The 3 Skills Every Great Negotiator Has (And Most People Ignore) - Reverse Interview

Hey, I'm Kwame Christian, and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world, where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process. Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts. We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and and in life. Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, Negotiate Anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed. Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly, rooted in practicality. So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on Negotiate Anything. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen to. Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.

Kwame, thank you ever so much for joining me on Higgle, the B2B Sales Club podcast. It's a real, real pleasure to have you.

Hey, Mike, great to be here. Thanks for having me.

I'm thoroughly looking forward to this. So, to our listeners that have tuned in, Kwame is a very unusual guest in all of my guests in terms of truly a globally recognized negotiator on the world stage. I'll let you introduce yourself in a second. But I was fortunate enough to be on Kwame's show, and so, yeah, this is a kind of reciprocal podcast, and anyone listening, really tune in because Kwame's got amazing, amazing insights into the world of negotiation. So without further ado, who are you? What do you do? And something unusual about yourself.

Oh, this is great. Well, Mike, again, thank you for having me. Massive respect for everything that you've done and this platform as well.

Thank you.

And so my name is Kwame Christian. I'm the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute and host of the number one negotiation podcast in the world, Negotiate Anything. And it's number one only because we have great guests like Mike who come in.

You're very kind, Kwame. You're very kind.

But it's been so much fun, man, because we're at about 1500 episodes of the podcast. We've been doing this for going on nine years. And it's been great to democratize the content because for the longest time, it was just limited to folks in the ivory tower, big business, academic institutions, and a lot of people don't have access to this information. But everybody's negotiating every single day. And my maybe naive belief is that the more people that we can help have difficult conversations, the better the world would be. Because for me, I believe that the greatest threat to humanity is our inability to resolve conflict. As technology improves, our ability to communicate and resolve conflicts just devolves exponentially. And so for me, there's a passion behind this. I want to help people to live the best version of their lives. And so our motto is, we believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. So I want to help the world to be a better place, one difficult conversation at a time. And then as far as the. The odd little note. Yeah. The unusual thing about you, I think we could. We can share this to the two sides of me. So one side, I'm a nerd. As you can tell, I love.

I'm definitely a nerd. Absolutely.

So I. I've played 20,000. Over. 20,000 games of online chess, and I got to a rating of over, like, the 99th percentile in chess dot com.

Wow.

So that is. That is one side. And then on the other side, my wife and I, we love powerlifting. And so that's been something that has been really great. I realized I started to get in shape for the TED Talk, and then I was like, well, the TED Talk's done. Let me keep on going.

Yeah.

And so we started to just keep on lifting and lifting. And so now I got to a point where last year, my. I was able to deadlift 505 pounds. So that's the biggest lift. So. So we got the. We have the gym bro and the nerd combined into one.

Oh, my goodness me. I would never have guessed that you were a powerlifter. Never have guessed that.

Wow. I look civilized with the suit on.

You've got your suit on. You can't tell. That's remarkable. And it's an audio first podcast, so people won't be able to see you either, but they'll see the snippets.

And Mike, to that point, I realized that people did not realize that. You know, they just. They see me, like, always in suits. It's audio only and everything like that. And so they are. They're coding me based on, like, hey, he's an adjunct professor. He's a negotiation expert. He talks about chess all the time.

Yeah.

And then they see me in person. They. I've gotten that a number of times. Like, oh, yeah. Did not expect that.

So, Kwame, without further ado, let's get into the first kind of question. So I've kind of titled this a masterclass in negotiations with Kwame. So the first kind of Broad topic. How did you get into negotiations in the first place? And then what did it take to become a LinkedIn Top Voice with over 119,000 followers?

Yeah. Ooh, this is great, Mike. And I think what's fun for me about negotiation is I think about it like mixed martial arts, but the peaceful version, you know, because sometimes people get into MMA because they're boxers, sometimes they're wrestlers. They might be kickboxers or they're into jiu jitsu, but then they all meet at the same place. And I think that's how it is with negotiation experts. Everybody has a different path. Sales, procurement, hostage negotiation, business excellence, academia. Everybody comes in with a different background, and that colors their experience.

Yes.

And I feel like I'm rare in this because I came to this because I was really bad at this. You know, I was. I was a people please.

Find that hard to believe.

Well, that's the thing, and that's what makes it inspiring, Mike, because for me, I was a people pleaser for the majority of my life. Couldn't stand up for myself, couldn't have these tough conversations. And it wasn't until I came into law school and I stumbled into a negotiation course that I realized that this was a skill, not a talent. You can actually get better at it. So for me, this whole journey was, for me, going from people pleaser to confident negotiator. And the question is how? So once I recognize that negotiation was a tool that I could use and improve, I became obsessed with it. So after we did that course, I had the opportunity to participate in a negotiation competition at the school. So Ohio State University, their Moritz College of Law, they actually have the number one dispute resolution program in the country and so competed in their negotiation competition. My partner and I, we won that competition. That gave us an opportunity to represent the school at the American Bar association competition in Ottawa, Ontario. And we won that, too. And so I was hooked, because for me, it was every time I had these conversations and stood up for myself and asserted myself effectively, it was a vote of confidence for the man I ultimately want to become. But then I realized, I wait a second. I see so much more of life now. I can have more of what I want. I have better relationships. I'm able to set boundaries. I'm able to advocate for what I actually deserve and get it. I wonder how many other people in the world have been living limited lives because they don't know how to approach this. And so for me, it's really fun to be able to work with great negotiators and take them to the next level, negotiating multimillion dollars and sometimes billion dollar deals. But what's more like heartwarming for me is when somebody listens to the podcast, when they listen to the TED Talk, they listen to the get the books, and they realize, you know, I didn't think that I could do it, but because of what I learned from you, I can.

Amazing. And I mean, I know we negotiate with our children all the time and I know when I'm being a good parent, and I'm not always a good parent, I sometimes I shout at my child and, you know, things happen and you, you, you lose your sense of I'm here to help. And I know when I am in that great space and I ask questions rather than give answers to a 12 year old, you get very, very interesting responses. And that's part of negotiation, the art of asking questions and breathing and taking a step back.

I feel like questions are the hidden weapon for all negotiators. It shouldn't be hidden anymore. And that's why the framework is compassionate curiosity, the one that I develop.

Yep.

And for me, as same with parenting. I have a nine year old and a three year old and I do most of my parenting through questions. And so my goal is to parent to the point where my kids can make good decisions without me.

Exactly.

Because if I just keep on telling them what to do, telling them what to think all the time, then when I'm gone, they haven't really absorbed anything. But if we use more of that Socratic method, ask them, what are you thinking? What were you trying to accomplish in those type of things? Most of the time they can get to the right answer. And usually if they don't get to the right answer, it's because they're still mad.

Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Yeah. Normally we had this conversation and then normally he walks away feeling a bit irritated. And then two or three days later he comes back and goes, I've been thinking about this dad. And what I thought is X, Y and Z. And that I think, yeah, it's heartwarming when that happens.

Absolutely.

So how did you get to be a LinkedIn top voice? What kind of happened? Because people out there will be fascinated.

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 arts with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed for sure. And there's a lot that we can learn from this too. Because let's start off back when I started on LinkedIn, like coming straight out of college, straight out of law school in my master's program. My goal at that point in 2013 was to get to this miraculous level. Because at LinkedIn, you at a certain level it shows every follower that you have. But then eventually you get to over 500 and it would just say over 500. And I said, yes, that's right, man, one of these days I'm going to get over 500 followers.

Well, you certainly achieved that.

We did it. So I was just trying to connect with people and everything like that. So that was level one. Then level two was okay, I want to try to get better at this. How do I get better? How do I grow this followership? So I'm said, I'm going to be as helpful as I can. And for me, having three degrees and then teaching at the law school, I approach this from a very academic perspective. So it's like I spend a lot of time in school. And then I taught at the MBA level and the law school level and I was teaching high level professionals too, starting the consulting. And so I would approach it in a very academic way. And I'm like, this is flawless. It's like a research paper, but smaller. This is going to shock you, Mike. People didn't care. People were not interested. And I was like, it's technically so sound. And I remember seeing this video where an influencer was saying, hey, do you have a problem where somebody where people aren't like following you and engaging with your stuff and commenting and liking. I was like, yeah, that's me. And he's like, it's because your content sucks. Make it better. And I was like, oh my gosh, how do I, how do I fix this? And so it wasn't until I did the TED Talk that I understood what the problem was. So when I did the TED Talk the first time, I went through it with the folks who were putting it on, they said, well, everything was technically very good, but it sounded kind of like a workshop, like a professor talking. I was like, yes, that's what I was going to ask. I Sounded professor professorial. That's fantastic. But, like, that's not good. It's not good. I said, the people who are going to listen to this are just everyday people. They're not academics. They want to know immediately what, what the problem is, how they can solve it. And they want to be entertained throughout the process. If they, if there's any friction in how hard it is for them to grasp this, you're going to lose them. And so I, I had to let go. That was the first time on stage in front of 1200 people on the TED Talk, where I actually was a little bit more of my authentic self. I was terrified of it, Mike. I thought I had to be this very professorial, academic, tactical person.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

And then when I said, oh, my gosh, I can be successful being myself, let me try more of that. And every time I start to be more authentic, I get immediate returns because people like who you are as a person, and then they'll trust you and your, Your advice from there. So I started to slowly build, started cold outreach. People not even asking for things, but just saying, hey, I see you're in sales. Hey, I see you're in procurement. Hey, I see you're in real estate. I share free negotiation tips. I'm just connecting with you so you could have access. And so from there, honing the message, improving the content and the quality of the content, that helped me to grow in that way. And then LinkedIn took notice, and I was able to create some LinkedIn learning courses. And then people started to flow my way through the courses. And so now we're at a point where we have almost 120,000 people following me. But we've had over 2 million people go through our over 40 LinkedIn learning courses. And so it is a confluence of different strategies. And then the last thing is just recognizing that each platform is different, the algorithm is different, the culture is different. What works on one thing will not work on another, and vice versa. And a lot of times the audience doesn't follow. So I remember one time a couple years ago, I made a post, a poll, because I wanted to see how people found me. And so I said, okay, so did you. Did you find me through the book? Did you find me through the TED Talk? Did you find me through. Through just here on LinkedIn? And then the last one was, no, the podcast. And then the last option was, I didn't even know you had a podcast, like a joke. And 50% of people said, I didn't even know you had a podcast. I was here thinking, I have the number one negotiation podcast in the world. That has to be how people are finding me. No, it's not. The majority of people on LinkedIn found me through LinkedIn learning. They don't know about the podcast. They don't even know about the American Negotiation Institute. They just know this guy who taught this course.

So that's very interesting. Yeah, the LinkedIn learning, it's because it's all the content on LinkedIn. On the LinkedIn learning, it's a very high quality. It's free, which is fantastic. And they're a great, great training program. To fact, I've got one queued up. I hadn't thought that. I hadn't thought that. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And that brings with it a huge engagement and then people follow you for more, etc. So, next question. Talk to me about the amygdala hijack. What is it? Why does it happen? And how can embracing conflict resolve that?

Yes. So this is one of my favorite concepts because at the end of the day, when it comes to negotiation, the. The. You are not going to be a good negotiator, no matter how good your skills are, if you can't manage your emotions.

Yes.

Right. And so the amygdala hijack is when the limbic system, the. And. And the amygdala within it becomes inflamed. The amygdala is the epicenter of emotion. So positive, negative, all emotions come from that anytime you feel the amygdala is involved. And so we have to compare that with the. Or contrast that rather with the frontal lobe, which is the most evolved part of the brain, where you have logical reasoning, emotion management. This is where the executive function is located as well. And so the key thing to understand is that there's an antagonistic relationship between the amygdala and the frontal lobe. So the more emotional you are, the less clearly you're thinking. The more clearly you're thinking, the less emotional you are. It's an either or proposition. So we have to be very mindful about managing our own emotions so we can actually think clearly and do what's required of us under the circumstances. And we also need to be mindful of lowering the emotional temperature of the room for the other person understanding. We cannot eliminate the emotionality, but we can get it to a point where it's manageable so we can move forward. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't make sense to send a message to a person who's not Psychologically or emotionally ready to receive it. You can say the right thing at the wrong time. And if the amygdala is firing, they can't even have the cognitive resources to process it effectively.

Is that why it's so important? I mean, I. Wow. Back in the day, I was taught, and I teach other people that you, as procurement people, were trained often to be emotionally detached. And a lot of people that I trained say, but that's outrageous. Where's the passion gone? I said, it's not about that. It's not about me not being passionate about my company or about the work I'm doing or about the results we can create together. It's about being present at the negotiating table, being well prepared, well thought through, thinking about all the trades that I want to make, because if I get overly emotional, all of that gets blocked out. Does that kind of make sense?

Yes, absolutely. Because we're not saying become a robot or an automaton. It's. We need to be mindful of putting ourselves in the best position to succeed. So I'll give an example so we can use.

Examples are great.

Different. I like using sports because we have performance, but we. We also have sports psychology that's often left out of the discussion. And so we understand in the Western world, we have this idea of clutch. Somebody who performs exceptionally well under pressure. They rise to the occasion. So imagine like a footballer who's hitting the penalty kick. Okay, cool. They make the shot, but why do they miss? Isn't that an interesting one? Because they've made this thousands of times before. It's not a question of whether or not they have the skill. The issue is that the. They don't bring the skills to the table under pressure or duress. So there are these studies that demonstrate that our idea of what is clutch is misunderstood. It's a myth. As we understand it. The best performers, the best athletes, they don't improve in pressure situations. They stay exactly the same, and everybody else gets worse.

Right.

And so I love to bring that to negotiation, too, because when you think about it, I. The skills of negotiation are really quite simple. So, for instance, one of the things that I wanted to do was analyze with all of these great experts that we've had on the podcast, what is it that people like you who have a background in procurement and sales, people who have hostage negotiation backgrounds, people who are relationship therapists, school teachers, like all of these different paths to persuasion. What are they all saying the same way? Like they're saying the same thing, but they're saying it differently. Right. So it led us to two discoveries and a creation. Discovery number one. The best negotiators adapt and flow. So they'll prepare, but they're not going to be rigid. They're going to embrace surprise, they're going to be curious, and they're going to navigate through the conversation. Right. You can never perfectly predict the conversation. Right. And then the next thing is you only need three core skills to be a good negotiator. That's it, just three. And any tactic that you implement is some kind of combination of those skills applied at the right time. That's it. So skill number one, become a better listener. Skill number two, ask better questions. And skill number three is become better at managing emotions. Both yours and the other side's, all framed through continuous improvement, because there's no such thing as perfection on any of those dimensions. You can always get better. So the thing is, if you bring somebody just off the streets, untrained, at some point in their lives, they listened effectively, at some point in their lives, they ask the good question, at some point in their lives, they manage their emotions.

Yep.

And at some point in their lives, they manage other people's emotions. The problem is, why can't you do that under duress?

Right.

And so we need to understand the anatomy of these conversations. So that's where the negotiation skills come into play. But again, more importantly, we have to be able to manage our emotions so we can be our best selves under duress. If not, we're going to be a victim of the moment and we're not going to be able to perform. And so that is what we, we need to pay attention to. It's just making sure that we can manage our emotions, fight back against that amygdala hijack. And most importantly, it starts with awareness. Because one of the most dangerous things, Mike, is when you are upset, emotional feeling, the, the. The amygdala hijack, but not recognizing it and thinking that, oh, this thing that I decided to say out of nowhere, that was completely unplanned and is a vicious attack on the other side, I'm doing that logically, that's a dangerous place to be. But once you can start to separate fact from, from feeling and emotional thought from strategic, logical thought, now we can take that first step to managing our emotions under duress.

And I think I love the three. The three basic principles. I think they're completely and utterly true. Absolutely. And I think one thing I'd add is the way that we cultivate consistency around those three areas. Doing Role plays, even simple role plays, whereby whatever situation in business or personal, trying it out with a friend, just try out what you're going to say and how you're going to say it and ask your friend to react in different ways and see what happens, see how you feel and sit with that feeling.

I agree. I think it's so powerful, Mike. And the thing is, when I would tell people to do that, they'd be like, oh, I don't want to bother my friends. Oh, it's so hard to coordinate. Now, if you can manage to scrounge up $20, you can do it all the time. With ChatGPT, I don't know if you use the voice feature, but it's exceptional because I've done in front of my class. I've shown how you could use it for role plays. And so I'd say, okay, let's do this. Here's the simulation. And then go back and forth. It goes back with very little lag back and forth. And then what I would say is, hey, listen, Chad, GPT, the person that I'm going up against, they are mean, they are disrespectful, they're slightly narcissistic, and they are aggressive. They interrupt all the time. So I want you to be more like that. And so then it's like, okay, got it. So what is the purpose of this meeting, Kwame? No, I don't have time for that. And it starts to get really aggressive, and it's a truly good role play. And then you could say after the role play, be my negotiation coach and tell. Tell me how I did. What should I do differently? Mike, there is no excuse to not do role plays before your conversations anymore.

Absolutely. And that's an amazing tip. That's that, yeah, fantastic, fantastic tip for the audience is to use ChatGPT to do that. It's, yeah. Outstanding. I would say. So conscious of your time. Next question. You talk a lot about making difficult conversations easier. So do you want to explain the kind of the core principles behind doing that effectively and why it's so important?

Yeah, I think what we have to do is understand the skills that are required. And we talked about that, but also simplifying how we put that into practice, because I have a very kind of Zen approach to negotiation. So what I've recognized is that when it comes to most of us in the negotiation field, the sales field, whatever it happens to be when we're giving these really robust topics and tactics and strategies, these strategies are not optimized for the real world. They're just not. Because us, the very few who are the negotiation nerds who would prepare and go through the seven elements from Harvard, we're going to go through our little negotiation toolkit. I know the American Negotiation Institute produces one and everything. The majority of people are not going to do that. No, they're not.

I've got a negotiation template, Kwame. I give it to my clients. I know 90% of them go, oh, it looks good. And I get it. They just don't fill it in.

They're not exactly. They're just not going to do it. And so for the last, what, 30 years in the field, we've been talking about the perfect way to do it without recognizing that it just, it will not happen. You know, and it's not even an issue of convincing people, they, they're like, oh, yeah, for sure. I know I would negotiate better if I took this amount of time and went through all of this. For sure. I'm not going to do it. No, that's. They're busy, right. So I wanted to be more practical. So for me, from the discoveries that we had from the over 1500 episodes, I wanted to. It led us to create compassionate curiosity and make it more robust. So it's a mental model that allows you to flow through any difficult conversation whether you're at work or at home. So I use it with my, my kids, I use it with my wife. I use it when I'm negotiating six figure deals for the American Negotiation Institute and consulting on multimillion dollar deals, too. It is the foundation. And the majority of our conversations, probably 90 to 95% of it can be handled exclusively through compassionate curiosity. Than if it's more technical and complex, we can sprinkle in a little bit more on top of it. So I'll give two quotes and then I'll get into it. So quote number one, Leonardo da Vinci. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And so I want to make this as simple as possible without being simplistic, because I know that under duress, people aren't going to put together a complicated strategy. But if you give them something really simple that they can hold on to now, it makes it more likely for them to actually use it.

Absolutely.

Bruce Lee said, I don't fear the man who knows 10,000 kicks. I fear the man who has practiced.

One kick 10,000 times.

And this is a great quote, right? And it makes so much sense here because here, with compassionate curiosity, it's never a question of whether or not it applies. It's just A question of how. And so it allows you to make the right read and know what to say and when to say it for maximum impact. So it's a three step process.

Yep, that's kind of number one.

If we recognize that there are challenging emotions in the room, we're going to acknowledge and validate the emotions. So simply just label the emotion. Emotional labeling, validating, letting them know that we understand where they're coming from and going through that process until the emotional temperature goes down. So we can see, okay, the amygdala is quieting and the frontal lobe is activating. That's what we're looking for. And then the second step is getting curious with compassion. So asking open ended questions with a compassionate tone. That's why I called it compassionate curiosity, because the tone matters when it comes to building trust. Like a lawyer doing a cross examination, I guess technically is compassionate, is curious, but certainly not going to not compassionate at all and not going to get the vulnerability because they can't create the psychological safety. And then the last step is using joint problem solving. So it's not me versus you, it's you and me versus the problem. And we're going to use future focused problem solving where grammatically we're going to focus on a future oriented conversation. Because a lot of mistrust, judgment, resentment and anger exist in the past. So shifting that tense to the future helps us. So if there's no emotional challenge, then we just skip to step two. If we're in step three and emotions come up, we then go to step one. It's very flexible and when you see it, there's nothing truly revolutionary about it. It's the things that we've known in psychology and negotiation for a long time, labeling, curiosity and working together, but putting it into a flow so people can actually identify it in a conversation and know what to say and when to say it. And then the last thing that's powerful is that it is designed for external negotiations as well as internal negotiations. So before the conversation, if I'm triggered and emotional, I'm going through the same framework. I'm labeling my own emotions. I'm getting curious with self directed compassion to figure out why I feel the way that I feel. And then I'm figuring out using step three, what should I actually do that is fair to me and my emotions and satisfies my emotional need while at the same time addressing the problem. So it's a dual framework, but again with a simplicity of just three steps every time.

So that idea of simplicity after you've thought through the complexity, I think is very important, and it's memorable. You can remember it, you can apply it. So again, anyone that's listening, and you've got negotiation coming up. If you do know the preparation, then just think that model through. Then you'll be 10x ahead of where you were before. Question for you, Kwame. Not a trick question, a curious question. Yeah. Because I face this a lot, and my clients face it a lot. In step three, when you try and collaborate, some counterparties don't want to collaborate. So, for example, in procurement, sometimes we. We actually don't want to collaborate. What we want to do is we want to get to an answer quickly if it's a commodity buy, and I want to apply undue pressure to the supplier, which probably is unreasonable, but it's a tactic. So how do you deal with that kind of tactic as a counterparty when they're like, I get what you're saying, Kwabi, but actually, let's not collaborate around this. What I need is X, Y and Z. My demands are X, Y, and Z. What happens next?

Incredible. And so, Mike, this is one of those times where I go back into the repository of episodes and I'm like, who do I have on the podcast that could help me through and answer this question? I remember there was this incredibly brilliant man from the UK who came in and taught me about the difference between, like, commodity buys and other buys in procurement, of course. And so I'm. I'm ready for this. I'm ready for this. So.

So it's a great. Thank you.

It's a great question. Because here's the thing. We think we. We often don't recognize just how powerful negotiation is. We just jump into the negotiation, trying to use it just as a negotiation tool. But again, that's why we called the podcast Negotiate Anything. You should negotiate the process. Right. So I'm going to try to negotiate the process. So I'm going to try to find a human that I can connect with and just say, hey, I have a quick question about this. I'm going to go in, gather information, start to build trust, get them to like me. Right? And then I'm going to say, hey, I'm about to fill out this bid. I just have a couple of questions. When it comes to this, would you be open to just a quick conversation on this? Okay, cool. And so then I'm going to say, okay, hey, I can tell that this is a big. A big challenge for you. You're fielding a lot of bids, so I really appreciate you taking the time, acknowledge and validate the emotions they're feeling. Pressure and tension, like, this person is wasting my time. I'm going to, I'm going to acknowledge that just like any other emotion. Oh, he gets it. He sees me.

Cool.

I see them. Relax. I move to step two. And so I'm going to say, when it comes to this, what are your goals? Like, what is it that you really want to accomplish? What's something that is not on paper that internally drives you insane that I could help you with right now? Okay, so now we're about to finish up the bid. I don't want to waste your time. And I know you get a lot of these nonsense bids that just don't miss them, don't make the mark at all. I want to get an idea of what I can do in this bid to make it more of a win for you. What are some other things that you're looking for just outside of what's stated there? Okay. And so now they don't even know it's a negotiation. Mike, there's one word I have never said in a negotiation, and that is the word negotiation.

Yes.

No, I'm not going to let you put your guard up. Absolutely not. Right. And so they don't even realize that this is a negotiation.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Absolutely. You're basically, you're reframing as well.

That's it. That's it. And you see, again, with these purchases, we're talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Right. And again, I'm not going in saying, okay, I'm going to use bracketing here, I'm going to use anchoring here. Like, I understand how to utilize those things.

Exactly.

And if. If I need to, I will. But what I found is like, honestly, for a nerd like me, Mike was exceptionally disappointing. I wanted to find something with the complexity and beauty of, like, the, like, Michelangelo. I want to see something like that. But the findings were so refreshingly simple that I just started to actually put it into practice myself. I'm like, it can't possibly be right. And so in my negotiations at home, at work, I'm putting it into practice. I'm like, like, damn, it worked again. That's it. And it's beautiful. And the thing is, too, when you want to layer on those higher level negotiation techniques and you have that in your bag, then use it. But use compassionate curiosity first to create the conditions for persuasion. Because there are a lot of times where you might see somebody who's like a novice salesperson, a novice Negotiator saying, I did this, I used this tactic. And they just did not. It didn't work for me. I keep on using it. It didn't work. It's like, did you, you just said hi and then slapped them with a tactic. You know, you didn't establish a relationship, you didn't build trust, you didn't gather information, you didn't, you're shooting your shot and you don't even know where the target is. And so you haven't created the conditions for persuasion. So compassionate curiosity still should be your first step. Even when you want to layer in higher level techniques because you want to create that connection, you want to lower defenses. And now they're more ripe for persuasion.

So call me, I have got, I've got a final question, but I'm going to junk the final question. Like all great podcasts, you find things through the exploration. So just two things. One, talk very briefly about trust. 30 seconds on trust.

Yeah, trust is a positive bias. That's what people don't get, you know, it's a positive bias. So when you think about whether or not you trust somebody, it happens in an instant, right? I don't need to think deeply about whether or not I trust somebody. I feel that. So the mechanisms of creating the trust are very consistent. Right. So we have credibility and reliability extended over time and that's going to be subtracted by the amount of self interest that you have. So if I'm super selfish and everybody knows it, it's very hard for me to be trusted because they're like, you don't care about me or my situation or anything. You just care about yourself. It takes away from trust. So if you can show that you are competent and then you show up, you do what you say you're going to do, you have consistency in word and deed and you can actually sprinkle in the revolutionary fact that you actually care about the person and their goals. And you just do that over an extended period of time, you're going to generate trust. And the thing is, would I rather be an expert negotiator with all of the negotiation techniques in the world or a guy who can build trust and have conversations? The person who can just build trust and have conversation is going to outperform the expert negotiator because they're on focused, far too tactical. We don't understand how powerful trust is. And if you use compassionate curiosity over time, especially when it comes to resolving conflict, you're going to turn these into opportunities to connect and build trust in.

The process we're going to finish there. Kwame, I can't think of a better way to end a podcast, possibly, than what you've just said. Kwame, it's been really as I knew it would be. It's been amazing. You've shared practical tips, you've shared strategies, frameworks, really simple frameworks based upon thousands of hours of insight, and those are always the best. So hopefully, listeners, you've picked up some practical things you can take away. And I'm very grateful to Kwame for the time he's taken today. So thank you very much indeed.

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