supposed to continue in this relationship if you never talk to me? How am I supposed to continue? At the beginning, we had these amazing, we had date nights. We had quality time together. We were into each other.

1:24:31And they seemed to have gone away. How am I supposed to maintain my relationship with you? under these different set of circumstances. You know, that's not refusing to maintain it, what you say and what they hear. But what they hear is, I'm about out of here. And it's a great warning. And so either they're going to change, they're going to wake up because there's some inadvertent human nature there, or they're going to be indifferent to your question. if they're indifferent that's just giving you a preview of a slowly descending future now you got a hard hard decision to make be grateful for the time be willing to be smarter today than you were yesterday and ultimately your default has got to be your own happiness yeah and how do we do that in a way that we keep our personal emotions separate from those questions because I think sometimes you can ask those questions, but they're emotionally loaded.

1:25:36They're like, things used to be amazing before. Like, you know, now you don't do anything and they turn into not questions. They turn into demands, accusations. Accusations, demands, everything else. Yeah, or they turn into things that sound complainy. Like, oh, things were amazing before. Like, how do you expect me to... And it sounds like a complaint as opposed to a question, which is what you're positioning it as. And I think that's because our emotion gets so close to the question. How do you keep your emotions separate and go, actually, I need to negotiate effectively to get to where I want to get to rather than sound like I'm complaining.

1:26:09And now that person is only hearing the energy of the complaint as opposed to the explanation of what you're looking for. Well, the two possibilities are, can you talk it through with a friend who's neutral, who's not going to give you advice? You need a sounding board. You don't need advice. You know what the answers are, point of fact. So the advice is a waste of time. one of the great things I realized why I was effective on a suicide hotline, in many cases, I'm just a sounding board. I'm letting somebody say stuff out loud instead of having a bang around in their head, which is either confusing or it makes sense in a bad way, or you say stuff out loud and you get a better grip on it.

1:26:50So a friend is a great sounding board. And you could even say in advance, look, I'm not looking for advice. I'm just looking for a sounding board. I want to talk this stuff out. I want to hear what I'm thinking. That's one potential option. You got friends that always want to give advice anyway. So there's a little bit of a negotiation up front with that friend. Or maybe certain friends are good for being sounding boards and others aren't. Then in a moment, like what happens if you didn't have the time to prepare? You catch yourself in a moment, which is similar to any negotiation. Suddenly you caught yourself in the middle.

1:27:23But your gut instinct is going to kick in. the mistake everybody makes is they want to deny the dynamic instead of observing it. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. I don't want to sound like a whining, complaining, typical whining, complaining female. Instead say, I'm probably going to sound like a typical whining, complaining female or whatever side of that argument that you're in, argument, interaction, negotiation. If you simply call it out in advance, then the other side gets braced for it and they deal with it. They don't get to, you know, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining.

1:27:59And then the other person is saying, yeah, but you're going to go ahead and complain. If you say, I'm going to sound like I'm complaining, that's that two millimeter shift. The other person will listen and then say, well, those were actually some legitimate points. So it's a combination of the two things, each of which take practice. Like nobody automatically diffuses stuff in advance. Nobody automatically does. If you got to the point where you're denying it, you're actually a little bit further down the line. You're aware of the dynamic. So now just shift from denying to recognizing. Yeah, I love that.

1:28:38I was asked to give a keynote to one of my corporate clients a couple of months back. And when they were briefing me, they did a great job. They were like, Jay, this audience we feel is just on the cusp ready for your message. so they said usually they're used to dealing with much more hard hitting speakers who are gonna like pump them up and motivate them but we want them to move into this soft emotional intelligence meditation peace space and they said that they're probably gonna have their backs up a bit when you walk in because they'd expect someone who's you know gonna come in a bit more but but we really want you to be the person who takes them in this direction so i was like i really appreciated that briefing because it was good for me to have that.

1:29:24So I walk in to this conference and I can tell what the person told me on the phone is immediately the truth. I get announced, I walk out on stage, there's a few claps, but it's not the warmest reception I've ever had in my life. And I called it out. It was exactly what you said. I said, look, I know you all think that meditation is woo woo. I said, I know you all think that, you know, stillness and peace and all this stuff is a bit intangible and it's a bit random, but I promise you everything I'm going to share with you today is highly practical, tactical, and you're going to be able to implement it.

1:29:56And all of a sudden I could see people change. And what I was saying was true. I'm very tactical about meditation and I'm very practical about philosophy, but the assumption people had was, oh, well, you know, we just want someone to motivate us. And it was amazing. Like that felt like one of the biggest wins that i mean the presentation went off on a beautiful arc i felt such a great rapport with the audience and it's exactly what you just said it was recognizing and again going back to your earlier point summarizing what their point of view was yeah and and recognizing that that was okay it's not that they were wrong it's not that they were flawed or that they weren't smart enough it wasn't condescending it was genuine that they had certain beliefs about meditation and philosophy that could be true, but that I wasn't presenting it that way.

1:30:46Right. Yeah. So I love that. And it was, it was probably one of my favorite speaking experiences because it felt like such a challenge to have to turn it around. Yeah. And, and then, then it's highly satisfying in retrospect, right? And you did it with them invisibly. Like they didn't know what happened. It just happened. Yeah. Yeah. It was really special. When someone's in a relationship and they're like, I want to get my partner to do more personal growth. I want to get my partner to maybe open up to therapy. I want to get my, you know, and I hear this a lot. I'm sure you hear it too. But I hear a lot of people tell me, I want my partner to, right?

1:31:22They want their partner to become something or do something. How do you negotiate that? And how should that person change their mindset in order to make it a healthier thing than a demand? The real fundamental issue is, is this the right relationship? Like, is this behavior that's consistent with the things that you value and the things that they value? That's the first issue. My company gets coached on EOS. Jonathan Smith is our EOS coach. And I remember the first time we sat down with Jonathan, he said, all right, so what are your core values? I'm like, what do you mean? Work hard, be honest.

1:32:00What more is there? Learn. You know, have a sense of humor. He's like, no, no, no, no. No. First of all, it's a little more complicated than that. Secondly, he said, then all of your relationships you'll find, ALL, business and personal, succeed or fail based on alignment of core values. I'm like, oh, wow, okay, that makes sense. So does this have to do with the relationship? Is the behavior change that you're seeking from the other person consistent with the core values that you share. Now, you don't have to share every core value, but you kind of need to share about 80 % of them. And if the behavior you're asking for is really disguised for a change in a value, it's not going to happen.

1:32:50And the hard part is accepting that. You can value someone. They can remain your friend. And you can still have a positive relationship, but not that intimate relationship, not that lifelong commitment, which the vast majority of us are driving for, you know, this great, phenomenal, collaborative, long-term relationship of trust. So what I would ask is for the person to say, does this fall within? Do we share enough values that this is worth the trouble? And then the conversation is that I'm now talking about a behavior change that's consistent with the values that they hold. If their behavior change is inconsistent with the values that they hold, they're never going to change.

1:33:38And we're both going to be miserable, and we're going to waste two to five to seven years of our lives. And hopefully the only upside will be when this is over, I'm smarter. Yeah. Yeah. And that some of this is taking me a really long time to come to accept the reality of it, that we're not helping each other if we're not in the right relationship. You're not helping them, they're not helping you. and you can value them as human beings and you can wish them well. So the first question is, is the behavior change I want consistent with the values that we share? Now you can start talking about it within that light.

1:34:21Like, so sounds like we share this value. Consequently, here's how I think we can manifest it together so that we have a deeper relationship. in that context there's a conversation if it's about the other person being happier too not just you being happier at their expense but it's about both of you being happier together yeah and it's really going to line up to what are the values yeah i i think you've hit the nail on the head the i believe the challenge is that we want people to respect our values because in some way we disrespect theirs. So we want people to value what we value because we actually don't like their values.

1:35:10And I find that that 20 % you're talking about around where you don't have to have the same shared values, I think that's when you actually respect, wait a minute, they have a different value to me in this area. And that's okay. Let me learn to value that. And hopefully they'll learn to value my deferring value. And hey, guess what? we may not value the same things in this area, but I respect that person for their values because I understand how they got to there. And I understand why they have that value. And we don't have to have the same one. And I find that we're constantly, we feel like if someone doesn't have the same exact values as us and value the same exact things, then that we can't connect at all.

1:35:52And I feel like you're going to run out of people chasing people across the world, trying to find someone who values what you value in exactly the same way. Two people can value their family, but they can mean two totally different things. Yeah, I find that we need to get beyond this idea of my values are the most important and they're all that value. And if you don't value that, then we can't get anywhere. Right, yeah, I agree. And then be curious about the other side's value. Exactly. And then how is it added to your life? Yeah. My girlfriend Wendy, again, And she got relationships with people that she, and she keeps in touch with people she's known since she was seven years old.

1:36:35I don't have those kind of relationships. You know, I haven't worked that hard at it. Some of those people are still alive, but I rarely talk to them. And she's really opened my eyes in so many ways to the value of these great long-term relationships, even with people that you disagree with operationally. You know, you're a Democrat, they're a Republican, you know, whatever it is. but she's maintaining those relationships. And there's a richness to her life that I have not maintained that I see it manifest itself, and I want to learn from it. That's beautiful. The book's called Never Split the Difference.

1:37:09Do you ever split the difference? No, never. Never. Not in relationships, not business. So here's a caveat, though. There's a difference between splitting and blending. Okay. Maybe this is too cerebral of an analogy, but steel is 2 % carbon, 98 % iron. That ain't splitting the difference. What's the proper blend? If there is a blend so that what we come up with is a better product. Now, 2%, 98 % split in human nature would be like, oh, my God, no. Or if I contributed 2%, I want 50 % of the profit. No, you only contributed 2%. Well, it doesn't matter that we're far more better off. So splitting the difference is not really about finding the best blend.

1:38:07Or then never split the difference might also mean that you're 100 % right and I'm 100 % wrong. One of my favorite negotiations from Georgetown, husband and wife are in a discussion over real tree versus artificial tree, Christmas tree. Husband wants an artificial tree for all the practical reasons. He thinks his wife is being unreasonable, unpredictable, too emotional about a real tree. And he's a student, so he uses, he thinks to get his way, a great label. Sounds like having a real tree meant a lot to you growing up because he's digging in deep. If somebody's really seemingly irrationally sticking to something, it's not in some reason, it's not in the last 24 hours.

1:39:02It may be 20 years ago. And so then she opens up and finally lays out all the reasons for the real tree. He realizes she's completely right. Her goals are much loftier and more long-lasting than his are. They get a real tree. So never spit the difference is also being willing to entertain the idea that the other side's got insight that you don't have, and you got to be open to it and be willing to accept it, which is the same thing you want from them. It's just making this a two-way street. That's a great answer. I love that. Chris, it's been such a joy talking to you today. And I know that people, I hope, are going to run and get the book, Never Split the Difference.

1:39:50But you also have a documentary out that you're talking about. So I want you to share that with us. Yeah, it just came out. It's called Tactical Empathy. It's on Amazon. We shot it with DNA Films, Nick Nanton, Emmy-winning producer. And it's really sort of about the history of the hostage sieges and how they turned out. and what we learn from them. We collectively, you know, my son Brandon is featured in the documentary. There's a phrase, empathy is a sneak attack on racism. Empathy produces better decision making. And when Nick came to me about the film, I said, you know, there are enough law enforcement disadvantaged community problems that I think empathy is going to go a long way towards solving.

1:40:36Not all of them, just most of them. and if we can get rid of most of them, that's a pretty good start. So we're going to categorize, this is going to be designed to show how law enforcement hearing people out is going to tamp down a lot of the flames, if you will. So then we end up, at about the same time, I get approached by NYPD. They want me to come and do a training for, they've got critical people that they want emotional intelligence training for, they want to plant a seed because they want a more effective NYPD, which is a more empathic NYPD. And I said, all right, so here's the deal. Let us film it for the documentary.

1:41:24And my son Brandon's going to do the training, not me. You get us for a full day. Brandon is as good or better at this than I am. And the interesting additional feature is my son Brandon's mother's African-American. Effectively to the world, he's African-American. Big boy, big guy, played lineman in college football. Sizable human being. The very kind of guy that if he got out of his car will cause most police officers to think they got a fight on their hands just by looking at them. He's going to do the training. And so we've got a segment in there of Brandon doing this phenomenal training for these guys and showing them how empathy is going to make you more effective.

1:42:12It's going to build bridges in the community. Communities got problems with law enforcement that you didn't create. You stepped into this job trying to do the right thing. That doesn't matter of the baggage between the communities. You got to deal with that. So there's also, besides the history of the company and some pretty good hostage stories. That's brilliant. Then we're trying to back into police community relationships a little bit with the doc, and I hope it helps law enforcement get better training so that there's less problems with the disadvantaged communities. Yeah, that's fantastic.

1:42:50What's it called? Tactical Empathy. On Amazon. On Amazon. Awesome. I can't wait to watch it. Sounds fantastic. Chris, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five or a fast five. Each question has to be answered with one sentence maximum. It's a lightning round. Yeah, lightning round. We're in a lightning round here. Just one word to one sentence. I get to proceed to the championship level after this if I get through it. Yeah, exactly. All right. So Chris Voss, these are your fast five. So question number one, Chris, what's the best advice you've ever heard or received?

1:43:24Never take directions from somebody you wouldn't trade places with. Question number two, what's the worst advice you've ever heard or received? Oh, wow. You know, hang in there just to prove them wrong. Third thing, how would you define your current purpose? Making the world a better place. Question number four, why is empathy not a weakness? Empathy is strength. Empathy is reasoning. Empathy is a superpower. And it's got nothing to do with weakness. And fifth and final question we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create a law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

1:44:09Be nice first. Nice guys don't finish last, yeah. No, well, you don't got to stay nice. You just got to be nice first. Got it. I love it. Chris Voss, everyone, the book is called Never Split the Difference. the documentary is called Tactical Empathy. I'm so grateful, Chris, for your time and energy. I hope we get to do this again. This was just the beginning of our relationship and I feel like I learned so much. This is definitely an episode I'm gonna listen to again. And I highly recommend you all go and read the book because there are so many great insights, principles, tips, strategies, and stories inside of it.

1:44:42And of course, go and watch the doc on Amazon, Tactical Empathy. Chris, thank you so much for being here. So grateful. It was a pleasure, Jay. Look forward to it again. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you want to be more and achieve more this year, go check it out right now. You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months, and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief. There's no sense of meaning and purpose.

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