1 Hour Straight of SOLID Negotiation Advice from the #1 Negotiation Trainer

Every now and then, I get to have a conversation that reminds me of why I fell in love with negotiation in the first place. And this, my friends, is one of those conversations. Today, I'm sitting down with Mike Inman, a guy who's trained over 8,000 professionals across six continents, negotiated more than a billion dollars in deals, and somehow still manages to make you feel like you're just two friends chatting over coffee. But here's the thing. This isn't just a conversation about tactics. This is about how to be fully present, how to read people, and how to adapt without losing your core. And how to recognize that every day, every interaction is a chance to practice and sharpen your negotiation skills. And by the end of this episode, you will understand why Emotional Presence is your most underrated negotiation tool. How to manage your tone, energy, and perception to build trust, and when to use pressure and when to walk away. This one is deep, it is practical, and I know you are going to love it. So without further ado, let's jump into the interview. All right, we talk about vulnerability on the podcast. This is my opportunity to be vulnerable, but I'll do it in a playful way. Let's guise it as a negotiation. So let's negotiate something right now. It's not a business deal or any kind of high stakes standoff. It's just a simple agreement between us and you. So if you've been with negotiate anything for a while now, you've been on an incredible journey nine years long. We've sat down with world class negotiators, gold medal winning Olympians, storytellers, CEOs, psychologists, FBI agents, professors, and all of this for one purpose. To help you become more powerful in your conversations, in your career and in your life. We've published over 1600 episodes and we were part of the LinkedIn Podcast Network, an amazing partnership that helped us grow. But unfortunately, now LinkedIn is winding down the network and many of the shows that were on the LinkedIn podcast network had to shut down because the money wasn't there anymore. But not us. We are still here, and we are just getting started. And now we want to bring you even more bigger guests, deeper stories, and more value than ever. So here's the deal. If this show has ever helped you, if it made you think differently, negotiate better, or feel more confident, we're asking for one thing in return. Just leave us a review on Apple podcast, on Spotify, wherever you listen, because now we're going to be negotiating our own sponsorship deals. This is a matter of survival for us and when sponsors look and they can see that we have a lot of reviews and our fans really love us and they get value, that gives us the opportunity to negotiate better deals. And when we're able to do that, that allows us to continue to do what it is that we're doing here. So that's your side of the deal. It could take less than 10 seconds to just leave us a review. And what do you get in return? Our side of the deal is this. We will continue to commit to bringing you the best guests on earth and to continue to raise the bar on the quality of this show week after week. So let's build this next chapter together. Make a deal.

So I always tell the story about my wife and we've been married 26 years now, just had our 26th. And I'm one of those really annoying people that in the morning I just wake up and I go, I'm like a binary computer is on. And I start. And my wife is not like that. She's one of those people that need a little extra time. So what I've learned is when I wake up in the morning, boop. I roll out of bed and I sneak downstairs, let the dog outside, fix the dog's food, empty the dishwasher, and I'll hear her get up. So I, I start the coffee and then I'll take her coffee cup out and put a little cream, a little sugar in it. That's the way she likes it. And put, pour the coffee in there, I put it on the counter and I wait. And then she'll come downstairs and she'll, she'll scruff the dog and I wait and then she'll check my work because I, I don't know where all the Tupperware lids go and stuff like that is. I'm a mess. But I try, but, but I don't always do it right. And she checks my work and I wait and then she'll take the coffee, take a sip of the coffee and she'll say, good coffee. And then I'm allowed to talk. My, my self imposed rule is don't talk first. Let my wife have the first words of the day. And it'll be a good day to start off because if I start talking first thing, it's probably going to be a bad.

That's so cool. For, for a number of reasons. First of all, I've been married 15 years. I'm trying to, I'm trying to get up there.

Congrats.

Thank you. And it's a process, you know, and You, I'm wondering how long did it take you to, to hone this, this intricate process over, over the years.

I don't remember when I started to make it a rule, but I have had people over the years who at the office, this guy Mark Stellar is like I worked with at mgm. Mark, Mark was a hard working guy but he'd start at nine and I'd start at seven. So when he came in at nine, I was already two hours in and going and I would just start talking and one day he just said, can I have my coffee before we start? And I was like, got it, no problem. And I went, mental note, don't talk to Mark until he's had his coffee. I try to, I try to be a little bit of a chameleon. I mean we all have to be true to ourselves but I try to be, you know, respectful is the wrong word. We all deserve, you know, level respect but conscious that different people have different communication styles just, just like us. We had a little problem getting this one going. But I use zoom, I use teams, I use meets, I use all sorts of different. If that's the way somebody wants to communicate with me, I will figure it out. I have, I have WhatsApp because a lot of people around the world use that. I don't have imessage. And I know the blue bubbles green bubble thing bothers some people, my boss being one of them. Email, whatever mode someone wants to communicate with me. I try to be agnostic and, and go back to them in that mode or remember that person likes WhatsApp, that person likes signal. So I go, I go back to them and bounce around because you know, if I can break down those barriers of communication by something as simple as changing the mode which is, you know, low value to me, simple for me, but if it's high value for the relationship, then I, I consider it my obligation to try to do that.

There is, there's so much that I love about this Mike because the, and by this time the listeners would have listened to your bio so you already have been stamped as the negotiation expert. And the thing is We've had over 1600 episodes, but we can't say that they're very, we have to say that there are very few people who can say that they've negotiated a billion dollar worth of deals over a billion dollar worth of deals over the course of their career. That's an astronomical amount of value. And what's often, what I often see is that people say this is the way I talk, this is the way I communicate almost take it or leave it. Right? This is. This has worked for me in the past. And then they are very unwilling to adjust.

But what we see, the late night radio, DJ voice.

I didn't want to say anything.

No, it's. It's very effective. It. You know what, what I tell people is this. Being a negotiator is like being a carpenter. There's a wall of tools and. And a great negotiator will know how to use all the different tools and when to use those tools. They won't be great at all of them. Yes, right. But. But be competent at it or at least recognize the other side is using that tool and then how to. How to counter their use of necessary.

Thank you. Okay, so we took it there. We're here now because for the listeners who might not have gotten it, there's a very famous negotiator who uses a very specific style. And, Mike, I've always struggled with this because I recognize that there are a lot of communication experts that might say, yeah, this is my style. But I've always been reluctant to just say, hey, this is my style, because the way that I would sound would be different for different people in different circumstances. For me, as a business lawyer, the way that I negotiate will sound very different when I'm wearing that hat, but versus when I'm negotiating here at the American Negotiation Institute, versus when I have tough conversations as a mediator, it's very different. But you have to be able to be flexible and adjust. And so for you, based on the fact that you've trained people all over the world, what do you think holds people back from being willing to embrace change and pivot and adjust to the person who's in front of them?

So we talk about the little voice in our head. It's the little voice that when I say 1, 2, 3, it's already at 4. And when I sing A, B, C, it's a D. That voice gets in our way. It tells us we shouldn't try that. It looks for exceptions. It looks for past failures. And I. And I don't want to fail again, so I'm not going to do it again. And so I think that little voice talks us out of trying things that maybe it may be uncomfortable to do, but it might be successful. But the voice says, yeah, but it might be a failure, too. So we stop ourselves in that situation. In fact, a friend of mine, Lisa Veer, that I worked with at mgm, she's been following my career for years, and she negotiated Some deals with me. And she said, what do you attribute. What's the difference about you personally? There's differences in styles, there's differences in legal communication and crisis communication, business negotiation. She said, well, what's unique about you, Mike? And I thought about it for a second. I have this ability to completely shut off the voice in my head. And there are some people that don't have the voice in their head. Actually, there's research on this. But to turn it off and hyper focus on where I am in that moment with that person and just take everything in, the auditory, the visual, the temperature of the room, the tone, the pace, and just hyper focus for a moment while that voice is off and figure out what's the next move or what's, what's the next two or three moves while I'm just taking it all in.

There's so much to explore here. What's fascinating about this is even if people had the ability to turn this off, I feel like a lot of them would be afraid to turn it off because they feel like they need to think multiple steps ahead. And it's not to say that we're not thinking strategically like a chess player thinking multiple steps ahead. I think that they don't have the same trust in their negotiation skills to allow themselves to be present, truly present in the moment with the person.

That's the word. To be hyper present for that moment and then go back and do that multiple steps ahead. But I think a lot of people try to get multiple steps ahead and they forget about being present in the moment.

Yes, this is elite level stuff. And I want to dig deeper into this distinction because I think for a lot of people, they might not have considered this, just not just from a psychological level, but from a chronological and temporal level too, because we. They hear. They hear. Okay, think multiple steps ahead. I need to be prepared. I need to go through my prep. I need to think about where we're going and try to steer the conversation in this type of way. And they're more in their heads than in the moment. And now how can you get people to feel a little bit more comfortable being completely present? Because that can feel really vulnerable, especially when they're used to communicating in a way where they're thinking about their comeback while they're listening to the person speak?

I. I don't have a good answer for that. And you hear this all the time in lots of LinkedIn advice about, you know, so many people, they, they listen to respond instead of listen to understand. Yeah, so. So everybody's talking about doing it. I don't have a technique to do it other than once I recognized that I was doing it and it was a part of the successes that I was having, I began to do it more and to be conscious of it. Now I'm a classic over talker and forgive me, what I tell people is this. When I meet him for the first time and I, I didn't do that because we were doing some tech stuff is, is if a person turns the light bulb on in my brain, if, if I feel the connection and I'm interested, I will talk over you. And it's because you've, you've excited me. And if I'm not talking over you, that might mean I'm just bored like you. We haven't made a connection.

Oh, that's fascinating. That's fascinating. Okay, so let's break this down because I, I like this point too because we. This touches personality, this touches on just a lot of the, the basic advice that kind of goes out there, but about maybe not interrupting, but not understanding fully why interruptions happen. We often think about it just through the lens of disrespect, but it's, it's so much deeper than that. But let's go back to the presence. Let's bookmark that point because what, what I'm finding fascinating about this is I, I was hoping you had an answer because I didn't have a good answer either when it comes to being more present. And it just takes practice because it's almost like the, when you think about the psychology of flow being in that flow state where it's almost like time slows down and you don't know what you're going to say or do next. But it just kind of happens organically. There has to be an expert level of understanding of the, of what it is that you're doing to be able to do that. But it does take true practice in order to let go. And, and I found that in doing so, I've sometimes surprised myself as to what comes next. It works in the moment, but if I would have tried to pre think it, I wouldn't have come to that same conclusion.

Homie, I think you nailed it. The P word practice. There's a guy that I've come to know, been on his podcast a couple of times, Kent Steffis, who was a former number one ranked volleyball player in the world, youngest to be number one in gold medal winner with Karch Karai and Kentucky, talks actively about practicing to win versus practicing a skill and to be in the, in the flow state. So some people get to the championship and they look at all the people and that excitement that those nerves cause them to perform poorly because they're not ready for the moment. And Kent talks about in practices breaking it down, but playing a three point game where every point is important and, and the winner of that game gets something, get, gets the, you're going to buy me lunch if you know, winner, winner gets a free lunch out of it. But to make everything about practicing being in the moment and then when the moment comes to, you get to be there, not you have to be there. I get to be in the championship, I get to win the gold medal, I get the swing for the gold medal. To have the mentality that it's something that you should embrace and enjoy versus something you have to go through. So I think practice is the key to that too. Negotiating all the time, it's something what I tell people is this all day long. And all the studies say between five and eight times you get the opportunity to negotiate. But most people miss it because it's not a classic price negotiation. I just bought a car and that was a whole experience. I'm going to post on LinkedIn about it. But it's not about haggling over something so they don't think it's a negotiation. When my wife and I go to a new restaurant, the restaurants we go to regularly already know this about me. When we check in at the host stand, I will say, well, they'll give a binary choice, right? They always say, do you want the high top or the booth? Do you want indoors or outdoors? The bar or the restaurant? You know, it's always two. I always say the same thing. I want to sit with the best server. And they go, huh? And I go, you know, the server. The server that trains all the other servers. No disrespect to the new people who start. Everyone has to start somewhere. But if I'm going to pay full price for a meal, and my wife has made it very clear, I'm not allowed to negotiate over the price of food. I want the best experience possible. Now here's where every host hostess misses the opportunity to negotiate. What they should say is, hey, can you wait five minutes? They just got sat. And by the way, when you have a great experience, will you leave us a Google review? Right, right. That helps them grow their business. I get what I want and need, which is a great experience. They get what they want, need, which is more business. You know, both sides can, can take away a win on a completely separate deal point. But they don't ask because they're not. They're not thinking about trying, they're not thinking about practicing, whereas I am. I'm always looking for that. That opportunity to get. Get something special, you know, to say to somebody, hey, that's a good deal, but I'm looking for a great deal. What else you got?

Mm.

And see what they say. They might. They might say, sir, that's the best deal possible. Got it? Now it's a take it or leave it. Or they might say, well, if you can come back Tuesday, I can get you an extra 10% off. Ah, if I can wait till Tuesday, you know, now we can. We can put some components in place and solve this puzzle of negotiating. But most people don't practice because they're not thinking about it. They're. They're so scared of it, they shy away from it.

Yeah, so it's. There's a saying, you don't. I don't have to get ready because I stay ready. Right. And so it sounds like for you, You. You're always in this mode, sharpening the sword, practicing the skill. So when the tough conversation comes up, it feels normal to you. You see it and you embrace it.

Okay, so I disagree with that word, tough, because I don't see. Okay, so. So when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail to a crisis negotiator. It's in their title. Crisis hostage negotiator. Everything is a crisis, so therefore, everything is trouble. So I break out my hammer and I hammer the. Because that's what you do in a crisis situation. I see it as an opportunity. I get to negotiate. I'll tell you about a failure that I had. It was almost a year ago now, because I just reached out to the person, said, hey, it's been a year. Are we going to do another. Another session? So we don't do any advertising. Somebody takes our class, they leave, they change companies, they get promoted, they call us. And we have a 95% close rate because they already know the product. It's just about picking dates. So this guy calls and he says, hey, we're going to do a big session this fall, multi sessions, and we want to write a spec. Need help with that? And you'll be on the rfp, but you know, I'm pulling for you, buddy.

Yeah.

So I said, fantastic, we'll help write the spec. So we write the spec. It's a government contract. So we. We write the spec, we get the rfp. Request. It's very arduous because it's government work and a lot of paperwork to fill out. We do it, walk through the process. Then we've been down selected, so. So now we're going to be down selected into this final two because we have competition because they're the buyer and. And buyers have to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt, right? They can't tell me I have the order. So. So now I've been turned over to a buyer on this. And she sends me an email on Wednesday and on a Wednesday. And she says, you have until Monday, close of business to submit your best and final. We will then make the decision. I said, fantastic. And on my sheet of paper, there were. There's five things that come up to. To negotiate, to teach negotiations. And I have them, and I do them all the time. So I wrote back to her and I said, hey, here's five things that we can do. We can do better if you can do better, and I'll let you pick a la carte. It's. But it's your choice. But here's five things that could make the deal better for you and it would make the deal better for us as well. She sends me an email back. What part about Monday, close of business did you understand? I said, no, no, I got it. I'm trying to be respectful of your time. Here's five things. My phone rings from the area code where they are. That was this. Because it's government work, right? So some stuff have to be tracked and monitored. So. So I get the phone call and she says, mike, Monday, close a business. What's so hard to understand? And I said, no, no, I. One more time. I'm trying to be respectful. I know my business. I know the things that I can do, can't do, will do, won't do. And I put them all together, and you've got them now we're good. And she says, you take till Monday, close of business. And I said, thank you, I will have a good weekend. Monday, close of business. I send an email confirming what I told her the week before. The following Wednesday comes. We win the business. Here's your purchase order. Okay, so.

Whoo.

Get another phone call. So I answered, and she says, can I tell you something? And I said, yeah, I'm all ears. Tell me. She said, I was so nervous negotiating with you, I must have made a mistake. What mistake did I make? And I said, no, no, you handled it perfectly. You were talking about my competition and fear, uncertainty and doubt. And you were, you know, Telling me, and she said, yeah, but you were so fast. I thought I made a mistake and you pounced on me. And I went, oh. So my mistake was I was trying to be efficient for her, but I went so fast. She thought as a negotiator I was trying to win, which means she was losing and that she made a mistake. So I didn't consider that in my negotiation plan. I was just motoring along trying to be efficient in the of thing. I don't know that I could have guessed that she needed time. But it was interesting when she told me that her self awareness and willingness to be transparent and tell me that she was afraid in that situation. And I'm like, as a negotiator, I don't want the other side afraid. I want them to be happy with the deal. Now I have a fiduciary responsibility that my clients are happier, of course with the deal and we don't want a bad deal. You know, one thing I tell people is that getting to yes, you want to get to know fast. If it's going to be a no, find out early, politely, professionally, I love you, would love to work more with you. This isn't going to work out. We'll be here if you change your mind, but let's move on because this isn't going to work out. Right? But there's some people, especially salespeople, no disrespect to the salespeople, they listen to your call, they think they can win every deal. And what they wind up doing is they win the deal, go back to their team and they go, yay, we won. And then finance goes, wait a minute, there's no margin in this. And project management goes, well, we can't, we can't deliver to this. And the engineer goes, well, this isn't even the spec that we can do. And the salesperson goes, but I won. They like me. And everybody goes, yeah, but this is a loser. You know, to find out it's a loser early. This is what I'm saying.

Yes. There's so much to explore here, right? Because we have the deal making bias. Sometimes you fall in love with the idea of the deal and you just keep on pushing. We have egos too, because it's not just about getting the best deal or putting your, your business in a good position to succeed. It's about me proving to you and the world that I can get it done even when it looks like I can't. And so we have to have that self awareness and then also going back to the example that you gave with the. With the rfp I. When as I was listening to your story, it sounded. Everything that you did was very respectful. But it's one of those things where you cannot anticipate what's going on in the minds of everybody all the time. We can make hypotheticals. We can take educated guess, create reasonable hypotheses, but that doesn't mean that we're always going to be right. They're going to be surprises.

And there's a saying that I teach.

Yeah.

Communications is not what I say. It's what you hear. Whether it's the tone or the speed or the mode, it's the way the other side perceives it that has the actual value.

That's powerful. And, you know, this ties back to me, to what you talked about earlier, being willing to be flexible and adjust, because a lot of times, let's give the example of your co worker, your colleague back in the day, where you said, hey, don't talk to me until I've had my coffee. There are a lot of people walking this earth, Mike, who would hear that and take offense to it. Personal offense.

Right.

I'm trying to be nice. Why are they acting this way? Something like that. But you're saying, hey, listen, it's not. I personally did not do anything wrong. What the other person is experiencing and hearing from me is not what I intended, and therefore, I will adjust. There is a humility in your ability to adjust that I don't think is seen in other people.

You know, there's a saying out there that you shouldn't talk about politics or religion.

And.

And I'm 50. I'm 56 now. Jesus. I've heard that all my life. I think society has lost the ability to talk about things like politics and religion in a civilized way because we've been told not to talk about it for so long. So when I'm online and I'm a keyboard warrior and somebody just called me, I gave advice on why you might get laid off, that Zuckerberg was laying off people at Facebook, and this one person was like, but I always got good performance reviews. Okay, well, you and the other eight people on your team also, maybe the manager was a softie. Maybe he gave everybody great performance reviews. Wow. And. And you were the. You were the eighth. Seven people got better reviews. Or maybe there's a strategic change at Facebook. They don't need your skill set at that time. So I. I gave those two reasons why. And somebody came back and they said, you're just a Corporate bootleaker. And instead of. Instead of getting into it, I just said thank you for revealing your character and moved on. Because what they revealed is they were a name caller. Their incorrect assumption is not my reality. I get to choose my reality now. Maybe I'm a bootlooker sometimes. I don't know. But I don't have to let emotions get involved just because they got emotionally involved in the situation.

Yes.

But it's hard these days. You know, we're hypersensitive on online, the keyboard warriors, and every headline in the news is meant to get you emotionally invested in that story. Right. Left, center. You know, it's all about playing people's emotions, and it's really hard to get past the emotional reaction and get to the intellectual reaction.

Let's talk more about that, Mike, because I agree the society is shifting in a way where we cannot handle these difficult conversations. We're seeing more conversations as difficult than need to be labeled that way. And I think when it comes to tribalism, we're seeing a very scary direction where it's not just that I have my tribe and you have your tribe. It's also that the act of listening respectfully is seen as an affront to my own people. So it's like I can't even respectfully engage with somebody outside of my tribe because then the people within my tribe will think that I'm on the other team.

Right. If you are not automatically opposed to the other side, then you might as well be on that team anyway. Right. We can't listen to each other. Yeah.

Right. It's a. It's a. It's an interesting thing. And it. I'm recognizing, too, it leaks. It seeps into the business world as well. One of my friends, I think, is Bob Bardone. He has a concept called conflict resilience, which I think is really brilliant. It's just the willingness to be able to sit within a conflict without it having too much of an emotional toll on you. And when I think about just on a societal level, we are becoming less and less resilient in the face of opposing views. And for me, that's something that's very scary. I don't know where things go in from this. And. And more importantly, I don't know how we pull this back. We're seeing it a lot online. We're seeing it a lot more popularized on in the media. And then people, young people are looking at this and saying, this is how we engage with each other. It's a very scary thing.

So first I Want to a shout out to the, to the younger generation because I think they get a bad rap. And I was teaching a class for one of our clients and it was their new hire class and I was so impressed with how smart and attentive and they showed up on time and they did what I told to do. And I called my handler after the class and I said, hey, you know, I think these, these next generation, they get a bad rap because, because you got some really sharp kids in this class. And they said, no, Mike, you need to understand we're giving you the high pot class, the high potentials. There's a whole, you, there's, they're pre screened before you get to see them. There's a whole lot of kids in that next generation. So, so I was going through some stuff with my son and daughter and you know, they'd be like, you're blocked. They would tell the person you're blocked and then three days later they'd be communicating with them again. So they weren't blocked. But I even saw there's, there's a guy at one of the restaurants I hang out with and he's dating one of the bartenders and, and he, he blocked her 54 year old guy blocked and told her you're blocked. So it may not be a generational thing. Maybe, maybe the young generation is leading the older generations to, you know, different forms of conflict. I won't call it resolution, but dealing with conflict or when there's conflict, what are the tools and techniques you can do? I guess you're taking control. When you say I am blocking you and, and you are being direct about it, you're not passive aggressively not getting back to them. You are saying I am blocking you. So maybe, maybe there's some maturity in that, that, that you know, needs to be explored. I don't know.

That's fair. Yeah, I think it's definitely a cultural thing too. I would say explicitly telling somebody you're, you're blocked might seem cold, but it is certainly more respectful and humane than just ghosting somebody.

Ghosting somebody. Yeah. Well, but see, so, so shifting back to like business negotiations, I tell people, I love negotiating with people from the Netherlands, from Germany, from that region of the world. And I don't like to stereotype, but there's some cultural things we need to respect. When I'm dealing with somebody from that area, they tend to be very direct and they will say this is non negotiable. I am non negotiable. I'm not negotiating. It must Be this. Got it. Now I can, I can work with that, to be that direct. Now, my wife is British. My daughter is in London. I've probably done 30 sessions in the UK. Love the people, love the food, love everything about it. But it's frustrating for me because the, the Brits stereotypically are trying to be so polite that they won't tell you no, it has to be this date or no, that doesn't work for us the way that a German would. So I find that I waste a lot of time when I'm negotiating with somebody from the UK because they're trying to be so polite, they don't want to tell me, no, that doesn't work. And I'm like, I'm a big boy. I can take it. But, but their culture doesn't let them give it. So you almost have to pull it out. I've said, did I get us fired? When I, when, when they just wouldn't respond. And then when you, when you use something like that, powerful. Am I fired? Just tell me. And then they'll come back and say, no, I was just checking on dates. And it turns out that won't work for us. So you, but you have to pull them out of the shell because culturally they're trying to be polite versus and I said, I used the word direct. I was in a session in Amsterdam, and one of the people from the session at the break said, thank you. Most people say we're rude. We're just trying to be direct. So even, even the word used to describe the act can be rude and negative, or I see it as a positive direct.

Yeah, yeah, this, okay, this, this gives, gets us into perception, the power of perception. Right. Because there is a difference between what these two words mean. Rude versus direct. Rude is an accusation, like a character assassination to a certain extent. And I'm wondering when it comes to the conflicts that we've had and I think about, especially for you, given your business experience, how much of the conflict that we experience is just a matter of perception and difference of perspective versus actual substantive difference.

You know, going back to that ego thing, you know, everybody's gotta find the way to look good, to save face, to be the winner. Can't let the other side be too happy because that means that you're the loser. Even though you do want to make them happy, but you don't want to make them too happy. You know, happy enough to come back and do another deal with you. I, I, that goes the head junk that, that gets in our way. It's it's that self talk sometimes. And self talk's a weird thing. I read a lot about positive self talk and about the plant. If you put a plant out, you talk nice to it, the plant will flourish. And if you speak mean to the plant, the plant will die. I'm. I am unique in that I respond to negative self talk. When I make a mistake in my head. And this is way over. I'm dating myself here. I'm Bobby Knight throwing chairs. When I make a mistake, I'm so frustrated of myself that I don't. I won't let it happen a second time. And when I make a sec. The same mistake twice, then that's a really bad day for me.

Right.

Whereas other people need the positive self talk. And I, I don't know what the numbers is, but it's probably 90 of the population respond to positive self talk. And then there's some people who respond to negative self talk when I, and I coach volleyball. But when I see the. Yay, let's go, let's go. Rah, rah, rah. I go.

I go.

I don't need that. I don't need a coach saying rah rah in my head. I'm like, next point. This is what we're gonna do. But that's my perception of the situation and how I've perceived how I perform better. So I don't know if it's a choice that I've made or if it's a. If it's a real, you know, voice in my head response. But I do think that everybody's got to have that way of getting out of their own way, figuring out what's going to work best for them and then, and then seeking it out.

Yeah, that's. That's a very interesting one, Mike, because I know and I tell Whitney all the time. I'm like, I'm not mad. I'm just intense. Just really, really focused on. On the goal here. And see, so you, you, you've got.

This big smile and you are so positive. I, I can't see you getting. I wouldn't, I wouldn't describe you as matter. Intense. But when I relax, I've got this scowl on my face. So what I have for myself sign that says smile.

Wow.

Because I can be in a good mood, but if I'm relaxed, people perceive me to be in a bad mood. So I have to be aware of myself and how people perceive me in that situation.

See, that's. So this is, this is, this is very interesting because I, Because Typically when I'm. When I'm engaging, I'm pretty gregarious, but then once I. Once I, like, lock in and I'm working, it's. It is that intense look. And I think that's very helpful because it's important to recognize that your internal experience can be experienced very differently from people who are outside. Right.

That's a great way of saying it. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's. It's almost a bit of marketing to a certain extent, so I have to market what's inside of me so other people don't misread it. I've. I've seen. I've worked with some folks who have. They. They would call it RBF Resting.

That's a male version. Yes, I have.

Exactly. And it's. They're like, I'm not mad. I'm not upset. And so we have to kind of work on, like, some video work, some camera work, mirror work, to just show them, hey, this is that your internal experience isn't being perceived the exact same way. So if you want to communicate your body language the way that you are, your. Your affect, it has to be part of your communication strategy. And I think a lot of people miss that.

Yeah. Well, and it's like, my kids, if I whip around real quick, I will say things like, hey, is there gas in the car? And. And my daughter has said, stop yelling at me. And I'm like, no, no, Dad's not yelling you. All I asked was a question. Is there gas in the car? You will know when I'm yelling at you.

Right.

But her perception is I was being difficult or I was accusing her of not putting gas in the car. That's her head junk that gets in there. I can only imagine, though, you know, going to go into your specialty being in law and being in front of a jury, or you've got someone's life or. Or a large part of somebody's life on the line. And if that, that 12th juror, if. Five of the 12 jurors, if. If they don't perceive you as really believing what you're saying, then they might think, well, this guy doesn't even believe his own bs, right?

Yes. And so, Mike, this is. This is a great opportunity to talk about authenticity because people throw it out there as if it is an. A concept that's very easy to understand. And it's not because we have the idea of authenticity. Right. And different people have different definitions, but then we also have efficacy because we're trying to drive towards a specific goal. And sometimes the authentic version of yourself might be really pissed off at the moment, but then you have to drive toward a goal that kind of puts your ego to the side, suspends your own maybe emotional agenda to put the needs of your. The client or the business agenda forward.

Right.

And so how do you, in your experience, how do you balance the feeling of authentic being true to yourself, being honest, with also making sure that you're meeting the business objectives, the strategic communication objectives of the conversation?

Yeah, I, you know, I think it goes to having a strong ethical foundation and, and then being flexible in. In the points where you can be flexible. When I. When I went to MGM Resorts, I was asked to help negotiate a deal. When I first got there, I was there for all of 10 days, and it was an IT deal. And they said, okay, you're from procurement now, you're going to help us negotiate this deal. I said, fantastic, Tell me about it. They said, well, it's going to be at the Palms. Now, the Palms is a competing property, not an MGM property. And I said, huh? And they said, it starts at midnight. And I said. And they said, and it's in the Playboy Suite. And I said, we're not going.

What is happening?

And he goes, but it's the Palms. It's the Playboy Suite. This is going to be awesome. I said, if this was on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, I would not be proud that Mike was negotiating a deal at a competitor property in the middle of the night. No, it just reeks of unethical behavior. So I had to tell my team, you can go, you can be the good cop, but you're not negotiating the deal. Make sure everybody's aware of that, set the expectation, and we'll negotiate at one of our properties in one of our conference rooms in an appropriate setting during business hours.

The.

The appearance of impropriety is impropriety because perception is everything. Right.

But talk to me about this because. Because this comes up when. When people recuse themselves legally, when a judge recuses themselves. And again, we won't get political here. But it comes up and, And I. I found that people go, oh, well, they've recused themselves. They must be guilty. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Recusing yourself is about the perception that you might be influenced. Someone could perceive that. So. So I had come from iac and Ticketmaster was one of the companies that we owned. Ticketmaster was a finalist with Greenspun Media to sell tickets for mgm. There was two, and we were going to negotiate with both I'm the head of IT Procurement. And they said, you're negotiating this deal? And I said, no, I'm not. And they said, why not? And I said, because I came from a company that owned Ticketmaster, Greenspun Media, who was very close with mgm because they're local Vegas, they roll with our CEO. If they lose, they will say, Mike influenced the deal, so I, I have to recuse myself for the benefit of whatever is the best thing for the company to do. And they said, yeah, but we trust you. And I said, it has nothing to do with your trust. It has everything to do with the perception of a potential loser. Because ticket, if Ticketmaster wins, they're not going to care if they lose. They might be like, well, Mike must hate us because of the last company he worked at. So even, even that situation, Ticketmaster could have a beef with me being involved.

Yeah.

So that's, that's the way I handled it. How would you handle it in, you know, from a legal perspective? Did I do the right thing?

Absolutely. Because it's two things. I think it's 50, 50 down the line because, yeah, we want to recruit, recuse ourselves. If there is the potential that your judgment might be askew as a result of a relationship or history or something like that. So there's the judgment and decision making factor that we have to consider. Everybody bias is real. And sometimes subconsciously, you could drive yourself in a specific decision because of the past. Right. So we have to recognize that. But to me, that's only half of it. We want to be able to have faith in our own judgment and we want other people to have faith in our own judgment. That's half. The other half is we want to have faith in the system itself. And I think that if you are a person who might have that appearance of being biased in any type of way, you pull it out not only for your own sake, but for the sake of the system, the integrity of the whole system that you're, you're within at the time. So, yeah, I think, I think that was the right move.

Well, and you mentioned that bias word. So I was commenting on a LinkedIn post about diversity of thought. I said, when I do a negotiation plan, I always want one second set of eyes, at least on the plan. Bad news early is good news. I want to find it from my team. But what I want, I don't want somebody who's got an engineering background like I do, who spent a lot of time in supply chain like I have, because group think tribalism, that word you used we will think too much alike. What I really want is for a person who has the background of the other negotiator, so I know how they think. Before I go into that negotiation, if I can find that person, where they went to university, what they studied, you know, what countries they've lived in, any. Anything that I can pick up on. In fact, there's a, There's a famous negotiator who said they busted nine myths of negotiation. And one of their myths that they busted was, you should not research the other side. And I said, what? Yeah, you're mine. So I looked up they had a very good reason. He said, it's a hymn. Because people are liars on social media. They lie about themselves, which I agree with now. Now, let's follow the logic. When it's 3 o' clock in the morning, they get a phone call to save somebody's Life. They've got 20 things they do going and reading somebody's Facebook feed and getting a bunch of lies is probably not a high priority. Plus, this person probably had a. They might have had a thousand hours, but at least 100 hours in profiling. So they can show up on the scene in, in five minutes, they can profile that person. Yeah, got it. That's. That's their bias because of their experience. But here's what I know. There's stuff that people don't lie about, can't lie about, it's illegal, or at least you'll get fired if you lie about it in LinkedIn. So I'm always in people's LinkedIn. And, and what I tell people is don't stalk anybody. That's. That's rude and disrespectful. But if LinkedIn is a billboard that everybody on LinkedIn spent between five minutes and five hours putting that information out there, making it look right, making their title right, making what they did right. They invested their time and effort. If I don't look them up, if I'm going to meet with somebody, I don't look them up. I think I'm being rude. They put the effort in. Shouldn't I read it? That's like if I sent out an agenda before a meeting with you. Kwame here. Hey, Kwame, here's the agenda. And then we get to the meeting and I go, so what'd you think about point three? And you go, I didn't read the agenda. I'd be like, dude, I, I put, I put some effort into this. Okay, okay, we'll go through it. But come on. So So I think we should research each other before we go into meetings and, and then we can test to something. What I tell people is that old saying about don't make assumptions. That's wrong. We should make assumptions, but we should test them. Hey, I read in your profile you spent some time in London. How did you like it? Because it can be awesome and it can be dreadful depending on time of year, what you're doing, where you are, but to get their perception of their experience there, you know, and then we can, we can move off from there.

Yeah, we have to create these rebuttable assumptions and we have to be able to trust our judgment enough to be able to say, okay, yes, sometimes people say bs, sometimes it's legit and we have to suss that out. And I think consistency, finding the consistency is the key. And also when, when searching people's social media. Agreed. You have to be respectful. You don't want to cross what I, I call the creepy line. There's, there's a line where it gets creepy or criminal. Like you use your judgment there.

But I'm on Tick Tock now, which means sell your stock because it's over. But yeah, my daughter's on Tick Tock, so I'm, I, I go, but I send her business stuff and like she stopped responding to my, my Tick Tock things that I sent her because she's like, oh, come on, you know? Yeah, I'm like, what are you, what are you posting? What the hell is it?

Anyway, see, I am recently on Tick Tock, so it's a whole new world. And for me when it comes to the social media stuff, I love to see how people want to be perceived. What is it that you want people to know about you or think about you? That's a really interesting.

If you've seen my profile, it says not a crisis negotiator. I've had three people in the past year say, why are you so adamant saying that you're not a crisis negotiator? I said, because I don't want a phone call at 3am if you're having a problem. I know the tools and techniques. I read, I, but, but I'm not an expert in that. So I just want people to know when they go, oh, you're a negotiator. Help me with my wife, my husband, my, no, no, no, I, I, I'm not the guy. We're gonna find you the right crisis negotiator for your situation, but just stop now. If you want to B2B stuff I'm your guy. I'll do. I'll give you my best thoughts on it. But, yeah, you know, it's. That bad news early is good news. I want people to know that I am. Here's the thing. You've probably seen them on social media. There are people who try to be everything to everyone, right? And, and, and nobody is, but that doesn't stop them from trying. And I want people to know I'm, I'm more transparent than most people. No one's 100% transparent, but I'm. I'm trying. It's like. What's that line from Pulp Fiction? I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard.

And I think that gives you more legitimacy, too, because you're saying that this is my thing. This is what I know, this is my experience, and you can trust me on that. And, and also, I know for me, crisis negotiation, that that's a lifestyle choice. I don't, I don't want to be that person waking up.

Can you imagine that? And I've taken the one. MIT has one that's a. It's a chat bot. And you've got 60 seconds or the hostage dies and I lose every time. I have not gotten to the end. Now, I've had people claim to have gotten to the end, but they won't tell you how they got to the end. And I'm like, I don't know if you got to the end or you're just saying you got to the end. But that's, that's a hard job. I don't want that responsibility. You know, I'm. I get emotional about stuff. I'll choke up if I, if I see somebody in pain. If I see a bird get hit by a car, I got a little tear in my eye. Last thing I want is to have to focus on, like, saving a human life. Holy cow.

That sounds unpleasant for everyone, everyone involved. This is great. Well. Well, Mike, before you go, I want to ask, when you think about your career, you've checked a lot of boxes when it comes to B2B negotiations and training all over the world. Just out of curiosity, if there's anything that you haven't done that you want to do, what is it?

I. I almost got to go to the South Pole to, To check the seventh continent, but it was a pay to play thing that was a cruise ship of speakers. And, and their, their shtick is you all speak to each other. So you can say you're a professional speaker and you take the boat down and you get off at the tip there and you're all there and you go, oh, it's cold. And then you get back in the boat and you go up this side. So I'm like, I, if, if I go, I want to go to like a weather station or somebody down there that's got some extra, you know, government funding to spend and it's use it or lose it and they actually bring me down. I'd like to do that. You know, I really just, I like helping people and one of the things I get frustrated about is on LinkedIn and other social media platforms that I've tried, when you give people advice that you know with certainty, meaning like, okay, here's the reviews for my last. Every, every time we do a session, we have anonymous reviews at the end of every session, right? And so we got 24 of them here. And this person at the bottom chose to write in about their conference. Excellent. Built my confidence. Thank you. Didn't have to say that. When I can help somebody like that, I really, I feel good that I've helped another human being accomplish something or feel better about themselves. And then when I see. So I posted something on LinkedIn that was complete garbage. I found it on Facebook. It was, it was just, it was just noise. And I said, I wonder what would happen if I put on LinkedIn and, and I got 954 interactions. When I post the stuff from our class, our content. If I get three likes, that's a lot. So I get frustrated that the stuff that I know has value based on anonymous reviews when they're in class. When I post it on LinkedIn, it, it doesn't seem to go anywhere. Versus when I posted some stuff that is not really going to help anybody, it, it tends to take off. So I always find that interesting. If I could figure that out, if I could figure out the magic of what makes people react, I, I'd be happier. I will have learned something there.

I know our, our producer, Simone is laughing because I was just telling the team, like three or four people that I respect immensely in just the last week have been telling me how frustrated that they are with like LinkedIn and getting any, any movement on it. And now you say this. I'm, I was thinking to myself, do I need to start posting bad advice? People don't like good advice anymore.

Oh, okay. So I read it again. Lifelong learner. I try to read stuff and learn from other people. So what it said was, here's what you do if you, if you want something to go viral. You post the question on Reddit, create a fake account. The first response needs to be the wrong advice. And then the Redditors, I think that's what they call themselves, will pile on the person who gave bad advice. They won't just give you the right advice right out of the gate. It has to be after someone's given bad advice. So maybe, maybe that's a whole social construction, you know, trip to the psychologist, Couch. For all of society, why can't we just give somebody good advice? Why do we have to wait for bad advice before we come in? Back over the top, the, the thought was it has to do with correcting people. You, you have a. You have a superiority when you get to correct someone who was wrong.

Yeah.

So I don't know. I.

That's so interesting. So interesting. I tell you, if, if we could figure that out.

Oh, yeah, A little bottle of it. Yeah.

It'd be amazing. It'd be amazing.

But I came. I come from South America, and that's why I feel identified with you, because in South America, we're very direct. If we want to say something, we just say it. And then I came to Canada, so things are very different here.

And I'm the fun uncle to the north. Right. They're very kind, they're very smart people, very nice. But, yeah, it's conflict is not something they embrace.

Yeah, exactly. And I am very honest, you know, so when I started working with Kwame, I said, sorry if I don't say sorry. Sorry if I am not polite enough. But I am like this, and it's my second language, so it's more difficult. So when I came here, it was like, oh, my God, I can't say anything because it's very. It's almost dangerous. I'm walking on eggshells every day.

So what is.

What can I do? Because I think that over time, I will learn more words and I will make things smoother. But for now, I'm struggling, so how can I. How can I be myself and at the same time, don't be rude in this society?

So I'm going to give you advice that will work for me because that's the best I can do. And it might not work for everybody because everybody's not like me. I like that you said that if you were working with somebody new, you can say, hey, listen, there might be some things culturally that it might annoy you. It might be. Might be perceived as rude. In my culture, we're very direct, we're very emotional, and we, you know, we Just tell it like it is. And we don't always say we're sorry. So if I ever irritate you, you have my permission to let me know. Or I encourage. Not permission, say this. I encourage you to let me know so that I can learn about your culture. Wow. And then just. I'll try. I'll try to immerse myself in your culture. I'm trying to immerse. That's the way you learn a language, right? Is you get in and you. You have to every day. Again, I was. I'm. I'm in Malaga and everybody speak in English. I want to say, dos reza, por favor. And they're like, two pints. And I'm like, okay, give me the two pints. So. But you got to immerse. So. So I think if you're somebody like me, I would appreciate you saying, hey, listen, I'm trying here. It's probably gonna irritate you sometimes, but just let me know so that I can fix it so I can be more in your culture. I think that'd be a great thing. I hope that helped. You know, if it doesn't, you. You've made the effort to try. Now, they may not be receptive, but at least you've gone out of your way to say, I'm. I want to learn your culture, so I might make some mistakes.

Wow, thank you.

That's great. Mike, I wanna. I wanna zoom in on something here because you said first permission, then you edited and said encourage.

Why do you happen. I'll tell you. I started talking because you lit up a light bulb in my head. I wasn't trying to be rude or disrespectful, but you got me going. But almost like a brainstorming session. So in a brainstorming session, you're not supposed to censor yourself, Right? You're supposed to throw it out there, and then you edit later. So I threw a wrong word out there and self edited after that makes sense.

Oh, no, I love it. I love the edit. But I want to highlight for the audience why that word choice matters so much.

I think you're. It shows that you're trying to be. Or at least I was trying to be sensitive to a culture that is less comfortable being direct.

Yes. See that? I'm glad you explained it because I. I thought about it through the lens of power dynamics, because I was saying, okay, the person who has more authority gives permission and. But. But I love the way that you're approaching it better because you're. Because per. You can have Permission to do something and still not do it. But when you say I encourage you to, it's like, no, I actually desire that you say this. To me, it seems more collaborative. So I, I endorse your word choice. I like it.

I, I try to be collaborative. You know, everybody's got an ego and, and I try to just have a good time and chill and I want people to get along. And I'm a pacifist until it's time to not be pacifist. But, but I was out the other night and, and there was this person who's being really, really, really annoying to a lot of people at the bar. And my wife said to me, she said, don't look at him. And I said, oh, no, I'm. I'm gonna look at him and I'm gonna let them know that that's not going to be tolerated. Right. The rbf.

Yeah.

There's a time for Power Dynamics to come out, but I want that to be like single digit percent.

Yes.

And the rest of the time I want to be collaborative and I'm looking out for you. You know, nobody's perfect. But if we can, you know, check ourselves and then, and then let it out at the right time, the right moment, when, when like a tool on a carpenter's wall, I will use this power dynamic tool. Not all the time, but in, in the right moment, use it. And the rest of the time I'm going to use the other tools and get better at those.

Agreed. So. Good. So. Oh, okay. Well, can I. You. You have five more minutes because I want to.

Yeah, yeah. No, I, I blocked off the rest of day today, so we're all good.

Okay, so let's get, let's get into this too, because, and Simone, you stay here because I like seeing your face. So when it comes to this, when it Power Dynamics, earlier on you, you mentioned, hey, I don't want the other side to feel bad or feel scared. I think a lot of times, especially when people are new to negotiation, they are surprised when they see negotiation experts talk like this because. And I've got, I'm sure you've gotten to this in trainings as well. I've gotten people who say, well, what about when I want them to be afraid? What if I yell at them to get a specific outcome? And the response that I have is, I don't want to have to rely on that, number one. And number two, I don't know how they will respond with precision. So it's entirely possible that they might submit. So even If I get that moment of submission and I close the deal because of that, they're going to be looking to get. Get back at me at some point. Most likely not going to be repeat business. And then also I might yell and then they respond more forcefully. Now I increase the resistance that I have. And so when. Let's just break down the, the emotional state we want the other side to be in and then the power dynamics. Because I think people often want to lean too heavily into these needlessly aggressive approaches.

So I would agree with that. And I. And I see. Here's the problem with the perception of negotiations that I see in the movies on television, we are fed a narrative of power dynamics in politics. One side wins, one side loses.

Yeah.

Or in the movies, it's a trick. It's a gotcha moment. Yes. And one side wins and one side loses. So. So that's the most people's perception most of the time is that that's going to happen. And so we can't let that happen or we want to make that happen. One, you know, whether you're trying to win or try to avoid losing. So I think we have to get past that. That is the way most conduct negotiations should be conducted. We should try to look out for each other. And I don't hear something. I'm not saying, I'm not saying negotiations are always a group hug. Right there. There is some tension in a negotiation, but. But it should be mostly on the collaborative side. And mostly we're going to see each other again. The project team is going to start on this. So we can't. We can't be like in a negative emotional space. When the project starts tomorrow, we have to be, you know, in a spot where both of us can come together. You're giving me your money and I'm giving you my value, my product, my service. But. But there's an exchange there. So there's been. There's been two times in my career where I got yelled at or 1. 1 I got yelled at and one I yelled. One time I was. I was calling on Ford. I was in sales for a company called Kenmar and Varga Breaks out of Brazil, produce the brakes for the Mustang. Now, Mustang was coming out with a Shelby Cobra edition. They were going to beef up the engine. So when you beef up the engine, you got to beef up the brakes, right. You're going to go fast. You got to stop fast. So I think, I think our brake caliber at the time, it cost something like 1875 per caliber less than 20 bucks. And when we repriced this new beefier caliper, it was like 1990, a dollar more, something like that. And Bill Lang, the head buyer at Ford, calls me up and he is lighting me up. I've got the phone away from my ear. How dare you. You're trying to gouge us. This is completely unacceptable. And I said, bill, where do I need to be? And he yelled at me. I still remember this. He said, I don't negotiate over pennies. Bam. Hangs up the phone. And I'm like, damn, I must be really off here. I'm missing something. We lose the business to a company called Brembo. Now Brembo makes racing brakes, high quality. I'm their competitor. And I'm like, that's a good, that's a good deal if you can get Brembo for less than us. I'm doing that all day long. A year later, Bill leaves Ford and he comes to work at Kenmar. So I said, hey, hey, Bill, welcome to the team. You know, if there's anything I can tell you where the coffee pot is. You know, by the way, that, that deal that I, I made you mad on. Well, why were you so mad? If you got Brembo for better price than us, that's a win. And he said, oh, I love to play golf. Bill played more than 100 rounds of golf a year. Had Varga won the business, it was an engineering change, and he could have kept on his, his life. But if another supplier won, they had to do what we call a pre production approval process, a ppap. Because Brembo won, he had to cancel a golf vacation. He was going to Scotland that he had set up six months in advance. He was mad that his personal life was impacted because I wasn't competitive enough. Even though Ford got a huge win. So. So sometimes. So this is what I tell, what I tell salespeople. If a buyer is yelling at you and you jump, I'm yelling and you do it, I'm yelling, you do it. The buyer will have learned that no matter what's going on in their life, they got in a fight with their spouse, they got their car got dinged, whatever, and they're mad, they will take it out on you. And what I tell people is you don't deserve that. So. So when you're faced with somebody on the other side of the table that's yelling, that's in a bad mood, if you don't really deserve it, you should say, hey, listen, clearly something going on in your sheet of paper I'm really sorry. We all have bad days. Why don't we reschedule? I'll come back when it's a better time for you. And what you're indirectly telling them is, I'm not going to tolerate you yelling at me. It's not going to get you anything out of this. I will make time to come back. So, so, you know, I think we have to understand the dynamics of the other side sheet of paper and why they might be yelling and the dynamics involved with teaching people how to treat us. Because if you get yelled at and you do something, they're going to yell at you again and again and again. And that's not fun. So fast forward another MGM story. We, we figured out that there was a level of player that we couldn't send our planes for, but we could rent a regional jet that would handle 40 people and that way you could avoid going to the TSA line. So it went to like, it was like bakers. There was three cities in Southern California. We did a little milk run and man, this, this operator kept screwing up. And when you have people who you've pulled out of commercial airlines and you put them on a special jet, they feel special. But if you screw up the timing. And one time somebody, somebody said, glad to see you and your wife back. And it wasn't the wife that, that was there on the previous flight because, because you got a different manifest, it's a whole different level of, of security anyway, so they kept screwing up. So my guy Andrew, that ran the program was getting yelled at by all the casino hosts. And I said, that's it. And I sent a very sternly worded email and I said, we're gonna meet Saturday morning at 7 o' clock in my office and we're going to figure out this scheduling thing. Send. That's it. Everybody shows up. I say, thank you for being here. 7 o' clock in the morning. I'm leaving. You're gonna figure this out. Close the door. Walked out. So that's, that's my version of yelling at a situation. Now, I, I think I had good reason to yell. It wasn't yelling because I had to cancel a golf trip, but, but they came out with a project plan. And it was very clear that, that Mike, who, who tries to be nice and tries to be collaborative, had the patience was done. And it was, you're going to get yelled at now, so don't do this. So again, it goes back to, there's a time and place to use that tool. And then there's a reason why that tool may be in play by the other side. And we. We need to figure these things out as negotiators.

Yes. So, I mean, I barely can add anything. Anything this. Mike. It's so. You're so right. Because first of all, we can recognize, hey, the other person's emotional experience often is not about us, but then we take that and make it about us and then make bad decisions as a result of it.

Right.

And then the thing is, again, like a good, great negotiator, we have to have different tools. And we. I was in Jamaica less than 24 hours ago, just got back, and there was. We. They like a little spice. That's great. A little bit of spice is good. And I remember we. We caught this tuna, and so we got. We brought it back to the resort, and they'll actually prepare it for you. So we got to have the. The tuna there. They made it in with jerk and sliced up peppers and everything like that. It was great. The perfect amount of heat. Right. When you have the perfect amount of heat, the dish tastes good. But then I remember I moved one of the habanero peppers off of the. Off of the fish with my finger. And then a few years. A few minutes later, my eye started to itch. Reach. And I reached and I touched my eye. So in that example, we could recognize too much spice used at the wrong time in the wrong place could be very damaging.

Right, Right.

So with us as negotiators, we cannot just be one note. We can't just be violently spicy all the time, because then it doesn't work. We have to be able to recognize the time and the place. Hey, sometimes we need a little bit more spice to get this done, but it's like it's a condiment. It's not the main dish. And if we use it too much, then we lose our efficacy.

That's. Yeah. Whether. While you're talking about tools and a carpenter, you're talking about chefs and the spices. It's absolutely a recipe that we all need to be able to prepare multiple meals.

Yes. Yes. I love this. Mike. This is so great. Before you go, let the listeners know again about your company, how they can connect and work with you, too.

Yeah. We try to keep it really simple. We're negotiationtraining.com. that's all we do. We're so passionate. We bought the domain years ago, and we focus in B2B. 80% of it is sales and project managers. 20% is it in procurement. There's some finance folks that get thrown in there, some engineers that get thrown in there into the mix. And we do it for companies all over the world. Would love to earn some more business that's out there. And if not, if we can just help some people do better in their personal lives, professional lives, love to help people.

Amazing. Mike, thanks again for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Kwame, thanks for. Hey. And Simone, thank you. And I appreciate that I mispronounced your name when we started off, so thank you for tolerating that.

Thank you.

This is so good, man. This is great. What do you think?