Highlight Reel: Mastering Negotiation with Difficult Personalities

Hey, I'm Kwame Christian, and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world, where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process. Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts. We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and in life. Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, Negotiate Anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed. Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly, rooted in practicality. So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on Negotiate Anything. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation. And so when it comes to addressing somebody else's ego, let's get to the heart of the question. Now. We have to recognize that the ego will operate tantamount to an emotion in the conversation. So when we talk about frustration, we talked about acknowledging and validating the emotion. It sounds like you're frustrated right now. We're not going to say, hey, it sounds like you're an egomaniac. That's not what we're going to say.

But.

But what we can say is, hey, it sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this position. Oh, it sounds like based on your experience, you have a really informed perspective here. Am I sensing this right? Or it sounds like this is something that you really care about. So I'm going to touch on it. I'm going to make sure that they feel seen in that interaction, because if they don't feel seen, then they're going to make me feel them in the interaction. They're going to say, hmm, Kwame doesn't get it. He doesn't know who I am, so let me make sure he knows who I am in this conversation. And then it becomes really counterproductive. So understanding the role that the ego will play in these conversations is going to be critical. But I think also we have to step back and operate with a little bit of humility, because our ego will come into play as well.

What's a trigger? Follow on question to that.

What would be a trigger to watch out for in ourselves if we're in that dynamic? Right? Like, I mean, is there certain. I mean, I guess our own keywords are always different, but, I mean, there's gotta be, like, the feeling or something.

That we can sense to take A.

Deep breath and step back from it for a second.

Absolutely. So, new word for me this year, so I'm not just trying to shoot out cool words, okay? But it's called interoception. And so it is your ability. It's like your sixth sense, but not in an eerie type of mystical type of way. It is your ability to understand what's happening in your body. And so this is a tool that we need to develop and cultivate in ourselves so we can understand our emotional responses, because different emotions will manifest themselves very differently in difficult conversations. And the way it'll manifest for me is going to be different from the way it manifests for you. And so we have to be able to really look back and be open enough and vulnerable enough with ourselves to recognize. I deviated from the strategy at this point of the conversation. What happened? What was I feeling? So now that feeling becomes familiar, and I can say, you know what? What I'm about to say doesn't have any legitimate strategic purpose. I'm just trying to put myself over somebody and then put them down in the process. And I know for me, if I'm being completely honest, it's when lawyer Kwame shows up. And so I remember I did something that I was afraid of doing in February of this year on the podcast, something people have been asking for that I never let happen. And it was allowing Whitney, my wife, to come on the podcast. And she did exactly what I was afraid she was going to do. She told the truth. And so I asked folks on LinkedIn, hey, what's one question you want Whitney to ask me or you want me to ask Whitney? And so I had to put on my interview mode hat it's like, kwame, you're a podcaster. And they said, what's it like to be married to a negotiation expert? Her word, awful. She's like, awful, because you're needlessly combative and things like that. And I just said, all right, I will say that I do demonstrate those behaviors, but let's not conflate these identities. That's Kwame the lawyer that you're mad at, not Kwame the negotiator. Because when I'm having these effective conversations, then there's an approach. I'm going to be listening. But when Kwame the litigator, the lawyer comes out, that's my ego. And I will try to mask that in terms of, like, intellectual superiority in the forms of arguments that are difficult to overcome, despite the fact that I'm flagrantly wrong, you know, so I think it's just important to have that level of self awareness to recognize. Oh, yeah. What you're about to say is not legit. So being able to just calm down and slow it down a bit is really important.

Awesome.

Yeah, cool. What do you do when the other side goes back on their negotiated deal? So first of all, any type of deal that you have, you should get it in writing, number one. And I'm talking any type of deal. Even if this is just a conversation between friends, just send a follow up text message, that's it. It doesn't need to be in legalese or anything, but just make sure that you have something written down. Because when it comes to psychology, we have to understand how memory works. There is one thing, three words. I'll give you everything you need to know about memory in three words. All right? We have paper there, so write this down.

Okay.

Memory is bad. Memory is really bad.

Cops will tell you that all the time.

Yeah, exactly. Like comically bad. So my undergrad degree is in psychology. And if you want to look up. Yeah, exactly. Right. And so if you want to look up a really interesting study, look up the studies from Elizabeth Loftus. There's actually a formula to create false memories in people. Memory is very pliable. And so when you think about just the reality that sometimes people have convenient memories where they don't remember things that don't serve them in the moment. But then also the reality, we all have biased memories, every time we go back and try to recover that memory, it becomes more warped and more biased in our favor. And so a lot of times when people go back on their negotiated deal, we might think this is a bad person, they're lying, they're being manipulative or underhanded, or it might just be somebody genuinely trying to remember and remembering incorrectly. So I think what we have to do is gently assume positive intent and just say, hey, based on that text message I sent you or that email, this is what, this is what we agreed upon. I'm a little bit confused because right now you're saying this and in the past you're saying that. Can you help me to understand it? And that's a more humble approach that allows somebody to still be vulnerable. Because think about the way this is phrased. What do you do when the other side goes back on their negotiated deal that assumes some negative intent? So we bring that attitude to the conversation. It's like you said this and now you're saying that you're a liar. Now the person has no choice but to defend themselves. And we can't really hash this out in a meaningful type of way.

Way right?

So seeking to understand.

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I'm going to talk a little bit about. You've probably heard Kwame. Have you heard of Bill Eddy? He's like a ninja. Have you had him on your show?

No.

Okay, you're going to reach out to Bill Eddie, and he's an attorney, therapist, and the world's leading expert on managing disputes involving people with high conflict personalities. So he doesn't really use the term bully, but that's his term for it. And he does offer some advice on negotiating with bullies. And I summarize that in my book and then also add some other things of my own. And from, from behaviorists. Right. And it's worth trying because you never know what might stick. So one of them and the good news is these skills apply in so many other contexts too. So by trying them out, you're just practicing and building these skills. Anyway, try building rapport. Okay, flip the narrative. Don't assume that building rapport is a lost cause. A bully isn't expecting kindness or empathy in response to their high conflict tactics. So employing empathy, listening, rapport building can be disarming. So I call it sort of channeling your inner Nelson Mandela, who as you I'm sure know, modeled the ultimate in empathy and compassion, but actually befriending his oppressor, his jailer. And he writes about that in his own memoir or wrote about it. So another piece of advice is ignore them. Now you may think you can't ignore a bully because they're so confrontational. Try it. A behaviorist will tell you that ignoring undesirable behaviors is the most effective way to extinguish them. Like a wind up toy, they might simply run out of momentum. So in episode 10 of the Superpower of Everyday Negotiation, which is my podcast, my co host Nina Greeley actually provides an example of a negotiation where she successfully employed the ignoring technique with a high conflict negotiation opponent. Then there's this one. Avoid giving in. Now, bullies don't negotiate. They make demands. They threaten, they fight. They want to fight. That's their playground. High conflict people are at war with the world around them, and they go from relationship to relationship with intent to dominate. But when they win, quote unquote, by dominating, they're still not satisfied, so they think they want more. And the cycle continues in perpetuity. Giving into a bully doesn't bring relief because you have no assurance that the same thing won't happen in the future. And so it does happen in the future. You also need to know your bottom line. And this is just. This is basic negotiation 101, right, Kwame? You need to know when no deal is better than a bad deal, when to walk away. And this actually harkens to an early chapter in my book on planning and also in my podcast, and that I'm sure you've covered here on Negotiate Anything. The importance of planning and negotiat. Know how far you're willing to go. If you've got a team involved, make sure you're all on the same page. Know your batna. I know you've talked about Batna, so I probably don't have to even spell that out for people, but that's our buddies Fisher and Yuri. And that's from the program on negotiation out of Harvard Law School for people who are among the uninitiated. And when it's time to stop negotiating and you have to be firm about this, then there's your temperament. Appear calm and patient. Doesn't mean you have to feel it on the inside. You've heard the expression fake it to make it. It's effective. Bullies, high conflict. People love to get emotional and then try to get you emotional. Try to stay calm and focused on what you want, even if you're just acting calm. Like I said, if they get you emotional, they've already beat you. Instead, prepare yourself to be patient. Very, very patient. The best negotiators aren't in a rush. Bullies are. They tend to be impulsive and easily frustrated. Don't join them emotionally. Give the impression you have all the time in the world. If you appear desperate to settle, they'll manipulate you into concessions you really don't want to make. And you might regret those later just because you want to get it over with, right? It's so unpleasant and they're counting on that, right? Instead, prepare yourself for the long view. And then, look, you could always try to bring in a neutral decision maker or a mediator, too, if all those other steps fail. So if it's just going on too long, this negotiating is dragging out, you can suggest a mediator. So in families, it could be a mutually agreed, influential person in the family. If it's a neighbor dispute, you could propose going to a community mediation center where people are actually trained to help. Often bullies don't love this idea because then they aren't the most powerful person in the room and they have to follow rules. Right? They like to make up the rules. They like to make them and they like to break them. So it's hard for them to argue with the neutral person because that person won't be intimidated or influenced by their tactics. And this is not foolproof. They are practical steps, and they can work remembering when to walk away. And then this is making me think about Robert Axelrod and his evolution of cooperation. And I don't know how familiar you are with that, Kwame, and how his iterated trials of the prisoner's dilemma game theory problem he got from this computer program. He ran a contest, and he. The one that won the contest was called the Tit for Tat protocol. And he had these four different steps for the tit for Tat protocol, which is you start off by being cooperating, and then if the other party defects, you defect immediately and in kind, and you retaliate in kind immediately when the other party returns to a cooperating position. So do you. You don't hold grudges. One of the other things that he learned from the Tit for Tat protocol is that once the other side defects three times from cooperating, so do you permanently. So how does this relate to negotiating with bullies? Well, you've tried all these things I've just suggested. It's not working. Didn't work. Didn't work. They keep defecting. They keep defecting. They've gotten to the 10 strikes that you get with me. At that point, Kwame, I think you either need to prepare for war or walk away. You are not going to change an environment. An environment will change you. So at that point, you could actually be at risk of becoming a bully yourself, if that makes any sense. I think it makes sense to me. I'm not saying there are a bunch of women out there right there going, oh, I hate it when women do that, when they question whether they make sense. I'm asking if it makes sense to you.

Oh, yeah, that makes a lot of Sense. This is great. This is great. A lot to unpack here. So let's break down a couple of things just for some folks. So when you think about the word fatna, I think this is one of the most critical elements of what you said. So it's the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Essentially, it is your plan B. Plan A is right here. We're trying to work together. We're having this conversation. If I cannot get a deal that is better than my alternative, then I execute my alternative plan B. And that's something I can do without you.

Or can you affect their batna? Sorry, just wanted to interject that. Please continue.

Yes. No, go deeper on that because that's something that I don't think people address enough when it comes to overall negotiation strategy. So when we think about our batna, we have to also think about the other person's batna. And so tell us more about that strategy of affecting their batna.

Well, one of the great advantages of listening, and I mean really listening to not just what is being said, but the emotion underneath the words. And I treat emotions as just another category of facts. Right. That's what we mediators do. If you're listening to the content plus the emotion underneath the why it matters, you're getting a lot of information. So if you're doing more listening than talking in this ongoing negotiation with this high conflict personality, you may very well discover some information where you say, oh, huh. So they're really influenced by maybe some third party, you know, in the world, maybe even just a spouse or someone else at work where you can go, huh, Well, I wonder if that person has any idea that this is going, or I wonder if I should. Can you use that third party as an audience or as an excuse or as a justification or as an ally. Right. Essentially that by listening and by going through the information gathering process, you could discover a way to affect their choices, their alternatives. And the other part about negotiating with bullies, remember the part where I said, you can't do it alone. Gather allies. I think the way that the bully is taken down to a human level is, or you know, to humanize the bully is they got to be outnumbered. They have got to be outnumbered. And not by a source of authority, by their peers. So assemble a posse of peers of their peers to say, hey, knock it off. What are you doing? Don't be a jerk, whatever it is. And not just one person, but like 10 people. Easier said than done. You're not going to do it alone, though.

Yeah, okay.

Did I answer your question about that.

Okay, so let's go deeper into that strategy, because I think that coalition building in general, in negotiation in general, is not utilized enough as a strategic tool. And so essentially this is getting. Getting allies to assist you in the negotiation, if I'm giving a very basic definition of coalition building. And now let's walk through what that looks like in this scenario, because I think people might look at this and they might inadvertently execute this in a way that creates toxicity. So, for example, it might turn into gossiping, ooh, Bill is such a bully, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it kind of grows from that. So I want to make sure that people are understanding what you mean, and then how to actually execute it in the real world when it comes to gathering allies, because I think this is.

Brilliant and you have just zeroed in on something that I agree is a real risk. And ultimately, look, these days, with various social media apps at the fingertips of adults and youth alike, we can collectively quote, unquote, cancel a bully at speed and scale, that is, condemn them in a flurry of social media posts that results in the bully's social and straight estrangement. This is thorny. And Barack Obama actually cautioned about this, about youth, this youth trend to cancel peers for not being 100% politically woke 100% of the time. He said, look, that's judgment. That's not social justice or progress. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. So I'm actually, to clarify, I'm not talking about one moment where someone says the wrong thing or uses the wrong word. I'm talking about a pattern of behavior. And this is going. Been going on a long time, right? That's how it gets. Becomes bullying. And then the. The allyship part of it is just the not being alone. What I have been hearing from the. The my bully stories is you can have a bully who is a parent to everyone else. They see the bullying. They're also threatened by the bully or afraid of the bully. And so they just try to avoid the bully and not get involved. And that has certainly happened in the cases of my adult bullying experiences. Everyone sees it, and behind the scenes, they're saying, oh, Lucia, oh, Lucia, this is so awful. This is so awful. But they don't actually stand up and say, hey, this is not cool. They don't stand beside me. And part of that has been because they are part of the tribe and they can't risk their place in the tribe. And here I am, the one that's kind of. I don't know, threatening the tribe or threatening the status quo. And so they got to keep their status. So this is not a simple thing. The finding allies, partly because of the you don't want to add to the toxicity and also because of the sense of belonging, which Mari Fitzstuff, she is a sociologist who said that today's wars are mainly about identity and belonging, this feeling of not belonging. And people need to belong even more than they need to be. Right. So allyship as an idea is difficult to accomplish because it is usually inconvenient. It is costly in some way in terms of your status in, say, the fraternity or in financial terms, it is time consuming. So allyship, not terribly easy. I'm not saying it's easy to garner those allies. I'm going to harken also back to you. I know you had Alex Carter on your podcast, and she is one of the other women authors of a book on negotiation. There's like five of us. There's five or six of us, plenty of women authors, by the way, on communication and conflict, not on negotiation. Anyway, she wrote the book Ask for More, and I love her book. And that's part of the planning process for negotiations. Here's where I'm going with this. Part of that planning process for your negotiation is preparing questions, questions you're asking yourself and then questions you're going to. She calls it. What does she call it? The mirror questions and the window questions. Right. In her book, there's five of each part of the question planning and your preparation should be who can I gather as allies? You should be looking around for them from the planning stage and continue that. Who can you be asking for help? So ask for More. Alex Carter is sort of the expert on the questions, and I do two podcast episodes on that because one of them actually has a demonstration of it with me and my co host. One of the questions you can be asking yourself is who can help me? Does that help you understand? Am I answering your questions?

Yeah, absolutely. Because I think, really, to simplify this, what we realize is that in negotiating with a bully, one of the strategies requires additional negotiations with people who are not the bully, who could be your ally. And we have to recognize that other people aren't going to just see, yeah, that is a bully. I, too, have been bullied by this person. Yes, Lucia, I'm with you. We have to work through those emotional barriers because they see risk, they have fear, and you will need to work through that. And it's not going to be easy to negotiate with them. In order for them to join your coalition in the negotiation with the bully. And so I think thinking about this through that layer of negotiation makes it a lot easier.

That's right. And negotiation is often a series of smaller negotiations and side negotiations. And the other thing about trying to gather allies is it also leverages. Because I know you've had Robert Cialdini on your show. It also leverages one of the. He has, like, top. The top five or six influencers, which is social proof. Social proof is one of them. So if you're gathering those allies and you do get those 10 people to stand beside you and say, hey, you're being a jerk, and knock it off, that's using social proof. That's why I say needs to be peers, not authority. So you're leveraging that heuristic, which is an old Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky heuristic that they won the Nobel Prize for. It's a really powerful one because oftentimes when we don't even have enough other information to look to, just looking to social proof will inform our behavior. And that can be. There's another side to that coin as well, too. Right. If it's uninformed and you're just jumping off the cliff because everyone else is, well, then that's got a host of possible risks as well. None of this. I'm not saying any of this is easy. It is nuanced, and that is why we're talking about it 100%.

And, Lucia, I think that's such an important point because everybody's looking for that silver bullet. I'm dealing with a bully. How do I deal with it? Oh, cool. Say these three words, and like a magic incantation, the bully automatically becomes a puppy.

It's not how it works.

It's going to be tough. And I think understanding that it will be difficult is an important part of that, too.

Right. Managing the expectations going in and also understanding. Don't try this alone, kids.

Okay.

And you said, oh, some sort of magic incantation that made me sort of wonder when I did read Bill Eddy's advice. And I say this with all the love in my heart. And Bill Eddy, if you're listening to this, I think you're such a ninja. I wondered if it was a little bit like the. Okay, I hope I'm getting this right. Was it Elizabeth Kubler Ross, who, In the late 60s, she came up with the five stages of grief, which. It's like anger, denial. I'm not getting this in the right order. Negotiating, sadness, acceptance, something like that. Okay. She comes up with these five stages of grief. And then I heard a resilience expert talk about this on Shankar Vedantam's podcast, the Hidden Brain. That's what it's called. Where she said, you know, it almost seems like those five stages is a tool for therapists to tell people so that they sort of feel like, hey, look, I am giving you this tool, and this is what's going to happen, and you're going to go through this, and I'm doing my job. And she said, you know, it ends up just feeling like this, all these things are going to happen to you, and you have no control over it. And it's not actually that helpful in terms of dealing with grief and being resilient. And I sort of wonder, when I looked at some of these steps, is this sort of like the Elizabeth Kubler Rossa, where some sort of experts and can say, well, this is how you negotiate with bullies. And then they get to feel like they've been really useful when actually your own experience doesn't change much. You really thought about that, Kwame, before I assembled this chapter in my book. And I am still convinced that these steps are extremely worthwhile trying again, if for no other reason, that they actually help you just hone your everyday negotiation skills. And you can always fight later. That's what I always tell people. You're not giving up your right to fight by being in mediation. You can always fight later.

Absolutely. And I think it's important to recognize that that's option to. It's probably not the option we want to take. And as a lawyer, I know you're familiar with this, because I have. I had clients back in the day, they did not want this conflict. They didn't want to be in this situation. But I told them that sometimes the war chooses you and you have to rise to the occasion or you're going to get steamrolled. That's the situation.

Exactly.

At the end of the day, it's our responsibility to protect it ourselves, and we have to do whatever it takes to do so.

Yeah. And so that's how. And that's what happened to me in a bullying situation that I ended up in last year, which was a group bullying situation. And I do talk about it in the book, and I sort of introduce it in an earlier chapter, I think, chapter 11, where I talk about the language we use in negotiation and just with other. And how our vocabulary here in our culture is so laden with fighting language. We hear it all the time every you Know, fighting for a cause, fighting for progress, battle of the sexes, the battling with an illness. And it's combative, it creates a combative tone. And it's particularly attorneys, I think, are seen as fighters. They just want to fight. And so when I was actually advocating for some pretty simple diversity, equity and inclusion steps in this organization last year where I was president and CEO, the first woman in the almost century history of the organization, and they said, you, Lucia, you're being such an attorney, why are you fighting us on this? They kept saying, they kept using the word fight to describe what I was doing. And I kept saying, I am not fighting, I am advocating. There is a big difference. Didn't matter, Kwame. I was, this is getting back to what you just said. Don't worry, I'm going to come coming back around full circle. You are sometimes, despite every intention, every effort, every tool you have in your everyday negotiation toolkit, you get drawn into a fight. You don't want to be there. You didn't ask for it, you tried to avoid it. You tried to be the peacemaker, the peace builder, and you're in it. And so then that's when you have to have these other, you know, the batna, the watna, the malatna. This is the worst alternative, most likely alternative. And who you've got to help? Who have you got to help you now that you've been drawn into this fight? Sometimes, as you said, the fight finds you.

Yeah. And it's a tough situation. And tell me what you think about this, Lucia. One of the most difficult things about dealing with a bully or a high conflict person in the difficult conversation itself is that they can be so aggressive that we don't know exactly what to do. And it almost seems like we make the mistake, the classic negotiation mistake of trading substance for emotion in one way or another. So they want us to do something, make some change, make a concession or something like that. And so we can tell they're angry about it. We don't want them to be angry anymore. So we make a concession. Or even if we don't care about their emotional state, we care about ours. And we feel pressure, we feel fear. And then in order for us to alleviate the emotional distress that we're in, we get a concession, almost like a fear flight response so we can exit as quickly as possible. So we satisfy our emotional needs in the moment in order to get out. But then long term goals have been thrown aside. And so what advice do you have for people in the heat of the moment to deal with that type of pressure.

Right. Okay, so this is really getting into. And have a chapter on this too. I think it's chapter nine. You think? I have my chapter numbers memorized, but I don't know. And this is getting to that reptilian brain stuff, this amygdala hippocampus, that the executive functioning of the brain not operating right now. Right. This is the fight or flight. Is it a stick or is a snake? Oh, it's a snake. So I've got it. And so it's the fear center. It's the emotional response center. This is terribly difficult to be aware of. It requires incredible presence of mind in the moment. Because then there's Paul Ekman, who if you're not familiar with that name, he is sort of the world foremost specialist. He's a psychologist out of University of California, UCSF San Francisco on lying, lies and emotional micro expression. And he talks about in his book Emotions Revealed, the refractory state. The refractory state is this period lasts an average of 20 minutes in which your brain is at the reptilian level. It's the amygdala response. You cannot take in any information. It's going to be purely reactionary and emotional, not necessarily productive. The tough part is recognizing in yourself when you're in a refractory state. That's where I say it's getting back to the gather allies. Who do I have that can help me? Who can I have next to me at the table or, or on the zoom call or whatever? Because it's more likely than not that that other person. And this is what mediators are so good at. We can identify when someone's in a refractory state. Cause it doesn't affect us. So it really. I'm doubling down here on the gathering allies because the thing about bullies is yes, they want to get that emotional response and they want to scare you so that you will give in. And then when you do, guess what, you've just reinforced that behavior. They're just going to keep doing it because it was successful. And then as you said, it's a short term goal and in the end it doesn't really benefit you and you've given in. Which was one of Bill Eddy's advices. Don't get in. The other thing about bullies is their threats are not idle. When they make a threat, they will carry it out and so should you. By the way, this is a basic negotiations. Now I am not saying, I am not advocating the use of threats in negotiation. I think using Threats needs to be extremely carefully considered. If you make one, if you use it as a tool, be ready and willing to execute. Do not make idle threats. Bullies don't. So they are not satisfied until you're not just defeated, you are ruined in your head is on a stick in the public square. And a lot of this too has to goes to this idea of loyalty versus justice and fairness. So this, this fascinated me, Kwame, I wrote about this summer. I'm a book I can't even remember where. It's this group of researchers out of Northwestern University's Kellogg School. They inform us of the tension between two competing values, loyalty and justice or fairness. And depending on where you land on that continuum, how that impacts if you speak out, if you speak up, or if other people. This is getting to the allyship part, right? If those people who are potentially allies, if they're going to be willing to do it, those for whom loyalty to the tribe, to the group outweighs the value of justice, will remain quiet and they might harshly judge people who speak out. Okay, so me as that disruptor last year, disrupting the status quo, right. Those for whom justice outweighs loyalty will speak up and be judged harshly by people who value loyalty and see it as a betrayal. And that's one of the many things that gets in the way of allyship. That and the fact that allyship is usually inconvenient, uncomfortable and costly. So I don't know if that's helpful. It is interesting. There are so many dynamics in play. And I hope I answered your question about what can you do in the moment, which is try to be as self aware as you can. And that gets back to planning. If you've done your planning and looked at alternatives and batna and done your listening and asked all those window and mirror questions that Alex Carter helps us with and all these things, you are going to be so much better in the moment because you're not just shooting from the hip and trying to process all different kinds of information coming at you at once. You will have a better chance of being present in the moment and recognizing when you're becoming emotional. So you could say time out on the field, we're taking a break. You take a break, you walk away, you let that refractory state pass.

Absolutely. Yeah. And to your point about making threats and following through, I know that's not something I talk about much on the podcast, but you're absolutely right. You have to follow through on that. And the way I think about it is that I think about it not through the lens of threats. I think about it through warnings where I'm still empowering the other person because I feel like a threat is something I'm choosing to do to you. But a warning is more like, this is something you're doing to yourself. So it's an if, then proposition.

I like the self empowerment of that. That's very, very much like the mediator toolkit, isn't it?

Exactly, yeah.

The self determination, like.

Lucia, I understand this is really important to you. I have things that are important to me, too. Just want to let you know that if we're not able to get an agreement here soon, then I'm going to have to use my, you know, whatever the situation is, Batna and I let people know. And now it's up to you. Now it's your choice. Now what happens, happens if I drop the hammer? You dropped it on yourself. But I gave you fair warning about what's coming, so they're still in control. But you're 100% right, because every time you make a threat or a warning and then you don't follow through, you lose credibility. They don't take you seriously, and then they're more emboldened, like, oh, sweet, now I see who I'm dealing with. This person is bullyable. So I've been encouraged in this situation. And then to your point about the refractory period, I love that idea because again, something I just said 2 days ago in the training, under duress, if you're under pressure from a bully, here are two things that I like to do. Number one, if somebody's pressuring me to make a decision, they're like, I need a decision now. I need you to say yes now, or whatever. I was like, listen, hey, if you didn't need a decision right now, the answer is going to be no. But if you give me some time to think about this, you might still have a chance. But right now, I'm not ready. And so people find patience in that situation. And so then the other one is, my rule is that I just don't make decisions under pressure. And so I'll end a conversation. I'm not afraid of doing that. And I think a lot of times people are afraid because they might feel as though it makes them look weak. But what I'll say is, listen, Lucia, you've given me a lot of information and I have a lot to think about. So how about this? We schedule another time. Let's come back, we'll want to talk about it more in depth. And now the person might still be aggressive, they still might want to talk. And I'll say, lucia, it sounds like you still have something else to say and I'll give you the floor and I'll let you say that, but I don't have anything else to add at this point. So I'll listen, I'll summarize it, but I won't add anything else and I certainly won't make any commitments other than a commitment to another meeting.

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Yes, I like to use a, what I call a layperson's definition in my book. I do of course talk about what the DSM 5 definition is, which is what the mental health practitioners use, but I like to use a good layperson's definition because I think it's easier to understand. So it is a spectrum. And all the way at the end of the spectrum you would find your narcissistic personality disorder, which it is an actual legit personality disorder that is measurable by mental health professionals. But as you get closer and closer to that end of this spectrum, you're going to find more and more of these personality traits. But what it is, it's a person who feels, and I like to emphasize the word feels because all people are inherently valuable. But this person doesn't feel any sense of inherent value inside. So they have to get all of their value from external sources. And it's like this empty hole inside of them. It's, it's scarcity to the utmost extreme. So this person is like, it's like they're starving, desperate, gasping for air. It's total pain and shame all the time. And so they, they are getting it from either big houses, money, celebrity, friends, all of that, which I call diamond level supply, that external stuff that you normally think of. But it's also what I call the dark underbelly of narcissist cystic supply, which is devaluing people, debasing people, treating people poorly, controlling people, manipulating people, which is what I call coal level supply, which is the not so good part of it. You know, it's, it's trying to build themselves up or bolster themselves by pushing other people down. So it's kind of those two things. And so, you know, you might try to help them fit, fill that hole, but it can never be filled. So you're left feeling totally and utterly depleted, yet they're still starving. It's just this horrible, horrible pain and shame, but yet it can never be filled and you're left, you know, feeling depleted. It's scarcity all the time. And so that's why they have no empathy. So that's really what a narcissist racist is. I mean, it's, it's a person who's layering on external stuff to try to make themselves feel better. That's what it is.

Wow. I, my hand is tired from all these notes already. This is a master class. This is a master class. And I think this is, it shows your expertise, obviously, because you've spent a lot of time dealing with this. And then it also shows the discrepancy between what people just think about what a narcissist is when we just use it in common parlance versus what it really is. Because it sounds like, and I want you to jump in here and correct me where I'm wrong, Rebecca. It sounds like a lot of the pain that they deal out to others is caused by the deep sense of pain they feel in themselves.

100%. I mean, hurt people hurt people. And that's what it is. I mean, I always say that the way people treat other people is a direct reflection of the way they feel about themselves, good or bad. You know, if people feel good about themselves, they treat people nicely. If they don't, then they're not going to treat other people well. You know, but if a narcissist is treating another person well, it's always a manipulation. It's always because they've got some ulterior motive going on. So, you know, but if they're not treating you well, you, you just can't take that personally. You can never take anything personally when people don't treat you well. You know, that's one of, one of my favorite books on the planet is the Four Agreements, and one of those four agreements is never take anything personally. You know, if, if somebody is criticizing you, you have to stop and you have to go, well, is this criticism something that I need to be, you know, you know, do I need to do something about it? Is there something I need to actually take stock of? And if not, you know, then I need to just put it aside. And if there's something in my integrity I need to clean up, then clean it up. But most of the time it's not when, when it comes to a narcissist. So you just can't take anything they do personally because they are hurt people.

Now the people listening will say, all right, that makes sense. Don't take it personally. But it feels really personal when you're being attacked. And so what advice do you have for people when it comes to how they can operationalize? Not taking it personally.

So part of my slay method, which you know, is stands for strategy, leverage, anticipate. And then the why is you, you have to start with building a strategy, right? Create that vision. Where is it that you want to go? What's your gps? Be really, really super specific, and then you can create your action plan and then you can go into building your leverage. But part of that is what I call, you know, your three steps to writing that ship course correction. You're, you're basically trying to completely turn everything around so that you're not on the defensive all the time. And not only on the defensive, mind. A lot of times you feel like you're just retreating, retreating, retreating. And they're just constantly controlling, controlling, controlling. And it just feels like your back's against the wall or they just are always getting their way and it feels like it's not fair. And you know that that's how it seems like when you're dealing with these high conflict personalities. And so you think, how can I turn this around? How can I make it be, be different? And so I, I have boiled it down to three steps, which is step one, don't run. Step two, make a U turn. Step three, break free. So you have to kind of put it into these baby steps, these little chunks, because they didn't start conditioning you over, you know, overnight. It happens over time. It's almost like that frog that's in, in boiling water, right? So you also have to sort of chunk it out too. So the first step is just drawing one boundary, one boundary. And I like to start with, you know, having a boundary of I'm not going to be spoken to disrespectfully. That'll be my first boundary today. And, or even just making a decision to just stop allowing something today. But if that first boundary is, I'm not going to be spoken to disrespectfully. That's a really great boundary. It's a really great place to start. And so you can just start with saying something like, you know, I can. This. This approach is not working for me.

Or.

Or just start observing them as a person who's observing a third party who's, you know, a toddler having a tantrum on the floor or something. You know, when a toddler is having a tantrum on the floor, you don't think, I need to get down there. I need to have this tantrum with them. I need to take this personally. You don't are looking at them going, okay, you done yet? You know, and it's just start looking at them like that. Like, I can see that you're upset. I can see that you're angry. Just start taking yourself out of it.

That's.

That's a good first step, too. Things like that just start, like, almost like you have an invisible bubble around you. That's a great first step.

Oh, my. Where do I go with this recap? First of all, I think a lot of folks can relate to that feeling of constantly being on the defense, because typically when you're dealing with somebody who does not present with these narcissistic tendencies, there's some mutuality in the interaction, and it really throws you off when somebody is just attacking, attacking and attacking. You just assume a reasonable person would stop at some point, but they never do. And so just understanding that feeling is universally felt under people in these circumstances is really empowering to know that there's nothing wrong with you in that situation. This is just part of the. The approach. And I love how we get you. We gave people three really simple approaches here, too, to turn things around. Number one, don't run. Number two, make a U turn. Number three, break free. And if you're in the midst of it can. It can feel overwhelming, but by breaking it down into just taking one first step of setting a boundary, that makes it doable. And I think that's really what makes this so powerful, because a lot of times we're just completely overwhelmed and we don't even know where to start. But with this methodology, you've made it simple and clear. So I just want to say I appreciate this, and I want to let listeners jump in and say, can you relate to any of this that Rebecca is saying? Can you just put it in the comments? Let them let us know what you're going through, because we're going to get to you in a little bit, but I want to turn it back to you, Rebecca. I think if you, if folks are listeners of the podcast, they heard the episode where I tried to pretend to.

Be a narcissist because you're so, like, not a narcissist. So it was so hilarious. You were like, you didn't even know, like, what to say. You're like, I don't know.

It was, it was a master class. But it goes, it goes to that perspective. Perspective. You said almost treat him like a toddler. Right. If to you it was adorable that I was trying to. To come at you. That was, it was so good. So we gotta shout out that episode too.

Yeah.

I want to make a point about their brain chemistry because I, I learned something in the research for writing this book, and I think it's so powerful to share that when you know on how a narcissist was formed, because I think when you understand it, it makes it so much more easy in some ways to deal with and start that whole process of the step one, don't run, and step two, make a U turn. And that is that how a narcissist was formed is sometime during childhood, they were exposed to. To some sort of trauma on a regular basis or some sort of emotional neglect on a. On a regular basis. Something that caused them to feel this, you know, some sort of trauma on a continuous basis. And when we as humans are in stress, when we have a stress, when we feel like we need to have, we're in stress response, we go into this fight or flight. And when that happens, our brains emit these chemicals, these hormones, which are adrenaline, cortisol, among other things. And when that happens on a regular basis when we're children, it causes damage to the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain. Now, they are not thinking rationally, they're not thinking reasonably. And it's called narcissistic injury. And now you're negotiating with that part of their brain. And it is. They will take themselves down, to take you down. And that's what is kind of crazy. And that's why I know for me, before I even understood this, and I've participated in literally thousands of meetings, mediations. I would be like, why is this husband and you know, burning his own business to the ground just to prevent the wife from having alimony? This makes no sense to me. But that is what was happening, you know, and. And so the. And they'll lie about things that are readily verifiable, things they don't even need to lie about and that, but that's what's happening there. This narcissistic rage takes over a lot of times, but that's what's happening there. You're not dealing with rational, you're not dealing with reasonable. You're dealing with that limbic system part of their brain. And sometimes they don't even remember what they did during that period of time. And that's why they'll literally look you straight in the eye and say, that didn't happen.

That is terrifying really, because when you think about it, especially the, the perspective of, well, they will take themselves down in order to take you down. Puts people in a position where they say to themselves, how do I even, how do I work with this? How do I deal with this? Because I can. We can see that last part of the three step approach is break free. How do we, how do we get to that point where we've set that boundary? But maybe they respond with this narcissistic rage. What do we do when we find ourselves kind of stuck in that position?

Right? And that's where my slave method comes into play. And you know, I tell people, you know, I have 40 million views on YouTube, I've sold, you know, over 10,000 of my slate programs so far. And you know, and now I'm certifying coaches in my slay method. And I tell people I literally have thousands and thousands of testimonials at this point. So what I teach is not theory. It works. It absolutely works. So how you have to do it is not by pushing directly back against them. You do that, you're going to get immediate pushback. So you have to create first of all your vision. So slay stands for strategy. You have to create a vision, you have to create, create action steps. You kind of have to know what kind of narcissist you're dealing with. So I teach people how to identify whether you're dealing with a covert grandiose or malignant because they each act a little bit differently in negotiations, by the way. And then you can create leverage now. Leverage. The reason why I, right from the outset was explaining to you the difference between diamond level and coal level support supply is because that is going to be so key in creating your leverage. The diamond level supply is what a narcissist will protect and defend at any cost. At any cost, even at the cost of their children, by the way. So that is what will inform how you will create your leverage. Because you have to create leverage that will potentially threaten A source of supply that's more important for them to keep than the supply that they get from manipulating you and then threaten that source of supply. But you can't actually take that source of supply away because if you do, then your leverage is gone. And there's many different ways that you can do that. And I teach people how to do that. And. And, you know, sometimes you don't necessarily have to take that approach. Sometimes you can kind of take this other sort of approach where you can sort of bolster their ego. I call it fluff or favor, vomit later and make it sort of seem backdoor it. Make it sort of seem like it's their idea, sort of seed things. But you might have to take sort of a combination of approaches as well. Well, but most of the time you kind of have to build this sort of invisible fence around them and then sort of, I call it like, turn the lights on. And then they realize, wait a minute, I'm sort of like, penned in here and these are my only options, A or B. And then this is how it's going to have to go. And it's. It's an offensive approach, which if you're an empath, it's not comfortable. And if you're used to being rational and reasonable and sitting down and going, well, we're both rational and reasonable here. We want to just look to a resolution. Neither of us want to pay a whole lot in attorney's fees. We both want to have this thing done then. That doesn't normally make sense to people, but this is the only way that actually works. Anticipating is anticipating that they're going to try to bait you, they're going to try to trigger you, they're going to try to all, you know, move goal posts, all of those things. Why is the, you know, having this offensive approach and then, you know, making sure that you 100% believe that you can win, knowing your value, 100% having this, you know, you and you alone, knowing that you define your value and, and you tell people what you are, you know, your, you know, authentic power. And I teach people how to believe that, you know, I. Through your body language, through reading their body language. And, you know, there's so much that goes into that, but, you know, you only. They only win if you give in. Right. I mean, there's just so much that goes into that. But you have to tell people what, what they're gonna think.

This is so empowering, that last line. They only win if you give in. That's powerful because it helps people to understand even though they are feeling pressure, even though they're under duress and you might be afraid of the same situation, the only path to victory they have is by your concession. Right? I think that's so powerful. And the, the other thing that's really powerful and empowering is the fact that you have studied and analyzed their playbook. And so I'm sure you've probably had people who have read the book and gone through your, your trainings and bought your course who have told you, wow, it was just like the book. They did this just like the book. I saw it all coming. I knew exactly what to do. It was still hard, but I knew.

What to do a hundred percent. I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's easy. It's all right, let's just say it's simple, but it's not easy. They are 100% predictable. But it's, it's never going to be easy because you're dealing with a high conflict personality. So, you know, it's exactly, I always lay out exactly what to do. And in my programs, you know, I give people templates and things like that and I tell them exactly what to do. And you know, a lot of it is in the book now too, but, and you know, I'm launching, doing a huge launch event. So if you're watching this before September 30th, definitely come to my launch event event, slaythebullylaunch.com and you can get the book at slaythebullybook.com as well. And I have a whole master class that I'm giving away for free and a workbook that I'm giving away for free right now too, if you, if you buy the book right now. So definitely take advantage of all of the things that I'm giving away because, you know, I have scripts in there, responses exactly what to say, you know, because I'm really on this mission to help people with turning this situation around and breaking free. Because I know that armed with the right tools, resources, knowledge, it's all power. What they have is counterfeit power. And what you can arm yourself with is authentic power. And authentic power is going to beat this counterfeit power anytime, any time of the day.

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