Creating a More Fulfilling Life Through Difficult Conversations with L. Scott Ferguson

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for spending time with us today. It's listeners like you in 181 different countries that have made Negotiate Anything the most popular negotiation and conflict resolution podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, professor, and the director of the American Negotiation Institute. Before we get started, I have two quick questions for you. Is negotiation a critical part of what you do? Do you need to resolve conflict and persuade at work? If you answered yes to both of those questions, visit our website to learn more about our negotiation workshops. We've traveled the country working with professionals just like you and we'd love to have the opportunity to work with you too. Check out the link in the description to learn more.

Scott, thanks for joining us today.

Hey Kwame, how are you, brother? Privy to be here. So happy, man.

Yeah, man, I'm excited to have you and it's a pleasure to have you, especially since I was on your show a little bit ago. So now we are returning the favor and I'm glad you're here to share some knowledge with the audience.

Yeah, that episode 175 is epic. And time to Shine today. So you see my boy Kwame on there dropping the knowledge nuggets about negotiation. No one's better. So thanks for coming on as well.

Appreciate it. So yeah, Scott, let's get it started. Tell us about yourself and what you do.

I'm the, I guess the chief level up officer here at Time to Shine Today. But we don't want to have anyone to feel like they have no one. And basically we put people with people to make sure that they're continuously leveling up.

Man, that's fantastic. And so listeners, this episode is like no other episode that we've had. I'm excited about this. And so what we're going to do here is we're going to really dig deeply into Scott's story, but we're going to do it from the perspective of negotiation, conflict resolution and difficult conversations in general. Because as you know, I always say the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And because of that, your quality of life is going to be dependent in large part by how you do in these difficult conversations. And so Scott's story is fantastic. And so what we're going to do is we're going to go through it and Scott's going to talk about those difficult conversations that he had and how it shaped his career, his trajectory and what would have happened Potentially if those conversations went different directions. So this one man. Let's take us, take us to the beginning.

You know, I was born in 72 in the. During the Vietnam War era. And at the time my father was American and my mother was Filipino. And they did with adults do. And they. She got pregnant with me and he got killed in Vietnam, or so I'm told, for the last 49 years, so I'm told. But she, at the time, in the early 70s, mixed breed bastard male children were frowned upon the Philippines. Because I'm six one, I'm 260, I'm not a small guy. People will be like, oh, you're intimidating, blah, blah, blah. But there's a lot of the American GIs that knocked up the Filipinos. The average height of a Filipino man is like 5 4, 5 5. So they were afraid of these actual physical specimens taking over physically their country. And they were taking the babies and they were shipping the males to the country of Spain, because Spain to this day still controls the Philippine Islands. And nobody really knows what's happening to those, to the babies. So my mother put me up for like under, kind of under her broth adoption. And there was an Air Force couple that was stationed there. And they're like, well, we have two kids of our own. We want to adopt. This will be perfect. They started the adoption process. The lady who's going to adopt me, mother got sick or, sorry, father got sick in California. So they flew me on a temporary passport to California. Her dad dies, she goes schizophrenic. So I ended up being at an orphanage. So my mother and father, who I call my mom and dad now, Larry and Diane, they were looking for a baby. They didn't care if they were dark. He was dark skinned. Because this is the seventies, man, I'm dark skinned and my parents are white. Okay. And that was kind of taboo at the time. But they took the shot, they took the chance, they started the adoption process and they adopted me. But my dad was who I call my dad now, Larry. He was an alcoholic from the Vietnam War. Couldn't basically dis. We're best friends now. But he didn't do that great of a job as fathering when we were kids. I love him. We talk every single day, text every single day. I love him. But, you know. So they ended up divorcing Kwame when I was like three, maybe three and a half. And so I just bounced from house to house to house, you know, relatives and whatnot. I did have one specific set of relatives I actually call mom and dad as well. And they. They really raised me for about four years. My dad treated his alcoholism and hasn't had a drink since 84. And he's. I went back and lived with him for the second half of my grade school through high school. And so I. That. That's kind of my early story. I mean, I've been sought out by, like, Oprah's people back in the 90s. Montel Williams, Jenny Jones, Sally just Raphael. They all reached out to me back then to get the story because there's. There's so much more that really even kind of goes into it. I have a twin sister that my mom kept. I got a lot of different things, so I dealt with a lot of abandonment issues that I negotiate with throughout my life, and that's kind of the start of it, man. And that kind of led into the military and then on through business, so. Wow.

So there's a lot I didn't know. That is incredible. That is fascinating. And so what I think we can take from this here is that when you are developing as a person, this backstory is going to follow you, Right?

It's going to have, like, a huge chip, man.

Yeah.

It's going to have an impact on.

The way that you have relationships, the way that you have these conversations. And a lot of times you hear people say, when you're having conversations with people and they might respond aggressively to you or something like that, they're not often responding to you. They're responding to the baggage that they're carrying.

Yes. I've been totally guilty of that, brother.

Yeah.

I was a hothead, hot head. I felt like, as a band and the world's against me my whole life, right? And so in somebody, we would disagree with me, instead of, you know, listening and then responding, I would react, and it was. It was bad for good. And the thing is, is I became a millionaire doing that. And I show people my tax returns all the time from oh, three. I was like. I was watching that show Entourage with Ari Gold. I'm like, that's the way you do it, man. You get in people's faces, and that's it. Then I lost everything when the market crashed because I was so full of myself. I didn't listen to my advisors. And then the. The rebound from that in my little brother suicide, really kind of put me. The more. Listen, respond instead of reacting.

Okay, okay, so let's. Let's go through the military career, right? And so when you were in the military, your time there, tell us about how that baggage impacted the way that you interacted with your colleagues there.

The military is the closest thing. And again, dad, if you're listening, I love you, mom, you know, rest in peace. If you're listening upstairs, I love you. But I never had a camaraderie of family, man, you know what I'm saying? So what happened is I wasn't pursued by big colleges, but there was small ones want me to play some ball or baseball in wrestling, and basically. But they didn't like my 1.8 grade point average. Right. So it was like my dad's like, you're going to pay rent if you're going to live here. So I was like, you know, I'm going the Navy, you know, figure I'll see the world, kind of do my thing. And do. When you go in the Navy. People just don't choose to go in the Navy or any military, really. They usually have failed. I'm saying if you're watching this on YouTube or somewhere, I'm saying that in quotes, failed at something, whether they were, hey, judges, like, you go into jail for two years or you're going to the military for two to four years. So you get 84 dudes, man, all from different background hoodlums, you know, just. Just people like me that just didn't really care about grades and stuff. And you put 84 people together in eight to 12 weeks and have a marching and cadence that you would give your life for them. That was when I knew what family was. And basically it helped me just from that 12 weeks and then through the next five years to negotiate my way through life with a. A perspective where I still had that chip on my shoulder because I wasn't rid of that. But I knew I had people on my side, and that was huge.

Yeah, that makes sense. And so that probably helped with the abandonment issues that you feel, right?

Yes, sir.

And so now let's get actually deeper into that too. Right. So think about the interactions you were having at that time post military. How did they change post military when compared to before you had that camaraderie of the military?

Well, when you're in the military, what I did in the military is I had some pretty hard target situations. So I was very confident because of what I had made it through, that anything in life that comes at me, I can be able to handle no problem. But the spin that I put on it was I was aggressive, I was abrasive, and I didn't listen to me. I didn't listen to my mom when she tell me, you know, I have two ears and one mouth for a reason. So to answer your question, post military, yes, successful on paper, but through life, I wasn't able to negotiate my way out of a paper bag if I had to. You know what I'm saying? It was like it was either I punched my way through or you weren't my friend. I don't have anything to do with you, which is terrible.

Yeah. Okay, so this is interesting, Scott, because you got out of the military, you reached a significant level of success in your business. And one of the things that you said earlier was that you didn't listen to your advisors, you didn't listen to the people around you. And as a result, when you lost everything. And so let's say, let's take your skill set now, your level of self awareness now, your level of negotiation abilities now, and you put it into the brain of Scott around 03. How do things change? If you had the mindset that you have now back then, bro, I have.

Did that and went over in my head the things that I would have did differently. And then there's so many things I would have started with what I'm feeding my brain first. First of all, you know, I mean, I was reading a lot of books that were about like sharks don't sleep, you know, get after. I would have been feeding myself a lot differently within my mindset. A lot more in the good book, I'm Christian faith. So I would have been a lot more in that. I would have been a different morning routine. You know, I would have instead of getting up and going after him, and I was in great shape and I ballooned up to about £300 just because I was eating on the run, um, negotiating my way through life. I wouldn't have just treated women like absolute crap, you know, you don't have no idea how many phone calls I've made with apologies to women that I just treated absolutely bad. Not physically, but mentally, you know, and not even mentally abusive. But I would kind of use them and move, move through life. I would take more time to be a lot more compassionate with people, a lot more compassionate with myself. A lot less unsure of my confidence in. More like. No, because I was doing everything under the guise of insecurity. And I would be a lot more confident with that. And that's how I would kind of look back and would have changed how I fed my mind, my body, and how I treated people. That's things that I would change in a heartbeat.

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Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

And I could still make the same amount. That was the thing. It was like, you know what I'm saying? That's that I could do it because, you know, I did it in a way. You know, I named a company Vulture Capital, bro. I preyed on other people's misfortunes. You know what I'm saying? Oh, you're losing your house. We care about you. I go scoop it up and buy it from them. It's terrible. You know, and in negotiating my way through deals like that, like a vulture. And I would. I would have changed a lot of things. And trust me, Kwame, I've easily reached out to a hundred people and apologized for my actions in the past, and I've rectified some of them monetarily, and I've rectified as many as I could. They would accept my apology.

Mm. And so. Okay. There's so many different angles for this, Scott. And so what we're seeing here, a couple things. Let's begin with this. Let's begin on from your. The way that you saw yourself, right? Because you had. You had those insecurities, but you kind of compensated with a lot of bravado.

Yes. Perfect.

So from the outside, it looked like you were confident, but you were making up for what you were lacking in that moment.

Yes, sir.

And as a result, it had an impact on the way that you treated people. Relationships went down as a result of that, too.

Correct.

But what's interesting about this is the fact that there is redemption here, right?

Absolutely.

It's difficult, but you were able to reconcile with some people. You were able to rebuild some relationships. And let's think about the relationships that you were able to bring back to at least neutral or possibly positive. What were the things that you were able to do there that got them to forgive you and move on from the past harms?

You know, I'm a person that lives by the credo, don't take life too seriously. You'll never make it out alive. Saw it in a movie years ago, heard it, and that's how I live. I live really happy. Go lucky. I'm never really less. I'm representing a client or in the middle of a deal. I'm never really too serious, Kwame, but I would really like. When I was doing it, in reconciling, I told them exactly what I did wrong. I just didn't go in and say sorry. I really dissected the situation and told them what I did wrong and what I would like to do to rectify it. And I asked them for forgiveness. That's the difference. I feel that move forward. I don't know if I answered your question exactly, but that's what I did. I mean, I. I really dug into each person that I apologized to. I wasn't just like, oh, Kwame, remember that time when I undercut you on the deal? You know, it wasn't. I mean, like, listen, you know, this is what I did, why I did it, and I'm asking for your forgiveness. What can I do to make it right?

Couldn't have been easy.

No, it sucked. Absolutely sucked. Absolutely. You know. You know, and the ego inside you is like, well, there's people that did this to me, you know, why aren't they reaching out to me? You know what I'm saying? So. But I just put out the first same forgiveness to them as I did, you know, for myself, you know, because I had to forgive myself for a lot of the stuff.

And I tell you, when it comes to forgiveness and self forgiveness, compassion and self compassion, it often has to start from inside.

Yeah, right.

And then, like, what you said, too, the ego inside of you is what makes it tough to do. And one of the things that I see with great negotiators and especially great mediators is humility. Very understated and very. But very, very humble. And so in your life now, right now, because you're running a successful business, how are you able to still advocate for yourself effectively while still staying humble?

Well, the tree that has the most fruit is the tree that bends the ground. You feel me? And I was told that it's a proverb or something like that. And the tree that has most fruit is the one that bends to the ground. And that's how I look at things now. You know, it's like I would. I give, give, give until it hurts so good, Right? But I'm still open to the reciprocation. And so humility has got to be a huge part of that. And humility starts with your actions, to yourself, and also to how you start every conversation. That's the biggest thing in any negotiation. You open up with, why is it that. Dude, that's going to. Just going to set off. You're not being humble, man. You set it off. Be like, hey, Kwame, this. You know, you want to dig into this. Let's maybe see if we can work out something. You know, the humility is there. The old Fergie would not have been that. He would have been right for the throat. Humility is huge, and it allows me to, you know, bear so much more fruit now in my life. And humility is key.

Yeah, it makes sense. And so what we're recognizing here is the way that you're treating people, it's making you. You're feeling better about those interactions.

Sure.

The other person is feeling better about the interactions. And judging by your current success, it seems as though the deals are still going pretty well.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's. They're going amazing, man. I'm in South Florida, bro, where egos are huge. I'm in Palm beach, you know, where, you know, I mean, the starter home is 600,000, right. So, you know, you start getting into that second home, you're the million. Million, two million, five, two million. And I do a lot of those. And, you know, you have to deal with not only your client, who's probably a millionaire, right. And then you have. You're dealing with the other agent who's representing a millionaire, and you just don't know how that's going to go with the other agents, you know, I mean, so I started off, and again, me being the size I am, I can't just go in there pounding because, oh, Fergie, the big bully. Nope. Dude, I call him up and be like, hey, you know, Tricia, congratulations. We got this deal under contract. What can we do, you know, to make this go super smooth, you know, and then try to carry the heavy parts of the load, you know, during a transaction, and try to make it as easy on the other agent as possible without really showing it that it's easy for you. You know what I'm saying? Because if you have your ducks in a row, it's gonna be easy no matter what. But you can carry more of the load. That's the thing. Yeah.

Something that you brought up that I think is often overlooked is just the way that your appearance can have an impact on your negotiations and the way you interact with people, right? And so we talk about race a lot of times, we talk about gender, those type of things. One of the things we don't talk about often is, is size. And so the same thing said from somebody who is more petite comes off differently from when said exactly the same way by somebody who is your size. Can you talk about how you've had to gain that self awareness and adjust your behavior accordingly?

When someone called the board of realtors back in the early 2000s and said, you know, Ferguson's a bully. He walks in like a bull in a china shop and just starts taking over everything. And that's how the awareness was. But at the time I didn't care. But when you lose everything and you're basically sleeping on a house that you have listed because your clients moved to Florida and you're listing a house in Michigan, I was in Detroit area at the time and sleeping on their couch or that they left behind, living in their house, squatting with my Rhodesian Ridgeback dog because I had lost everything. I had nowhere to live in this legit story, man. So when you're sitting there, you're in that situation, you realize the changes that you have to make. And that's really what it was in the great part was I belong to a great church and they really just set me down, man. I always say to everybody, love your guts, dude. I think I said that to you. I say it to everybody, right? And that's one of the guys that said, man, I love your guts, dude. I love your guts, Fergie. And then that's, well, wow, you have somebody that's really there because I was too proud to go to anybody I served with because I bragged to them about my success, you know what I'm saying? So when you have that the big bully Persona is going to get you absolutely nowhere. You've got to recognize what you are going through, but at the same time, and don't be ashamed of it because if you take care of yourself and you have it be that. But it's the how you got to approach people. And if you approach them from an angle of kindness and love and wanting to get whatever your deal is done together, it's so much more appreciated. And people will be like, now I'm like recognized as a gentle giant, big teddy bear, you know, big Ferg, you know, stuff like that versus oh, here comes Ferdiol. Excuse me. You know, so yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

It makes sense. And I've seen a Lot of my friends, especially people with athletic backgrounds, just having to. To make that adjustment. I mean, if people are like 65270, I mean, there's just a natural of intimidation that comes. That's just a human thing to do. You recognize the discrepancy in size. And so for them, what they have to do is they've recognized that they have to make people feel comfortable before they start advocating assertively for what it is that they want. If they don't take that step, then people get really defensive. People are afraid to be vulnerable, and it has a negative impact on the relationship and the negotiation.

Absolutely. All day. Yeah, it is. I think that it's just you have to bring awareness to yourself and understand there's a higher self that needs to be released. And the only way that you can do that is really dig into where you're at and then dissect yourself. And if you trust somebody, have an accountability partner to help you do it as well.

Yeah. I remember one of our other guests, Marilyn McClear Demers. She's an attorney, too, and her episode was titled how to Use Negotiation as a Personal Branding Tool. And what we're seeing here is that negotiation is going to have a really interesting impact on the trajectory of your life, but also your relationships and how people see you. Right. Because, again, your brand was something not too positive in 03 around that time.

Right.

Then, with the way that you treat people, the way that you interact with people, your brand is completely different right now, 100% different. These difficult conversations as a tool not only to advance your career, but also advance relationships and. And impact the way that people are perceiving you.

Correct? Oh, absolutely. You nailed it.

That's great. Well, let's. Let's wrap with this. When it comes to people out there who are listening to the podcast who are saying, all right, this helps me to understand that significant changes can occur with the way that I interact with people. What is it that they need to do in order to start making those changes today?

To make changes, to learn how to interact differently with people. Kwame.

Yeah.

You know what? That. Understand yourself. Understand that, you know, I. Because I still. I fight this every day, even. Even though I've made strides and I've really went above and beyond. But it all goes back, really, to that humility that you and I talked about, you know, and that you do it for the intention and not the attention. Right. I mean, I went after that a lot. That was passed on to me years ago by a good friend, Julian. You know, but it all begins really with humility and listening. I don't know if it really answered the question, but it's. It's kind of where everything starts for me now, where I kind of come into every conversation that I've had with you. When we did our discovery or we did our, you know, podcast interview, you know, it's. We. You have to come with a different mindset that's open to new things. And it sounds so cliche, but you have to be willing to put that past under you and walk on it and move forward versus, you know, always looking to that rear view mirror and seeing it there, you know, because that, that, that's what I was told. My good friend Julie is just put your. Put the pass under your feet and walk over it, you know, instead of, you know, trying to pull it forward with you. So, you know, everything again goes back to humility and doing it for the intention, not the attention.

I love it. Yeah, this is great. And the part that I love the most is the fact that you are willing to acknowledge that it's hard still. Oh, yeah, Every day.

Right.

Because we have people who are recovering, people pleasers who say, yeah, I'm better at it now. I'm more assertive. I can advocate for myself. That doesn't make it easy today, but I. Self awareness, I can do it. And so now you're coming more from the opposite end of the spectrum. Hey, you know, I used to be that, that kind of bully in the, in the negotiation, but I've made that transition. It is still hard today, but I'm still making those changes. I think that's powerful.

Kind of like an alcoholic, in a sense. You know, it's like you'll always be one, you know, that's what they say anyways, you know, and I understand, I acknowledge, because, you know, it can. You can fall off those rails. And I have in the past year with an agent that really irked me the wrong way and it. And I kind of showed that side of me and I went, I walked away. I'm like, what am I doing? You know, it's kind of like falling off the wagon, if you will, in a sense, for my recovery, within being able to negotiate the correct way.

That's awesome. No, well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing the story.

Appreciate you.

I've never had an episode like this, so I really appreciate. Appreciate this and I hope it's not. I hope. I know it will be powerful for those folks out there listening. So I appreciate you coming on the show, Scott.

Thanks.

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