Tools and Strategies for Confronting Bosses and Speaking in Meetings - Reverse Interview by Tari Murwira

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide, and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Tari, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you so much, Kwame. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah. And we are excited to have you, my friend. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Thank you. So my name is Tari Mudwira. I'm originally from Zimbabwe. I've been an immigrant of Canada for close to eight years now. And I've worked mostly in the nonprofit field. I have a passion for working with newcomers, so immigrants, refugees, and supporting people of color in their journey. The work I've done has been broad in events, research, really finding actionable ways to bring change into our communities. I am the founder of the Elevate Hub, and at the Elevate Hub, we seek to bridge the gap between women and their opportunities and their goals. So we look to bring on mentors, coaches, teachers to really give women that learning that will help them elevate their careers and professional lives.

That's great. That's great. And it's really important work. So we appreciate you doing that. One of the things that I'm excited to talk to you about is your origin story. As it relates to negotiation, because negotiation wasn't always part of what you do. So let's start there, and then for the audience, what we'll do is just kind of setting the stage here. We're going to talk about. About the value of negotiation and how it can help you to change your life or since Elevate Hub is your organization, how negotiation can elevate your life. Who knows, maybe that might be the title of this episode. So, yeah, how about you tell the listeners how you got started with your fascination with negotiation.

Sure. So maybe just a little bit of background. At Elevate Hub, we have done events on personal finance, real estate, personal development, conflict resolution. So, you know, skills that help a woman to elevate kind of holistically right in her career. And I think where negotiation started for me was about a year, two years ago when I wanted to buy a car. So I found myself in the car market, scouring Facebook marketplace websites, looking for my perfect match. And I was so lucky to have a brother who was able to support me in this process. Someone who had more experience purchasing cars and had more understanding about finding a good deal. So we went to a dealership, him and I. And I remember he had to park the car and he stayed in the car for a little bit in the parking lot. And I went inside. And initially it was just me and the car salesman. And I didn't realize it then, but I was entering my first negotiation or my first high stakes negotiation, and I was of. I was under prepared. I was caught off guard. I was tongue tied. I didn't know what to say. And I remember this salesman realized then and there that, hey, I'm dealing with a rookie. And he was bulldozing over me. I was being rushed to sign the papers. I was being rushed to pick a certain car, pick a certain option. And at that moment, I felt voiceless. I felt like I could only say yes because this was what I was being offered and it was the best I could get. And sometimes that's what happens when you've scoured maybe different options and you haven't found anything that fits. Sometimes you just find yourself feeling as if whatever is offered is what you should take and what you should get. Then enter big brother. And you know, my brother is an amazing guy. Look up to him. And I remember he came into the dealership and immediately took over the conversation when he saw the numbers they were trying to make me sign. And that was when I was witness to my first negotiation. I saw him essentially negotiate the asking price down by close to $2,000. And I saw it happening in increments. He started off with talking about why it should be lowered, giving all his options. And I found that he didn't seem needy. He didn't seem as if he was desperate for it. And he put his foot down that we can leave if we don't get the deal we want. I thought that he was so bold to do that, because I was like, whoa. In my heart, when he was talking like that, I was like, yo, I want this car. Don't lose this opportunity for me. But he continued, and, you know, the next phase of the negotiation was watching the junior salesman essentially leave and get his boss because he felt that he was being, you know, kind of negotiated out, right? So enter the manager. And what I found was the manager immediately met my brother with such respect, and they started a strong back and forth, right? And it was almost as if they were arguing, but it was more so. Both of them were anchoring. Both of them were adamant. And what I found was they started referring to the car as my brother's car. So when he was talking, when we ended up driving out and getting the car, he said, yeah, this is the car for that tall gentleman over there. So it seemed as if by him being able to negotiate so well, we left with them associating that car and that buy with him more than anything else. And afterwards, when I was sharing this to my girlfriends, when I was sharing this to my friends and community, they said to me, well, Tari, why would. Well, first of all, it's not good for women to go to the dealerships by themselves or to go to these types of negotiations by themselves, because you'll find yourself getting a bad deal, having people that want to weasel you. And I found that it just didn't sit well with me because I thought to myself, well, this is important for us as women to learn. This is important for every woman to learn. And I'll never forget when we were in the car driving off, I asked my brother, wow, how did you know to do that? And he looked at me and said, who? I read this book called. I read this book by Chris Voss on negotiation. And since that day, I realized that everything that he knew I could learn. And I was so grateful that he was willing to share those resources with me so I could learn. And that's the message that I'm hoping women can get, is that everything that you don't know can be made accessible to you by meeting with the right people, learning the right tools, and that's why I reached out to you, Kwame, and Negotiate anything, because I saw your platform and I said, wow, there is value here. And I'd like to just sit down and glean because I think that there are powerful things that we can learn from this conversation.

Oh, that is great, Tari. Now you can tell your big brother that you've been on the same negotiation podcast as Chris Voss. He was a guest on the pod a while back.

Wow.

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 professional professionals with top tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands on training for your team, we've got you covered. Don't just negotiate. Master the art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate, and succeed. I think this is a great example of so many different things. Just first of all, the empowering nature of negotiation. Well, it's not just the fact that you negotiate for yourself. You actually get something, but you feel better. You feel better about yourself. When you advocate for yourself and stand up for what you believe in, and you stand up for what you want and you believe you deserve. That's important. So I tell people in negotiation, I think if you approach it the right way, you can't lose. There are certain times, of course, where you do not get what your stated objective is. But if you can end the negotiation, respect yourself in the process, you win. If you end the negotiation and you say to yourself, I did what I could and I did the best I could under the circumstances, then you win. And if you end the negotiation and take it as a practice session and you actually improve during the process, you win. So you can win every single negotiation, even if you're not getting the outcome that you wanted specifically in that situation. And so I kind of. I want to go deeper in this too, because that was your first experience. Now, as somebody who negotiates regularly and encourages other people that you work with, your stakeholders, the women that you serve, you encourage them to negotiate, how has your life changed?

Yes. So I think after learning about negotiation, what it's done is it's essentially empowered me and given me agency. And I think that there's a narrative of hopelessness that we can fall into when we don't have the tools and we don't have the knowledge. And I think especially as an immigrant, there, there might be barriers that we face and it's things like, well, they might not give me the job because of where I come from. I might not get this because of who I am. But when you learn these tools, I think what it does is it makes you grab hold of life and it gives you access. So I feel that now, wherever I am, whether that's at a job or something that I want, I look at it as how can I negotiate my way to that? How can I find a way to advocate for my value at the table, advocate for the value of other women at the table? And what does that look like?

Oh, that's great. I love it.

I was listening to actually one of your past podcasts and you talk about the Big five personality test. And it's interesting because as someone who has a psych background, I'm really curious about that aspect of your work because I recognize that as women, we actually, our research has shown that women rank higher in terms of agreeableness and men actually have higher disagreeableness on the converse. And what the research shows is that this is part of why women are paid less, because men are less likely to agree to a price or a value that they're not comfortable with. Because of the agreeableness of women, we are able to put up with a price of a car that is inflated, put up with scenarios or things where we leave with the short end of the stick because we don't necessarily have the awareness of what negotiation looks like. So I guess my question to you is how can women navigate this? And you also talk about being a former people pleaser, and that can oftentimes be in line with agreeableness. So how can we overcome this kind of this aspect or this barrier to being effective negotiators?

This is really tough and it's going to take a lot of work, but it's definitely doable. So first I want to start off by encouraging people that, hey, you can change in order to get the outcomes that you want. That's the first thing. And in my first book, Finding Confidence in Conflict, it was all about overcoming those mental and psychological barriers to success, whatever it happens to be. And for me, when it came to overcoming that people pleaser mentality, I had to figure out where that came from, what was my origin story, what was I telling myself and then really leaning into that discomfort, what types of interactions are giving me the most stress, what Are those? And where does it come from? And so what I started to do was lean into these conversations and create situations where I was forced to have the conversations more frequently. So I'm not saying that I started being combative unnecessarily. I wasn't going out there trying to cause problems. But every time there was a situation where I could advocate for myself, where in the past I would have let it go, I would take that as an opportunity to get a little bit stronger. One of the things that I suggested doing was rejection therapy. I got this from a TED talk, I think it was called 100 days of rejection, where an entrepreneur said that he was struggling with the fear of rejection. That was the thing that was holding him back. And I realized that was what it was for me. I was afraid of being rejected and feeling alone like I did when I was younger in my childhood. And so he said, all right, so my goal is for the next 100 days, I am going to ask for things that I do not believe I will get. And so for him, what ended up happening was he started to get a lot more wins. He was out there trying to be rejected, and he was getting what he wanted. So he recognized that. He started to ask for more extreme things and he would start to get it. And the same thing happened to me when I was doing it. And I just started to. Started to realize, wait, what kind of life have I been living all this time? What have I been doing? Because I'm realizing that there are two lives. The lives we're currently living and then the life we could live if we start to overcome our fears and do what we're afraid of doing. And my life is a lot better now. And the thing is, I think this is important to realize, Tari, that for me, I still feel that in the back of my head, I still feel that voice saying, no, don't say anything. Let this one go. I still feel that. But now I don't take that as a truth. I don't take that as a mandate within myself. Oh, that. The weakness inside of me said, hold back. So I'm going to hold back. I hear it and I use it as a go. It is a go signal, not a stop. And so whenever I hear that in that little voice inside of me, that's still that. People pleaser. Now. I've trained myself to say, well, now I have to ask for it. That's the rule. That is the rule. If I feel any fear, I'm like, no, it's still in there. I Have to hold, overcome it. But, I mean, you know, it takes time. It takes time, but my ability to negotiate, recognizing negotiation is a skill, not a talent. And the better I get in negotiation, the better I get at self advocacy, like, the more confident I got in this process. So it takes time, it takes effort. But I want everybody out there listening to believe that once you're able to master it and overcome it, your life changes for the better.

Kwame, I love what you're saying, because I think it speaks to common fear that maybe women may have of looking like the bad guy, seeming to be too aggressive in conversation. Because, as you know, how women present themselves has a lot of stakes in what they get and how they're seen at the table. And I like the fact that you mentioned that negotiation doesn't mean that you're aggressive. And, you know, I know on the spectrum, there's aggressive communication, there's passive communication, and right in the middle, there's assertive communication where you're not yelling, you're not in an argument. You're just maintaining your desired value in that conversation. And I think it reminds me of a little story where. So I had a sibling that was actually cat sitting. They're babysitting a friend's cat, and I visited them. And I remember curious situation. So the cat, my sibling had, like, a strong rule that the cat is not allowed on the couch. It's not allowed to jump on the couch if I'm lying or taking a nap on the couch. And I thought this was a super weird rule. And I think in the beginning, I was like, well, it's a cat. Like, just love it. And then I'll never forget, my sibling said, no, if you let it do that, it will disrespect you. You think you're showing it love, but that behavior will continue. I kid you not. When I was over there, my sibling would be lying on the couch. The cat would not jump or disturb it when they were taking a nap in the middle of the night. If it found me on the couch, it would jump on me and scratch me and do a couple of things. And I think what it taught me was I was the person that was cuddling it and not asserting any boundaries. And because of that, I mistook. I mistook that for love. And I missed out on respect. And I saw in a previous podcast that you had where you talked about speaking to your mentor and struggling with kind of the people pleasing aspect and your mentor telling you, hey, there's a difference between pleasing and respect, because relationship Dynamics aren't maintained and aren't improved when there isn't respect. So kind of in that same vein, how can women create boundaries where you are still maintaining that level of corporate respect in the conversation? You want to keep the relationship, you want to be cordial with your boss, you want you and your colleague to have a good relationship, but they're doing or saying something that is against your negotiation terms that makes you uncomfortable. I think maybe that will be helpful for women that are listening.

Yeah, well, I think it starts with this. It starts with self love and self respect. And I think a lot of times what ends up happening is that you care more about what other people think and what they feel more so than you care about what you think and how you feel. So we have to prioritize ourselves because we can't rely on other people to take care of us. So I think that realization needs to be stated. And so we have to be very clear on what it is that we want and why we want it. We have the right to advocate for ourselves. When I think about the distinction between aggressiveness and assertiveness, it comes down to this. Assertiveness is the realization that you can, you have the right to say what you want to say and advocate for the things that you care about. And then at the same time you recognize that the other person has that exact same right. And so there is an exchange of information through the conversation and that the reality is this. Just like the story that you said with the cat, you are training people every day as to how they should treat you. You're training people every day as to how they should treat you. And so if you do not set those boundaries for yourself, people are going to keep on infringing upon your rights and pushing the boundary. Pushing the boundary, like, oh, Tari doesn't care about that. Oh, that's great. I'm going to do this then. Oh, she doesn't care about that. Well, great. I'm going to keep on doing this. It's not a problem for her. If it was a problem, she would tell me. But since she didn't tell me, I'm going to assume it's not. I'm going to keep on taking advantage of the situation. So we have to recognize that it's our responsibility to voice those concerns because we love ourselves, because we care about ourselves, because we respect ourselves. And when we demonstrate that act of self love to other people, that act of self respect, then we're teaching people what those boundaries are and the fact that they should respect those Boundaries as well.

Kwame, thank you for the example that you've just brought up. And I think it segues into my next point, which is to do with intimidation. So perhaps for the woman who feels intimidated to go to the corner office and speak to her boss, to be in that meeting speaking to executives, what tools can you give her and provide her to, to move past that feeling of intimidation?

Yeah. So this one isn't easy either. Tari. So here's the thing. When we think about intimidation, we have to recognize really what it is. Let's break it down to like a psychological level. So intimidation will create a. It's going to be a different emotional cocktail for different people. Maybe it makes somebody feel afraid, maybe it feels, somebody makes somebody feel very aggressive, agreeable, so they get more passive. Right. Whatever it is, the intimidation will have some kind of impact on you. So the first thing is we have to understand what our particular, what our tell is. How is pressure or intimidation going to impact us? It's different for different people. Sometimes if they feel intimidated, they get very aggressive and then they fight back. And the person who was intimidating was not trying to be intimidating. And then the person who was intimidated seems like the bully. Right. So we have to recognize the impact it's had. That's really important because it's different for different people. The next thing that we have to realize is that through more practice having these higher level conversations, you will feel less intimidated. So there's something called habituation. Habituation. And this is the human ability to adjust to difficult circumstances. And so I'll give an extreme example in the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, who was a psychologist or psychiatrist who, who was in Auschwitz, Germany. He was Jewish in Auschwitz. His whole family was murdered by the Nazis. And so living in the concentration camp, one of the things that was surprising to him is even though the conditions were horrendous, he was really surprised at the resilience of a lot of the people to adjust to the circumstance. It was a terrible circumstance, no doubt about that. Like some of the worst conditions in history. But one of the things that he took from the book is that if you have a clear understanding of your meaning and purpose in life, you can withstand a lot. And so let's use another example. Let's use another example. So let's say you have moved into a new house and so your previous apartment was like a 500 square foot apartment and you live there with three people. And now you move into a house where you have a lot of Space. You're like, wow, this house is huge. I have a lot of space. This is incredible. And then you live there for two years, and then the house starts to feel kind of normal, maybe even feel small. The house hasn't changed, but your mentality has. You have become less impressed by your circumstances. So whether it's good or bad, humans have an incredible ability to adjust to their circumstances. Now, if you are intimidated by a circumstance, it might be an indication that this is new to you and it still has that awe. You still have that reverence to that situation. And so again, the cure, going back to the exposure therapy, like the rejection therapy, we want to put ourselves in these positions, to have these high stakes conversations more frequently. And the more frequently you have them, the less intimidated you will be. The other thing we have to think about is that everybody has their unique source of strength. So if you're afraid or you feel intimidated going to your boss in the corner office and asking for something, you have to remember that most likely the source of your intimidation is the fact that the boss outranks you. There is power associated with the title that is often going to be the source of the intimidation. The boss might be a nice person, might be a really nice generous person, for example, but you're still intimidated by the title. And so you have to figure out what it is that is your unique source of power. What is your value? Where does your strength come from? Because even though the boss might be the person running the company, you might be the subject matter expert in this particular area. So for me, at the American Negotiation Institute. Exactly in that niche, for me at a. And I, I am the boss, I'm the owner. So I make all the decisions, I have all the power and authority. But there are several parts of the business that my employees know a lot better than me. And so when they come into the conversation and they talk about the research they've done, they've talked about the clients they've talked to, and they talked about their experience doing the work that they're doing that I don't have, even though it's my company that is their source of power. And then I respect that power and it puts us more on the even playing field during the conversation. So I think it's really those two things, putting yourself in these positions to have the opportunity to have more high level discussions. And then the second thing would be taking some time beforehand in your preparation and figuring out what your unique source of power is. For the listeners out there who have heard this spiel, a lot. I'm going to do it again. Make sure you download those free guides because if you take the time to download the free guides by going to americannegotiationinstitute.comguide, you can get access to all of those free guides. And by simply taking the time to prepare, that will make you feel more confident, more empowered and ready and less intimidated in your difficult conversations.

Yeah, and I definitely do want to plug your resources because I've seen it myself. Your company and organization is so generous with this type of information and I think that it's so useful for women to tap into. Kwame, you've given so many gems. And I think another question that I had which kind of segues from our discussion is I see from your company that you do have a lot of gender diversity. And it's amazing to me to see so many women on your team as you train them and as you are providing your group with these skills. What are common pitfalls that you see women fall into when it comes to negotiation? When you're looking at it from a gendered point of view, what are you seeing women do wrong or things that women should watch out for, which are maybe common pitfalls?

I think it's this when it comes to these difficult conversations, that is a really good question. Let me actually, let me think through my response. Let me explain the hesitation here. And Simone, don't edit this. I want people to feel the hesitation. So as I'm thinking through this, first thing is I don't want to come off as mansplaining, like, oh, Kwame, know it all, man, coming in and telling us what to do. No, I don't want that. I don't want to give that vibe. That's not where this is coming from. I'm trying to think to the people, like the people who are on my team, because let's talk about bias here. Bias often comes from experience, like your lived experience. And so what's interesting and what's causing this hesitation is because there's a dichotomy between the research that I've studied as it relates to negotiation, as it relates to gender dynamics and negotiation, and what I have experienced in my time being a negotiation expert, because like you said, the majority of people on my team are women. And they're all great negotiators, very strong negotiators. And so I think what has happened in a lot of these cases is that they have overcome what is often a self fulfilling prophecy where they believe that, hey, I can do this. And so they do I'll give you actually a sneak peek. Tari, I think you'd like this. In my next book, how to have Discovery Difficult Conversations about Race, I introduce a concept that I have kept private for a long time. But because it sounds weird, but we'll see, you tell me what you think. I call it a helpful fiction. A helpful fiction. It's something that I know is not true, but I choose to believe it anyway because it helps me. And so one of the helpful fictions that I have is that now, because of how much time I've put into this, I believe that I can negotiate, communicate with and persuade anybody, anybody I talk to, I know I can. That's my belief. Now, is that necessarily true? There might be somebody who just shuts down and doesn't talk to me. That's true. But I choose to believe otherwise. And that leads to behaviors that are more empowering. Right. Because since I choose to believe that, it puts me in a position to where I will take those actions that put me in the best position to succeed. Because I'm focused on what it takes to succeed instead. Instead of saying, oh, because I'm a black man or because I am a man, whatever the self fulfilling prophecy might be, because I am who I am or because they are who they are, they will not listen to me, they won't respect me, those type of things. I instead choose to believe the helpful fiction. No, I can win every negotiation. No, everybody loves me, I can communicate with anybody. And then it makes it more likely for that to be the case.

I think kind of an overarching takeaway I'm getting from what you're saying is that it's not about ability, it's about practice. It's about that continued exposure that hones your skills and that kind of builds up that confidence or whatever the case may be.

Exactly, exactly. I call it the positive cycle of confidence. Because if you take positive action, it makes it more likely for you to get the outcome that you want. Once you get the outcome that you want, you feel more confident. And confidence is an emotion that leads you to take positive action, so you take more action. Right. And so the flywheel keeps on turning. And so that's the positive cycle of confidence. But it starts with action, it starts with belief, and then you take the action and then good things happen because of it. That's really what it comes down to.

Yes. What would you say, for example, for personality types? And I love that you speak about this in your work because, you know, we have people that are quiet or Naturally loud, naturally direct, or more challenging. What pitfalls are you seeing on both spectrums where you have your introverts during negotiation and you also have your extrovert. And I know you also talk about how introverts. Being introverted is actually a pro, it's actually a skill when it comes to negotiation, which was very interesting for me to hear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you identify as an introvert, we have a free introverts guide to negotiation that you should check out at our website. But yeah, this is really important. I think it's important in terms of self reflection, understanding yourself, self awareness. What is my personality type? When we think about the big five personality types, we have openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. And everybody's going to be on a spectrum on each of these five dimensions. Where do we sit there? It's important to know that because there'll be different ways that you approach the conversation that might feel more natural to you. The other thing is, once we recognize what our, what our personality type is, we're going to recognize a couple of things. First, we're going to realize that there are going to be some pros, like you said, and there are going to be some cons under certain circumstances. And so once you recognize that, you'll be able to make better reads because there's a difference between facts and feelings. But in the moment they feel the same way. And so you might say to yourself, nah, I don't want to, I'm not going to push it, I don't want to do that. But if you recognize, oh, I'm higher on the agreement side of the spectrum, that might not be a legit read, that might not be a true analysis. That might just be my feeling because I'm more agreeable. And so in those moments when it's time to say yes or no and agree, somebody who's more agreeable should probably slow down the decision making process because in that moment they'll probably feel pressure to agree.

Yes. So when you like feel yourself trying to just agree or come to that mutual point, you're saying kind of hold back, take some more time.

Exactly. And so for me, a lot of times, because I still, like I said, I still have that people pleaser inside me. If it's a really heavy conversation, my rule is I don't make a decision in that call or in that meeting, whatever it happens to be. I'll gather the information, I'll think it through, I'll talk to Colleagues to make sure I'm reading it the right way. And then I'll make my decision the next day or later that day. Now, let's say you're somebody who's more extroverted. And so somebody's talking and you say, say, no, I need to say something right now. You hear that voice? No, no, no, I gotta jump in right now. I gotta tell them everything. Yeah. So it's like, is that the right thing for me to do right now or is that, you know, my personality type kind of pushing me to do that? So I think the more self awareness you have, the more you'll be able to understand the different pulls that you feel during the conversation and also recognize this too. Like one of my good friends, Beth Bueller, who had the. Her podcast used to be called, or still is called the Introvert Entrepreneur, and she has a book by the same title. She's like, yeah, I am an introvert, but I recognize that sometimes I need to extrovert. She uses the term extrovert as a verb. So she says, there will be times where I need to muster up more energy to be more extroverted in that moment. So you can step outside of your personality for strategic purposes. You just have to understand it'll probably take more effort. So for her as an introvert, speaking up more would take more effort. For somebody who's more extroverted, showing restraint would actually take more effort. But the more you know yourself, the more you'll understand those pressures that you're feeling during the conversation.

I love what you're saying because it's about mastering your personality. You don't have to become someone else. You don't have to become Chris Voss. You can still navigate a successful negotiation with your personality traits, which, which I love. And Kwame, it's interesting because I have a lawyer friend and I remember, you know, curious conversation while back. He was telling me that he will see men in this industry riling women up to get that emotionality so that they're able to. So that, yeah, they kind of fall into that pitfall of not processing information properly. What types of tools would you suggest for that kind of emotional side? If you are someone who maybe does get emotional when things get heated, what would you suggest to kind of maintain level during negotiations?

That's a really interesting. Let's actually break down what your friend said because that's fascinating because it shows two things. I think somebody could listen to that and have the takeaway of, oh, women are more emotional, or they could have the takeaway of men have biases against women and they assume that women are more emotional so they do things in order to trigger emotionality when in fact those things that they did would trigger emotionality in any human. So for instance, if that's the person, if the person says, ah, that's a woman, I am going to say things that are like a little bit offensive. I'm going to push them really hard and be really aggressive in order for them to get emotional. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Ah, you see, you see how she responded to that? They're emotional. That's what women are, women are emotional. But if that same person were to do that same thing to a man and treat that man with the same level of disrespect, that man too would get emotional under the circumstances. Right? And so it's an interesting thing, you know, and so again it goes back to those self fulfilling prophecies and the biases that go into these conversations. But in general, when it comes down to how you handle yourself under duress, there are a couple of things because again we have to go back to the personality traits. Some people, it doesn't get them going. I'm just not going to be emotional. And the thing is with these personality traits, you see this from infancy. I have a son who's six, I have another son who is nine months old, Kai, who's my six year old. He was always more emotional, even when he was a baby, a little bit more temperamental. And as he started to get more like a little bit older as a toddler you could tell he was very intense. But Dominic is so chill. You cannot shake this boy. The only reason he cries is because I'm hungry. No, I don't want to be put down. You know exactly what it is. He's like, I'm alerting to you, I'm alerting you of my needs and then I will stop immediately and I'll smile at you. So you can't bother him, right? It's just a personality distinction between the two. And so I think what you have to do, again it comes down to self awareness, understanding what bothers you, your personal tells, and then understanding what you typically do under pressure and whether or not that serves you in this situation. Because if what happens is your negotiation abilities go down under duress, which often happens, you have to figure out one of two things. Number one, how to lower that level of emotionality in the moment. And number two, whether or not you are capable of negotiating effectively in this moment. Because sometimes the best strategic move for you to do is to end the conversation and try it another time. And I don't think enough people take option number two. So I think it really comes down to that. I know for me, there are a couple of things that I do to try to stay calm in the moment. A couple of them are kind of meditative, and the other one is going to be weird. But stay with me. What I would do is I'd focus on my toes, and I'd squinch my toes up, like, make little toe fists. And the reason why I do that is because it helps to ground me, because I feel that sensation, and it takes me out of my head a little bit. Same with writing notes. It's that tactile sensation. A lot of times, I'm not even even writing anything. I'm just taking the time to slow down, focus on my breathing, and then center myself. The other thing that I do, and I've noticed that I get. When I get emotional, I lose every piece of advice that I tell people in this podcast. I'm like, why did I do that? I'm like a crazy person. I know. Better yet. And so this is the weird part, Tari. What I say is, like, if I was somebody else and I was actually being their negotiation coach in this moment, what would I tell this person in that moment moment? And it helps me to step back and realize, oh, yeah, yeah, you were off. You were not thinking straight. And it takes. You know, it's a hit on the ego because I like to think, oh, yeah, man, Kwame, I'm chill. I'm always chill. That's not true. That's not true. And so when I'm. When I'm humble enough to accept. Kwame, you're not thinking straight. Kwame, you need to do what you teach other people to do. It helps me to get back into the. Into the zone. Or if anybody can't handle it, they should just take the time to regroup. There's no shame in that. There's no shame in that.

Yes, Kwame, I know that you have to go soon, so before we end our podcast, I just wanted to maybe if you could leave us with three tips on negotiation that you could leave us all with, that would be awesome.

Yes, yes, yes. So the first one is just keep on taking action. It's easy for these things to be very theoretical. Very theoretical. You listen to this podcast, like, wow, Tari's super smart. I'm gonna do. I. I should do that. I really should do that. Let me think about that a little Bit more. Let me think about that a little bit more. Then next week. Yeah, man. Still thinking. Still stop thinking. Just do something. You know, you have to, at some point, need to put these things into action. It doesn't matter. Negotiation, like it is, like that is a noun, but negotiating is a verb, and that. That's what you need to be doing. It doesn't matter if you get it, if you don't do it. That's the first thing. The next thing is I'll blend the last two tips into one. There are only two things that you need to do in order to become a better negotiator. Just two. Number one, ask more questions. And number two, manage emotions, both yours and the other person's. And if you're able to do those two things, you're going to be a lot better.

Wow. Thank you so much, Kwame. Negotiation is everything. It's everything from negotiating finances with your spouse, negotiating with your kids, a work contract. So I appreciate how practical these skills are, and really thank you for your time in speaking to us at the Elevate Hub. We really appreciate the work that you're doing.

Yeah, it's our pleasure. It's our pleasure. Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club 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 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.