Navigating Life with Purpose and Value with Belle Liang and Timothy Klein

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

So nice to be here. Thank you.

Yes, it is a pleasure to have both of you. So how about we start off with Bel? You can tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do and then we'll pass the ball to Tim.

So I'm a professor at Boston College in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development. I've been a faculty person there for more than 20 years. And my research focuses on purpose and belonging and mentoring in schools and workplaces. And I'm so glad to be here.

I'm Tim Klein. So I'm a clinical therapist by background, a social worker, and so I've spent the majority of my career working with high schoolers, college students, graduate students, PhD students, people in their lives, really focusing on navigation points and how to find meaning when you're feeling lost. And so I was really on the ground doing the work for a long time. And then Bel and I serendipitously met and I learned about her research and we formed this really beautiful combination of using evidence based research and purpose and belonging, but operationalizing that as a tool to help people find their way.

I love this. And you all have come together and created a book. Can you tell us about that too? Yeah.

So we just published a book through St. Martin's Press. It was launched in August and it's called how to navigate the new science of finding your way in School, Career and beyond.

Yeah. And I'd say the reason we had to write this book is because we've been working with high school students, college students, graduate students, and we found everyone is under unbelievable pressure to do the right thing and everyone knows what they should be doing. But I think we realize in mentoring and providing guidance to a whole host of people that they've never been taught how to figure out for themselves what they want to do. And so we have this generation all across the spectrum of people working harder than ever. And despite that, they're feeling more lost than ever. And I felt that way for quite a long time, honestly. And I was trying to figure out. And so when we. I connected with Bell and found out about the actual science of purpose and belonging. Yes, there is a science behind it. That was a light bulb moment where this. Oh, this is. Can be an incredible, powerful tool that people can use as a decision making framework.

Yes, absolutely. And I love this too, because I was one of those people working really hard and wondering, what in the world am I doing? I still feel that way a lot of times, selfishly. I'm excited to hear, so I could get some ideas on what to do next. But also, when you think about this through a negotiation perspective, it doesn't really matter how good of a negotiator you are, if you don't know what to negotiate for or you don't know how to make good decisions, because we have to have some direction for our skills. So in this episode, what we're going to talk about is how purpose can help us to understand ourselves and what we really want, but more importantly, how it can help us to make better decisions when it comes to our negotiations and just in life in general. And so let's start off with the importance of the internal negotiation, that introspective process where we begin to understand ourselves. Can you tell us what that is and the value it has for it?

One of the first things to recognize is that a lot of us make decisions based on fear. And there are two particular fears that really drive us instead of purpose. So we're just going to first set apart purpose from these two other drivers of decision making. The first is what we call the performance mindset. This is the fear that you are going to fail, that you are not going to have what it takes to be successful in the world. It's this view that life is a zero sum game and that there are very few winners and a lot of losers, and that the goal of life is to win. And in order to win, you have to beat out the competition, whether they're your rivals or your peers. And so your life is then spent trying to succeed and to achieve according to other people's metrics and dreams. And you are setting yourself up to just try to measure up to what the world says success looks like. So right now, and it's been the case for a long time that much of society views success based on these very narrow metrics, including power, possessions, your accolades. And ultimately then your view of success, if you believe this, is to try to accrue the most accolades and the most prestige and the highest paying salary. And so your decisions then are based on that. The opposite of that is what we call the passion mindset. It's this fear that you won't be happy, the fear of suffering and struggle. And so if you believe that you are to try to avoid all discomfort and any kind of unhappiness and struggle, then you're going to try to make decisions that minimize negative emotion and try to maximize positive emotion. We call that the passion mindset. And the problem with that mindset is that ultimately it doesn't lead to happiness. There's a lot of research that shows that the more you try to to pursue happiness for happiness sake, the least happy you feel it's just a setup for feeling disappointed and disillusioned. Purpose different. It's this sense of pursuing what is personally meaningful but also is a contribution to the world beyond yourself.

And I would just say I bet a lot of people listening here, especially in the negotiation field, it's a performance mindset game, right? You're going onto the battlefield and it's like your goal is to win and you do that by beating out the competition. The research actually shows that the more people have, and this is coming out of Bell's purpose lab at Boston College, that the more people view life as this zero competitive, hypersome game. Higher levels of depression and anxiety, higher levels of burnout as well. And the reason that is you can go into that first negotiation and your goal is to win, but what is your definition of success after that? So in the performance mindset game, the goal is to be the best. And that means there's one winner, the best negotiator, and then everyone else is a loser. And so you might go in to that negotiation and crush it and win that negotiation. How long does that good feeling last? A week, two weeks, three weeks? And then it's on higher rung and it's on to the next one. And it turns out what we're seeing now, the performance mindset makes you treat life like a race. And it turns out if you are on a never ending sprint, it's not a question of if you burn out, it's a question of when you burn out.

Oh, my goodness. We're going to have to stop this interview now because clearly you've been eavesdropping on my conversations with my therapist. My goodness, this is so profound. So profound. You're absolutely right. And it's funny because when we look at society, largely speaking, we have elements of society saying, be the best, be the best, be the best. Work hard. If you're not working hard, work harder. If you are working hard, work harder than that and achieve more. And then when we have on the happiness side, it's like, hey, do whatever it takes to be happy. Right? But we have been leaving out purpose. And that messaging is really important. And I'd like to kind of explore for a moment what makes it so difficult for people to appreciate the value of purpose when it comes to thinking about purpose as a guiding light for your life.

I want to start, I'll just start by talking about what purpose isn't. And then I think Belle, because she's the expert in this, can talk about the scientific definition of purpose and what it is. But first, you know that word, it's so loaded right there. You know, if. And people hear that word and they think like, your purpose is like your one true love, where it's out there in the world and it's your goal to find it. And people also think that purpose is you need to be sacrificing yourself to be changing the world. So you need to be, you know, you need to be solving climate change, solving world hunger, solving cancer. And so purpose unintentionally, like you think about people, it's like Gandhi or it's Mother Teresa. It's these very lofty individuals. They're inspirational, but they're not aspirational. It doesn't feel like I can live that sense of purpose because it's out of reach. And what purpose actually is, that is not what purpose is. And every single person can have a sense of purpose because it is this mindset. And so bel, why don't you share with them what purpose actually is?

Yeah. So the research definition of purpose is living a life that's personally meaningful and is intended to contribute to the world beyond oneself. Both of those components are important. This personally meaningful piece is a little bit of that passion mindset. But it's not all about my happiness and my personal meaning and what I can do for myself.

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That focus alone is very anxiety provoking for most people. When we study young people who are going through school and through their early career, the focus on personal needs being met is extremely burdensome thing and it's why there's a lot of anxiety and mental health issues among young people. Is this sense that I have to be happy all the time, that I have to just serve myself. It's hard to actually be able to put yourself as on the pedestal all the time. The moment you look outside yourself and decide that you're going to also contribute and that you can, and that your life matters and that you have value and that you can contribute to the world beyond yourself, that's a relief. It's an understanding that we don't have to just be all about ourself. We don't have to be all about me. So purpose is this balance between living a life that's personally meaningful and is intended to contribute to the world beyond oneself?

Yeah. And just to bring that down a little bit, to make it a little bit more applicable on the ground, it's like for people listening here, what is personally meaningful about negotiation? Like, what is your favorite part of it? Is it doing the research and the background information and figuring out all there is to know about what you're going to go into? Is it structuring the conversation and leading it and making sure you're framing what the conversation is going to be had in that room? Is it the emotional responsiveness of being able to act on your feet and being able to pivot when needed and be creative? Like for you all, it's thinking about which part of this whole process is personally meaningful to you, what gives, what brings you life in that process. And research actually shows you only need about 20% of your time doing that part that feels personally meaningful so when people feel like 20%. Yeah. And it's not a big number, but at least, you know, if you have five meetings in a day, in one of those meetings, it feels really personally meaningful to you. Or 20% of the time on a case or whatever it is is spent doing that thing that really lights you up, that can sustain the energy to keep going forward. And then I just say on the other side that contributing to the world beyond the self, it's really thinking about what positive impact is your work going to have on your organization, on your client, on your family, on the world. Like, can you get to a place where you understand how being really, really good at your job or even in that negotiation, can you get to a place where subjectively you feel like that is contributing in a meaningful way to someone or something that you care about? And so the thing about purpose is that it's subjective. Like, if you think this is really important and this will make the world better, you can tap into the power of purpose no matter what anyone else thinks. But you have to get beyond just winning for yourself, because that's all about you. So how is winning going to contribute to someone else?

So one of the things that people often ask me is how do we know whether or not we got a good deal? And so we can give people the classic, the old school, traditional negotiation answer. Well, you know, it's a good deal if it's better than your batna, better than your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. We also know if it's a good deal. If it is, it suits you and your party very well and it suits the other side acceptably well. And it also is good if it is going to be long lasting. So you're not, you know, undermining the interests of the other side or your own interests or something like that. Very nice. Okay, but now let's get a little bit real here. Because when we include that element of purpose, we realize that we could make deals that meet all of those criteria that I just described, but still feel really bad. So what's a good deal or a bad deal? I, Kwame Christian, am in no position to tell you, Bell, or you, Tim, what is a good deal for you? Because I don't know what your purpose is. Only you could know that. But the only way you can know that is if you take the time to negotiate with yourself to figure that out. And so I think understanding your purpose is the key to authentic negotiation. But it's the thing that a lot of people are missing. So you can have all the skills in the world. But your skills might be misdirected if you don't have an idea of what your purpose is.

And that's the huge challenge that you just named it.

It's.

You have to know what's personally meaningful to you. You have to know the contribution you want to make. You have to know these elements of yourself to do that negotiation. And so our entire book is about giving people this shared language, this common language that they can use to start articulating these elements of purpose. Because purpose feels very, very abstract. It feels very, very out of reach. And so that's what we've been doing. It's just providing a common language. And I would just say in the negotiation space. And I'm curious how you would riff on this Bell, but. So two of our core elements of purpose is. One is it's making decisions that align with your core values. To know if you got a good deal, you have to know what you value. And that's where we go with the science of core values. And you have to make sure that your needs are getting met. And so. And so you have to know what needs that you have and how this negotiate meets it. And so, Bella, I wonder if you want to riff on either one of those.

Yeah. Just to be complete, you know, we have these four elements of purpose. Tim named two of them. Your core values, the ones that you're willing to sacrifice for. These are the values that you stand by. The other is needs, which are the needs in the world, both in the needs that you want to meet in yourself, but the needs that you are compelled to meet in the world around you. And the other two are your strengths. What do you know what your character strengths are that make you your best self? And then finally, do you know what skills you are motivated to learn and master? So when we're thinking about negotiating for your next step in your career trajectory, do you know what your elements of purpose are? Is this a role that you are that you're negotiating for, that you can be your best self, that you can learn the skills that you are motivated to learn and master, that you can be living the values that you would sacrifice for? And are you meeting the needs that you want to be meeting? So when you're negotiating for a job, for your career, for your next step in your. In your trajectory, you've got to ask yourself, do you know if this is the direction that will enable you to be your best self, to learn the skills that you're motivated to master, to live out the Values that you stand for and that you are willing to sacrifice for and to meet needs in yourself as well as in the world around you that you feel compelled to meet. Those are the elements of purpose. And when you know those elements of purpose clearly, then your negotiation becomes a lot more clear. You're not just negotiating for the title or the salary. You're negotiating for a role that is highly aligned with your own purpose. And you've done that negotiation with yourself.

One of the things that I'm realizing here with this is that this makes the negotiation process more complex. And I don't say complex as a bad thing. I say it just as a realization that if you want to negotiate well, you're going to have to put in some work. Because when you think about the example of a good deal that I gave you, just the textbook answer is like, oh, I can on paper objectively determine whether or not this is a good deal. And I could show it to my friends and they could say, yeah, mathematically that was a good deal. But when we introduce these elements that they're very personal. So your core values, making sure your needs are met, considering your strengths, and then also the skills that you're motivated to learn and master. Like, I love that we added the skills that you're motivated to learn and master. Because a lot of us out here who are really good at things we might not like, it forces us to really think about what authenticity really means to us and what it means to be an authentic negotiator. Now, it also presents another problem too, because part of this complexity has to factor in the perspectives of other people. So, for example, let's say I'm a hard charging business person. I want to make a lot of money on my deals. And that is how I have always ranked my success. The quantity of the deals, how many deals do I have under my belt, those type of things. But now I start to consider some other things. And I realize, you know, what, if I want to get more value out of this deal, for example, it might take two extra weeks, and that is time that I was planning on spending with my family. So I, as my core value, I kind of have to let go a little bit of value in this deal in order to spend more time with my family, for example. And so what might end up happening, and I'd love to hear your perspective on this, is as we start to be more authentic with our negotiations, we might start to get ridicule from the people who were previously in our social circle, because especially when we think about the performance metric, we are comparing ourselves to other people. We might not be able to perfectly compare ourselves anymore. So there's a lot of resilience that needs to come from within yourself to really stay true to yourself.

So can you speak to that unbelievably insightful point that you just made? And I think you're talking about core values here, and I want to talk about core values for a second here, because we fundamentally misunderstand what core values are. Every single organization will say what they value. They'll put their core values on their website, all of that. But what a core value actually is is something that you are willing to sacrifice for. Like you are willing to give up something meaningful in the name of that core value. Because something is only valuable if it is scarce. You know, and so for that person, you just had a great point. Do I take two weeks to make an additional 10, 20, $30,000 on this deal, or do I go and spend that time with my family? Well, you're showing your core values there, right? If you're continuously putting career before your family, no value judgments here. Don't say that's a core value of yours. You're not willing to make sacrifices. And we see this in organizations all the time. They put out all these. These pressers about what they stand for and what's important for them, and then you don't ever see them making any sort of demonstrative sacrifice or investment in that. And it's not really a core value. It's window dressing. So that's me on my little soapbox there. But to get more practical about how you can actually use values is that in the world of core values, there's actually only four different types of values, and there's research that shows there's two different spectrums. So you can figure out what your core values are based on this simple question. It's do you believe when I win, we win? Meaning the better I perform, the better my organization or family or community will do, therefore, I'm putting my individual performance first. Or do you believe when we win, I win? Meaning the better my organization or community does, the better I'm going to do, so I'm going to put their needs first. And that is a long way of saying, are you more individualistic or are you more collectivist? And every single person, society, culture is somewhere on that spectrum. And so the more individualistic you are, the less collectivist you are going to be. And so I can go into the other one. I see the wheels turning here. I'll just flow out the whole framework for you here and then you can go from there. So that's picture that on one spectrum and then on another spectrum is do you believe that change is an opportunity to make things better or do you believe that change on the whole is a threat to make things worse? So what is your relationship with change? Every single person organization is somewhere, somewhere on that spectrum as well. Those two questions determine what you value. Yeah, we can go into that a little bit more, but it's like it's really understanding what you actually value on those two spectrums is going to figure out what you value in your work. It's going to help you figure out what your client values, what's most important to them. Yeah. And it's just another decision making point.

So can I say a little bit more about it because this is getting into one of our chapters where we talk about value archetypes. So what Tim is talking about is there are two continua of values. One is individualism to collectivism. That's that question, when I win, we win, Is it better? Are you more of a when I win, we win person, or are you more of a when we win, I win person, or are you a more of a on the other spectrum, which is growth to stability, are you more of a person who values change or feels threatened by change? And so based on your answers to questions in those ballparks, you'll fall into one of four quadrants. If you're a person who values growth over stability and you value individualism over collectivism, we would call you a trailblazer. You're somebody who's about pushing the envelope outside of institutions or systems. Sometimes you're willing to sacrifice a lot of things in order to do that. If you're the opposite and you're a person who values stability over growth and values collectivism over individualism, we would call you a guardian. So you're somebody who protects what's tried and true in an organization. You value tradition, you value the way that things have been done even more than sometimes change and growth. And the other two quadrants are high growth and high collectivism. That person we call a builder. You're somebody who is about pushing the envelope but within organization. So you are about change and about moving things to become more progressive, but in order to invite more people in the community into the organization so that others can fit in. And the opposite of that is high individualism, high stability. We call you a champion. You know how to work the system. You are, you do that in an individualistic way. And it ultimately can help the organization as well. So our point of examining these four sort of exemplars or archetypes of values is that every organization needs all of these people. And when we understand what category we are most aligned with, it can be a decision making kind of tool for us. We can recognize sometimes also when we are, why we might not feel like we're fitting or being valued in an organization or a department. Maybe you're a trailblazer working with guardians and it's creating a lot of conflict in the work setting. And understanding that these are just different values that you're leading with can shift you from a space of, of conflict to one of compassion and one of being able to value what the others around the table who might have different values, what they can bring to the table as well.

This is eye opening for a number of reasons. First, in all of my years of academia, reading, writing and everything, I've never heard the plural of continuum. So I appreciate that. Bell Continua. This was exceptional. This is great. The second thing is I think that this is going to be really thought provoking for a lot of people because, Tim, like you saw my body language, I slouched down and my brow was furrowed. I'm on my third page of notes here and I'm thinking that there might be a. I'll call this a positive identity crisis in a few people as they go through this. Let me speak for myself here. When I think about the individualistic versus the collectivist approach, do you believe that if I win, we win versus do you believe when we win, I win? That was so eye opening because I think what I experienced as I went through this, and I'm going to spend some time thinking about it, the first one seemed obvious. If I win, we win. That seemed logically, mentally, it resonated with me. But then when I heard the second one, when we win, I win, that resonated more with my heart. I felt more of a connection with that. And recently I've been thinking, like, who am I really? What am I really? What do I really value? Because in order to get to where I am now, I felt at least like I needed to rack up a lot of accomplishments, awards and those type of things. It felt more of necessity than anything else. It wasn't out of like, enjoyment necessarily. It felt like oxygen. And each win was just holding me off until the next one. Like, I felt like I needed to do it. But when I think about the things that are really moving to me, it's the impact that we have as a company where we collectively work together and help people. It's not even the revenue generation aspect. I mean, the revenue generation helps us to do things like this. Be super generous with the podcast. That's what I really like doing. And so what I'm realizing is that the belief or what I lead with can change the way that I negotiate. So if I'm negotiating these types of network deals, if I'm negotiating partnerships and things like that, I might say, Kwame, the CEO and businessman, your job is to maximize profit and revenue. But then Kwame, the human, what does he really want? That'll change the way that I navigate these negotiations. And again, that takes a lot of resilience to be willing to be authentic with yourself in that way and accept who you really are and walk in that. But also stick to it. When you get criticism and ridicule from other people who have opinions about the way you should be living your life.

Go ahead.

Oh, just. You're saying something that's so important, which is that we have different parts of ourselves. We have the part of ourselves that we are kind of living by in the present, and then the part of ourselves that we envision for the future. So, you know, we ask questions as part of, you know, helping people negotiate with themselves and identify their purpose. We ask people questions like, how do you want to be remembered? So when you ask yourself, Kwame, like, how do you want to be remembered? That the answer to your questions, the questions about what your value, your core values are, might shift from the way you're operating today. And this is not a judgment, but it's helpful to know that, you know, and Tim can talk more about this, that the research shows that when our future oriented self is highly aligned with our present oriented self, that we have higher levels of mental health, that we ultimately may even perform better in our work when we are highly aligned with that future aspirational self that we want to be.

Yep.

And I would just say I would challenge you a little bit, Kwame. Do those have to be different things? You know, are they diametrically opposed? And so the. And maybe they are, maybe they're not. I don't know. But I think the question people should ask is, is how can I add value in a way that aligns with what I value? And if people here are struggling, your body will tell you so. Our core values are an invisible operating system that tells us how to negotiate micro decisions at a subconscious level all the time. And so if there's Something that you are struggling with or something that's not sitting right with you, it can be a signal that it might be conflicting with your core values. Typically, we're only aware of our core values when they've been violated. And so that can be an opportunity for people. But to go into the science, a little bit of what this does, if you can just so if you ask yourself the question, how do I want to be remembered as a person? What do I want to stand for? And if you can answer the question, what do I want to stand for as a person and professional, you're going to get to some of those core values. And the research shows that when we activate our core values, when we think about them, our brain has a risk part of our brain and a reward.

Part of our brain.

And there's research that shows in highly stressful moments, when we have been primed to think about our values, our ventral striatum, which is the part of the brain associated with reward, activates, and our anterior insula, which is the part that's really looking for risk, risk is not activated. And so they've actually done research showing that when you get people look at their values, they have less cortisol in their system, they perceive it as less stressful and it increases their performance. Actually it has this neurobiological and physiological impact on our bodies when we live aligned with our core values. So it's not just some woo woo stuff we're talking about here because we talk about like, because what you were talking about a little bit was fear, right? If I stand in line with my core values, like am I going to be sacrificing financial security for my family? Right? Can those two things coexist? And the more we tap into our core values, it gives us the strength to deal with those fears that we might be feeling.

So essentially what we're saying is if we are in line with our core values, if we first negotiate with ourselves to figure out what they are, it will enhance our skills. One of our skills is negotiation. So we'll become better negotiators because there's not something implicitly like subconsciously holding us back. And I think one of the things that's really interesting fact that our emotions are signals and a lot of times we think about our emotions as inconveniences. So if we're feeling something, it should trigger some curiosity. What is it that is leading me to feel the way that I'm feeling? And a lot of times we might just say, oh, I'm stressed out. I probably should. Maybe I should meditate, maybe I should get a prescription or whatever it happens to be. But we rarely stop and think, well, you know, maybe I'm not on the right path, and maybe what I'm doing right now is causing stress and anxiety because I'm going deeper and deeper in a direction that is not in aligned with my core values. And my focus has been on alleviating the emotional burden instead of actually figuring out what works for me and navigating my life in that direction. I think this is really, really insightful.

And we can add to that that you emotionally signal to the person you're negotiating with all about how committed you are to what you're negotiating for. You know, when we are negotiating for something that isn't sitting right with us, you can believe that. It's like, you know, sharks smell blood in the water, they can sniff it out. When you're trying to negotiate for something that is not true to who you are and what you're committed to, you know, when we have clarity around our purpose and we can tell that story clearly to the person we're negotiating with, how much more power do we have in that negotiation?

Oh, this is good, because I was thinking also, when we think about body language and reading body language, microaggressions. Not microaggressions, micro expressions and things like that, as humans, we're not good at understanding exactly what somebody is feeling, but we are good at knowing when somebody is feeling something. And so as we're negotiating, we're going to be giving off these signals. So emotional leakage, as much as you try to hold it in, it will come out in some way. So we might be feeling something internally, but we're trying to hold it back sometimes from ourselves, but definitely in these difficult conversations with other people. But you're right, Bell, when you think about, when you're talking to somebody who is either a really good negotiator or an empath, somebody who cares about you, they understand you're feeling something, they're going to set sense something, but they won't know what it is. Is it deception? Are they hiding something? Do they not like me? Usually when in ambiguous situations, especially in situations of high stress, we're going to interpret the stimuli that we're receiving negatively. There's something under here. And so it shows that if we're not authentic in our form of negotiation and we're not in alignment with our core values, it will diminish our performance because we're sending signals that we might not even be aware of to the other side and then they play off those signals and that has an impact on the entire interaction.

And what those signals do, they trigger what's called the default state network in our body. It makes us feel disconnected from the other person. And when we go into a default state, you know what we look for threat, we look for scarcity and we look for individualism. And it's every person for themselves. And so you actually, if you cannot have an emotional connection with that person across from you, you, they're not going to trust you, they're going to be more self serving, they're not going to meet you halfway. And it creates shared positivity resonance. When we have a shared positive emotion with someone else, we can tell that we have this connection with them and that creates more pride, more courage, more creativity. It makes us more pro social when we feel more connected to other people. It makes us take them into consideration when we're negotiating here. So ironically, the more you can connect with others, understand their perspective from a genuinely good place, they're going to act in a way where they're considering your best interests and you're going to do the same. And I think that's how mutually beneficial outcomes can happen.

I love this because essentially what we're saying is that if we take the time to engage this internal negotiation, we figure out what our purpose is, we understand what our core values are and then that helps us to improve our ability to connect with other people, to negotiate effectively and to direct our skills. So we're negotiating for what we actually want. And at the same time people can sense this. Right. So it creates more of that shared positivity resonance and then it actually has an impact on the way that people interact with us. So through this process, we're not only elevating our own performance in the negotiation, we're also elevating others and elevating the shared interaction as well.

That's exactly right. And there's another element to how we elevate our own performance and their performance and that is that we become less cognitively rigid when we know what our purpose is. It's no longer just about one number or one particular outcome. We can see lots of ways where our purpose might be served here and that the purpose of the organization might be served. So if they're giving me a different title than I came in asking for, if I can see how that different title is aligned with the purpose, then I'm going to be a lot more open to it. I'm going to be A lot more open to a different set of tasks that I'm going to be asked to do than the ones that I might have come in thinking, because I have a bigger purpose in mind than just those specific tasks.

This is great because one of the things that we always say almost as a throwaway line in negotiation, it's one of those trite things that everybody says, oh, you need to be creative, Expand the proverbial pie, create value, think outside the box. Okay, we've said all of these things, things. But we really often fail to appreciate the mental state that both parties need to be in in order to be creative and be receptive to creativity. And so if we're always negotiating in this classical kind of rigid type of sense, then everybody is focusing on the threats. They're not going to be willing to even consider these creative options because mentally they're not in the right mindset. And so, again, what we're realizing is that this supercharge is another important element of negotiation, the creative element. Because again, like we said at the very beginning, I've taken so many pages of notes, it's hard to find. But if I recall correctly, when we think about life through the performance mindset, we are comparing ourselves to other people and society. And it gives us a very narrow set of metrics upon which to compare ourselves. And so that rigidity limits our ability to be successful. But the more paths to victory we have, the more likely we are to achieve a victory. And if we open ourselves up and we understand our purpose, we can realize realize that there are a multitude of ways for us to achieve our goals. It doesn't just need to be on these very narrow set of metrics.

And just to tie in the emotional piece about this, because I know some people are listening here and they're like, that's all said and good. But, like, feeling good won't help me pay the bills. Research shows that when we have fear, we have these things in our eyes called visio spatial inhibitors. They are tunnel vision is created when we feel fear. The more fearful or scared that we feel, literally we see less and less in the world and we become hyper focused on what's right in front of us. And so that means you only have one outcome that you're looking at. When we feel joy, what happens? It takes down those visual spatial inhibitors. When we are feeling moments of joy and creativity and connectedness, we physiologically see more of the world. And when we see more of the world, we can come to more creative solutions.

Here, here.

So again, this is not just two therapists who love emotions saying that you should be doing this here. There are some very complex things happening in the body that makes sense here. So I think what we're trying to do in our work, in our book is show people that the right thing to do, to live by our values, to genuinely try to help other people. If you can commit to that, the right thing to do is also the smart thing to do. It's actually going to make you more successful. It's going to make you more fulfilled in your career. But we live in a world of such scarcity right now. It feels so scared to do that. It feels like if you are not the top 1% in your field, that you're not going to make it. It can be so hard to break away from that fear to do it. And so we just have tons of compassion for people who might be grappling with that right now.

This is exceptional. I appreciate this. I know there's the curious Kwame who's like, keep asking more questions. This is for you now.

Okay.

But there's the podcast mind is like, okay, we have to have some level of uniformity in the length of these episodes. So this has been really great. But let's just say this. Remind the listeners about the book and let them know how they can get in touch with you, how to connect. But also just give them one little piece of advice before you go.

So our book again is called how to navigate the New science of finding your way in School, Career and beyond. And you can find it wherever books are sold. We're so glad to be able to share some of the high points of our book today, but there's a lot more in there, very practical tips and strategies for negotiating with yourself and identifying and discovering your purpose. In terms of one sort of take home, I would say that the delightful thing about purpose is that you already have everything you need within you. This is not something that you have to go out of yourself and just strive and strive and strive to find. It's really about a shift in focus and being able to, like, let go of some of the distractions that have covered over what your purpose is. So this is more of a process of chipping away at the excess stone than it is going and getting something that is not attainable.

I would just say people, if they want to start with it right now, take out a pen and paper, put 4 minutes and 30 seconds on the timer on your phone, and just ask yourself the question, how do you want to be remembered? And if you can just go on that and just don't stop writing until you hear that time or beep. It's going to make purpose feel so much more attainable, so much more realistic, because you're writing a blueprint for the person you want to be remembered for. And that's what purpose is. And so it's just creating the space to do it. And I really appreciate you creating a space with us today here, Kwame, because this was really, really fun.

Appreciate both of you coming on. This was exceptional, and I love being able to have an opportunity to share the value of the internal negotiation. It's so important but so overlooked. So thank you both for coming on the show today. Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. This is wonderful.

Thanks.

Kwame, last question for you. Last question. And this can be short because I know you probably need to go, but you said that you are working on this in your own life. You feeling like you're living in the sweet spot of your purpose? Or are you still. Are you feeling a little like an itch for. For some new direction or growth or.

Great question. Yeah, I think with me, I'm getting closer to it. It was after I got my second alumni award, and so I had my alumni award for Young Alumni of the Year for the John Glenn College of Public Affairs. So I have a Master of Public Policy. And then the next year I got the Young Alumni Award for the law school at Ohio State Moritz College of Law. And I was like, like, oh, my gosh, why is this? This is great. It was like a moment. It was a moment of, like, you know, exuberance and jubilation and everything, like a drug high. And then it just, it went down because, like, that, those moments of elation were immediately followed by anxiety. Like, I was becoming more stressed out and more anxious with every accomplishment that I earned. And it was like, the more successful I became, the worse my mental health. Because, like. And it was a very scary type of. Because I wasn't like a nervous or stressed out person before. And it's like, wow, now at the height of my career, what is this? And I think it was a lot of it was. I was always looking at myself as the, like, the scrappy, underdog young guy doing his career a different type of way, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm like, I'm going to prove people wrong. And then I start winning these awards. I'm like, oh, my gosh, who am I now? Because I was trying to prove everybody wrong. Now they're like, hey, Kwame, you Win, win. We see you as a winner. I'm like, oh my gosh. Well, who. It's. Guess it wasn't for them. The person I still haven't proven myself to is myself. What is missing, you know, so now I'm a little bit more comfortable realizing that I think there was a bit of that immigrant work ethic in me being a first generation American pushing really, really hard. And then also I felt like there was a little bit of insecurity as it related to not feeling like I was enough. And I thought those degrees and all of those awards would. And then when I realized that it wasn't, that was really, really scary. But now I realize that I'm just, I'm cool with being chill, Kwami, a bit more relaxed. And my main focus is just making sure that we could be as generous as possible and help other people, regardless of the numbers and the finance.

Can you just say that one more time? Just say the last thing you said again? Cause that was like, that was the thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was just being as generous as possible, regardless of the consequences. And I think that's good as a person and, and it creates challenges as a CEO, because I'm thinking about what's required to be a good CEO and really, really good at business. And I can learn it, I can do it, I've done it. But the business side of things, it doesn't bring me joy like the podcast does, like speaking does that helping people does. And so now it's thinking about what's the next chapter like, coming to terms with the fact that I don't think I'm the leader that takes AI to the next chapter level. Yeah. Trying to figure out what that path is. I'm always going to be associated with it. It's, it's, it's my company, I built it. Right. But just recognizing that as far as, like the business side, that is not in line with my core values or my purpose.

There's so much truth in what you said, and part of the unspoken piece is the courage that it takes to pursue purpose because you're talking about potentially leaving something, closing the door to something that has enormous meaning to you, but it's not your best meaning, it's not your highest purpose. And so it's going to require loss and sacrifice to follow your purpose.

Sounds like to me, you're shifting from a founder led organization to a mission driven organization where it's like you're stepping to a different role. What does that look like for you? Suddenly the future it's harder to picture. It's harder to envision. And uncertainty leads to doubt. Our program at Boston College is called True North. And we kind of see whatever you're doing, whatever the next thing Kwame does is you ask yourself, am I using the strengths that make me my best self? Is there opportunity to grow the skills I really care about? Can I make a positive impact on people? And can I do it in a way that aligns my core values? You know, is it. Is it hitting that constellation of a purpose? You're headed in the. And I'm talking to myself as much. I'm talking to you because I'm on a Stiller. But, like, you're. You're headed in the right direction, even if you don't know exactly where you're going, you know, because it's just like. And that's what. That's what the North Star does. Right? It's like, I don't know where this is going, but I know I'm heading in the right direction. And I have faith and confidence that I'm doing the right thing for the right reason. And that's the only way we can go because.

And there is peace in that.

Yeah. And you're going to be wildly successful.

And it's going to be fun. It's going to be an adventure versus the linear path.

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