Mastering the Art of Negotiation with Seth Freeman's Strategic Tools

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. Seth, thanks for joining us today.

Oh, my great pleasure, Kwame. I've been looking forward to this.

Me too. And listeners, the universe was trying to stop us from having this podcast, but we kept on fighting. Yes, I appreciate your patience here. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

By all means, Kwame. First, I'm a fan. I've been enjoying your work and proud of it and excited for it. So I'm delighted to be with you. And just by way of introduction, I am a professor at NYU Stern School of Business and also at Columbia University, where I teach courses on negotiation and conflict management, which I've done for many years. Before that, I was a corporate lawyer. I practiced corporate, corporate and securities law for major firms in New York for several years. So I have a transaction background and I also teach around the world. I teach in China almost every Friday evening by Zoom and I vote an active training practice. So there's every, every way that I can share the skills of negotiation. I'm. I'm doing that.

I love it. And you have a new book coming out. Can you tell the listeners about that.

Yes. Thank you so much. It's 15 tools to turn the Tide, A step by step playbook for empowered negotiating. And it's, it's coming to fruition right now. It's as we speak. It's later April and our pub date is May 23rd. And depending on how you count it, this book has been three years or 23 years in the making. My wife remembers when I was talking to her during our courtship 20, 23 years ago now about writing a book. And three years ago, I started to focus on this specific topic and to my delight, it sold. And here we are. But it took quite a while to take it from inception to production. So here we are and we've got to figure out a way to party for it. But May 23rd is the day.

I'm excited. This is great. And listeners, when that comes out, I could not endorse this anymore because, Seth, your course on the great courses, I remember I listened to that on audible and I mentioned this to Seth before, but I took over 50 pages of notes. Just size 12 single space. I just gobbled it up. So.

Which I might add is longer than the actual, the text for the actual broadcast itself was shorter than 50 pages. So I think you are now qualified to replace me for that video.

Hilarious, though. I appreciate it. This is great. So I'm excited to dig deeper into this new book. Really exciting stuff.

Well, thank you so much. Yeah.

And today we're going to focus on three key things. First, we're going to talk about topics, targets and trade offs. We're going to talk about the golden minute. And then I foresaw it, which is a mnemonic. This is great. I'm excited to dig in. So topics, targets and trade offs. So tell us more about that.

Sure. What you've just recounted, Kwame, are three of some of the marquee tools that we talk about in the book. And one of the cool things about them is that we field tested them for years with hundreds, thousands of students. So these are tools that students love and that veteran negotiators swear by. And the topics targets and Trade offs grid is a really good example of that. It's basically like a play card. And if you, you know, if you think, call to mind American football coaches, you see them walking along the sidelines and they're, they're, they're holding tightly to a laminated sheet and that's called a play card or play sheet. And that guides them very much in the same way that a checklist guides pilots who are flying a plane around the world or in crisis, they pull out that a checklist. And astronauts rely on something similar. If you've ever seen that iconic photograph of Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon and he's got his arm crooked and it looks a little bit like he's strutting around on the surface of the moon, but he's not strutting. If you look closely, there's something written on the left sleeve of his moon suit. And what is that? A checklist. And so whether you're an astronaut, a pilot, or an American football coach, what you are relying on to ease your cognitive burden, to cope under stress, and to perform and make decisions in real time is a tool. And the topics targets of trade offs grid is a good example of the power of a tool that negotiators can use. And one of the things that's long been missing for negotiators new or experienced is something similar. There's lots and lots of principles, but there's not a lot of guidance to help you have that very same tool. And once you have it, you kind of go, where's this been all my life? And so let me, I'll tell you about a little bit more about what it is in a moment. But just by way of illustration, I had a, a client, MasterCard, who, whose leader of their deals team, Garab Mittel, called me several years ago now and he said, I'd like you to train our deals team to negotiate using the topics targets and trade offs grid. And I said, but, but you guys do $2 billion a year in deals. You do 20 or 30 of them. You guys are world, world, you know, world class negotiators. Why do you need me? And he goes, no, you don't understand. We really need something like this. And when we, I introduced it to him, it's a pretty easy thing to introduce afterwards. Gaurav was so excited about this that on his own initiative, not once, not twice, but I think, I think last count was four or five times he insisted on coming to our, to my courses and guest lecturing just to talk about the topics targets and trade offs. Good, because it's been so useful. So in a nutshell. So I don't want to go on and on and on. So let me just pause there and see if, see where. That one's where you want to take us.

Oh, this is great. Seth. I'm excited because this reminds me of the book by Atul Gawande, I believe is the name the Checklist Manifesto.

I Quote him with great reverence.

Oh, this is great. Because essentially you're bringing that expertise and that mindset to negotiation. And it's funny as you say that that is something that's been severely lacking. You're absolutely right. And it gives some. You could create something that gives people during the negotiation something they can briefly refer to and stay in flow. Because that's something that I've realized people really struggle with preparation in general, like how to do it. And different people prepare in different ways. But a lot of times what ends up happening is people come in with like scripts. It's like a manifesto you walk in on and you can't be in the moment and still refer to a script. So I'm excited to learn more about this.

Well, thank you so much. You're absolutely right. A script in theory sounds great, but in practice, immediately the next thing you know, you're off script. And now what do you do? And so almost like gps, you need something that you can literally glance at and go. And that's what this is designed to do. And so essentially it's, it's simple enough that you can do it in just 10 minutes under, under, you know, if you must. Basically it's four columns. Topics, which is essentially the agenda for what we're going to talk about. Targets, which is the range of outcomes that you are interested in for a given issue. And then there are these two kinds of trade offs. One of them is essentially a ranking of your priorities. Which of these is most important and then which, and then which. We call that trade offs between topics. And the last column is the creative ideas that you think are best likely to overcome an impasse for a given issue. We call that trade offs within topics. And so you've got this four column chart and you've got these rows. It looks a little bit like a calendar. And what that allows you to do is glance down and in real time essentially call a play. And it does several really cool things. First, just because you have an agenda, you're way ahead of the game. Because what you can do is first email the other person, say, I'm looking forward to our meeting. Here's a list of things we probably should cover. Let me know if you have any thoughts. Sincerely. And people really appreciate that and allows you to manage time more easily. But it also helps you identify what is and isn't up for negotiation. If you've ever been to a first round or a job interview where somebody says I should tell you that salary is non negotiable, what they're doing is taking a key issue off the list. Is that okay? And if the answer is yes, okay, so be it. But no, I really do want to talk about salary, then that's something that has to be negotiated. And believe it or not, diplomats literally have a phase that they refer to as pre negotiation negotiation, where much of what they do is negotiate about what they're going to negotiate about. That gives you that tells you, wow, that first column really matters. And it also serves as the foundation for the rest of the chart. So just doing that is a big deal, but there's much more to it. I'll stop there and make sure I'm not lecturing just to see if this makes sense and see where you want to go.

Oh, this is good. Does this kind of look like that.

Is exactly the idea.

Okay, perfect. Brilliant. It's brilliant. 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. So a couple of things, listeners. There are some value bombs being dropped here. I hope you're taking as many notes as I am because this is great. And I think one of the many missed opportunities for negotiation excellence is the agenda negotiating what's going to be talked about. The sequence of the topics of the conversation, that's really important. And you introduced a topic that we haven't discussed yet. I mean, first of all, this grid is something we haven't discussed yet. But the pre negotiation, right, that's so important. Negotiating what we're going to negotiate about this, this is advanced level stuff and it really sets the stage for the actual negotiation. And I think people miss out on really structuring the negotiation in a way that is advantageous to them because they don't even have a concept of, of pre negotiation negotiation. I think that's something I really wanted to call out and then you're absolutely right in the moment. This grid can help us to understand very quickly where we are. Like you said as a gps, and not just where we are, but also where we need to go. And it helps us to be a little bit more fluid in the moment because we're not stopping and reorienting ourselves as the negotiation shifts, it makes it really easy to continue to flow. I really appreciate this.

Well, thank you, Kwame. You've actually prompted me on a couple of things. One is that because we often walk into a negotiation without thinking about the agenda, it's very easy to be nibbled. And that is, as you know, where somebody just keeps saying, oh, wait, there's one more thing. We've got a deal. That's great. Oh, wait, there's one other thing. And they ask for another thing and another thing. And I've literally seen cases where that goes on for a year and you wind up giving store. It's tragic to watch. And so knowing what is and also isn't it going to be discussed is important because it also alerts you when somebody starts adding issues, you go, oh, wait, okay, I'm willing to talk about it, but let's not. Let's watch out for the potential for nibbling. So that's another reason why that first column is such a big deal. But you've also allowed me to make a more global comment. If you think about what I'm just talking about. This grid is designed to help you do two key tasks of negotiation. Create wealth and claim it wisely. The last two columns, the trade offs part, are designed to help you find creative solutions in a couple of different dimensions. The target section is the foundation for which you divide the pie, claim the pie. And so if you've got that basic information before you, it's just so much easier to do both of them.

Seth, I'm just thinking about some of my negotiations with this. This would have been so helpful, so helpful in the moment. I really appreciate this. Well, let's just keep flowing. So, okay, is there anything else you want to talk about with the topics, or do you want to talk about targets, too?

No, I think that's plenty. And let me just commiserate with you. We've all got these stories where we look back, we go, oh, gosh, I got so taken. I definitely have stories like that. And I always tell students that for them and for me, treat that as tuition. If you take those stories and channel them through what we're learning now, that actually will more than pay for itself with better results in the future.

That's great. That's great. And, you know, it's one quick thing on that, too. When somebody, sometimes people ask, oh, what's your greatest Negotiation failure. Before I respond, I say, hey, listen, before I respond, you have to know if a negotiation using air quotes for the listeners who aren't seeing a negotiation expert doesn't have any failures. You're not talking to a negotiation expert because there is no way you win all the time. It's not possible.

You hit for average in this league.

Exactly, exactly. An average is pretty good. This is great. So, yes, let's talk about the targets.

Okay, sure. I'm sure you have beautifully taught your listeners in many ways the importance of distributive or competitive negotiating. The. The. The win lose side of it. And I have. I'm. I'll freely confess I don't love this part of it, but I've learned it's an important part because if you don't know how to do it, you can. Is roadkill. And I've learned that fairness and justice depend on the ability to know how to do this. You know, Clarence Avon is profiled in this Netflix documentaries. I think he's called the. The Black Godfather. And he is wonderful in his ability to advocate and competitively negotiate for people whose careers depended on it, like Barack Obama and Jay Z and Michael Jackson. It's like a who's who. And they all. He's a celebrity celebrity because he knows how to do this. Brother Teresa, by the way, was also very good at the competitive side. And the foundation for that is these two bits of information that you glance down at as you look at the targets. And skilled negotiators like yourself, Kwame, know that it's crucial to know what your ranges are, what's the best and the worst you can accept on a given issue. And when you can glance down and see that the other side is offering you something that's way off of your minimums. Well, that doesn't mean you just throw your hands up. It just means there's a red light flashing and you've got your work to do. You've got to move that number. And with some basic skills of distributive negotiating, which the book also explores, you can very definitely do very well. But it starts with knowing these two facts.

This is great. And I appreciate you talking about the distributive side because I'll even concede for myself in this world of really focusing on the collaborative negotiation, which is, I think, is great. I think a lot of times we've done that to the expense of the reality that at some point you have to divide the pie. We can't just expand into perpetuity. We have to divide the pie at some point. Right. So it's really important. And that in itself is a negotiation skill. I think a lot of times it's easy to write that off and say, oh, you're being positional. But at some point during the negotiation, you have to assert yourself and start to claim value. So I'm glad that you're spending time talking about that.

Well, one of the things. I'm so glad we're talking about that right now, Kwame, because one of the things that it seems like you have to do is choose. Oh, he's a real aggressive, tough negotiator, or, oh, she's very collaborative. And I think each of those is somewhat limited and dangerous. You know, Martin Luther King said, power without love kills, but love without power is anemic and sentimental. And he goes on to say that what you want to do is be able to combine the two, or as I like to say, be strong and kind. And the ability to integrate both creative and distributive skills is not an option, really. You've really got to be able to do both. The TT the Topics Targets and Trade Offs grid is a key foundational way to do that. And there are other tools that I'll allude to in the book that actually are designed to not give you a script, but a protocol or a recipe card, if you'll allow it, that allows you to both create and claim wealth in a winsome way.

Oh, this is great. And now I want to talk about with these targets, they're going to be times where it's a really clear Zopa when it comes to a specific target. And then there are going to be other times that the target will sometimes be contingent upon some of the other issues. And so with the grid, how do we play between sometimes, okay, I might be able to accept this number, but only if we can do this in some other element of the negotiation.

It's a great question, and it suggests to me in real time there might be a tweak that I might want to integrate as TTT 2.0, which is where you have kind of a gray zone on one end of the spectrum. So that there can be more. It could be that much more dynamic. But as it is, I think there's. There's room to actually deal with that. And one of the things that does that is actually the last two columns. And I don't want to get too far ahead of it, but basically what that means is there are ways to creatively get around a bargaining impasse. And if you, if you don't have those last two columns, you just wind up staring at each other and testing who's tougher or who can play chicken better. And that's not very helpful. So having those escape valves often makes what seems like a dead end conversation much more, much more promising and fruitful.

It makes a lot of sense. And I think this is a great opportunity to shift into those the two trade off columns. Can you tell us more about that?

Sure. If you were to wake me up at 2 in the morning and say, tell me one thing that a novice negotiator could do right now to be much more effective in negotiation, I would say priorities. Most negotiators go into a negotiation thinking everything is important. And in a sense that's true. But if you have no sense of what is more important than other things, you tend to miss wonderful opportunities to trade what's cheap to you for what's valuable. And here's Gaurav middle again. I'll invoke him several times because he really is a true believer of the TTT grid, as I call it. And he says, I could be doing a deal with 70 different issues, but it's so easy to lose the forest for the trees in that situation. But if I know the four or five or six issues that are most important to me, I can focus on that. I know when to fight, when not to, when to press. And it just makes it so much EAS and it allows me to listen for what their priorities are. And what do you know? We often find there's a trade off to be made which is part of the joy of this work. Oh, wait a minute. You don't like the rind of this orange? I love it. It's the meat I don't need. Oh, you want the meat? Hey, let's trade. And that's the parable of the oranges, you know, and that little parable is a good example of this idea. And believe it or not, Nobel Prizes have been been won using that idea of swapping the cheap priority for the, for the, for the dear priority. And here we're actually crystallizing it in a simple way.

I love that. It's, it's so helpful. You're absolutely right. Because otherwise we can find ourselves getting stuck talking about things that really aren't that important in the grand scheme of things. But just like in anything else, we can get caught up in the fog of war and then we start competing really vehemently over something that we really don't need. So this helps us to be a lot more. More strategic and intentional with the way that we navigate the conversation.

And that's a great word for a lot of what you and I are working, are talking about now is simply being intentional without it becoming a burden. My goal here is to offer readers tools that are easy to use. And just let me put a little. Do a little sidebar as we step away from. From the grid for a moment. One of the things that I love about this work is that it's. Is that these tools are. Are robust and learnable enough that I don't even have to be involved for them to work. So each semester, I ask my students, after just a couple of sessions, three or four sessions, to go teach someone else. I call my student students, my grand students. And a few classes later, I get the results. And what I find is that my grand students have learned a tool or two or three, and they've gone out into real life, and they've done great. Not always, but usually better than they ever would have thought they could. In fact, I had one student who just this semester reported that she taught the TTT grid to somebody, and he said, wow, that was easy. And to think I almost didn't try, but because he did, he did much better in his own job negotiation. I go, wow, it took him like, 40 minutes to teach him this stuff, and I wasn't even in the room. So that tells you it's not me, that the tools and the concepts are the thing that work here.

And that's the goal. That is. That's the goal to have something that is practical, easy to understand, and easy to use, because there are times where we might give a theoretical concept that sounds really great. It's like, wow, I'm wowed. And by your brilliance and articulate. How articulate you are, but I can never do that.

Right.

And so I think that's the real power in this approach, because I think the listeners could really easily, just like I did from this description, create their own grid and immediately put into action. And I think that's the real power of it, too.

Oh, thank you, Kwame. Yeah. Our goal here is to work our way out of a job.

Exactly. Yes, yes, yes. I love that. I really love that.

Great.

So let's talk about the golden minutes. Tell us more about that one.

I'll just finish up the TTT grid and just for just a second. The last column is where you throw. Where you put down some creative options for each issue. So that if we're. If you. If. If I want more salary, and you simply won't give it to me. And I'm not seeing any prospect here. There may be creative options that we haven't considered, like how about a stock? How about a bonus? Or how about stock options? Or work from home or a longer vacation? And there are many other possibilities. And so, so just to round out our conversation, that's the last component, but I freely agree, let's segue to the golden minute, because that is a second tool. And the golden minute is as simple as it sounds, and yet it's surprisingly powerful. It's a little bit like a rudder. It can steer the conversation from disaster to open water. And essentially, it's simply the moment. It takes 30, 60 seconds, often less to say. Let's set down a couple of simple discussion ground rules. This is especially valuable when there's contention or conflict or tension or where you're dealing with several people. And there's a tendency for the conversation just for the meeting to go on forever. And what it does is essentially you agree to two or three things. First, can we agree we're not going to interrupt each other? And I want to honor you, Kwame, because you, you just before we went on, you said you would not interrupt. And that so eases the conversation, and it allows people to hear each other. And even though that seems very simple, that is critical. You know, as an expert negotiator, how critical listening is. The second suggestion is part of the golden minute is where you say, can we agree we're going to speak to each other with civility? And that's especially useful when there's tension or there's conflict or there's anger. And often when what my students report is that when they use it in real life, it just lowers the temperature and it focuses the conversation in surprising ways. And it's so simple that almost invariably people go, oh, yeah, I can agree to that. And you still have time to make a couple of other suggestions. This is optional, but you can say, can we agree that, you know, Brenda, would you take notes for us? Or can we agree that we'll all chip in and enforce these rules, encourage each other to follow these rules. That way you're not the traffic cop. And typically, everyone says, that's fine. And it does it called golden, because the stories I have of people transforming their relationships with this tool is one of the joys of the work.

You know, so said there. There are times where it happens all the time, especially with the podcast where I hear somebody say something and I get annoyed. Not Because I don't like it, but because I wish I heard it before I wrote these books. You know, it makes sense. So much sense. Because essentially you're creating a scenario where the person is put in a situation where they say, hey, can you. Can we agree not to interrupt? Can we agree to speak with civility? And the person would have to say, hey, no, I prefer to be a jerk in this conversation. It's such an interesting thing because strategically it works, but it also puts a little bit of positive social pressure on them to interact in a respectful type of way. So you circumvent a lot of that behavior when it comes in. And then you think, we can go back to Cialdini with the principle of commitment. And when they break that, we say, hey, let's. Let's take a step back. Remember when we talked about this earlier on, we promised not to interrupt. Can we. Going forward, can we reestablish that? I think this is so good.

So good. Thank you so much, Kwame. Whether you're dealing with a conflict or a group decision, this rule really can make a difference. I've had students use this for what I call hot topics conversations about every conceivable polarizing issue from here to Pakistan. And when they introduced the golden minute, that is one of the secrets to a much more harmonious conversation. But also I've seen students use it to win $10,000 prizes. I had one student who wrote to me and said he was part of a national competition of business school teams. Harvard, Stanford, University of Texas. They were all vying for a $10,000 prize. They had to work on an energy finance project. And all the other groups just launched right into the ass. But he said, I'm going to use the golden minute. And he said, let's. And when he did that, he said the group was much better able to hear each other. And just taking that time allowed them to be much more effective. And they won the first prize.

It's incredible. It's incredible. And it's one of those things. The sign of a brilliant insight is that it seems obvious in hindsight, because this is one of those things where why haven't we've been doing this the whole thing the whole time? And a lot of times, people, they let their fear of negotiation and difficult conversations hold them back from engaging meaningfully in interaction. And so why don't we treat this as a pre negotiation? Hey, let me think about the scary things I'm afraid this person is going to do. Being mean, disrespectful, aggressive, and interrupting me. How about I get them to agree not to do that before I have the conversation?

I'm so glad you. I so appreciate that, Kwame. And by the way, this has actually worked to bring forth agreement in of all places, Congress, the last bastion of impossible negotiating. There was a senator who convened 20 Republican and Democratic senators around, I think it might have been a transportation bill. And they were really at loggerheads. And they were all interrupting each other. She said, I know it's hard to believe, but they kept talking that senator, senators for you. Until she instituted what is essentially the golden minute. And what do you know, Listening and harmony ensued. And later that weekend, they reached an agreement on what I think was something like a $15 billion bill. And it passed. And how does that happen in Congress these days? Almost never. But that's an example of how this works.

Listen, Seth, I was sold before, but.

Now it's even one.

This is great. I love it.

Perfect.

So let's move on to the, the mnemonic I foresaw it. Tell us about that one.

That actually is the, the backbone of my, my teaching. It's a 10 lettered prep tool. Each letter stands for a word and each word stands for a question that a skilled negotiator wants to answer before she goes to negotiate. And you can use it in as few as 15 minutes. In a crisis, if the stakes are high, you may want to want to use more time, but the research shows that it's not how much time you spend, but how you use that time that counts. And these are the questions that the research shows are most important. And just one letter can literally save the day. And one of the stories I tell in the book is about a dentist who's sitting on a plane that's been stuck on the tarmac for six hours because of a hurricane. And there's just this tremendous number of, number of planes in front of him in front of his plane. And everyone has been just dying. They're going crazy and no one knows what to do. And everyone is begging the flight attendants, can you get us off this plane? Nope, sorry, we're stuck. We can't do anything until he uses one letter of the I for so it. And next thing you know, they're in the terminal. What did he do? Well, you know, many of the basic principles of negotiation won't work. Interest based bargaining is not going to work. Distributed bargaining is not going to work. Active listening is not going to work. Even the TTT grid is not going to work work. The topics, targets and Trade offs. Good. So what did he do? Well, true story. He. He did a little research and he found out who the president of the company was and where their offices were. And from that he saw he, he guessed the hometown of the president. And so he takes out his phone and he calls the guy. He finds the guy's number which is listed incredibly, and he calls him. Ring, ring. Hello? So a voice picks up. May I speak with Dr. Johnson, please? Everett Johnson. I'm sorry, he's not here. This is his wife. May I help you? And Dr. Barski, the dentist says, do you know what your husband is doing to me and 149 other passengers right now? And Dr. Barski proceeds to tell her and she's mortified and she goes, oh my gosh, you poor people, I feel so bad. Let me call airport operations and see what I can do. And within a few minutes, within about 45 minutes after she makes that call, they're in the terminal. Now what was the key? He changed who he was dealing with. And that is just one letter of the I forsaw it. It's the W of the mnemonic. I forsaw it is the letter W stands for who. And that illustrates how just one part of this can be a turnkey. So imagine if you knew just a couple of the letters. Well, you could save the day. Imagine if you knew four. Imagine if you knew all ten. And what my students have found is and practitioners is that when you have this tool, it just gives you so much of an ability to walk around a problem such that. I had a student who came to work, Dick Sherman, and he got a call from his boss as he walks in. You know the merger, Dick? Yeah, of course, it's going to make our career. Yeah, it just fell through. You and I are about to be fired. Now what would you do if you got a call like that? He goes, I'll come down in 10 minutes. He summons up the I for. So it. He starts working it. He goes down, he listens to her, she frets and, and, and, and you know, pours her out what she's, what her concerns are for quite a while. He just listens. And then very gently, he starts to walk her through the eye for sort letter by letter. And she goes from freaked out to hopeful. And over the course of the next hour or two, they work. They start to see hope and possibility. She says, dick, you're the one. You gotta go save this thing. Two weeks later, not only had he saved the day, but he'd also found A way to realize $14 million in savings that they could share both sides that no one had spotted, but he was able to spot and convince them to agree to. And he was a hero. And he goes, if I hadn't known about the ifrsault, I wouldn't have even tried.

Wow. And I think just a larger perspective here. I think this just shows one of the magical qualities of having skills and tools to use. It gives you the confidence to even try. Because a lot of times if you don't have the skills, you don't have the tools. You say, I have no idea what to do. I'm completely lost. I guess I'm going to be stuck on this plane or I'm going to be fired because we didn't complete this deal. I think that's a critical element to explore. And I know we're coming up on time, but let me negotiate a little bit. Set that. Can we get three of the. First, the. The first three letters of the I foresaw it.

Certainly. The I stands for interests. The F stands for factual and financial research, and the O stands for options. In fact, those three letters, ifo, interests, facts, options are so powerful by themselves that the first chapter of the book. Translate just those three letters into a single tool. A separate tool. It's one I call three little words. And just those three words are so powerful that they've saved companies. They've allowed 11 year old children to negotiate more effectively with their fathers. They've helped raise funds for AIDS research. I mean it's just those three letters are enough to do all kinds of things. So imagine what the whole thing can do.

This is great. And so listeners just recapping its interests, factual and financial data and then options, I think. And then we have the who. We got a sneak peek. And for the rest we need to. We need to get the book. I know I will be devouring that book when it comes out on May 23rd. And so I, Seth, I really appreciate you running through this with us and can't wait to see the book once it comes out.

It's my great pleasure, Kwame, and it's high honor indeed to have an expert of your caliber say so. And I, I really appreciate your active listening, your. Your encouragement. It means a great deal.

I appreciate that. Oh, said this was so good.

Oh, it was great. Delightful. Delicious.

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