Mastering Debate and Negotiation Skills with Brian Manuel

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 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.

My name is Brian Manual. I'm the director of Policy debate at Stanford University, and I'm also the director of debate for Edgemont Junior Senior High School in Scarsdale, New York. I've been doing debate for approximately 17 years, both the high school and college level. I also work for a governing organization called the National Speech Debate association that hosts the largest academic competition in the world at this point. And I've been doing debate for pretty much my whole entire life, both coaching and competing. So I'm here to answer all the questions possible to kind of help you all talk about things.

So tell us a little bit about how you got into debate.

It's actually an interesting story. When I was growing up, I was in eighth grade and I actually started off doing like speech and interpretation events. I was a duo interpretation competitor. And then when I moved to high school, I went to the first meeting that they had for the what they called the forensics team at that time, but basically speech and debate. And when I was in there, there were seniors pitching every event and they got the policy debate and what they said was like, if you like to argue, if you're into politics if you know you certain topics. And they listed a number of them. I'm like, this is the event you should try. And I gave it a try. And actually, you know, the night before one of the first tournaments of the year, I wasn't supposed to be debating and I got called the night before by someone who was dropping out and they told me, well, will you be able to fill in for me? And I said, sure. I went to the tournament, competed at the varsity level and I've never done debate before, only had a sort of a file folder with very small background on what I was supposed to be doing and you know, ended up doing very well at that tournament. It just kind of got me hooked at that point because I am a natural competitive person. And it just, you know, it just sort of clicked on me. My whole life I grew up kind of in, with some political background and always involved in sort of campaigning and things like that. And national issues always are very interesting to me. In policy debate, what I sort of focus on is very focused on like national oriented politics. So as a result, it just sort of all kind of played in together. At one point it was like the perfect storm. But you know, it's just kind of a weird story that I started off doing speech and then just turned into doing debate based solely on a small pitch from a couple seniors and. And it went from there.

That's pretty cool because even though I went through law school and not many of my colleagues have a background in debate, so it's very, it's a very niche skill. So can you break down for the, for the audience kind of how those competitions work?

Oh yeah. So there's really three, there's really three to four forms of debate that exist nationally in the United States. The type I do, which is policy debate, is two person activity and you debate one resolution the entirety of the year. That usually deals with national policy. Dealing with the United States federal government should do something. For example, in the high school level we're talking about increase in our economic and diplomatic engagement with the People's Republic of China. At the college level, they've had topics that have dealt with reducing our military presence overseas this year, dealing with the United States establishing a climate policy by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And there's been a number of different other topics dealing with agriculture and other global affairs. Then there's like other forms of debate that exists, like Lincoln Douglas debate, which is one person debate that focuses more on ethical and moral philosophy and sort of the stance you would take from More of a personal level rather than necessarily a political level as like putting yourself as a role playing as a government sort of a government person. Then there's public forum debate which exists very. It was actually started and funded by Ted Turner and it was focused on sort of what the show CNN crossf, like which talks about issues of the day, but talks about them in a manner which is very pro con. There's not really an advocacy that's behind it as much as it's just sort of supporting a conclusion on one side or the other and try to defend that side in both, you know, the affirmative or the negative or what they call the pro and con. And then the last form of debate is parliamentary debate, which is more globally positioned. And the way they do with that is sometimes two people teams with four schools in one room versus you know, sometimes there's a three person team and it's a three person on three person. And they deal with a lot a number of different issues that affect the sort of the global political system and the global economy. And they always take it from the stance of being like this house supports or this House doesn't support some major issue. And they don't really force them to be any specific kind of government policymaker. Rather it's just sort of a government institution in general. So you have to take on a more global stance on a lot of the issues. But you know, there's a definitely a huge balance and the community is huge. There's thousands of kids nationwide that are doing this and a number of us are being involved and it's at every level of academia there's some type of debate. Now I was just in South Korea over the summer and that was when I was in South Korea. They actually had elementary school debate with kids that were sometimes like in fourth grade up there debating different issues. So it's like, it was like fantastic to see kids now like every level of academia are doing some type of debate and have that possibility open to them. Because when I was debating there was only high school and college debate. There was nothing at the middle school level, there was nothing at the elementary school level. So it's just fantastic. So many opportunities exist.

Yeah, that's really cool. And I'm not sure how familiar everybody in the audience is, but I know for me this is just fascinating because this is a whole new world, as they would say in Aladdin. This is really cool. So for you, seeing people develop from high school age through college and now in the professional world, what kind of benefits have you seen Personally in your life, your professional life, from these skills that you've gleaned from debate.

Everything I do, I can attest that debate has had some part to play in it. I've managed events of differing levels. I'm very administratively active in the way that many tournaments around the United States work. I've also been active in a number of political campaigns. I've actually given assistance to a few state representatives in many any political debates that have happened in the state of Pennsylvania and have also given advice to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and things like that in terms of how what tactics can be used, et cetera, at a local level and also at a state level, et cetera. And then beyond that, I've also hosted a national debate championship that was here for the National Debate Coaches Association. And then beyond that, just sort of my everyday ability to sort of interact with my friends, interact with my colleagues, interact with my students, and help sort of deal with problem that come up on an everyday basis and sort of help problem solve and take a different stance and approach than most normal people are taught, even if they are, you know, accredited as an administrator, have gone through certain training. They do a lot of times debate give you a different perspective because the one thing that's very vital debate that people don't really think about is the ability to learn how to advocate for and against certain positions. And also the idea that sometimes we always have to take sort of the switch side approach to an issue and thinking about it from the other person's perspective and think about it from the other side and then learn how to support your arguments against that approach. And also by learning the other side, you also figure out what the biggest weaknesses are in your argument. So it helps you kind of balance sort of everyday accommodations that you come in contact with and you just take it from a different perspective that a lot of people don't necessarily have never been trained to do, but also have never really thought is really possible. Because so many people I feel nowadays are just locked into thinking like we have to believe in one thing and despite what we believe in, like that's it, we're just going to be die hard about that. And I think that, you know, debate in general has really taught me to know that there's two sides of every coin. And as a result of that, you have to sort of analyze both perspectives to be able to take into full account why you're right in any issue.

This is really interesting to me and I can't help myself here because you said that you were, you've essentially consulted with different both the Republicans and the Democrats in various debates on the local and state level. And so I was wondering, what, what is your perspective? If you could put on your coach's hat and stand in either Hillary's or Trump's corner, just from a purely stylistic and purely message based position? What, what advice would you give to either of them? Where are their areas of opportunity to become better communicators and debaters? 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.

Well, I think, I mean, if I were to take the perspective of all three debates, I think they all had their varying advantages and problems. I think one huge thing of the Trump campaign was that they just didn't take advantage when advantage was presented to them, like when there was opportunity presented to them, they didn't know how to take advantage of it. I know there's a number of different points where I thought there was a lot of leverage going in his direction. He would either switch the topic or he would get lost in making comments about something that was irrelevant or something that, like, wasn't something that people wanted to hear about. And as a result, he pushed the, you know, the focus of the audience away from the most important questions facing Hillary. And I think when you looked at the Clinton campaign, I think there was a number of times where they could have leveraged things the opposite way and not taken advantage of, but more importantly, just the idea that sometimes you don't always have to, what I call in debate, kind of follow the shiny object. Like you don't always have to follow the leaders. So if Trump were to present some question, you don't have to go down that same path. And I think, you know, I think Clinton missed opportunities where she allowed Trump to go off page. And when he went off the page, she followed him and it kind of made the audience lose contact. And I think Trump had a number of different occasions where he could have capitalized on things that The Clinton campaign wasn't able to kind of articulate and instead went off on a complete other rant of something that had nothing to do with it. I guess the best example for this might have been, I want to say it was in the third debate where they're asking Hillary Clinton about her emails and they're asking about sort of some of the allegations that have been posed about her campaign. And Trump had a time to kind of like, push her on. Like, what is the answer? Take a stance on. It's something she hasn't had to take a stance on the debate necessarily. Or when they ask about Bill or they try to relate to the past Clinton administration, and instead he wanted to talk about the Middle east or ISIS or something like that, immediately jumped and it kept jumping. And it was hard. It's hard for an audience to follow when you jump from topic to topic. And it only advantages those who don't want to answer the question when you allow that to happen. Because once you skew an audience's attention, it's impossible to kind of like, get it back to that. And there's only a very limited amount of time, just like in the type of debate that we do in high school and college, it's like limited time limits. So you only have a very set amount of time. And because we don't have an infinite amount of time, you can't give up those opportunities. And I just think there is a lot of opportunities lost by both sides, I think. And I think if they took advantage of those opportunities, I think there could have been a huge difference. And I don't know if it could overcame everything that's been going on, the media, et cetera. But, I mean, I know that there's definitely vital points of that, and a lot of people talk about it as if people did take advantage of those when you hear the media spin room going for both the Democrats and the Republicans. But I think there's so many opportunities lost based on the lack of sort of poise, concentration, focus to like, really zone in on what they need to take advantage of. And as a result, I think that those opportunities left on the table could cost one of them the election.

That's so interesting, And I agree 100%, and I really appreciate your nuanced approach to this because those were some things that I, I didn't really. I guess because I'm not as into debate as you, I wasn't able to catch. But now that you've rehashed it, it definitely makes sense. And I can see that One of the things you mentioned was leverage. And so for the everyday listener out there, who's maybe at work or an entrepreneur trying to figure out how they could take advantage of these situations, how would you tell them to approach leverage? How do you identify where it is in these arguments and then how do you utilize it to your advantage?

I think one of the biggest thing is knowing your strategy before you go into something. And I think a lot of people don't value sort of a pre game strategy or a pre talk strategy on kind of understanding. And I think when people do have a set strategy, I think what they end up doing is they have an A, an A plan, but they don't have the contingency plans, they don't have a B plan and a C plan. And to kind of relate it to how I coach on an everyday basis, I try to go through it. My students and I have them write down like, what do we want the A strategy to be? But however, what is the fallback B and C strategy? And then when do we fall back on those? And I think it's important for people to have that strategy. And then using the leverage is just sort of being able to set yourself up and knowing at certain points like what do you expect to happen? And then once that happens, knowing that what is the next step past that? And I think the easiest way is to kind of think about if you've ever done a cross examination or thought about a cross examination ahead of time, you sort of prep like that. Even if, if they say yes, here's the strategy, if they say no, here's the strategy. If they do this, here's how I'm going to have to react. And I think having that kind of play out in your head and doing practice in your head where you say like, if this is the answer, this is how I move forward is how you gain leverage. Because you, if you don't have a strategy, you don't, you don't know how to react in certain instances. And it's impossible to gain leverage unless you already have something prepared to take advantage. And I think it's super important because leverage does not exist if you know you can't just fall into leverage sometimes. Like, you know, people say like, oh, well, it's just like this is luck that this happened. But like leverage is not something that I feel you just get lucky with. You don't just fall upon leverage. Leverage is something that you've positioned yourself to take advantage of. And I think the only way to do that is preparation prior to whatever you're doing. It's not something that could ever be done like in the midst of the, you know, the conflict mediation or in the midst of a, you know, a passionate debate or something like that. It's, you know, it's something that has to be like prepared ahead of time. I guess it's the easiest way for me to kind of think about it. It's like preparation is so critical to all these steps and I don't think people give it enough credit to how much preparation plays into that, the overall effect, and especially the conclusion of a lot of these things.

Right. And one of the things that I keep saying in, in this podcast is the importance of preparation in a negotiation. I had a negotiation this morning that was one minute long and I prepped 40 minutes for it. But I think a lot of times the, the important, the importance of it is kind of lost upon people. But one thing that I've heard from a few of the listeners who reached out to me most recently, it was a listener from Australia named Zane. He said that sometimes he can suffer from paralysis by analysis where he feels like he over prepares. How do you with your teams, how do you work with them in a way that they are adequately prepared but not rigid in their performance?

Yeah, I think that is definitely something that I find to be a common problem, especially amongst younger students that I have. And I think you have to kind of grow into your skin, if I can use that reference. Which means that basically you need to learn how to prepare correctly, but then you also have to learn sort of to not be rigid. And it's, it's hard to say like how do you do not be rigid, but you have to be comfortable in your surrounding. I think what happens is a lot of people fall back on their preparation when like they have some level of uncomfortability in the situation they're in. And a lot of times I feel like over preparation is not really the problem. It's when you prepare enough to only know that material and you don't know how familiar you are with that material. So, for example, on a lot of the debate topics that happen is that I know just from my experience, I have a lot of familiarity with arguments and just the kind of natural arguments that come about in the general political conversation that happens generally, reading the news, etc. And then I go into like actually looking at the word for word arguments that are happening through all the research and I realize that you don't need to understand every word of what's happening. You just have to understand the concepts, and then the concepts will be filled in by your knowledge that you already understand going into it. And I think it's so important for people to know that you don't need to follow word for word the script. The script is just the model for which helps you kind of go through. Which is why I always try to encourage students like, don't write speeches word for word. Don't write blocks word for word. You gotta just have things on there that when you see words, it helps reference ideas. And those ideas you're comfortable with, because you've come up with those ideas and they're not written in stone somewhere. And I think when people call it over preparation, I think they're just too tied to the material, too tied to the script, too tied to the. The written research that they've done or whatever the case may be. And I think that is what they're calling over preparation. But in reality, I think that's just because there's some level of uncomfortability. They exist. And the more comfortable you are with your surroundings, the more comfortable you are with the material, the more comfortable you are presentation. I think you move away from that rigidity that locks you into kind of thinking like, if I don't follow this script perfectly, going to work. Which is why I feel sometimes, and I don't know if you've ever been in the situation where you have to do material ahead of time, but then it gets pushed to someone else that has to conduct it, either because you've been pulled off onto another issue or because you've been sick or something came up that pushes someone else to have to take your material. The people who take someone else's material, I feel, are caught in this situation more times than not because they have not created the comfortability with that material that you have gained and you have kind of created with. And as a result, you'll find even if the research has been done and the knowledge is there and they know how to do all this, they're just too focused on, like, trying to follow the script rather than just doing it themselves and learning and kind of going with what's comfortable. So I think comfort is like the number one issue. And then beyond that, it's just you have to know a lot about a lot of things. I know that's hard just for people to kind of take in, but the more familiar you are with, like, a little bit of everything, the easier it is to take material and just sort of become comfortable with it. So I guess that's an easy way to kind of sum it up and it's just a different experience that I had is like sometimes you have to give a speech on the fly and sometimes you have to use someone else's notes or be a part of a group project and then you didn't plan on presenting. The next thing you know you're presenting or you're in a team mediation. And you know, sometimes you have to get involved into the part where you didn't do a lot of research on the mediation, but you're familiar enough with what your partner in that process did, that kind of take over. And it's not, you don't need to know everything they did, but you just got to be familiar enough to know what the situation is, what they've done, what you've done, and kind of how to make it work on the fly. And that's really kind of like helps you open up in those situations.

I feel like, yeah, that's, that is brilliant. It's almost like you've been teaching this for nearly 20 years or something and you know it. When you were speaking on this topic, it really made me think about some of the most creative and high level arguments that I've heard come from people talking about sports or reality TV shows. And so you can imagine those kind of frivolous conversations we have, but they can go on for hours, just arguments for hours. And people knowing all of these statistics is because they sit in front of a TV for hours on end and they're constantly consuming this material. But then when it's time to prepare for a debate or a negotiation, they might prepare for maybe an hour or less, something like that. And then they feel, well, I over prepared, I was too rigid. When it's really the opposite. They didn't expose themselves to enough of the material. And so it's really difficult for them to maneuver fluidly in the conversation when, when it's time to perform.

And I think that's one thing. And I'll like bring up the political debates that just happen on tv. That makes, I feel, makes them all out of touch with the everyday sort of American is that in those debates that's not, not. I feel they're not like a debate in the sense that people want to think about debate because there are talking points, they are sticking to those talking points. And very rarely you ever see a time where they come on glued from those sticking points, from those talking points. And it's those moments that, where I was talking about where like things weren't taken advantage of they weren't done. But the problem is, is like, they're so unfamiliar with being able to, like, go off the script that the rigidity sort of locks them into, like, not knowing how to act in those situations, so you can't take advantage of them. And I think it's true of, like, any negotiation, any debate, any interaction that you have with someone, anything can change on the fly. And if you're so rigid to only go with what you know is on paper or what you know, something said, it makes you unable to adapt to that situation. And if you can't adapt to your environment and feel comfortable to adapt because of everything you know, then you're always going to put yourself at a disadvantage.

Right. This is, this is really interesting. And one of the things to me that's most interesting about debate and negotiation, when you're kind of comparing the two side by side, is that when you're in a debate, your audience is comprised of the spectators, the judges, and the people watching. Really, it seems to me, and this, this might be a naive perspective, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems to me as though with debate, a lot of times your opponent is more like a tool through which you communicate to the audience, whereas with a negotiation, you're genuinely trying to communicate and, and persuade the other person to engage in joint action with you. Is what do you think about that? Am I on the right track?

I agree completely. I agree completely because I taught my students all the time, the only people you have to convince in a room that you win the debate is the judge. It's always the most important person in the room because a lot of times I notice early on, students want to always engage with their opponent. And I'm like, engaging with your opponent and like, looking at them and talking to them as if they're going to speak back to you or ever going to agree with you. It just doesn't work in competitive debate because the goal in competitive debate is to just win that your side is right in the context of the debates that happen. Not that you're on the side of truth, that you're on the side of justice, whatever, but, like, the arguments that you presented around are correct, but there's only one person that gives that decision, that's the judge. So as a result, you are using them as a tool. You're talking to them, you're using things they say against them, you're using things they say to help frame the way your arguments are, but you're speaking to A judge like. Or you're speaking to, you know, in like, a negotiation set in Mason maybe where there's like an arbitrator, you're speaking to that person because there's one person going to make a judgment at the end to say, this is what's going to happen. And here's what I believe is going to happen. But in a true negotiation where you need to kind of find points of compromise, it's much more important, you know, so there's definitely times to be more aggressive and there's times to, you know, be more passive. And there's definitely. And you have to be able to read people more and you have to think a lot more into it. And feelings and compassion and affect all come in a lot more. In a negotiation where you need to play those things in your favor or help kind of play them off to kind of not give in to certain things. And everyone's trying to come to a compromise. And the one thing in debate is that we debate to kind of maybe learn both sides of an issue so we can compromise on our stance later. But the actual debate, there is going to be no compromise. You're never going to ask a question, the other team is going to concede. You're never going to do any of that. Pretty much like a negotiation probably, where you don't go in and you don't ever think that everyone's just going to give in to all your demands, but you have to assume you have some to give, you have some to take, can lose some and win some, but the ultimate goal is compromise. In competitive debate, the goal is not compromise. It's not, you're right on some issues, we're wrong on some issues. And here's where we're going to find the middle ground. Obviously that would be ideal, but the real goal is to kind of analyze policy rigidly, to kind of test a lot of the truths that are out there, to kind of get to a kind of a more enlightened state, to kind of think like, my arguments were right in the context of this debate, even though in the broader scheme of things they might not have been right. I've been able to persuade you, the judge, rather than persuade you, the team, to agree that my arguments are correctly kind of spoken to you in a manner which is good. And I think that is where it kind of like, creates a huge difference, is that, you know, the. The interaction between parties is much different in negotiation than it is in, like, what a competitive debate would be and what people would think. And that's on every level of debate that happens competitively, there's always going to be a winner and there's always going to be a loser. Someone's going to judge you on it. At least in a negotiat, you're trying to come where everyone's getting a little bit out of it. So there's some compromise in the middle. And there's not just a clear winner and a clear loser.

Right. This, this skill seems like it would be very beneficial to somebody in a work environment where you're in a position where you're in a meeting and you're trying to persuade your team to go a certain way. And you might have opposing views with somebody else, but your job is to persuade the audience to come your way, not really negotiate with the other person to bring them into the fold. Because it's. It's one of those situations where you're in front of a number of people and those negotiation skills don't play as well in front of groups. So for people who are trying to persuade in meetings, what tips would you have for them to try and get the audience to go come their way?

I think the biggest thing is, like I said before, is having a strategy, knowing what you have to get. You know, it's important to know that, like, you might want a lot of, but you don't have to get everything that's important to know what you need to get. And what if there is opposition to you getting what is absolutely necessary? What is the opposition to it? And it's always important to know you're kind of like, who's against you. So if you go into a group setting, there's five people and you know, two of them are on your side and three of them are against you. Well, you know, the least to get. If you're gonna vote majority rule, you don't need to really get one person. If you want to get all five people, then you just have to kind of take into kind of consideration what is a way for me to kind of of reach out and connect with all five of these people in a way that's going to make sense, that's going to get them to at least agree to what I need them to agree with. And I'm willing to compromise on these things, which is why I always try to tell my students when we're doing debate is like the small. The idea of a small group is not something that is going to become foreign to you because everything you do the rest of your life is involved in a small group. And you have to learn how to have a small group thinking. You need to have figure out how leadership exists. And leadership doesn't exist by force, leadership exists by compromise. And I feel the people who will become the best leaders, leaders are the ones who understand how to take on and know you can't win every battle, but instead you figure there's a bigger war and you know that certain battles you might lose, but the ones you, you know, the critical ones you have to win. I think it's important in that small group setting, but I think that's also important to negotiation strategies, legal strategies, arbitration strategies, competitive debate elements. Is that knowing that like you can't win everything, and I try to teach my kids when we're doing debate is like, you gotta even understand to who the other side is. Like, like, I know you're going to get something. I know I'm not probably not going to win everything. But as a result, like, here's why my. I'm still. It's important. The things I'm doing are important. And I think that's also important to everything. And I don't know how you frame it in context of all the different situations, but knowing it's like, even if, even if you get these things, I'm still going to get something else is, is crucial to understanding because it's part of the bigger strategy, which is that you got to have something to give to get. And I think that's important. I think a lot of people think that they can just rule in an iron fist or just rule with like authoritarianism and say I'm going to do this and I know I'm right. I'm just going to force facts down people's throats. And people don't move on facts. People don't necessarily. Everyone moves differently. Why they're going to switch their opinion, why they're going to compromise, why they're going to give in. And I think it's important to kind of know before you get into it what the opposition is you face, how you want to overcome it, what you're willing to give up in face of that opposition. And knowing that is that going to be enough to give to get them back on your side I think is important in any of these situations.

Right. And it seems like debates and negotiation could complement each other really well in the group meeting type of situation. Because beforehand. Let's go back to your example where there's five people, you know, you only need to get three on your side to win the vote before the negotiate before the meeting, you can engage in coalition building which is a little bit more of the negotiation side and then in front of everybody else you can rely more heavily on those debate skills.

No, it's definitely true. And I think it's important to understand kind of and have create alliances in certain manners and know that there are people who can help you in certain ways and understand what the end goal is. If the inbolies just want to vote and you're gonna just need them on your side for that and then once it's done, it's done. Sure. If it's a longer term game and you're looking at kind of like being in a leadership role for a while or trying to be at the head of something or create or make movements to know that you're going to have support later on, then you might need to have more far reaching approach. And it's just, you know, different in the ways you'll deal with it. And you know, I always try to tell people it's always better to have everyone on your side to know that you're at a split boat. And at any time what you think is the final case might switch the next day based on someone or someone who gets added in your group. And I'm sure people in the business environment have that all the time where your group might have five people and then one day that five, the next day it's a different person comes in, someone gets moved up, they get promoted, someone else fills in that spot and then all of a sudden the majority changes. So as a result you always need to kind of be in position to kind of know why everyone, you want everyone on your side. And I think the goal is kind of like knowing what you need to get, knowing that like you feel that you're sacrificing and that you're giving to get and knowing at the end that you know, in the end the negotiation that you worked out is something that's amenable to everybody rather than just amenable to the majority.

Right. Man, this is great. And what's. This is really good because you're the first person that we've had on this show that really delved deeply into more of the argumentation side, which is important, which is a key part of it. You can't only, you know, bring one tool to the table and hope and think that you can, you can persuade people. It's. I think this is a really great tool that the listeners can use to have a more well rounded persuasion approach. So I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us. Today?

Well, I think it's important that people are just open minded to the idea that there are two sides to every issue. I think some people come in and they think they have to be rigid in their approach and you know, unwielding in their kind of, of support for an issue or their, you know, opposition to an issue. And I think in the end it's just that rigidity locks you into a lot of things that, that you might not be willing to go all the way with. And I think if the goal is compromise and if the goal is creating the, you know, the best combination of everything you have, then everyone is important to that team. Everyone is important to what's in that room. You know, if a negotiation was always just one sided and we went in with just an iron and say, I'm going to get all these demands, I guarantee I'm getting them, I mean, that's a lot to kind of bite off. So at the end, you know, you really just got to be open minded to the idea that everyone's got something to add. You're not probably not going to get everything, but it's just sort of like what do you need to get and what are you willing to give up to get? That is very important. And it all comes back to what we said right in the beginning when we had the discussion, which is that preparation is so critical to all of this and you know, I don't think it's ever valued enough in the grand scheme of things. I think everyone just thinks there are people who show up in their good game day, sort of of, you know, advocates or game day. You know, I show up, I'm ready today, I can always do it, I'm just always on. And I just think, you know, the people who are always on are the people who are always prepared and that, that's kind of having some forward, forward looking ideas in terms of how you're going to get to where you need to be.

This is, this is so good. I, I've been spending a lot of my time not being an interviewer, being a student and just absorbing as much of this knowledge as, as I can. This is, this has been really, really, really helpful. So thank you for that. But yeah, is there, what, what's next for you, do you think? Professionally speaking? Because you've, you've had so much success in this, in this realm, it's, it's almost like what's the next level?

I mean, that's really, I mean I love doing it and I just think every day seeing Kids. You know, I really love. I love working. I love working with the college students. I love working with the high school students. And I, you know, my real passion is someone get it. And I don't know if you've been in the same position I've been in, but where you're. You're teaching someone and, you know, you're giving them concepts and you're trying to give them the knowledge they need to kind of go out there. But it's when you first see someone who really gets it, and they get the concepts and the skills and the different values you're trying to, you know, give to them, and then all of a sudden you see them apply them, and it just. They lighten up. And the idea that it's just like, wow, I did it. That's like. To me, is like, what makes my job important, what I feel like makes me who I am, is that, you know, when I watch kids get it and they have fun doing it, and it's not the wins and the losses necessarily, even though those are great, you know, and my resume is built on a lot of wins and losses, and it's hard to kind of put a value on what it means to get it and have those kids with just that smile or just the fun of being at an event where they're just trying really hard. And it's just we're working every day to kind of get better at what we're doing. And I know everyone wants to value it in terms of, how many trophies did you bring home? But what really makes me love it is that. And I don't know if there's really any other field at the moment that really makes me happier than to do what I'm doing in debate, despite what's in the future. I know everyone's trying to think, what's this? What's that? But the one thing I think is very important to me, and I think a lot of people would agree with me out there, is that if you can work every day knowing that you love your job, there's really no better place to work, you know, no matter what you're doing. And I really do love my job at this point, and it's just, you know, I can't imagine me doing anything else right now. Maybe there's something different in the. In the future, you know, politically or in business or something like that, as a consultant. But, like, right now, I can't imagine anything better than teaching kids both the high school and college level and doing my best to kind of like Watch and, you know, be a mentor to them and sort of help them through their adult lives and just watching them at the same time, like, gaining all these great skills that I try to help them become as applicable as possible to their everyday life and do everything from there on. And then watching my students, you know, graduate high school, graduate, college, go on to have jobs at, you know, in government and Silicon Valley, in the tech industry, in, you know, energy, et cetera, it's just amazing. So, you know, that's what puts a smile on my face every day. I love doing my job. And I guess, you know, if you asked pull most of America, people would probably say more than 50% of their people are unhappy with their job. I would just take a guess at and I love it. So until I stop loving my job, I can't imagine leaving it.

That's awesome. Yeah, you're. You are in a good place. You're one of those lucky few that. That loves it. I love what I'm doing for the same reason you do. You know, I love, I love seeing people get it and realize that these opportunities to negotiate are everywhere. Well, I know we've taken up a lot of your time, so I really appreciate you being so generous with this information and I know the audience is going to get a lot out of it.

Oh, no, no problem. I love doing it.

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