Negotiation Is Not What You Think | Attia Qureshi and John Richardson

23:59Johnny:So as a company, that negotiation is happening internally. Like, hey, how do we reframe what we're teaching and what we're offering now to be more than just dating or more than just social skills and recognize that people are feeling that fear? So that's listening at the level of empathy that we talk about, but like drilling down into something tactically our listeners can take and now start to observe in the world around them to strengthen their negotiation skills. I'm hesitating in saying the most important negotiation skill, but it's the top one or two. Figuring out what other people care about and what's motivating them.

24:34And it's a little bit different as an entrepreneur figuring out a large group of people where my market of listeners, what they need and what's going to appeal to them. But you do the exact same thing with any individual. And we would recommend two things to practice in to get better at figuring out what other people care about. And one is just a really simple one, which you can do, you know, on a date or on a, you know, anytime you're on a car ride with some people. Present them a choice that you're facing and ask them to guess what makes you want to go one way on it or what makes you want to go another way.

25:12We learned this exercise from a former teaching assistant of mine who had really long red hair. And she was talking about, you know, have to figure out what the other person cares about. And some of the students in the class said, there's no way to do that. If they don't want to tell you, you can't know. And she goes, I bet you can guess. I've been thinking about cutting my three foot long red hair off. What makes me want to do it? What makes me not want to do it? And they were surprisingly accurate. And in fact, a couple of things they guessed. She's like, hey, I wasn't even thinking of that, but I should put that into my calculation.

25:44And then you flip it around and say, here's a choice I'm facing. You know, I'm an EMT with the volunteer fire department. there's an advanced class to become, you know, advanced life support. And I've been really going over whether or not I should take the class and have the other person guess, okay, what's driving you one way or the other? And that, A, you get to know that other person much better. And especially on a date, you know, that stuff is gold. But you get better at figuring out what other people care about and building that muscle. But then the more advanced version is, let's say you're, you know, you're married or you got a kid.

26:24Think about an ongoing conflict you have with your spouse or partner. You know, you always fight over what car to buy or where to send your kid to school. Write out what all the things they care about are that are motivating them in this conflict, and then show it to them and say, you know, how close did I get? And the odd thing is it takes even with someone, you know, really, really well, like your wife, it takes a long time to get it right. And usually because we tend to frame their interests as if we were, you know, because we're in a disagreement with them. We make their interests bad interests, you know, the way politicians do.

27:04Oh, you know, it's motivating the other party. They they want evil because they're terrible people. and even with your spouse, people tend to do that in conflict and you have to discipline yourself to see their motivations the way they see them, which is almost always, you know, very sympathetic. One thing to put a fine point on it that you mentioned earlier, AJ, is just having the empathy for the other side, what they care about, because you are going to get more if they feel good about the deal. So the more you can understand what they need to make a good deal, the more they're going to give you in the end.

27:39So it really is super beneficial for you to do to focus on that.

27:44Johnny:Well, here's where there's a roadblock that advanced people recognize, but maybe some of our listeners might not recognize in themselves. And that's the classic adage of keep your cards close to your chest. And unfortunately, what we're talking about here to expand and understand someone else's worldview, we have to be willing to share our worldview. So you can't go in just asking a ton of questions of the other person and not share much about yourself. But many of us turn stoic in these negotiation environments, not recognizing that, oh, I'm doing empathy. You guys said focus on empathy and ask great questions and be a listener.

28:25Johnny:But I can't divulge anything about myself. Then they're going to know my weaknesses and take advantage of them. and the negotiation falls flat and then they get frustrated. So that is the social dance that we have to talk about because it's easy to focus on empathy and questions and our listeners have heard that over and over again. And we found this with our clients. The problem is they get stoic in these situations where they're in a heightened emotional state and they don't recognize how that actually weakens them in negotiation because if the other person can't build a worldview about us and can't also use their empathy to understand us, then we're really going to struggle to get to a place where we feel good and they feel good.

29:07I think that's a really important insight. People think, well, knowledge is power. So I want to have all the knowledge and I don't want to give them more power. But knowing what you care about, the power that gives them is the power to make you happy. And you probably want them to have that power. And if you get, you know, in a personal relationship, if you're dating somebody and you tell them how to make you happy and they don't want to make you happy, you need to be dating somebody else. Like, so that's an important, you know, step forward right there. But telling them what you care about does a couple other things.

29:46One of the things it does is make you more sympathetic. If they understand what's motivating you, they almost always like you better. A great example of this is a colleague of ours who teaches at Harvard, teaches negotiation, went down to Singapore to do some lectures for the Singapore Supreme Court. And they book her into a hotel. I don't know if it's still true, but at the time, this was the tallest hotel in the world. And it's like 70 stories, a full city block, one hotel. And they see Supreme Court, so they comp her up to a suite at the very top of the hotel. And she goes in there and she's completely horrified because it has a giant balcony out over the city with and she's tall.

30:27So the the the railing came up to about mid thigh and she suffers from acrophobia, fear of heights. Right. So she was terrified, like, oh, my God, I can't sleep with this balcony right here. She closes the curtains, still can't sleep. She, like, pushes the desk up against the door to the balcony, still can't sleep. The next morning she goes down and says to the clerk, hey, you know, it's really nice of you to put me in that sweep. It's not really my style because she doesn't want to say I'm crazy. So, you know, she's saying, you know, somebody else might like it better. Do you have anything else?

31:01And he says, well, you know, we're really full. Is there can you tell me what the problem is? She leans over and she says, if you don't put me in a room on a lower floor right now, you're not going to be happy with the scene in this lobby that's going to come next. and he goes like, OK, and puts her on the eighth floor, which is the smoking floor. And immediately she starts like choking when she walks out of the elevator. She's got a tiny little room that also has a tiny little balcony with the same little railing. And she it's even worse than before. And that all comes from not explaining what's motivating her because that, you know, this woman wants to change for no reason.

31:39How do you feel about her if you're the clerk. Oh, my God, she's obnoxious. She's terrible. And then what job is that offering the clerk in the interaction? It's saying, I'm going to be the angry customer who demands something and you're the chump who backs down. If you tell them what's motivating you, you give them the chance to be the hero who saves the day. Then when she's finally leaving, clerk says, oh, how was your stay? And she's, you know, at this point, she hadn't slept for three days and she's completely exhausted. So she forgets to be embarrassed about being crazy. And she says, oh, you know, I had the fear of heights and that balcony was killing me.

32:15And he says, oh, I wish I'd known that there's actually a hidden keyhole in the wall next to the balcony. I can lock that so nobody can get out. You know, it's for security with little kids. And she's just like banging her head on the desk because that was she was there, you know, explain your interest is what she was talking about the Singapore Supreme Court. But like you said, when you feel vulnerable, it's hard to do that, even though there are all these benefits that come from it. I should mention, see, I usually tell people, don't mention that I told that story because that's my wife. But now if she, let's hope she doesn't, never watch this podcast.

32:51I'll be sure to email it to her after the episode. Dude! You're also in her office right now.

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34:09Johnny:That's quince.com slash charm for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash charm. Expedia and Visit Scotland invite you to come step into centuries of history that await in Scotland. Castles steeped in legend Walk along cobblestone streets Come share the warmth of stories Passed down through generations This is a place with a past That is fully present today And all yours to explore Plan your Scottish escape today At expedia.com Slash visit Scotland I want to touch back upon The fear of sharing interest Because I thought that was a really interesting point Where what you can do if you do have that there is you don't have to offer everything up at once either.

34:59You can take turns and start small. So start with information that isn't as valuable and see if they reciprocate because offering a piece of information, we talk about reciprocity a lot as offering something small to the other person to build the relationship. And information about yourself can be that as well. And so you can offer small pieces and get them to reciprocate with information. And then you start building a really good momentum and cadence where you're both sharing, trusting each other, and then you can get deeper into it.

35:35Johnny:The nuance there is that many of us assume reciprocity happens exactly the way that we're doing it. And then when we don't meet that expectation, they're frustrated. So it's like, well, I gave you this piece of information. You guys said the law of reciprocity, they're not giving me this piece of information that I really need back. And that's not how reciprocity works. Both sides can be giving, but again, from their worldview. And I was talking to a friend of mine who practices family law, and I thought this was just like a great example of what happens in negotiation when we focus on fairness.

36:07Johnny:So this family was talking about their will and how to split their possessions. And they had two kids, one kid, wildly successful, super smart, earning a crazy amount of money. The other kid struggling a bit, trying to get on his feet. And the husband and wife couldn't agree on what fair was. So the husband's stake was, oh, the son who already has everything shouldn't get much. the son who doesn't have anything should get the inheritance. And the wife was like, no, fair is it gets split in half. And that's a worldview that comes up in negotiation where we want what's fair, but our definition of fair, just like our definition of reciprocity, differs quite a bit.

36:56Johnny:So we hear these words in negotiation. We hear the strategy. We're like, we're just going for what's fair. For some of us, fairness might be about the best price. for some of us, fairness might be splitting things equally based on what we view the world as important to us. And this comes into play in these tense situations where we don't recognize it because we're operating from, well, this is my definition of fair. This is my definition of reciprocity. This is how I'm vulnerable. This is how I share. This is how I split things. One thing about reciprocity is it's a tremendously powerful tool.

37:33Like one, And this comes up a lot in hostage negotiation. You know, if let's say, AJ, you rob a bank, but you weren't planning on taking hostages, but the cops show up. And so now you're stuck in there and, you know, you point your gun at the customers and say, hey, you know, give me a getaway car and more money or I'm going to start shooting. What they used to do is just say, hey, you know, you got 10 minutes to surrender and then we're coming in. And there's about 50-50 of someone getting shot that day. Now it's better than 95 percent peaceful surrender. And all they do is ask you questions and listen to your story.

38:07They show a lot of empathy. And then they are looking for reciprocity. They wait, you know, because you weren't planning this. They wait for you to get hungry. And then they say, oh, dude, we'll get you a sandwich. What's your favorite sandwich? What's your what do you think the best deli in the city is? We'll go there and get it for you. And then when you're munching on the sandwich, they say, hey, you know, my lieutenant is really mad at me for giving that sandwich, but I thought you're a good guy. So I, you know, I'm willing to take the heat, but could you let one of the hostages go? And it almost always works.

38:37The part of that is because people feel this need to reciprocate, but they're really bad at doing the math of who gave how much. And so if you give them a little thing, very often you can get something really good for it. Dominic Massino, who was an NYPD hostage negotiator, he used to start every lecture he gave on it by saying, you know, what is the value of a human life? And people would say, oh, my, it's priceless. That can't be valued. And say, ah, three cigarettes. He does it. But the thing about that is when you're doing reciprocity, our advice is give away things that you're fine if, you know, they don't give you anything back.

39:17Like in that situation, Dominic told me a story. A guy went to his girlfriend's apartment and was threatening to kill her. And he says to the, you know, the tactical guy in charge, hey, I'm going to give this guy a pack of cigarettes. The guy says, well, what if he takes the cigarettes and doesn't give the hostage up? And Dominic says, well, then we're out half a pack of cigarettes and they're mine anyway. Well, you care. We try to give things, you know, a glass of lemonade, a sandwich, a kind word that if it doesn't turn into anything, that's fine. That's the price of doing business. It's like going fishing.

39:50You know, a fish took your worm and you didn't catch it. That's fine. Underpinning everything that you're talking about, whether it's reciprocity or fairness, which I want to touch upon, are emotions. And a lot of studies now show that most decision making, like somewhere between 75 to 95 percent of decision making, comes from unconscious processing of emotions. So it's deeply rooted in our behavior and the other person's behavior. And sometimes we can recognize it in our own behavior, but we have a harder time thinking about it from their perspective. And you're right that fairness is different for all of us the way we perceive it.

40:30And it's somewhat hardwired within us. There was a woman, Sarah Brosnan, who did a study to try to figure out, is this nature or nurture? And so she had two capuchin monkeys that she ran a study on, and she started giving one a task. They both had the same task, to take a rock and give it back to her. And she gave the monkeys a cucumber, and when they did the task correctly, they kept doing it, kept doing it. And then she switched to give one monkey grapes instead of cucumbers. And monkeys like cucumbers, but they love grapes. And when the other first monkey didn't get a grape and got a cucumber instead, he freaked out.

41:17He started rattling the cage, stomping his foot. And you know what he did? He took that cucumber, looked her directly in the eye and threw it at her. And so that's kind of, we all have some version of that inside of us when we feel like we are being treated unfairly. And that definition changes. And so we have to figure out how we calm our own monkey inside, but also recognize when that's happening to them.

41:43Johnny:One of those areas where fairness comes up is this idea of giving. So many of us might feel listening to the show that giving is for suckers. Like I'm giving stuff away here in this negotiation. I came in because of what I wanted. And now I'm giving away my lunch. I'm giving away cigarettes. That's what where is this going to stop? Well, I'm just I'm now being taken advantage of. And I think that that comes up, especially in these tense negotiations. Now it's like, well, I don't want to give anything, even though I heard in the podcast. Hey, giving leads to reciprocity and I might be able to get something even better by strategically giving.

42:16Johnny:So how do we strategically give if our default is giving is for suckers? Giving little things that help the relationship is fine. Give them a cup of coffee. Give them a sandwich. Hey, if they take it and, you know, selfishly consume it and don't give you anything. OK, fine. But don't give them important things unless it's mutual. Don't say, hey, I'll give you a 10 percent off the price of the apartment unless they're willing to give you something in exchange. So I would divide between things that are your choice to give that don't really matter versus things that are important to you. But going back to what you said about fairness, you want to talk about what's fair and right.

43:00People all have very strong ideas about fairness. They hate being treated unfairly. But like you mentioned, our ideas about what's fair and right come from very different places, usually from our birth family or from philosophy or religion. You can't ignore their ideas of fairness. But if you talk about it, if the couple, the wife and the husband, you know, about how much to give to which kid, typically if they have a conversation about that, their ideas about fairness don't go away, but they become more sympathetic to each other and more open minded to the other person's idea about fairness and are more willing to compromise on it is what typically happens.

43:41Johnny:According to the research listening to the show, many in our audience are highly analytical. They get paid at their work to think through problems. And we do a conflict resolution exercise inside of the X Factor Accelerator where we go through all the strategies and all the great tactics that we can use. And then a lot of our clients will write us after and be like, oh, man, I love the exercise and I practice it. But then this happened at work and I wasn't able to do it. I wasn't able to think my way through it. And we've touched on the core of all of this is emotions. and we're not often recognizing that if we set up great emotions in ourself, we'll make the other person start feeling those great emotions and we can start working towards a solution that works for everybody.

44:25Johnny:But if our emotions coming in aren't being managed very well, we're going to really struggle to help the other person manage their emotions and we're never going to be able to think our way through the problem or think our way through the negotiation. Before every negotiation, I get very amped up. I think that my stress levels just shoot through the roof. And I've done this a lot at this point. And so I have to figure out how to manage that internal negotiation with myself before walking into the room. And so first, what are the emotions I'm feeling, right? I'm afraid of the outcome. I'm afraid of that thing being taken away.

45:05Or I'm afraid of damaging the relationship. And so labeling each emotion as discreetly as possible is a great first step, because as soon as you can acknowledge them and recognize them, you can start processing them. And then from there, I have to do something physical. I actually have a Peloton upstairs and I have to do a really hard Peloton ride to burn away those stress hormones and calm my emotional system. But I also have to calm my physical system. But then when we're in the moment, we'll probably still get a spike. And one of the things that I always recommend, actually two things. First, breathe.

45:40And the way that I like to talk about it is you breathe in, hold it, and then you breathe out more slowly than you breathe in. Because if your body thinks it's under attack, which often it does when it's stressed, if you breathe out more slowly, it forces your brain to recognize that you're not under attack. Because if you were, you wouldn't be able to breathe out more slowly. And then second, ask for a break if you feel like it's spinning out of control. Say, hey, let's take a quick five minutes bio break, right? Or go step outside, take a walk around the block, do some breathing, because then that'll help you reset and do quick little exercises in that five minutes so that you can walk back in having managed those feelings within yourself.

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47:24Johnny:and that management of feelings for many in our audience is managing the fear of failure yeah yeah and as high performers what we've found time and time again working with our clients is they failed at something early on they worked through it and then they got really skilled and then they just doubled down their efforts there yeah and they start to lose a bit of their social circle they lose a bit of the hobbies where they have those opportunities and environments to practice failing. And now if we say, hey, okay, we're going to fail on purpose in negotiation to actually get more comfortable with that fear of failure in the moments that matter, asking for the raise, negotiating on the house, trying to find your next location for an apartment.

48:09Johnny:In those situations, if we've just avoided failure, that fear is going to wash over us in a way that we're not going to be able to manage. So what are some practical ways that our audience can start to fail on purpose to strengthen that muscle for these important moments. I really like being able to find small opportunities. First, the lowest stakes environments that you can to fail. So pick something that you're doing today. What are what's something you're doing later? Either of you like something small. You're going to go grab coffee. You're going to go to the bar. You're going to anything.

48:44Grab lunch. OK. And what can you do when you go grab lunch? What can you ask for that is going to get a no? Maybe you ask for something to be changed and you know this place doesn't do any accommodations. Or you ask for something that's off the menu. And you're just going to do something on purpose to get that no. And what we've seen is that when you have that feeling inside in that small way, it actually builds that resilience inside of you. So doing it in the moment in a small way is really helpful. And the other thing that's actually really helpful, if you can't find a way to do it in a small stakes environment today, you can actually run through that same scenario in your mind.

49:29Because our brains are wild in that if we play through the exact thing that's going to happen in our head in that worst case scenario where we get absolutely rejected. We destroy the relationship, right? Like play out the worst case scenario. And the pain you feel in your brain will actually do the same thing. And it'll inoculate you against that fear of rejection so that when you walk in, it will feel less scary. One exercise we have given our students in the past is, hey, you know, this weekend or tomorrow, go out and get rejected five times. Like Atiyah said, ask for something that's not on the menu, ask for a discount at the store.

50:08The weird thing is most people find it really hard to get five rejections. Like they have to make 25 asks before they get five rejections because the actual rate at which people will agree with you is a lot higher than you imagine. The other thing I think, and Atiyah was mentioning this, prepping your mind in advance. before you go into a negotiation, we recommend always assume it's going to be a failure and have a plan for what you're doing afterwards. It probably won't be a failure, but if you have your after they say no and storm out, here's the next phone call I'm going to make. Here's what I'm who I'm going to talk to next.

50:49If you are ready with that and you visualize it, you know, the way athletes do, then it's much less scary. And when it happens, you're like, all right, you know, I already know what I'm doing about this.

50:59Johnny:Yeah, I think those are two key ways that we lower the stakes. Recognizing that the no is often an illusion. Like we internally feel like we're more likely to get a no than we actually experience by going out in the world and seeking more no's in our day to day life. And then also recognizing that this illusion can impact us in those moments where we anticipate the no and then we don't even ask. So we leave stuff on the table in negotiations because we've anticipated that we're going to get a no from them when it's not likely to happen. Let me ask a question. How do you correlate failure and confidence?

51:38Johnny:They're inextricably linked. It's the ability to get back up after failure that is confidence. So if that failure stops you, then yeah, you've let your mind or that failure or the story or the narrative, create a limiting belief about yourself, to not try in that area again, to avoid it. And there's no way we're going to build confidence that way. And if our audience thinks back to all the areas of their life where they are currently confident, it's riddled with a pattern of failure, getting back up and putting yourself back in the arena that got you there. That's where you get second guessing yourself when you don't know what the result is going to be.

52:17Anything that you've done and have experience on, well, you know, it's either going to fail or you're going to move forward, but you know what it looks like after both of those. People don't realize how much they're insecure about themselves because they don't know what success looks like. And they're focused on failure. But the reality is they don't know what either one looks like. That's what freaks them out. That's what makes them second guess themselves. Totally. I mean, you guys had a great episode on uncertainty and that's exactly it. The black box is uncertainty. We don't know what it is.

52:50And I think that there is a myth about confidence. Some people think that confidence is innate. And it's not because exactly like you said, we built a skill and we grew our confidence through that. And we're talking about how negotiation is a performance skill that you have to build. And so prepping and practicing is what it takes to become a confident negotiator. It's not innate within any of us. We don't just come out of the womb being amazing negotiators. It's something that we can build upon and involve. And so I would say that if we're looking at a toolkit for people, something that they can think about when they're looking at practicing this skill to become more confident, more value-driven negotiators, is first managing that internal negotiation first.

53:42your emotions, thinking about their emotions, right? Doing what you need to do to be in a really good, comfortable place in the negotiation. And then second, the prep. How are you prepping for that negotiation? What are you doing to gather data about it? What are you doing to get rejected? What are you doing to build the relationship? All of those pieces are going to be key in helping with that success. And then the third part is even if you do get a no, we always think that a no is a not yet or almost always in a negotiation. A no is a not yet. There's something else there. And so staying warm and curious and asking, you know, like you guys said, how do we need to pivot given what changes we see?

54:34What pivot do you need to make? What questions can you ask that might change the dynamic and make that no into a yes?

54:44Johnny:I know a lot of our audience members play video games. And the way I think about the no is when you start a video game, the map is completely black and you're exploring around and you get the no and it becomes the boundary of that map. But you don't quit the video game. Then you start exploring the other dark areas to figure out, OK, well, where are the other boundaries? And if we start to treat no like boundaries and negotiation, it actually opens up more of a world map for other things that we didn't realize could actually be on the table, could really benefit us. So we can't really narrow our focus just around what it is that we want.

55:20Johnny:If we're bringing that curiosity and empathy and recognizing that the no moves us in a different direction, creates new pathways to negotiate on, it's a better mindset to take in to the negotiation. and I thought the book had some great frameworks. I know we touched on reciprocity, but I'd love to drill down a little bit more into the sandwich and give our audience some practical things here to wrap the show. I had an amazing, but also very stressful experience when it came to giving a sandwich where when I moved into my dream home, then I found out neighbor just came striding up to us and started lecturing us on how we were on his property because we had an easement, which meant our driveway went over his property, but it was still our driveway.

56:08And from there, the relationship just soured over time. And it became to the point where we couldn't stand looking at each other and we would speed down the driveway to avoid him at all costs. And I was complaining to my mom about it. And my mom was like, stop it. Use your own learnings. Go take him a cold glass of lemonade. It's a hot day out. And I was like, I would never take my enemy a cold glass of lemonade. Like we are mortal enemies and this relationship is never going to change. And then after a little while, I realized that that's really the antithesis of what I teach. So I did go take him a glass of lemonade.

56:46And the dynamic of our relationship completely changed. And so even in the worst relationships, even in the ones that are so entrenched over months and years of bad blood, those relationships can change just by offering something small and kind and thoughtful without any expectation of something in return. So one thing that you can do today is just take something that is small and kind and thoughtful and give it to someone, right? Take a cup of coffee, but even better, take their favorite coffee to your colleague and just give it to them and say, hey, I thought you might like this today and see what happens.

57:25And what's interesting is that they will be so happy, but they will also probably try to repay that little gesture that you gave them because they'll feel very uncomfortable with the imbalance.

57:36Johnny:I love that because so many of us have those colleagues, those friends in our life that, you know, we have let our own internal narratives keep from giving, reaching out to touching with some small gift that could actually meaningfully change the direction of that relationship outside of negotiation. So this is just such a great skill set to bring into your life and recognizing that these small favors, helping people out, thinking of them, caring about them matter outside of negotiation just as much as they matter inside. build the habit of doing that just with everyone in your life what it's doing is it's building that relationship foundation over time in a way that if you do have an ask in six months or a year that those credits that you put into the relationship are going to reap so much reward for you and you'll be amazed at how much more you will get when you do have an ask because you over time built that social capital with them.

58:41Johnny:Yeah, unfortunately, that can sound transactional to some of our audience members, you know, and thinking about this quid pro quo, like, okay, great. Now I know exactly what I got to do. I know I'm going to be negotiating a salary next month. So I'm going to buy my boss lunch. When the rest of the year, I haven't invested in that relationship at all. I probably haven't touched base. I've been avoiding him because I I just had my head down or I'm an introvert and I don't really like talking to them. And I'm going to treat them to this big, fancy lunch. And then I'm going to ask them, can I get a raise?

59:13Johnny:And it falls flat. And we don't recognize that it's the habit. And it's building this throughout our life, not just in the key moments with the people that we're going to try to get something from or ask of. But when we build the muscle of being a giver over time, the return is far greater. But if we think about it in the key moments, we can think about it transactionally and it can damage the trust in that negotiation. Yeah, if they think you're manipulating them. I love that you brought up that point because people ask me all the time, especially when I'm with my husband, like, aren't you just manipulating people all the time?

59:50What is the difference between influence and manipulation? And I think it's the difference is your intention. Is it something that you're trying to do to very authentically improve the relationship without expecting something in return? Or are you trying to change their behavior in a way that may not be great for them? And if they found out what you were doing, would they be mad or irritated or frustrated? Or would they say, hey, actually, this is something that is beneficial for both of us. And so I think that I love that you brought up that distinction because people can always tell if we're doing something authentically or if it's disingenuous.

1:00:34And so the habit and building it and doing it from a place of authenticity without an expectation is really important. In one sense, yeah, a lot of the stuff we're talking about, you could call manipulation. But is manipulation necessarily a bad thing? Like your mom tells you, hey, write grandma a thank you note. And that way you keep getting presents. Yeah, that's manipulative. But on the other hand, grandma loves that thank you note. So she's happy with that transaction. Like Atiyah said, there's can you admit what you're doing without them saying, oh, what a jerk you are. And the other one is, is this in their benefit?

1:01:12Is the thing that I'm trying to get them to do good for them or bad for them? You know, you can use these skills for good or for evil. And, you know, we think it's a lot smarter to use them for good.

1:01:21Johnny:Now, there's another point of this. We've touched on managing our emotions and certainly fear and uncertainty and the tension of being conflict and hearing no is one thing. But another thing that challenges a lot of our audience members is the own internal conflict around what they really want. And I thought the interest inventory was such a great exercise for this because we oftentimes kind of just act on impulse in these moments around what we think we want. And we haven't really weighed internally what is so important. And when we haven't, it doesn't create all the other opportunities to maybe get what we also want and create the win-win scenario.

1:01:59Having a deep goal and understanding what you want can double your success in a negotiation. Just thinking, taking five minutes to think about what are all the pieces of this that I want. I had a really tough negotiation when I was thinking about whether I would stay in Boston after grad school, where my network was and where my career was growing, or moving to northern Michigan because the guy I was dating was a cherry and apple farmer. And it was really just messing up my mind. I could not figure out what to do because I had totally failed in love throughout all of my 20s, like a decade of failure.

1:02:40And then also I had found this career that I loved in Boston. And so John coached me through this and said, hey, you need to list out what it is you care about and then rank that list and then give yourself 100 points and see where the points fall. And then I talked to my sister about the list and she was like, well, you're not even thinking about your emotions. You're making this totally rationally, but you have a lot of emotional interests too. And going through that process really helped me going through the, just the creation of the list, ranking it, assigning points, talking to someone I care about who helps me think through it further.

1:03:19And then also making sure I was thinking about the emotional interests really helped me define what it is that I really, that I truly wanted.

1:03:28Johnny:And that deeper why. Yeah. I think it's so key because many of us, and this comes up a lot around salary negotiations, we anchor on the number. And sometimes it's because of what other people are earning and we're comparing ourselves or what we think we have to tell our parents so that they feel that the investment they made in our education is worth it. But we haven't actually weighed what that greater salary means and why it's important to us in particular, not other people and how we map our world to them, but to us. And sometimes it's actually the salary is a little less important than having more free time or the ability to travel or maybe stay home and work from home on Fridays.

1:04:06Johnny:But if we anchor on the number that other people tell us and what our parents are whispering about or what they seem to care about and not do that deeper why exercise, like, why does this matter? Like, what's the score here on this inventory for me? It creates situations where we're not only going to be disappointed if we don't get that, but then we're not even going to know how to unpack the disappointment in a meaningful way. And we've had so many clients come back and say, well, I didn't get the number that I shot for, but I actually got more time to travel and I got time to be with my kids.

1:04:36Johnny:And now I actually created boundaries that I'm not answering emails on the weekends because I recognize that there was a lot of things on my interest inventory that I was able to work through and put on the table in that negotiation. Our attention goes to the money because numbers are easy to measure, whereas, well, how do I feel about having more time in nature is a lot squishier. It can be just is important. But I think, like Atiyah mentioned, talking about this with other people really helps. They can often add things to your list that you should care about, even if you don't realize it. When Atiyah asked me about this, I thought, boy, you know, if you move to northern Michigan, you're going to have a lot of free time and that'll let you work on a book that I'm thinking about doing.

1:05:22And, you know, and then, you know, you say, oh, OK, that's an interesting thing to add to the calculation.

1:05:27Johnny:We oftentimes have those blind spots and not even recognizing them and having these conversations with the people that know us best, the people that might be impacted around this negotiation and decision can bring that perspective taking that we need to find a better scenario. Now, there are times in a situation where it does feel like a battle of wills. And there's one more framework that I'd love to touch on that can alleviate that pressure for our audience and especially those analytical types who love bringing in outside experts and having someone else be the bad guy? Maybe they don't want to be the bad guy in the negotiation.

1:06:03Johnny:How do we do that? I think this goes back to the thing about we were talking about earlier about fairness. And I think you're exactly right. If you have external measures of what's fair and right, that's like having a powerful ally. You know, if you're trying to buy a used car, like you're crazy to not know what the Kelly's Blue Book price is because you can say, hey, Kelly's is saying this, like, what's your argument against Kelly's? So instead of me and you fighting, it's your fighting against everybody else who's represented in the Blue Book. The first time my wife and I bought a condo here in Cambridge, you know, we negotiated the price and then we had the building inspection.

1:06:42And the inspector said, hey, you know, you got a problem because there's a master bedroom has a 60 gallon jacuzzi tub and there's a 25 gallon hot water heater in the basement. That's not going to work. And so I call up, you know, the guy was a developer was flipping the place. And I said, Hey, you know, the water heater is not big enough. And he goes, I've been building houses for 30 years, you know, and this is the first time I'd ever tried to buy real estate. I had no idea what I was talking about. And, you know, and he's way older than me and way more experienced. And he says, that tank is fine.

1:07:16You'll be fine with that. And I didn't know what to say. And I'm not going to win a pissing contest with this guy. So I said, does the tub manufacturer have a recommendation on the size of the water heater? And he says, OK, I'll have a new one in Saturday. Because, you know, he's fine about having a fight with me. But him going up against the company that manufactured the tub, like that, he feels a little bit silly about that.

1:07:42Johnny:Oftentimes, these are invisible to us. And if we can think through bringing in these to the negotiation, they strengthen our situation. Sometimes it's a salary ban that's already been posted in public that can create that same dynamic, that ally in an intense salary negotiation. Completely. You're crazy to ask for a raise without going on Glassdoor and find out what other people are making in your job. We call it objective criteria or external benchmarks or standards that you can go find. I mean, LLMs make this even easier because it'll scrape the entire Internet to give you all of the data out there on the exact thing that you're going to negotiate and use that because that becomes your ally.

1:08:24It becomes we call it, you know, either a sword or a shield in a negotiation. You can use it to anchor in a negotiation at the spot that's most beneficial to you. Or if they anchor somewhere, you can use it as a shield to combat that number. So you don't have to feel like you're in a position to fight over a contest of wills, like you were saying, but bring that data with you. It is so powerful.

1:08:50Johnny:And it's that pressure release valve, right? Because it's like now the builder is thinking, oh, I got to look up the manual and like, oh, it's a totally different emotion. to go to the manufacturer website and figure out what the actual numbers are versus when you're locked in and he's like, I've been doing this for longer. Who's this guy to tell me how to build a house? Changes it completely. Well, thank you both for joining us today. I really enjoyed this conversation and so many great examples and frameworks we could use at the end. Where can our audience find out more about the book and the work you do?

1:09:19We actually have a quick do's and don'ts for your audience on my website, atiyahkareshi.com slash art of charm. So your audience can go there to get some really specific do's and don'ts as a framework for them in their future negotiations.

1:09:39Johnny:Love that. Thank you so much for putting that together for our audience. Yeah. Thank you both. Thanks, AJ. Those were really fun. Thank you.

1:09:56Thank you.