Jim Vaselopulos: The Emotional Keys to Better Negotiation Outcomes

Take away the things that are distracting you, and let's. Let's take this tough situation and make it less complex by dispositioning things. And you might have to just kind of trust, do some tests to say, is this the problem or not? It is not the problem. Great. Put it away. Let's not worry about that. That's how I think sometimes great leaders who can synthesize and communicate very complex things in a simplistic way, I think they might not understand, understand that they have a level of conscious, unconscious competence. And what I'm always trying to do is take people to that level of conscious competence so they can, like, understand why you're successful is by making these complicated situations less complex, by dispositioning things and making the situation more manageable.

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Jim, thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Kwame.

It's my pleasure. I'm excited. I've been excited from the day we talked about this a few months ago. So how would you get us started? By telling. Telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Yeah, I'm just a dude who's done some things in business. I've had some success, and now I help other people, I always say, like, open their presents. I've had my Christmas Day already. So I think as a parent, you know, there's exciting times when, like, you get as excited as you were when you were a kid on Christmas Day opening presents. Well, then you become a parent, you see your kids open presents and you get excited, more excited even for them to open their presence. And I'm just one of these guys now that helps other people open their presence. And that's what I enjoy in life, and that's what I'm going to do until the good Lord says, you know, you should probably hang up your cleats.

I love it, man. You really like the values that you talk about. I know you live these values and that's why I really appreciate you and our friendship so much. And listen, I know that you're not big on the self promotion, but I'm going to shout you out here because rumor has it you have a book and a podcast you might want to talk about.

Yeah, I think we met originally through the podcast, the leadership podcast. We've been doing that. I think we're in our eighth or ninth year or something like that. We've been doing a long time. You've been on twice. And, you know, it's just, you know, one of these ways that we get to talk to people that we love. Podcast really isn't a commercial endeavor. It's more of a. We get to meet and speak with just awesome people and have these wonderful conversations and I get smarter and I learn and, you know, my span of understanding of the world grows. And so I really enjoy that. And that's been going on a long time. So, you know, people can find out about that@the leadershippodcast.com and then last year, I wrote the book that everyone was telling me to write for a long time. It was like, you need to write a book. I was like, all right, I'll get on it. And I had written it maybe two, three years ago when started on it. Then we finally got it out and published last year. And it's called Clarity Business Wisdom to work less and achieve more. And I'm just really happy I went through the process to put it on paper. I mean, for me, if people get some value out of it, that's fantastic. It was more of a personal thing to kind of put a lot of these thoughts on paper. And I think it makes anytime you have an idea, if you can put it on paper, it gets just better because it has to be cleaner. It has to be. You can't have holes and gaps. And it was really a reflection of so much of what I've learned through the years, through my parents, through my upbringing, through the foundational elements that my parents, my grandparents instilled in me all the way through all the experiences I had in the corporate world, building businesses, selling businesses. And it's just. It was a fun process. So I'm glad it's out there. And if, you know, it's. Yeah, I'll never regret doing that.

I mean, you shouldn't, because your work is Impeccable and the. The work that you have, especially when it comes to leadership, that's really what I want to focus on today because for leaders in general, and I want to use that term broadly, it's not just about the authority and position and power, but we are leading in different ways every day in whatever role it has to be. And leaders have to have tough convers as well. That's a critical part of your leadership. You might have incredible skills and subject matter expertise, but if you can't communicate effectively, then you're going to struggle as a leader. So first, I think it'll be good for us to start off in general talking about what makes a good leader in terms of attributes and qualities, and then let's talk about the communication skills of leadership, too.

Yeah. From an attribute, I'd say the number one attribute that I believe and that I've found through just even doing our podcast is I believe, curiosity. I think curiosity just rises to the top for me because it's not that you don't take things at face value, but you always want to understand deeper, understand the why behind the. How you ask questions naturally instead of, you know, going through some forced process. And I think the best leaders are naturally curious. They want to understand things. And I think most people, when they're even in a conversation, you know, one of the best advice, pieces of advice we can give people is listen to, understand, not to respond. Okay? And so if you are naturally curious, you're always listening to understand, not to respond. And I think just personal relationships, you can have better relationships with people. And relationships are the glue that help teams do things that individuals can't. And so if you're understanding what motivates people, if you're curious about what's important to them, what they value, and then you can kind of weave things together and get that nice tight weave that makes something that you would think is not very strong, just impenetrable. It's kind of like Kevlar. Like a Kevlar thread is not very strong, okay, by itself, but you weave it into this fabric and then it becomes impenetrable. And so what great leader does is they're curious. They want to understand how all the pieces come together, how I can put them together. And I think that is just the absolute number one quality. Being able to communicate is important because that's like you can't weave if you can't help people understand how they come in together with everything. Understanding, let's say a little bit of strategy is important to be Able to think a few moves out instead of just looking at your toes. I think that's important. But I'd say that the secondary thing that I think is the most important is having a good sense of balance. And the balance is important because you want to give people the freedom to be autonomous and do their own thing, but you also need to hold them accountable. You want to give people the ability to express themselves, but you want to make sure that people aren't expressing themselves in harmful ways to others. And so it's. You're always in this balance. Do I exert control? Do I cede control? And there's no one answer. And it changes based on the context and the situation. And so you're always trying to find this balance point on all these various kinds of. Of things that we do as a leader. And I think a great leader is able to find that balance point and shift as the situation and conditions shift. Because you don't just set it and forget it. If you're doing that, you're not listening, you're not paying attention to the outside influences, to the people. And so I think it's just that sense of being able to adjust and maintain balance on all these different things that are important as a leader, I think, is, I think, the secondary key. You got those two. You're probably. Your odds are going to be good. You're going to be a good leader.

I agree 100%. And what's funny is that it's a continuous process. It never ends. And I think that's what makes it so tough, because you're. You can improve your skills, you can get better at it, but the work will always need to be done, and it will always require some level of effort. And I think a lot of times people struggle with leadership because of the consistent amount of effort and focus and attention it requires. Because somebody might be able to be a good leader for a couple hours, a day, a week, maybe a couple months, but they're like, you have to be leading all the time. And it can get exhausting, too, which speaks to the balance challenge as well. When you think about leadership, how do you develop the resilience and endurance and stamina to be a good leader even under pressure, when things are going really tough? Like, when things are difficult?

Yeah, I mean, that's like. It's a rich and complicated and very good question because it's covering a lot of different elements. There is, like, the consistency, the stamina, fortitude to be able to kind of like, you know, handle situations where there might be withering disagreement or dissatisfaction amongst people. I think the most essential thing is you have to know your values because that's the bedrock that doesn't change. And so I always take a look at it as maybe the difference between true north, magnetic north. Magnetic north is kind of shifting all the time. True north is. And that could be your opinions on things. You should be able to change your opinions on things, but your values really shouldn't change. That's your true north. You know, that's where say, like, listen, this is the kind of person I am. This is the kind of organization I'm leading. This is what we value. This is how we operate. Those things you can count on. That's not going to change. Now, we may have an assessment of a situation and it may be this way, but we might get more information or we might have something change or a team member leaves or a new team member comes on board and our assessment changes and we need to change our minds. That's okay. And so I think that ability to a be malleable and flexible, to be able to have some ability to rebalance things, comes with an understanding of what is you're able to balance and what you're willing to balance and what you're unwilling to compromise on. Talking to a guy who's an expert in negotiation, I mean, nothing should be. There should be very little that you are unwilling to compromise on, but there should be some things you are unwilling to compromise on, and those are your core values.

Agreed. Core values. The mission of the company. Right. These are the things that are the true north. And I can tell that your close friend and podcasting partner is a green beret, because true north and Magnetic north civilians typically don't know those terms. I don't know those terms. So now I'm learning, I'm learning this. This is great. And I love this, Jim, because when we think about the resilience that's required to be a good leader in general, there's a level of resilience that's required to have high pressure conversations as well. And again, just like leadership, you can be a negotiator, a Great negotiator for 1 minute, 3 minutes, 10 minutes. But sometimes people reach that breaking point when they run out of energy. And I think the, the same focus on values and mission, those two things can really help us to be more resilient in the moment because we might have all of these challenges where they are being emotional, they might be being disrespectful, whatever it happens to be. And you recognize, hey, listen, I know what my true north is. I know what my values are. I know what my mission is, and I know what my goal is in this conversation. There's a lot of noise coming at me that might tempt me to get off track, but as long as I can stay focused and I have that knowledge in myself of what's the most important thing to focus on during the conversation, then it helps me to be a little bit more resilient in the heat of the moment.

Yeah. And I think if you are really firm in understanding what you value and where your values are, you know, it's very easy not to get distracted by the things that are coming at you. But what most people don't realize, and this is in everything, and especially negotiations, most of the time, our worst critic, our worst enemy in negotiations is us. Okay? I was just working with a guy who's trying to get a new job, and he was asking me some negotiation questions about salary and this and that. I said, dude, stop it. Stop negotiating the other side. That's their job. You negotiate for you, they'll take care of them. You're creating a problem. You're imagining a world that no one said exists yet, so you can ask questions to validate if that world exists, but if it doesn't, don't negotiate against yourself. There's no need to do that, because sometimes we're our own worst enemies. And so there's a difference between kind of scenario planning for situations and getting so locked into a scenario that you're unwilling to accept the truth that's in front of you. And so, you know, our goal should always be in tough situations to say, let's. Rather than focus on how tough it is, let's strip away things that are unnecessary. And so, like, even in the book, there's an example where, like, this mother is trying to find. And this is a personal experience of mine. I just kind of wrote into the book. But, like, so. And I'll tell it from a personal level. So, like, I'm. I made this mistake far too many times. I was not babysitting. I was just being a dad while my mom was. While my wife, the mother of our children, was away. So I was not babysitting. And so I'm sitting there and the kids are in the basement. They're making a mess. And I'm, like, ankle deep in, like, the. All these plastic toys. And they were probably, like, younger than your kids at this point. And so we're waiting around in this morass of primary colored Toys. And one of the kids can't find something that, you know, this dear little toy of hers, and she's freaking out. And see, we're DEFCON 5, and everyone's going mental. And so I'm like, I don't know where this is. And finally I said, okay, you know, being really super lazy, this is really a selfish move. I said, because it was a mess, and I knew I had to clean it up before my wife got home. I said, let's put away all the toys that aren't this toy, and then pretty soon there will be less toys in the ground. We'll be able to find the toy. And literally, we got through, like, three quarters of the toys, putting them away. And then finally, you know, this little stuffed animal dog showed its face, and my daughter was like, oh, my God, there he is. And, you know, she was happy. And, you know, of course, I could clean up the rest, but the kids were engaged. And, you know, the lesson I took away from that is like, we have all these problems that seem intractable, and sometimes it's easier than just to focus on the complexity of the problems. Just, like, what's not. Not problem. Put that away. Disposition that. Take away the things that are distracting you, and let's. Let's take this tough situation and make it less complex by dispositioning things. And you might have to just kind of trust, do some tests to say, is this the problem or not? It is not the problem. Great. Put it away. Let's not worry about that. That's how I think sometimes great leaders who can synthesize and communicate very complex things in a simplistic way, I think they might not understand that they have a level of conscious unconscious competence. And what I'm always trying to do is take people to that level of conscious competence so they can understand why you're successful is by making these complicated situations less complex, by dispositioning things and making the situation more manageable. I think that's why sometimes people are like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe you did that. Or you handled that. And it's just like, there's a process. It's not overly complicated, but you just have to be disciplined enough to execute it so that you can make super complex things more understandable or manageable.

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I agree. And to that point, Jim, it's really important to also be the type of leader that has the respect of his or her team to be able to get them to follow along with that process. Because it is a process and you can simplify it and you can execute on it, but if you're executing on it alone, then it's going to be really challenging. And so that's why it's really important to be that type of leader that has the respect of their team, because now everybody's following that process. And then the other thing too, listeners, this was very, very, very subt. This shows that Jim is a great negotiator, but also probably a much better husband too, because at the beginning of the story, you almost said you were babysitting your kids and you caught yourself because you've been burned on that. I heard that. I heard the trauma in your voice, my friend. And that's an example of the trigger word. Because there's some, some ways you might describe something that is perfectly fine for you, but you know, it triggers other people, so you avoid that. This is an awful topic, Negotiation note. But I could not let this slide because it was too perfect.

Yeah, well, you know, you touch the hot stove enough times, you eventually learn.

Exactly, exactly. I love this. And I think this gives us a cool opportunity to circle back to what you talked about at the very beginning. Curiosity. Curiosity is what drives leadership and makes great leaders, but it also makes great negotiators. We understand that the quality of the question is going to determine the quality of the answer, and great negotiators are curious. Now, what I want you to dig deeply into is what makes it so hard for people to be curious. Because everybody listening to this could say, yeah, leaders should be curious. Negotiators should be curious. They shouldn't be led by their assumptions, and they should be willing to adjust based on new information. We can mostly all agree with that. But what is it that holds people back from actually mobilizing curiosity when it matters most?

That's such an interesting question because it's a really hard thing to teach. Curiosity. I can instruct someone how to ask better questions. And what makes A good question, but I think curiosity and authenticity are like first cousins, okay? If you're trying to pretend like you're curious, but it's not authentic, it really comes across very flat. And people will perceive that as you're trying to manipulate something, because you probably are. I mean, I think curiosity has to be genuine. And if you're in a situation where you know, you should be curious, but you're not, I think, you know, it's incumbent upon you. You might not be able to do it in the moment, but if you do an after action report afterwards, or you're trying to debrief yourself afterwards, you say like, why was this not important to me? Why did I not care? Because I think if you're curious, I mean, the number one thing is you got to give a shit, pardon my French. I mean, you just got to care. And so if you don't, you got to ask yourself, why did I not care? Why was this just. Why did I just not even want to listen to this person's answer? And so then you might be like, am I in the wrong job? Am I doing the wrong thing? Am I. Is this is what I'm doing? Not even connected remotely to my values. So why am I here? Sometimes we have bad days and we kind of check out. We're like, just, I'm not on my game today. So then you can think about, why was I not on my game today? Normally I would be interested why was I not interested today? But you've got to find out why you weren't curious. Because curious should be a natural outpouring of demonstration that you care, like I care. And if you don't, those are questions you should ask yourself afterwards because it's a really hard thing to fake.

This is brilliant. The nexus between curiosity and caring is powerful because going back to what you said before, when you're being curious in a difficult conversation, you need to be genuine. Because if you're not being genuine, then you're doing it only for. For the purpose of essentially trying to, and I use this word, intentionally manipulate the perspective of the other person for your own benefit. But if you actually care, you could ask a question, it might change the way you ask the question, but in terms of the semantics of the words. But it will certainly change the way that you ask the questions in terms of the energy behind the words too. If I actually care, then that means that I care not only about my own interests, but also about your interests. And that is the difference between manipulation and influence, manipulation and persuasion. Because it Comes down to the intent. If it's selfishly oriented, then it's closer to manipulation if you genuinely care about the other person. Now it's genuine curiosity, and it's more authentic persuasion, because I'm going to be open and honest about what I need, what I want, and why, and I want to know what you want, what you need, and why. Then we can work together and figure that out. So the mutual curiosity just is amplified by the amount that we care about each other. And the deal gets better, the negotiation gets better. But. But it can be scary to be genuine in these conversations. It can be scary to be authentic, because sometimes when you're being authentic, you have to recognize your own vulnerabilities, your own limitations. And oftentimes our curiosity is inhibited from really taking flight, because we like to pretend like we know everything, and we like to always feel as though we're right.

Well, if you've ever seen, let's say, a spy movie, and someone in the spy movie says, like, you just told two lies now that you have to keep track of. And so they're like, here you go in this world, this dark world, where you think you should be a fake person. But if you were going undercover, the less you have to be fake, the more relatable and real you're gonna be. And so I think it's really important to be convincing, to be influential, to have impact, and to have truly power is to really be grounded in who you are and what matters to you and what you care about. Now, what's interesting is I could say I'm really smart, and I can manipulate the situation because I'm smarter than everyone else. And I could play chess, and I can do all these other things, but there are these tiny things that we struggle to kind of control that we can't really control. And so let me take you on a little bit of a neuroscience journey here. Yes, There's a guy who did a study, I think, Dr. Albert Morabian, years ago, and it sometimes gets panned, this study, but it was about how people emotionally respond to information they're receiving from you. And people have panned this study because this is how people view what you say or do. No, this is how you emotionally respond. And we know that people make decisions based on emotions. Okay. And I think you're the guy who said a great quote. You know, we are emotional creatures that sometimes are logical. So let's talk about this study. There's something that came out of it that I call the locker combination. I use this in Sales training, all the time. It's the locker combination is 7, 38, 55. And so people emotionally respond to what you are saying at any given time. 7%, the emotional response. 7% is just the words I use. Okay. 38% is my tone of voice. Okay. And 55% is my body language and everything else. And so we think we can manipulate a situation. But if you go back to, let's say, authentically being curious, I can tell you the question to ask. But the way you ask that question, that tone of voice, 38% is going to come through as either condescending or incurious or not genuine. And it's really tough to fake that. And so we think we can control all these things. Those are very hard things to fake and control. And so I always encourage people, I say, like, we worry in job interviews about, like, what we're going to say. Say it the right way, say it a nice way. Say it with a good tone of voice. It's the reason why I can go to a puppy and I can say, you're the cutest little dog in the world, and that puppy's tail goes between its legs. But I can go to that same puppy and I can just say, you're the smelliest, ugliest little dog in the world, aren't you? And that dog's tail is wagging and it's super happy. I mean, that's maybe not the best scientific experiment, but I think you kind of get what I'm saying is if you can't fake being genuine, people see through that. Whether they. They might walk away not saying, like, well, this one thing that Jim said was bad, they'll just like, doesn't feel right.

Yes. So it's the vibe check. And I think a lot of times we don't appreciate the dynamism that goes into these interactions. And we don't appreciate or respect how hard it is to hide our authentic selves, because there will always be some kind of leakage. I think there are times we could look at tv, we could look at different shows, and we could say, oh, you know, most of the acting was good, but I didn't like, like this actor. I don't think this actor is good. So think about if you don't think an actor is good, that's somebody who worked for years to be bad at act. You probably have not worked at being an actor. And now we're going to go out and act like some fabricated version of ourselves is not realistic. It's just not realistic. So I agree 100%. Authenticity by itself, it creates trust. And trust is by itself persuasive. So when we think about these negotiations that we're doing, when we're thinking about the tough conversations we find ourselves in as leaders, just being genuine and authentic is going to be really important. And going back to that word, caring drives curiosity. And the example that you gave, I want to circle back to this because it was good. Because when you are in a conversation and you say to yourself, you start to realize and you're being honest with yourself and you say, you know, I wasn't listening. I thought I already knew. I didn't ask any questions when they were talking. I wasn't hearing. I was just waiting for them to be done. What was it that prevented me from caring enough to be curious? And so if somebody finds themselves in that position where they're saying, I did not care enough to be curious, what type of internal work can they do? Or in order to get to that point where they do care, or maybe it's a sign that they're just maybe in the wrong place? I'm not sure.

Well, it's interesting. I was driving my son and we were doing a cross country trip as I was driving him out. Cause we had to get his car out to grad school in Portland. And so we're taking this like five day road trip out to get his car out there and get him started for grad school. We knew that we had to find a bar to watch a football game because I'm a big Bears fan. Everyone can pity me after, after they listen to this episode. But I'm a big Bears fan and he is too. And we had to find a bar to watch the Bears game. And so we got to the bar early in the morning and we got a table and we're like, this is going to be great. I thought it was one of the first games of the season. We're super psyched. And this guy walks in the bar wearing a Bears jersey with a suitcase. We're like, yeah, come on. You know, you Bears fans sit down. You know, so the guy sits down with us. We're talking Bears and we're having a great time together. He's. He's a character. We have lots of fun. You know, we have lunch together. You know, I learn all about this guy's family is telling me about his kids, telling me about his work, telling me about this and that, and, you know, the game is over, so he leaves. And I was talking to my son about, I was like, I Said, I hope you don't mind that we, you know, invited this guy to join us. I know it was just the two of us. He's like, no, I don't mind. I mean, I know that's how you roll. You're always networking, you're always interested in people. And he said something like, I was just a little surprised, like, you didn't exchange business cards or do anything like that. Usually you're always networking or something like that. And I said, well, did you notice anything interesting about our conversation the entire time this three hour Bears game? And he goes, I don't know what, because he probably knows I'm going to tell him. And so I said, we know this about his wife, we know this about his son, we know this about his business. We know all these other things. What does he know about us? He goes, nothing. And the couple times you were excited to talk about, like, grad school and what you were doing in Portland, like, he just started chiming about stuff about him. I said, nice guy, fun guy to watch a Bears game with, but there's no need for me to connect with someone like that because it will always be about what he needs and never about what I need. There will never be a fair relationship here or to establish a fair relationship would take too much work and effort. I'm not, it's not worth my time. And so it's just one of these things that you learn with age and experience. And I'm hopeful that encounter was really important for my son to learn that lesson. To say, like, wow, I wasn't looking at it in that perspective.

That is powerful.

And it also shows too, when you're having these conversations, when we're having negotiations in general. Just let's widen the aperture here because you don't just want to do business, you want to do business with the right people. And a lot of negotiations fail because they're successful. I successfully negotiated a deal with the wrong person. We need to take the time to really feel out the relationship here. Use your curiosity to learn. And this is a great example. We didn't get curiosity reciprocated to us in that conversation. That's a, that's a, that's a red flag. Because the thing is, we can find somebody else who. In this early, in these early stages of the conversation, we have more vibrational alignment. We seem to have more of a value match, all of those things. So we use negotiation and conversation not just in order to close deals, but make sure that we're getting in the right deals. Deals and making the right relationships, too.

100%. 100%. It's really about just. There's so many young people I'll coach and counsel. They're always like, I want to get respect. I want to be respected as a leader in this and that. How do I get people to respect me and the authority in this and that? We can get degrees, we can get titles, we can get all these other things. And there's the old adage that says to earn respect, you have to give respect, but. But the person you have to give respect to first is yourself. And that's just. I think the most important lesson we can teach people is to say, if you don't respect yourself, no one will respect you. And so I'd say always enter a relationship as a peer and stay as a peer. You don't want to be taking advantage of people. You don't want to have people take advantage of you. Because the best time to start a relationship as a peer is at the very beginning. Don't feel like you have to earn the right to be a peer someday down the road. And the example I use with this all the time is I said, let's say you've got a daughter, okay? And I've got a daughter. And so let's say your daughter brings home a young man someday and says, you know, dad, I think he's the guy. It's like, okay, tell me about him. Why do you think he's the guy? Well, he kind of treats me crappy right now, but I think if we get engaged and then we get married, and then maybe if we have a kid, maybe someday, you know, he'll treat me well. Well, if that discussion ever happened, I'd be like, this guy's never seeing you again. Okay? Because, like, it's never going to get better than where it starts on day one. Now, that's an easy decision. You can sit there and just say, like, I totally get that. Why would we do the same thing in business? Why would we say, I'm going to enter in a relationship with this company? They kind of treat us like crap right now, but someday they're going to really respect us.

Us. No.

You start off as a peer, and once you get there, you stay there. You don't take advantage of people. Now there swells in a relationship where someone. Things happen, but then you deal with them. And those are conversations that are worth having to get back to the middle. Okay, that balance point that we talked about earlier. But never start a relationship if you can't be as a peer, and at least don't expect it to get better, because it won't.

Yes. Oh, Jim, this is. This is amazing. This is like. I feel like I'm in church. You just laid down a word. This is incredible. Because when you have that peer to peer relationship, then you're walking in with power, empowered, regardless of your rank, title, or authority. Right. And it's a mindset that we have to shift here because if we go in with that idea, hey, they are above me. I'm trying to earn their respect. Then what you're doing is that even though there might be a power differential, that where they have power and leverage in that situation, that could be true. But what you're doing is you're going into the conversation disempowered mentally and emotionally, and you're giving away more of that to the point where they don't even. It's not just that they have what you want tangibly, you're also seeking validation from them. You. Part of your emotional well being is in their hands, and you won't feel good until you get a little bit of their validation. That's an incredibly dangerous place to be. Just psychologically, but also from a negotiation perspective. Then you find yourself in a situation where you're trading emotion for substance. They're giving me the feeling of acceptance, and I'm giving up tangible benefits just so I can feel good to them. That's a. Is a very dangerous place to be.

Yeah. And it's just. It happens all the time. And it. And it really gets back to. You can do that if you understand what you value, if you know what your true north is. If I know what my true north is, it's like, listen, no one's shaking me. I know what's important to me. And because what's your greatest asset in any negotiation is being able to walk away. That's one of those things where it's like, I don't need this that bad that I have to have this. And so I think, you know, I'm the first generation born here in America. Parents are immigrants, and not only immigrants that lived through the depression, that lived through World War II, that lived through a civil war, post World War II in Greece. I mean, all kinds of, like, nasty stuff. And one of the things they kind of always like embedded in us was like, you know, don't be desperate. It's horrible when you're desperate. Desperation is a horrible place to be. And so a lot of that is like, how do you know what it means to be Desperate. What are the conditions that create desperation? Some of those are manufactured. You're not desperate. That's not a problem. You've got food on the table. You're okay. You've got this. You've got the freedom to do this and that. You can argue about how bad things are. They're not that bad. Here's when they're bad. When someone tells you you can't practice a religion you care about, up, you can't do this. You can't educate your children the way you'd like to educate them. I mean, these are things like, yeah, I'll fight for that, because those are values I don't want to sacrifice. But there are other things that, you know, we get all worked up about that aren't that important. And so if you know your true north, you can go in with your head held high, stand firm for what you believe in, treat yourself with great amounts of respect and negotiate as a peer. And then seek to understand the rest of the parameters that are surrounding the situation so that you can understand the context of someone else's position, maybe adjust the context of your position and know if it's worth working through a deal or walking away from a deal, because it's just. It's never going to be good. And so I think those are just things that are. My goal is to help people learn that at a younger age. I think we all get to a certain age where we kind of learn these things. Like, these are people you shouldn't have in your life. Maybe you learn that at 75, maybe you learn it at 60, maybe you learn it at 35. I don't know. But the sooner you learn it, the happier you'll be, the more fulfilled you'll be, 100%.

And, Jim, before you go, I wanted to ask this important question based on that last point. When you think about happiness and fulfillment, are there any books or podcasts people should listen to or read to be more happy and fulfilled? This is the. This is the plug. This is the plug.

There are so many out there. I would say the leadership podcast is a good one. Okay. But there are some great guests. There's one with Kim Cameron that is just like he wrote the book on positivity. He's a great guy. He's like one of these people that you're just like, holy cow, you know, what a wonderful human. Just a really wonderful human. And if you like this podcast, listen to the two we've done with Kwame on ours, and I think you'll be pretty happy. Too.

Thank you. We'll put links to that in the description. Jim, pleasure as always, my friend. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Kwame. This is great. Always fun.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

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