Negotiation Expert: You’re LOSING Because You Can’t Communicate (ft. Chris Voss)

Hey, guys. This week's video has some audio issues. So annoying. We're so sorry. We're working on it. Whole team's fired. Just kidding. But honestly, this conversation is so good that there is no way we are not releasing it, because I myself feel like I made so much money just implementing two of his ideas. So keep listening. But I promise you one thing. We are going to make this audio awesome going forward. All right, thanks, guys. What a conversation I just had, you guys. Chris Voss has been one of those humans I have looked up to for decades, since his book came out. It is the number one negotiation book I go to to make more money, to have better conversations, and when. When I feel like I'm losing and I don't have the right words. So today we went over, how do you negotiate to get a bigger salary? What do you do if you're confronted with a narcissist and how to fight against them? What type of communicator are you? And what type of communicators are your partners? Because when you understand each other, it turns out you can communicate differently. There are also three types of avatars, he says, and communicators. I had no idea. I'm now going to be using this to make more money and to figure out how I can get more of what I want out of life. I think you guys are going to want the exact same thing. Oh, and we threw in a few little Easter eggs for those of you guys who maybe think that the media might be lying to us in some ways or wondering what's going on at the FBI. So stick around for all of it. The man, the myth, the legend, Chris Foss. I love this podcast because I love talking to friends about how they made their millions and helping business owners solve their problems. It's fulfilling. I love sharing all the secrets. But when I can't meet in person, there's only one tool I use. It's called Riverside. Riverside ensures I can talk to someone anywhere in the world. Recorded in 4k so the quality of the video matches the quality of the humans. You're listening to. Riverside records separate audio and video tracks so we can easily cut out those awkward interruptions that are my least favorite part of interviews. They have in platform editing software based off a 99% accurate AI transcription. And if that's not simple enough, they take AI one step further for their show notes. It summarizes your entire content into an SEO optimized description and chapters, all automatic. Saves me a ton of money so you can use Riverside for Podcast interviews, panel discussions, presentations, webinars, more. And best of all, it's simple. Try Riverside for yourself with link in the description. Use code Cody for an exclusive discount. I get a deal? You get a deal. First of all, I'm so excited to have you here, Chris. Thank you. I was in the Uber right before this with my Uber driver, Dan. Shout out Dan, wherever you are. And, and he, he. I told him that I was interviewing you and he said, oh, is that Chris Boss, like the negotiator? And I said, yes, that is. And he asked me a question that I thought was really good that I thought I'd pass on to you. He said, said he's going through a tough divorce right now. And he said he thinks that she's narcissist. So his question was, how do you negotiate with a narcissist?

Understand that their most important thing is them. You know, the perspective is negotiating with any type that's different than you is hard but not unexpected. Like, you know their patterns. Like, you know what she's going to say if she's a narcissist or if she's not. You know what she's going to say based on what she has said, what people say and do. It's very, it's all patterns. Like there's nothing that's really that surprising. So just look at the patterns you can predict. And then based on those patterns, like one of the stupid patterns when we taught people to ask questions where the answer is no. So people are conditioned that if they say yes, they're letting themselves in for something that they don't want. There's a hidden trap. So even if something they should say yes to, they won't do it, or they're just. They do it painfully because they're, They've been conditioned, they've been trapped by yes. Like every now and then I'll ask somebody a question where the answer is yes, and it's clearly in their favor to say yes, but they've annoyed me and I'm just torturing them because I want to see how hard it is to say yeah. You know, they like choke on it. So the same thing is condition. People are conditioned to say no. It's a pattern. You feel safe and protected when you say no. So we're talking to people and they say, yeah, you know, it's hard as hell to deal with them. They say no to everything. They're in no mode. And my answer is, change your question. So the answer is no. No, that won't work. It'll work because it's their pattern. So take a look at her patterns and communicate with her based on her patterns because the patterns aren't going to change. Now you can change how you approach and you'll get a different outcome.

That's so true. I heard a line once which was, do you want to be right or do you want to win?

Right. Exactly.

And I think a lot of times people want to be right or they want the other person to think that they are right, which is real hard.

Yeah. Which never happens. But you feel self righteous, right?

Yeah. Because one of the other questions that somebody asked me to ask was, what do you do when you are debating reality with another? How do you handle that? Like in a relationship, I'm like, no, well the thing that happened yesterday is you did this and you were rude and then you did this and I didn't like this. And they're like, that's not what happened. This is what happened. How do you negotiate two different perceived realities?

Well, summarize, tell how they see things until they say, that's right. Because there's. The underlying assumption of that is that your perception of reality is accurate. So while it may be accurate, it's always, it's always incomplete. There's no such thing as perfect information. That means you don't have all the facts regardless, depending upon point of view, depending upon what led up to it. So you stimulate the other person's thinking and your own to try to articulate. All right, so here's how you see this went down. Here's how you saw the day, and here's how you, you can even say, here's your view of reality on this, which by stating it like that, you've never actually agreed and you can never be pushed into. Oh, so you agree I said, no, no, no, no. Here's your view of this. You're trying to get it right. Now, even articulating their point of view is a good thinking exercise for you. I heard a guy once say, empathy is a species of reason. And I thought, ooh, yeah, there's actual analysis and reasoning involved in the exercise of empathy. So it gives you reasoning. It also gives them reasoning to hear it out out loud. Like if you're arguing over reality, there's something in their head that makes sense to them. When I was on a crisis hotline, one of the greatest things we did was just be a sounding board. Like it makes sense to you while it's in your head. But. But as soon as you say it out loud and I repeat it Back to you. If it's distorted, often as soon as it's out in front of you, you're like, oh, now that we've said it out loud, that no longer makes sense. So there's a joint reasoning involved. So I would say if you're arguing reality, see if you can summarize what the other person sees as reality. It'll level both of you out and you probably get to a resolution much more quickly.

It's a great point is why do you think a lot of us don't do that? So that seems very reasonable to me. But then I might be in a negotiation with my partner or a negotiation with my husband and for some reason I just keep repeating my points. Do you find that to be common?

You're an assertive.

Yeah.

And when people don't understand you, all you got to do is say the same thing louder.

It sounds silly when you say it out loud, but you just did the argument back to me and it worked.

Well, I'm, I'm an assertive too. I know that. That's, that's the, an aspect of being an assertive. We don't feel heard. We want to say it again more loudly. Now why don't we do it any other ways? Because we don't see any examples of it. You know, all the examples on TV are in the movies are bad. But on the movies and tv, you know, we see a clip from some TV show and you see bad communication and they get a different outcome than reality often gives you. And so while it worked on suits, you know, why it must, it must work in reality. And then when it doesn't work, you go like, I must not have said it the way they say it on suits or Billions or any one of those shows.

So say it louder.

Yeah. Or, you know, I mean it just the perception of what's really going to happen is always distorted in movies and tv. So where else do we get examples? Lawyers, you know, lawyers self styled negotiators of planet Earth. Well, they see everything as making an argument. Got to make make an argument, make a great argument. That was that, you know, that was that line from that Tom Cruise movie a long time ago. A Few Good Men, you know, make a great argument. So why doesn't that work in real life? Well, I don't know that it works that well in the courtroom anyway. But the other difference, when a lawyer is making a case to a jury, the jury's sitting there passively. It's not an interaction, you know, most people will keep quiet until they hear something they disagree with and they jump up and say, no, no, no, no, this is where I disagree. That's not a communication with a jury. So it's an artificial representation of life. You know, I'm talking to a lawyer just a couple nights ago. He's incredibly successful with juries, like, phenomenally successful. Doesn't have the same level in interpersonal relationships. He just, he's okay. And he can't imagine, like, look at how I do with juries. I mean, like, I win unwinnable cases because of my ability to appeal the juries. So if you ask him how to communicate with somebody, he's going to tell you, well, you're going to tell the story. You got to do this, you got to do that. And I'm sitting there listening to him the other night. I'm like, all right, so here's another example of something that doesn't apply to day to day. But you talk to this guy at a cocktail party and he's spinning these great stories and you're like, yeah, making an argument, but it doesn't apply to our interactions. And I think that's why we don't take the time to show people they've been hurt because we have no idea how massively effective it is. And then if you're being coached and trained by, you know, me and my coaches, we start giving you examples of like game changing moments. And a lot of people like, oh, if I'd have known that was the key. The reason you didn't know because you by and large, you don't see it.

Yeah. How much of getting what you want is really just listening to another person first?

A massive amount of it is every type. There are three types. Conflict types, negotiation types we believe strongly fight, flight, make friends, assertive, analyst, accommodator. Getting what you want is secondary. For each type of not primary. What the assertive really wants is respect and to know they've been heard. If you treat an assertive with respect and you show them that they've been heard, they're going to come significantly in your direction on the deal, if not all the way. But they will always come much closer to what you want. So let's say you make 50% of the deals with an assertive on the spot. Once they feel hurt, cool. You got 50% less work and they're more inclined to agree with you. Analysts often referred to as the flight type because conflict is just one outcome. They see conflict is highly inefficient and it's a, it's an inefficient choice. And there are many other choices. So they just avoid conflict. There are also some people refer to them as avoiders. I think that's an inaccurate. I think the more analytical. What do they want? Information. Like the desperate for data and information. So not necessarily looking for the deal. They're looking for information first. Accommodators, what do they want? Relationship oriented, hope oriented, positivity oriented. What they really want is for us to have a great interaction. You can hear combinators negotiating. Were in a meeting and they'll get together for an hour, not get anything done, but they had a great time. And afterwards they'll say it was a great meeting. You know, I'm sitting back listening to a meeting of accommodators earlier today, and I'm like, what the hell are these people talking? They're not getting a thing done. I. I don't hear any next steps. I don't hear any comp, you know, accomplishment.

I'd have a hernia.

Yeah, exactly. And like, afterwards, I was a great meeting. Well, they didn't get what they wanted in the deal, but they had a great interaction. So as soon as you realize what the other person wants first. And it's often easier to get the deal on the heels of that.

Brilliant. How do you determine what you are? Do you have like a quiz on your website?

Yeah, we do, actually.

Brilliant.

We. Okay, so where do people on it? Black Swan Ltd.com Blake that b l a c k s w-a dash n l t dash d dot com.

Okay, and on it, you can search for the type of.

Yeah, three types.

Are you or you are.

Yeah. Or conflict. Conflict type. Your concrete default conflict mode. We. We believe strongly that the world splits evenly into thirds. Doesn't matter. Gender, ethnicity, geography, religion. Some groups will lean a little more in one particular direction. Like when we, when we first started pulling data, we, my son and I, Brandon and other people in my company were pulling a Georgetown business school after we'd been testing people at Harvard and the business. American business schools are an international audience. It's not all Americans and it ain't all white males. White. White males. You know, the quote white male categories is usually actually in a minute minority. If you take a look at the entire group, get it. In Georgetown, we got a lot of people from India, at usc, we got a lot of people from Asia making a distinction. As much as we try to lump those two groups together today and you know, one group might be heavy assertives, another group might be heavy on analysts, but by and large would break evenly into thirds. So what difference does it make? The difference it makes is at impasse. The misunderstandings are often most generated by a tight mismatch. What's an example? Analysts love to think. They love silence and in silence with you, they will start to bond with you. Shared silence is a bonding experience because you're being quiet because you obviously like to think and you respect that they like to think. Now, accommodator, relationship oriented. The silent treatment is the meanest thing they could do. It signals fury to go silent. So you get an analyst and accommodator talking to each other and the analyst is going like, oh my God, will they ever shut up? Any commenters going like, I gotta keep talking. He's silent, he must be furious. It's hysterical.

I employ some of these. I employ all of these. Wow.

Well, I love analysts because an analyst, you need somebody's analytical.

Yeah.

You know, it's easier, as a general rule, it's easier to get an analyst to learn assertion and being more pleasant because they're constantly analyzing what's going on. A lot of analysts will masquerade as accommodators because they'll see the accommodators, by being pleasant and smiling all the time, get more deals and they don't understand why they're not getting more deals. And then they see this outcome and they analyze it and they're like, oh, maybe if I smile more. So I tend, even though I'm an assertive, I tend to lean in the direction of analysts.

Interesting. I did see a study the other day, it was done somewhere in the uk. We can link it in the show notes. The study basically said, and it was fascinating that over time, over like a 20 year progression of a career, if you had to choose between higher IQ or higher likability score in order to be have higher compensation.

Right.

You would want to choose higher likability over higher IQ and even higher perceived competence that even if you were more competent as opposed to being more likable, you would make less money over time. Have you found that to be true?

I would, I, yeah, I, I hadn't looked at it specifically like that, but I believe a thousand percent that to be the case. I heard a stat being thrown out by Stuart Diamond A long time ago. Stuart diamond, warden, negotiation and business professor, wrote a book called Getting More. And Stuart Diamond's book is like the textbook on negotiation from an analyst point of view. He's super analytical, loves data and when you're aware that you read his book. Like, oh, this is how an analyst sees things. Anyway, I'm listening to him at a talk one time and he says, you're six times more likely to make a deal with somebody you like. So as my he's my source for that piece of data which backs up what you say. You're more likely to make a deal with somebody you like. You get along with people you like. You get, you'll get promoted based on likability. You'll be seen as a team player based on likability. Like, there's so many things that are necessary for success in business would spring from being likable, which is distinguished from needing to be liked. Now an accommodator has a definite need to be liked and that's where they'll occasionally run into problems. Because if the assertive or the shark or the cutthroat on the other end of the conversation realizes, oh, to get out, get what I want out of you, all I got to do is act like I'm mad at you and you're gonna start giving in because you have this desperate need to be liked. That's what makes them very vulnerable in that regard. So there's a huge distinction between being likable. You can completely control that. You can't control whether or not you.

Liked hi, this is Deechen Laichman and I am here to tell you Toyotathon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year end deals on the cars, trucks and SUVs known for their legendary reliability like the stylish and efficient Camry, the ready for anything RAV or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra, all with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota let's go Places the holidays are all about family, but at the Chrysler Wrap of the Year sales event, it's all about you. Enjoy every mile in the most awarded minivan in America. The Chrysler Pacifica with the most standard safety features in its class, available Stow n Go seating and the available Stow and back built in vacuum. Make the most of the holidays with a great deal at the Chrysler Pacifica Wrap of the Year sales event based on Ward's small van segment based upon the latest available competitor information. Chrysler is a registered trademark of FCA US llc. So it's probably really important that you understand not only what you are, but also what other people are that are around you too. I mean everything operates first from first principles thinking if I Don't you know, know thyself, oracle at Delphi. If I don't know who I am, how can I operate on the world? And so, I mean, I don't even know. You think, can you tell some if somebody is an assertive, an analyst or. What's the third one again?

Accommodator.

Can you tell like right away?

Well, nobody acts like an assertive other than assertive, really. You know, I'm going to be direct and honest. I'm going to. I was once told by an FBI hostage negotiator, colleague when I was being me, said dealing with you is like getting hit in the face with a brick.

I feel like I have a tendency like that.

Right, you're direct and honest, you know, poster child, not, not making any judgments politically one way or another. Donald Trump poster child for the assertive. And I can remember his daughter Ivanka said, you know, people think he's, he's overly blunt. He's just direct and honest. That's a description of the assertive. Time is money. Let's get this done. If we make mistakes, we'll fix it. We'll find out and then we'll fix it afterwards. The other two types don't look like assertives. Analysts tend to come off as super low key, sometimes cold and distant. Neither the assertive nor the accommodator will ever give you that. Now what gets people confused is when the two types see the success numbers of the accommodator, then they'll run in disguise as accommodators. Occasionally.

Chameleon.

Yeah, we'll just have picked it up like an early director of marketing. My company was dead on. Analyst, assassin, an absolute assassin and figured out that just talking and laughing got her deals. So everybody that knew her thought she was an accommodator because she was smart enough to figure out what a difference it made. So that's where occasionally where people get surprised, they've learned to be accommodating over their base nature. And then to continue, each type has their basic trait is essential and inadequate. It's essential to be assertive in negotiations because otherwise you're making the other side guess what you want. But it's inadequate unless you find a way to say it nicely. It's essential to be analytical and it's inadequate unless you come out with what you want and are nice about it. It's essential to be nice. You're never going to make a great deal unless you tell people what you want and you put some thinking into it.

Yeah.

So each type has, has a characteristic that's both essential and inadequate by itself.

A lot of times in negotiations and in even just communication between humans, which seems to me like constant negotiation.

Right.

Sometimes it's hard to, to reflect back even what you're doing in the moment.

Yeah.

And you seem to have really high self awareness of your intonation, the word choice that you use, who else you're, you know, talking to at any given point. How does one become more aware not just of the other, which I think is what everybody obsesses with. Oh, well, what are they? Are they a narcissist? Are they a whatever? Like, well, what, what am I and what am I doing in this moment? How are, how do you build self awareness of how you show up in the world?

Everything is learned. So it's nothing other than practice. Yeah. And you try to get it a little at a time. People want to make these great leaps in ability as opposed to getting a little bit better a little at a time. I'm a big fan of James Clear and atomic habits. Like his master class. Going to start having the people in my company watch the masterclass. And he says, you know, just get a little bit better each day. James Clear will say, get, you know, get 1% better. They're gone on my team says get 1 degree better. Derek's. What I love about Derek's analogy is, you know, in terms of water, one degree better, not noticeable, not noticeable. Then suddenly there's a breakthrough. Whether it's, you know, from ice to liquid or liquid to steam. And that, that tends to be what happens. You know, you get a little bit better incrementally and then suddenly there's a big breakthrough and that leap that you were looking for, that you wanted to make today happened. But you built it up a little at a time. So what do you got to do? You just try to get a little bit better each day. Practice. I think the biggest thing that we do is unlike athletes, we don't practice in our heads. You know, if there's an interaction we could have done better. What if we go over in our head again? We envision ourselves saying, making a really cutting remark. This is what I wish I would have said.

Yeah. I always picture like Ari from Entourage.

Yeah, Yeah.

I only had those one liners.

Yeah, the Real life Aria manual.

Right, Exactly.

But we can go back in your head and you can re edit the film, like all right, yeah. So it's going to be human nature to imagine yourself making that cutting remark or yelling at him or Screaming at him, tell them they're idiots. Well, you can go back and rehearse it in your head doing it right, which is what all great championship athletes do. You know, they get the mental rehearsal. I remember once heard it referred to as visioning. Imagine yourself doing it right. It increases the chances that you actually will. It's a rehearsal in your head. So you had an argument with somebody. You know, go back and take a deep breath first. Imagine taking in a deep breath. Like, if I give myself three seconds of space, then that's enough time to gather myself up. I get triggered. If I don't give myself that three seconds and I start going down, going down a rabbit hole, I lose control, too.

Can you trigger yourself in other ways to be better? For instance, I was watching a show the other day, and they were talking about how there was a story of a little boy, and the little boy was given all of the clothes of a young prince. So he was a little popper boy, a little poor boy. And then he was given all the clothes of a young prince. Prince. And because he was given the clothes of a young prince, people treated him like a young prince. And because they treated him this way, he started to sort of believe that he was from both the clothes and other people's perceptions. And at some point he started acting like a young prince and like, you know, sort of changed his whole perspective just from the way that he. That he dressed. And this was obviously a simplification, but a lot of times I think there's a portion of it that's visioning. And then are there other triggers we can do? Like, if you want to. If you want to be more professional and trigger professional. Chris Voss, are you like, I'm going to wear this suit, or do you find that it's less external and more internal prep that you have to have?

I think, yeah, I think your clothing is a great reinforcing mechanism. And so that's an aspect of stepping into the role. You know, it's not the fake it to you make it short hand thinking. I don't think that's it exactly, because that's defines inauthenticity. You're inauthentic and you got to be authentic. But yeah, you can, you can. You can put on nicer clothes. You can, you can, you can work yourself into it a little at a time. And then if you're paying attention to the feedback, you're seeing a difference in the way that people respond to you. And then, then it becomes a virtuous circle as they Say instead of a downward spiral. So I think a thousand percent, I agree in that. I agree with that. Take, take the small steps to take yourself in that direction.

You've talked quite a few times about the fact that we do not see this behavior mimicked. And I always go back to that line of it's hard to be what you cannot see. And you have a documentary that came out, Tactical Empathy, which displays some of this. So let's talk a little bit about that. It's newly out on Amazon. What do you hope that people get from this that adds to the 2 million people who have already read your book? You know, never split the difference.

First of all, there's some great hostage negotiation stories. It was, it was put together by Nick Nanton and DNA Films. Nick's got 22 Emmys.

Slacker.

Yeah, exactly. Nick is a great guy. So we picked out some of the stories where some that were significant in my career. Chase Manhattan Bank. They're not all roses. Like, if you're a hostage negotiator, stuff's going to go bad if you do it long enough just based on the numbers. Hostage negotiators have roughly 93, 94% success rate, which means once you start getting into double figures just based on numbers, things are going to go sideways. And how do you survive that? How do you get through it? And there were. There's a couple. There's one in there that went sideways, went bad, and there's others that spectacularly turned out wonderfully in just really unpredictable ways. Human stories. And so then we talk about that a little bit, and that's. It's, it's exciting, it's entertaining, and the progression of my career. And then a little bit of how we sort of translate that into business negotiation. And then we got a sneak attack in there. And the sneak attack is. A friend of mine, Steven Kotler, said empathy is a sneak attack on racism. And so if you look down on empathy increases reasoning, it improves your decision making. So how much of things that looked racist was just a result of bad decision making? Well, whatever that percentage is, let's get it out of the way. Soon we find out what's really racist. Yeah, so it was a deal that I got a. I got a kick out of cutting. We're working on the documentary. I want to back into police, minority community relations. You know, empathy works on all levels of human interaction, whether it's a business, business deal, your significant other colleague, or with the cops. So I get approached by nypd, come in. We got a special CADRE we want to make a difference. And we got this group of select guys, we want to give special training. A sergeant that approached me says, I've looked at all your videos and I think your stuff is perfect for us. Now we're heavily in the business world at this point in time. And it's a. He's got a limited budget, nowhere near what they, what we normally pay. So I go, we'll do the deal based on two things. Number one, you let us film it, put it in the documentary. Number two, my son's going to teach it. Now, my son's mom is African American, so world sees him as African American. Big dude, played college football as a lineman, not a small guy. When he feels like it looks very menacing. You know, Buddy has told him a long time ago, in black neighborhoods, black people get out of his way.

I like that.

And he's, he's a genius at this. He's a star. He started absorbing it when he was a kid. So, like, I want my son to teach it because there's, there's some optics here. You know, you get another white male teaching how to talk to black people. Let's have a black guy stand up there and talk about how to deal. Use empathy. So he says, okay. He says, to get permission to, to I gotta pass it up to chain of command. One Police Plaza. Now, One Police Plaza is as bad a bureaucracy as anybody has. And I know that somewhere up the line, somebody's gonna shoot this down. So I call a friend of mine, John Miller. At the time, he's a deputy police commissioner. John and I have known each other for a long time. And as it turned out about four months earlier, John had called and asked a favor of me to be at a conference. John's kind of got blank checked. A number of people in my life have blank check. You ask, I'm there if it's, if it, if. Unless I have an obligation because I don't back out of obligations, you ask, I'm there. No charge with the shovel, with whatever they need.

Okay? I like it.

And he'd call me, said, I want you to come speak at this conference. I'm like, I'm in. You got it. Not knowing that I was gonna. Or needing to ever call in a favor. So I called John on the phone. I go, like, here's the deal, here's what I want. And I figure that if you talk to the deputy chief that's in charge of this area, that they'll do it because they trust you and they know that you're not going to make a recommendation for somebody who's not going to be a good ambassador. Yep, I'm a good ambassador. I'm never going to embarrass John. And he says to me, well, as it turns out, I'm the deputy chief in charge and considered approved. And so we cut it, we put it in there and it's good, compelling stuff. And we've got some of our business negotiation training. We believe like the SEALs do, the more that you sweat on the training field, the less you bleed on the battlefield. So we're going to put you in our training through a tough negotiation. I mean, we're going to. We got a negotiation where your heart rate will jump to 160 in about two seconds. Because we'll put the psychological responses, we want to let you know what the psychological responses are. You can be sitting still in your heart rate to go through the roof based on your perceived pressure. And if we teach you how to deal with that, you're not going to run into anything tougher than that. And you're doing day to day life. We got, you got it. You're ready. You come out of there going like, you know, I'll take on a terrorist negotiation right now. I'll talk to that bank robber or I'll talk to my boss or my co worker or my teenager. I got this. So Brandon does that in the doc to these cops and they're all very well intentioned and come up with responses that need to be made better. And I'm really impressed with, you know, after he gets done verbally punching these guys in the nose, then he sits down with them and he shows how compassionate he is towards them and it's, it's powerful stuff. I'm really proud of the way the thing turned out.

I think one of the most interesting things about watching these moments is in most of our life we won't have a sit down with a terrorist or a bank robber. That we have to change that could alter the outcome of our life in some significant way. But our life is a compilation of tiny moments of negotiation.

Yeah.

And if you can see it, competed at the highest level. One, you can be what you can see. And then two, you can also say, wow, that trick worked there. And you can get past your limited beliefs that are like, well, Chris said this would work, but it actually won't. And it's like, this is going to work on your four year old because it worked on a police chief in a do or die situation. So like, what's Your excuse. So I think documentaries like this are really powerful for people to watch because you get out of your own way when you see that it works even in the hardest of times. So I think that's cool. I highly recommend Tactical Empathy. I want to talk about a couple of your, your quotes that I found really powerful, and this is probably more true now than, than ever, but you have one that says, yes, we are wired to be negative. Here's what you can do about it. What can we do to change the fact that we are maybe these negative little monkeys running around?

Well, think of it like I think of mental hygiene, like oral hygiene, like, look, I brushed my teeth yesterday. You mean I got to do it again today and I got to do it twice? Like I did it yesterday, I got to do it this morning and tonight. And everybody assumes that you have to do that because our default biological mechanisms make it daily attention. Not, not a big deal, you know, not, not half an hour, not 45 minutes, you know, two to six minutes depending upon, and then you're good. So our default mechanism, same thing, little things throughout the day, cliche stuff. Whether it's meditation, whether it's a breathing exercise, whether it's a short gratitude exercise, first thing in the morning, two, three minutes, mental hygiene. And then you start to set the tone through the day. And you give yourself little moments throughout the day. And then whatever it is, it doesn't matter what it is, it could be three things you're grateful for. Start the day forcing a smile on your face. There's neurochemical reactions hardwired when you smile. It's a tiny thing in and of itself. It doesn't make you super happy, but the tiny little things throughout the course of the day. I can remember one time for a while I was. The advice was find three things new each day that you like. And now you're looking for the positive in life. And you know, and you remembered it because you, you know, you took your focus out of the negativity in the headlines and you're looking, looking around. At the end of the day, you reflect back on those three things. Now inside a week, you're going to find yourself with a completely different attitude towards life. You know, it won't change how you feel tomorrow, but the long term comes at us really fast and you start to make these kinds of changes. And then, then you got a habit. Habits have momentum. You gotta, you got a mental hygiene habit, and pretty soon you're smarter, you're 31, smarter in a positive frame of mind. People find you more likable, so more people give you stuff and all the friction that we assume is part of day to day life. As soon as you shift out of survival mode and into success mode, then life starts accelerating and you look back, you know, you don't have to look back a year, you look back a month and you start seeing a big difference in your life.

So true. I started playing this silly little game when I was traveling at the airport because I get annoyed at the airport a lot. You know, I'm assertive. So it's not efficient enough. There's a delay. What's happening? Why doesn't this person know how to do that? You know, all the things. And I realized that I was really judging people all the time. So people would walk around and be like, that guy's walking slow, that one's doing X. And I finally stopped allowing myself. And every time I saw somebody, I would say, I just want to find one thing that I think is cool about that person.

Aesthetically nice.

And that was it. And I really kind of quickly realized that now I do it naturally. So I was like, oh, that's a cool ring. Like, what is that going on that Chris has there? And so with every person I see, I kind of have immediately this nice thing about them. It's really hard to think somebody's a piece of when you find one part of them nice. And so that helped me as one of those little exercises.

I love that. That's brilliant. And, and then there's. On top of that. And here's another reason why I love the momentum of that. I definitely think there's a. Some something to karma and actual energy. I'm. I'm convinced there is. For a variety of reasons. The science isn't there yet. That doesn't mean it ain't there. So if you're putting out positive energy, then it's another self reinforcing behavior. Other person senses it, they give it back, it starts to come back. You know, karma, it just works it and, and you enjoy life more and you're more successful.

Yeah, I think it's one of the biggest issues I have with kids these days on TikTok who, who label themselves negatively. Like I saw a video the other day, we could play it. And the video is a young woman that labels herself your unemployed friend. And right about how for eight months she's been looking for a job. She's been unemployed this whole time. And the funny part of the video, to me, well, that wasn't funny. I found that tragic because she is labeling herself the thing that she no longer wants to be.

Right.

And then the second part that I found slightly humorous as she was saying, well, now I give up on work in general because a friend told me that she didn't get a job because of her energy. And she was like, how ridiculous is that? Somebody didn't get a job because of their energy? And I thought, oh, wow, if you haven't run a business or you haven't run a team before, maybe you've never felt. Although I still think they would have that person who kind of nobody wants to be around.

Right.

They could be the best performer on your team.

Right.

But their energy is soul sucking.

Right.

This isn't crystal woo woo nonsense. It's like literally I walk into a room and you're just like, God, that hit me in the face. Yeah, it is real. Even if the science can't prove it yet.

I agree 1000% completely. And you can't ignore it. So you either paying a penalty for it or using it to make your life better.

Yeah, you're right. What do you think about. We're kind of talking about this idea of the things that you let into your psyche affect how you view the world.

Right.

And these days we have a lot of negative political commentary happening in the world, especially right now. Are there ways you protect your psyche so that you can more assert what you want on the world as opposed to be taken for a ride by what impacts you?

Yeah, and it's, it's, it's all exercises, it's all practice. You know, like my Instagram feed, like I'm sitting here looking at these stupid panda videos because it cracks me up when pandas are falling all over the place.

This is good. Now I know what to buy you now.

So you know, my echo chamber is designed to be positive.

So you, you tap out of negative things that are on your feed because you don't want.

Yeah, exactly. You know, I'm, I'm managing, I can, I'm managing my echo chamber. You know, I'm cautious about what news feeds I'm paying attention to and I'll opt out of them if they're nothing but negative.

Yeah.

Or I'll try to jump out of them more quickly. I know. I was thinking on the way over here, Warren Buffett, he scans the headlines, period. Isn't read articles, but it, you know, he's known for scanning the headlines of several papers. So, you know, how do you keep yourself informed without going down a rabbit hole if somebody's wrong? Negativity bringing it back. Media's never been accurate. And so to say that, you know, the, the quote, the lamestream media, if you will. Well, they were never. Not that way. We're just a little more aware of it now. So I'm like, all right, so Buffett's reading, but he's reading the headlines from multiple sources. So he's not getting bogged down, but he's staying informed without running down a rabbit hole of somebody's trying to make him feel a certain way. So I'm controlling my echo chamber to some degree. And then there's constant reinforcement. This is happening for me, not to me. Some bad happens, a stupid one. And it works. You know, Jocko willink, his reaction to everything, no matter how bad, how catastrophic is, he says, good, good. We lost our budget. Good. That gives us the opportunity to work harder on this area. And it's, you know, it's in his masterclass. It's in his book. And he's got some guy on his team saying everything something goes wrong. You always say good. And so I. Every now and then I'll try it, like, all right, so this didn't work. Good. And like, and it's, It's. There's a mental reset. I mean, you got to constantly be fighting off to survival mode. And so what are the little things that work for you? And I'm, I'm on the lift on the way over here, dude misses the turn, and I'm. I'm sitting there, I want to say, look, man, it's right in front of you. How did you not miss that? And I, instead of going, getting upset, and then I'm going to give off a bad vibe, and then he's going to feel bad. I just, I go, good. And there's something about that that helps a reset. So I'm constantly working on a reset. Keep the karma levels good and to, you know, not be the person that sucks energy out of the room.

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I want to steal that. Good idea. I think. I think, you know, I never totally related to stoicism and Ryan Holiday's stuff, because I do enjoy. I like positive emotion. I like being excited about things and happy and joyous and elated. And sometimes I think actually there's a ton of art to be found in the full spectrum of the human experience, even in the real, real sad moments. As long as you don't let them, you know, pervade everything in your life.

Yes.

And so. So is a. Never totally resonated with me because. Because of that. That reason. But I like this idea of being able to say good and then a rational thought so you can be joyous and still have rational thought to it. I think that's really useful. Remember, guys, the only way this podcast gets shared is if you're not greedy and you share the podcast with the needy. So make sure that you share this podcast wherever you listen to it. Tag me on social media. Odysanchez. It gets me all tingly inside. My heart just swells. This little black, tiny heart inside my chest swells when I see you guys tagging me in the podcast. So thank you for doing it. I look at every single story that you guys post on Instagram. I look at every single comment you do on YouTube, even some of you who are dicks. And I read every single review. And so thank you guys for doing it. It's the only way this podcast grows, and it's because of all of you, and I appreciate each and every one of you. You guys are a big deal to me. Okay, I wanted to ask you about, like, a couple things that were more tactical. So let's say there's a new term, maybe not that new, but I hadn't really heard about it. Like, getting ghosted. You've heard of that? Like, people stop responding to you. And so somebody was asking on one of the channels, you know, what would your advice be to someone who's getting ghosted by, like, a romantic partner or maybe even a business partner? What do you do if you're getting ghosted?

All right, so there's. There's two things to keep in mind. The system you're employing is perfectly designed to give you the outcome that you've obtained. So if you're being ghosted I could give you an immediate reset, but if you go back to how you got there, you just wasted your time. So nobody ghosts you. If talking with you does them any good, otherwise they'd still be talking with you. So there's only. There's two pot. There's only two possibilities why talking to you doesn't do them any good. And it's usually a combination of both. You're not listening. Or at least they feel you're not listening because all you're doing is giving advice, making your case, presenting your value proposition. That's going to be a contributory factor. The other thing is they no longer have the ability to influence the outcome on their end. So why talk to you? Those are the only two reasons why talking with you won't do them any good. If talking to you did them any good, they wouldn't be ghosting you. So the one sentence reset. Have you given up on X? And name it, you're looking for a no, and you send it exactly as that. You don't add to it. You don't subtract it to the accommodators. That feels horrifyingly blunt. And what will happen? My girlfriend Wendy's an accommodator. She brilliant, brilliant songwriter, a model, musician, entrepreneur, accommodator. She's having trouble getting somebody getting back to her and, you know, what should I do? And I said, well, have you seen Heavy? I sent the heavy. Yes, I did. And they didn't, you know, they didn't get back to me. I'm like, all right, let me see, let me see. Because anytime somebody says they didn't get back to me, they put a whole bunch of stuff into it. And so instead of the one line text, have you given up on? And the name of the project, it's like, hey, Bob, how are you today? Hope you're good. Have you given up on the project? Because I haven't. And when you get a chance, get back to me. Love, Wendy. Like, all right, all right, all right, all right. Well, technically, you sent the text, you put in a whole bunch of other stuff. Gotta take that out. Well, that, you know, to accommodate. That's. That's so harsh. It's so harsh. I'm like, just. Just send it as is. She sends it, she gets a response back right away. That's what happens. Like, of all the things that we teach, have you given up on now? It has to be something that they've already started because it is so effective that every now and then I'll give An email. Get a first time email from somebody that says, have you given up on hiring my company to do your marketing?

Yeah.

I'm like, oh, you're a manipulative guy. You've learned how ridiculously effective this is and you're using it as an opening and you're getting great responses. But for me, the context is, since I never started, I couldn't have given up. And I don't respond to those guys.

Yeah, same.

But when you're being ghosted, you're going, you're going to get a response within three to five minutes of them seeing it. So when you send it, you ought to be staying by your device in case they see it right away because it's coming screaming back at you. Now this the first part. Your system caused it. You can't go back to how you got there in the first place because you've opened them up. Now they're open. What you got to do when you restart is summarize their perspective because that makes people feel heard. If you go back to the pitch, successful businesswoman I knew here in LA a number of years ago, she's pitching a guy on an investment, can't get him to get back. It's before my book's coming out. I send this one line text and she's like, fine, nothing else will work. Might as well. Sends a text. He responds immediately. She immediately goes back into the original pitch. She never hears from him again. So you can't go back to what got you into that in the first place.

That's good. What about in other high stakes situations like what do you recommend people do in an environment like today where we have unemployment at sort of new record lows? People are looking for jobs a little harder in the economy out there. What should people do in a job interview? Is there one question that you think people should ask every time?

There's two, if you will. My, my first favorite one is how can I be guaranteed to be involved in projects that are critical to the strategic future of the organization? Like, there's so much in that. That's awesome. And I originally got that from a guy I went to high school with who's the head of an international bank now, my good friend Tom McCabe. Now, the important thing about we went to high school in a small town in Iowa. Neither one of us have any family connections. We went to unremarkable universities, so we're not on the back of alumni associations. I didn't go to Harvard Business School where I got all these contacts that were Classmates of mine that are out ruling the world. And Tom is ridiculously successful, genuine, authentic, deep down assertive, very charming dude. But that question he taught me, because that immediately tells your employer, you're a team player. You're not grabbing on your own behalf. And not only you're a team player, you want to play in a championship. So even if you don't get into the championship, they know you want to be there, and they notice you and they keep an eye on you. I'm doing a training call, sales call for this big sales organization. And all the sales people are there, and the CEO was there, and we're doing. They do a Q and A. And in front of the CEO, they say, how do I get more out of this guy? How do I get. How do I get paid more in this job? And I know everybody's, like, holding their breath, seeing what I'm going to say and how he's going to react. So I lay that question out to all of them, and he immediately says, I wish everybody here would ask me that question. Because he wants team players that want to move the needle in the most dramatic fashion. He wants courageousness, team players that want to raise their salary by providing ridiculous amounts of value to the corporation. And then the upside to that is they identify you as somebody who's truly ambitious, who wants to work hard. And if they don't give you a raise based on your production, which you will talk about now, you've built this great resume of accomplishment where you're marketable in an insane way. You did this, you did that. On my last job, I moved the needle for the entire company that makes you eminently employable. So that's question one. Question two. What does it take to be successful here? Which is not what are you looking for in a candidate? Those are vastly different things. And I once heard somebody say, yeah, you know, business school. They told me to say, always ask, what are you looking for in a candidate? That's not the question I gave you. There are people that are interviewing you. They're only interviewing you because they are successful there. And the quietest person is who you want to get talking. The quietest person that's either on the interview panel or that you interview with. They got a lot to say. They're not wasting it on anybody that doesn't listen. They're the quietest because they don't particularly want to be on the panel, but their boss put them there because of their demonstrated success and they understand the ins and outs of the company. That's why they're on the panel, and they're not going to waste their time talking to anybody that's not going to listen. One of my students at Georgetown said in a panel that she was in, a guy leaned forward and said, no one ever asked us that. And she found out from the other members on the panel that this guy never spoke. And he laid out to her exactly what it took. Now, what you've just done with that question is recruited an unofficial mentor because they're going to watch to see if you do what they told you to do, to see if you take instruction. First, critical issue, do you know how to do what you're told? Secondly, they now have an unofficial vested interest in your success. And what do you want from a mentor? Someone who will clear the way for you, somebody who'll watch your back, Somebody to keep negativity away from you that you don't even see coming. You're following their advice, they're going to watch out for you. That's how I got on a hostage negotiation team in New York. And about a year after I got on the team, I did an error in judgment on some teaching material that I used, and it had been given to me by the team leader, and she had used it multiple times and never gotten a complaint. And I used it. I immediately get a complaint for good reason.

It was.

It was. I shouldn't have used it. The minute. The minute I used it, I realized it was bad. It was off. Complaint comes in, and she immediately goes in to the administrative board that's investigating a complaint and says, I've been using this for years and I've never gotten a complaint. I didn't ask her to do that. They. She. Everybody could have stood back and said, you know, we don't know where it got that. But here was somebody whose advice I followed that then looked out for me and had my back when I needed it. And that's really what you want for mentors. So find out what it takes to be successful and then actually do it if you get the job.

It's so true. You know, I used to respond to every single DM or email that I would get for people saying, hey, can I get your help on X, Y, Z? Or I want your advice or I want five minutes or I want a coffee. And at a certain point, it was too many. And so I started saying, sure, read this book first, right? You know, I would give them a question or two, think about this, and then come back to me. And of course, how many actually read the Book and came back to me maybe five over like a year and a half long term.

Wow.

Basically nobody. And it made me realize that most people know what they want, but they are not willing to do what it takes to get it. And, and so I quickly realized, oh, this is a perfect way to screen humans because there are few, there are many who want and few who do. And so I think people severely underestimate how rare competency follow through and doing the things you say you're going to do are. They're so rare. And so today everybody talks about there's so much competition, it's really hard to get ahead. Maybe, or maybe you're just not doing what it takes. And the bar is actually lower than you think.

Agree completely. The bar is lower than people realize. They can't imagine that the mundane things are the competitive advantage. And they are. Yeah, you're huge.

You know, it's so funny too. I was in my company the other day. I've gotten a little bit more hardcore as I've gotten older, you know, Nice. So, yeah, I have things like, I think voice notes are rude to the receiver and great for the sender for the most part.

Right.

Like it's nice to send a voice note if you're excited and you're trying to convey emotion or if you're, you know, if there's, there's something that verbally you have to talk about, that emotion is needed. But I find that voice notes are really inefficient. I'm assertive, so that makes sense. Right now, if I was accommodative, I probably would love voice notes, but I don't. I really hate them. I think they're violence. So I've started in my company to say like, you can't, you can't send me a voice note. Nobody ever send me a voice note, please. And if you want to send me a loom, you can, because then I can 2x speed you and not be too mad about that.

Right.

And so then an accommodative person could send me what I find to be a totally unnecessary loom. But I won't be annoyed because I can 2x speed. Or I can see the transcript quickly.

Right, Right.

So I think technology is really interesting for trying to negotiate, even the way you communicate, which I, I, I never realized that half of winning in business is good communication. If you want to make more money, you need to learn to communicate better. And like, we have a member of one of our businesses where this person just cannot communicate clearly and concisely and ask for what they want.

Right.

And ask what it is willing to take to get there. And it made me realize why Jeff Bezos probably made everybody write a brief pre the call and everybody read the brief. Because I think most companies die on the altar of poor communication.

Right. And rambling thought.

And rambling thought. An ill formed opinion. Yeah, but yet who taught us that class? Nobody.

Right.

Is that something that you talk to companies about at Black Swan? Do you talk not. I mean, do people understand that or do you think that negotiation and communication are a lot more connected than maybe.

We just darn near synonyms?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because almost everything. Why is almost everything in negotiation? You're negotiating for people to time. That's commodity. Time is always a commodity involved, even if it's a cash transaction. There's times involved. Money's not always involved. And most people think they're only in a negotiation. When you start talking about money, well, you've been in a negotiation for a while. Performance is a negotiation. Action time. And so yes, we talk about that all the time and the different modes and I think a little bit what you're talking about, people get addicted to just one mode. Like I just want to send voice messages or just want to send texts. And you find, depending upon the nature of the message, you got to make it complimentary. So we, we normally focus on making people make things more concise.

Concise is always preferred from all three types.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yep.

Because everybody at the end of the day wants to be heard and values their own time.

Right?

Yeah.

Now the danger with concise communications is they can be cold. So you got, you got to take that into account. It'll. It'll. At best it'll be cold if it's concise. And it may sound like shouting. So dress it up occasionally, not over overboard.

Do you use emojis?

I use mostly punctuation in text. I don't think emojis are a bad idea. In concise emails, an email that's. Once you get north of five lines, you're bordering on it being too long. So if I'm delivering bad news, I'm gonna say I got bad news. People want to be prepped. I'm gonna write the bad news, then I'm gonna finish positively with something that is true, which is usually how I would have started the email. You know your gut instinct, hey, you know, I want us to work things out. I've always thought a lot of you. I have tremendous amount of respect that should just go ahead and write that Just put it at the end. If you got bad news, I got bad news, and then I'll throw in I'm sorry, I'm afraid in front of the bad news. I haven't heard this in a while, but I remember hearing a few years ago, the problem with women is that they are always apologizing. So therefore, I'm sorry. You should never say that. Not true. I say I'm sorry all the time in front of bad news, not after it. And it's a softener, it's a warning. Look, I'm sorry I got bad news. I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't do that versus I can't do that, I'm sorry. There's something in the sequencing. If I say I'm sorry in front, you're like, oh, what's coming? You're ready for bad news. You're prepped. If I give you bad news and then say I'm sorry, then you're like, why didn't you warn me it was coming? So it's a sequencing issue. And most, most words, phrases, they're not bad in of themselves. It's the timing, the context and the sequence. I got no problem apologizing. Anybody that knows me, if they hear I'm sorry coming out of my mouth, bad news is on its way.

That's true.

It's how I'm assertive.

So what about, what about negotiation in the way that people typically think about it? We were talking about money. How do you negotiate for a salary and do it in the right way?

First of all, empathy is always about how does the other side see things. Empathy, tactical empathy. It's not sympathy, it's not compassion, it's not accurate, it's not the truth. If you can release yourself from all those things, it's not fair. How does the other side see things? So at the job, nobody ever goes to the boss unless they want something for themselves. So whether we like it or not, bosses, supervisors are conditioned to think of everybody as selfish. Because every time you come to me, you want, all you want is something for yourself. That's the reality. You didn't cause it. You're not selfish. However, when was the last time you went to the boss and say, hey, is there more work I could do for free? I want to do more. I don't want to get compensated for it. I want to take more of a load off your shoulders and I don't need anything extra for it at all. I just gonna do it because I want you to feel good. Like that doesn't happen. So what's the reality? You go to the boss because you want something, realize that that's the case. So you can walk in and say, look, boss, I'm probably gonna seem like another selfish employee that only comes to you when I want something. That's an empathy statement. Good. That's not saying that you are or that's true. Fair or it's accurate. You say, I'm probably gonna seem like. Because that's how you're gonna seem. And they appreciate that empathy. Holy cow. You have an understanding of my perspective now. I'm more open to what you have to say. So how does the other side see it? You can say it in a way. You can demonstrate understanding without agreement. This is the way it seems to you. I'm going to seem like a jerk. That doesn't say that you are. It's an awareness of the impact that you're going to have on the other side based on their context and their experience, which you may have played no part in at all. It's just a recognition of what the, the reality of what the other person is going through and that, and that then begins to pave the way and accelerate everything.

So smart. This is so random, but I've heard you talk about before. What do you call it? Do you call it your, your elevator voice? What is the voice you talk about when you're, when you're negotiating?

The late night FMD DJ voice.

It's so good. First of all, I wanted to hear it live. It's as good in person as it is on the Internet. Second of all, where did you hear that? How did you come up with that? Does it work? Do we all have one?

Everybody can use it. I think it started by accident when I volunteered last century. I started my career on a crisis hotline and for whatever reason, I must have picked it up in a training because I'm coachable. Like, if people have said like, you know, are you a natural born negotiator? I'm like, I'm coachable. And then, and that's it. I want to know what works. I don't care what works morally. If I don't like the morals behind it, I won't do it. But I still want to know what works. I, I view it as my missionary and mercenary. Mercenary just wants to know what works. Missionary cares about whether, what falls on the morality scale. So first time on a hotline, you know, I said, hello, this is helpline. And then afterwards, the person supervising me, like, man, your voice is Great. That was great. And I remember thinking like, wow, I don't know what I did, but I, I got, I got trained there. That this calming, soothing voice really worked. And then I started getting involved in teaching there. And in the FBI, when you become a hostage negotiator, they want you to teach a lot because one of the best ways of getting good at something is having to explain how to do it to other people. So teaching is a great way to stay sharp. And at some point in time I'm sure somebody probably told me, yes, you sound like a late night FM dj. And then one of the real kickers on it was a psychologist in one of the training classes I was teaching was a hypnotherapist. And he comes up to me afterwards because I spent a lot of time on voice. He said, yeah, that's exactly what we're first thing we're taught when we're taught how to hypnotize people. So I'm finding practically operationally it works extremely well. And then now in our day and age of neuroscience, it, it shuts the brain down and it simultaneously shuts down negative emotions. That's why emotions are contagious, because there are neurochemical responses to it. So calm is contagious. And I would have, I would have said previously it was calming. But, but in our high intensity negotiations, I'll come at you with the assertive's voice and you what does that sound like? The exercise is 60 seconds or she dies. And I'll look at you and I'll say, I need a car in 60 seconds or she dies.

That's intense. Yeah.

And yeah, then it triggers fight or flight in you and it interferes with your ability to think and you will start repeating the same thing over and over again. And so then I'll switch to the late night FM DJ voice. I get the countdown going, you know, and I beat you up through a countdown of about 40, 35 to 40 seconds. I'll say that's left. And then at about 30 seconds, I'll say, provide a car in 30 seconds or she's dead. And I see person after person just go, hello friends. Guess who? That's right, it is I, the replacer. Once again, I've been called on so you can play the new Call of Black Ops 7 with three expansive modes, 18 multiplayer maps, and the tastiest zombie gameplay you've ever frickin seen. Call of Duty Black Ops 7 available now. Rated M for mature. Welcome to Walgreens.

Looking for a holiday gift?

Sort of My cousin Freddy showed up to surprise us.

Oh, sur.

Sounds like a real nice surprise. Exactly. So now I have to get him a gift. But I haven't gotten my bonus yet. So if we can make it something really nice but also not break the bank, that'd be perfect.

How about a Keurig for 50% off?

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This is what I just did, right?

Unable to speak at all. And that was when I realized, well, it's. It's not calming them. It's shutting their brain down.

That's crazy.

And they're as their negative emotions, their combative emotions are shut down. Everything is shut down. So we're running a time after time. And. And we see him. I can shut your brain down with that voice. Which is why you'll calm down.

Yeah.

And then the accommodator's voice, you know, I'll shut your brain down and I'll start counting down and at about 20 seconds, I'll go, come on now. Come on. You gotta give me the car. You know, you don't want this to happen. And they'll perk right up instantly. They will go from not being able to say a word.

Yeah.

And their body language will change. They lean forward and they'll smile back and they go. Yeah. You know, and they're suddenly. They're instantaneously playful. Triggering. Which is why these are neurochemical reactions. These are not voluntary reactions. This is hard science. These are neurochemicals. I can pick your brain up or down based on the tone of my voice. Now, you can fight it, but you can't stop me from triggering the reaction. And so in knowing that in. In all kinds of ways, like the. The playful voice. I love rolling into some place where there's some poor schmuck behind a counter that's just in a horrible mood. Yeah. And you can tell that their opinion of. That everybody's bad. So they're going to be really negative towards you because it'll trigger you being bad. And then they'll prove their point. And usually if I'm playful with them, by the third, my third response, they're playful and laughing too. And inside of 30 seconds, I've taken somebody who was just in a really bad place and made them happy. And then. Then it's astonishing what you can get people to do. Astonishing.

So true. The other day I was giving a speech and I don't like the word Latin X, which they use for like Latinos. It's like this new word because O and A are gender. And I just.

They're right, okay.

I think it's fucking ridiculous. And I'm Latina, so. So I jokingly call it Latinx. I'm like, oh, yeah, I love tinks, you know. And so anyway, I was giving this speech to a bunch of Latinos. It was a little. I was like, should I make this comment or not? I'm not sure. And I did. And I just said, listen, I think we have to be honest in this world today. There's like not enough honesty. And it's fucking ridiculous that you would call Latinos latanks. That word doesn't even exist in our language. And it's because somebody at Berkeley came up with this crazy idea, you know, that this would be a good idea.

Some academic.

You're right, exactly. Who's probably like a middle aged white woman like me, you know, take it easy. You know, like, take it easy. So anyway, so I give this speech, I do that. I got some laughs. I was nervous. I was like, I might not get laughs at this. And a woman stands up, right, As a question at the end. And I could just tell, I was watching her face. I'm like, ah, this isn't going to be good. She stands up and she's like, you know, I identify as Latin X, I'd like you to know. And I'm happy to explain to you why that is the proper use of the word. And then she proceeds to ask me like a reasonable question, right? So I'm watching her and I kind of, I respond back and say, first of all, brave you bringing that up. You know, I have crowd control, I'm on a stage, I have a mic, you know, you don't. So, hey, appreciate you bringing that up with a reasonably rational, like, purview. Not anything negative or gnarly. And, you know, and she was like, you know, serious. Yes. Kind of still has the face on. And I go, and, and you can call yourself whatever you'd like. I'm on board with that. Whatever you want. I just do not get other people to tell me what I'm going to call them if I don't think that's reasonable. I'm not going to do that. So as long as we're cool on you, do you, I do me, we're all good, Everything's great. And she kind of nodded her head like, yeah, that's reasonable. And I was like, but also Latigs is kind of funny. Right. And she laughed.

Right.

You know, and so it was that same idea of how can you take like that little. It's the shoulder shrug, it's the little joke, it's the smile and you can get far with it.

Yeah.

And, and she couldn't help but laugh. I'm not sure she actually thought it was funny. But in that moment, you know, we've like broken together this, this change. And I think it's the same thing with negotiating your salary. I don't know what you think of this one. You should tell me if you think this one's bad. But I always was in sales roles and so, you know, back in the day when I was in finance and had bosses, I would, and I would need to negotiate my salary and, or negotiate a better split or something like that. I would always say two things. I'd say, well, I wouldn't be a very good salesperson if I didn't ask for the business. Right. And I kind of trug and go like this and, and then later I would say something like, well, and you know, you can't blame a girl for asking, can you? And both times the boss would usually kind of go like, I get it. But what I realized is those are both my perspective, not his perspective or her perspective. So what do you think about those two lines? Do those work? Or is that too one sided? Because I'm actually.

No, I don't think it's one sided at all. I mean just there's playfulness is ridiculously powerful. And playfulness in a way where you're playing, you're having fun with someone and it's very similar to self effacing humor. Like these are all different aspects of empathy because if you're laughing with someone, you're demonstrating an awareness of their perspective and you're doing it as a playful, self effacing way, in a way that's not threatening. Derek on my team, Derek Gaunt always says your first move is to remove yourself as a threat. Then you're out of conflict because you're no longer a threat. So that whole approach is designed for you to be less threatening if not to entirely remove yourself as a threat. And it, it is in a way sort of asking for empathy in a return, but it's asking for it as opposed to demanding it or being attacking and argumentative. I mean, there's so many levels that, that works that I, you know, I don't see it as being self centered at all. When you're making fun of someone at their expense. Which is one of the things that I've had to sort of take out of my company a little bit, because, you know, all those former cops, we used to bust each other's chops really bad. And, you know, this locker room humor, which I now refer to as chimpanzee behavior, you know, baboon behavior. I mean, I just don't like it at all. And I saw the most insecure people trying to bring themselves up by putting somebody else down. So I can make fun of me. If you make fun of me, that's a whole different thing. And I discourage it across the board. And I actually sometimes test for it because I'll. I'll make. I'll make fun of myself. And if somebody really wants to run with it, then, you know, then I know. And then I know. All right, so if you're ignoring my feelings, you're ignoring the feelings of other people on a team as well. And I need to be extra diligent in that regard. You know, I had an employee a number of years ago that used to be delighted when he was a hostage negotiator. 1. A colleague of his had been on the phone when some bad stuff had happened. And he used to. He used to write him. He. He delighted and cackled about telling us about how much he rode that guy. And I didn't think that much about it. And then in our early days, and, you know, we. We were still, as we would say, busting each other's chops a lot until I realized that he'd been writing another member of the team to the point where that this guy stopped using an example of illustration and a specific motion that was very genuine to him. And I never saw it went away till that guy turned on me one day. And then as I was thinking about it, I thought, and I have stood back and watched you do that to other people on the team and never said a word. And now that I'm the target, now I'm angry. And so I thought I got to be much more attentive to this deriding other people in supposedly human humorous manner, which is passive aggressive. So that's. That's a whole different aspect of me making fun of myself.

That's such a good point. That passive aggressive nature is sort of a red flag indicator. I remember I got. I got defrauded by this one guy who stole a bunch of money from us. And it was really charming, smart in many different aspects. We were friends and. But I remember one little, you know, when those little red flags go off in your head.

Right.

And a lot of times, at least I haven't trained myself to listen to them. And so I ignored it. But I remember what the red flag was. It was little deriding comments towards me that weren't that bad because I kind of got. I got an ego. I'm okay, I can handle some riffing.

Right.

But there were a few. And it was like, oh, you know, well, the influencer in the room or something. And I was like, ah, ha ha. Because I don't really associate with that term. And in a few different things. And I remember that moment thinking, oh, I don't actually think he likes me. And that little derision is like, maybe he doesn't like me or he wants to pull me down or there's a little passive aggressive there.

Right.

But I internal. I didn't internalize that. I thought, ah, you're being sensitive, Cody. Whatever, keep going.

Right.

And so are there little red flags like that that you look for besides passive aggressive? And have you found that that passive aggressive thing? Do you want to watch out for people that are like that? Is that.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't want them. I don't want them on the team.

Do you want to date them?

No, absolutely not.

Friends with them?

No.

Yeah.

Now, some people don't know any better.

Yeah. Or they don't even know they're doing it.

Or they don't know they're doing it. And so I will typically let somebody know. I. I don't want them to be in the dark. And plus, I don't want them to ever say, well, you never told me. And. And where it is now. I mean, I'll straighten it out really quickly.

How would that look?

I'll tell them and I'll tell them why. And yet sometimes you have a risk of being overly blunt. I'm aware of that. As an assertive, I'm often overly blunt. And so if I'm telling something, somebody, something. Actually, what. What I've adopted just probably in the last year is, look, I gotta mentor you right now. I'm mentoring you. I gotta point out some stuff that's wrong, it's going to come off that I think is wrong. It's probably going to come off as really harsh. And I want, you know, you're being mentored right now. And I'm finding that that also helps me soften things up and it helps them see it in perspective. Like, I'm not going to correct anybody on my team unless I want them to get better and be more Successful on their team. But correction doesn't always feel that way. And, and especially, you know, I got. I got some real youngsters working for me now. I'm. I'm actually, I'm leaning in the direction of younger people for a variety of reasons. And so that, you know, I could come off as harsh. I got. I got. I got one guy on my team now, Nate, as a star. He's a star. He's going to get. Do so much good for us, and he's just not used to, you know, getting run over by a train. So I'll say, all right, look, I'm mentoring you. This is in the context of, I see a very bright future. We got to fix this.

That's a beautiful first sentence. I see a very fright. Bright future. We got to fix this.

Yeah.

Because you're basically saying you got a huge Runway, man. Yeah, I want to make sure you don't crash early.

Yeah, exactly. That's. Exactly. That's. That's what I want him to hear.

Yeah.

So that when he goes home and he thinks about it, he's. He's constantly got that context or, you know, if he talks to his family. He's very close to his family. How was today? I was rough. And it's about me getting better. It's about a better tomorrow. It's about this plan for my future. So I know those conversations are going to come up because I, you know, criticism, I don't want to think of as criticism. But you got to get people on the right track because the longer they're on the wrong track, it's your fault if you don't tell them.

It's a really good point. Sometimes I think, have you found that you've done that with people? You've told them, hey, you know, I'm mentoring you. You need to change this. No more passive aggressive behavior. Do people change?

Some do, and some are get. Are shown the door.

Yeah. And so do you think. Do people ever hide who they are from you? Like, if you give them the heads up? I think sometimes what I'm worried about is, like, they show me. They showed me who they were, and then instead of listening to it, I pointed it out. And now they could hide it from me?

Well, yeah. I mean, inauthenticity is exhausting.

Right.

You know, effectively, they're undercover, they're lying, and then it's just. It's going to tire them out. They're not going to be able to keep up with it. You know, I learned this in law enforcement early on. Like when you joined the FBI, there's a lot of sexy stuff you could do. You being undercover, you'd be on a SWAT team, you'd be on a hostage negotiation team. I think at some point in time, everybody wants to try undercover because it looks cool in the movies. Sounds sexy as hell. And I remember, you know, I got a shot to do some undercovers before I ever stumbled over a negotiation. And first of all, I didn't like being inauthentic. I didn't like everything that I said, even if it was the bad guys, I don't like. I don't like lying to anybody. So I just wasn't comfortable with it. And then simultaneously, there was a guy that was first office with me in Pittsburgh that did some extensive undercover. And he'd come back and he's like, man, this is exhausting. He went undercover for a week one time. He was thoroughly exhausted. He says, oh, I just, it was. It was horrible. I was exhausted the entire time. I couldn't keep track of the lies. So basically, inauthentic is exhausting. And they can't keep up with the lies. So if they're hiding from you who they are, when they get tired, you're going to see who they are. So they'll be able to keep it up early in the morning, fresh cup of coffee, rocking and rolling by the afternoon, you're going to get the real person.

Such a good point. Yeah. My dad always says, tell the truth.

It's easier to remember a lot less work.

I think that's true. Yeah. I also remember. So we had a friend that worked in a three letter agency. Not the FBI, but a different one and with lots of undercover work.

Fda, right? Drug administration.

Exactly. That's what it was. Yes. And she said something to me that I thought was really fascinating. She said, you can't trust us because we've been institutionalized. Not to tell the truth.

Right.

And so it's real hard to break that. Have you found that's true from people who go undercover for a long time or have a duplicate duplicitous personality?

Yeah. Going undercover almost ruins everybody that does it. It's such a problem that every law enforcement agency that has undercovers sets up a lot of psychologists to try to fix these people. And it could be a problem for a number of reasons. Number one, lying to everybody about everything, if you're not built that way, it's really hard. A lot of people in the agency that I think you're referring to, the ones that are really good at it's, it's not unusual for them to quit, not retire. And I got a good friend of mine that said, yeah, in the FBI almost all you guys last to retirement, but those of us that are really good at this, we can't take it anymore. And so very, most of the time the really good ones will quit because it's, it's, it's soul sucking for them or if they adapt to it. Another friend was thinking about going into that line of work and a friend that was advising him said there's no coming back if you go there, there's no way back. And so it's, it's very hard to do that. And if it, if it consistently violates your moral compass, then it's just, it's just really difficult. So lying while in the moment, you know, seems fun, light hearted, it's just, it's soul crushing over a long period of time.

I think that's right. I always like Jordan Peterson's lie, which was tell the truth or at least don't lie, which I think is, is true in some way. And I've, I found that, you know, I remember when I was younger I got into a period, I don't know if this happens a lot where I did lie about silly things. Like I remember I said I was a different religion once and I found myself sort of lying about stuff for a period when I was a younger girl in my teens and it was hard to break.

Yeah.

And I remember saying to my mom, I kind of like, you know, I keep lying about stuff that actually doesn't matter. So we had to have a talk about like then it was religion. So like God says don't lie and this is why, because you kind of become the reality that, that you create for yourself.

Right, right.

What about we have it. I don't know if you feel comfortable talking about this, but you know, the FBI's got different perspectives publicly now.

Right.

And there's some lack of trust I think there with maybe the American people. Or maybe it's just what I see in the news today. What do you think's happening there and how could they fix their communication strategies where Americans would start trusting institutions like the FBI again?

Yeah. The real problem is people's misunderstanding the difference between FBI headquarters and the rank and file in the field. And the guys that are drawn to headquarters are bureaucrats and they're not trying to make great cases interesting. The bureau is really good at attracting people that can make great cases and making a great case and being an effective bureaucrat at Two different skills. So not long after I left the Bureau, a friend of mine wrote a book called the Threat Matrix. And he got an interview with Director Mueller while Mueller was still Director of the Bureau. And Mueller was impressed with him and agreed to sit down. And what he did was he wrote a book about how 911 was solved. And I gave him a lot of advice of who to talk to. Talk to this guy. This is what he's going to say to you. This is what his shortcomings are. I told him who he should interview with the Director's permission. And then, you know, you talk to this guy and he's a treasure trove of information. But remember, he's more important than any case he ever worked. So keep that in light of what he tells you. So he ends up. He mentions me in a book a couple times. Didn't need to. It's not part of the story. But 911 was solved by FBI New York and Mueller had just taken over and they wanted headquarters to be in charge. But FBI in New York knew what was going on. So what they did so the headquarters would be in charge. They transferred everybody in New York to headquarters. Now headquarters is in chart. So afterwards he gets done with the book, and I'm reading it, I like the book, and I say to him, what's your opinion of FBI Headquarters? And he says to me, I think the FBI has always succeeded in spite of FBI headquarters. And I said, all right, you understand the difference. So the Rank and File Bureau is still out there making cases. Now, how that's being perceived in Washington and how it's being navigated is complicated by people that are bureaucrats, and they're trying to navigate the shifting winds and the shifting accusations. And then one of the other interesting things the Bureau has always tried, had to deal with and navigate is the Bureau works for the Department of Justice and the Attorney General is a political appointment. Yeah. So every time there's a new presidential administration, there's a new Attorney General, and then, then there's a whole raft of political appointees at doj. And a friend of mine for a while was the highest level career DOJ employee in counterterrorism. So everybody above him was an appointee, and he understood counterterrorism inside and out. And the political administration was getting ready to change. I can't remember which one was coming in. I think actually in those days, I left just before Obama, and he said, you know, I want to stay in DOJ while a new presidential administration comes in because he's going to be the guy that all the political employees sit down with Mike and Mike knows and you got to learn from Mike. And afterwards I talked to him and I said, you know, what was it like? And he said, well, you know, when I first moved to Miami, I always wanted to stay in Miami while a hurricane came through town to see what it was like. And I never want to do that again. And surviving the change of political administrations in D.C. is like living through a hurricane. And I never want to do that again. God I believe so that that's kind of the context that the bureau's trying to navigate. They got a FBI headquarters is mostly not exclusively they got a few great leaders there, but they're 80% career bureaucrats and then they work ultimately for a political appointee. So they got to try to navigate that whipsaw the the man of street guys in the LA LA FBI making cases. They don't care who's in Washington. They really don't care. They want to make cases. I was in Kansas City, FBI, New York FBI. Let's make cases. We'll let the bureaucrats make a lot of noise. We're not going to make headlines, we're going to do our job. Trump gets shot at who's handling the follow on investigation. As much as he complains about the FBI, he's not complaining about the way they're handling a follow on. He'd have plenty of opportunity because he's dealing with rank and file guys who are running that out as opposed to the bureaucrats that are making excuses with Venmo Stash. A taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back. Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. 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Yeah. Do you think, does the FBI like you being as public as you are?

Mixed. They're mixed emotions about it.

Yeah.

You know, I, the guy just retired that was in charge of the New York office. It's mostly. He was the first office agent when I was a veteran agent and was a great guy. And I get asked in occasionally to, you know, potentially offer some training on the hostage negotiation team.

Yeah.

And I've been going long enough that, you know, now most of them, they just like, he's this guy, he's got this book and people ask me about it and ask me if I know him and I don't know.

I bet. I always, My husband knows Jocko and I think it's sort of the same with the SEAL community. Like, you know, Jocko is a real, you know, SEAL that is battle tested and gone through it all. But, you know, I think with the FBI and the Navy seals, there's this, this. They don't really like people that are that public about all of it and.

Not sure how to deal with it.

Yeah.

I, and I hear Andrew Huberman tell a joke about Jocko one time. I don't know if you've heard it. You know, like a, when, when a child is born, the doctor says, you know, it's a boy, it's a girl. When Jocko was born, the doctor said, it's a man.

It's so true. He's a big boy. Yeah. Andrew Huron doesn't have a lot of room to take talk. He's also giant. And I remember the first time I saw him in the gym.

Oh, yeah, he's, he's, he's no midget, is he?

No. And he's got, and that was before it was known that he had all those tattoos. So I remember like a bunch of people talking to this big guy and I'm over there trying to get my 10 pound weight, you know, out of the way of whatever he's doing. And, and I look up and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's, that's Andrew Huberman. That's weird. I would have thought that. But really nice guy, too.

Oh, he's a great guy. He's a friend. I, I'm ridiculously supportive of him in all ways. He's a good human being. I learned. I listen to his neuroscience constantly.

Maybe last question before we get to one on cultural commentary and then we wrap this bad boy up. Because I have all these notes about things I need to do differently in my Business. Now that's a perfect example. So you've been around for a while, since the book came out. You know, you have a nice way.

Of saying I'm old.

No, no, no way. With that DJ voice. You're gonna be doing that when you're 90. You know, when you have friends in the public eye that go through really tough situations and you obviously went through one. I think it'll happen to all of us. I don't know if you've ever had a public scandal.

Not yet. I figured it happens to everybody.

It's coming any day. Yeah, I think it's important to have a backbone, which is something you definitely have from being a negotiator. What is your take on how do you stand up? And a world that seems hell bent many times on making people stay in your lane. You know, only talk about what you want. You know, you're a flawed here, so you can't be an expert anywhere else. How do you get a backbone?

Well, to some degree, I, I'm, I'm prepping for it in advance. You know, I love the way the Rock handles his media. Like the Rock is. You see a lot of stuff where he's helping kids. He's driving through LA and there's a tour bus next and he'll roll the window down and go like, hey guys, what's going on? Like, he's so generous. And I think he's aware that at some point in time people are going to think you're putting yourself on a pedestal, we got to tear you down. So then he goes and he does the. Goes back to wrestling and starts hitting people with garbage cans. Or, you know, there's a picture of him swelling tequila. You know, I'm a, I'm a tequila swilling. I play guitar and sing lousy songs. You know, he's, he's cautious about putting himself on too much of a pedestal because he never put himself there. But he knows that at some point in time somebody's going to want to cheap shot you. So, like when I, when I did Andrew's, and I was a guest on Andrew's podcast of, on a previous podcast, somebody said, describe yourself in three words. And I said, deeply flawed human. And so then my buddy Joe Polish bought me a shirt that said flawed human being. I, I love Joe. He's one of the most generous people that I know. Just gave me the shirt and so I'm like, all right, so you're going to try and tear me down in advance because you're going to accuse Me of putting myself on a pedestal, which I never did. So let me preempt this a little bit it. And then secondarily, I think some of it is they're testing you. They want to see if they can get you to run. All right. Can't. Will you back off again? Whatever you think of Donald Trump, love him or hate him very. Nobody's in the middle. I think he gained so much admiration by refusing to back off of what he said. And every politician prior to him, they'd say something, and they get criticized, and a politician say, yeah, you know, I. You know, I'm sorry I said that.

And, you know, they're not.

And they're not.

They're not.

And so, you know, they asked Trump, and he. And he doubles down, and then it's an unending cycle. Like, well, not only did he say that, but can you believe he doubled down? Like, he does it every time. And then they act. CNN act shocked that he doubled down. Like, that's a dude is eminently predictable. He's not gonna apologize for anything he said. And we don't want people to apologize for being themselves because we want to know who they are. And so then when they come for me, I'm probably going to say, yeah, I said it. You know, if. If I had to say it again, might I change it? Possibly. But I'm going to own that I said that.

Yeah.

And, you know, I'm. I'm open to another interpretation. But, yeah, I said it and I did it.

Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. I think these days, we need a lot more of that. Like, the guy that I can't. And I'll get political here for a second, but, like, Gavin Newsom, we're in California right now. I'm like, how does this motherfucker shut down the state during COVID Tell you you can't see your dying relatives in the hospital and then show up to French Laundry, fanciest of restaurants, throw a party with a mask gone. And then say, oh, I'm so sorry I did it. No, you're not. At least let me know. You're like, hey, you. I'm above you. I'm a politician. I'm more valuable. I consider myself above you. I might have more respect for the guy. So I think you're right. There is something today where I think we're just starting to turn, like, the curtain a little bit, where people are like, no, I actually respect the truth because I'm getting fed so much. Which leads me to my last question for you, which is, you said, as the lead former hostage negotiator in the FBI previously, I will say with a certain level, with a certainty that the level of manipulation by the mainstream media should not be overlooked when we look back on what exactly led to this moment. An election is also a negotiation, and many of the people with the megaphones and pins have not been doing their jobs. What do you think about this, and what do you think we should do with this information?

Recognize them for what they are and what they are. Not all of them, but the ones we're talking about are professional instigators. Now, when I'm with the Bureau of Crisis Response on behalf of the US government, so we end up in several G20 conferences. You know, it's a G8 on steroids. They got all these people there, and they put them in different places in the world. And I'm there with Secret Service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and they're telling us about instigators, professional instigators. And then they show us how a crowd of peaceful demonstrators numbering anywhere from 50 to 2000 can be turned into a raging, violent mob by six instigators, only six instigators to turn a peaceful crowd of a thousand into a raging, violent mob. And then they'd say, they put. They put themselves. They know how to do this. They put themselves in strategic positions around the crowd so they don't look like they're together. And then they start to amplify the anger. And if you're in the crowd, you go like, oh, that guy said it. Oh, that guy said it. Oh, that guy said it. Now I'm angry. And the people with the megaphones are professional instigators. They want us at each other's throats. And I think if we're just aware that their intent is to instigate, whether they be with Fox News or whether they be with cnn, their intent is to instigate. If you're then at least warned that that's what they're trying to do. They're the kid in the schoolyard that walks up to him, says, you can take that off him. Can you believe what he just said to you? If you know that knucklehead's gonna do that, you look at him and go, like, you know what? Shut up. And I think that's what all we really need. They're professional instigators. And they're the kid that's whispering in your ear in the schoolyard, trying to instigate a fight so powerful.

I never forget that Instance of the. You put black ants and red ants into the jar together, and you just let them chill and they hang out and they're buddies, and nothing really happens, but you shake the jar and the black ants attack the red ants and the red ants attacks the black. The black ants. And I picture that a lot with what's happening in the world today.

Yeah.

Like, who's shaking this?

Yeah.

And I think if we can stop. You know, anytime I start to get mad because I see something on the Internet that I think is dumb from a side that I don't agree with, I start remembering that it's actually not them. It's like whoever is making all of us all amped up. And the beautiful part, I think, about the work that you do is it's so useful for people to make more money, for people to have love in their lives, for people to have success in their relationships, and probably for our country today to make sure that we actually understand how communication can be manipulated and also how communication can be made whole.

Right.

So I think it's beautiful. Thank you so much for being here today. Where else can people get information on the documentary today? Tactical Empathy. Just go to Amazon and check it out.

It's on Amazon. We're posting regularly on it on my instagram @the FBI negotiator.

Yeah, it's a good Instagram.

We put up, you know. Yeah. And mutual friend of ours, Nicole Benham, works with me very hard on Instagram, and we put. We try to put a lot of content out, and then we put stuff out on. Like, how can you find out more? How can you get more? And we're talking about it on the Instagram as well.

Yeah. I think you got to go do the. The quiz, too. I'm gonna do it after this. I'm gonna make my husband do it. So that's that. Black Swan ltd. We'll see what I am, and we'll see what he is. But I love the idea of figuring out what type of human are you so you can figure out where your blind spots are. Thank you so much for being here.

My pleasure.