How to Overcome Fear In Your Negotiations with Jeff Jones

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian, and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute here at A&I. We believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Third, check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Jeff, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you, Kwame. I am an avid listener and I'll tell you why real quick. I sense that you love to learn, and that comes through to me on the podcast and it's engaging and it makes me interested and I pay attention. So thank you.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I am a shameless nerd, Jeff. I just love to learn from people. And it's funny. Every single time. Every episode we're creeping up on 400 episodes. Every episode I learned something new. And so after our pre interview, Chad, I'm very excited to learn something from you, too. So how would you tell the listeners about yourself and what you do?

Okay, what I do is I'm a partner in a company called Reclaim your Joy with my wife Carrie, and we are all about helping people to be their best self so that they maximize their business life and their personal life.

I love that. When, when you started this, what was the goal behind the business?

Yeah, the goal behind the business was my. My work career is that I was a senior executive in a Fortune 100 company and a senior executive in a large market research firm and learned a lot from those places and saw a lot of negotiations going on. I had an opportunity then to work in a nonprofit to help people in recovery from alcohol and drugs and learned a lot about the importance of head heart connection in being successful. And I combined that business experience with that social experience into something that I think is kind of cool and pretty unique.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think you have a really interesting approach to not just business and life in general. General. But also negotiations. Because the. That head. Heart connection that you talk about, it has an impact on the way that we show up in these conversations. And that's going to be a, A major focus for us today, too. Well, great. Well, for our listeners, this is going to be our. A bit of a run of show here. We're going to talk about how we bring our personal beliefs and experiences to every single one of our negotiations, the attachment that we have to, to the successful outcome of that singular negotiation. And then lastly, and this, this is the one I'm really excited about. Are we negotiating from an unknown place of fear? And actually, you know what, Jeff? Let's make this, let's mix this up. If I'm excited about it, let's talk about that first. So let's talk about the fear part. What, what made you choose that as one of the topics?

Yeah, that is a great one. And as long as we're mixing it up, this is going to be good. We're going to start at the end and work our way backwards. And I, and I love that because when you said that, what just happened. Oh, wait a minute. This isn't going as planned, is it? Oh, how am I going to react to this? Am I going to react from this? From. I don't know what to do or am I. Okay, so it's perfect. This is a perfect segue. And I am fine with this. I. Here's. Here is a bottom line kind of thing, and this is the type of thing that hopefully the listeners will take a note on. There are only two emotions, and it's fear and love. Okay, now social science will tell you that there are four. That there's fear and there's anger and there's sadness and there's happy, right? And three of three out of those four have some weight to them, right? Some. Some heaviness to them. And one of them has some buoyancy to it. Happiness. That feels pretty good. The other three a little bit heavier, right? And so the fear piece is when we go in and just like now, I could feel this. Where am I going to respond from? Not react from? Am I going to respond to you and go, you know, everything is fine, we're good, and respond. So am I going to come from a place of fear or a place of love? And the reason I take it down to two things is we react in 1/20 of a second. Because I listen to a lot of your podcasts and frequently you, you remind us that we are animals, right? And we begin at that point and we respond in 1/20 of a second. We have 1/20 of a second to choose what we are going to do. And if I don't take a little bit of a break and take a breath, I will react in the same way that I have reacted when I feel this way the thousands of times before. Now, if I stop myself, take a breath, I give myself the opportunity to make a choice, to respond. So from a negotiation standpoint, if you're in a business negotiation, you. It's important to recognize the emotion that you're having. Am I going to come from this, from a place of fear, which is probably not going to turn out well in your negotiation, or am I turning. Am I approaching this from a place of confidence, a place of safety, a place of caring how this negotiation goes out for all parties?

I love this. This is a great response. And I. I realize my eagerness gave us an opportunity to. To do a little bit of a simulation here of what it. What it looks like in real time. And I appreciate your flexibility because it's. It's a fantastic response. You're absolutely right. The. The natural human inclination is to respond quickly. And one of the things I like to say is usually the first thing that you want to say is not the right answer. You probably should take a second and just. And just think it through a little bit. But it's tough to do that, Jeff. It's really, really tough to do that. And so in your career, what are the things that allowed you to develop that skill, that simple skill of the pause?

I just did it. Take a breath. Taking a breath is if you sit and listen and then take one second and just take a breath, that is the perfect place to start from a business standpoint. It is. And this is actually the second point on this, on the attachment piece of it. You know, people, we spend about 30% of our life living in the past and about 70% of our life living in the future, which leaves absolutely no time to live right now. And if we are attached to an outcome, like an outcome in a negotiation, as if that is the only thing that we have, we will react instead of respond. And where I really learned that was in my work with my buddies and men and women in recovery and dealing with cravings and urges, where you are going to reply in a place of fear and react to it, unless you can get through the next seven seconds. Craving lasts about seven seconds. So if you can get through that, you will be in a much better position to choose a decision that benefits you. And I think Kwame, one of the other really important pieces to this is right at the beginning of our conversation, you. You asked the question, you know, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do? And so frequently when people ask us questions like that, we respond with the labels that we are. Hi, I'm the partner at Reclaim youm Joy. I am president of I am this. That is not who you are. That is what you do. And there's a huge difference. If I can say, you know what I am. I am a kind man. I am a husband. I am a friend to people. I am a learner and teacher who loves to share with others. That's who I am. And then finding the gratitude to support all of those things allows me the confidence in a business negotiation to let things play out without consistently reacting to them.

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It gives me space.

And so it sounds like being able to recognize the end point where you end and your job begins, or vice versa, recognizing that there is a difference between the two. You have a job, you have a title. You are not your job, you are not your title. And then when you're able to distinguish between yourself and what you do, then it puts you in a position to not identify so closely with an outcome, which allows you then to have a better, more balanced perspective of what it is that's happening in the negotiation. Let me know if I'm if that is an accurate summary or if you would tweak that a bit.

Yeah, the only tweak I would make to that, Kwame, is that it's a harmony, not a balance. And because you're bringing so much to the negotiation, to backtrack a little bit like in a negotiation, the way I look at it is that there are three primary negotiations going on during the conversation. The first one is you're negotiating with yourself. Am I comfortable? Am I coming from a place of strength, of honesty, integrity? Am I giving away things because I'm coming from a place of fear? That's the head heart negotiation. You're having the conversation with the person sitting across from you.

Right.

And they are having the same negotiation you are with themselves. What. What am I doing here? Am I giving away too much? Am I not. Am I coming from a place of I'm protecting the business, but I. It's not good long term. Where are they coming from? So you have those three primary things going on simultaneously and back to the beginning. Allowing ourselves to take the time to have a conversation back and forth, to come from a place of Clari and a place of confidence is. Is absolutely imperative in successful negotiations. And a story that I like to tell that really illustrates this, I think when about how everybody, you know, you, okay, we're going into this business situation, and I know my goal as the. The seller, you know your goal as the buyer. Here it is. We've got this transaction that's going to take place. We think that we're pretty clear, right? That seems. Okay, I got that right. Here's what we're doing. Think about this for a second. Do you like. Do you like going to the movies?

I do. Yeah.

Perfect. So let's say that you and your wife get two other couples and you go to the movies. Okay? You all go in the same car. You all buy the ticket. It's the same price for everybody. You go into the movie, it's this. You're all watching the same movie. The temperature is the same, the sound is the same, the lighting is the same, the popcorn is the same. Everything is the same. Six people walk out of there. You go, that was the greatest movie I ever saw. Two people go, I don't know. I didn't like it at all. Two other people go, yeah, it was all right. I kind of enjoyed it. My question, how can that be? This is absolutely a controlled test. Everything is controlled for. The difference is that all of us have millions or billions or trillions of stimulus thoughts, experiences that come to us, that make us all unique, and we bring those to everything all the time. So recognizing that and being able to create that space come from a place of I know who I am isn't is critical. Especially now as we're getting into more compassionate negotiations where we want things to go well.

Right. And I want to. To. To revisit one of the things that you said, because you said it briefly, but it's really powerful. And I think it's something that would be really helpful for people as they're thinking about how they progress through their negotiations and frankly, everyday life. One of the things that you mentioned was that a craving lasts about seven seconds. And so that seven second window is crucial when it comes to making a good or bad decision. And so when it comes to how we. Let's focus on difficult conversations, how does that same reality come into play?

Yeah, the way that it comes into play is stop and, and think a bit about where decisions are made in your body. There, there's three points in our body that make decisions. Our head makes a decision. You probably can find times in your life where your heart made a decision and then there's your gut. You know, there are probably times when you made a decision and your gut is rolling around and sure enough, it turns out not to be a good decision. So how it plays out in all of this is being able to be in line to recognize your body feel. And it's. The exercises is called body mapping and recognizing where you feel emotions. Like when you get mad. Kwame, where. Where in your body do you feel that?

Oh, this is great. I typically feel it in my. In my shoulders. I think they, they start to rise a little bit. And then I realize that. And this is going to sound weird, but now, now that you're asking me this question, I'm. I'm seeing some tendencies. It makes. It is going to sound horrible. It makes it physically uncomfortable to listen because listening, especially in a difficult conversation is. It's emotionally challenging, it's mentally taxing. But when I'm feeling emotional, it becomes physically uncomfortable. Like I can't sit still. Like there's something on my body that I need to remove or something inside of me. I can't. Yeah. And it's like a child who is. Who wants to talk but can't and is sitting on his hands holding his face. And so there's that. It's like a physical agitation that I feel and I'm feeling really exposed now. Jeff.

Yep. You're borderline respond, reacting inferior. This is perfect. And you know, Kwame, you put it exactly right now we are animals, right? Our body is going to respond before our head associates things. And thankfully it does. You know, it used to be, you know, we've all heard the story about the saber toothed tiger and us, you know, being able to run away from that. Right. Well, I live in Chicago, which means there's a lot of buses in this city and they don't stop at red lights all the time. And if I'm crossing the street and I see a bus, I don't want to sit there and go, you know, that's a neatly pressed blue shirt that gentleman has. I don't want to do that. I want to get out of the way, right? And my body reacts quicker than my head reacts. So that's the first thing. So if you're in a negotiation or you're in a conversation with your wife and you feel in your shoulders this feeling, here's where you use who you are and you say, I am a husband. And you say, wait a minute. If what am I am about to say? Am I saying this from a place of fear or am I saying it from a place of love? That's how all these things loop together. Wait a minute, I've got that feeling. What am I about to do? Is it so important that I'm willing to risk my relationship with my wife or the business relationship either with the person you're selling to or your own company? Am I willing to risk that? Where am I? How am I going to respond instead of react? From listening to your podcast, one of your other favorite words is amygdala, right? That science, okay, Once that amygdala kicks in, it only cares about keeping us alive for the next 15 seconds. That's it. And that's all it really cares. It doesn't care about what the implications are. Just wants to keep us alive. And so heated arguments between you and a business competitor, you and a partner, if it's just those two people, it's like two people on continuous loop. And the only way out of it is until finally one storms away or gives up or slams down the phone or closes the computer, whatever, and you can take a breath. That animal instinct is real. And it, and it comes quickly, whether it's the physical response or how then we react versus respond. I hope that helps clear that up.

It really does. And I think one of the things that we can take from this is if we start to develop that higher level of self awareness when we start to recognize what our tell is. And so what is it for ourselves? What do I feel that demonstrates that I'm having an emotional response that could in this situation be problematic as it relates to my. My ultimate goal. And so for me, I know that whenever I'm feeling that way and now I. It's explicitly clear. I think at some level I understood it, but now it's explicitly clear in terms of almost like a step by step game plan. And if, then proposition, if I feel this way. Now we're moving in slow motion. Now we're taking it a little bit slower. And that quick response that I want to say, I'm going to pause, I'm going to take that breath, and then I'm going to think about a different response. And Jeff, the timing of this is really great because I realize, and I've said this before on the podcast, in a mediation, a business negotiation, any type of thing, where it's a difficult conversation in the professional world. I'm at a point now where I really enjoy it. I love it. When I was mediating, I would tell the team, hey, give me the ugliest, dirtiest, nastiest mediations. Those are fun for me. But then I come home and anytime Whitney and I are misaligned, I get all confused and upset. I'm like, why don't you understand me? We've been married for 11 years. And I look back at my behavior and the things that I say and I say, it's like, you don't know anything. And so I actually bought a customized coin that has different little sayings reminding me of to use the compassionate curiosity framework, to listen, to focus on her needs over mine and everything. And so I will actually hold that coin in my hand and read the things on the coin before responding. And I'm realizing that that is helping me to perform, frankly in the conversations that matter the most at a much higher level.

That's beautifully, beautifully said. I mean, there is a reason in recovery that alcoholics carry a coin or other people carry a chip or people wear a religious something. Those are all anchors, and they're all things that if you touch them, it's like if you touch your, your wallet, you don't have to open your wallet to know what's inside. You know that if you touch that coin, you know what it's there for. And that gets you through those seven seconds. One of the exercises that I, I do with people is a series of meditations. And at the end of it's a six week program, it's a series of meditations. And at the end I ask them, I say, basically, let's just pretend that you go out there and you get hit by a bus and you're here in this room at your own wake and you're listening to what people say about you. What words do you expect to hear? And I've done this in front of somewhere between three and 4,000 people. And the words that come back are things like thoughtful, caring, hardworking, Compassionate, God fearing, loyal, trustworthy. It's always words like that. Those are the words that are true to us, that we are born with, that we, as we grow older, successfully or unsuccessfully, hide. We don't want to show those words easy. They're vulnerable kinds of words. And I would ask the men and women that were doing this exercise to write down the three, four, or five words that have the most meaning to them. The ones that they said that they know are true. Just write it on an index card and put it, fold it up and put it in their pocket. And 100 times a day, just touch your pocket and remind yourself of who you really are. And are you living that? How are you responding? So when you get those seven seconds or that uncomfortable place in the negotiation, you can just touch that pocket, that anchor, that chip, that coin that you carry, and remember who it is that you are, and it gives you all the space that you need. So that was beautiful, Kwame. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. And I think this is helpful for everybody listening because we all have performance gaps. We all have performance gaps, and there's always room for improvement. And I think it starts with that self awareness, recognizing and accepting that reality, and then trying to figure out what it is that you need to do to adjust appropriately.

Yeah, the. I think, you know, you're. I'm sure you're familiar with, you know, the, The Victor Frankel quote about stimulus and response. Right. I mean, it's a good one, right? And I don't know, you know, and I think this is important for the listeners to, to unpack it a little bit. You know, it starts with, you know, between stimulus and response, there's a space. That's what we're talking about here. Okay, so let's stop there for a second. What is that space that spaces, that body feel it is. How am I going to react or respond? Am I going to. Am I going to respond in my best self or am I going to react in the way that I've chosen poorly in the past? How am I going to respond to this? That's the first piece. The second one, and I love the second line to this, in that space is our power to choose our response. Think about those two words, power and choose. I have an option here to choose wisely. And if I remove the attachment to the. The end game in this one instance, if I choose wrongly, I can choose again next time because this will. This feeling, this situation will come up again, right? You will mediate something else, and this feeling will come up Again, now, how am I going to respond? And then the last. The last line in it, you know, in our response lies our growth and our freedom. Stop there for a second. Our growth. What's he talking about? About growth? It's the opportunity to talk and speak and live with that head, heart connection, that first primary negotiation piece that we talked about. Right. And our freedom. Our freedom to respond as our best selves, representing the company that we work for in the best way so that the person that's across from you feels safe in making a decision. You know, one of my. One of my early bosses that I truly, truly appreciated, he sat me down when I was in my 20s and said, you know, I never want you to sell anybody anything. I'm thinking, wait a minute. I'm a sales guy. I'm in the sales department. He goes, I want. I want people to understand that they're buying something they need. And he told me, slow down, take your time. Everything will be fine. And I have lived that for 42 years. Time is one of the. That. That fear of, well, I have an hour to do this. That fear will eat people alive. And it will put you in a very bad situation if you're the buyer, because obviously both sides know that this is scheduled for an hour. And so how do you use this for an advantage or disadvantage? And so it is recognizing who you are, who you're representing, taking the time to explain it properly and. And. And have a successful negotiation.

Absolutely. And one of the things that we have touched on, but I want to give you an opportunity to talk about it explicitly, was the. The initially, the first thing on our list, talking about those personal beliefs and experiences to every negotiation. And you talked about it with the. With the card, for example, the. The words, those values that you could carry along with you. I want to talk about the experiences, too. And experiences will impact how we perform in the present conversation.

Sure. And part of that is the movie theater story as well. You know, we. We bring. And that's a way just to recognize how. How all of us bring those experiences.

Our.

By the time we're about six years old, we have firmly developed the sense of myself and other, and we begin to rank order other. This is good. This is bad. I'm afraid of this. I like this. And there's really only three responses that we can have to anything. It's either, I want to move away from it. I want to get closer to it, or it's neutral, and that's the way we store things. And so all those. All of the experiences we have are stored in those kinds of areas. So when we come to a negotiation, if I have been told as a youngster that you're not smart enough, I'm going to bring that one way or another into that negotiation. That the only way to get something is to work hard for it. That's a position of lack. There's two things to keep in mind. You can approach a negotiation from a place of abundance or a place of lack. I'm good enough. I have a great product. I'm smart enough. This product will serve this client's customers wonderfully. That's a place of abundance. That's that happy part in our four emotions that social sciences talks about. That's the love part. When I talk about fear and love coming into a negotiation, saying, if I don't get this, we're not going to take that vacation. If I don't get this sale, I'm not going to get this new house. If I don't get this sale, my boss is going to is going to think poorly of me. I could get fired. Position of lack. And our whole lives, we look for those things and we store those things. Where have I not been successful? Things that are uncomfortable for us, we store at a deeper level for a longer time than things that are good. And so one of the things that I, I most definitely wanted to make sure we got to was gratitude. And I can read your bio. I can read my bio. I can, I can find a million things I'm grateful for. I mean, one of the exercises, and this is a task exercise is next. There's probably a corner that you cross every day. Next time you go to that corner, I want you to find something you've never noticed before, something that interests you or something that makes you smile. And I want you to do that every day. I want you to do that every single day. That's a task. Okay. Suddenly you will come to just a random corner and you will find something you've never noticed before, something that interests you or something that makes you smile. At that point, it become of behavior and you begin to say, you know, I'm really grateful for this, that I noticed this. I am really grateful for Whitney. I love the fact that, you know what? I didn't take the trash out last night and she's kind of smiled at me to let me know and I took the trash out. I am grateful for that little sense of humor and that fun nudge. And I've heard you talk about taking the trash out several times. So I know that's probably an issue, but this is all about recognizing all the things that you're grateful for. You know what? You have a home. You have a family. You have all these things that we take for granted. When you come in the house every evening, have one thing. It could be a picture of you and Whitney. It could be a vase of flowers. It could be anything. Something in your house that when you walk in your house, you touch it and you say to yourself, I am at home. Not at work anymore. I'm at home. And, Kwame, if you'd indulge me for a second, just say that phrase. I am at home.

I am at home.

Feel what that feels like.

I was pleasantly surprised. That did feel really good, doesn't it?

That's your body. That's what we were talking about, that body mapping. Your body responded to that. I am safe. I am with someone I love, who loves me. It's beautiful. And developing that gratitude, practice and knowing that all these things are true, that there's all these things that are interesting. And previously we talked about we live 30% in the past, 70% in the future. That leaves no time for now. This is our opportunity throughout the day to live in the now and recognize the gifts we have. Boy, does that make negotiating easier. I am a blessed guy. Look at all these things I have. I have this home, I have this wife. I've got this great career. I have all these things. I can deal with this mediation. I'm okay with that. I'm. I'm okay being uncomfortable for a moment. In fact, I'm comfortable. You. You said before, give me the dirtiest, messiest mediations. I am comfortable in the uncomfortable. That's a great place to be. And that's what we're talking about here. This is basically like a big sphere. You have fear in love. You have head and heart. You have your reality and your client's reality. All of those things. And they all beg for taking the time to make sure that both sides have the opportunity to come as their best self.

Right? Oh, I think that is a great place to end. Jeff, this was really, really great. I appreciate you taking the time with us today. And before you go, remind the listeners about your company and how they can get in touch with you. Yeah, sure.

The company is reclaim your Joy. The website is reclaimyourjoy Guru, and the email is jeffreclaimyourjoy Guru. And I love to do one to one coaching. I really, really enjoy developing workshops for teams of people because if you have a group that works together. Not necessarily your sales team, but the sales, the accounting, the production team. If those people understand each other better, that piece begins to really sing and it's just absolutely gorgeous. So I enjoy developing workshops for companies too.

That's great, Jeff. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

You are awesome, Kwame. Thank you.

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