#40: Chris Voss, Author & Former FBI Negotiator - Negotiating like your life depended on it, when no is better than yes, and the perils of reading body language

Connecting as a human being is useful in all circumstances, even adversarial. I remember we arrested a guy one time, White called a crime, arrest five of us who opened in his dude's house. And he wasn't a dangerous guy, but I can see in a look on his face that he's thinking about running and he's gonna get injured. I mean, if we tackle him, no matter how hard we try, we got to twist his arm. He's gonna get bruised up at least, and this is just unnecessary. And I can see him look around, looking around, looking around, and I just go, look at me. And I go, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna take you into custody, you're gonna make bond, you're gonna be back out of jail by the end of the day. You're connected with your time. There's no reason for you to get hurt here. And he just relaxed, and we took him out of there, put the cuffs on him. I could admit, when we got back to the office, my colleagues went, where's that guy? Every day, the guy we deal with is a lot harsher than that. You're actually a nice guy.

Yeah.

I'm like, yeah, well, I'm not locking you guys up.

On today's episode, we have author and former FBI negotiator Chris Voss. Steve, Chris is the real deal. You know, we've read his book. His books. Excuse me. We've seen him on podcasts, and he's an expert negotiator. He's amazing, and he did not disappoint on this episode. He really came with everything he had.

Jake, this podcast was a blast. And having Chris on our show and actually delving into some of the issues of tactical empathy and when no is better than yes. And how he got into negotiations was just a treat. And it's like, Jake, you've said many a times, our whole life is a negotiation, Whether it's family or kids or Etc. This was a. This was a great show. And like negotiations, you have to keep on practicing to be better.

Yeah, that's so right. Yeah. Like you said, you negotiations aren't just in businesses or hostage situations. It could be as simple as, hey, where do you want to go to dinner tonight? And so even if you don't own a business, even if you're not in investing or anything like that, this is a book and this is a podcast that can benefit you. So tune in, but let's just head west, so stay tuned as we discuss negotiating like your life depended on it. When no is better than yes. And the perils of reading Body Language with our guest, Chris Voss. This episode is brought to you by Skyline Point Capital. If you're anything like me, you're always considering where to invest your money. Stocks, bonds, crypto, a rental home. The list is literally endless. As we've all seen over the past year, the stock market is unstable, the housing market is just weird and inflation is on the rise. In times like these, the clear place to invest my money is in multifamily real estate, AKA apartment complexes. Here's why. Returns on real estate investments have little to no correlation with the stock market. There's lower volatility, stable income streams, and the tax benefits are insane. And let's not forget that the apartments will typically appreciate in value over time, which means you can walk away with a pretty nice return when the complex is sold in three to five years. Best of all, multifamily investing is passive, so you get all the benefits without the hassle and headache of your typical rental home investment. Getting started has never been easier. Head to skylinepointcapital.com to learn how you can start investing today. Well, Chris, most of our viewers are going to be familiar with you. You're a well known entity. If they haven't read your book, which most of our audience probably has because they're business owners, they're real estate investors, they've at least seen you on a podcast. Lex Friedman's Andrew Hubermans. I mean, you name it, you've been on it. So I'm sure they're well familiar with you and your story, especially of becoming going from an FBI lead negotiator, hostage situations, high intensity situations, to authoring a book, becoming a consultant, to really a teacher and coach for how to negotiate. So where I feel like it would be a fun place to start is really to explore the the in between. Right. To begin our conversation of how did you transition from FBI negotiator into authoring a book and what ultimately led you to actually putting thoughts and all your training and everything into this, this awesome book?

Yeah, well, I always suspected that the skills applied to everyday life, starting when I volunteered on the crisis hotline in New York in the 1990s, early 90s at that. Why should only people in crisis be the recipients of empathy? Not sympathy, but empathy. So then I started experimenting using in my personal professional life, applied it across the board. When I got out of the bureau immediately people were encouraging me, write a book, write a book, write a book. Like you don't have credibility if you haven't written a book. And I didn't feel like we had the system built from end to end. So I was lucky enough to start teaching at Georgetown and getting proof of concept. You know, I made the students in my class in the MBA program apply that hostage negotiation skills, which became a black swan skills in their everyday life, and then do papers writing up how it went and what were the outcome. And people just started hitting out of the park. And so after we had enough proof of concept in the real world, then it was time to put it, put together a book. I want to make sure we had a system from end to end. And that took a few years. I left the Bureau in 2009. The book came out in 2016. We got superstar writer Tal Ross, and he made the magic happen.

I love that. So walk us through what were some of those everyday situations that you said are. I'm gonna test this out. I've, you know, I've done it in high stakes negotiations with hostages. But kind of walk us through what were a few of the ones that you just started? Was it buying coffee? Was it, you know, buying a home? What did that look like it?

Well, you know, the hotline, you. You really learn just to read emotions and reflect back. What you read is tell them what you read. You know, they called it reflection on the hostage negotiation or in the. On a hotline. And it was really emotional labeling. You know, it seems like you're angry. It seems like you're angry, but you're probably hurt. I began to really learn that emotions were often a result. If you're angry, it's a result of something else. Usually you've been hurt. And so I just started reading people's emotions in my everyday interactions, mostly my colleagues. Because most of your conversations are with your colleagues on a daily basis. And I'd start feeding back to them what emotions I was reading. And I remember one in particular said, you're reading my mind. And I said, no, I'm reading your emotions. But consequently, I get a read of your mind from that. So just all my interactions, my everyday interactions, and then learning how to connect with people, how to get people's attention. I remember we, we arrested a guy one time, white collar crime arrest. It was a big sweep. You know, we went out there, probably 15, 20 arrest, arrest teams went out. We went out to arrest this guy. Five of us rolled in this dude's house. And he wasn't a dangerous guy, but it was a plan, it was a protocol. And the bureau tends to stay out of gunfights because we bring more. More people in. And it just doesn't make sense if you're by yourself to get into a gunfight with seven guys, you're going to give up. You're, you know, out of survival. So we take about five guys in this guy's house. This white collar criminal, not a big dude, not a big dangerous dude, but I can see in a look on his face that he's thinking about running and he's going to get injured. I mean, if we tackle him, no matter how hard we try, we got to twist his arm. He's going to get bruised up at least. And this is just unnecessary because, you know, we're going to lock him up. It's white collar. He's going to make bond, and he's not going to do any heavy amount of time. You know, who knows? He might not do any time at all. So there's no point in this guy getting hurt. And I can see him look around, looking around, looking around. And I just go, look at me. Because I needed to get his attention a little bit like Chili Palmer and get short of people look at me. But instead of following up by being menacing, when we lock eyes, I go, I'm Chris. And so it's the opening line from a hostage negotiation. It's the opening line to an introduction. You can walk up to people, you say, I'm Chris, and you let him look at you in the eye and connect. And he looked at me and he calmed down and he felt the connection with a person instead of the FBI agents that'll lock him up. And I go, here's what's going to happen. We're going to take you into custody, you're going to make bond. You're going to be back out of jail by the end of the day. You're connect with your time. There's no reason for you to get hurt here. And he just relaxed and we took him out of there. You know, we put the cuffs on him. I could admit when we got back to the office, my colleagues went, where's that guy? Every day, the guy we deal with is a lot harsher than that. You're actually a nice guy. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, well, I'm not locking you guys up.

Boy, you lay that. You lay that late night voice on anybody, they're gonna. They're gonna stop whatever they're doing.

Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, I just connected as a human being. So I thought connecting as a human being is useful in all circumstances, even adversarial Ones.

Chris. It sounds like it's more important than. It's more important how you say it than what you actually say.

Well, tonality is like putting a spin on a bullet. It's whether or not it lands. And so tonality is step one. And if your tonality is only great, it's amazing what you can get away saying. And so I would. I would start out with the opener. You want your words to land how you say it. Tonality, inflection. Whether you're inflection down or they're inflecting up, like, that's that. There's some mastery there that I really used to always focus on downward inflection until I read Jordan Belfort's book, the Way of the Wolf. I like Jordan. You know, I. I have a social media show on an app called Fireside. Jordan's been a guest on that. I've been a guest on. On his podcast. I learned from everybody. And when I read his book, I think it was chapter seven on tonality that I. He talked about the tone of him, inquisitiveness, you know, the upward inflection. And I bang. That's it. You know, there's a piece that I hadn't fully considered before, and no matter what you think of Jordan Belfort, he was good at what he did, and he's still very good at sales. Sales, conversations. So tonality. And that's a piece that I learned from Belfort to be. To be aware of. He's smart, dude. I like his thinking.

And then. Then on the downward inflection as compared to the upward inflection.

Yeah, downward is. I get it. And there's a neural trigger there. It's a soothing, calming voice that actually slows the brain down. And if I can slow your brain down, I'll slow your emotions down when negative emotions are out of control. You called it the late night FM DJ voice. It was a voice that hostage negotiators are taught to use from the very beginning, which is the only thing that really flips between hostage negotiation and business negotiation. We teach people to use, you know, the happy, smiling voice. And if you smile, people can actually feel it because it's a neural connection. In business, use that voice 80% of the time, 10 to 20%. The downward inflicting voice. I get it. You give the other side confidence in you. It builds their confidence in you when you use the downward inflection. It's great. TV news anchors, great anchors, you know, not the clickbait, stir the population up type people. You know, wolf Blitzer, I think, has a great downward inflecting voice. It gives a feeling of confidence and that confidence is contagious. And so then the upward inflecting voice, in place of asking a question or to get a word to land, we teach some very counterintuitive skills. And I will say one of them, when I got a day long training in the morning, I'm going to say labeling negatives that don't yet exist inoculates people. It doesn't plant them. That's one of the things that we teach that's the scariest of all. People think they're going to speak the devil into existence. If I label a negative, you're going to get negative in a point of fact, that inoculates from it. So we'll teach that in the morning. Then the afternoon we got a whole strategy called the accusations on it. We'll go through it, somebody raised their hand and they'll say, but won't that plant the naked. Now I can say when I told you it won't plant the negative, but inoculated this morning you thought I was a liar. Now that gets close to an accusation. But if I say, when I told you this morning that speaking a negative in advance doesn't plant it, but inoculates from it, the song was a liar. Well, the second one will land exact same words. So, you know, you asked me if it was more important on a relative scale. It's a larger percentage of the communication. It's what really enhances how your words land.

Earlier in our discussion, you had touched on it and Steve had teased it out a little bit. This thing that you talk about frequently is looks like, seems like, feel, feels like. Can you explain that concept a little bit why it's so powerful and what's going on internally into the person hearing it?

Well, that aspect's called the label. And it's a verbal observation and it lands well in the brain. It doesn't feel like a question, even though it's often an inquiry. You know, if, if I want to get a response from you that triggers your thinking, simultaneously triggers your thinking, makes you feel listened to. And then I want an unvarnished answer. If I put it in the terms of a label or verbal observation. Looks like, sounds like, seems like, feels like that triggers your thinking, it feels collaborative to you, and it actually triggers the thinking of the people around you. There's something about it that triggers people, triggers people's analytical thing. You know, you contemplate and then you come right back without thinking about your answer. First and what do I mean by that? You ask me a question and I say, what do you mean by that? What makes you ask? Because the question behind the question is often more important. You'll stop and think about what makes you ask. You go into a quadrant of your brain, for lack of a better term, where you think deeply and you'll consider the response. And after you've considered it, you give me an answer. Now that requires a lot of energy on your part and I may not want you to filter the answer. So instead of saying what makes you ask, if I say, seems like you have a reason for asking, you'll come right back with the answer. You're triggered with no mental effort, which is particularly important at the end of the day when you're tired because you can't answer a good what question? When you're tired, you're just kind of like, oh God, you just, just answer the freaking question. It doesn't matter why I ask when you I want an answer, you don't give me an answer when you're tired. So the label hits your brain in a different way. I don't know why, I just know it does.

Chris, in addition to labeling, there's a term mislabeling. And I have found mislabeling in a negotiation or a conversation. I really want to test something on them and see if there really is an issue. And, and when I've done that, majority of time it comes additional information that I didn't even know about came out when I mislabeled. Could you, could you describe to the group what's mislabeling and when you should use that?

Yeah, that's, you know, it's, it's this great unintended consequence that's always in your favor. People are afraid to label because they're afraid they're going to get wrong. You know, if I label, if I label this and I get it wrong, they're going to yell at me. Well, first of all, that flies in a face of empathy because you're getting too self centered if you're getting yelled at, if you're embarrassed, you're self centered, you're not focusing on the other person. But the mislabel triggers extra information. There's something about correcting and correcting as a result of a label correcting is very satisfying on the part of the user, which makes it a great emotional intelligence thing to kick into gear. Because I want you to feel satisfied with the conversation if it's really about you and about how I'm getting You to feel when, if I mislabel and you correct me, you're going to feel good, you're going to love it, you're going to want more. And typically people correct with unvarnished truth and they probably correct with stuff that maybe they shouldn't have told you. And it, it ends up being this great mechanism for getting closely held information that they don't regret telling you. Like if I ask you a question or if I corner you with questions and I pry something out of you and I get that closely held information via that method, chances are very high you're going to regret it. It's going to diminish our relationship, you're going to change things around. The value of that information is going to decrease. All these bad things happen if I pry information out of you, but if I get it out of you based on a correction. You know the old phrase people don't remember what they said or what you said, they remember how they felt. You'll retain the feeling of correction, which is satisfying. You want more, you want to correct some more. And we get people in negotiations all the time intentionally mislabeling to quickly get closely held information that the other side is never going to regret.

Brilliant. I imagine in order to label or mislabel, you've got to, as you're entering a negotiation, you at least have to have some sense of what the other party is interested in or what they're coming to the table with. And correct me if I'm wrong there. But if that's true, are there any effective ways of teasing that out early on so that you are equipped to be able to mislabel or label? I guess mislabeling is a way of teasing it out what they want. But is there any way of effectively learning quickly what someone wants in a negotiation so that you can label?

Well, you could spend too much time researching. That's the three types of negotiators, three types of people that how they approach conflict globally, fight flight, make friends. We have plenty of reason for contending that the world splits evenly into thirds. Doesn't matter if you're Asian, Western, European, African American, African, Hispanic, it doesn't matter. We've seen the world split pretty evenly into types of those three types. The analysts want to research like crazy before they come to the table. Let me find out everything about this person. Problem with that is you'll spend a month researching stuff you could have triggered at the table in an hour. If you're working for me, I don't want you to spend A month getting ready to go to the table. I want you to spend a day, an afternoon. I'm going to want you to get to the table because it gets information faster. So do some research. Just don't get crazy wanting to know everything. Now, when you get into it, use labels fearlessly. If they land, the other side's gonna love it because you would listen. If it's a mislabel, the other side's gonna love it because they get to correct. So, you know, don't be afraid of your labels. Try to label them accurately, but you're not going to get them all accurate. And then what you want to do is look for affect shifts. What do I mean by an affect shift? Somebody's body language changes at all. Eye movement changes, there's a hesitation, they look down, they look up. Any physical change at all that appears to be connected to the thought pattern. Now, this happens to be one of the reasons why we don't teach body language, because your guess at what emotion or thought is triggering that affect shift, that physical change is if you're really good, it's right one third of the time, which means you're usually wrong. So instead of guessing, you label it and you say something is innocuous. Seems like something just crossed your mind, or it seems like you had a thought or seems like you reacted to that. Let them tell you what it is. I'm listening to you guys mentioned Andrew Huberman. I'm listening to one of his podcasts. Big fan of Andrew. Consider him a friend. He's a great guy, flattered, and honored to have been on his podcast at all. He's talking to a psychologist, and they happen to get into body language. Smart woman. And she says, yeah, you know, when somebody's frowning, you know, we've run the data, and if they're frowning, you can accurately guess that they're angry about a third of the time. And she said, basically, that's. That's not a bad percentage, but it's still only a third of the time. Now, they could be frowning because they're angry. It could be frowning because they got gas. And if your body language class taught you a frown means anger, and you react as if they're angry without finding out you're an idiot because they got gas. So the third type is like when I tend to frown when I'm listening intently, I refer to it as my resting serial killer.

I like that one.

I. I look at you with such intensity. I had one speaker tell me, you scared me. You know, you. I. We're in a small group. She's speaking to a small group. I'm. I'm listening intently because she was phenomenal. And she came up to me later when we were talking, and finally she says, you know, I gotta tell you, you scared the hell out.

She should have said, seems like you're upset with me about something. There you go.

Right? If she'd only know light.

Yeah.

So, yeah. Label the body language. Label. Label every change in the body language. Seems like something just crossed your mind. Find out what it is in a way that makes them want to.

Now, is it going off that thought? If you are labeling someone's body change or, you know, if they look left or look right, is it then safe to ascribe that, that change of body language going forward? So if they always look left, you now know, because they've already affirmed it or denied what that meant?

Well, it's a.

It's a little safer. I still want to live. You know, the last time when I looked left, it meant they were considering. And so if they look left again, I might say it seems like I hit the mark. You know, I'm still labeling in general enough terms to stimulate thinking with everybody involved. I heard Sam Harris on a podcast refer to empathy as a species of reason. And I thought, yeah, there's a lot of this has. Has to do with introspection and analysis. Let me actually pay attention to what you're. How you're reacting when we do a minimal amount of analysis on it, and then let's kind of analyze it collaborative. And so the more analysis I get, the more accurate my guesses are going to be. And still, at the same time, you're not 100% sure. You know, my son, Brandon, brilliant negotiator, goes dead silent when he's thinking, and he goes dead silent when he's angry. And so I'll say, seems like you're thinking about this just to make sure, especially if we're on the phone, like, dead silence with him. Like, you know, he could be wanting to strangle the life out of him, or it could be in complete agreement and triggering great thoughts. Since I can't see him, I got labeled, I guess.

Yeah. He thought that what you said was the wisest thing he's ever heard, and he's contemplating its magnitude. Or he just. He's. Yes. Has sustained for you at the moment.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Especially. Especially with your offspring. Right.

Yeah, Right.

You never know.

You. You had used the word empathy there, and I've heard you. Correct me if I'm wrong. I've heard you say that empathy is the. You don't quite need to agree with whatever you're hearing or whatever the other person's saying, but you do need to understand where it is they're coming from. How important is empathy in effective negotiation? Do you have to come to an understanding of where they're coming from in order to negotiate? Well, is that a prerequisite or can you still do it without. Without that level of empathy?

Yeah. Well, that's a great question. So how can you make a great deal if you don't know where they're coming from? It's kind of impossible. And I'm looking to make a great deal. I'm looking to make a great deal with everybody I talk to that they stick with or I want to know what they think a great deal is so that I can make an informed decision on whether or not I'm going to accept. And so you'll never make great deals without knowing where the other side's coming from. You know, is there an emotional satisfaction here? Is there a critical component to the deal that you, without it, it's going to fall apart from? If you look at it as just understanding how they see it and where they're coming from? I would contend that without that perspective, it's impossible to make an A plus deal. And I'm only interested in great deals. Mediocre deals are expensive. They're full of renegotiations. They cost way more than whatever you thought you were going to get out of it because it's going to be implemented in a very sloppy fashion and you're going to have a lot of time spent renegotiating and fixing it. Like if you give me full price on a lousy deal, I'm probably taking a 50% pay cut because implementation is going to be so bad. So I'm only interested in making great deals.

Chris, you mentioned the three personalities. Fight, flight, or friend. My myself, personally, I would much rather negotiate with a tough person that knows what they want than someone that doesn't or is giving off signals that I've got to go back to my boss or I've got to get additional information. And remember you made the comment in your book or it was on the mastermind that usually the person that's says they have to go back and get approval from the boss is usually the person that can make the decision right then and there as compared to the one who wants to make the decision and he really doesn't have to. Can you elaborate on that? And help people like me that love a tougher negotiator than someone that's kind of hard to read.

Yeah, that's. There's a lot of good stuff in there. So each type. Fight, flight, make friends. Assertive, analytical, accommodate. To really be a full, top tier, top performing, A plus player, you need elements of both. You're born with elements of one, you need to learn the elements of the other. And the assertive. Somebody that knows what they want. Like, how the hell can you make a great deal if you don't know what they want? You know, if, if you never tell me what you want, you're making me guess, which decreases the chances that you're going to get what you want, which decreases the chances that we'll implement and will severely decrease the chances that you will ever deal with me again. Because you kept it a secret. You made me guess.

Not helpful for anyone.

Yeah. So, you know, I love the fact that you prefer somebody who tells you what they want now. Then the next thing, like, are they different in the negotiation? You know, the more they defer to people that are not in the room. It's a great way to buy time to think about stuff when they're actually the one that wants to make the decision. You want 36 hours, they want 72 hours. I love the people that are constantly talking about who they're deferring to. And I got a board of directors. I'm scared of my boss. Any of these have to talk to.

My wife or whatever that is.

Yeah. All right, cool. I'm probably talking to the most influential person here or has significant influence. I love that. Because now I can start asking questions. If they feel like they're not getting pinned down, I can say something like, how's this going to pass? How did it break down in the past? What else have you tried? Who else does this affect? How do they feel about it? You know, the person who's deferring what they are, is trying to tell you their team is important to them. You start asking about the team, they're like, okay, maybe they're not trying to corner me. Maybe they are trying to make a great deal. So understanding how influential the person is in a. I'm talking to at the moment, you know, the, the decision maker, the dm, that's the, the biggest fallacy. Because a great decision maker is going to defer to their team and they got deal killers. I'm more interested in the deal killer than the decision maker because the decision maker has got to, even if he doesn't want to go to his team for the decision. They're going to tor peter the deal when they get the chance. So they're still going to kill the deal anyway. You know, the deal killers are very important. Somebody's deferring to other people. You may be talking to the deal killer, which is a really valuable source of information.

I'd love to hear how you prepare to negotiate now. You know, when most people hear the word negotiation, they're thinking hostage situation, they're thinking business deal. But as you've pointed out, negotiations are happening at all times. You know, whether you're, you're talking to your spouse about which restaurant you're going to go to or you're brokering an actual business deal. So let's just set up an example in which you're, you already know you're going to go into brokering your business deal, right? You're going to negotiate a contract. Is there anything you do specifically to prepare for that? Or, or are you preparing every day with just every interaction? And therefore, when you show up to any negotiation, you're pretty ready and limber and ready to go?

Well, I'm constantly practicing my emotional reads because I'm going to need to do an emotional read in, in the negotiation. So I'm, I'm always practicing that or discussion about the negotiation on my side is going to help me interact with the other side. You know, I, whatever it's going to take me to get in tune to the signals of the other side, send it off, and I happen to be having it. We're going into an important negotiation the other day. I've always sort of been triggered by the word generous when the other side says they're being generous.

Generous?

Yeah. Typically when the other side says they're being generous, what they're really doing is they're, they're grabbing. They're just not grabbing with both hands, but they're being assertive, which triggers me because, you know, I get triggered.

Don't want to be strong, armed.

And then what they're saying is like, all right, we're being aggressive, but we could have been more aggressive. So we're actually doing you a favor. And to me, that's, that ain't a favor. But what I didn't realize until I was having this conversation with my teammates before negotiation. And part of the prep is talking about it with your team. We get into the negotiation and I'll say, the problem with being generous is you compromised before you've gotten to the table. You know, you have and you're expecting appreciation, and the other side never appreciates it. You know, you defeated yourself before you got to the top. And, and, and they're not going to care because they didn't know. So at the table, and sure enough, one of the person says, you know, it's a generous offer. Then I realized that in rejecting this, I got to be really careful because I realized, all right, so what they're telling me without realizing it is they've already compromised their expectancy appreciation. And I got to appreciate the fact that they could have been harsher and that they put in work on this. Before I reject it, I gotta. I gotta express some appreciation. So at that point in time, I'm like, oh, man, I've missed how hard they've worked on this as a team. So I said to him in a meds, look, I realize you guys have been working really hard on this. I realize there's a much more aggressive approach you could have taken, and you put in a lot of effort to come to this. And I just want you to know that I appreciate how hard you guys.

It's good.

And they, the significant players on the other side of the table, relaxed. And that's when he said, all right, we'll. We'll take. Because I didn't. I didn't reject it outright. But at that point in time, they said, we'll take this back and we'll take another. Like, cool. It was their idea. And then what I did was I had a member of my team follow up immediately thereafter with another email saying, thank you for how hard you guys are working on this. And the response at that counterpart level was, that was a really kind note. So there's got to be preparation. What's the answer to your question? You gotta have some discussion with your team about in advance. You gotta not compromise in advance, but as you go through your process, have some appreciation for the other sides going through a similar process, and then look out for it and express appreciation for their hard work. When you get to the table, whatever gets you in tune. Emotion is going to be. Never mind at times, get in tune emotionally with where the other sides may be coming from coming, because they're going to need that at the table. They're going to feel exposed, they're going to feel vulnerable. They're going to feel like they're hanging themselves out there. The more you appreciate that, the more they're going to want to make a great deal with you.

The reason I asked that question. That's a great answer. Thanks for that. The, the reason I asked that question and the one before about empathy and how important it is in any negotiation is because I wonder, is there, is there any, anything we should do as we enter a hard conversation negotiation that we should be doing to prepare the other side of the table for negotiation? And sort of little context behind that is I've been in a couple negotiations where the other party did not care what, what I wanted. They didn't ask, they said they, they had their mind made up of what they wanted out of this thing, could not care less what I had in mind. And so I wonder, is there, is there any way that we could prepare their mind or get their mind to the right place to come to the table and negotiate?

You know, if nothing else, I'd express appreciation for their hard work because it's a subjective measure of how hard they've worked on it. But they're going to feel like they worked on it. You know, you may put 10 times your amount of work a day, maybe did 10 times the amount of research, but they're going to think they worked hard on it. And empathy is about how the other side sees it. It's not about the truth, it's not about your objective analysis. Empathy is about how the other side sees it. I promise you they're gonna, they're gonna think they worked hard. They're gonna think they could have been bigger jerks, they could have been more aggressive, they could have taken other opportunities. You know, they focus down on you. They think you should be grateful that they're talking to you at all. And you can say something like in advance, look, we're grateful for how hard you've worked on this. We know you have other options and we're grateful that you're talking with us because that's the way they're going to see it and they're going to feel like, you understand us, we can collaborate.

That's good.

Chris, when you're, it's funny that you're talking about this because I've been in a couple negotiations similar to what Jake was talking about, that their, their position was so firm and you felt like you couldn't get anything. I mean, there was no, there was no win. It was win, lose, it was not going to be a win win. And which was really interesting. But during that, during that negotiating process, I used some no oriented questions and it seemed to open up the door a little bit and made the, the other party kind of think about it. No, that's not unreasonable. No, that's not inconvenient. What is a no oriented question?

Yeah, well, well done. First of all, I mean that's a lot of people are scared to death to do that. So the vast majority of questions everybody asks are just simple yes oriented questions. Now they either try to manipulate the other side, walk them down a path, or simply get a confirmation. You could be asking a yes oriented question just for confirmation. You mean it respectfully. You don't mean manipulation by it. Problem is the people that are manipulated. Ask yes or any questions. You want success? You want to make more money, you want to be happy? Do you want to get discounts on everything? You want to travel the world, stay in five star hotels for free? You know all those nonsensical questions, those are manipulative. They're called micro agreements or tie downs. They violate the other person's autonomy. And it's what most sales people learn because they can't make any sales. We got no ability. And so they learn yes oriented questions, yes trap, yes momentum, and they start making some sales. They go from being an F player to a D player, even a C player. Like if you're focused on yes, you might become a C player. You don't know you're a C player. You just remember what it used to be like when you were an F player, you were getting fired. If you're, if you're getting F grades in college, they kick you out of school. If you raise the level of your performance to you get, you're getting Cs. You don't get kicked out of school and you graduate and you think, look at how much better I got. You just have no idea. On a bell curve you got so much farther to go. And I think that's why people have a tendency to really get addicted to getting yes as an answer. Plus we love hearing. And you think yes is success. And when you hear yes, the birds, the angels sing, the heavens part, you know, it's wonderful.

BIRDS chirp and that's usually if you take any negotiation classes online or in person. About 90% of them want you to get that. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. The more yeses you get, the better it turns out. Well, that's not true.

So yeah, it's, it's such nonsense. But I happen to love that all of our competitors are teaching us because then, like if you learn from me, you got an automatic competitive advantage over these people. The competitive advantage is insane. It happens so quick. If you can switch from yes to no and it is going from do you agree to do you disagree do you like this idea? Is this a ridiculous idea? It just, it takes some practice, though, because the wiring is so ingrained. To ask a yes question.

Question.

It's, it's insidious how much of a habit it is and how much you think yes is success. And everybody says, well, Noah's failure. No, it was horrible. You want to avoid no at all costs. No is mutual assured destruction. The Russians launching nukes on Americans, the Americans firing back. We're all going to die. You know, they're just atomic holocaust from no. And it's easy. People feel safe when they say no. And it takes a while to grasp it and you start looking around and you see it and you're like, wow, what happens if I make them feel safe? Do you disagree? They'll be like, no, I don't disagree. And if there's still obstacles, they'll tell you the obstacles. Because the real issue is what they say after the word every time. People are taught that whenever they say yes, they've dug themselves in deeper and so they're not going to give you valuable information after they've said yes. People are taught when they say no, they're protected themselves. They're sick. They're not afraid of digging themselves in deep. They'll say no, I don't disagree, but I need the following things out of you. Boom. You got what looks like to be a great agreement. If you can do them, great. If you can't, cool. At least, you know. And I'm really impressed that you adopted it because some people have the worst time switching from yesterday.

I can tell. Well, and I've also had training with Troy Smith. So I was one of your clients and in a tough negotiation that I had going on. And Troy Smith helped me a lot in how to process one of the.

Superstar Black Swan coaches. And he is, got a worldwide following of people that love to be coached by him. He is, he's, he's a genius. It was great, Chris.

I'd love to. I'd love to. To spend a little bit of time talking about negotiating and conversations that, that go a little bit more personal, maybe on with your spouse or a relative or your children. Do tactics. Let me give you some context. I have a four year old and a seven year old and a wife. Do tactics change?

You're surrounded.

I'm surrounded. I'm a, as I say, I'm a minority and a sorority.

They're all girls. They're all girls.

All girls. And all our pets are female as well. Do your tactics change when you're engaging with somebody in a more personal relationship. Do you approach that uniquely differently than let's say a business negotiation?

Now, the tactics don't change, the application of them will change a little bit. So let's take anger, for example, on a hotline, as a hostage negotiator in most instances, I can tell you soundbag, you see me, that's a tentative inquiry and I'm letting you know. It's what I'm hearing I'm seeing. And I'm not 100 sure. But the spouse is somebody that you've had a lot more contact with. There are certain things they don't want you to be tentative about. And you know, more advanced version, and this is real tricky, is to say, I know you're right. They don't want you to wonder, they want you to know. And there are certain professional circumstances that that encompasses as well. There's, there's kind of three levels to the martial art of negotiations, if you will. And we borrowed this term from martial arts. So shu ha and ri shu is the beginner level. Ha is intermediate and re is you're in a flow state, you're an expert, you're a master, it's just coming to you. It's very hard to stay in re. I like to think I'm consistently in a ha occasionally and read, but I know you're angry is a much ha or even re level label. Now you got to be careful with the word I because I is a self centering word. And I would never say what I'm hearing is that you're angry because that's tentative and that's too lengthy and there's, there's a bunch of other things wrong with the construction of that. And unfortunately a lot of psychologists and therapists will say, I hear anger. What I'm hearing is, you know, what they're really just trying to do is exert control with that phraseology. So there's a difference in how many words, what words accompany the word I. I tend to, tends to be self centered. But there's going to be times where the spouse, where he or she is going to want you to say, I know you're angry. And even from their perspective, if you participated in the contributing circumstances and you got to say, I know I've made you angry, that's empathy from their perspective. Not only do you know it, but as far as they're concerned, you're responsible and that's where the evolution changes. And some books will tell you otherwise. And if they say, you know this Empathy works. It just doesn't work at home. They just haven't learned it well enough. Why should your significant others not want you to genuinely know where they're coming from? It's insane to say that. It's just understanding how their perspective has evolved based on their position in life to you and how much contact you've had with them.

That's good. Chris. I would love to. This book does not need to be propped up anymore because it's a phenomenal book. But the one thing I will say is this could be categorized as a relationship book as well. And I'll tell you why I brought up my wife to, to say also is I've always been in business, so I've always been in negotiations. I've always been in contract discussions and things like that. My wife could be the further from that. My wife read this book and she said she walked away learning so much more about who I am and how I communicate and how she can communicate with me. This actually made our relationship better. So I want to give that remark for you. I don't know if you ever heard that, but it was actually a relationship builder for my wife and I. I love it.

I love that. I. To me, that that's just an indicator of two people trying really hard to understand each other for the betterment of your relationship and both. So I think that's cool.

Yep. Appreciate that. Well, I, I would love to. I can see it right over your back shoulder. The full fee agents. This, this is your newest book. There you go, Steve. Your newest book. I'd love to hear your, how that came about. And you know, you really diving into the real estate world with this. And can you talk to us a little about that and how you got into the real estate side of things?

Yeah. Well, about seven years ago, my son Brandon says, you got to talk to this guy, Steve Scholl. He's a good guy. I'm like, all right, that's good enough recommendation for me. And Steve Scholl is in the Los Angeles area coaching real estate agency. Very successful on the old format.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Conveyance, presentation, listing presentations, all the nonsense. And Steve was just like a work hard guy, outwork everybody and you'll be successful. And every aspect of his life showed it. He was, he played in the NFL. He got an mba. After that he was on Wall street, made a lot of money on Wall street, became a real estate agent himself, got good at it. And since he played in the NFL and loved great coaches, wanted to coach People, but by sheer hard work and determination. Successful at every level. And he reads numbers with the difference. And he's like, man, this is. I'm a C player. And we, we got to be a players. The application of empathy. This is, this is a total paradigm shift. So he reaches out, we start calling coaching real estate agents together with a whole new format. And the agents are making more money and working less. Like some agents have reported working 80% less and making the same amount of money. Insane.

Wow.

And very much like never split the difference. After we made a bunch of people really successful with a whole new paradigm, all new philosophy, a whole new language, then we decided to pull a book together and we pulled the full free agent together. Real estate agents had fall for you or a bargain. You know, because the finestry in business is 10 real estate agents before this lawsuit, the settlement, which kind of threw the percentages out the window. They're making six when everybody else is making ten for less work. And most of them are compromising their fees. I'm like, you guys are crazy. You're a bargain at six. Don't cut your price. Work smart. And the book came out about a year and a half ago. It's done really well. We're spreading the gospel, as it turns out, the full creation. I've had lawyers come up to me and say, I realize this is a book for residential real estate, but it's really helped me practice in law because it's putting a new take on tactical empathy and emotional intelligence. And so it's a great supplement to them. We actually just held our first conference for real estate agents in la week ago, week and a half ago. It was phenomenal. I gave away a car.

Wow.

All right. Yeah, just, you know, I, I love red. Yeah. I, you know, my, my forerunners, which is in the book of salsa red Pearl and I picked up this salsa red Chevy Traverse. Great suv. Great, great vehicle. And I'm like, you know what? We're going to give this baby away to the person who has the best story of how the skills have changed their life. So at the end of the second day, gave it away to one of the attendees. She started crying on stage.

So good.

When she started talking about the impact using the skills that had on her life. So, you know, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna have the conference again next year. It'll be in the springtime and probably.

Give away another salsa red vehicle. Right, Chris?

Something red. You know, I'm sorry, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna. If you want my car, it's gonna.

Be, I'll take it.

Chris, one of the things that you mentioned at conference and one of the things with never split the difference or the full fee agent is that you can't expect to read the book and then it's all in your brain. You have to practice and practice and you're going to make mistakes. And when I go back to Troy Smith and with the private consulting, one of the things he did was masterful, is that helped me through the process so I felt comfortable and confident in my negotiating skills and I'm learning all the time and I can say hands down, anybody listening to this highly recommend reaching out to you guys. And if you got a private consultation, private negotiating skills, it was absolutely fabulous. I can't tell enough people about it that if you got that situation, go right there and do a one on one. And you've got quite a few other conferences going on too other than just the real estate one. Is that true?

Yeah, we got a, we got live in person training. We've got something coming up in Philadelphia. Pretty soon we're going to be in Dallas. You know, we bounce around the country a little bit and the live training is phenomenal and so yeah, plenty of opportunity. I mean you want to get into it, you study how you can, you practice and then the live training is an immersion and, and then you get surrounded by people that become your tribe and help you get better at it and, and share their, their skills and you know, it's a great, there's a great community feeling with people that are, want to be successful, make the actually make the world a better place and make just a pretty darn good living while they're at.

I love that. Couldn't agree more. Well, Chris, your time is incredibly valuable and we're just so grateful that you'd spend just a couple minutes with us today. If anybody wants to get a hold of you, if they want to get a hold of your team, where can they find you?

You know, best thing to do is subscribe to our newsletter. Our website is blackswanltd.combl&ltd.com love it. As soon as you go there, you should see the opportunity to subscribe to the newsletter. It's complimentary, but better than that, it's actionable and it's concise. You give us your email, we'll give you usable a you single usable article to read on Tuesday morning gets delivered to your inbox. The bonus on top of that is it's the gateway to everything. You'll find out when we're in Philly or Dallas or la. You find out what we got upcoming. And it's a great step to continue to accelerate your ability. So subscribing to the newsletter is really where you're gonna if you want to keep going. Like, if you want to find out how much fun this is, subscribing to the newsletter is a great step back.

Perfect. Well, and we'll link everything in the, in the show notes and if you haven't read any of Chris's books, please pick him up. But again, Chris, thanks for joining us. We absolutely love spending time with you today.

Gentlemen, it was an absolute pleasure. Pleasure. Thanks for having me on.