Leadership vs. Popularity, Insights from Robin Dreeke

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide, and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Robin, thanks for joining us today.

You know, Kwame, I'd say thank you for having me, but that's. I can't even come up with the words to say thank you for having me. It is so profoundly awesome to be with you and share time with you and to make such a great, healthy connection.

Thank you. Likewise. And everybody shout out to our a good friend of the show, Mike Reddington, for making this happen. Robin and I have been just chatting for the last 45 minutes or so and we said, hey, do we still want to do this podcast or just hang out? So I'm pumped about this. This will be fun.

Me too. And I got my goosebumps are going on my arms. I use that as my gauge of how well we make a connection. That's my soul saying, hey, we're good.

I love it.

I love it.

I'm feeling it too. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Boy, life arcs are great. They started long, long ago and go up forward and close. So real briefly, the fun, sexy one that people like is so yes, I'm a veteran Marine Former FBI spy recruiter. I was a head of the FBI counterintelligence behavioral analysis program. I ran our behavioral team for a number of years. Wrote numerous books on how to build trust, rapport and how to have great, healthy relationships with people, because that's the foundation for everything we do. Retired from the FBI in 2018, and I've been a keynote speaker, lecturer, trainer, podcast hoster. Basically anything having to do with human interaction where we can make it a good, healthy interaction free of manipulation, free of subterfuge, free of all the things that cause divisiveness. I'm in.

Oh, this is so great, listeners. I will put links to all of Robin's gems into the chat, but this is great. And you know what? Let's mix this up, because I've read some of your work, my friend, and one of the things, besides the brilliance that it contains in terms of skills development, you're a great storyteller. So when it comes to your ethos as it relates to human interaction, relationships, what is a story that you think really encapsulates your experience?

We have the. What was the impetus for me to be on the life arc that created that story? And then we have the humbling moments along the way that accentuate the story. I think I'll start with, because again, what you get with me, what's called a narrative answer. It's this worry long, really profound, as you said. It's a storytelling answer. Each of us has a. An event or series, events earlier on in life that cascade on top of our genetics and our biology and all the things that make us who we are as a. As an organism on the planet. And all those experiences early on forge kind of the likes, wants, the desires and the path we want to start pursuing in life that makes us feel safe and valued by others. Mine was like many, kind of profound and impactful because it was full of some challenging moments. I was bullied. You know anyone with the name Robin with blue eyes, blond, ha there. And moved around a lot because his parents didn't have any money. You were setting yourself up for bullying. And part of that being bullied was having no money, like I said. And my family, we never owned a home. My parents still never owned a home to this day. And one of the places we moved into, we lost our furnace and we had to heat our house then all by wood for a number of years. My parents took the last amount of money they had and installed a wood burning stove. And so when I was in seventh grade, I was chopping wood all night long trying to keep the house heated because you had to keep it from freezing as much as you could on the inside, even though you actually had to chip your way out in the, out in the morning because the condensation on the inside would freeze the door closed. All these moments created resilience and a tenacity like we were talking about earlier. But it also created this profound because of the bullying and being an only child, I just wanted to be liked. It really comes down to I want to be liked, I wanted to make connections, I wanted friends. I couldn't wait to go to school growing up because I could have friends. So that became part of, part of my life arc is just wanting friends and overcoming people that are bullies and facing down bullies and then having tenacity, grit and resilience to provide for yourself and make yourself feel safe. Because in order to have school clothes to fit in, not get bullied more, I had to go cut grass, paper boy. I mean, I had them all. If I could make cash, I was going to figure out a way to make cash and do that. And so all these things compounded about my genetics and biology, about being an extrovert and deriving my energy from the outside world, being from upstate New York, all these things compound together to I love connecting with people, absolutely loved connecting with people. But because I do embody a sense of empathy, a decent amount of empathy with others, what would happen is I had a dichotomy, as I call it, out of balance. Everything in life is a dichotomy between good and bad. The yin, the yang, all these things because we can't experience great beautiful things and appreciate them unless we've seen some real garbage. We can't experience how good someone is until we experience someone who kind of fell short of that. For me, another dichotomy is we can't really become profound great leaders which are resources for the success of others. Be other focused until we understand how to be selfish. And when you're gritty, resilient, trying to provide for yourself to feel safe, you become very self centered, not a narcissistic, look at me, I'm the best way, but in a way of muscle memory over time says I need to feel safe, I need to feel safe, I need to feel safe. And so it makes us very self focused. But when you have empathy and people that are going through trauma, we tend to be very good at nonverbal behavior and assessing the behavior of others and whether we're causing comfort or stress in others and what would happen was along my path, I could tell immediately when my behaviors caused people to be uncomfortable, cause stress. In other words, if I wasn't making it about them and it was too me focused, they walked away. They didn't want to deal with me or they bullied me. And so I became really profoundly acutely aware of when I was too self centered, too focused that I need to change my behavior. The other thing that people are is on that dichotomy is they're either wound collectors or they're problem solvers. Wound collectors tend to keep a score sheet against the world and seek retribution. Problem solvers, just like what am I going to do to work the problem and move forward? I luckily came up with the work the problem and move forward mentality. So when you put all that together, a lot of beautiful, humbling moments along the way were my first. I have a major ones, but one of my earlier major ones was when I was ranked last in my Marine Corps squadron out of all the second lieutenants. And they said you suck because you need to be a better leader. I had no idea what they're talking about. I was popular, which I thought was leadership. No, popularity is about self. It's look at me, look at me. I'm really funny. I'm a galgoing gregarious guy. That's not leadership, that's power. Learned that reading Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power. Not only did I recognize a little bit myself, I've recognized a lot of executives and a lot of organizations I'd worked for. But on the opposite side of power is leadership, which is otherly focused. And how do you do that? How do you use language and behaviors to focus on others when you have a lifetime of reps of trying to survive, which is about self, this is where that awareness comes from. And this is where those humbling moments generate the ability to not change who we are because you don't want to change who you are. We got a lot of beauty in here. In order to offset some things that might be accentuated and too extreme, we need to add to who we are. So if you find yourself like in my case, I was a little too self focused. I needed the add the ability to make it about others. So that's what my life journey's been is about. What behaviors do I need to add to myself to really balance that dichotomy and learn how to put it out of bounds if I need to. In other words, who needs more from me today so I can actually put me aside and still feel like I have enough energy to do that. Because a lot of times people need a lot more than we might be willing or able to give. So as leaders, we need to be able to draw from a deep reservoir to be able to serve when it's needed.

Long answer, Robin, I just showed you how I took 19 pages of notes on your book. I feel like I might get there again on this podcast. This is great, and there are a lot of different ways I can go with this next question, but I actually want to touch base, give a little nod to something that we talked about before the interview happened, which is talking about resilience. Because people could look at your story and we can talk about the trauma and the difficulties. And a lot of times we use the trauma and difficulties in our life circumstances to kind of justify our inabilities to accomplish certain things in the present. So what was it about you and your mindset that allowed you to turn the hardships of your past into resilience?

That is such a great question. I've examined this one a lot because I do a lot of true crime commentary on different shows and stuff. And when you're doing true crime stuff, you see a lot of wound collectors. People that commit heinous things against other human beings tend to be wound collectors that are taken out, like you said, retribution against others. And then the victims tend to be people who aren't that are problem solvers and they're just trying to make their way through the universe, as they say. I was very fortunate for my parents. What they couldn't give me in a lot of areas in life, materially or even from healthy behaviors because most families deal with addiction one way or the other. They couldn't give me a lot in that area. But for some reason my parents never complained. So I had behaviors modeled earlier in life that even though I was the poorest kid, I didn't know I was the poorest kid. You know, I didn't know I was the poorest kid because my parents never said, oh, we're so poor. My parents never said, oh, they're not entitled to that we should have what they have. In other words, there was never a woe is me. It was like, we don't have, what are we going to do about it? We're going to have more jobs. We're going to try to get into the Naval Academy because I can't afford to go to college. There was always thinking about and this is the most important thing, I think, when working with people and working with ourselves it's good to know the Simon Sinek says, start with why. Got to understand the overarching why. What's the purpose of life? What's the purpose of you? What gives you your fulfillment every day? That's the big why. But underneath that one why? You got to stop asking why. Because if you start asking why you're looking for a subjective opinion and belief system to justify your actions and failure or why someone else is doing something wrong, you're looking to place blame. That's when we get in the danger area of ego, vanity, and insecurities. They can be our undoing. So instead of asking, why did they do that to me? You ask what that what question? The power of what? What can I do about it? What outcome am I seeking?

What.

What specific actions can I take to have a different result? So luckily for me, I had models of people in my life that just asked what questions? When I was in the Marine Corps, I drive my son, who's also a Marine Corps officer now, nuts with this one. It's called what now, Lieutenant. We're always looking around us for the solutions that someone else can give us. That's great, but part of that resiliency and tenacity and grit, like you said, is you solve problems instead of looking for someone else to solve your problem, which is great. That's why we have allies. You know, having teachers, mentors and guides and people in our lives that can be there with us is fantastic. And I use the word with instead of for us. With us is great because we want a team with these people, but at the bottom line, we want to ask, what are we going to do to work this problem? Just solve it. Just work the problem. One of my favorite shows and books was the Martian. I don't read a lot of fiction, but one of them is the Martian. And you take every day. You know, we're talking about Neil DeGrasse Tyson before. The universe is not out to get you. It just is. Stop thinking that the universe, it's all about you. It just is being what it's being. People are being who they're being. People are literally not focused on you. They're doing the best they can in the moment to solve their problems. Sometimes it's going to clash with what yours are. Well, let's have a conversation about that. So that's it, I think, is just literally focusing on the what question to move forward and solve that problem. Where I learned it again, behaviors modeled for me earlier in my life and then reinforced through a life of being A leader and put in leadership because I was not a natural born leader. No doubt in my mind, very few people are. But a natural desire and passion to want to be one. And when you finally discover that leadership is about service to others, that's and not just saying the words, but living that experience. I mean, if you're a leader and you say you're a leader, when's the last time one of the people that you work with was in a hardship, was in dire straits, did something a little wrong and you threw yourself in the line of fire to protect their career, to protect their reputation, to protect them from the fallout that could happen. And you're willing to take that for them because it was they did the right thing and they made a mistake.

Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better, difficult conversations? At the American Negotiation Institute, we offer transformative keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands on training for your team, we've got you covered. Don't just negotiate, master the art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed. That's powerful. And when it comes to that mindset of resilience and that problem solver mentality, now I want you to help us to draw a clear connection between those mindsets and your unique ability to connect with other people conversationally and relationally.

And I learned this like you doing interviews. What we do, when you're having a conversation with someone, you're taking an opportunity to give, potentially, if you do it well, the greatest gift you can give any human being. That's the gift of presence. To see them for who they are, to hear their story and most importantly, not to see them for who they are and hear their story, but do so in accepting, non judgmental, curious way. In order to do that, we gotta let go of our agenda. My good friend Jim Pyle, numerous beautiful books on human behavior. He's an army interrogator and he says if you approach every human being as a young child like imagine yourself, do your own thought experiment, which we love doing our thought experiments. Imagine yourself back when you're five or six years old, it's your first day of school, going to kindergarten and you hadn't experienced, you haven't Lived outside the four walls of your house all that much. And you are just curious. Our survival as a species has come about because we're born with no survival mechanism except our curiosity. Our curiosity is what gives us the ability to learn rapidly from the environment around us. And so you engage life with the curiosity of a five year old where you have no confirmation bias of things you're trying to see, but you just want to take it all in so you understand it. That is the greatest gift you can give another human being. That's how you make a connection. You just be curious. And whereas. And when you discover someone's life arc, you ask them questions. So simple as this Kwame looking at you as this dapper, amazingly gifted interviewer connector of human beings, where I just am compelled to want to speak to you. My question is where you make that. Where these deep connections, like what was it all those years ago that gave you that spark to want to have great conversations with people? Who was that inspiration for you? And then you just shut up and be present. That's it.

It's beautiful. And now, because you've had this experience, this really diverse experience of leadership in the military, FBI, now interviewing some of the brightest minds in the world when it comes to everyday people trying to replicate that success, what would you say are some of the biggest barriers to them accomplishing that?

One biggest barrier is ego. Everyone's thinking someone's doing something to us. We do a lot of things in life when it comes to human behavior to make us feel more powerful because we feel weak, we're insecure. If we want to learn how to elicit information, I'm not putting any skill set down. These are all beautiful. I know all these skill sets because in order to get to the level of wanting to make a deeper connection with people, you actually have to do these other skill sets which are in order to become an artist, you have to learn how to paint by number. First. Leonardo da Vinci, one of my most favorite people in history, wasn't born learning how to paint Mona Lisa. It was a lifelong process of his Mona Lisa was never finished in his mind because it became his lifelong journey to learn new skills and techniques along the way. And he so carried Mona Lisa with him. So as he learned something new, he applied it. And so that's what we're doing at this mastery level is being aware enough to know we're not going to use carnival tricks to play with people. We want to understand and make these deeper connections. So even when people say he lied to me or she lied to me or they're trying to take advantage of me. Where's the focus? Literally, think about that when I'm using those words. Is the focus on them or is the focus on me and my own insecurity that someone's doing something to me? Here's a interesting thought experiment question. Ask yourself, instead of thinking, why did they lie to me? Ask yourself, what did I do to make them feel insecure and unsafe with me that inspired them to have a behavior that wasn't conducive to a good, healthy relationship? That's owning it has taken accountability for the only thing I can control is me. And it makes it about them. It makes me curious about them. Different way to look at it.

Wow. Now, Robin, let me speak on behalf of all listeners because I know what a lot of people are thinking. They're saying, I don't want to do that.

Good. Then don't.

They say, I don't want. There's that reflexive response, right. And it's comes from the fact that I feel as though it is convenient and also comforting to believe that when bad things happen to us, it's somebody else's fault. Because then it absolves us of responsibility of taking action and ownership of doing what is needed to be done to make the situation better. Because if I then take responsibility, that means I can't sit here in the comfort of having the righteous indignation of feeling, right, I need to actually step up and do something and be a problem solver, like you said.

Yeah. And as I say all the time, there's no right or wrong to any of this. There just is. So if. If part of this process of making a beautiful connection, I got my goosebumps going again with a beautiful human being is doing our best to recognize where they are on their path, being available if they want to take a different path, but not judging their path and where they're at on it. I liken it to race cars. We're all born driving a Prius. And along the way, some of us start upgrading our cars pretty rapidly to Ferraris or whatever you want to say or use or a Tesla maybe. And some people are still driving a Prius, but they think they're driving a Ferrari. Now, those that are driving Ferraris, they can actually shove the Ferrari in the guy's face is driving a Prius and say, yeah, but you suck because I'm driving a Ferrari. Or they can say, hey, that's a nice Prius you have. How are you enjoying that car if it's getting you where you want to go. Did you ever think about anything else? Were you happy with what you have? And if you're happy with what you have, how can I make it a little bit more comfortable for you to drive that Prius? If you are interested in driving something different, would you like me part of that life to help you get there? Because you can't go from zero to a hundred. It's a journey. If you go from zero to a hundred, it'll fail majestically. James Clear in Atomic Habits does a great job of saying, if you go from zero to a hundred on anything, you'll stop doing it because it's uncomfortable. But if you make one micro change a day and then make it that one little thing, a habit, it becomes sustainable over time. And so it's the same thing with human behavior and you don't have to do anything. But I think the ability to recognize where someone's at on their path, don't judge a path and then just ask yourself, is where they're at interacting with me, is it healthy for them and me or not healthy? If it's unhealthy, well, we just disengage today. Maybe tomorrow will be different again. Because it's free of resentment, it's free of judging. That's the big thing, is the judging of where people are on their path is all about what our own insecurities. We think we're right. Going back to Robert Greene, again, the laws of human nature, human beings, we're hardwired to consume information that makes us feel good about ourselves and our own opinions. Stop it. So I love another quote by Brene Brown in her book Braving the Wilderness. She's written a lot on this, and that is, if you don't understand someone good, get closer. I love when I don't hear something I agree with. Because I can honestly say these days, it's not that I don't agree. How can I agree with anything? Because there's so many different opinions. I hear something. Here's a healthier way to look at it. If I hear something I haven't heard before or in a particular way, I get excited. It's like, wow. Because here's a thing to really put to that context. Use here if it comes out of your mouth, Kwame. If I hear you say something I've never heard before, maybe it goes against all the other things I've heard for a period of time. That's a great opportunity to say, huh? Kwame most likely put a lot of time and effort and thought into what came out of his mouth. Because you know what? I put a lot of time, effort and thought, the things that come out of my mouth. He guaranteed he did, too. Wouldn't it be appropriate of me to at least give him the benefit of the doubt that there's a lot of time and effort and thought in that? Let's hear what it is. How hard is that? I'm not saying you have to agree with it. I'm not saying that you're going to change your mind. I'm saying let's explore what his mind is. We were talking about this beforehand. We're talking about diversity and inclusion and all the things that are challenging our society right now. You only have to think about that if you just think of, huh, he's got a different point of view than me. He must have put a lot of time and thought and energy into it. I'm not saying I agree with it. I want to learn about it. Where did it come from? One of the best things that you can do to make a connection with another human being as well, and you do this all the time. Consume what they consume. Like, if I have someone on my show, if I have someone I'm going to meet, I've done lectures with people that have sat on a stage with me. If they mentioned a book they read that mentioned that meant a lot to them, they quote someone, I read that book, why wouldn't you? I understand. If something means something to you, if something you consumed has impacted your life so much, why wouldn't I want to read it? Because now I'm going to understand you. I'm going to understand where you get your ideas from. It's not going to be total, it's not going to be all encompassing, but it's going to be a little more to understand Kwame, where he's coming from, that context. All the books I read, half of them at least, come from the people around me. I kind of divide what I consume into things that I'm interested in and the things that people around me are interested in. Because if I consume the information about the people around me and what they're interested in, I'll have a better ability to connect with them because then I can talk about things in a way that is about them and what their interests, their priorities, their challenges, their pain points are about. When they explain something a particular way, I'll understand where they got that phraseology from. I understand where their thought process is coming from. Again, this isn't about saying someone's Right or wrong. It's not about agreeing with someone or disagreeing with someone. This is called deep non judgmental curiosity. It's the third step in the keys of communication, by the way.

Oh man, this is good. This is good. Because I want to pause here because I wanted to really highlight this for the listeners because we have spoken little about specific tactics and specific things to do, but we've spoken a lot about the mindset that puts you in a position to do the right thing when the time is right. And I think that's a really important thing for us to recognize too, because I think a lot of times we can get so tactical. Some people might listen to this podcast and say, I want negotiation tips and tricks that I can pull out of my back pocket in the middle of a conversation to win the conversation, right? So I just want to highlight the fact that we start with this foundation of mindset. The way that we view ourselves, the way that we view others, the way that we view the whole world is going to really play, I would say, a greater factor into our success in relationships and communication more so than specific tips and tricks and strategies.

And now, that being said, I'll give you exactly the thing to do this, because in order to build the muscle memory, we need to be able to do this. We need to be able to communicate. So all those years ago when the Marine Corps major ranked me last out of 14 and I said to him, what do I need to do to be a better leader? You say I suck, what do I do? And he goes, well, that's easy. Make it about everyone else but yourself. Huh? What? I don't get it. What specific. Again, there's that what question. What specifically should I do? And he goes, I don't know. Figure it out. Here's what he couldn't tell me. Here's what was not part of my human interaction repertoire yet. Because when we're gritty, self reliant, resilient, a type A personality that's trying to win, we inevitably are going to talk in terms of ourselves. We're going to talk in terms of what I'm going to do to succeed and win. What the greatest leaders are thinking about is what can I do to make the lives of my people around me easier? What can I do to make them safer with moving forward? Because if, when people feel safe, they innovate. When they innovate, they solve problems. When you solve problems, the mission is accomplished and you look like a champ, and they look even better. But here's exactly the four keys of communication that are the bedrock for everything. If you incorporate this into everything you say, everything you write and every interaction you have, it shifts the focus from yourself to them. It demonstrates to their brain that you see them, that you value them, that you want to affiliate with them. The dopamine's release, the serotonin is released and hopefully if you do it long enough, the oxytocin for long term alliances are released. This is it. Very simply seek their thoughts and opinions instead of telling them yours. 2. Talk in terms of their challenges, priorities and pain points in life instead of telling them yours. 3. Validate them non judgmentally by having deep curiosity about them instead of you. 4. Empower them with choices in their life of what they can do to move forward instead of telling them exactly what they can and can't do. You do one of those four things and I guarantee you this. Take any one of those things about the people that in your life that you absolutely love, that you love to be around, that are you can't wait to talk to. Think about this. I love this one too. Robin Sharma wrote this in who will cry when you die? It's think about who you love to see walk through that door. Think about the greatest person that can walk through the door that makes you feel like a million bucks. When you see the email come in from them, when you see a text come in and you're like, oh, I can't. I see you thinking, Kwame, good. Then ask yourself, am I that person for everyone else? And I guarantee you, that person that you think is doing that for you, they're doing those four things, if not one of them very, very well. Most profoundly, I guarantee you this, they're seeing you without judging you. They're asking those questions about you. They're talking about what's going on in your life. And never during the course of that conversation are they sharing. They're burdening you with themselves. Oof.

This is great because I love the simplicity of this. And you're right, it shifts your focus from yourself to other people. Because a lot of times, let me just go and give the inverse something. That fun little thing I did in a training recently is I said, okay, this is how you would do it. Now I want you to in the chat to give me bad examples of how to not do it. It was hilarious. So with this, first we're going to seek the thoughts and opinions of others. So first, what a lot of people do is they start the conversation and focus the conversation on their own thoughts and opinions. And they Try to force it upon others. Talk about their challenges. No, we talk about our own challenges. Validate through deep curiosity. We try to push out the validity of our position on others. And then a lot of times, the opposite. Again, number four, empower with choices. We try to limit their choices and tell people what would work for us. And I think a lot of times what people do when they try to be really assertive negotiators is they take the four keys and do the inverse. Do the exact opposite. And then they wonder why it doesn't work.

Here's another fun thought experiment. Think about the people around you that you don't like interacting with. Here's a typical opening statement that we generally hear from someone that censors. Rankles up. Can you believe what he said? Can you believe what they did? Isn't that horrendous? So they're giving you their thoughts and opinions. They're judging what's going on without any understanding about your context. You might think it's totally awesome and cool. Instead of saying, can you believe what they did? They should say something like, huh, Pretty interesting. What do you think about what's going on in the FBI? One of my jobs was to work with companies that China, Russia, Iran, all these nefarious actors were targeting to compromise the national security of their company. The proprietary information is. I worked in counterintelligence. The worst thing you can do is walk into a company, not know the company, and say, hey, China's eating your lunch. What are you going to do about it? What if they're already partnered with them? Instead of saying, hey, what do you think about China? And then you get the context and you'll say, oh, I think they're eating our lunch. I said, oh, really? That's an interesting point of view. What kind of things you think you might be able to do about it? Maybe we can partner together. Instead of saying, hey, I need you to do this because China's eating your lunch. Boy, you setting yourself up for real failure. And again, those are just two. Look, same why? It's changing the what and the how. How you going to engage? Ask those questions. Seek that context before barreling in. So when the people that you love walking through that door, you can't wait to see them, they're not coming in saying, hey, can you believe what they just did? It's the ones coming in saying, hey, how you doing today? What's going on, man?

The sign of a brilliant insight is that it seems obvious in hindsight.

The elusive obvious.

Exactly. And I think that's the experience that a lot of listeners are having today. And Robert, you know this because we've been talking for the last hour and 15 minutes. I could talk to you forever, my friend. But before you go, I want to give you an opportunity to let the listeners know about your work, how they can get in touch with you and let them know about the new book that's coming out.

First of all, I want to do the most important thing, and that is to have listeners do the most important thing they can do for themselves and others. And that is hit, like hit. Subscribe and share Kwame with the world. What he does, not just in the information he brings, but the amount of work, dedication and effort he puts in to bring great people and great information with no benefit to him, to others, is profound. So I want to thank you for that. I want to make sure people take this message and take you and get that out there for me, easy. Go to peopleformula.com all one word, people formula, the books, resources, podcasts, newscasts, you name it, I'm on there. Whatever kind of free flavor you want. I'll upsell you on anything you want. Buy anything you want from me. Hire me as a million dollar coach in your life. I don't care. Next book that's coming out is just like we were talking about. Working on it right now, I'm hoping in the fall. Manuscript's almost done right now. The working title is Alliance GPS Guiding Principles for Success. It's all about the behaviors, about creating good, healthy, strong alliances in life. Because what we've learned and what we experience on this planet, you can't do alone. We're beautiful organisms that were put here to interact with others in a good, healthy, profound way. There's I asked that one question. Who do you want to have walk through that door? And are you that person? Next question is this. You have five hours left on this planet. No matter what your belief system, you have five hours left. What do you do with your five hours? This isn't a bucket list. There's no time for bucket list anymore. What do you do? And I guarantee you this, it's going to be a deep, beautiful, meaningful conversation with the people you love and care about the most. Do you have those people? Who do you value the most? For me, it's really simple. My two kids are adults. I love sitting around all of us together on those rare occasions, laughing together, listening to the stories of their lives and that beautiful happiness they're having, the prosperity they're having, funny struggles they're having as we're playing a game of exploding kittens, that stupid little card game. Laughter and joy with the people that you love in life. Those are healthy relationships. So that's what the focus should be. And so that's what the book is about, how to have a good, healthy alliance and good, healthy relationships with everyone you touch in life. Because that's all it's about. Just be present. Give others that great gift.

Robin, thank you so much. This has been an absolute masterclass, and I cannot wait to have you back on the show.

Me, too.

Congratulations. You've just joined an elite elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the. The confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you, and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.