Live Inspired with Dr. Don Wood - Episode 4

Hello, and welcome to live inspired with Dr. Dawn Wood. I'm Karen Seltz. Today we're going to continue talking about some of the gems that Dr. Wood picked up at the Genius Network. Welcome, Dr. Wood.

Hey, Karen, how are you doing?

Awesome. How are you?

Good. Very good.

Yay. So you were talking about an FBI negotiator, and I'm really fascinated to hear what you learned from him.

Yeah, his name was Chris Voss, so he was the hostage negotiator, which, you think about it, is a pretty interesting role, right. Negotiating hostage situations. And some of the things that he said were just sort of applicable to everyday life. So I wanted to share a few of those things which I think are really applicable, especially a lot of people. If you're business owners and you're, you know, we're negotiating all the time, right? We're negotiating when we deal with customers, we're dealing with vendors, we're dealing with our own staff, you know, so it's a constant state of keeping people feeling comfortable in order to try to make decisions to move forward. Right. Especially if you're an entrepreneur, it can be sometimes a little overwhelming, you know, when you've got so many, you know, roles to play, so many hats to play. So some of the things that he said, I thought were very, very interesting. For example, he said it's easier to get people to say no than it is to get them to say yes. Now, this was really interesting because it was like, well, how you. If you get them to say no, how is that getting them where you want them to be? Because, you know, all the sales techniques that you hear is get them constantly saying yes, nodding their head. He says, but when you're in these situations, you have to remember it's. People are trying to avoid saying yes, especially if you're trying to sell them something, right. So they're on guard, he said. So he says, what you can do is you can ask questions like, for example, you explain what your product is and the benefits. Right. And maybe how it can benefit them. And so rather than saying, would you agree with that, you. You could ask them something like this. There anything that I said that you would disagree with.

Nice.

Giving them to say yes by saying no. Right. And so it sort of takes their guard down a little bit. You know, it's not manipulative. It's basically getting them to relax, you know, so, you know, they know that there's somebody who's trying to get them to agree to something which is going to, you know, create some stress for them. But if you ask them if there's anything that they would disagree with, you know, questions sort of in that kind of a vein, it keeps them sort of thinking about, wow, you know, no, I can't say there's anything that I would disagree with. Right. It's very interesting. And again, you know, when he's in a hostage situation, the person's obviously, it's a very tense situation, so he's trying to get them to relax. Right. And the person is obviously going to be feeling like this guy's going to try to turn this situation on me or figure out a way to make it to his benefit. And that was just an easier way to get them to move towards the way he wanted to say. And the words that he said was, he says, let other people have your way.

I thought that was just such a great way of saying it. Right. So they're just sort of going along with you. Right. Without sort of creating that tension and frustration.

Oh, that's brilliant. I love it.

Yeah. Yeah. So I really like that. I thought that was very interesting.

The other thing I thought was really interesting, he said.

You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your highest level of preparation.

Isn't that really interesting? So I guess especially when you talk about his kind of things that he does.

You know, if we haven't prepared, right. We think we're going to rise to the occasion, but you can basically only go to your level of preparation. So it may require more. So if you're not prepared, what he's really saying is if you're not prepared, you're going to drop to that level of what you prepared for. Right. And just, again, just an interesting way to look at it.

So.

A lot of people do try to wing it.

Yeah. And so if you do and then you're not prepared something, chances are you're gonna get asked a question you can't answer. Or if you're going to be doing a. Say you're gonna do a presentation. Right. You think, well, I know my material. But if you haven't really prepared. Right. To give that presentation and you do, just like you said, you wing it. You know, chances are you may start to stumble somewhere and then you bring in stress. And if you start to bring in stress, it's going to change the way your mind is going to work. So everything about our program is all built on getting people into a flow state, alpha brainwave state. When we're in that alpha brainwave state, our mind feels very relaxed but super focused and information flows. But if for any reason you don't feel like you've really prepared well, or somebody throws you off with a question that you hadn't really thought about before, you weren't prepared for it, then you start to bring in the stress, and that changes the state the way the mind's. And then the mind may go more into a beta state the too fast.

Have you ever run into somebody, say, in a store, and you're with somebody else and you want to introduce the person, but you can't think of their name? Right. And then you're, like, trying so hard to think of their name and trying to avoid having to make the introduction to their name comes to your mind. That just doesn't come. Right. And then as soon as they walk away, then you remember their name.

Yes.

Because you took the stress out. Right. Then you went back into a flow state. So it's the same thing with this kind of a thing, you know, be prepared for whatever you're doing, and you're going to not rise to it. You're going to drop to wherever you are. Just a different way of looking at it. And I think, especially when they're looking at life and death situations, that's the way they looked at it. Right? Yeah.

I would hope that my hostage negotiator would have been very prepared.

Yes, exactly. You know, same thing I always say to people when they. I say, do you want your neurosurgeon nervous? No. No, we don't want him nervous. Do we want him prepared? Absolutely. Right. And so it's the same thing with every. Whatever you're doing. Right. You want to have that same kind of mindset. Right. Do it at your best level and be prepared to do it at your best level. So just again, it's another. Interesting.

Another way to look at it. The other thing that he talked about, he says. He says, I let out no a little at a time.

Okay, Elaborate, please.

So what he's saying is, is if somebody asks him a question, he's not going to absolutely come up with a no.

Right.

He's going to let out no a little at a time. So he may ask a question, you know, as opposed to saying no, he may say, what is it that you're looking for? In that it may be difficult to get there. Is there another way for us to look at this? Is there another alternative to look at this as opposed to saying no. Right. So again, you know, if he's in a hostage situation, the person says, you know, I need a. Need a helicopter. I need a million Dollars worth of cash. Right. Well, that's going to be really difficult for us to do. Right. Is there another way for us to get what you're looking for? Right. Without reaching that level? So what he's really saying is, no, you're not getting helicopter. You're not getting the cash. But he didn't say that directly. So then it starts to get the person into a situation where they've got a compromise.

Now, that reminds me of parenting, you know, like, there's always a negotiation, and.

I've been, you know, pretty good about setting boundaries and holding to them. But that sounds like a much better way to handle things.

Yeah. Because it doesn't give into the tense situation or standoff. It's like your way or my way. It's like, well, let's take a look at this. Right. How can we compromise? What can we come up with? Right. That wouldn't be that, but maybe something else that you could live with. So I always thought, I thought was a great way of, you know, when you're getting children, you want them to do their homework. So one of the things that I thought was a brilliant way of doing it is you say to them, so they want to maybe play for a little while. Right. So they want to go outside and play. So that the way you could say it to them is you can go out and play for an hour now and then come in and do your homework. Or if you get your homework done now, you should be able to play for two hours before bedtime.

Right.

So what they're doing. So you're getting the homework done. But they believe that they're now thinking about whether they want to play for an hour or two hours.

Right. And that makes it a lot easier, especially when you're. When children. You know, I wish I had to know more of these techniques when I was raising my kids, but I was always a softy. I always just let in. Right. I only had certain standards I wanted to make sure. So I wanted to make sure that they got their homework done, that they kept good grades in school, you know, things like that. But how they accomplished it, I was a little easier on that because my kids were into a lot of sports and they were constantly doing that kind of stuff. And, you know, my wife was always saying, well, they should have a job, they should have to work. They should learn those kinds of things. And I was like, well, you know, you know, isn't it more important they, you know, get their schoolwork done at the highest level? Right. And so when I realized it actually probably would have been good for them to have a job, to do some things, you know. And so we did that a little bit, you know, with my oldest son, and my daughter was an actress. But those kinds of. Even chores, right, even around the house are sort of good things to do. So again, that comes down to, would you like to, you know, clean your room now? And then you can play up until dinner time. Right. Or go play, but then you have to be in an hour so you can finish off your.

You know, finish cleaning your room. It's a marshmallow test. You know that. Marshmallow test, Right. The same kind of thing. In that study, they found that children that were willing to postpone that gratification tended to be a lot more successful and happy. And people that couldn't delay that gratification tended to be more impulsive. Right. Didn't make the best decisions. And they did that study, I think, was it over 25 years they studied those.

Children. Right. And the overwhelming evidence showed that when children were willing to postpone that gratification, they were highly successful, as opposed to the kids that couldn't wait. What kind of. What kind of kid were you? Would you have waited for the two marshmallows? Would you have taken the one marshmallow?

What was the time period?

It was. I think it was like an hour.

Oh, an hour. Yeah. I would have waited.

Yeah. So you can have the one marshmallow an hour, two in an hour, right? Yeah. I was the same thing. I was like, yeah, okay, whatever. I'll wait two hours. I don't even care. It was the same thing. I'm still the same way with presents. Somebody will buy a present, say, I bought you a present, and I'll say, okay, great. You know what it is? No, I'll wait.

I've just always been like that. I really could care less. Right. Presents could be around the Christmas tree, and I wasn't the kind of kid that would want to peek.

Oh, you wouldn't take them or anything?

No, I would just. I liked waiting for the surprise. I always thought it was more exciting to wait and find out what I was going to get.

Yeah, that's fun. But I also like to guess because I like to be right.

Really?

Yes.

Yeah. I was just sort of one of those kids that didn't mind waiting. You know, My youngest son was exactly the same way. He could really care less about even getting a present. You know, you'd ask him, what do you want for Christmas? I don't care. Whatever. Right? What do you want for your birthday? Whatever you want, you couldn't get out of them. My daughter, she never stopped writing. I mean, she would give you a list.

Yeah, I know. But. Yeah, they just. But just the difference in the way, you know, children think. So again, you know, one of these. I speak of that spartan leadership stuff, and Lonnie Main, who's the moderator for that, that's what he talked about, is he said his three children are completely different. He says they would respond completely different to the same question. So there's a great reason why some of these tools that this FBI hostage negotiator talked about. If you could be as good as I as a hostage negotiator, you could probably do a good job raising your kids.

Yeah, I feel like a hostage sometimes with children.

Yeah, it does. Because, you know, you as a parent, you want to give them everything, right? You want to shower them with all the gifts and everything. But at the same time, we're really not doing them a favor if we don't teach them to fend for themselves or to wait or delay gratification. All those kinds of things are important lessons. So. Yeah. What were some of the others here? Oh, yeah, this is. This is a really important one. He said people make decisions, right, to avoid the fear of loss.

He said that's the primary motive for people is that they're going to lose something. So they will make a decision, you know, and I guess in terms of sales and marketing, you know, these companies, Amazon, all these guys probably know that really well. Like, how do they build in those techniques? But what he said was the fear of loss is the most important thing that people will think about when they're making decisions. So if you're trying to get something done or accomplished. Right. Again, we're not talking about manipulating anybody, but if you understand that that fear of losing something is what is really driving most people, you can build what you're trying to do around that fear of loss.

Right. Like in my previous life when I was doing coaching, we would do an urgency bonus. Like, if you make a decision with it, within 24 hours, you get this bonus. If you don't, it's taken away.

Yeah, yeah. It's one of those things where I, for some reason, I've never. I found it just strange when somebody would say, you know, oh, you're going to get, you know, we're going to give you a two for one. You know, all those different sales all the time that people. My wife, like, falls for every one of those. She just loves Those guys today, I said, whatever Express did, you should copy. They were amazing. Because she would come back and say, well, if I got that, then I got 30% off of the next one. Right. Or I got 50% off of the next one. And I said, they just marked the first one up. Right. It was like, no, no, no, It's a really good deal. Right. So again, just. That's the way from the marketing side. But I used to always sort of look at it. I guess I'm just so analytical at times. I look at sort of the, like, nobody's giving anything for free. There's got to be a reason why they're doing what they're doing. Right, Right. That, you know, tended to be. Be the reason.

Yeah. We're funny that way, though. We like, especially the women that I know, we love to get a good deal.

Yep, yep. Yeah. It's so true. I can't tell you how many times my wife says, you know how much money I saved today?

And I was like, really saved.

But again, it's just the mindset, right. Of it's a good deal.

Yes.

So the other thing that he said that was really interesting. He says, so at a. At a hotel, for example, you want to get an upgrade, right. Or you want to get a later checkout, Right. He says what he would generally do is say. He'd walk up to him and say, I'm going to ask you something that's going to really make your day terrible. And he says, and then they would go like, what? Right. And he said, I'd like to get an extended checkout.

Right? Oh.

And then they'd laugh, say, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. Right. But he would just, like, try to make it like it's going to be worse. And then he says, and then you make it easier. And people are willing to say, yes if it doesn't feel too. Like you're asking for too much. So. Yep. So he was really good at some of those things. The same thing, too, is what he talked about with emails. He says, I'm always amazed when I would see somebody send an email that would have all this information in it. And he says, I look at sending information or emails, things like that, like playing chess. He said, you don't make seven moves every time. You're not seven moves in advance. You make one move at a time. He says, so if I'm trying to get something done, I basically put my one move out there and then get the reaction. Once I've got a reaction to that, then I'll Move on to the next move. So it's again, an interesting way of looking at it because it's so true. He says, you know, I get these long, you know, three, four paragraph emails with all this information in it. And I'm like, that's just overwhelming. Most people will miss most of the things that you're actually trying to get them to do. So if you keep it to one thing, get that, you either want to know yes or no to that before you move on to the next one. And you may get more out of it because they're going to feel like they don't want to say yes to seven things.

Yeah. But they'll do it one at a time. A lot easier.

Yeah, I like that.

Let me just see.

Yeah, that's really important for marketing as well, because, like, for example, I just got a Facebook messenger message and it was like, I see we've been friends for a long time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she didn't wait for me to respond to that. She went on with her offering like, I'm forming a CBD business. I'm like, oh, gosh, yeah, yeah, Yep.

That's the difference. So if you keep it simple, but keep it to what you're looking for, then it's a lot easier. Which, again, using the analogy of chess. Right. Makes it a lot easier. Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Did I lose you there? Okay, got you back.

You just lost your face. We can still hear you now. I can see you.

Okay. Yep, yep. So that's probably about it. I'm trying to think if there was anything else that was really a good with him. Anyway.

There'S another gentleman there, was from Amsterdam, and he does a thing called Internet fasting, where he basically only works on the Internet so many hours a day. And he says he just stays away from it. He says, so he just won't look at it, won't touch it. Then when he goes to it, he's on it and that's it. And then he stops.

Which is when you think about the way we do our lives right now, that's a big shift in the way we'd have to do it. But he says, I still get everything done. Very successful guy. So it's not like he's not doing well with it.

I really like that idea because then you're present with life and a lot of people aren't. They're just not even present with their families or their friends. They're always connected to that device.

We were out at our restaurant, we saw this family come in. There were 11 of them in the family, and they all came in and sat down, and you could tell it was all the way from the parents to the kids. Plus they had the grandmother there. And I was looking over at them. Nobody was even talking to each other. Everybody was on their cell phone, including the grandmother.

Oh, my.

And I was like, that's unbelievable. Like, 11 people at one table, and nobody was talking. They were all on their cell phones.

I was really tempted to film that.

Yeah. Yeah. I watched it for a while, and it was. It went on for quite a while. And until the server came up, nobody was really looking up. Everybody was so engrossed in what. Whatever was on their phone, which, you know, we all have that tendency to sometimes get too involved in that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So sometimes just good to put our phones down.

Yes. Or put them in the box at night, you know, when you get home from work or whatever, put your phone in a box and don't look at it.

So that it's difficult to do at times.

It is, yeah.

Usually leave my phone in my office, so that way I'm not, you know, bothered by it. In the middle of the night, you know, beeping. Because if I hear that ding, it's sort of like, oh, I wonder what that was. But if I don't hear it, I'm not thinking about it.

Right. In response.

Yeah, there you go. Exactly.

Well, this has been really fascinating. I love the FBI negotiator tactics. And I'm definitely gonna go back and watch this and write them all down and start practicing thing with my children.

Yeah, they were very, very good. He was a great speaker. So I'm glad you share some of these things because I just thought there were so many great things that. These are just little pearls of wisdom that you pick up every once in a while that you've never thought about. So hopefully, people get a lot out of this and use them.

Yes. So if you got something out of this, please share it. We would love to have your comments and your shares. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you, Dr. Wood.

Thanks, Karen.

See you next time.