Chris Voss - The FBI Negotiator’s Playbook for Winning Any Deal

26:02by definition is three, but God, I don't know how long a few minutes is. So it's a really bad, it's a really bad phrase. What do people get wrong on the other side? Like what do you recommend people do in response to that? Just don't respond. When someone says to me, hey, when someone says, do you have a few minutes? What would you respond if you were me yesterday? You got three. That's a, that's good. I'm sticking now with the audio note. Hit me with an audio note. so I can listen and respond on my own free time as opposed to you hijacking my time. I like that a lot, too. And it worked amazing.

26:38Yeah, yeah, because then you're going to force them to focus what they have to say. Yes, it was very, very detailed, dialed, short. And then I had a quick response back, end of story, we're done. Perfect. Yeah, well done. Voice note, let's go, baby. You're at the Jack Welch signing. Seven seconds, 200 people in line. you got one shot to pitch him. What's that line? And shout out to Jack Welch. That's an OG right there. Oh, yeah. Sales God. Super, super big fan of everything that he did. I said, is it a ridiculous idea for you to come and speak at the negotiation course I teach at USC? And initially, Jack, like me, when he's thinking, looks like he wants to kill you.

27:20He seems like an angry little man. He does seem like an angry little man. Because his focused face, which is what he went to right then, I didn't realize that at the time. He looked furious, but what he was doing was thinking through all the implementation steps. People have accused me of having a resting serial killer face. Like, if I'm really listening to you, you think I'm thinking about chopping you up and serving you with fava beans and a nice chianti, right? I was thinking that when I asked him before we were on camera, like, what are you most excited about? and you're like, nothing. I don't get too high or too low.

27:55I was thinking that in the back of my head. You do seem genuinely happy, but yeah, the body language. I do feel like you could, like, dice me up right now. A lot of people, when they're really thinking, they get a look, and Jack has looked at Jack's head on his face and horrified. I mean, I thought, first, I thought he was going to have me thrown out. Secondly, he looked so angry, I thought he had a stroke and he died and he was going to fall over dead in front of me. But after what seemed like forever, of course, if you're on the other end of one of those looks, it seems like forever. He laid out the deal.

28:24He said, this is my personal assistant's name. This is a Twitter account we have set up to communicate with her. I will call her and tell her who you are. I think we're going to be in Los Angeles in the fall. If we are, we're going to come in and speak at your class. All just because I said, is it a ridiculous idea? I'm fishing for a no. He thought, no, it's not ridiculous. What do we got to do to make this happen? Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Laid it all out for me. So that's the science behind it. Is it, obviously you elicit the no, which we talked about how important that is. But then it gives them, they're processing in their mind kind of the sequencing of what happens next.

28:57You're like allowing them to think what's next. Right. Because if someone feels safe and protected, they don't feel like thinking through next steps obligates them. They'll lay out the next steps. What's the response rate for something like that? Is it a ridiculous idea? I'm going to use that one. I'm going to use that one a lot. I like that one. I've never used it before. I can't think of a time that's got bad on me. you know and if it is I want to know if it's a ridiculous idea and then you know there's a little bit of playfulness to it as well which always works in your favor I think playfulness is a superpower and it's going to work in your favor yeah when I think about that I definitely think about just like body language and tone I completely agree I feel like that's in my personality is I'm kind of like playful in nature and when you say that it's almost like you're joking but you're not joking in a sense that's how kind of I feel about it yeah yeah guys this episode is sponsored by ketone iq i often sit down in this chair for over three hours and stay super dialed with ketones it's a completely different category of fuel for your brain clean sustained and no crash i take a shot before recording before deep work and any session that i need to be sharp head to ketone.com open residency for 30 off your first subscription and a free gift with your second shipment.

30:16That's K-E-T-O-N-E dot com slash openresidency. Guys, this is something that I use every single day, non-negotiable. Give it a try. There's a listener out there that has a business. They're talking to their business partner. Maybe they're bored and they have a risky pivot coming up. Maybe they're allocating a bunch of their revenue towards kind of a new initiative. How would they open when they're talking to that board member or partner? What's like a good opening line that they can do? Well, within a context, it's probably going to be you guys are going to think I'm crazy. You're probably going to think I'm out of my mind.

30:58Because if you're throwing something really new outlandish at people, it triggers their fear systems to start with. Oh, my God, you haven't thought this through. You're probably crazy. This is out of, you know, people's fear systems are going to kick into gear. And if you know it's coming, and it does, It's there all the time because we're wired to be negative. So what you're doing is preempting it. You're disarming it in advance. And the crazy thing about it, you can't plant emotions. You can only nurture positives or you can deactivate negatives. Now, calling out a positive nurtures it, so people are usually afraid that calling out a negative increases it also.

31:37And point of fact, it disarms it and inoculates from it. So that's the flywheel is you want to identify, speak about all the negatives, deactivate and then flip to positive? Well, make sure that they sink in and then see if they don't flip to positive on their own. And if they don't, there's a pretty good chance that you haven't got all the negatives out. So then you're saying there's probably some other stuff here to be worried about that I haven't even mentioned because you need to know what's in the other side's head. it. Once you've disarmed the negatives, deactivated them, positives kind of start to take off on their own.

32:12There's a famous negotiation between Steve Jobs and Bob Eisner, when Eisner's CEO of Disney first time. And it was Disney buying Pixar. And Jobs laid out all the negatives while he was adamantly against it. Jobs ends up being the big advocate internally for Pixar for making this deal. their initial meeting at the Apple campus Jobs laying out all the negatives which sort of freaked Eisner out he's like oh you know I guess there's a lot of negatives and Jobs on his own says yeah but sometimes the positives outweigh the negatives he got them all out he got them all out on his own basically we call this the accusations audit he did it to himself if you don't know what's going on you're the recipient of this it scares the hell out of you I mean, the first time through, it just scares the hell out of you.

33:05And Eisner thought this thing was over on the spot. And he actually basically says that. And Jobs says, yeah, well, you know, sometimes the positives outweigh the negatives. And that's really the way the brain works. If you can clear the negativity out of somebody's head, again, let the neurochemicals go, seek through, there's a pretty good chance positive stuff's going to jump out and potentially make the deal for you. Ironically, I do a monthly meeting with my wife. We run our relationship like an operating system. And the first thing I always do is I disarm with all of the things I've underperformed on for the month first to set the table before she can attack me.

33:43So I'm like, I've done this wrong, this, this, this, this, this, and this. And I just acknowledge all of them first. And we just clear the table and start at zero. Yeah, that's perfect. Because she wants you to know. And the biggest thing is she wants to know you know. which almost sounds like do I know do you know do I know but at that point in time it really clears people's heads I think the same thing could be said for hiring people where you just let them know you almost like scare them into how hard the job is going to be is saying them that you're going to be working long hours there's a million different ways but just you're going to get an asymmetric benefit because the people that acknowledge that and want the challenge I think are going to be good people, or you're just going to get out the people that are afraid of those, let's just call them, accusations.

34:31Yep. Yeah, yeah, exactly. One of the employees who was a superstar, the only reason she's no longer with us is she got married and her husband moved. But she came in one day and she was looking to negotiate a raise, which, although was probably appropriate, was early. And so I looked at her and I said, you're overworked and underpaid. That's the first thing I said. She goes, yeah. And I said, what promise did I break? Because I told her from the beginning, like, we are going to work like crazy. And you're going to feel underpaid. And if you do your job, you make it easy for me to give you a raise.

35:15So the harder you work, the more money you can make. You got to work hard first. And then we'll go there and show me that you're worth it. and the amount of money you can make with me is unlimited. It's only limited by your ability to produce value. And you lay stuff out like that from people in the beginning, and when you say, what promise did I break? Why did she come in? Because she was knocking herself out, and the people in her life were saying to her, look at the way you're knocking yourself out for this guy. How much are you getting made? Somebody comes walking in like that, somebody's whispering in their ear.

35:54and they don't know that that's the real influence. I know that's the influence because I told you up front, we're going to work really hard, and it's not going to be super high pay to start with, but that puts me in a position to continually raise what I pay you. And then the ambitious, the people who want to be challenged are down for that. Somebody will whisper in their ear, they'll have second thoughts. whoever it is and those second thoughts creep in let them come in and have a conversation you're doing this not because you're not satisfied with the job, you're not doing this not because I misled you you're doing this because as an A player, the rest of the people in your life are B or C players they feel less by comparison so it's easier to try to get you to lay off than it is for them to raise the level of their game.

36:51And that's why they whisper in your ear. So it seems as though this accusation audit, a huge thing that people could get wrong is basically promising things that they can't actually come through with. And then they get caught in that situation that you're talking about right now. So initially saying stuff that potentially they can't live up to. What are some of those other kind of big things that people make mistakes with? Because it seems as though in this accusation audit, it's just like, you're just telling them all of the bad stuff. Is there any other things that people do wrong in that stage?

37:22Well, first of all, if the accusations audit is doing an audit, if you will, of the bad things that they may be harboring about you, the accusations against you, not you against them, them against you, and listing them. Now, in the execution of that, and in saying them out loud, usually starting with the biggest things first and going three or four at a time and letting them sink in. Now, what people will do is they'll pull their punches. They won't want to overdo it. Like, I'm a time is money person, so I'm going to say to you, look, this is going to break your heart. They're gone on my team.

38:02He likes to say, when I get done saying this to you, you're going to want to leap across the table and stab me in the eye with a pencil. the mistake people make first is like, well, you know, you might be unhappy with this. Well, you're pulling your punch. You're letting the other side know you're scared. And if you're scared, they ought to be scared. But when you're fearless, their confidence in you grows. And you really want to get to the point where they go like, hold it, hold it, hold it. You know, you're being too hard on yourself. What is it that you need? Bang, now you can go. So the mistake that people make in doing it is being too fearful.

38:41You have to go all in on it and then have that play. I feel like it's playful in nature as well, too. This plays to that as well, too. Playfulness is a great thing, and almost everybody's heard of self-effacing humor, and that's throwing out the negatives that the other side thinks about you. You laugh, you go like, you know, I'm probably going to feel like the big... I'm probably going to seem like the biggest jerk you ever met. Laughing. That's self-effacing humor. That's adding playfulness to an accusations audit. it. And everybody goes like, oh yeah, I've seen people do that all the time. Well, this is how you break that down.

39:08Love that. There's so much good stuff to take out of that for everybody out there. I want to get into the next one. Your students at Georgetown use this line on a low ball and the buyer raised the offer on their own. What was that line and why did it work? Well, your offer is very generous. It just doesn't work for me. That's the line. That's the one you're talking about. Cause there's a couple, these are versions of no, and it's really the second version of no. So why does it work? To start with, if you're calling them generous, even when they're being stingy, for your perspective, they're going to want to be more generous.

39:42You can nurture positive. You want to create more generosity from the other side to start with. That's going to do it. Because in their version, if they gave you an offer at all, they were generous. They could have given you nothing. So therefore, since I offered you 10 % instead of zero, I was generous. Empathy is about how's the other side seeing it. Now, to say it doesn't work for me, you do not want to get into this external criteria nonsense. Just because there's external criteria that backs up certain data, that doesn't mean it works for you. One of my Harvard brothers and sisters, very smart, certain things I just do not agree with on them.

40:25One of them is, well, let's sit down and let's agree on a set of external criteria. And if we both decide the external criteria, then the deal will make itself. Well, you're never going to agree on that external criteria. You're never, they're going to pick numbers they like, you're going to pick numbers you like. So that's, that's a fool's errand. And this is talking about like salary benchmarks and stuff like that. Like the person in my role or my position in this market makes this much amount of money. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So what if I can't pay that? Or what if I could pay more? You just limited yourself one way or the other.

40:58External criteria is just, is, is stupid. So many subtle things. What if I could pay more? That's a good one. Yeah. I mean, you never know. You're cutting yourself off on either end. But as soon as I say it doesn't work for me, you can't come back with, oh, yes, it does. you're out of the external criteria game entirely. Like, I'm the only one that knows my internal data. I got proprietary information behind that. You can't say, well, people spend$1 ,000 an hour for this. If I say, well, it doesn't work for me, you got nowhere to go. You can't yet. So you just want to deactivate this external criteria argument entirely because it's a fool's errand.

41:40That's the main goal of that. obviously you get the no and then you delete that external criteria. Yeah, you know, and then you're also focusing this down. You're letting somebody know you're close to turning and walking away. And you're warning them in what feels like a very collaborative way. You know, I did this process for a long time, tell a friend of mine, Ned Coletti used to manage the Dodgers. LA guy here, still a commentator on sports, really liked Ned a lot. And we're talking about it. He says, oh, yeah. She says, I had a mentor teach me to let out no a little at a time. Never let somebody get blindsided by no.

42:17Warn them it's coming. And this is one of the ways of warning people that no's on its way. And when I hit you with no, I don't want you to be caught off guard with it. I want you to know it's been coming. And if you haven't been paying attention, that's not my fault. So incremental small no's. You're not saying no to that specific offer. You're just saying that this doesn't work for me, thus go back to the drawing board and find a way to make it work. That's on you now. We're pushing it on you to make it work. And I want to collaborate. You know, even though I'm pushing it back on you. Because it was a generous offer.

42:46Yeah, you know, let's go. And I'll throw one more thing in on that. If you still haven't made the deal at that point, and for example, both sides have retired to think about the deal. Probably a negotiation with multiple people on each side of the table. Send an email to the principal spokesperson for the other side and tell them you appreciate how hard they worked on bringing the deal to the table. Nothing else. Because if they get appreciation, the chances are that they will modify the deal is much, much higher if they feel appreciated by you. and just a simple subtle touch point in between while they're thinking through it and you'll probably get 10 20 how hard you guys work because they did work hard bringing it to the table they really did nobody doesn't work really hard and so emotional compensation is extremely valuable jim camp wrote start with no back in 2002 he used to call emotional compensation worth four times dollar compensation.

43:56That doesn't mean the dollar compensation is invaluable, but the right emotional compensation can be worth four times as much. And so you're giving the other side some emotional compensation. Chances are they're going to modify the deal in your favor is very high. That is such a simple, easy tactic that people can use out there. Just that simple email in between, mid-negotiation. That's an amazing one. I want to add one on. I added one to your list. We're going to go through 10, but this one is a little different. Let's talk about the outcome with this Jeffrey Schilling case and the that's right versus you're right.

44:32Oh yeah. Because there's one little small world and it changes everything. So I'd love to walk through that. Tell us about that case. Well, Schilling's being held by an Al-Qaeda offshoot in south of Philippines. He has caused himself to be put in this position. And these guys are the main guy, Abu Sabayi is a sociopathic killer. Like by anybody's definition, Sabayi is bad to the bone, as bad as they come. Murder and raping bad guy. Bond villain extraordinaire. And he's got chilling. And I'm coaching a negotiator with no previous negotiation experience, but coachable. Like this guy, he just cared about doing things well.

45:17He didn't care that he never saw the idea before. He was, this was a coachable guy. And we'd been stuck for a while. You know, we kind of tried, I had a fair amount of experience with Middle Eastern Islamic Arab terrorists. And I know I'm, it sounds like I'm broad brushing, but you know what they say, all politics is local, right? So an Islamic extremist coming out of Egypt is not going to be the same cat as an Islamic extremist coming out of the Philippines. I hadn't really learned that yet, and I knew what triggered the emotional buttons in the guys from Sudan and Egypt, and it's just not quite landing with this dude in the Philippines.

46:03So we said, do a reset. I said, we're going to get him to say, that's right. That's the only thing we're going to go for, and we're going to summarize everything this guy's ever said about this, and we're not going to explain any of it away because he'd come up with some nonsense. You know, we're holding, we want war damages. We don't want ransom. We want$10 million for 500 years of economic harm. And so, first of all, war damages makes him sound like a hero. Ransom makes him sound like a criminal. He wants to be a hero. You know, one man's terrorist, another man's freedom fighter. He wants to be a freedom fighter.

46:36So, all right, so let's talk to him like he is. Let's lay out all this stuff to him that he said, and then let's think of everything that's been implied. and we're going to summarize everything. You're going to go on at length. If you don't feel like you're laying it on thick, you're not laying it on thick enough. For the other side to hear. You're trying to make them feel heard. At the time, I wasn't familiar with the neurochemicals. I mean, this is before the neuroscience that we have today. I just figured it was going to cause a reset. My guy lays it out long, long silence. First of all, it seemed like it took him forever to say it because we had a long list.

47:14Negotiating points. Yeah. You know, economic harm, colonial powers. Philippines have been ravaged by everybody on earth pretty much. And so this was all this resentment that they had triggered, built up inside they were claiming. And it gets done, and the sociopath on the other side still has neurochemicals. And after a long silence, the guy says, that's right. and we sat there in silence for a while and my guest is, let's talk again a couple days. Get off the phone. $10 million ransom demand went away. It was never mentioned again. It was gone forever. They came back over the course of a couple of weeks with non-monetary stuff.

47:58So-and-so moderator from Malaysia, get this guy in here, get this politician. No, no, no, but we didn't say no. We just summarized, continued to summarize, continued to get the best rights. and finally they just kind of disappeared in the background. They stopped checking on our hostage. He finally realizes he's sitting out there in a jungle by himself. They're gone. You know, people that used to be around him all the time, you know, slowly are fading away. He's sitting out there in a jungle. You know, they let him go. They couldn't admit that they let him go. They just kind of went away. And so he's like, hey, what am I, you know, why don't I leave?

48:37He does, and he's walking down a country road, a dirt road in a jungle. A farmer sees him, alerts the military. They fly him to Manila, big press conference. I'm back in the Philippines about three weeks later on another case, and a guy I was coaching says, you're not going to believe he called me on the phone. This sociopathic murderer, Sabaya, calls him and says, hey, man, you just, you're really, really, really good. and they should promote you. From the psychopathic murder. Everybody, if you're human, you want to feel respected. If you're human, you want to feel heard. And if you're human, that's going to trigger neurochemical changes in you that you cannot fight off.

49:25Now, they might not feel guilt, but they still love to be respected, and that respect gives you influence that lasts past any transaction, even with social pass. How does someone in a business context take that into their world? It's just laying it out, silence, and then just looking for them on their own accord to say that's right versus you're right? If you get a that's right, you are hitting a target. So that's the trigger. That's the trigger to know that you're in a good spot. They feel appreciated, respected, and you'll be able to move forward. Yep, yep. If that's right is always a good sign.

50:03Now, sometimes you need some more. That's why silence is necessary. You know, you're going to listen with your eyes after somebody says that's right. You're going to pay attention to how they react. You're going to give them a chance to add to it. Those golden moments of silence, make them work in your favor. You know, you don't want to interrupt. Let them throw something out on the table. At a bare minimum, they're going to respect the fact that you shut up and waited for them to respond. more triggering of the oxytocin, the neurochemicals that give you the upper hand. On the contrary, if you're hearing you're right as opposed to that's right, is that a signal that they feel like you're talking to them, not with them?

50:45Yeah, they feel being talked at. Yeah. Like, even if they completely agree to say you're right is to maintain an internal defense mechanism where it's still your solution, it's your answer, it's your approach. they haven't adopted it. Even if it's true, there's something about it they don't like. And when somebody says you're right, they are not all in. There's still a problem. You're not going to get full compliance. You're not going to get full agreement ever out of you're right. There's always going to be problems. That's right is what clears the deck. That's simple change in one word. Love that.

51:24What makes you ask? That's the next one I want to touch on. Take me to that security clearance story. And what did that insurance company actually want to know? I don't know, because I didn't ask. They asked me, we're up for a possible contract with an insurance company for K &R insurance. They're thinking about getting into the business. I'm there as a subject matter expert. And they say, at the time, have you maintained your security clearance? Now, I'm dumb enough to answer the question when I find out why they asked. And I'm like, no. And then we moved on and passed it. I thought my answer to them was going to be so shocking.

51:57They'd be curious. Like, if you leave the government, in my mind, I can find out any classified information I need to at any given point in time. All I got to do is find a reporter that's reporting on it accurately. They're being leaked information. All I got to have is a list of reporters. I was in Washington, D.C. for a long time, and I used to refer to D.C. as Leak City. Every politician, every aide out there wants to be important and they're leaking everything to reporters. So why do I need a security clearance to find out classified information? Well, all I could do is ask a reporter. Now, if I got a security clearance and I pass it on, I've now committed a felony.

52:38But if I don't have a clearance, I have no obligation to hold on to it. So if I'm doing K &R insurance for a private company, they don't want me finding out stuff I can't tell them. If I get information on the kidnapping, and the kidnapping is a terrorist organization, They want me to be able to tell them what I know. If I got a clearance, I can't tell them. They never gave me the chance to give that explanation. You know, I thought my answer was brilliant. I thought it was so shocking. They were going to file. Why, really? Well, why? What's behind that? Like, none at all. Moved on. We didn't get the contract.

53:13To this day, I still didn't know what made them ask. So the design of that question, there's even a book out there of a long time ago, Well, the question behind the question is the most important issue. Why are they asking? You can't find out if you ask why, but you can't find out if you say what makes you ask because then they feel like they're not responsible. They're clear of any accusation. The word why creates accusations that they've done. Why did you do that? Well, I must have done something wrong. Why did you ask? Well, I must be asking something wrong. You don't want the problem that the word why triggers.

53:52So you just switch your why to what, find out what's behind the question. Doesn't it seem, I'm thinking more so like in a business context, doesn't it seem like a bit like deflective? If someone, you know, if you're going to go raise money and someone's like, you know, what's your burn rate? What's your EBITDA? And you go, what makes you ask? Like what other elements do you need to take into account to make it actually land correctly? Yeah, well, that's again, the eye of the beholder. And it's so, most people are afraid that it's going to feel deflective. Because you haven't done it before and you're not used to doing that.

54:25So many of these things, by the way, for everybody out there listening and watching, it is very weird for a lot of these things to do first. You have to do it a lot of times before you feel comfortable. Get you comfortable. Yeah, yeah. At least a bare minimum. At four times trying anything, you begin to get the information as to whether or not it works. Now at about 64, it's a habit. So you got to do the four. That's why I said earlier, you know, I say it's now a bad time to talk four times today because you need the data because your amygdala is telling you it's disrespectful. And at 64 tries, it rolls off your tongue easily.

55:02It's become an actual habit. So, again, you got it the first couple times you're going to feel uncomfortable. Now, it's not deflective. I've never had anybody push back on me, but I've always been prepared because I want to make sure I want to ask. I want to know what you're really asking. I'm being respectful and attentive. And I want to make sure I give you the best answer I possibly can. So ultimately, that is kind of, it's kind of an in-between line. You're ultimately going to answer the question, but it's a touch point to, again, get more information, disarm a bit more, and just level the playing field a bit more, per se.

55:35And to feel very respectful. Like the word what is a deferential question. And there's great power in deference. I want the power the deference gives me. So I could say, what makes you ask? Flippantly. Or I can say, what makes you ask? Like, I'm genuinely interested. And the tone of voice is going to change how it lands. We're going to get into those tone of voices, by the way, too. It's completely different. Just the delivery. It's insane how you just did those two. Completely different. Yeah. What are some of those deferential words? You mentioned how and what. The how and what are the principal deferential questions.

56:08Everybody loves to be asked what to do or how to do it. Like, everybody. It's so powerful. than even the manipulative types. You know, you could tell somebody what to do, and they'll turn around and say, well, what do you want me to do? And it'll catch you so off guard, you'll answer it again. Like, it's that powerful. And the how and what, each has its own design, and each is designed to trigger thinking mostly, but not really get an answer. So what is about problems? What keeps you up at night? What's the biggest challenge you face? What's getting in the way of getting this done? What is a word that's principally designed to uncover problems?

56:51Uncover something. What makes you ask? I want to uncover your reason for asking. Principally to uncover things. How is principally to create implementation? How do you want to proceed? How am I supposed to do that? How are we going to get around this? How is mostly about implementation. So you uncover problems with what, and you overcome problems with how, the implementation. Those are the main designs of those words. Now, they both feel deferential because people love to give advice. So basically, if you're asking how or what, you're looking for advice. It makes people super happy. People give advice all day long, even unsolicited advice.

57:35It feels so good. So it lands really well with the other side. So I want you to feel deference. I want you to think about something in depth, and I want you to think about it in a particular way. And how I want you to think about it is either going to be my choice of water or how. This all goes back to the power of listening kind of versus talking, and you're basically just putting it on the other person to talk and give you more information to then be able to process more articulate on your side. Right, exactly. What about on the flip side? Those are, let's just call them the good words. What are the bad words?

58:11What do people not want to see? What are those triggers? Is why one of those triggers? Generally speaking, why is almost always bad. And you may genuinely want to know why. But the problem is everybody out there, when you think somebody's done something wrong, you ask them why. You got somebody that works for you, and they made a mistake. You say, why'd you do that? it's what we ask people when we think they made a mistake. And we do that so much, everybody does it so much, it is a universal triggering word across all cultures. And I first learned this in hostage negotiation. We'd inadvertently ask a bad guy why they're doing something.

58:55They would go through the roof. It didn't matter if we were in Egypt or we were in the Philippines or we were in Colombia. It triggered bad guys worldwide. And finally I'm like, oh, the word why pisses people off around the world. Because as human beings, when you're little and you make a mistake, the nearest adult to you says, why did you do that? And so from a very young age, from as long as you can remember whatever language you speak, when somebody asks you why, they think you screwed up. And so that's what causes it to be such a triggering word, even when you want to know. And I think I probably first became aware of the difference.

59:34John Douglas was one of the FBI original sort of mind hunters. And I'm reading an article in USA Today, and they'd be sitting down with a serial killer, and instead of saying, you know, why did you commit this murder, whatever it was, if they switch the why to what and say, what made you commit the murder, they get an answer. And so there's, why, okay, so you're talking to serial killers. the word why, avoiding it, opens them up. I'm in hostage negotiation, the word why, avoiding it to what, opens them up. Like, I wonder if this is a human nature response as opposed to just a bad guy response.

1:00:13As it turns out, it's a human nature response. Yeah, your next one is actually one of the examples that you gave, it's a better use of words. You say, it seems like you have a good reason for asking that, as opposed to a why. You would use something like that, or what makes you ask. Yeah. Of those two, when do you use which? What makes you ask versus it seems like you have a good reason for asking that? The structure of it seems like is a label. It seems like it looks like it sounds like. The more tired somebody is and decision fatigue kicks in with every human being after about one o 'clock in the afternoon, the harder it is for them to answer a what or how because it triggers in-depth thinking.

1:00:52It's exhausting. I will use what and how to intentionally exhaust you sometimes. But if I really need an answer, and it's after 1 o 'clock in the afternoon, I'll switch to a label because it's less effort to answer. You're leading them down the path of what the answer is, it seems like. Yeah, you're making them just hit you with it right away. And I found this on myself. I'm texting one of my colleagues one day when I was flying back from the UAE The point is I'm heavily jet-lagged, and we're connecting. I've been up for like 16 hours. And I sent him a text, and he came back to me, it seems like you have a reason for asking.

1:01:38And I went bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I hit all five reasons, just came right off the top of my head, really fast. And I realized if he'd have said, what makes you ask in a text, it would have so exhausted me to try to sort it out... Think through it. ...that I'd have just texted back to him like, look, just do it. Stop bothering me. Just do it. But he hit me with a label instead when I was tired. And I came up with all the relevant information really quickly. Guys, if you're out there and you work for someone, know what or how questions after 1 p.m. New rule made up by Chris Voss must be used everywhere.

1:02:12I like that. That's a good rule. I'm telling you. Yeah, absolutely. That's a good rule. I want to know with a lot of these, for me, I just, I have not executed some of these, but I feel like silence is something very, very common with these. Like, again, it seems like if someone has messed up at a job and they're the employee, and you say it seems like you have a good reason for asking that, again, do we just default to silence there again until they say something? You got it, yeah. You need to find out what's going on in the other side's mind. Silence works, there are three basic conflict types.

1:02:43Silence works with each one differently, and it works with each one. The very analytical types. Heavy on data. they love silence, I think. Listening to Lex Friedman's podcast, and he's talking about how when someone's silent with him, he feels connection. He feels sharing silence creates a bond and intimacy. So about a third of the planet are analytical dudes like Lex. So you go silent with Lex, Lex is bonding with you. Shut up, let the dude bond with you. You know, let him share the silence with you, the thoughtfulness of it. So that works with them. the hope-oriented people, what we refer to as accommodators.

1:03:27I think they're the reason why the world says hope is not a strategy. They're very hope-oriented, low on details, high on hope. Silence gets them talking. They love to talk. They feel that they're connecting with you when they talk. So silence gives them the opportunity to connect with you by talking. Lex is connecting with you by silence. The accommodators are connecting with you by talking to you. Again, it's a connection through a different means, but you're still shut up. Now, the assertive, assertive wants to be heard and respected. And letting them talk makes them feel respected and heard.

1:04:08You don't got to agree with an assertive. You just got to respect them. And they feel respected when you let them talk. And then summarize back to them what they said. They feel enormously respected by that. Again, that requires you to be silent so they can feel heard. They can feel respected because you were listening to them. And if we zoom out, it's not just for that one line. You should be looking at someone. when you're talking to anyone, understand and know which of those three they are, and then obviously navigate accordingly based on the personality type. Each one of those three types, it comes into play at Impass.

1:04:42Not really necessarily. All three types want to talk. All three types want to feel heard. The analyst is going to talk to you. They just want to make sure you're listening because they're not going to bother wasting time talking to you if you're not going to listen. So you're in pretty good shape by starting out with a listening approach to all three types. Now, where it breaks down is it's going to be at impasse. That's when an impasse is usually a result of tight mismatch, not disagreement, but failing to see what the other side is really after. There's a new way to sweet green. Meat wraps. Handheld, hearty, and made for life on the move.

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1:05:44Of all of the ones that we went over If you look at that list that I have over there in front of you Is there any of them that you've like quietly stopped using? No They're all undefeated, they're all evergreen I wouldn't say undefeated I would say best chance of success. The success rates of all of those are higher than everything else. Now, I don't expect to be perfect. The analogy that I love is count cards in a casino. If you're the best card counter in a casino, are you going to expect to win every hand? No. You just win so much, it doesn't matter when you lose. Every now and then cards don't fall your way, but you're ahead of the house because you have shifted the odds in your favor.

1:06:23So then it doesn't matter when you lose, when you win more than anything else. What about the most underrated? If someone had to pick one of those and they had to really, really, they're going to do it four times, they're going to get the 64 times. If they equip themselves with this in a very, very deep way, which one would you say it is? It sounds like you got a reason for asking. That is, I mean, that feels just like almost useless. Like, you know, I don't know, you know, very leery. One of our clients said he picked a day where no matter what anybody said all day long, he wasn't trying to get anything done.

1:07:01He's just going to practice, it sounds like you have a good reason for saying that, or it sounds like you have a good reason for asking. It sounds like you have a good reason for saying that all day long. At the end of the day, he said, I had one of the most interesting days I have ever had. And he wasn't really using it. And we kept telling him it was super powerful. And he's like, okay, well, you know what? You think this is so powerful? I'll tell you what I'm going to try just to prove one way or the other. That's all I'm going to say all day. And at the end of the day, it was like, this was a cool day.

1:07:34I got into some of the most interesting conversations I'd ever gotten into. Because it unpacks. What about a line that wasn't in your book and or on the list? Is there anything new that's a big line that you use? I need you to wave a magic wand. That's interesting. Yeah, I used it to get extraordinary results in finding a lost suitcase in the Vegas airport. Woman came from outside a baggage claim and ransacked the airport looking for my suitcase. Like, they never do that. and when I first walked into customer service, I was tired, and they are battered children in there, like lost luggage. Battered children.

1:08:20People come in and scream at them all day long and blame them. That sounds like the worst job of all time. Oh, my God. You know, your suitcase is lost, right? And you're jet-lagged, and your stuff's in it, and you're livid, and you walk in there, these poor people behind the counter. They didn't lose your suitcase, but you're screaming at them, number one, like they did lose it, and you're also screaming at them that if you scream at them, they'll have a magic wand and make your suitcase appear. And I walked in there, and sometimes you just know what they're saying, and that's what empathy is.

1:08:58Like, you absolutely know what you're saying. And a woman says, how can I help you? And I go like, I need you to wave a magic wand. And she changed so much in a moment, and she ends up going into the bowels of the airport and personally getting my suitcase. That is nothing close to that that's ever happened. So I got people on my team, what happens if you're at the hotel at 11 o 'clock in the morning? They don't want to let anybody check in until 1 because people haven't gotten out of the rooms. You want your room. What are you expecting them to have? A magic wand. And if they let you check in early, that now they're charging you check in early fees.

1:09:35And the traditional person is asking very, like, direct, like, almost direct response type stuff. Yeah. Like, give me an upgrade. Let me get in early. No, like, strategy behind it. Yeah. And this just probably just messes with their head immediately because you're playful. It's funny. Yeah. Yeah. And it's what they're saying because, like, the person behind the counter at the hotel is thinking, like, you think I got a magic wand and I can wave it and the person that won't get out of your room will be out? So they're thinking that. so uh and then they're like but let me see what i can do and then they find out because it's playful and they're like oh you know okay all right yeah so that one oh and i need you to wave a magic one the other one getting a lot of mileage out is looking at somebody who could give you directions but is not there to give you directions and so this is usually going to be security guard in a casino security guard in a hotel security guard in a financial complex it could be the guy stacking vegetables in the grocery store when you can't find the right vegetable.

1:10:35You walk up to these people and you go, you look important. And they straighten up. And they're delighted. And they know where what you're looking for is. That's a lethal one, bro. That's a lethal one. And it makes them so happy. Sometimes they'll walk you to where it is, not just pointed out, they'll walk you over there to show you how important they are. I can't wait for this because I sometimes get a list from my wife of all these, like, random ingredients and stuff. I have no idea where they go, and I always ask random people. I'm going to try that one next, that Whole Foods. You look important.

1:11:13That is a good one. Damn. That's just one that you just randomly made up. Like, these new ones that you figure out, it's just you just testing random stuff. The you look important line. Because you can't test this in actual negotiations with terrorists. I would imagine. Yeah, right, exactly. Now, Jonathan Smith, two guys on my team just put out a book, Fight Less, Win More. Jonathan Smith and Derek Gaunt. And Jonathan came up with it because he was walking into Battery Financial Center in New York. And if you've been in there, they got no signs to find anything. It's heavy-duty security. And if you don't know where you're going and you walk in a door, you shouldn't be there in the first place.

1:11:51That's why there's no signs to find anything. Security guards everywhere. Security guards are not there to give you direction. If you're going to ask for a direction, again, you shouldn't be there at all. Now, Jonathan is in there to give a talk at J.P. Morgan, and it's confusing. He can't find his way around. And he sees the security guard and has a look on his face like, I'm not here to answer your questions. So he walks up to the guy and goes, you look important. Guy straightens up. How can I help you? Told him exactly where he needed to be. So is Jonathan Smith. Love it. Shout out Jonathan Smith.

1:12:24So all of these lines that we talked about, they fall under this one philosophy that you briefly touched on, which is tactical empathy. I'd love to just dissect like what is that and like the importance of the word tactical within that word. Right. It's, you know what it is, it's just applied emotional intelligence is what it really boils down to. Empathy, by definition, under the Black Swan method, empathy is just articulating your comprehension, articulating your understanding. It is not agreement. It is not agreement. It is not sympathy. It is not compassion. If you divorce it from those terms, you can exercise empathy with anybody because you're stating what you comprehend, how they see things.

1:13:09You can even say, before I disagree, here's how I think you see things. That's the real definition, the original definition of empathy. It's been twisted and turned a whole bunch of times over the years. I got empathy for you. People use it in place of sympathy. It's not. Yeah, can you give, let's just get the contrast between sympathy and empathy. How are those different? Sympathy could be, I'm on a Palestinian side. I feel their pain. I've suffered loss, too. Empathy is, here's why the Palestinians feel the way that they feel. They're sitting in the Middle East, minding their own business, World War II come along, and drop the Jews of the world on their head, took away their homeland.

1:13:50and it's been horrific and horrendous for them since. As an FBI agent, when I'm talking to an Islamic terrorist, I can say, you believe that the American government has been anti-Islamic for the last 200 years. Now, by definition in that statement, I didn't agree. I didn't say, I feel it too. I said, you believe. And then I didn't add anything to it at all. but we have a First Amendment. I don't go but. Here's why you're wrong. No explanation. Say to the other side what they believe. You can even say, before I disagree, here's how I think you see things. I can say to a Palestinian, before I disagree with what you guys are doing, here's that...

1:14:32That's that micro no, just setting the stage that you're going to say no? Well, it's not even that. It's just I'm not trying to pretend anything. I'm not trying to pretend I feel your pain. As a matter of fact, I'm telling you up front that I don't agree. Before I disagree, here's how I think you see this. You think that you guys were sitting there in the Middle East minding your own business, and as a result of World War II, which was Western Europe, carving up the world how they thought they should have been carved up after the war, punishing the Germans, and then because of what the Germans did to the Jews, the United Kingdom and the United States, they started to carve out a part of the Middle East with no input from you whatsoever, take your homes away, and drop this Jewish homeland on your head.

1:15:18Before I disagree with you, this is how I think you see things. That's empathy. And you'll be shocked at the positive impact that it has on the other side. They will at least not scream at you in support of their position. If you're ever going to get to a collaborative conversation, you've got to show the other side that you understand where they're coming from, not that you agree. And that's really what empathy is. I can demonstrate, I can articulate my comprehension of your point of view without agreeing with it. And you're going to feel the thing that we talked about earlier, heard and respected.

1:15:54And then you're more likely to collaborate with me. You are never going to collaborate with me until you feel heard and respected. Now, it doesn't guarantee that you will, but I can guarantee why you won't. And I want to eliminate the stuff that guarantees failure. I think it's safe to say that most people, when they think of empathy, they think of like the word nice. Yep. Isn't that like a, is that the right way to look at it or is that like a dangerous way to look at it? I think it's the dangerous way to look at it and really got turned on to this. When I was with the Bureau, Bob Minucan wrote a book called Beyond Winning.

1:16:29And Bob was in charge of the Harvard program on negotiation. And in Beyond Winning, he explicitly states that empathy is not about being nice. and when I read that Harvard thought that way about it, I'm like, oh, we're on the same sheet of music and I ultimately end up collaborating with them on learning from them on a number of ways. I realize that I pick on them a lot but they really help move a lot of my thinking forward by helping, by saying like, we see it the same way. We don't think empathy is about being nice. We think empathy is about demonstrating understanding. And so that's when I reached out to them, started to collaborate with them, learn from them, teach with them.

1:17:18You don't have to agree with everything anybody says. I don't agree with everything Harvard says. They're really smart people up there that I learned a lot from. Bob Mnookin, Sheila Heen, Doug Stone, brilliant people that taught me a lot. What are those clear signs to know if tactical empathy is actually landing? Like, what should, if you're obviously employing it, like, what are some signs? Visually, the other person's going to soften up. Visually, they're going to change their tone. That's going to come in waves. They're going to go back and forth. There are some people that you will never get through to.

1:17:55We believe there's three kinds of deals. Deals you should make, the deals you shouldn't make, and the deals that you'll never make. About 7 % of the people out there you are never going to get through to. awesome. First of all, recognize that they're there. Secondly, recognize when it's time to move on. I've never thought that we can make a deal with every person out there. I thought my job is to figure out if a deal could be made. Should it be made? The ones that shouldn't be made are the ones that take a really, really long time. People who are difficult all the time, they're expensive. There's enough people out there that are not expensive that I'm going to make those deals with, I'm going to walk away from the ones I shouldn't make either because they're just too expensive to make.

1:18:39So body language, you're saying, is a big part. Body language is going to be a real big part of it. You know, if they're continually attacking me, if they're continually blaming me, if they're continually acting like they were my victim when they weren't, those are great signs that I'm never going to make the deal. Well, you were, you know, you did this without any input for me. And now I don't know what to do because of what you did. They both attacked me and claimed that they were a victim. Those are people that I'm probably never going to make the deal with. When they demonstrate that behavior, no matter what I say, then I'm like, okay, good.

1:19:12I can move on. I can stop wasting time with you. I'm not going to be mean about it, but I am moving on. So that should be one of the first things among this whole entire kind of umbrella of negotiating is as fast as possible, try and figure out if they are the 7 % of someone that you cannot do a deal with so you don't waste your time. Yeah. And if you look for the signs, they're there. A friend of mine once said, you know, if you're looking for yellow flags and pretty soon you find out those were red flags. That's a good one. So, yeah, I mean, they're going to present themselves really early on.

1:19:41Somebody who's really only focused on one aspect of the deal is probably somebody you should make the deal with. Great advice. Most creators are just duct taping together a bunch of different tools to run their podcast and their newsletter. Your audience, the analytics, the attention, it's all split. Everything is fragmented. This is where Beehive changed everything for us. It's where Open Residency runs our newsletter and they just dropped a new native podcast tool. Upload your audio and immediately get distributed to Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you're hosting somewhere else, just paste your RSS feed and your entire back catalog, the metadata and the episodes all carry over.

1:20:16One platform, one login, everything talks to each other. Head to beehive.com slash open residency for 30 % off your first three months. Just enter code mark30 at checkout. That's B-E-E-H-I-I-V.com slash openresidency and code MARK30 at checkout. Stop renting your audience, start owning it. Let's go into some like mechanical tools. Let's start with mirroring. What is it and why does almost nobody do it right? Why does nobody do it right? Mirroring. Mirroring? Oh, I see what you did there. I see what you did there. Mirroring feels awkward for the user. I think this is the most awkward of all of them.

1:20:55Yeah, and also there's another definition of marrying where you're marrying someone's body language in order to manipulate them. Marrying is just a repetition of the last couple words or a selected couple words that somebody says. I had a great conversation yesterday. I'm in a gym. A personal trainer walks up to me, a guy named Spencer, a fascinating dude. And he's making a lot of money as a personal trainer for people in Malibu, you know, in expensive places. People trust him. He delivers a great product. He's a great trainer. And there's something about him they can't quite put their finger on.

1:21:35He loves to mirror. He says, people tell me tons of stuff. He says, I don't know why more people aren't doing it, but people feel really connected with me. They want to expand. They want to tell me more. The mirror tool is just a couple of words. When you learn tactical empathy, you're going to primarily label, seems like you have a reason for saying that, is a label, or the mirror would be for saying that? Repeating the three words. It's kind of like, are you left-handed or right-handed? Most people are right-handed. Most people are most comfortable with labels. I'm right-handed. I'm a label guy.

1:22:15Certain people love mirrors. Ray, one of the co-founders of Even Up Law, is a mirror guy and will work his way through all conversations extremely quickly, just mirroring. He loves mirrors. Minimal amount of talking, maximum amount of return of information from the other side. Connects people's thoughts, makes them feel heard and want to expand. It's really, really powerful. I can mirror. I use it as a skill when I'm just so shocked by what the other person said. I can't think of anything else, so I repeat what they just said, and it'll get me time to get, collect myself and also gather more information.

1:22:57Those that love mirrors, I find to be really interesting people. What's some practical kind of ways that people can practice that? What's like a low-risk, safe environment for people out there listening that they can do this? Grocery store people, constantly. You know, and I got people that I'm training my sales team. I drag him out to the grocery store and we practice on the grocery store people. And so a great thing to do in a grocery store person, a person, go through the checkout line with a cashier and then say to him, we're in Albertsons, and I have my guy say, what do you love about working at Albertsons?

1:23:34She stops and talks to him and starts laying out all the benefits for working at Albertsons. Great medical benefits, doesn't cost him nothing, only got to work about 20 hours to qualify for the medical benefits, one of the best places for benefits anywhere. And so he mirrors her a couple times, just repeats back what she said. She talks to him for so long in line. She keeps looking back at me, and she feels bad, but she's so engaged with this guy that asked this question, and it so triggered her, you know, what do you love about Albertsons? And he's mirroring her. She can't stop talking. Finally, she says, you know, I'm sorry.

1:24:16And I go, it's okay, it's okay. I love to hear a good conversation. I didn't want to say, well, I actually made him say that to you because he needed to practice. He has a deep passion for how much you are passionate about the store. But there's people all the time. And you're a gas station attendant. You know, pay free gas inside. Practice with that person. Number one, they're going to feel better. Number two, you get practice in a conversation, it's not costing you anything. It's free real-world practice. What do people get wrong about this? What's the common mistakes? You know, it might be tone of voice.

1:24:48I think mirroring feels so awkward that the first couple times you do it, you're going to sound like a robot. And so we talked about tone slightly earlier. Your tone of voice at all times should either be comprehension, which is a tone of voice that I just used, downward inflecting. It feels like you get it. Or comprehension? that's curiosity, comprehension, or curiosity. Either one of those in your tone gets the other side to continue to talk because they feel you're engaged. Either you get it or you're really interested. Either way, they want to go on. So from a framework's perspective, either or of those, practice kind of those two lanes all day, every day, supermarket, gas station, those two lanes, and kind of see what it elicits.

1:25:38Pick a day, pick an hour. you know and and I my sales guy the other day said come on we're going on a field trip we went to the grocery store here's what you're going to do here's what you're going to say we're going to be in there for 20 minutes we'll turn around we'll come back so you get your practice in it's all over the place you mentioned labeling and I feel like it's one or the other you're saying some people are mirrors some people are labeling what what is labeling let's just break that down it's just a label by definition is a verbal observation of an emotion or a dynamic that you have seen or observed.

1:26:09And it seems like, it sounds like, it looks like. Seems like you're engaged. Seems like something just crossed your mind. Seems like you have a reason for saying that. Those are all labeled. Those all draw people out. It's an observation. Body language, you seem angry. An emotion, a dynamic. Seems like you're in a hurry. just an observation draws people out depending upon how you're wired you could say it sounds like you say it looks like you say it feels like a guy that i just got in back in touch with recently who's worked for google amazon all the big players making literally 100 million dollar deals regularly, he likes to say it feels like.

1:27:03Because in the interaction, that's how he gets people. And it's a combination of everything he's seen, everything he's heard, everything he's emotionally felt in a negotiation. People feel really dialed into him on$100 million deals. And as far as that goes, you're not attacking someone and saying that it is what it is. You're just making an observation there. That's like the key thing there. Yes. Is you're not making any hard claim. Right. And, and, and it's tentative. So you can always say, look, you know, I could be, okay, I'm wrong. I'm just telling you what I'm seeing. You can backtrack it very, very easily.

1:27:43Yeah. You allow them to kind of navigate what's next there. Because then it becomes your observation. It's not an accusation. It's an observation. And your observation is open to correction and people feel very engaged. So ultimately you can use it to kind of sway the conversation where you want it to go, but if they don't like where it's going, then you can backtrack. Yeah, and you want to be careful. You don't want to take where you want to go has got to, on some level, be good for them. Otherwise, that's manipulation. I am definitely going to try to influence you to certain locations, but I want you to be better off emotionally and financially when we get there.

1:28:19I'm not here to exploit you and pick your pocket. Now, how we divide up the spoils is going to be open to interpretation, but I do want there to be spoils there for you. Yeah, you go through this. I don't want you to think I'm being greedy, plants the thought, but this is probably going to seem greedy. Right. Actually deactivates it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which it's so crazy how those little small words make a huge difference. Where do people get this wrong here? People just either do it or don't do it. And then it's what, body language? Body language is another big thing here. Are there any other variables that really can sway whether or not this works?

1:28:54Well, body language is a problem mostly if your body language, if your words and your tone and your body language don't line up. You know, there's an old theory out there called 738, 55. 7 % of the message is words. 38 % is tone of voice. 55 is body language. That equals 100 if you throw those three together. And people want to argue about, are those the right numbers? It's not 7 % words. It's 20 % words. Like, I don't care what the ratio is. The real issue is when they don't line up. When there's, your words sound good, but your tone of voice sounds sarcastic. Well, it doesn't matter what the ratio is, your words aren't lining up with your tone.

1:29:37Like you can say to somebody, that was a good comment. Well, that was a good comment. The first one, they were out of line. The second one, they were in line. So words, body language, really isn't lining up with what you're seeing from the person in the moment. Of those three, as far as those latter last two, I mean, all of those, you can learn all of those things, right? Yeah, you mean learn them from the other side or learn them for yourself? Learn them for yourself. Learn them for yourself. If you just genuinely engage, you don't got to worry about your body language. That's a great thing, again, is curiosity, superpower.

1:30:16hour. If I'm genuinely curious, my body language is going to be great. You're going to love everything about my body language if I'm genuinely curious. So all I got to be is curious. I don't got to worry about my body language. So if you lead with that, it seems as though that just goes down the waterfall and everything will be fine. Yeah. Makes sense. Last two pieces here before we get into QuickStrike. I want to go into the last mechanical tool, this Ackerman bargaining. Can you kind of walk us through that system? Well, if you need to bargain, and generally speaking, it's the last move. It's like violence.

1:30:47Not your first, you know. In a confrontation, a friend of mine, Tim Larkin, in a Black Belt Hall of Fame for probably multiple martial arts. And Tim is one of the friendliest guys you ever met. And he says, violence is a last resort. It's not your first resort, it's your last resort. You've got to be violent, you've got to be violent. Not your first move. Bargaining should be your last move. Not your first move. Try to make a deal without bargaining. Now, if you got a bargain, sometimes you do. You pick a target price. You come in at 65 % of your target. That's completely disconnected from everything else.

1:31:29It's your target price. It's not the market price. It's not what they asked. Let's do some numbers for some people out there listening. Let's pick a price. Let's just say 10 million is your target price. All right. So whatever 65 % of that is, it was$6.5 million. That's where I'm going to start. And so then, first of all, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to hit you with a heavy dose of empathy and an accusations audit. I'm going to say, you know, I would be lucky to make the deal with you. I'm lucky to be sitting here at the table with you at all. This is worth a lot. There's no question. It's very valuable, and I could use it a lot.

1:32:04When I throw a number out, you're going to be really angry with me. I'm actually scared to tell you the number because I'm afraid of how angry you're going to get. You're saying this verbally. Yeah. Yeah. And so then you felt good about, I was grateful that I was at the table. Now you've been warned that there's bad news coming. Now you don't know what I'm going to say, but there's a pretty good chance if the, let's say the price was$10 million and I tell you you're going to get angry, you're saying to yourself, is this fool going to go for a million dollars? Like, how big a jerk is he? Is he going to go for less than a million?

1:32:39This goes back to the contrast and the playfulness. Like, hit it really, really hard. Don't half-ass this one. Like, really make him feel like you're going to come with a crazy number. Yeah. And then I would say$6.5 million. And your initial thought is going to be like, well, that's low, but it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. So I've already softened you up. Now, through the course of this conversation between each and every offer, I'm going to hit you with empathy. I'm going to hit you with how much I love your product. I'm going to tell you how it's worth everything that you're asking.

1:33:12I'm going to say everything in your head before you say it because that leaves you with nothing to say. And then my next move is going to be from 6.5, I would come up to 85%, so I'd probably go to 8.5. You're going to feel like it was a victory. Now, also, I can't bargain against myself. I will never counteroffer until you've counteroffered because I don't want to condition you that I'm going to bargain against myself. So come hell or high water, I'm not throwing out my next number until you've thrown out a number because we need to get a back and forth collaboration going. And I got to condition you that you got to soften up before I'll soften up.

1:33:53Now my next move is going to be half of what my last move just was. I'm going from 65 to 85, from 85 to 95, from 95 to 100 on my target. each one of those increases was half the previous increase there's a psychological conditioning you're feeling things slowed down you're winning victories but each victory is a little bit smaller you feel like you're really squeezing me because you're getting the last drop of blood out of me and you're squeezing hard and as they say is the juice worth the squeeze but the squeezes are harder every time and you're getting less juice every time and so there's an emotional your victories are there but they're not as big you feel like you're really pushing me and then the very last move I'm going to make is going to come up with an incredibly odd number like odd all you know if I if I if my target it was 10 million to begin with I'm going to say you know,$9 ,900 ,063.45.

1:35:11Why? Because that to you feels like an extremely precise, calculated number that I've got no shortage of criteria to back up. Like I've gone through extensive accounting, I've run my spreadsheets. I've done all the research. I've done all the data. And this is a hard, solid number. And with the combination of all the empathy in between each raise, I've never bargained against myself. Every increase you got was harder fought than the last one was. Every increase was smaller. and then finally this super calculated number to you feels like a huge victory that exhausted you. But ultimately it's really about anchoring in that 65 % of the worst case deal that you would take.

1:36:07And obviously you want the best number. It's not just a financial anchor, but part of it also is something we refer to as emotional anchoring. Like before I threw that number out, I did a whole bunch of stuff to you to expect something far worse. And so it's a combination of the two. Are you a range guy? So you're against the ranges when we're talking? If we get down to it, if you've seen a lot of my stuff and you won't throw a number at all, you will throw me a range. So ideally, no number. But if you're forced and backed into a corner, you do a range. Do I throw one or do I try to get one out of you?

1:36:46Let's talk about the listener right now. I don't want to give you a number and you're saying that if I don't give a number, is the next best thing for me to give you a range? If you're forcing me to give you a number, then obviously the next best thing is a range. Well, if I'm going to throw a range out, understand the psychological advantage of a range is the other side is going to pick the number that most favors them and feel it's a victory. so whatever the extreme in that wins for them that's what they will pick and they're pretty good chance that they'll stick on it because it felt like they won because you threw a range so if you give a range you should probably expect that it's going to be the worst possible outcome within that range for you if if i'm selling a car for 750 and you say well what would you really take and I and I say well you know point of fact I got to get somewhere between 500 and 750 you're coming back with 500 and you really hope that I agree at five because it's going to feel like a big victory so I better need I better want five that's the way to get what I want like make it at the end of the range that favors you because you want to declare victory and go home you want to win and if we're in bargaining we're in we're kind of in win-lose so as soon as I feel like I made, as soon as it feels like a win for you, we're done.

1:38:07You got it. You're not going to risk that win. I'd avoid the range, guys. Last thing I want to touch on is just these three voices before we go into quick strike. You've spoken in these voices a bunch of times thus far, but I want to really dissect each. What are those three voices? And you can just say them out loud as they are. Yeah, well, in broad general terms, the first voice is the assertive voice. This is what I need and I need it now. Donald Trump. Donald Trump. You've got to open a straight of Hormuz right now or however the hell they say that straight. I'm sure I'm saying it wrong. You've got to give up the nuclear enrichment now.

1:38:41You know, that's direct and honest. The problem with that, about a third of us are assertives. And what feels direct and honest to the deliverer is blunt force trauma to the receiver. I have had hostage negotiators in my younger days say to me, dealing with you is like getting hit in the face with a brick. That's probably not a good thing. It is always bad. I mean, it's always bad. Then there's the late night FM DJ, which is how the analyst tends to talk. Now, the analyst is usually a little colder than that. So you don't want to be totally cold. But it's slow. It's downward inflecting. A woman can downward inflect.

1:39:38She doesn't have to have a deep voice to downward inflect. All you got to do is drop your chin when you're talking. It brings your voice down. And then there's the accommodator's voice, the playful voice. I'm happy to see you. This is great. Life is wonderful. Aren't we great together? I need you to wave a magic wand. And that's the accommodator's voice. I called a company one time that I pay my bills. And every now, I'm not the most organized. First pays his bills, guys. I pay my bills. That doesn't mean I'm not going to ask you for discounts. I'm sitting on a bill for a medical thing. I'm going to pay it in full.

1:40:16And, you know, there it is. It's 90 days old, and they're starting to get mad. And I look at it. It's about$3 ,700. And I'm getting ready to stroke the check for the whole amount. And then it's 10 o 'clock in the morning, and I decide, you know, I'm going to call them up, see what happens. Let's test a new theory here. And I finally get the bill collecting department on the phone, and I get a hello, because bill collectors are not greeting you. How can I help you? If you're calling them, you owe money. And I go, I owe you money! In this crazy accommodator's playful voice. I ended up getting 80 % off.

1:40:56Why? What does that do? Playfulness is disarming. Yeah. What's the first thing? Somebody calls the bill collector on the phone with nothing but excuses or nothing but blaming, nothing but avoidance of responsibility. What's the bill collector thinking on the other end of the phone? You owe us money. It is indisputable that you owe us money. You got nothing but excuses. You got the washing machine at your house, and you never paid. You got the couch. You got the car. You got a medical bill. It's indisputable that no matter what you say, you owe us money. And so I say what they're thinking, only I say it playfully.

1:41:40And this woman goes, she says, what's your idea? What's your customer number? And she looks it up. She goes, oh, yes, you do. But now she's laughing with me. And I go, and I say to her, like, I need to pay you guys for you. come to my house and drag me out of my house. Because that's what they do at a sheriff sale. They come to your house and they take your furniture and they auction it. Now, it doesn't happen that often, but if you're in debt collections, you've gone to somebody's house with the sheriff and taken their couch. And she's laughing. She goes, oh yeah, yeah, we will do that. But now she's laughing with me.

1:42:15And I say, if I clear this whole thing right now, how much can I get off? And I hear she turns from the phone, she's talking in the background, and it's a$3 ,700 bill. She comes back on the phone. She says,$700. And I do a fast calculation in my head. I'm like, I just made$700. And I go, so, so I get$700 off. She goes, no, no, no,$700 to clear the whole thing. I feel like people are most judgmental about that third bucket, that playful bucket where people just think you're like crazy, but just making people happy and getting overly emotional in situation, I think it gives you the ultimate amount of leverage.

1:42:52I like living in bucket three, to be completely frank with you. That's where I live. I live in bucket, a little bit in bucket one, the assertive, which I probably should be less of, but I feel like I live in bucket three. What do you think is the default bucket? Obviously it's contextual and it's very nuanced in nature, but which bucket do you think gets you the furthest in life? No, the one that you were just talking about. The more playful you are, like there's, what are the reasons? Somebody's more likely to collaborate with you, number one. The real number one reason is you're healthier because the happier, the more playful you are, if you can make yourself sick by being in a negative frame of mind, and you can, and there's no shortage of people that have gotten cancer because of stress, and what's stress if not self-inflicted negativity?

1:43:43So if you can give yourself cancer with a negative frame of mind, what can you do with a positive frame of mind? There's a lot of data that indicates that you make yourself healthier on a regular basis. And the stat that I like is you're 31 % smarter in a positive frame of mind. So you're healthier, you're smarter, your energy's higher. The fact that you're going to get a better deal from the other side is like fifth on the list for the value being playful brings to your life. And all of this across the board, the stuff that we teach in our in-person events, we've got a negotiator community that people can join for free with our practice.

1:44:29Like the financial benefits are secondary. Everybody that's doing this stuff is having more fun in life. They're just having a ball. And then they're making more money, which then accelerates how much fun they get to have. From a learning perspective, this is just all about the doing, right? Like actually like role-playing and mocking it up and just like putting yourself in situations where like, okay, be happy. Yeah, or be playful. Make fun of yourself to somebody. Go to the grocery store. Walk up to, you know, whatever it is you're looking for. Walk up to them and go like, I look like the dumbest, laziest person you've ever met in your entire life.

1:45:04You look important. Where are the Brussels sprouts? Oh, man, I love this because you're making me, I can't wait for my wife to watch this because she thinks I'm a crazy person and I like talk to strangers I talk to uber drivers I'm saying random crazy stuff much better you have much better strategies than I do in the grocery store I can't wait to to do these but you're saying it makes me 31 smarter so I mean it makes you smarter you're helping my case okay so you're sitting across the table which is from Donald and it's assertive do you match the voice do you drop the voice like what do you what do you do there how do you play against the voices all right well First of all, a quick note about Trump.

1:45:39As much as what he talks loudly in public, the contrast in private, in person, one-on-one, is always charming. And I think that's one of the reasons why. I think he's incredibly astute, extremely smart, and he understands what skills to use where. Even Bill Maher says Trump's charming in person. Charming, engaged, couldn't have been more gracious. is Bill Maher's been mad at Trump for years. And if Maher goes and meets with Trump in person and says Trump is charming, he's the mayor of New York, Mondami, they got a long fine in the Oval Office. So one-on-one with Trump, I would love to engage with him because he's also supposed to be a very good listener, listening intently and very charming.

1:46:28I mean, one-on-one, I don't know what more you want. However, should you run across somebody who's coming at you very assertive from the other side, don't match it. You're now in a boxing match. Now, if you do match it and they're assertive, they're going to get over it really quickly. Like, you can call people names. Again, Trump and Mdami, and I'm sure I'm saying his name wrong, the mayor of New York called Trump tons of names. And they had an extremely cordial meeting in the Oval Office. So what does that tell you? that tells you assertives get over name-calling really fast, faster than any of the other two types do.

1:47:05You know, we heal up from emotional wounds the way Wolverine does in, you know, Marvel movies, just like instantaneously. So if you do make the mistake of getting into an argument with an assertive and matching their assertiveness, which is counterproductive, you take a timeout, they're going to get over it really fast. You can come back and say, look, you know what? I lost my head. That wasn't productive. You didn't feel I respected you, and I need to show you that I respect you and bang your back on an even keel with an assertive. So you can reset with an assertive really fast, which astonishes the other two sides because they hold on to stuff for so much longer.

1:47:46Like, how can an assertive get over this? They're more hot and cold, I would say. The assertive? The assertive. Like, they can come in really, really hot, and then they forget about things fast, potentially, and they're just like, okay, let's let the cooler minds prevail, Yeah, yeah. They cool off very quickly. So matching it is bad, but it's not a fatal error. As soon as you stop matching it, you're fine. The calming, soothing, deferential voice, assertives love deference. Like, they are so vulnerable to deference. Like, if everybody understood how vulnerable and assertive was to deference, that would be all that they gave them because assertive wants to feel respected, and deference is a show of respect.

1:48:26and bang, now they're cooperative and collaborative. Wow. What I'm thinking in my head right now is, again, I live in assertive and playful, and I feel like on the assertive side, per what you're saying right now, I got to go to the DJ voice, but then I do the playful with the assertive, and sometimes they're not having it. Well, that's not deference. Like, and if they're not having it... That's the wrong route, playful with the assertive, I feel like. If it is in the moment, as long as you're prepared to move away from it. Now, when... they want respect first, and playfulness doesn't exude respect.

1:49:04So if you're playful and self-effacing at the same time, that could land. But they really want respect, and then you probably open the door to be playful after that. I got to adjust my strategy on that for sure. All right, man, we're going to fire away tons and tons of questions on this quick strike, and we're going to end with that. We talked about Trump. We're going to go there right now. Okay. Trump or Obama? Who is the better real-world negotiator? Oh, God, you got to be kidding me. Without question, Trump. I'm not even close.

1:49:44I'm going to sound Republican, but if you were to step back and start commenting on the deals that have been made in the past by either the Republicans or the Democrats, foreign policy-wise, I'd be happy to stack up the economic data. Like, I think Barack Obama is a very good-hearted human being. He's probably as good-hearted and decent and caring overtly as any president we have ever had. There's no shortage of great attributes behind that guy and what he's represented to the American people and what he's represented in American history is phenomenal. I can have a lot of things about him that I admire and not admire his negotiating ability.

1:50:31Eesh. So, you know, you mentioned a bit before, like, what do you think is Trump's secret weapon? Is it the tactical empathy? His secret weapon versus, like, what's misunderstood about him. I think his secret weapon is, I think he listens intently and acutely. I've never heard any descriptions of the last few years of people not describing him as being a great listener. And I think he's probably a great listener. I haven't... I encountered him in person very briefly back in the 1990s. So I got no in-person encounters to relay based on my data. But across the board, people talk about him listening very intently.

1:51:15Oprah or Trump? Who's the better negotiator? Yeah, I'm a big fan of both. Oprah's Yoda. Oprah, you know, and so, you know, you're backing me into a corner here because somebody's going to tell him that I said that Oprah was a better negotiator than he is. That's a good problem if Trump is listening to this podcast right now. Good problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a huge fan of Oprah. I'm a huge fan of her negotiating ability. Huge. the things that she's gotten people to say and the difficult the big the really big difference between the two is Oprah has put people in their place plenty of times and you never hear about it and they never complain about it and I know for a fact that she's had to take people to the woodshed but she does it with so much love and respect and caring that it lands.

1:52:19And that's a superpower. You might be saying Oprah without saying Oprah. We'll leave it at that though. We're entering the AI era. So let's talk about agent to agent AI negotiation. Is your method obsolete in five years with AI coming? No. No. AI is always going to be a great assistant and is always going to require the human touch. And AI is always going to help you get more insight. I don't believe that AI is ever going to outperform the human mind. And I know that the data scientists out there do not agree. And I know that what I believe in, Stephen Kotler once accused me of saying, you're talking about magic fairy dust.

1:53:01I like Stephen a lot. He's an interesting cat. I think that the brain actually has quantum physics capabilities. and quantum computing will never rival quantum physics capability. So consequently, I think the human mind will always be the ultimate thinking tool that we can never do without. That doesn't mean that AI can't be a great help. I think AI is a great help. Hard take. Toughest negotiator you've personally faced? Well, I suppose that would depend on... It could be a criminal. Yeah, no, you know... situation when the other side is inexperienced and unorganized, then the other side of the table is never going to do a thing that is ultimately in their best interest.

1:53:51And so if somebody's really arrogant on the other side, it's going to be hard to get through to them because they're just not going to believe. And arrogance usually equates to inexperience. so there are situations that were it would depend upon your definition of toughness are we never going to get the deal are we going to try anyway if we're never going to get the deal if there's lives on the line we're going to try anyway we're going to find a way to get something positive out of it in the long term if not the short term but when the hardest person to get through is somebody who's just so arrogant that they just they can't imagine that they're wrong and so then things are going to go bad because they're arrogant.

1:54:30So back into that, you're saying arrogance is very much tied to experience. So you're saying some of these potential young guns are the hardest to negotiate because they don't know any better, hypothetically. Yeah, I don't know that there's ever a time that arrogance isn't tied to an experience. It's tied to a lack of knowledge. Arrogance and wisdom are not synonyms. And with experience comes wisdom, or maybe you got a lot of experience, you never really learned from it. But the arrogance is always going to be a shortcoming. One thing every founder should do 60 seconds before any negotiation. Find a way to be grateful for the moment.

1:55:15One thing every employee should do before asking for a raise. Gauge your contributions into the context of helping the entire team. The more team-oriented you are, the more valuable you are. And that's how you want to be viable. One thing every parent should steal directly from your methods. Your job is not to tell your kids what to do. Your job is to help your kids think. And so much of our methodology has really helped the other side think. Stop trying to order your kids around and start trying to demonstrate to them what collaboration looks like. The words win-win in the first five minutes of a negotiation, red flag or green light?

1:56:00Red flag. Why? Because the cutthroat negotiators have found that it's a great way to get people to drop their guard. And I can't think of a single time when somebody used the words win-win in the first five minutes who wasn't trying to get me to do something for nothing. How should someone look at the word fair in a negotiation? It's an emotional trigger. Fair is completely subjective. And it can be used as a way to destabilize me when somebody says, I just want what's fair. They've implied that I'm being unfair. and the cutthroats use that because they've learned how destabilizing it is for the other side.

1:56:44Also, if someone's genuinely using the word fair, sometimes it's not just the cutthroats. If you're genuinely using the word fair, there are two things that are true. Number one, you feel backed into a corner. Number two, you don't have any outside criteria to support your position. So that tells me a lot. You're emotionally volatile. you've lost some reasoning because you feel backed into a corner and you're grasping for straws and you don't know where to go. Ultimately, you haven't thought about it and or it's not a rational argument. Right. There's nothing rational about it. There's never criteria behind the word when somebody throws it out.

1:57:25Because if there was, they'd have hit you with the criteria. So you've got to gauge are they being manipulative or do they feel backed into a corner? Each one of those are very different animals and a very different strategy to deal with. So if somebody says, I just want with fair, you could say, it sounds like you feel backed into a corner. Now, if that resonates, then they were cornered. If they try to ignore it, they were manipulating you. You recently said, be predictable. That kind of is against everything you've taught for years. What changed? Well, I think ultimately everybody is predictable.

1:58:02Now, predictability, the predictability that I'm talking about is it increases trust. Now, unpredictability decreases trust, and people actually, I want to be predictable in when I'm going to talk to you. I don't want you to be wondering when I'm going to call. I don't necessarily have to tell you anything, but I don't want you to be uncertain as to when we're going to have contact, because uncertainty is the highest stressor out there. All the special forces, selection, all of them, factor in uncertainty into the selection process because they know how much it stresses people. Like, yeah, they're going to hit you with a lot of physical difficulty also, but we're going to throw you in the ocean for 45 minutes.

1:58:54Oh, okay, I can last for 45 minutes in the cold water. We're throwing you in the ocean. When are you coming out? When do we feel like it? Well, when is that? You know, we don't know. We'll let you know. Now the stress has just gone through the roof. It's unpredictable. So in your personal interactions, I don't want you to be wondering when we're going to talk. I'm going to say, you know, here's the next time I'm going to reach out. I'm not going to say by the end of next week. I'm going to say, you're going to hear from me by Thursday at 5, period. I don't need the added stress of unpredictability interfering with our relationship.

1:59:38So that's really what I'm talking about. In predictability, I'm talking about mostly on timing and communication. What are some good tells of a liar? Oh, well, you know, how quickly are they throwing it back on me? Different people lie different ways. If you're really confused by what they just said, they talked a lot and you didn't feel attacked, but you're really confused, but they were really nice about it, they're bullshitting you. They're trying to baffle you with bullshit. That's a version of lying. That's what the accommodator does. The accommodator who's a liar is going to baffle you with playful bullshit, and you're going to have great interaction and be totally confused.

2:00:19The analyst, they're going to tell you things that are literally true but very deceptive. They like deception by omission, deception by the literal truth. You could be bidding on something, and you're the only bidder. And it's a silent auction. You ask the person bidding. You're the only bidder. They say, well, you're the low bidder. That was deceptive. Well, I'm the only bidder. I'm also the highest bidder. Why didn't you tell me that? True without context, yeah. You know, yeah. So then it's deception by omission, deception by the literal truth. The analysts love that. Love, love, love that. Now, the gaslighting, where I'm attacking you, accusing you of a lot of stuff, that's the assertive tool for deception.

2:01:03So if I'm coming at you hard and I'm trying to destabilize you, that's somebody's line to me by trying to knock me off my game. And that's effectively what gaslighting is. Good flags there, guys. So your company, Black Swan, has trained Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Goldman. What's the biggest takeaway from these massive companies? What do you see kind of the through line with these companies? The most successful across the board believe in being trustworthy and open and honest. And a lot of times it's dishonest about why they can't make the deal. and they've come to learn that the long-term default strategy, the highest amount of money, is always going to be made with collaboration.

2:01:50Now, there are a lot of people that are highly competitive and visibly beat other people and score big wins and get a lot of attention for it. But those are brief wins and they accumulate enemies. And the most, I'm listening to the CEO of NVIDIA, again being interviewed by Lex, and he's talking about how open and honest he is with all of their customers and how much they share information and how predictable he's going to be in where he's going and what he wants. And he's got a heavy-duty emphasis on openness and trust and honesty with his customers and his competitors. and they're the most valuable company on planet earth.

2:02:38And that ends up being the through line with the top players at the top of their game are really, really, they try not to be blunt when they talk to you. They don't want you to feel like they're getting hit in the face with a brick. But when you're honest and you're predictable and you say to somebody, I can't make the deal because of this. This doesn't work for me and I'm not going to do it. The other side believes you because you're honest. And then respectfully, they've been felt like they've been given a choice. All right, so can I make a better deal? Because this guy's going to be predictable.

2:03:13He's not trying to cut my throat. He's trying to make a great deal. And it ends up being the most profitable companies across the board on earth. Because you get that long-term games, long-term people. You can just work over time, and obviously you get to know each other better. And if I could, one more. We got a group of high performers called Vanguard. and they've done, they spent a lot of money with us in coaching and training over the years, a lot of money. And we got a special program. They spent so much money with us because it's been worth it to them. Their return on investment is extremely high.

2:03:46But we got a program called Vanguard that we're giving them for nothing. And one of the guys in it, his name is Ray, he said, I made more money being collaborative the way you guys have shown me than I ever made being competitive. and I made a lot of money being competitive. So the problem with that, if you're competitive, you can make a lot of money and you can be beating everybody that you compete with. You look around and every one of your competitors, you're making more money than they are. And you're only scratching the surface on what you could do. But you don't know because you're number one in the industry, but you're not number one for you.

2:04:25Yeah, we've talked about that in past episodes is then ultimately you do that. And then if there's a, Maybe there's something from a macro perspective. And your quote-unquote competitors who could be allies if you collaborated with them, that's when they can really, really hurt you. Yep. Yeah, exactly. Best line you use when you're about to fire someone. Shots fired. I'm going to say, you know, I got heartbreaking news. Your relationship with my company is over. That's it? Yep. Tell me more. So you just got, just right away, you got to peel the band-aid off. Yeah, you got to. I mean, a long time ago, Marble Collegian Church, which was where my hotline was affiliated, head minister was Arthur Calleandrew, Norman Vincent Peale's protege.

2:05:13The epitome of the power of positive thinking, the epitome of a great human being. I am religious. You know, I don't wear it on my sleeve. Arthur was God's guy. If anybody is God's guy, Arthur was God's guy. and we had to get rid of somebody. I was on the verge of potentially having to let the executive director of the hotline go. And I went into Arthur for counseling because I felt horrible about it. I never imagined I was chair of the board, that we were going to have to come to this decision. And I sat down with Arthur, and I thought he was going to give me all this counseling on, did you do this?

2:05:52Did you do that? You know, one more extra thing you could do, try to salvage this person. and Arthur just kind of sighed and he said, there's no gentle way to cut somebody's head off. You just got to do it. It's more agonizing to prolong it. If you're going to do anything to fire somebody, fire them on a Monday, don't fire them on a Friday. Fire them on a Friday, they got the weekend to live in anguish. They can't. Plot how to come in for you. They can plot, but they can't fix their situation. You fire them on a Monday, they got five days to get their act. If you're going to get your head cut off, you want your head cut off on a Monday, not on a Friday.

2:06:35Ruthless. Love it. Best negotiation movie of all time. They negotiated it with Kevin Spacey and Samuel Jackson. It's a banger. I just thought about the movie Speed. I was going to watch it with my wife. Little Dennis Hopper, Keanu Reeves. That's a little goody. It's kind of a negotiation. Actually, the great thing about Speed was they captured the mindset of a bomber. Dennis Hopkins, right? They nailed that guy. And there's one particular comment in there when he says a bomb's purpose is to explode. So a bomber is so wrapped up in the creation of this device that has a goal to explode. if you're investigating them and you need to understand them, that's really insightful.

2:07:27What do most interviewers get completely wrong about your work? Interviewers for... Like me. You know, there are a number of real common misconceptions about negotiation that I had to deal with a lot in the early days. You know, it's mostly win-lose, that empathy is weakness, that empathy doesn't work on social paths, that sociopaths don't use empathy. But these days, most people have gotten enough learning about negotiation in broader terms that those things, I don't really get those wrong. Most people, most educational institutions say that you've got to pitch your positives first. That's wrong.

2:08:12Most communication emphasis is still on first impression, ignoring the last impression, first impression is the second most important impression. Still important, it's just not number one. The last impression is more important. And a lot of people get so focused still on first impressions that they completely forget about the last impression. So off the top of my head, that's what the misconceptions that most people have. Love that last line. What's that number one tell you watch for in any negotiation? It could be verbal, it could be facial, physical, it could be anything. Somebody answers me too quickly.

2:08:50They got a plan, and they're not really listening to me. And so it could be manipulation. It just could be stupidity. Either way, it just doesn't work out. I love you just look me right in the... Either way, it doesn't work out. Are you getting a serial killer face? Idiot! Most overrated negotiation skill? being articulate. That's not a skill. That's just stupid. I'm sitting with a really experienced business person a couple years ago and he says, yeah, most negotiations break down over lack of communication. I said, is it a lack of articulation or a lack of listening? He goes, no, no, no, it's a lack of listening.

2:09:37Somebody thinks, you know, great negotiators articulate. Not the case. No. The great negotiators are the listeners. most underrated negotiation skill? Listening. Comprehending. You know, really understanding the difference. And like when you were a kid, you had some teacher try to explain to you the difference between hearing and listening. Like you could have heard what somebody said, it just didn't comprehend it. Like I'll be talking to somebody and I can tell they're not listening. And I go, you're not listening. I heard you and they repeat back what you just said. Having no idea whatsoever what it meant.

2:10:15So, yeah, it's comprehension and then the demonstration of it. You've worked with a lot of these big companies, obviously. We're talking a lot about negotiating. What's the one skill that you think is the most important in business today? It's probably just being genuine, which everybody is going to say they are genuine. one, but most people practice deception by omission out of fear. You know, they don't want to talk about what their limitations are. And the sooner that you get out of that, deception by omission is really accepted globally. You know, always tell the truth or at least don't lie.

2:11:00What? that's people saying well you know white lies or yeah i know i didn't tell you that important fact but i didn't lie about it you know this this deception by omission is is one of the really big problems and and the great business people don't do it because they realize they just set a time bomb that's going to explode on a relationship and so they won't deceive by omission Because it's ultimately just about gaining trust for collaboration to get those big gains. Gaining trust, and then you need honest answers. The CFO of a major international company, a negotiation was relayed to me the other day where he said to his client, who was an international company, what would stop us from getting this deal?

2:11:48Now, you really need the other side to answer that honestly. Because if he lays it all out and you can fix it, you got a deal. And so the other side's got to be really honest. Or if there's nothing there, the other side's got to be comfortable enough with you to tell you the truth about it. And that's, you know, that's about, let's both level with each other here because if we can make it a great deal, let's do it now. If we can't, let's walk away now. And then we maintain our relationship and we don't waste time. That's a great piece of advice for everyone out there. That last one. Last couple questions that we ask everybody.

2:12:29What is a brand or an entrepreneur that you want to give flowers to and why? Any brand or entrepreneur, negotiator, anybody. Entrepreneurs. Wow, there's a long list. Most of the entrepreneurs are women that I can think of off the top of my head. Constance Swartz-Marini is the co-founder of Smack Entertainment with Michael Strahan. And she's also the one who negotiated Deion Sanders' deal with the University of Colorado. Conor's a great person and she is a formidable she's a force of nature and she doesn't attack she's built a great business with some interesting cats and I really think the world of Constance I think a lot of Cody Sanchez Cody is like a no BS aggressive entrepreneurial let's get it done simultaneously very feminine female and the women that I have a tremendous amount of respect for, and Constance is this way too, they haven't lost any of their femininity, but they are formidable on the other side of the table.

2:13:38And so to show women globally that you could be a great entrepreneur, be extremely, you don't have to be one of the guys. With the world that we're in today, women are not advised to be one of the guys anymore because we got example after example after example of extremely feminine business and entrepreneurial success stories. And that's one of the, those are the types off the top of my head that I have the most admiration for. Love that. Favorite book or podcast and why? Books, two of Kotler's books, The Rise of Superman and Stealing Fire, phenomenal books. podcasts. I listen to Lex. I listen to Rogan and I listen to Andrew and I like your podcast.

2:14:28Hey, not a paid advertisement. By the way, for those of you in doubt, everybody, Lex Friedman and everybody knows Rogan. What about a specific book or podcast on a negotiation? Who's another negotiator that you deeply respect? Wow. I listened to so much. I gather information from everywhere, but negotiations. I mean, I think the cutting edge of negotiation is being created by my team. I listen to my guys. Jonathan Smith, I told you. He came up, you look important. Jonathan and Derek's book, Derek Gaunt. Derek's the head of my coaching and training. I learn negotiation from the people on my team.

2:15:05I pick up, but there's supplemental information. Like, I want to listen to Andrew Huberman's because it's neuroscience. Lex is interviewing really interesting people that, like the gamers, and the guys that have created great video games. These are people that are great examples of CEOs that are running operations that I admire. So I'll listen to that. I'll listen to Rogan, because Rogan's got a way of playfully getting stuff out of people. Really long-form interviews, you find out a lot about people. So after I listened to the CEO of NVIDIA on Lex, I wanted to listen to him on Rogue and see if I heard the same guy.

2:15:45And so I want to hear people get interviewed in a long form in several formats for me to make up my mind about what I thought of what they said on one as compared to what they said on the other. So I'm pulling information from all over the place, not that much about negotiation because I think we're creating it. I think there's a lot to be said about doing that in any space that you're in. It's just taking ideas and concepts from other spaces to bring into yours. That's how you get new unique ideas. I've had an amazing time, man. Where can everybody find you on the internet? All right. So blackswanltd.com is the website.

2:16:21That's the first place to go. Now, we got a bunch of resources, but that's the first place to start. We've got our next in-person training. We've shifted our one-day professional dealmaker days to Vegas, mostly for logistical convenience for us. I got more people living in Vegas. We can provide more support overall for a training day. We don't go to the strip or off the strip. It ain't a Vegas strip experience to come to a training. We actually got a place in a Marriott that's on a golf course. It's just absolutely beautiful. So you find out about that going to the website. on larger terms, join the Black Swan Negotiation Community.

2:17:02Get practice and regularly. That costs nothing. If you don't feel like you can make the financial investment right now, if you can't make the time investment, then you don't think you're worth it. If you're ambitious, which is fun, and you're innovative, you'll find some fun, cool stuff to do with us on our website and in the negotiation community. A lot of free ways to start, guys. Make sure you guys start there. Amazing time, man. I appreciate you. What's up, guys? If you guys got this far in the episode, I would assume that you enjoyed it. If you got any value, it would mean the world if you hit the subscribe button.

2:17:39Give it a like. Post a comment. Tell a friend. We could keep going bigger. Bigger guests. Bigger locations. More value. See you in the next episode.