Why Fear, Not Skill, Is Your Biggest Negotiation Problem - Kathryn Valentine

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But what if there's another way? That's exactly what today's guest, Kathryn Valentine, is here to show us. She's a coach and negotiation expert who believes that conflict doesn't have to be scary.

It can actually be a doorway to deeper trust and better relationships.

In this conversation, Kathryn gives us a new lens, how to stop dreading conflict and how to start using it as a tool for connection. Clarity and confidence. If you've ever wished you could walk into a difficult conversation without fear, this episode is for you.

Well, and I always— it's so funny because when I do my negotiation workshops, I always say the highest ROI thing you can do is practice. Like, find a person and practice. And even though I'm telling you it's the highest ROI thing you can do, no one in this room is going to do it. Like, instead, we're going to buy another book with 125 strategies in it that we're like, Forget the book. Just take 15 minutes and roleplay it.

Well, people don't want to do that because that's actually scary. You know, it's easier to hide behind the, uh, the, like the, the thinking, the overthinking. And I think a lot of times the over-intellectualization of these problems is just another sneaky manifestation of fear. It's like, if I can just stay in the process of thinking and thinking and then thinking about thinking and then thinking about the thoughts that I just thought, um, then now I don't need to do anything.

You know, the other thing that I've always wondered about with brains and negotiation is, you know how, um, our brains aren't like meant to hold compound interest? Like the idea of that kind of breaks our brains. I think that same thing is true with negotiation. When you think about what it's like if you're negotiating a B2B contract to negotiate an extra 6%, like your mind almost can't hold that. And so I see it when I work with people on salary negotiations all the time is We just negotiated you an extra 26%, but now you're going to get your raise on that every year for the next 30 years. And that we actually built a calculator because people can't hold that number in their mind. It's insane to think that by doing this one training, I just made my family an extra $350,000, right? Like, we can't hold that.

Yeah, I think that we— I need us to spend some time here, Kathryn, because I think people will just nod as they do their dishes or walk or whatever it is that they're doing. I do not want to allow them to escape the brilliance of what you just said, because you're right. Because we fundamentally do not have the cognitive capacity to understand large numbers. I mean, when you think about it from an evolutionary perspective, our tribes never went beyond what, like 60 to 80? There's some kind of magic number in there as well. And so, it goes from like a handful to a lot to just a lot.

And so, like, we can't go on beyond that.

Beyond that. And so, let's break this down a little bit more. How does somebody's life change financially when it comes to actually negotiating and advocating for what you're worth?

So, I did a— I actually was speaking at a financial conference. I don't do a lot of those, but I was speaking at a conference last— was it April in Utah? And I kind of did my framework, very similar to your framework. Here's how you think about it. And I got an email afterwards from a woman who was like, I used this 2 days later to go into my annual review. I negotiated a 20-something percent raise. Like, isn't this great? And what my team did was they took that number, took her age, took how much she made, popped it into our calculator, and sent her back the response, which is like, you actually just made an extra $1.2 million over the course of your career. She was also 24, right? Like, time is on your side at that point in time. And, and those are numbers that I feel like, and Kwame, I don't do a good job of this, actually. I would love to come up with a better way to connect people to the power of this skill, because a lot of people still think of it as like, I have this one conversation, or I have this one B2B negotiation. And you make this point in your book, that's not true. We're doing this all day long. And if we thought about this the same way we think about networking or Business communications, right? This can be your superpower that completely changes the trajectory of your career and your life. And I don't know how to connect that point.

I feel like what, what's the real problem when it comes to conveying this message to people is that the technology hasn't gotten to the point that allows us to be as persuasive as we need to be, because what we need to do is jump out of the screen and shake people until they understand what is happening.

It's like, hey, do you want You want $1 million? Yes. Negotiate.

That's really all it is. And maybe we need to make it a little bit more concrete because it's not a— it's not necessarily like you necessarily need to do something vastly different from what you're already doing in order to get that money. The money is there for you. You just need to take it and people are just leaving it.

Well, and also, let's look at the ROI on that, right? We're not talking about you need to go to business school to master this. We're saying like, hey, you should Let's call it 5 hours a year on this. And if you spend 5 hours a year on this, you'll make an extra million dollars.

That's it, right?

That's it.

That's it.

That's all we need.

I remember there was one—

there's one question I started asking, and it's super annoying to me now, Kathryn, because I, I realized the power of this question after grad school, um, because I I've coached mentees on how to negotiate their scholarship package just with this one question. And you can negotiate anything with this question. It's just whenever you get an offer of any kind, just simply respond back, what flexibility do you have? That's it. So you show your appreciation. Hey, thank you for the offer. What flexibility do you have? And they're like, well, I'm glad you asked.

Here's more money. It's great.

I'm grateful that I I realized the power of this question. I'm really upset that I missed it after taking all of those loans for grad school and not negotiating my scholarship package. But again, it's even, even when you take that 5 hours and then you say, well, but people aren't going to actually prepare.

So maybe it's 2 and a half, or maybe you just send this one email. That's it.

But again, there's, there's some mental block. And I think that's something that we have to talk about too, because we always think about it from the rational perspective. Hey, it is irrational not to do it. So we realize, okay, it is something irrational. There's something inside of us that's holding us back. When you've worked with people and you've done all these trainings, what do you think are the biggest things that hold people back?

I love that question. There's a few, and I'm really interested in which ones resonate with you because I feel like together we see a lot of the elephant, right? One of it is everyone is so busy and there is so much noise that to a certain extent we are executing the plan rather than leveling up and thinking about the plan, right? And so when I left business school, I was negotiating, I went back to my former employer, which is a big multinational consulting firm. And they, in quotations, don't negotiate, right? And one of the things that I wanted was I wanted to be able to take a long honeymoon. And so when I was talking to her, she was like, but you have to start on this date, which is one week after, uh, we graduated. And I said, do you have any flexibility? And she was like, I don't. And I said, can you help me understand why? And she was like, because I have to have everyone loaded into the system by that date. That's a requirement. And it was like, okay. What does loaded into the system mean? And so, it, what it ended with is I technically started on the start date. She loaded me into the system. And then I took a 6-week unpaid leave. And that was great for everybody, right? But it's not how we think about it because we're marching to these orders. So No. 1 is everyone's so busy, we don't have time to step back and see what's flexible. No. 2 is, I think we've done this really dangerous thing in negotiation. where we're saying, it's about your worth. And all of a sudden, we have taken this conversation and made it really scary. Like, it's not about your worth. Your worth is infinite. You're a human being. It's about your market value, right? And so that's the second, another one that I see. And then a third one that I see, which I think is related to the second one, is just waiting way too long to have the conversation. Like dreading the conversation, be afraid of conversation, and then waiting until it's too long. And then the other one, which a lot of research would say is gendered in a way, is the risk of backlash is significantly higher in gender non-congruent negotiations. So, for men asking for flexibility or for women asking for resources. And in that, that creates, I think, a lot of fear around having those conversations. And I think that's the other thing that causes us to hesitate. Ooh.

So, I'm seeing a couple of things. If I were to just summarize it briefly, it would be A lack of curiosity or skills. We can switch those two. And then also fear, the different versions of it holding us back from doing it at all, or even, or just hesitating to the point where the conversation loses relevance. But then also a— how would I describe this? A challenge in understanding the nuance between the— when it comes to like gender dynamics and the social aspects of it as well. And I really like that point that you made about worth versus market value, because you're right, we make these conversations not even about just the money. Now it's about me advocating for my personhood.

Am I worth it? Yeah, it turns out you are. You're a human. You are worth it. Are they going to pay you more? I'm not sure. Let's talk about that. That's separate. So, we did research a couple of years ago where we asked multiple audiences across a year, What is it that's holding you back from having this conversation? And 92% of our female audiences said it was fear. And then they articulated a few different ways, but that is like, that's what it was. Do you, does that hold for the trainings that you've done, or do you think it's a little bit different?

Yes. I, because again, one of the things I said in my first book is we, in the negotiation industry, we've been giving recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen. Like, we're solving for the wrong problem.

Fear is the, is the addressing that is the issue.

If you had somebody who was very inarticulate and a bad negotiator who did not have fear, they'd be better than a good negotiator who had a lot of fear and didn't say what needed to be said. Um, and then I think when it comes to the, uh, like the, the clients who bring me in, I think a lot of times there is that fear component, but I believe sometimes the, the clients can be a little bit afraid of just bringing it in, bringing you in to address So, you have to bring some substance to it in terms of the skillset that they leave with. So, I approach overcoming your emotional challenges as a skill and then just give them one tool. Because again, I have to sell people on this a lot. They're saying, what are the best approaches? I said, you don't need approaches because your people won't use them.

We need to give them something they will actually use.

And that's the thing that sometimes gets to me is like, are you paying me to be an entertainer or are you paying me to actually give you results? results. And if you're paying me to actually give you results, then I'm going to do this a little bit differently than you may intuitively want it to be done.

Exactly. And this is the thing too, when it comes to it, because if you're inviting me to do a keynote and you want me to light up the stage and be inspirational, I can certainly do that. But we can't— we have to be realistic about the skills acquisition process.

We can't cheapen this by saying, OK, I want them to learn 10 different skills. So, this will just sound like me reading a glossary.

On stage, I said, if you want skills acquisition, then it has to be a training program. But if you want like negotiation inspiration, I can do that in, you know, 30 to 90 minutes. I can do that. But we have to be really, really clear about what it is that you want. Because again, I think a lot of times they try to do too much and it's just unrealistic and everybody suffers as a result.

And I feel like now I'm— that is the nugget that I will leave with because this is why I was with our mutual friend last week is I have 2 workshops that are Amazing. Amazing. Almost always rated as the top one. So good. But people are now saying like, hey, those are incredible, but actually I want an inspirational, motivational, no skills talk. And I'm like, oh, okay. I mean, I can do that, but in my mind, the skills was why you were paying me. And now people are like, no, I wanna pay you to motivate. And it's like, okay, I can do that. And I'm backing up with a workshop. I kind of love the one-two punch.

Yeah.

But I had never thought of them in my mind the way you just did, is like, there are actually 2 objectives that you might need from me. And let's be clear on which one it is. In the beginning, I just assumed it was the skill one.

Yeah, same. Well, I think that honestly, there is— it's a blessing and a curse to come from the academic approach too, because I, as I started in the— with the American Negotiation Institute and all my trainings, I was very technical with the way that I was approaching it. And at the time, I didn't have a big enough name to warrant a keynote spot. So, it was just trainings, which allowed me to be as technical as I wanted to be, which was in my safe zone. But now, but it was a very big transition where I was, it was almost blasphemous to me. It's like, how dare you cheapen my intellect by just having me come up here and make people laugh and smile and be inspired?

Well, and so that is the transition I'm making right now, which is it turns out in order to give you the skill, first I need to excite you enough to want that skill.

Exactly.

And that's where I'm, I'm years behind you on this one, but like, that's, I'm, I'm following that exact same path of like, hey, I spent a decade researching this. I can, I can give you the research all day long. I am in it. Let's do it. Oh, you actually want the entertaining nerd? Okay, hold on one second. Mm-hmm.

It's different. And Kathryn, there's something that really changed everything for me when it came to making that shift, because I was really reluctant. And it's, it's something called money.

Tell me more.

And then when I received said money, I felt so much better. I'm like, man, I'm so inspirational. I, I myself am inspired. So, I'm over it now, and everybody can have a good time.

The thing that we're tracing now that I'm really excited about is most people come to me because they want to, and I'm putting quotations, negotiate a raise. But actually, that's not what a single person genuinely wants. They want the thing under it, financial security or credibility or confidence or autonomy. Like whatever it is, and getting to that, that's where the magic is. That's where the fun negotiation is. To your point of like, and you made this in your book, but the negotiation actually starts with your why.

Yeah.

And somehow in this world of implementation and execution, we've missed that you can be the best negotiator in the world, but if you're not starting with your why, you're gonna get a suboptimal deal.

Right.

I mean, and here's the thing, too. What I recognize is if you're not clear on your why, you can come up with a plan, you can execute the plan perfectly, you can get exactly what it is that you want. And that could be a horrible outcome because you're not clear on what you really want.

Yes. And that's why I think sometimes the coaching is really fun of like figuring out what is behind that ask.

Hmm.

What, in your coaching, what are some of the most Obviously, respecting confidentiality, what are some of the most surprising whys behind the coaching strategy session that they got with you?

You know what? One of my favorite— and I have to be transparent, I don't do coaching anymore because every time we put the page up, like, I can't keep up with it. And I need to figure out how to train more coaches. Like, I have a hill to climb there. But one of my favorite negotiations was Last year, it was with an extreme— I mean, this woman is on— I've seen her on the front page of the Wall Street Journal twice, right? Like an extremely high-achieving, really successful woman. And she had gotten a C-suite job with a name everyone knows. But the problem is that they wanted her to move to headquarters, that the whole C-suite lived in headquarters. And when her and I did the negotiation, One of the things that she identified that was so clear for her and was such an— just, I was blown away by her insight was, hey, where I live is also where I grew up. It's where my friends are. It's where the people I've known for 30 years are. It's where my mother is, who's a retired teacher. And that is what allows me to have these 2 kids and give them a great life. Because when my flight's late, my mom picks them up. When something goes south and I have to stay an extra day, they stay with my best friends from when I was 7 years old. And she was like, if I move to headquarters, I lose all that support, which means that all of a sudden I can't actually deliver the same impact that I'm known for because I'm spending all my time putting out fires on this side. And it was just like her knowledge and I think humility of the fact that she's incredibly good at what she does, but there's all these people around her that are enabling her to be incredibly good at it. That was pretty mind-blowing for me. And then, you know, once you know, like, hey, here's my limitation, now we know how to do this negotiation. And we did. They ended up putting up a satellite headquarters in her hometown.

Wow.

I know. And she made a great argument for it, which was not about flexibility. The argument was about, hey, if we're going to run this global logistics chain appropriately, then we actually need to line up our logistics manpower with where we can ship the fastest. And it is not where you're headed.

Ooh, that's so good.

And it turns into a shout out to Jess. But it's, it's like the quintessential win-win because you get the job, but then also the job improves because of your willingness to advocate for yourself as well.

And I think that's one of the things that we miss in the way that we talk about it is, and you have You know, you're joint problem solving. I call it a collaborative discussion. But when we're negotiating as employers, or frankly on behalf of a company, it's not you versus me. It's us versus the problem. And the problem is anything that prevents you from delivering the impact you're capable of, whether that's your business from fulfilling everything as smoothly as you could. And by the way, if you're underpaid, your business can't fulfill everything as smoothly as you could.

Mm-hmm.

Or whether it's you as an individual, And if these problems haven't been solved, then, you know, you can't deliver what the company wants you to deliver. It's to both of our benefits to have these conversations. I have— have you ever thought about, and I wish I could quantify it, but how much value companies are leaving on the table because people don't feel equipped to have these conversations?

Oh, that's a great question. I've always thought about it from the employee side. But now, from the employer side, I think that's a really great point. Because with my company, not surprisingly, folks are willing to advocate for themselves.

You know, it's like they listen to the podcast, they know.

And the thing is, whenever that happens, it's a win-win. If there's a situation where there's a financial limitation, okay, I will communicate that clearly. But if there's a situation where somebody wants more responsibility, well, great. There's Where's the win-win here? So, if you want more responsibility, let's, let's talk about how we can reimagine your role in a way that adds more value to the company. And if we start thinking about these conversations as mutually beneficial business deals, then you don't need to feel like you're begging for something. No, you are delivering value to the company. You should be compensated for that value. And I do think that we're leaving a lot of value on the table because people aren't comfortable enough making these offers and being creative with how they can add value to the company.

Well, and we've done negotiations where I did one with somebody who was on the brink of becoming an executive. And one of her pain points was that she was spending an hour a day trying to find a conference room for her team to meet in. And so, we negotiated a dedicated conference room. She doesn't have to worry about booking one anymore. There's just one for her. And so, there's things like that, where it's like, you are an You are an asset to your company. Anything that we can do to increase the value of our assets, we wanna do.

Right, right.

Yeah. And so, I think that brings up the, the conversation about around culture, because if you're working in a company that does not, um, does not truly value self-advocacy, it's hard for you to avail yourself as the company to that brilliant Uh, those types of brilliant insights because people don't feel comfortable enough being vulnerable in those situations.

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What do you think about this? And like totally push back. But what do you think about saying that's a little bit like being an engineer? In a company that doesn't value engineers.

I think you're right. I think you're right, right?

Because the self-advocacy at work has been so stigmatized. That's why we have to have people like you and me talking about stepping up and advocating for yourself too. So, that's why I think— oh, I saw a thought. What was the thought?

I also think there's a connection to employee engagement that we're not doing a good job of making, like we as a negotiation community, right? From a retention point of view, it costs companies twice as much to replace someone as it does to retain them. So, if I'm throwing 10% or 20% at you, whether it's for education or a raise or whatever, that's still to my benefit. Also, you're a known quantity and you know how things work. So, I know what your performance is, right? So, there's a retention argument, but there's also an employee engagement argument, which is that I was president of a company for a little while. We did a turnaround and ended up selling it. But one of the people, when you're doing a turnaround, cash is king. And one of the people on our accounts receivable team that collects cash, this is back when we all worked in the same office, and I noticed that she couldn't sit down for more than 30 minutes, but I didn't really dive into it much until we were doing her annual review. And at the end of it, I said, is there anything we can do to help you reach your goals? And she said, I have scoliosis. I didn't disclose it to the company and I do not want to talk about it, but the company-issued chair is causing me so much pain that I can't sit down long enough to get a project done. And then she slid a piece of paper across the table and she was like, and she was shaking when she did it because the chair she needed was equivalent to what she made in a month, right? Like, that's a terrifying ask to make. And she was like, this chair would allow me to do my job better. And for us, it's like, oh, I pay one more bonus month and you're all of a sudden, let's do it. And so we bought her the chair. She became the top performer basically overnight. I mean, and she was so key to us being able to turn around that company because she generated the cash that allowed us to pay salaries until we could get out of where we were and sell the company. I mean, talk about like, it doesn't have to be, right? This is employee engagement. This is enabling you to do your job. Why wouldn't a company want that?

Right.

Oh, that's good.

That's such a good example because again, it's, it's outside of the box. There, there was no way for you to To know that that would be the linchpin to success.

But again, like, that would have been my first 100 guesses.

Right, right. But then again, you have to recognize there's a bit of the secret sauce, which is you, because you were able to create the psychological safety within that relationship for her to make that request. This probably was not the first time she thought about that, but you presented her with an opportunity to engage in a way that she didn't feel comfortable doing before.

You might be, I appreciate that. You might be giving me too much credit. I think the key question there that good managers ask is, after you've aligned on your objectives, a good manager says, what do you need to achieve those? Some of those things I'll be able to give you, some of them I won't, but like, let's put it all on the table so we can understand what's doable.

Yeah, for sure. Which is a skill. And it's, it's part skill, but also part mindset as well. There's, there's something that kind of holds us back from engaging in that way from the business side. What do you, what do you think that is?

I think everyone's scared to negotiate because they think that if they ask, they have to deliver. I mean, this is the people pleasers, right? If I know what you need, I have to give it to you. And if you're being handcuffed to that, then you can't actually have a genuine conversation. Instead, we need to free ourselves a little bit to We all believe that we're doing the best we can. I'll help you where I can. There are certain places that my hands are tied, but I don't know where I can help you if you don't tell me where you need help.

You know, I was going to make the joke, and this is why everybody needs negotiation training, which I stand by. But it also, for me, just strategically begs the question, Do you think negotiation, the term itself, has a branding issue?

I've wondered that, especially I was doing negotiation training at a big bank, and originally I was brought in to do it for women. And then, and I loved this bank for this reason, then they said, hey, we're training the women. That's great, but we need to train the other side of the conversation. So now we need you to spin up a training for the managers. Love that. Thank you so much. The thing is, when you call it negotiation, All of a sudden, I think people only think of dollars, which is a small— I mean, we have a list of 76 things you can negotiate. Dollars is part of it, but it's not all 76 of them. And I think we end up leaving a lot on the table because people have that association with negotiation.

You're 100% right. And I think that goes to negotiation skills as well, because one of the things that I've done, uh, cuz I've, I struggled to stand up for myself. That was one of the challenges that even led me to negotiation. Is I started to have to negotiate with myself in a different type of way. So, I started to ask myself, who wins if I win? If you were giving your friend who was in the exact same position as you advice, what would you tell them? And what's funny is that a lot of times, we, for us, oh, do you deserve it?

Yeah.

I mean, well, I don't want to ruffle any feathers or anything. Then, if you flip the script and then you ask, hey, your friend, if your friend was in this position, What would you say to Cheryl? It's like, Cheryl, you better get up and ask more people.

Right?

It's like, we know the answer.

We just need to ask the right question.

It's a great mental trick and it fixes a lot of those mental misfires that have, I think, societally been built in.

Yes.

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Hmm, I see the wheels turning.

Yeah, there's so much I don't know where to go with it.

Oh, that's good. Well, let's go to gender dynamics. I heard there's somebody in the room who knows a little bit about it.

Just a small amount.

So let's set the stage.

Approximately 13,000 academic pages worth, if we're measuring.

Unbelievable.

You, you've gone through the gauntlet for this. And—

Pushes up nerd glasses.

Yes, we would be remiss if we didn't talk about this.

And first, let's, let's, let's, let's sell this because I have heard a lot of people say, all right, this is, uh, essentially psychosomatic.

This—

the, the gender issues don't exist. It's all in everybody's head. Can we please obliterate this thought process before we move forward? I just want to make sure that we can, you know, handle this. that objection before we proceed?

Sure. So if you're talking to anybody about your negotiation that says that, please never talk to them about your negotiation ever again, because they are wrong. We know from multiple different studies across Harvard, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, you name it, University of Australia, that we are at risk of backlash in gender-noncongruent negotiations. Now, that doesn't just mean women. That means that women are at a higher risk of backlash in stereotypically, and I'm putting quotations, male negotiations, so negotiations for resources. Men are at a higher risk of backlash when trying to negotiate flexibility. And this is a new thing that we need to figure out how to grapple with. I will say there's fewer research-based solutions there than on the women's side at this point in time because the women's problem has been around a lot longer. And so, we've had more time to do the research.

Yeah. This, yes, I like this, that, that I'm now, I'm kind of stuck on the gender noncongruence. I've never heard anybody talk about it from the male perspective. That's fascinating.

Okay. Hannah Riley Bowles out of Harvard, who started to do this. And one of the other things she pointed out, which I found so fascinating, is that the vast majority of negotiation research is on salary negotiation. And she was like, so if you only look at salary negotiation, yes, men do negotiate more. But if you look at negotiation in broad scopes, exactly what we were talking about, if you think about negotiation as when is the work done, who is doing it, who gets credit, who's on the team, if you looked at broad negotiations, you would conclude that the genders negotiate in equal proportions because the risk of negotiation to women and salary is higher. than the risk of negotiation to men in salary. But if you looked at flexibility and only that one slice, you would conclude that men didn't negotiate. Wow.

Okay. This is very, very interesting. Okay. So, when it comes to women, often there is a social penalty because it's not just the fact that you think about the classic book, Women Don't Ask by Linda Babcock and Sara Lashever. Where, you know, they're saying, okay, there's a less— women are less likely to ask for what they deserve at the negotiation table when negotiating compensation. Men are more likely. But there's also the social penalty that comes from the self-advocacy when women are asking, especially— actually, I believe the studies show that they get a penalty if they're negotiating with a man and with a woman. Is that right? Yeah.

Yes. When I started my research, I thought I was going to have to write 2 different guides, one if you're negotiating with a man and one if you're negotiating with a woman. And it turns out it's the same, uh, because it's all about how society sees you. And so we see backlash is what we call it, enacted by all genders on all genders. Um, interestingly, and this is anecdotally, but the stories I've heard from coaching, I, the more extreme backlash tends to actually be same gender on same gender.

Hmm.

Interesting.

Isn't that interesting?

Is there—

I think there's a little bit of like an, I ate broken glass, now you need to too. Yeah. Where when you were asked, in order to be successful, if you were asked to give up X, Y, and Z, and those things were important to you, I think there's still a little bit of a, but why don't you have to give it up too? And we talk about this a lot from the female perspective, which I'm happy to talk about. I also think as the role of father is evolving in our society, it's interesting to think about how that's gonna play out when it comes to negotiation.

Yeah, because I'm wondering, I'm thinking the backlash is— I don't want to say similar. There is a backlash for men who have non-gender congruent types of negotiations too.

Those—

think about Brené Brown. She's known for vulnerability. Everybody just says Brené says be vulnerable. That's why you should be vulnerable. There's a part in her book where she talks about how difficult it is for men to be vulnerable because there's often a penalty for that vulnerability. And they— there are a lot of the chatter online, and you hear in just common parlance is men need to be more open, men need to share. And I remember I was talking to one of my friends, and they were saying, yeah, men need to share because they're having mental health issues, they're having cardiac arrest and everything, they need to be more vulnerable. And I said, I think some of them are making a strategic decision and saying they understand mental health problems and cardiac arrest problems and everything, and they would prefer to have that than get the backlash they've gotten in the past from being vulnerable. Like, the being vulnerable, yes, is a skill, but also the ability to receive the vulnerability of others is a skill that we don't talk about enough. And a lot of times when men are vulnerable, there's a penalty and they're like, noted, never again. And so then from their perspective, no matter what is actually happening, the answer is I'm good because I know if I say I'm not good, it gets worse.

That's right. And I think that when you apply that same framework to gender in negotiations, there's a reason why women weren't negotiating as much as men were. It's because the penalty was significantly higher. Now, new research by Laura Cray out of Berkeley shows that women are now negotiating almost as often as men do. And a lot of that is because the newer generation was not as aware of the penalty. And so, they didn't have as the high— like, if you look at negotiation by generation, the youngest generation does it a lot more because they weren't as aware of what the historical penalty has been. The other good news, which I love, and I think we're doing an okay job of getting out there, is that there's a solution to avoiding that backlash. And once women are aware of it and trained on it, then you can actually have a conversation where no just means no. It doesn't mean no, and now I'm going to sideline you. You're never going to get promoted, and I'm slowly going to take away your resources.

Oh my gosh, yes, let's talk about that. So what is, what is that solution?

So that solution has 3 parts. The first one is to think holistically, and it's, you know, exactly what we talked about, which is what is your real why and what are all the things we can ask for that get you there? By the way, if your real why is financial security or financial freedom, don't negotiate a raise, negotiate a promotion, right? This is Claudia Goldin, who won the Nobel Prize 2 years ago for her work on women in economics, which is that if you look at Finances over time, what you get with a promotion, even if it comes less frequently, will equal much more than what you can get putting all of your eggs in that raise basket. So one, think holistically. And I have a list of 76 things that we've seen people negotiate that we can talk about if that's helpful. The second part then is ask relationally. And I would say this is the part that is the most unique to women. It has not been tested on men in non-congruent Negotiations, and I would love to see what that looks like. But the ask relationally part is if, when you're negotiating, the other person sees your negotiation as both legitimate and beneficial, then they're— they virtually eliminate the risk of backlash, and you also increase the chances that they are going to rate you high on leadership abilities. Even if you get a no, it might be like, hey, you're not going to get that promotion right now, but she's a high potential. We should be thinking about what her future here is. And I have a formula for how to make that ask if it's helpful. And then the third piece to this is discuss collaboratively, which is very similar to everything that you teach. And I'm sure you're thinking as hearing this, like, oh, those are actually just best practices, right? That's not specific to women. And you are right. They are best practices. Uh, the difference here being that that second one we know eliminates backlash for women. And so, what those together do is if we're rational beings, we make cost-benefit analyses about whether we're going to take an action. And for women, up to this point, when we do the cost-benefit, the cost of negotiating has been extremely high. And this helps that take that cost to almost zero. And so, now you can just make your ask. And if you get a no, it will just be a no. And frankly, an invitation to a longer conversation, but it's not Backlash.

Yes. Oh, that's so good.

Yeah.

And I think it's really encouraging too, to say, yeah, these are negotiation best practices. So, I feel like it makes it easier to absorb as well. It's like, oh, I don't need to learn necessarily something too foreign or different than is like standard, you know? And again, the overthinking can hold us back. And by keeping it as simple as possible, we're making it more likely that people actually do it.

It's, I mean, it's how I'm teaching my two, I have two sons and it's how I'm teaching them to negotiate. 'Cause I also kind of get the feeling that as workplaces become more collaborative, I think the backlash cost is gonna move onto the male side. And I would like them to be prepared to be successful in the world that I think is coming.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that's, that's smart.

That is smart. And of course, how old are your kids?

You're gonna laugh. Actually, you're not gonna laugh because you have kids, so you know this. They're 5 and 7, so they're at the peak of their negotiation skills, which is that they just go nuclear on everything.

Exactly.

Guys, you don't understand. This is a multiple touchpoint negotiation. You need to build the relationship. They're like—

They were like, I want it all now. All of it.

Yep. I'm, uh, 9 and 4.

So, okay, you get it. Yeah, that 4-year-old's like, I'm not trying to build a relationship, I'm just gonna go nuts.

Oh yeah, oh yeah. And sometimes I'm telling him like, listen, man, now because you acted this way, I on principle cannot—

just can't. I can't.

And also, by the way, you're less likely to get me to say yes to you next time because I'm scared of this.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I tell you, there's so much that goes into the parenting side. Too, with the, with the negotiation, not just, um, how they negotiate with us, but then how we teach them how to negotiate as we negotiate with them. There, there's so much, and it's not just that. It's also how they observe us having difficult conversations with other people. We're modeling this behavior all the time.

I've been thinking a lot about failure for children, whereas, and I, I, I don't totally, not, I feel like I should always have that thing that's like not a parenting expert, like not a parenting expert, which my children will tell you. But I try to give them nos and stand by that no because I need you to understand that no is just a piece of information. It doesn't mean that you're you have no worth. It doesn't mean that your life has ended. It just means you're not going to get this. This very thing in this very moment.

Yeah, I think that's very important, and it requires a lot of resilience.

Sure does. Someone's just going apeshit in the kitchen.

I know, it's like, whatever it takes to make this stop, I will consider it. You know, it's—

it is— it is challenging, and especially when you are— when you say no to something Not because you can't afford it, just because you know it's not good for the kid. And so I tell Kai that. I just say he asked for something and he'll always ask why I can't have it. Dad, can I have this? No. And he says, well, why? I said, because I don't want you to become a brat. That's why. And I need you to learn how to accept rejection. So that's why I'm saying no, because it will feel bad and I need you to learn how to process it. He's like, oh, okay.

I feel like I'm gonna use that because I don't want you to become a brat line.

Yeah, yeah. And he's like, what do you mean?

I said, if I keep on giving you everything that you want, you turn into a person that nobody wants to be around. So every once in a while, I have to say no just for the sake of saying no, and it won't make sense. And that is a life lesson itself.

Which is so interesting because I grew up with a single mom, and so our life had natural limitations. There were things that We just couldn't do. We either, you know, time-wise couldn't do it or we couldn't afford it or whatever. And as a result of a lot of her sacrifices, I have been lucky enough to land in a spot where a lot of the things that the 5-year-old wants, right? Like it costs, right? We're not talking big things. We're talking about like, can I get one scoop of ice cream? But a lot of the things that he wants, there is not a natural boundary on. And so we're having to force those boundaries, which, you know, sugar is rapidly becoming Um, but it's interesting to think about the way that you said that, where it's like it's better for the kid to create those natural boundaries if the— if your personal circumstance hasn't created them for you.

Exactly.

Yeah, we—

they have to know that. And another thing that I've been doing recently, which I know you will love as well, is sometimes they'll ask me, hey Dad, can you do this? Can you do that? And I'll say no. And they'll say, why not? Because I don't want to do that right now. And I realized something, Kathryn. I realized something. There were times where, uh, I would be trying to go like alpha dad. Okay, what would the best dad do? He'd get up and he'd play. He'd do this, he'd do that, he'd do this. And after a long day at work, and then it becomes a little bit later, a bit, a little bit later, a little bit later. And then I snap.

I'm like, you know what? Now I'm mad. Everybody go to bed.

You know, and I don't, I don't yell, but now it is becoming— Dad was fun a second ago. And now, now he sounds like a lawyer again.

What?

What did—

what just happened? And then I realized I'm trying so hard to be like the perfect dad that a lot of times, because of ego depletion and just the fact that you're spending so much cognitive energy at work doing, making decisions, At home trying to be perfect, and then there you just naturally reach your breaking point. So I decided, you know what, I'm going to start saying no when I genuinely don't want to do this thing. And I also think that it'll give them permission when they are older to not should on themselves and feel the sense of obligation to do things just because other people or society say you should do it.

I love that. I also, especially for the 5-year-old, need to think about how to moderate it where it's like, I'm saying no because I don't want to do this thing. You don't have the ability to say no because you don't want to set the table.

Yeah, you don't. We don't want to give them ammunition. These two aren't—

Let's think through that again. Yes, I am. I— so if you've been reading kind of like the generational stuff, the, the generational prediction Is that the generation before us, we've now hit the turning point where in American history, every generation did better than the one before it. We've now hit the turning point where that is no longer going to be true.

Yep.

And I've been thinking a lot about like what that means in terms of how to raise children that can be, can thrive in that new world where it's harder to get jobs. The jobs don't pay for the things they used to pay for. I mean, that kind of stuff. And one of the things I've been thinking about a lot is I feel like with gen— you know, there's gentle parenting. Um, but actually I just need my kids to know that like life isn't fair and it sucks, but like it's true.

Yep.

And once you accept that, then you can control what you can control. But there's a lot of places where like I graduated in 2008. What does that mean? It means that any money I was able to save is now worth 3 times as much. Is that fair? Nope. Is it the reality? Yes. And so I feel like somehow I'm trying to figure out how to impart that to someone that doesn't know the tooth fairy isn't real yet.

Yes. Yeah.

The, we have to, we have to get the little ones into, you know, 4 or 5, that's tough, but the older ones, they, they, they can start to get it. And you're right. I think about, it's not just the fact that this generation as a whole isn't going to do as well. It's also the fact that we are less clear than ever before on what occupations will look like with AI rapidly just taking everything. And so I look at Kai, he's doing well in school, thankfully, and I see him doing exceptionally well at learning things that a computer will do better than him once he graduates. So I'm like, what is the point of this? And so for me, I'm focusing on 3 core skills and then just one mentality. So core skill number one is focus, the ability to focus on something for an exceptionally long period of time.

Yeah.

We see attention spans going down, the ability to manage your emotions and the ability to have the discipline to not do things that you want to do, you know? And so, those are the 3 core skills. But then also, the mentality is I'm not raising my kids to get jobs. I'm raising them to understand entrepreneurship and run a business.

Oh, hey, I thought you were going to be like, to be happy in their lives.

Nope. That's how you get it.

Because I want them— they'll understand the happiness by observation because of the way that Whitney and I are intentional about the way that we live our lives. So that'll just kind of seep in through osmosis because we make sure that they have fun and they see us having fun and invest in our enjoyment of life. But I don't want them to be at the whims of the market to try to force themselves into an occupation that doesn't work for them. If they are just raised with the idea, yeah, I'm going to start a business, then they have ultimate, the ultimate freedom to live life on their terms. Another question I've been asking myself is, at the end of my life, would I rather be super, super, super rich and successful, but unhappy or super, super, super happy and not rich or successful? And then I said, oh, wait a second. Okay. Well, that's an easy answer. Um, because, and then I realized, wait a second, then Fun and happiness is the point. And so, you can, being living in a capitalistic, capitalist society, it can cause us to adopt somebody else's terms for what is winning for us. And we might say somebody who's making more money, but what's the, what do their relationships look like? What are their friendships like? And for me, if I know that there is, I'm leaving some meat on the bone and I know I could put my foot to the pedal, like the pedal to the metal and go a lot harder and make a lot more money, but I know I wouldn't have that major metric of success of knowing that when I leave, my family misses me, and when I come back, they're excited to have me back.

So then tying it back to negotiation, I do think that your point of like, you basically wrote down your target and reservation points for life. And I think that when we're doing negotiations, one of the things I see people miss is they don't write down their target and reservation point. And throughout the rounds of the negotiation, they just become increasingly more disappointed And it's like, but now you're just, you're just racing against someone else on someone else's racetrack. Like you said, you wanted X, we're far beyond X. Let's take it and run, right? Let's take it and run and have a great time.

Yes. And again, when you understand how psychology works, then you can play around with it in order to make yourself happier. We could compare ourselves to somebody who's doing better on one narrow metric and then feel bad, or we could compare ourselves to somebody else and feel better. We could compare ourselves holistically That's, that's one thing that's been super helpful for me, Kathryn, when it comes to, uh, like, I'm a very competitive person, but now I'm really focusing on competing with myself on my own terms, running my own race. I, I— so the rule I have for myself is that I am not allowed to be jealous of somebody unless I wouldn't do a holistic switch. So it's like, okay, good one. Yeah, cool. This person has more followers. Okay, do you want their lifestyle? Do you want their family?

Do you want your You know, the reputation, all those things. No, I'm happy.

I'm very, I'm very pleased with my holistic life, you know, and it's, it's about continuing to play the game to figure out, okay, what's making me feel bad? How, what is the counter-narrative? Because there's always enough information to, to, to create a narrative of disempowerment as there is to create a narrative of empowerment. You could say, oh, my circumstances are tough. Oh, well, look what I overcame. That means I could probably achieve more.

Right?

You just play with the paradigm in a way that works for you because why not?

Because, wait a minute, let's take it back. What is this about negotiation? We all get to live our greatest life when we can figure out how to have agency over the choices we make.

Exactly. Which goes to the internal negotiation.

We did it! We did it! We came full circle.

Full circle.

I love it. I love it. This is great. This is great.

Before we get cut off, one thing I've been wanting to say to you since 2020 when I found your work— American Negotiation Institute. Do you ever just sit back and you're like, man, I named that, like, best name ever?

Thank you. Thank you.

There, every once in a while, one of these strategies works because I, you know, it's pretty, uh, you know, it takes a little bit of audacity for a 27-year-old person to just To name him, his company, the American Negotiation Institute. But I was like, you know what? I believe that if I keep on doing the right things over and over and over again for long enough, I will grow into this name.

I mean, it is an amazing name.

Thank you.