Chris Voss: The FBI’s #1 Negotiator on Winning Without Saying a Word

0:00Watch it early on the High Performance App. Available now, Roman Kemp, the broadcaster, opens up a powerful conversation on success and mental health.

0:31you're worried about getting hurt when you're coming out. Here's what it's going to look like when you come out so that you don't get hurt. That is the voice of former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss. And this is High Performance, the podcast that turns the lived experiences of the planet's highest performers into your life lessons. So imagine this, you're trying to close a deal. You've prepped your pitch. You're ready to impress. And Chris Voss, the lead hostage negotiator with the FBI says to you, don't speak first. Instead, say one thing. Sounds like you've got something in mind. That's stopped me in my tracks, Jake, because what he's really saying is slow down, listen and create space.

1:15This episode isn't about high stakes FBI standoffs. It's about how we can all learn to deal better with people, your colleagues, your kids, your own emotions without blowing the whole thing go. And I honestly believe this conversation will change how you speak, but also how you listen, how you deal with pressure. So let's get straight to it. And this is one that Damien and I both agree is one of the great episodes of High Performance. This is the story of Chris Voss and the moment that he taught the two of us to negotiate like our lives depend on it.

1:50Chris, welcome. Hey, thank you very much. Thanks for having me on. I'm happy to be here. Good man. Right. This is how we always start this podcast. What is high performance? Wow. You know, I mean, it's almost all the time. It's any time that, you know, we're concerned, which is, you know, sort of our default mode. You know, we think high pressure negotiations happen only rarely, you know, but there's a saying, your biggest problem is your biggest problems. So people have a tendency in their lives to get concerned, agitated, bent out of shape over even the smallest thing. So, you know, high performance is performing under pressure and actually enjoying it.

2:31And how do you reprogram your brain to do that? So did you find that you had to reprogram your brain to enjoy negotiating with bank robbers and international terrorists? Yeah, you know, because I didn't realize that I'd kind of been trained wrong. You know, There's very few good examples of actually really good negotiation. And really good negotiation, it's never marketed as great negotiation. I think Oprah Winfrey might be the best negotiator on earth. Nobody thinks of her as a negotiator. Nobody does. So since I started talking about Oprah, I've run across a couple of people sort of behind the scenes in her world.

3:12So Oprah has taken some highly volatile people to the woodshed over their misbehavior. And nobody knows about it because of the way she handles it. She's got a tremendous demeanor. She's soft spoken. She's low key. You know, what we refer to as a late night FM DJ voice. I mean, that's Oprah's default voice. And so I've had some very explicit conversations where basically she said, it's my way or the highway to high profile celebrities that are not used to being spoken to like this to start with. How about a visible conversation? Her interview with Lance Armstrong. By the way, I met Lance Armstrong on an airplane.

3:51I consider him a friend. I like the guy a lot. She said, look, I'm going to put you on camera. I'm going to ask you a series of questions, bluntly asking you if you cheated. and you're going to answer yes or no. He knew that going in and he still went on camera. That's a negotiation. If you think about where she started and where she is, by anybody's standards, forget about where she started as a black female from, I think, Chicago. No advantages, no privilege. She wasn't born with any privileges. Take that away and think about her net worth compared to the other billionaires on earth. She didn't start as a child of a real estate developer in New York who was given a million dollars as spending money to get started.

4:37Look where she started. And a lot of people say, yeah, well, of course you're not going to argue with Oprah because it's Oprah. No, these high profile celebrities, they don't care who they're arguing with if they get bent out of shape. They're happy to go on Twitter and Instagram and all sorts of social media and throw a shade at one another. And you don't see it happening with her. To me, that's great collaboration, focused on long-term relationships. And it's a definition of building prosperity for you and everybody you're involved with. So one of our big questions that we have is that negotiation often gets a bad press.

5:13It's often got a negative connotation. And yet you describe it as a beautiful process. Would you explain your perspective to come to that conclusion? Well, you know, whatever happens, it causes you to make the shift. Like you wonder if maybe, is there a better way to do this? You know, do I have to win all the time? You know, is it a zero-sum game? Do I have to beat the other side? And it starts to sneak up on you in a little ways because I'm a natural-born assertive. I'm very assertive. Direct and honest is how I would describe me and other people would describe me when I'm in my natural assertive mode that dealing with me is like getting hit in the face with a brick.

5:55And the real problem with that style of negotiator, because it's what everybody expects on the other side of the table. When we prep people, the Black Swan group, we've been training people for, what is that, 13 years. We always ask people, who are you prepared for in a negotiation? Everybody's preparing for the attacking negotiator, even though that's not everybody. but everybody's expecting that because that's the demeanor and it locks people's brains up. The attacking negotiator hits a couple of home runs early and then people get tired of being attacked. And so then they run into fewer and fewer deals.

6:36And then suddenly nobody will talk to them. And they don't understand because they have this memory of all these great victories where I had them over a barrel and there was nothing they could do. And they don't realize that the last time they talked about a victory like that was seven, eight years ago. And they're living in that memory. And so those memories are so satisfying, you don't realize how many deals you drive from the table. It's interesting. So people listening to this, Chris, and we have lots of business leaders and they will understand negotiation, but we also have a huge number of teachers that listen to this, parents that listen to this.

7:14Do we all negotiate every single day of our lives? Is this a lesson for everyone that you're talking about here? Anytime the words I want or I need are coming across your lips, you're in a negotiation. How many times a day I want a cup of coffee? I need you to go to bed early. I want you to do your homework. I want to go to this restaurant. How many times a day do those words cross your lips? That's how often you're in a negotiation. People think it's a negotiation only if money's involved. The commodity that's always involved in a negotiation is time. How are you going to get the money? How are you going to pay somebody?

7:56Even the transfer of money requires time, requires implementation. When I was doing kidnapping negotiations, we'd bargain like crazy over the ransom amount just to wear them down. You know, I knew that the real issue was I could agree to a million dollars right now. Try and get it out of me. The devil is in the details. And I'm like, well, you know, do you want a$5 bills? Do you want a$100 bills? Do you want it in a suitcase? Do you want it in a backpack? How are we going to deliver it to you? How do we make sure that you're sure that I mean, like the details, the devil's in the details. The money amount to me was just entertainment.

8:38You know, I'm going to kill you over the details. That's time. And that's where business negotiations break down because they think they have deals when they've agreed on a price. You know, a famous activist investor in the United States, Carl Icahn. Carl Icahn realized that as soon as price was settled, the other side was going to drop their guard. And when he felt like it, that's where he wiped people out over the details. The devil's in the details.

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10:43I'm fascinated in how you learn these skills that you now teach to others and that you've used in such high stakes negotiations yourself. Would you explain a little bit about the start of your journey? Yeah, you know, and there's a great book out there called The Talent Code and Daniel Coyle, I think, and he contends that everything is learned. And there's all kinds of other books out there similar. Talent is overrated. Most people that achieve, they learn to work hard and to learn. I grew up in an environment where my father expected me to figure stuff out. He was a blue-collar guy from the Midwestern United States.

11:19He had to figure stuff out himself to be successful, ran his own business, and figured his kids need to figure stuff out themselves too. My son still gets the biggest kick out of this. My father decided he wanted a new garage, the old garage in the backyard. I was 11. My older sister was 13. He handed each of us crowbars and said, go tear down the garage. He had to pay for our room and board. He wanted to get a return on his investment. He put us to work. We had to go out and figure out how to tear this garage down. That was my life growing up. If there's a task, figure it out, which is a high emphasis on learning.

11:56Now, I was not a natural born negotiator in any way. Nobody's a natural born anything. I was a member on a SWAT team. I was FBI SWAT. I wanted to be in SWAT. And I decided to make the switch to hostage negotiations because I had a recurring knee injury. And I've had my knee rebuilt a couple of times. and we had hostage negotiators i like crisis response so i thought you know i could do that how hard could that be i talk to people all the time i could talk to a terrorist you know we i like to joke that the unofficial motto of the voss family is how hard could it be which is you know it's it's like the the in the u.s we have a saying uh a redneck's famous last words are hey watch this right look chris you said at the beginning the devil is in the detail And I really want people listening to this podcast to get detail from us about how they, from the minute they turn off this podcast and go and buy your book, Never Split the Difference, how from that moment they can be better negotiators.

12:55What is the best way to do that? Should we role play? Do you want to explain to us the skills that are involved in negotiating? How do you normally work this kind of thing? Well, let the other side go first. And that's really hard to do because everybody wants to have their say. One of the sayings about negotiation is negotiation is the art of letting the other side have your way. How do you do that? You got to let them talk. So let's say you have a promotional event of mine. You want to do a promotional event with me. You got a whole game plan laid out. And you're a typical negotiator. You're worried about your budget.

13:29You're worried about the details. You want to be in control. How would you start that? How would you normally start that? if you want to contact me about it, make the deal. I would call you and I'd say, hey, Chris, my name's Jake. I'm based in the UK. I hear you've got a new book out, Never Split the Difference. I run an events agency in the UK, and I would love the opportunity to share your story with people across the pond. How do you fancy that? Sounds like you get something specific in mind. Yeah, I absolutely do. Yeah, I want to do a book tour around the UK, and I reckon we can sell out theatres.

14:04and I've got some great contacts in the TV industry. So I reckon I can get you onto BBC Breakfast and Good Morning Britain. They're the two big early morning programs over here. What do you think? All right, so I'm going to stop right there. I'm going to talk about what just happened. Before you contacted me, whether you actually wrote it down or you're aware of it, you have an entire vision in your head. Vision drives decision. There are a lot of times in negotiations where people are actually just contacting someone to get a competing bid or they're looking to do due diligence. Let's say you want to do this whole book tour thing, but you want to do it with an equivalent author.

14:45There's somebody else with a business book out there and you're dry running with me to see what I might be looking for, which means the vision in your head does not include me. So my first saying sounds like you've got something in mind. I didn't say, what do you have in mind? Because any question puts people on guard to some degree. Now, what do you have in mind is a good, what we would refer to as a calibrated question. A lot of other people would call either an open-ended question or a reporter's question. Who, what, when, where, why, and how. Reporters, interrogatives. I ask that question if I want you to stop and think.

15:29It triggers what Danny Kahneman would refer to as in-depth, slow thinking. If in that moment I want you to stop and think and take a step back, I'll ask you what question? If instead I want to trigger a straight stream of consciousness, sounds like you got something in mind, hits your brain in a completely different way. and it's much more likely to open up a direct downstream, unvarnished stream of consciousness of your thoughts. Now, there's no guarantee of success of any approach. I just want to use the stuff that's most likely to get the thinking out of you without exhausting you. I want you to give me a downstream that you're comfortable with, which simultaneously makes me feel to you like I'm easy to work with.

16:21Yeah. Yeah. Well, you were kind of praising me when you said to me, seems like you've got something. I almost felt I had to tell you something because I almost felt like you were already impressed. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's all this additional emotional intelligence relationship building benefits that kind of come with this approach entirely. So can I flip it slightly because I'm intrigued by this approach. I want to go back to the angle jake was talking about but in relation to your days as a fbi negotiator what would you do if somebody refused to play ball with you so if somebody just refused to engage well you know that's part of the assessment of the process now we probably start what we consider to be one-way dialogue because you refusing to answer back doesn't mean you're not listening So if you're refusing to answer me back, what does that mean?

17:21What that means is you're scared. Your guard is up. You don't know if you could trust me. The future looks extremely uncertain to you. You're frozen. So that informs me as to now I'm going to start taking educated guesses. You know, each one of these things sounds like is a label. Looks like, feels like. Those are educated guesses. You know, we have a scientific term for them. We call them swags. That's a scientific wild ass guess. I'm going to take a scientific wild ass guess on what you're feeling. So I'm negotiating. We got a 27th floor of a high rise in Harlem in New York in the 90s. We have brought the circus to town.

18:04We got the SWAT team. We got on 27 floors in this high rise. I mean, the circus has come to town. We've made so much noise getting up there. We figure there's no way that these guys are not long gone because we brought the circus. We got elephants. We got trapeze artists. I mean, we make that much noise bringing an entire SWAT team and everybody to bear on this apartment. So I think we're talking to an empty apartment. I get two baby negotiators with me. They're still in training. I'm like, cool. This is rite of passage. Everybody talks to an empty apartment at some point in time. In point of fact, the fugitives are inside and they're heavily armed.

18:39And so I just say, look, I want you to know that I know you're scared. And I know you're worried about coming out. And I know you're worried about getting hurt when you're coming out. Here's what it's going to look like when you come out so that you don't get hurt. Because I said vision drives decision, right? I got to start putting a vision in their head of them coming out safely. So we're talking to this empty apartment. I'm thoroughly convinced it's empty for six hours. six hours of this over and over and over. And six hours in a sniper on an adjacent building says, I just saw a curtain move inside.

19:16And we all go like, holy cow, they really are in there. And so then I go, look, we just saw the curtains move on the inside. One of you just looked out the window. I've been telling you for six hours, we're not going away and that you're going to come out safe. and about five minutes later, without saying a word, the door opens and a pair of hands comes out exactly as I've described. I said, you have to come out with your hands first so that we can see that they're empty so we don't hurt you. And you've got to move really slow because we've got to keep you safe. We brought all three of them out one at a time exactly like that.

20:03They never said a word when we got outside the first one to come out was a female and i went to talk to her i'm like i've been talking for six hours why don't you say something and she says well we were hoping you would go away and i said well if you were hoping we were going we would go away why'd you come out she said well you said you'd never go away so we finally believed and decided to come out what unbelievable you know what i think so i mean for a start i just i don't know why but i'm kind of intrigued by the fact that I'm hearing exactly what bad people in the States have heard at the sort of peak of their, of their careers, if you know what I mean?

20:41Like you're the voice that these huge fugitives in the United States have been listening to. And we're now on the other end of it. But what, what sort of gets me is, um, so I used to work in Formula One as a, as a broadcaster and, um, in motor racing, they call Formula One the Piranha Club because everyone is out to get everyone else and eat each other up. But as you walk up and down the pit lane or the paddock everyone's saying oh he robbed me and she robbed me and I stole from him and that's kind of the way that world likes to operate but what you've just explained is you can have a successful negotiation by not disarming someone not being aggressive towards someone by putting them totally at ease and I've always kind of had the thought that to be a good negotiator you need to get them on the back foot knock them on their knees and slap them on the back of the head and leave them feeling like they've got nowhere to go but you've just described the total opposite it is successful yeah yeah because long term it's much more profitable i mean they're they're quiet negotiators get farther accumulate more money are happier so would you argue then chris that negative emotions such as negotiating through fear or intimidation or telling people about your power or status and things like that are short-term fixes, but actually over a long-term, they're destructive.

22:03Thousand percent. And one of the things that's almost misleading about that is, you know, academic studies on negotiation. What you're talking about is referred to in academic terms as strategic umbrage. You know, do I get mad to get the deal? And there's an academic study, there's probably several out there that say that strategic umbrage works. Anytime you find out about any study, take a look about how they gathered it and whether or not you like how they did the data. You know, you don't got to be a college graduate to look at it and say, this doesn't look right to me. So the academic studies on strategic umbrage were simulations that were run with students.

22:41I ran simulations with students myself. What happens when you run a simulation with a student? They sit down and they think two things. I got to get this done in 45 minutes because I want to go drink it with my buddies tonight. or I want to go get coffee or I got to study something else, but they tend to allocate 45 minutes. They also feel the only way they fail is if they don't get a deal. And since it's a simulation, this is a one and done, and it's not an ongoing relationship. So they're within 10 minutes. They've been at 40 minutes. They've been at 45. And finally, one of them decides to get angry with the other one.

23:22And the other one's like, all right, to hell with it. And they cut the deal. And that data will show that the anger got the deal. But they're never going to deal with each other again. And it was a fake simulation. And they don't have to pay for that anger. And there isn't anybody in our life we don't have repeat relationships with. You go out and buy a car and you slaughter the dealer over the car price. If the car's a lemon, you go back to that dealer and they're not going to want to fix it. If the car is good and you go back to that dealer for routine maintenance, they're going to remember that you killed them before and they're not cutting your brake on anything.

23:57There's no such thing as a one-off. I mean, anybody listening to this, they're going to say, yeah, well, I can remember this one time I had a one-off. All right. Yeah. Compare it to all the other times. So why do we get caught up in this idea then apart from the studies and the sort of unlike the false dichotomy that they, that they promote? Why do we get convinced that this idea that negative emotions are more valuable than positive emotions and chris and what can you teach us uh that challenge those perceptions well it's it's what gets held up to us all the time like before my book came out and people just knew that i taught negotiation i was a hostage negotiator taught negotiations in business school and i would go to you know business events or any sort of professional gathering and they say hey it's chris false.

24:43He was a hostage negotiator. He teaches business negotiation in Georgetown. And every time somebody would speak up and go like, you know what? Let me tell you about this deal I negotiated. I had them over a barrel. They had nowhere to go. I had all the leverage. Now, if you're in a gathering, the only person that speaks up is the person that hammered somebody. You see over and over, wow, I guess if I want to have a deal that I brag about, show off to the boys, prove to my brother-in-law how smart I am. I got to go out and I got to beat somebody down. And then I'm going to brag about it for the rest of the time.

25:20So I'm afraid our examples in real life and in movies and TV are always of somebody smashing somebody else. Those are the models that are held up to us. So let's go back to the role play then. You've already said to me, it seems like I have a plan. What's the next thing that you would normally do with someone? First of all, I'm going to listen to your game plan. So if I get an idea of, have you ever done this before? Or do you have any sort of a sense for the environment? What are the challenges? I'm probably going to say, how'd this go when you tried it in the past? What happened? What sort of obstacles you run into?

25:58I'm really more interested in whether or not you have any idea of what you're getting into and how collaborative you're going to be. because even if you cut me a great deal financially, if dealing with you is painful, if it sucks the life out of me, it's going to be blood money and I'm not going to want it. Even if it's lucrative, it's just going to be too painful. I want deals that I want to repeat. So now I'm starting to gather an idea of what our relationship is going to look like. Can I ask you a question at all and have you answer? Or do you just want to dismiss me? You know, how you do anything is how you do everything.

26:36That's going to be the way you are to deal with the entire duration of the relationship. And I want to know what I'm getting into with you as a business partner, because I'm into long-term prosperous relationships, positive sum games. And if you are not, then even if you throw a lot of money on the table, it's still going to be painful. So are there other tricks that you would employ apart from disarming me with seems like, looks like, feels like? What are the other tricks to conversation? You mentioned Oprah at the beginning. What does Oprah Winfrey do in her interviews that make her so successful?

27:12I remember a long, long time ago, one of my psychology teachers explained to me the power of mirroring, just repeating what someone says. Is that part of the negotiator's handbook? It can be. You gave me two different questions. What does Oprah do and what's part of the negotiator's handbook? So I'm going to go to what Oprah does first. Does that make me a bad negotiator right there? No, it means I listen. It seems like you think it does. Oh, there's a mislabel. No, not at all. No? Getting people to say no is a good thing. First of all, don't be scared of no. But here's the real key to what Oprah does.

27:45Sorry, I can't let you move on from why no is a good thing. I can't let you move on because we've all taught no is a bad thing. Why is no a good thing? The biggest turning point in every negotiator's life is coming to grips with what no really is. That may have been the single biggest turning point for me. Because like everybody else, getting to yes, you want to hear yes. Yes is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I mean, you know, we're almost hypnotized to believe that, yes, when you hear yes, the heavens part, the angels sing, the birds chirp. But so the turning point for me was I read a book called Start With No, Jim Camp 2002.

28:32I'm passing a book in an airport bookstore and I literally do a double take. I'm like, what? Start With No? You're supposed to get yes. How do you start with no? And Camp was like, in order to free people up, just tell them it's okay to say no. He called it the right to veto. And his negotiation style was to start out by saying like, look, you can say no to me at any time. I just want you to know I'm not here to try to back you into the corner. Yes, anytime you want, say no, I'll get up and move away. I'll be gone. And his approach was that preserves the other person's autonomy. and he literally says in his book, people would die for their autonomy.

29:13And I'm reading it, and I'm going like, no kidding. That's why we have us as negotiators in the first place. We had SWAT teams. We didn't have negotiators. We just surround their house and tell them to come out or get killed, which was taking away their autonomy. And law enforcement globally were killing people who would rather die than give up their autonomy. They were caught, you know, they come out guns blazing. But after a while, we'd be like, all right, so we know this dude came out shooting at us. But he was just some poor slob that had too much to drink and got upset and mad at his wife and she called him names and ran out.

29:54Did this guy deserve to die because he drank too much and he was unhappy? Yeah, you know, it was a legally justified killing. But morally, is there a better way to approach this? And we thought, what if we pay somebody to maybe ask them nice? And that was kind of how it was all born. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. I made the switch because I was tired of those ridiculous bills and sneaky charges from my old provider. With Mint, I'm paying$15 a month and getting the same high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and coverage on the nation's largest 5G network.

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31:45Did you know adults 60 plus lose more than$60 billion each year to financial exploitation? Greenlight's new Family Shield plan empowers you to monitor your accounts for suspicious activity, protect yourself with up to$1 million identity theft coverage, and reassure loved ones that you're safe with location sharing and place alerts. Get peace of mind today at greenlight.com slash protect. That's greenlight.com slash protect.

32:15but is there something about saying no as well like i'm thinking about a recent negotiation i had with my 11 year old son chris and he was asking me about something that i felt uncomfortable with and when i said no to him when his request it gave me a sense of safety and then i felt like we could negotiate from there on we could find a middle ground and that's the misinterpretation of data. And I'll characterize it for you in a minute. A misinterpretation of data is that playing basketball makes you tall. Because just look at all the people that are playing that tall. So a lot of people that hear that story and they're going to say, well, kids know how to negotiate with parents.

32:57No. What you did was a human nature response. Because exactly as you said, having said no, you felt that you sort of protected your own interests. You're no longer under attack. You're more open to hearing the possibilities, feeling safe and protected. Through the course of the interactions, your child has figured out that after you say no, there's a pretty good chance you're actually going to listen to what they want. And so if they're not put off by the fact that you said no if they're patient then that's when the negotiation is really probably going to start and that's human on human it's not parent and child it's human on human in this um in this brilliant therapy session as well as educational conversation that we're having um i tell you the problem i have with my kids and i'd love to go to know the negotiators way out of this they're only young they're eight and five but i cannot get them to understand the power of consequence.

34:02They will happily not get dressed for school and then be annoyed that we're 10 minutes late dropping them off into the classroom. They will happily not go to bed, then be grumpy in the morning when they haven't had enough sleep. How do I get a five and an eight-year-old to understand consequences? It's all, you know, with your kids, it's all about helping them think. And that's really what you're asking me. You know, how do I get them to think into the future a little bit more. So the starting point to that is often when we're late to school, how are you going to feed? Because that's how questions are designed to get people to think.

34:37How is principally focused on implementation? What is principally focused on uncovering problems? Those each words have a primary design. So if you drag your feet, how did it feel last time when you walked in late? How embarrassing was that? That's a time travel question. You're trying to gently put them in a moment in time. Humans hate to be embarrassed. Get them thinking. It's called in-depth thinking, slow thinking, Danny Kahneman would say, but that's in-depth thinking. And your job as a parent is to really get your kids' thinking ability as high as it could possibly be and kick them out of the nest.

35:25I really want to talk to you about listening and the importance of listening, because I think we all think that to have a good negotiation, you have to be talking. But you talk in the book about active listening. What is that? Yeah, you know what? And that word has become enough of a cliche that we're cautious of the term because a lot of active listening is taught poorly. And we really want to get proactive, if you will, because you're listening for specific things. Humans are naturally negative. The majority of our thinking is negative because that's how we're wired. It's survival thinking is negative.

36:01When we were really being chased by saber-toothed tigers or bears were in caves. The optimistic caveman said, yeah, I know last time Chris went in a dark cave, he never came out, but I'm optimistic. I'm going to go in this one. Those guys didn't survived. They got eaten. So we've inherited survival thinking is negative. So if you know that, then you'll start out intentionally looking to deactivate the negative thinking, which is ridiculously simple, calling it out. The elephant in the room. You don't get rid of the elephant in the room by ignoring it or denying it's there. You diminish its impact by saying there's an elephant in the room.

36:37So I can make some pretty good predictions on what your negative thinking about me is going to be. If we're back in this deal where we're setting up a book tour, when we get ready to get into price, I'm going to say, look, I'm probably going to sound greedy as opposed to your gut instinct would be, look, I don't want to seem like I'm greedy. The denial to get people really good at this, what we coach them on in the back of your mind, what would you deny? I don't want you to think I'm greedy. I don't want you to think I'm hard to get along with. I don't want you to think I'm a diva, whatever it might be.

37:11Everybody's got a gut instinct for stuff they know they should probably deny before the negotiation starts. Instead of denying it, you just straight out call it out. Look, I'm probably going to seem like a diva. I'm probably going to seem like I can't make a decision. If you were going to do business with me, I'd say, look, I'm probably going to seem like I'm a weak leader, but I don't do anything without my team's full involvement. I can't implement without my team. So for us to even proceed, I got to bring my whole team on board. We got to bring them all up to speed because somebody wants to get a quick decision out of me might go like, well, aren't you the decision maker?

37:42Aren't you in charge? So I'm going to preempt that. I'm going to go, look, I got a team. I'm probably going to look like I'm not in charge. I'm probably going to look like I'm not the decision maker. Which makes you seem vulnerable, which is no bad thing. You know, there's a lot to that. Allowing yourself to appear vulnerable without being afraid of it. And I think that's what a lot of people, like for me, vulnerability is like, oh, I'm sad. But that's my misconstruing what that dynamic really is. I need to be honest about my shortcomings so you're not blindsided by them. And I'm not scared to be honest.

38:15And that's a difficult bridge for people to cross until they see how effective it is. Until they see how it establishes relationships. But is it not a line of argument, Chris, that doing that, like, you might sow a seed of doubt in their mind that might not have been there by calling it out? Everybody's afraid of that. A thousand percent. That is the biggest thing. And not only is that not true, but the opposite is so true. that we actually use it as an inoculating technique. Because let's say you got no reason to have a problem with me. But I'm going to say, look, you're not going to like what I'm getting ready to say.

38:54It's going to sound really harsh. Because you're not going to back up and say, hold it, hold it, hold it. I already think you're a jerk. Now I think you're a bigger jerk. So don't even let another thing come out of your mind. You're going to kind of brace yourself. and in the slightest instance, what you will imagine, because we're, like I said before, we're wired to be negative, you will imagine something 10 times worse than what I have to say. And what I have to say will actually be a relief. Like when, if we're doing a book tour deal, and we start talking about money and percentages, and you're going to like, you know, what's your compensation?

39:30What do you guys charge? My answer is going to be an insanely high amount of money, more than you've ever paid, it's going to stop your heart when you find out how much it cost me. And then I'm going to shut up. No one has ever walked away from us when we've said that ever because people are remarkably resilient when you inoculate them. Now, I'm not saying we've made every deal, but I don't want you to be shocked over the price and have me fail to make a deal that I should have made. So when I drop a number on you, I'm going to be open to a better deal, but I don't want you to be so blown away by the number that your thinking shuts down and you just give up at that point in time.

40:19So we got to continue to explore. It's interesting for me to hear that because one thing that I am awful at is I hate the thought of having a conversation that makes someone feel bad. So I do the total opposite to what you've just said. I will say to them. Can I have a quick chat? It's nothing to worry about. And it's, you know, I don't think you're going to have a problem with this. And I think it's going to be fun. And I think we can work it out together. But I just wanted to go through something. I've spent my life worrying about those conversations. I've never had one as bad as the role play in my head before that conversation.

40:48I wish I could get out of this mindset of worrying about how they're going to feel. Yeah. And well, you've probably never been shown a better way. That's one of the problems. you don't know a better way out of this and all the modeling that we have particularly in movies and television the modeling is just so bad so i mean unless you'd stumbled across somebody handling it properly you got no way of knowing and what's going through your head is your natural negative wiring and as you pointed out it's it's always worse than what you imagine is always worse You know, there's occasionally we're seeing more guidance and coaching in other areas where people are trying to get us to believe that what we imagine is always going to be worse than how it's actually going to happen.

41:33And somehow that just doesn't get transferred into negotiations. And so, you know, you've never seen another way to do it. And you're also rehearsing high stakes negotiations. It's like when we're teaching you to be a black swan, when you're learning a black swan method, we'll coach you to practice up on small stakes negotiations so that you're willing to try something completely new in a conversation that doesn't matter. And then when it changes the outcome, you'll be like, wow. All right, now let me try it in something important. Do it in a restaurant. I did this. I just started dating a girl on our first date.

42:10We're in a steakhouse. and they walk us right past the table. I want to sit in and walk us to the back room. I've never been in this restaurant before. And, you know, I don't know they're giving me the best seat in the house, but I want the best seat in the house and I'm going to get it. So a young lady walks us back to the back table and I go, I am going to be the worst customer that has ever walked into this restaurant. Now, you know, what is going through her mind? Because she's had some problem child in the restaurant. They've seen some horrible things. They've seen people that maybe they want to eat in their underwear.

42:50Maybe they want to eat with their fingers. Something horrible. They want to put their face literally in their plate and eat straight up. Who knows what I want? But she's going to imagine all this stuff. And in that slightest moment, her survival wiring is going to kick into place. And I wait about three breaths. and then I say we walked right by a table in the other room that I'd really love to sit at can we please go sit in this table and she's so relieved that without even checking with the people up front she walks us right over there and we sit down at best seat in the house yes that's the easiest negotiation yeah and it's fascinating to hear but I'm also intrigued by in this age of like mental health and well-being I'm conscious that you started your career working on suicide hotlines where you were dealing with people that really were troubled, where maybe the thought processes that they were experiencing really were the worst case scenarios happening for them.

43:45So how can you help those of us listening to this to understand how do we help people maybe with mental health challenges that they're going through using some of your techniques? Stop giving advice and just let people just be a sounding board. Don't give advice at all. Stop. here's a big advantage to sounding board. All of us, the thoughts in our head, they make sense when they're in our head. And as soon as we start talking them out loud, just that mere act of saying stuff out loud, no matter how troubled you are, some of it is going to clear up. And the mere fact that the only thing you did was say it out loud, with the person who is your sounding board facilitated for you was also a feeling in you that you could cope because you sort of missed the fact that the sounding board was not judgmental, didn't give any advice, didn't tell you you were wrong.

44:42All they did was help you talk stuff out loud. And the suicide hotline I was on, it's actually a crisis intervention hotline, which is, you know, there's, you know, you might be in crisis, but not be suicidal. And we wanted to help those people too. And I can remember I took one call where a young lady calls and she says, look, my friend here, he's just in really tough shape and I can't get him to call you. But he says, if I hand him the phone, that'll talk to you. So I'm like, yeah, all right, put him on my phone. And he sounded completely calm in the moment. But I knew from the context, something was troubling him and he was trying to cope with it himself.

45:21And I said, sounds like you're going through a tough time. And 20 minutes later, he said, wow, I had no idea all that was inside me. I'm good now. And all I was, was a sounding board for 20 minutes. And if you have to be a sounding board for more than 20 minutes, you're not being a sounding board. You're giving advice and you need to stop. Because if you're a good sounding board, they can level themselves out in 20 minutes or less, if you're a good sounding board. And is that an important mindset to start with, Chris? Because I think if you go into a conversation like that, and you've already made an assumption about what their problem is and how you can help.

46:00You're so fixed on, I can't wait to tell them what my solution is. You actually miss what they're telling you. A thousand percent. So interesting. So what should we do in that situation then? We should just accept that our assumption for how we can help is no use and we just let it go? Or should we still, if we hear something that we think we can help with, we should still dive in? Yeah. You know, at some point in time, if you absolutely have to offer a thought, You know, I always get permission first. And, you know, let's go back to this no thing. Because people feel safe and protected when they say no, they feel like they don't have to accept.

46:38And I will say something like, are you against me offering you a couple thoughts? And then with each thought that I offer, I got to be in full on read mode. Because if they start to shut down and their body language and their facial expression are going to tell me in 10 seconds or less, then I need to shut up. Because if they're shutting down and I keep talking, then this is back down in the same downward spiral where they feel that talking to people was a waste of their time. And what's the technique there? Because I've been in those things where I start offering something and I see that they go, but I'm not sure how to stop offering the advice what do you you don't can't just shut up and say actually no that's rubbish do you know what i mean yeah well you could say um look it sounds like i'm off track right because they're giving you body language that you're off track yeah yeah yeah or you can even say it feels like i'm off track a lot of people it kind of depends upon how you're wired whether you want to go with it sounds like it looks like it feels like i mean i i get one one of the first one guy we've coached up in a black swan method he likes it feels like and he uses it with his family and And he uses it in business deals.

47:50He was telling us about, he was trying to get an appointment with the CEO and the secretary was blocking, was blowing him off. And he literally said, and how you say this is really important too. He's great with the inquisitive curiosity voice. Because you could say, it feels like you're blowing me off. That's an accusation. That tone of voice is really bad. Instead, he said, it feels like you're blowing me off. Same words, completely different impact. And he got the meeting. So you coach people on this, Chris. So what are the sloppy or the worst habits that people get into that often inhibit them getting the results they want?

48:28Yeah, well, there's three default types. The world is pretty much made up of three types. And I got no shortage of data to back that up. You're assertive, you're either data-oriented, where you want lots of information, or you're relationship-oriented, where you just care about the interaction being pleasant. So if you're assertive, your big problem is you're going first, you're hitting them hard, you're high anchoring, you're demanding, you're pounding, you're driving deals away from the table, you're not finding out the better deal that could have been there. And point of fact, negotiation is a positive sum game and you're treating it like a zero sum game, which limits how much you can make.

49:08So if you're relationship oriented, you just want to have a great time, but you never let them know what you need. and you get pushed around a lot because you're trying to make them happy, you actually need elements of the assertive person in you. I mean, let's say they want you to be happy, and many people do. You're making them guess. If you never told them what you really needed out of the deal, you're never going to be happy, but you're scared to tell them. So you need an element of assertion in you. Each type has bad habits and each type has good things. Now, if you're data-oriented, if you just want to make sure that how you think this should go is already, you've already got it in your head.

49:53The issue is you come off as so cold, they're not going to really give you any good information. They're going to be leery of you. They're not going to enjoy the interaction. So they'll either be leery of you or you're so reluctant to speak. then if you're an assertive on the other side they just pound the heck out of you bang bang bang bang bang and they're and they're horrible for you to deal with so that you know you you just don't as soon as you smell an assertive a mile away and you won't even come to the table with them so how do we flex those roles because it sounds like it's that that we need to be different characters at different times so what advice would you give us in terms of being able to adopt those the best characteristics of those three types Yeah, that's a great question.

50:40And it's not really that you need to be different. It's what skills you need to add to your existing, who you are now. And two out of three people need to be just more comfortable smiling because there's some neurological wiring behind that. You're 31 % smarter in a positive frame of mind. So you want to do what you can to put yourself in a positive frame of mind. Smiling is a tiny little way that helps. There's actually hardwired connections between the muscles in your face and the neurons in your brain. The smile will also tend to help them think simultaneously. What happens is the person who's relationship-oriented, the analyst, the person who loves data, notices that the people who smile get a lot more information.

51:29So they learn to smile because they're very analytical. My daughter-in-law is the director of marketing in my company. I mean, my son's wife, she is an analyst. And we also refer to analysts as assassins. I mean, she is an assassin. Everybody that knows her, because she's smiling and bubbly and she laughs and laughs and laughs and she has the best time talking to you. Everybody that knows her thinks she's an accommodator, relationship-oriented person. She's just so darn smart, she learned that she gets a lot more information out of the situation the more pleasant she is. she is sucking every bit of information that you have because she knows that no matter how good her information is you know something she wants to know and the more she laughs and smiles with you the more likely you are to give it all up that's one of the main habits what a brilliant lesson and a brilliant way to end what i have to say like i feel slightly anxious and stressed out about this conversation chris because i've had a 25 year broadcasting career from children's television to live sport and huge events.

52:37And I've realized how little I know about communicating. I'm not sure how I've done it. Can I jump in though, Jake? Because we didn't answer that question of, tell us about Oprah, Chris, if you don't mind. Last impression is a lasting impression. The entertainment industry is infamous for in and a limo out in a taxi. With Oprah, you're in and a limo out in a limo. Her overriding theme that they either express throughout her company is no matter what happens from beginning to end, everybody we deal with has to feel respected and well-treated. And no matter what the argument is, the last thing that Oprah said in those instances that I told you about, she's always finished by saying, no matter what you decide, you have to understand that I will always love you and I will always support you.

53:28Love it. Chris, we've reached the end of our interview where we dive into some quick fire questions.

53:37Three non-negotiable, you know a fair bit about negotiable, non-negotiable behaviors that you and the people around you have to buy into. We say the only sin is not learning. Yeah, you're going to make mistakes. We actually, we push the envelope really hard on all levels, which means we're going to make mistakes because we're constantly breaking new ground. We're constantly trying new stuff. The only sin is to not learn. So the first thing is if you're unwilling to learn and then if you're lazy. And then the third thing is if you're dishonest, you're not going to last with us. What advice would you give to a teenage Chris just starting out on your journey?

54:21Be nice. That doesn't mean you got to be weak. If I was starting over again, I'd have just been a little bit more pleasant in my demeanor. I've always been pretty blunt. My natural demeanor is to be blunt. I wouldn't change anything about any of the things that I believed in other than I would just been a little nicer about it. You've mentioned quite a few books during this conversation. I would love just one book recommendation, apart from your own, of course, that you would offer up to our audience that you've found really helpful over the years. Wow, it's hard to hold it to one. Probably stealing fire by steven codler uh the prequel to that is a rise of superman and if you read stealing fire you're going to want to rise read the rise of superman but it's very much about human performance and just the really cool stuff that the people that are taking the human race to the next level globally how they think and how they act and where they get the information from harnessing flow is that right chris and looking at how you can yep exactly yeah excellent Excellent.

55:26Chris, how important is legacy to you? I don't know that I think about it per se. I think we've, you know, we, we built, uh, probably ended up building a pretty good legacy. You know, I, I want to see people continue to do well and that the world's literally a better place. I mean, no, no kidding around whether or not it's a scribe to me. Yeah. I don't know that I care about that. Um, but I definitely want to see the world be a better place. And the final question, what would be your one golden rule for living a high performance life? Be optimistic. Life happens for you, not to you. And that little mindset shift makes the world a better place.

56:09Chris, thank you so much for coming on here and sharing. I think what's so good about this is that it's not another kind of book that you've written because you've learned a few things along the way and whatever, and you feel like you've got something to tell people. We're talking here about lessons that you've learned 20 years in the FBI, negotiating with international terrorists and criminals and years in the SWAT team. You know, this is genuine life lessons that you're sharing with people. And it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. I've picked up loads in that. Yeah, likewise, Chris, it's been a real privilege.

56:43Thank you. Thanks for having me on, guys. I've really enjoyed it.

56:49I know that he's negotiated with terrorists and, you know, kidnappers and bank robbers and stuff, but the lessons he's learned from those conversations are so valuable, aren't they? Oh, incredible. I felt it was a real privilege. I felt it was just sharing. So like just dropping so many knowledge bombs on us that are applicable. Like we were asking questions about how we use it with our children, but that was as applicable as how you would use it in business or in sport or in any other domain in life. I just thought it was incredible. it sounds like it looks like it feels like that is the sort of area where i have really i've sort of considering the job i do i actually aren't i'm not actually great at negotiating and having business conversations and working things out with people you know i love like a i love a conversation with someone who's got a bit of an issue and i can help them with it i hate a conversation where there's a bit of confrontation or me and the other person differ in some way and I need to pick up the phone and have that chat with them.

57:51And I think that the big thing that I've learned from that, from my perspective, is that immediately disarming another person with, look, you can say no at any time, but this is what I'm thinking. Or you're going to hate this conversation. Look, Damien, this is going to be the shittest moment of your week. Can I just talk to you about something? That's actually a really good technique. I hate the thought of saying it, like even now being so English, I still cringe a bit about it, but then I know that the impact actually will be useful. Yeah. And I think he uses a line in his book that he says that empathy saves us time.

58:24And I think sometimes when we can come at it with those statements that you've just mentioned, this feels like, this sounds like, this appears like, I think empathy then allows us to connect on that human to human level and allows us to then work together rather than, as he said, see the world as a zero sum game means that we end up, it's that old saying that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind whereas he's saying actually let's how do we empower each other how we work together so we both walk away from this feeling better for it it was a great chat and it was an absolute pleasure to share it with you once again damien no thank you j the pleasure is mine a huge thanks to chris for that conversation from parenting to business it was a masterclass in how to get better outcomes by just talking less if this episode has helped you please forward it on to someone who you think could also benefit from hearing it.

59:18Send it to a friend, leave a review, or even just hit follow on Apple or Spotify. And if you want more from Chris, grab his book, Never Split the Difference. It's one of the most practical and brilliant books you'll ever read. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you again soon.

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