Surviving The OceanGate Submarine: How Difficult Conversations Saved The Lives of Jay and Sean Bloom

Hello, my friends, and welcome to a very special episode of Negotiate Anything. I'm Kwame Christian. I'm your host, and I'm the CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. And today, what we're going to do is we are going to explore a powerful story of a father and son, Jay and Sean Bloom, who survived the Oceangate submarine incident. Jay Bloom is a billionaire financier with an incredible reputation in the business world. And his son, Sean Bloom, is a is an up and coming entrepreneur with a number of successful business ventures. They were offered the opportunity to come on the Oceangate sub, and thankfully, they passed on that opportunity, but it wasn't easy. And in this episode, they talk about the difficult conversations that they had with each other and with the CEO of OceanGate that helped to save their lives. Both Jay and Sean have a lot of business experience and negotiation experience, and they were able to apply those skills to these conversations, and it led to the best decision that they ever made. The Blums have a lot of negotiation experience, and they were able to use that negotiation experience in this context to save their lives. And what we want to do with this episode is tie it back to your life to make it relevant for you, because we've all been in situations where we might have felt pressured to do something that we didn't feel comfortable with. And they help to highlight some of those skills that can help us to set effective barriers and have these difficult conversations more effectively. Because the reality is, sometimes the best thing we can say in difficult conversations and negotiations is no. If you're a listener of the podcast, you know our motto at the American Negotiation Institute. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And in this episode, we're going to explore how you can use these difficult conversations to set effective boundaries, gather information, and make good decisions. And if you're new to this podcast, welcome. Thanks for joining us. And. And I want to give a brief disclaimer. This episode is raw. And so what I mean by that is that we did minor edits because I wanted to get this to you as quickly as possible. And so this is probably going to be the fastest turnaround we've ever had on a podcast episode, which is exciting, but I'm also asking for a little bit of grace when it comes to the audio quality. We were not in the studio when we were making this recording, and so the audio quality isn't what it usually is, and the introduction isn't as clean as it usually is. It's really conversational. So you will be joining this interview right when I meet Sean and Jay for the first time. So consider that a little bit of a behind the scenes sneak peek onto how we lead into these interviews and the chit chat that happens beforehand. I'm really excited to share this one with you. So without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Hello. Hello.

Hey.

What's going on, guys?

Hey.

Not too much. Good to see both of you.

Nice to meet you.

Good to see you as well.

I appreciate both of you taking the time. I know this has been a pretty wild week or so for you. How y' all doing?

We're doing okay.

Doing okay.

It's starting to settle in. It's been a kind of a bit of a roller coaster the last two weeks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would imagine your story is such a great example of the power of effective communication and persuasive communication. So that's really what I want to highlight. So I don't want you to feel forced to be technical. It's really more about the human side for me. But I know you're in business. Both of you are in business. And there are probably some corollaries in the way that you communicated in business and this conversation too. So word makes sense. Let's make the connection. But don't feel forced to create a nexus between business and this. If there isn't one.

I think there's an opportunity to make connections all throughout the story. I mean, when Stockton comes back and offers me $100,000 discount per ticket in terms of negotiation, that's certainly.

That's definitely a negotiation tactic.

Oh, that's good. That's a good call.

If I raise safety concerns, it's not a price point issue. And when you start addressing my safety concerns with dropping the price, it's more.

Of a red flag and a negotiation.

From a negotiation perspective, that's the exact wrong thing to be doing. Yeah.

Bingo. No, that's great. Because I think the angle is you all clearly have a good relationship. There's that relationship side, then there's the critical conversation between you two, but then also the business side there. So it's like as you're having these conversations, yeah, we want to make good deals. Yeah, it'd be great to get 100k off. But also, these are red flags that you should pick up on. And I think that that's really, really powerful.

Well, yeah. And if. If we're paying 250,000 a seat, right? So half a million dollars. And we say we think we might die if we do this. Well, then, all right, it's only 300,000 instead of 500,000. That's not addressing the concern of the other party.

Not at all.

This started last week when I thought I found that the sub had been lost and everybody on board was lost, and. And I posted to my personal Facebook page for my circle of friends, hey, here's some text that I use, a text exchange that I had with Stockton Reach. And, you know, we were one decision away from. From that being us. Wow. And, you know, and my final thought was, listen, tomorrow is not promised.

Right?

Live today. Like, you don't know if tomorrow's coming because it might, you know, for all of us one day it won't. And it really made us sit back and reflect on how we prioritize things in our lives and kind of change my perspective on what's really important in that regard. When I posted that Thursday night, I hit post and went to sleep. And Friday morning, my phone was ringing off the table. But somehow some media picked it up and it just propagated and went viral. And I think we probably done 50 interviews in the last couple of days.

This all started with a Facebook post and then kind of blew up from.

There over the last couple of days. There was no end goal. There was no end game other than just kind of creating. Creating awareness. And, you know, it's. I think Sean may have sent it to me. There was a speaker that was addressing a group, and he said, if I were to offer you $10 million, how many people would take it? And every hand in the room went up and they said, what if I told you that means that tomorrow you don't wake up? And every hand went down and he said, so what you're telling me is tomorrow is worth more than $10 million to you? Yeah, I'm like, that's pretty deep.

Yeah, I know. I saw that on Facebook too.

Wow. Oh, this is good. No, this is great because this is so. Let me give you context too, because this. This ties into it as well, because our motto is, we believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And I mean, that ties in perfectly with this.

Yeah, it's all part of it. Yeah. Well, I mean, my favorite expression, it was Thomas Jefferson, and then it was got co opted by Albert Einstein. But my favorite expression is, out of adversity comes opportunity.

Right.

And I've always been a contrarian. When everybody's in a panic and selling, that's when I'm buying and when everybody's euphoric. And buying, that's when I'm selling. Because markets are more. Are more emotion than fundamentals. I mean, everybody panics. It gets oversold. When everybody gets crazed about buying, it gets overbought. That's really where I think the opportunities are.

Absolutely. Oh, this is gold. This is gold. Well, let's flow into it. Welcome to the show, guys. How about you just get us started with a quick introduction, and then we'll flow into it.

Great.

Sounds good.

Great. So how about we start with you, Sean?

Yeah.

No, so just introduction about myself and business and stuff like that.

Basically.

Yeah. So I started really young, actually. I helped him raise capital for one of his first projects when we came out to Vegas, one of his first bigger ones. And we started partnering up probably when I was 15 or 16 initially, is when we started partnering on all the projects we did together. And I've been in business for a long time. Built up a really insane network of people that I'm really grateful for. And ever since we did our first project together, we've just been kind of running through a wide variety of industries. And, yeah, it's been insane, the people I've met doing this. And I've been able to establish relationships with a lot of billionaires and tech people that I got really close with. And it's been really incredible. It's been really incredible. My big thing was helping companies grow basically from the bottom and up and raising capital and all that stuff. And that was my big thing. And that was kind of a niche I found for myself. And we ended up working really well together. I started off super young. I realized I could plug my network into whatever he was doing, and it kind of worked perfectly on all ends.

That's incredible. Let me tell you a selfish thing for me that I appreciate about this. Cause I have two boys, love them to death. And so it's really cool to see the fact that clearly you all have a great relationship, but also you're able to work well together. Together in business. That's just really encouraging.

Yeah, it's always. It's always.

It's always been.

It's always been us. I mean, we. Every project we've ever done, we've had a few partners here and there, but mostly it's.

It's.

It's just been the two of us just kind of navigating stuff together, you know, and figuring stuff out, dealing with stuff and. And just building, you know, it's always just been us.

That's great. That is great. Well, thank you. And, Jay, tell us about yourself. Too.

So I'm originally from New York. My background is banking and finance. My undergraduate is from Rutgers University and my MBA is from Fordham University in Lincoln center in Manhattan. I came out of school, went to work for a global bank. At the time it was called Manufacturers Hanover Trust, today it's JPMorgan Chase. And I spent 10 years at the bank, my last several years in real estate. I left the bank right at the time Chase and JP Morgan merged and started a company actually with my wife, kind of like a PPO network for companion animals. And we sold membership through employee benefits programs at Fortune 500 companies. So exited that and had a series of everything from startups to mid cap acquisitions. Had some some luck in a healthy outcome from a real estate fund that I put together. And that brings me to today. Today I'm looking at a large development project, 4200 unit complex that we're building or that we will be building. And, and also I'm leading an investment group for potential MBA expansion franchise in Vegas.

Wow.

And then I do some international metals trading as well.

That's fascinating. This is really interesting and I know for me being a business nerd, I'm tempted to go down the business rabbit hole. There's so much to explore.

There's a lot going on.

It's a whole other conversation.

Absolutely, absolutely. Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more and we will be right back after this. Well, let's talk about what brought us here today. Can you set the stage from your perspective? Because I think everybody looking at the news, we see it from the media narrative that has been created. But I would love to hear just from the moment this was brought to your consciousness to now just let us know the story from your perspective.

Yeah, so I met Stockton Rush from Ocean Gate maybe a year ago and he told me what he was doing and I thought it was pretty interesting. I'm all about Experiences. I believe life is a series of moments. Right? We're just. All we are is a collection of our experiences. And so, you know, experiences to me are more important than things because that's something that you always keep. You know, things come and go, but those. Those memories of kind of the experiences you have are just gold. Right? It's who we are. So I love stuff like this. And when Stockton told me that he's taking people down to the Titanic, and he said less than 200 people have been to the dive site, more people have been in space than down to the Titanic. So it sounded like it was right up my alley and something really exciting to do. And in addition, Sean here was a huge fan of the Titanic story ever since he was a child. He used to study it up and have me quiz him on questions like, I know everything about the Titanic.

Yeah.

So I thought it'd be great to provide the opportunity to bring him down as well as it'd be a great experience for both of us to kind of have, you know, in our holster. So I expressed interest with Stockton last year, and it was kind of conceptual up until about February of this year. And in February, Stockton started to look to me to set a date. And we were talking about it, but Sean and his friend started to research it and started to see things that they found concerning that. They brought to my attention a bunch of red flags. And I was concerned. I joined them and I shared their concern and I brought it back to Stockton. And Stockton told me it's safer than flying helicopters. I'm a helicopter pilot, so I fly helicopters recreationally. So he said, safer than flying helicopters. It's safer than scuba diving. He said, you know, everything in life has risks, but if you want to avoid all risk, just stay in bed. Don't get out of bed. Right. And so I raised some of the safety concerns. He kind of negated them. And then he said, I'll come out and see you. He flew out to see me in March, and in March, he actually took me through the Titanic exhibition at the Luxor. So we walked the exhibition together and then we had lunch. And over lunch, he explained to me what the expedition would be like and what goes on and what to expect. And again, he was looking for a date for me. And then we talked about the safety concerns. And he said, you know, it's as safe as crossing the street. You know, what happens is. Yeah, I know. Well, he said the thing with our industry, he was talking about this private submersible industry. He said, the thing with our industry is it's way over engineered and money is spent needlessly on safety because of that, over engineering. So for example, that viewing window in the sub manufacturer specs says it's safe to 1500 meters. The Titanic is 4500 meters deep. But in Stockton's mind, it was really not going to fail until about 10,000 meters. So the 4,500 was still in that safety margin even though the manufacturer's spec was no deeper than 1500 meters. And that's kind of how he viewed things, right, that it was over engineered and unnecessarily burdensome in terms of expense. So he would like go off his reality of the situation and not manufacturer specs. And he operated in international waters, so he didn't have any regulatory oversight. And when people started talking to him about the dangers in what he was doing, his response was along the lines of, well, that's your opinion and I have my opinion and you're wrong and I'm right when you really suffered from confirmation bias. So he was so passionate about what he was doing that it blinded him to the reality of the situation. So when I say confirmation bias, what I mean by that is anybody who came to him with a fact that supported his predisposition, he would accept, no matter how ridiculous the fact was. And anybody that brought him a fact, no matter how credible that refuted his position, he would dismiss it as differing opinion that was incorrect.

Well, when me and my friend Simon told him about the safety concerns, he called us the misinformed. And he just started saying they don't know what they're talking about this and that. And then that was ultimately our concerns that he raised to Stockton was the reason Stockton came to Vegas to see him, to persuade him that it was safe, that it was good to go, that me and my friend were wrong. And luckily he listened to us and we didn't go. And Stockton, in an attempt to get us to go, discounted the price per person, about $100,000 per seat to try and get us to go. There's the negotiation side of everything, trying to get us to go.

Well, and in terms of a negotiation tactic, if my concerns are we're going to die on this thing, lowering the price is not addressed, it's not going to help. Yeah, it doesn't address the issue. Yeah. So, and Stockton, you know, you can see in the text that I shared on my Facebook account that the media picked up, you can see Stockton was trading off of the safety record of the industry. And he said the Non Navy or private diving, private submersibles have been around for 35 years with no injuries, much less deaths. Yep.

Right.

And what he did is he relied on that safety record of an industry whose guidelines he disregarded in his operations for the last year or two. Right. So, you know, it was. It was apples and oranges. He was doing things very differently from the industry whose safety record he was. He was touting.

There is so much to explore here. So much to explore here. And I think when you. When you look at this and you analyze the way that you all approach this and the conversations that you had and compare it to people who were not.

I don't.

I want to be very sensitive with the way that I say this. You all were able to recognize the red flags through these difficult conversations and make adjustments and set that barrier and say no. And we're recognizing his persuasion tactics. What do you think made him so effective in other conversations?

Because he believed what he was saying. He had the conviction of this project. He drank his own koolaid. Right. I mean, he was on the sub that went down. He believed what he said. He was just blinded by his passion for the project and the realities of the situation. Right. And I think, you know, Sean is a lot more critical than some of the other people. So as enticing as the opportunity was, you know, he still wanted to look at it and make sure that it was safe. And he raised some concerns that, you know, when he raised them, I shared.

And then stocked and disregarded as a different opinion.

That was incorrect. Yeah, misinformed.

I want to key in on that word misinformed, because that's very telling in a lot of different ways, because that in itself is a persuasion tactic. Because when you think about authority, who technically has more authority in this conversation as it relates to knowledge of the industry? It would be him. He's the one who's been in it for a long time. And so you've done your homework, you've researched, and. And you've seen these red flags. And so really, in a lot of ways, what we're playing here is a confidence game, because Jay, like you said, the passion of his conviction, he's very persuasive because he genuinely believes it. And he. He is passionate about what he believes in. And it seems like in a lot of these conversations, other people could be persuaded not only by that passion, but also they could start to question themselves and say, well, he has the experience. Who am I to question somebody with that much experience?

I didn't care that's why I questioned it. I knew he was wrong. I was like, there's no way. You look at the people that have gone down there, like James Cameron and Robert Ballard, the guy that found the Titanic, and you look at the equipment they use to get, get to that part of the ocean, the bottom of the ocean, like it's no joke when you have tens of millions of pounds of pressure pushing up against you and anything can go wrong at any second. So when I looked into it, I found that video that's been floating around all over the media now. I found this early when it had almost no views. It was a video of Stockton explaining how the submarine worked and how it was controlled.

I'm sure you've seen it.

He shows this little like 1990 Logitech game controller thing. Looks like an Xbox controller, kind of.

Like an old one.

And he's like, this is how the entire submarine is operated. And there's like one touch screen and then, and then it's just like not only the first red flag was the way the submarine was controlled, but also the structural integrity of the submarine. It was, it had, it was made out of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber shatters like glass when it's put up against that kind of pressure. And you're going to take that to the bottom of the ocean and shove five people plus into it. Like red flags all over the place.

Well, and that's all over the place. When he came out to see me in March, he said he was flying and he was flying himself in.

Oh, another red flag.

Yeah, he was coming into North Las Vegas Airport. Yeah, I thought that was strange. Most people come into used to be McCarran, now it's Harry Reid International. But they come into Henderson Executive. When you fly private, those are really where you go.

Yeah.

So I asked him why he was going to North Las Vegas and he said, well, he's flying in on a two seater experimental aircraft that he built. And I said, I'm a pilot, I don't think I would get on his aircraft.

An experimental aircraft.

So. And I thought about it. I said, this guy is flying in on a two seater experimental aircraft that he built to pitch me on a five seater experimental sub that he built to go to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. And I'm like, if I wouldn't get on his aircraft, should I really get on his sub? Exactly right. So he didn't lend credibility by saying he was flying in on experimental aircraft that he built. No.

Yeah. That made the whole situation worse for sure.

Yeah. Sean, I Want to dig into one of the things that you said because I don't want to gloss over the depth of it because one of the things that you said was when he was coming to you with authority and passion, you didn't care. When he called you misinformed, you didn't care. And that is something that is rare because a lot of times we care about things that we shouldn't care about and that puts unnecessary pressure on us and leads us to make bad decisions. And when you think about the like stoicism, we have to think about the philosophy of stoicism and the fact that with stoic philosophy we're maintaining a focus on the things that are within our control, but also making sure that we're disregarding the things that don't matter as much. And so it is an art form, it's a skill. And it takes a strong person to be able to not care about somebody else's opinion of them in one of these difficult conversations. So I want to dig into that mentality a little bit more to see if we can break down how you were able to be that resilient in that moment. So other people could kind of replicate that in their conversations.

Yeah, I'm typically critical of a lot of situations that we find ourselves in. We do a lot of fun stuff. You know, we hang out with a lot of people. I'm very critical of people, I'm very critical of opportunities. I'm just overall a critical person because I don't, I don't trust people know what they're talking about. I don't trust people are telling the truth. Most of the time people will say anything to get whatever it is they want out of you. You know what I mean? And then in this particular situation, I mean in my head it was a no brainer because I knew Stockton really believed in what he's doing. And I'm no submarine expert obviously at all. All I did was some Google searches, watch some YouTube videos and I just, you know, I didn't think it took a genius to see that this was obviously not a good situation. And one of the craziest parts about this actually when the news came out that the sub went missing are two running theories before I get into like why I, you know, was opposing Stockton.

Three. Three running.

Yeah, three running theories was the sub probably got stuck in the Titanic because it went, because Stockton like to go inside the Titanic a little bit, there.

Was a little hole.

So we thought it either got stuck. I only had two. I mean there was a third One, but I only had two. And the second theory was it just straight up imploded for from the pressure.

Right.

So those, those were the two running theories we had.

The third theory is that they were floating at the top and lost radio communication just waiting to be found.

Yeah. I didn't think that, I didn't think.

That the consequences of the three if they were floating at the top waiting to be found. This is another red flag. Yeah. The hatch that goes on the, on the sub bolts on with 18 volts from the outside. Yeah. You cannot open the hatch from the inside.

Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's, it's airtight.

Yeah.

And seal. So if they were floating around at the top of the. They could, they could be above the water line and still suffocate on the sub because they can't get out. Right. So that's, that's one potential outcome. The second potential outcome is it imploded on the way down. Which turned out is actually that was my running theory.

That's exactly what I was going to tell Stockton I thought was going to happen but.

And then the third, the third concern is they went down to the bottom, they reached the wreck and then they. There is a hole in the side of the Titanic where you can see the ground. Ballroom and Stockton would put the nose of the sub in to steel, you know, to show the inside of the Titanic.

Yeah.

And if they did that, the wreckage is 111 years old and it's decaying. If something fell on the sub they'd.

Be trapped, they'd be trapped under the.

Sun and the consequences of that's the worst outcome of all because they lose power. Without power they have no light, so it's pitch black. They have no heat, so it's 31 degrees. They have no food and water and they. All they have is the knowledge that their oxygen is going to run out in a couple of days. So that was, that was the worst of the scenarios. Obviously the best is they were floating around on top and got found.

Yeah. But I never, I never thought that.

But what happened is tragic as it is that it imploded. The implosion happened in less than a millisecond. The brain takes 20 milliseconds to process a reflex. So it just cut to black. They never knew what happened and at least that's merciful and a much better outcome than getting stuck at the bottom.

Basically. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry I didn't answer your question. It kind of skewed off into something else. But I just thought it was important to talk about why not only I thought it would be a bad idea to go but also the running theories we had turned out to be true which my number one thing was that it imploded and I think it was his whole. So to answer your question overall it was, it was, it was mainly, it was, it was mainly because I knew, I didn't think Stockton had enough experience even though he claimed to have had experience I think that this, he's, he's gone down there. How many times did he go down there total like he went down there like twice well he went down there three times last year according to one source and this would have been the first voyage this year and I just didn't think he went down there enough times. That was, that was another red flag for me I think James Cameron and Bob Bow and all these people have gone to deep parts of the ocean hundreds of times like and Stockton's only done it a couple times in this little thing like I just. There wasn't enough experience, there wasn't enough background.

My takeaway from, from your question is that no matter how well educated or well versed somebody is in a topic their judgment can be clouded by their emotion. If they're coming from a passion, from a place of passion and not reason they can draw the wrong conclusion no matter how experienced they are. And that's what happened to Stockton.

Yeah, definitely and I think one of the major takeaways that I want listeners to get from this is when it's appropriate to be persuaded and when it's not appropriate to be persuaded because what we're seeing here is he was giving you a lot of attempts to influence with passion and confidence but not much substance and so we have to be able to stay focused and recognize there's a difference between information and influence and so those attempts to influence we should ignore those attempts and Sean, like you said I don't care about that I need information and I'm light on information now and I think a way to make this really clear to the audience is this let's flip the situation let's say you're having the conversation and he uses a different approach. What would it have taken for him to persuade both of you to go down?

I wouldn't have been persuaded just because of the operation that there wasn't enough experience there was too many risks and dangers and again the way the submarine was controlled that was a huge red flag for me I don't think he could have persuaded me to go and that's why we ultimately ended up not going. Him, maybe.

No, for me, it would be independent, third party, objective, dispassionate review and comment.

He had that.

He had that.

He did.

And everyone said it wasn't safe. He had people telling, there's people at Ocean Gate that said it wasn't safe.

Okay, okay, so third party, independent, dispassionate, review and approval, saying it's yes and approval.

That's. That's what would do it.

Look, if I want to go to space, I would go with Elon Musk. I would go with Jeff Bezos. I would go with, with Richard Branson. Branson. Because they're well funded and they have the resources and, and the expertise and the talent to do it safely. Right. But if you called me and said, hey, I built a rocket in my backyard, let's go, I'd be like, have a nice flight and maybe I'll see you if you come back. Stockton was more like you building a rocket in your backyard. Yeah.

See, I think this is so crucial because sometimes people come to me and they say, well, what could I have done to persuade the person? Well, the reality is, sometimes the situation dictates that a deal should have never been made. And really, when you think about the difficult conversation, you all comported yourself perfectly in this situation. When we think about what should have happened is that in order to persuade you, he would have had to do a lot of homework, probably over the course of many years to shore up your concerns, to eliminate the legitimate red flags. Then you would have been able to actually have a legitimate consideration of whether or not you would actually do it.

Yes. And also because he was so passionate about his position, he would get combative if anybody challenged his safety. So I didn't even open the door to a negotiation. What I did is in April, he asked me for dates in May, and then in May, those, those operations, the two dates that he gave me, postponed due to weather to the June 18 date. Of this, of this trip.

Yeah.

And I said, well, you know, even though the reason that we weren't going to go is safety concerns, I said, I have scheduling conflict. Let's revisit it next year. Because I knew if I raised safety concerns, it would just be an argument. Just be an argument. So I didn't even open the door for that negotiation because I knew that he was going to be combative and defensive. Yeah.

Right.

So I just, I just said, let's revisit it next year. Scheduling conflicts, two little notification, and let's look at next season. It's a seasonal thing, so he'd only do it, like, May, June, July. So I missed this year. Oh, well, there's always next year. Let's revisit it next year.

You know, one thing I found is that when we. When we have these difficult conversations in our business life, in our personal life, there are always opportunities, and there are opportunities to learn and grow. But in order to avail ourselves to those opportunities, we have to be humble. Now, what we're seeing here is there was a significant lack of humility on the other side. And a lot of times we focus so heavily on getting our point across, focusing on our agenda, winning on our terms, that we fail to realize that sometimes the other side has some very legitimate points that reveal something about ourselves that let us know that we are actually, in fact, the person who needs to change. And so he passed on that opportunity of education, which is really, really unfortunate in this situation.

Yeah, he, He. Because he was so passionate in his belief, in his position that he wouldn't even engage in the discussions. Just anybody who. So you have every industry expert saying, don't do it. And he said, none of you know what you're talking about. Yeah, there's. There's nobody that was supportive of what he was doing except for ph, who was the second person on the subway.

Yeah, yeah. No, there's. There's so much to learn here. So much to learn here. And I. I appreciate both of you for. For taking the time media tour to get the word out, because it's so important. And I feel like a lot of people struggle in these tough conversations, and you all have given us a really great example of how to stand up for yourself, set effective boundaries, and make good decisions because of it. So I appreciate that.

Yeah. For me, the takeaway is. This is my closing sentence in the post. Yeah. Tomorrow is not promised. Right. So today is. Today is really more valuable than most people realize. For every single one of us, there's going to come a time that tomorrow doesn't come. We don't know when that time is. So today is more important than people realize.

And live your life to the fullest, because tomorrow is never promised. Live your life to the fullest.

But if you do these experiences that involve risk, take calculated risk, do it.

Safely, do your research, do your homework, look into it.

Absolutely, Jay.

Exactly.

Yeah. Yes. And again, people fall under that pressure. They fold under that pressure, those bullying tactics, too. So, again, another important element of this message. So, Jay, Sean, really appreciate you taking the time today. Thank you.

Anytime. Super nice to meet you.

Likewise. Cool, man. Y' all are awesome.

So are you.

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