Top Tips: Mastering Negotiation Strategy. Highlight Reel [Part 1]

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

And so when I go into different companies, like Fortune 500 companies, where I'm talking to people who are negotiating six and seven figure contracts, I start with this framework. Even though it is, it seems a little bit simplistic and it is intentionally simplistic. I start with this framework because I want it to be generally applicable. So it's a framework that you could utilize both at work and at home in every single difficult conversation that you have. And then if you want to be more strategic then you layer on on additional high level tactics on top of it. But you start with compassionate curiosity. And so going back to the simplistic nature of it, it's a three part process. So the first step is acknowledging emotions. The second step is getting curious with compassion. And then the third step is joint problem solving. And the reason that I made it so simple is because I wanted it to be a framework that people could think back on and utilize even when they are in their most stressful situations. Because when you're in a difficult convers and you are starting to get embroiled in emotions, what happens is your body often floods with stress hormone called cortisol. And cortisol clouds your thinking. You can't think as clearly. Also when your HPA access starts going, which is your stress response again, your adrenaline starts pumping. It inhibits the depth of processing that your prefrontal cortex can achieve. And so that's the logical thinking part of your brain. And so when you need it the most, your brain is performing at its worst. And so I didn't want to give some that was incredibly complex Because I knew that you wouldn't be able to access it given your mental state. And so I wanted it to be something that people could instantly remember and say, ah, compassionate curiosity. I know what I need to do. I found my footing and I can figure out where I need to go in this conversation.

Tell us a little bit more about this three step strategy. I love that it's so simple because like you said, you're sitting there, the other person says something you weren't expecting, your stress hormones flood your body and you can't think. So tell us a little bit more about each of these three steps. You say acknowledge emotion. What does that mean?

So when it comes to acknowledging emotion, essentially what you're doing is you're pointing out the elephant in the room. You can tell that there's something going on with the other person and you want to let them know that you see it. And the benefit is it makes them feel as though they are emotionally validated. Because a lot of times the worst thing you could do is if somebody's really upset or frustrated or sad or mad, you say something like calm down or, or relax or it's not that big of a deal. Which obviously has the opposite impact. It inflames them. Because what you're doing is you're belittling their emotion. And so when you think about it psychologically, what's happening is that you're in the conversation now with their amygdala. Their amygdala is firing and it is an emotional response that you're dealing with. And the way to quiet the amygdala is by labeling the emotion. And in order for them to be able to say, okay, yes, correct, that's the right emotion, or no, that's wrong, that's the wrong emotion, they need to start to think logically about it. And the thing is, once you say, you pinpoint it, then it has a calming effect because now they don't feel like they need to impress upon you the fact that they feel this way or make you feel the ramifications of their emotions. They say, okay, Kwame sees me and he gets it. So here's an example. So in my mediations, a lot of times it's a situation where litigation has led to this point where we're about to go to trial, but the judge sent it to us to try to resolve the conflict. And so they might have been in conflict for over a year at this point, going back and forth, but they haven't been able to find a resolution. And in so many cases, it's not a substantive barrier that's preventing an agreement. It's an emotional barrier first. It's both. It's usually a mixture. But you can't get to the substance until you get through the emotion. And so I would say, if I were in your position, I would feel frustrated. And so sometimes if they're not. If they're not willing to open up, I'll just guess, but I'll personalize it. So if they don't want to own it for themselves, I'll own it for them and say, if I were you, I would feel frustrated. And so it has a magical impact. Because let's say in some situations, they would say, yes, I'm frustrated, and here's why. And then they'll start to share more information because it's almost like a deluge of feelings kind of come forward and they're going to share that thing that was hidden behind the emotion.

What?

Or they might say, you're wrong. Which is still good for me because people hate to be mislabeled. So I went to osu. So let's say I don't want to talk about my alma mater for some reason. Which school did you go to? Well, I'm not telling you which school I went to. And then they say, hey, did you go to Michigan? No, I went to the Ohio State University. It's like, I might not want to tell you, but I don't want you to mislabel me. That's worse. What happens? And I remember very distinctly in one of my mediations, I said, I did the frustration move. And she said, no, Kwame, I'm not frustrated. I'm angry. And I am angry because of X, Y, and Z. And then she just shared the information that she was holding back the entire mediation. And so the emotional barrier is often the first battle that needs to be fought. And you can't even get to the substance unless you address the emotional side.

I think assertiveness is something that is often misinterpreted or misunderstood, especially by women. I would say I can say as a woman. As women, we tend to be less assertive than men. And I think it has a lot to do with education and what's been expected from us and the belief systems that we have. I believe today women aren't as assertive as they should be. Now, let's start with what assertiveness is, because often it's misinterpreted as aggressiveness or as too emotional in whichever emotion we're talking about. Well, assertiveness is nothing more than simply standing up for what you believe in, speaking up, speaking your truth, while at the same time respecting that the other person might have another opinion or might not agree with you, which is totally okay. And that brings us to the third point that you just mentioned, the importance of conflict and how that can add value. So assertiveness for me is simply having enough self confidence, having enough a level of self esteem to consider that what you have to say, you are worth saying what you have to say. And the other person also has the right to say what they think, even if you don't agree. That's assertiveness. So if you look at it that way, I believe we should really train everybody, including young children, to speak up, to say, you know what, you have the right to speak up. I can speak for myself. I was educated in a way where my father used to always tell me, luz, if you don't know everything about the subject, then don't say anything at all. Like you have to be this world class expert in whatever it is that you want to say before you have the right to open your mouth. And obviously that left a mark on me. I was very shy, I didn't speak much and every time I had something to say, but I would think about, how am I going to say this, does this add value, who am I to, etc. Etc. Until I did a lot of work on myself and realized, you know what, if I have something to say, I have the right to say it, even if it doesn't come out like this perfect phrase that adds value and solves world problems. And yeah, I worked a lot on that. And then by helping others, I realized many people struggle with this and women more than men in my experience. And it's something that is not okay. It's not okay that people think they don't have the right to speak if it's not good enough. So yeah, assertiveness is key in communications, in life, and in every negotiation.

Fantastic. Yeah, I agree 100%. And I think that misunderstanding that people have of assertiveness is very problematic because a lot of times it's seen or can be seen as a negative thing. And really what you're saying is it's just recognizing the rights of both parties to speak up and share their thoughts. And one of the things that I thought was really interesting was not just the fact that we are speaking up and advocating for ourselves, but at the same time we are accepting the rights of the other person to have a differing opinion. Why is that last part so Important.

Because if you don't respect the other part, that's when you become aggressive. That's when it's all about you and you take all space and you don't listen anymore. And then it's not a dialogue anymore, it's a monologue where you just think that what you have to say is so important that everything, you know, everyone should listen and agree. Well, if you keep that humility and say just the way I have the right to speak up, someone else has the right to speak up, even if they don't agree, then the way you communicate automatically becomes more respectful and ethical.

Right, Mike, let's start off with that first part. Gathering information. What are the things that we need to know about that?

Well, Kwame, you know, I think the. And even. Let's take even a step back, you know, further from that. I think that the. One of the things that all of us humans tend to do is that we want to make sure that other people understand our position, and they want to understand where we are coming from, and they want to. We want people to understand what we want and what we're trying to do. And as you've indicated in the areas that we're going to try to cover here today is talk about is that, you know, what I think is important and one step that a lot of times we miss is trying to understand the perspective of the other human on the other side of the. That we're talking to. And that is that is based on their background, maybe where they're from, maybe their nationality, maybe who they work for, what their company is, their corporation, you know, if their business or whether an individual, any of those kind of things, I think are very important. So I think that we need to. One of the things that's very important is to take the time to try to understand, to the extent that we can, the person who we're involved with. And I think if we can. And person or persons that we're involved with, and I think if we can do that, then I think that that gives us a better opportunity to not only achieve the goals that we try to achieve, but achieve a goal that is mutually satisfactory to the parties and, you know, get. Get somewhere that, that. That everyone's going to be happy with or happier with, as opposed to everyone being unhappy because no one. No one understood each other. And people just kind of yelled and screamed and, you know, pounded the table with their own position without really trying to understand where the other person is coming from. So I just wanted to set that as a. As A back as a bit of a background as part of that. So in doing that I think that the, the, you know, so one of the main skills obviously involved there is listening, obviously is listening to what they say. Because a lot of times people won't tell you directly what it is that they want, what it is that they need, what it is that they're after. But I think if your listening skills are good enough and you've done it enough times that it can be very helpful for you to try to figure out, okay, what's really behind, what are the meanings behind the words and what are their really, what's their pain, what's causing them to be there and what's their motivating factor. And so asking questions, I think is the best way to do that. And listening to the responses and asking follow up questions if need be is what really helps to gather that type of information.

Yeah, and this makes a lot of sense. And I want to really impress upon this for the listeners too, because think about it, you're representing clients, they have needs. And so what you're saying is in these negotiations you still make sure that you take the time to get a better understanding, not just of the situation and gathering evidence and those type of things, but you're also taking the time to make sure that you understand what's really motivating them so you can craft an agreement that's enticing to them to some extent. Right, Correct.

Absolutely correct. And a lot of times what is important to them may not be as important to you. And so there may be things that are important to you into your perspective, into our perspective that we can trade. So something that's really important to them doesn't matter to us. And that's very easily something we can hold. So sure, we'll give them that, but we want something else in return for it that's more important, important to us. And so understanding those, those issues and so understanding not only your position and what's important to us and where we want to get in the end, but if we can understand where they want to get in the end, that helps as well too. So.

Right.

You know, as a woman in business and for those of you who are listening, who are women, I will tell you one thing. I'm going to give you like one takeaway you can implement immediately, without fail, somebody will say to a woman that you're so emotional. Right. I hear this all the time now. I'm really not very emotional, nor do I bring that in my work. And when I'm Emotional. Believe me, you will know that I'm emotional. However, I have to listen to this nonsense all the time. So here's what I want you to do. I literally want you to stop, pause, put your head back, and start laughing. Like, laughing, laughing. Like.

I didn't know that worked.

Still, what I was saying is back to the subject at hand, and you just wipe it off the table. You pretend it never happened. You give it no power. You just laugh and move on.

Oh, gosh. Okay, wait, listeners, let me explain my laughter. My head was not back in a sarcastic way. I was laughing in a genuine this is great type of way. Because what you've done really is they have attacked you, and what you've done is said, that was cute, and now let's get back to business, right? And so you've demonstrated that it was irrelevant, it was juvenile, it was immature, and most importantly, it is beneath me to even address that. Right? Oh, that's so good. And that's such a power move. It changes the entire dynamic.

Power move in negotiation, you know, if I step into that, I give it power I already, like, lost.

Yep. Oh, no, we're not. We're not just going to pass by that, because that's really important. So I want you to go deeper into what you just said, because I think for a lot of listeners, that's. This is going to be the part of the podcast where they pause it and go back. Because a lot of times when somebody attacks you, when somebody insults you, you get offended, you get defensive, and then you feel obligated to go into that, which is exactly what they want you to do. And so what you're doing, what you're demonstrating, demonstrating to people, is that, no, you need to demonstrate some restraint and not play that game, even though everything within you wants to attack back. So why is that the right approach, to hold back?

Because as an authority, as an expert, it's so beneath you, it doesn't even warrant a response. And when you wipe it off the table, they look like idiots. You don't. So, you know, this laughing strategy is a straightforward out of the negotiation book strategy. I used it when I was in negotiation for a personal injury lawsuit. I was hit by a car on my bicycle and had a bad neck injury. And then they came in and they said, well, the best they can do is $20,000. And I was sitting there typing on my computer. I put my head back and I just laughed. Like, I literally, like, laughed. It was ridiculous. And I said. And then I stopped and I said, no, And I just went back to my computer, ignored the mediator, and just went right back to work. Didn't say anything else, because it was a negotiation tactic, because I knew they were going to do that. And you have to exercise discipline. Because when somebody attacks you and you just said that, Kwame, is that you have the tendency to say, what makes you say that? Are you idiot, or how dare you address me like that? You know, why can't I have any respect? It's bait. They're setting a trap for you to make you look bad the minute you justify your behavior. Or you. You say, why would you say something like that? Now you. You take in the energy from the moment that you had away from, and you're giving them the energy, therefore, you elevating them and you diminishing yourself. So your job in a negotiation is to say, is this relevant to the negotiation? You are a leader. You are the authority. You are in charge. So if somebody tries to disrupt you, you don't even say, don't disrupt me. Because even that, even that would take away. You just give them sort of like a look of complete befuddlement. Like, you know, it's like, why? Why are you even, like, speaking? You know? And you just stop. You look at them, you say nothing. And then you go, as I was saying, right. You take it right back. But you can, in negotiation, ever let your power drop when you are at a critical juncture like that. Now, having said that, I have played blonde many times in my negotiations where I walked in and I pretended I was confused, which I'm really not. But you know, where I go and I say, oh, that's so interesting. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? And because when you make people feel comfortable and they feel superior over you, they are most likely to slip a piece of information that you can use. And then when it's time, you jump in. And then you said, well, as you said, obviously, you don't have a lot of the stuff that I'm offering and that you really dislike your vendors. So how about we moving now to discussing the contract? Because clearly you have a need for this.

This is so good.

Well, let's lean on the discipline side of that piece for a moment because that's also really important. Because if you actually think about a negotiation, there's the skill of knowing what to do. But then there's also, like, I think I think a lot about, like, a software sales context where I've worked for months and months and months showing demos and meeting with People, this organization, and we're so close to the finish line of getting a contract signed. And then we go on what I think is going to be, you know, a quick call to talk about the contract and the terms, and they start hitting you with stuff hard and you're getting punched in the face. And it is very easy to get rattled there. And one thing that has helped me a lot is prior to any negotiation, people talk about planning. And like, there's these elaborate worksheets that I see people put together of your best case, their best case, your worst case, their worst case. I just try to jot down a couple bullet points of, like, things to keep in mind. So I'll literally, before every negotiation, I'll have a piece of paper in front of me and I write down the word. What did you have in mind? I write down the word no unilateral gives meaning. Me giving something without getting something in return. I'll write down get all asks on the table. And so I write these things down. I know them, I know them intellectually, but in the moment when I've got a managing partner of a big law firm and she's coming in hot and tearing me apart, I look at that thing and I look at those bullets and I say, okay, I'm going to reorient around those basic principles. I don't need a fancy worksheet here. I just need to make sure I lean on those principles hard.

I love that. And I think that's a level of preparation that really anybody can get to in any conversation. If you're willing to take 60 seconds before the conversation and just write a couple of things down, in most situations, you'll be able to handle that, right? And again, when we think about these tools that we're giving people, and I know I do it all the time because I. And I think it's a bit of a bias as a lawyer because I get the privilege of being able to be paid to prepare for these conversations. I'm still billing. And so I have a very elaborate preparation guide. And I know the listeners are saying, they're like, oh, Kwame's winding up for it. So if you go to americannegotiationinstitute.com guide, you can get access to all of our free negotiation guides. And now back to the podcast. But most people don't have the time to fill out a five or six page guide. But you do have time to just write something down. And if I'm having a conversation with my wife about, you know, where our Kids go to school or how we spend our money or something like that, it would be. She would be kind of freaked out if I came with five pages of.

Preparation, you know, And I think it.

Helps the conversation flow more organically if you have something that you can refer to very briefly, just to keep you focused on doing the right thing and avoiding some of the mistakes you could make.

Bingo. Totally agree.

And so you need to have strategic disclosures. You need to be willing to disclose something that doesn't necessarily hurt your position, but triggers reciprocity and makes them feel safer to share, safer sharing that information with you. And then you'll be able to notice that as the conversation goes on, if you acknowledge the emotion and they feel validated and you don't need to agree with their position, that's an important part of it. You can recognize that there is literally legitimacy in the way that they feel without succumbing to their position. And that's a key distinction. And so once you acknowledge that emotion, you might start to see the emotional tenor of the conversation going down. And that's when you can shift to the substantive issue. And that's when you shift to step two, which is the compassionate curiosity side of it. I think one of the hidden benefits of the framework is that it helps you with timing, because it doesn't make sense to give a logical message to somebody who is operating with the illogical part of their brain. We've all had those situations when we say something that is just factually accurate and the other person rejects it. And we're like, what world are we living in? And then you start responding with more facts, more figures, more logic. But what's really happening is that we are now in a situation where we're talking to their internal toddler. It doesn't matter what you say at this point. They're incapable of comprehending it at a high level. And so this helps you to identify when in the conversation you should say what. And if they're in a highly emotional state, all the logic, all the facts, all the figures that you want to bring to the table, it doesn't matter. They're not ready for it. And so you have to work your way through this process in order to get to the substance.

Now, let's think about the fact that sometimes people are really, really aggressive when it comes to their negotiations. And when you think about us as lawyers, too, the system that we use is actually called the adversarial system, especially when you think about from the court perspective. And so for many times in Many situations, it's almost bred into certain attorneys that they need to be adversarial in their negotiations, not just in the actual courtroom scenario. And so in that situation, if you're trying to gather information and you're asking questions and you're up against somebody who is more adversarial in nature and they don't want to give that information, what types of things do you do to encourage them to share when they don't want to?

Well, you know, obviously, to the extent that you can build rapport with someone that helps, helps to get them to share, but that's not always going to be. That's not always going to be possible. That's not always going to. Not always going to be something that you can achieve. And if you can't, then. Then to some extent what we really need to try to figure out is what are behind the questions. So if they're not giving up the information, instead of giving up information and helping us to understand their position, they're making demands, then the easiest thing to do with that is to try to ask them to explain their demand. And why is that demand important to them? So if their position is, I need this and they're pounding the table and this has to happen, we need to get this taken care of, then, well, help me to understand why that's important to you. What risk are you trying to cover there? What are you trying to accomplish? So what, what did it, what is this? So, you know, if you can have them to, not only to state a position, but to have to explain their position, then I think that gives you a level of understanding there as well too. Because if they can articulate it, it can explain it very well, then it's probably a more important one to them than one that they just say, well, it's just because. And sometimes we get to just because. And that those are the ones that are harder to deal with. Because, you know, I've been working on a large transaction recently and we've had several of the just because. And it was just like, well, you know, we explained to them why maybe their position didn't make the most sense or why it wasn't, why it was, you know, why it wasn't as important to them. And then their position just basically come back and say, well, we want it anyway, you know, and so I guess you learn something there too. You learn something. What they're, what their position is is that they're just making demands and they can't necessarily back up. So maybe that's something we need to try to find we can trade some things that are other things for those positions. If those are really important to us, and if they're not that important to us, then we're not going to spend that much time, you know, worrying about it and fighting over it.

This is great. And one of the things that people struggle with is silence. Again, it becomes one of those platitudes. Hey, you know, in negotiations, you need to be silent. Okay, well, what does that mean? Do I just look at them and not say anything? When can I say something? Right. And you have a really interesting method for actually operationalizing that, and I think it's cool. Can you tell the listeners about that?

Yep. So on every sales call that I have, I bring either a hot cup of tea or I bring a cup of water. Got some water here today. And the reason for that is there's a joke from a movie where the guy's like, I don't know what to do with my hands. I don't even know what movie it is. But it's like, you're right. I'm like, what am I supposed to do when I'm silent? Just sit there and look at them. Sorry, my zoom froze. Like, what I do is when there's a moment when I want to employ silence, what I do is I actually, I take a sip of water and I do that intentionally. Like, I think it signals to the other person, it's your turn to talk. Because I've got water in my mouth, I've got a cup in my hand. I'm not, like, trying to get a word in. And so have the cup of tea, and then you can focus your energy on, like, drinking the tea. And the bonus with this is you stay well hydrated throughout the day. But that is how I try to use silence. I think the reason silence works, right, the other person fills the void with that, and it can feel awkward. And having some tea can make it feel a little bit less awkward. But again, you're signaling to the other person. Hey, I want you to talk here. You're signaling like, I'm listening. You also are soliciting more information, because by them filling the silence, you get more information out of it. And when you want to use it. I think common areas that people know to use it is, okay, you just said the big pricing number, right? Or they just hit you with a really hard ask and you don't want to respond right away, so you're silent for a second to hope that they justify with more information. It can be hard to do that. And that's why I use that phrase. Well, what did you have in mind? Because that's essentially the same thing. It's me saying, okay, wait, I heard you. Well, what did you have in mind there? Now I'm asking them, hey, can you please fill the silence? But even in the beginning of the meeting, I think it's okay to come on and say, hey. So the agenda that I've got, even without silence, what I'm trying to do repeatedly in the interaction is hand them the mic, put the mic in their hand and tell me stuff. So if you think about the context of I'm about to go over a proposal with a customer, or they emailed me and they said, nick, we need to review the contract because we've got some asks here. Well, when I get onto that meeting, what I want to do is I always try to set an agenda up front where it's like, hey, I think the intent of this meeting is you had some asks around the contract. If I can. I want to get them in advance so that I can review them and sort of prepare regardless of the whether or not I get them. I go on the meeting and I say, hey, I think the intent of this meeting, I see we've got 45 minutes on the calendar. Do you have a hard stop sooner? Because if you do, I want to make sure I'm watching the clock. I always do that because you don't want to ever get in a situation where you're 18 minutes in and they're like, oh, I have to go, sorry, I've got another meeting I need to get to. Because that makes things sort of feel rushed and that can throw you off course. So I try to set a really professional agenda up front. Confirm the time, confirm the agenda and hand them the mic. And what that looks like is, hey, I've got us down for 45 minutes. I think that puts us at a stop at 1:45 today. And then in terms of the agenda, I know you had some asks around the contract language. And so I think we're going to be reviewing those key phrase here. Is there anything else that you would really like to accomplish in today's session? And the reason I do that is, again, I want to give them the mic, give them a chance to share more information and make the other party feel like I actually care about what they have to say and what else they want to accomplish. Because one of the worst things that can happen is you make it all the way through this negotiation. And then there's other Asks or other things that they need. And so what I'm trying to do is say, hey, what else would you like to accomplish here? What else would you like to accomplish here? Is there anything else you want to make sure that gets done in this interaction? That is how you set a really professional and succinct agenda.

I love this.

When someone feels pressure to talk through the silence or they can't apply silence. A couple of things that people can do and where they normally apply it is when they've asked. Where they should apply it is when they ask a question. And I'll give an example of this shortly, what that looks like. But when you ask a question, you need to shut up. Essentially, that's what you should be doing. And so when you ask a question, the discipline to put in place is to sit in the silence, realise and recognise yourself where the question is and then say nothing. Another way people can apply silence or practice being silent is slowing down how you answer a question. So when you're asked a question, because people can feel uneasy when there is a bit of silence and they feel the need to quickly respond, applying some silence will actually slow down the conversation. So you can both actually get towards the outcome quicker. I call it the slow down to speed up. We tend to think that we can get to the negotiation quicker by talking lots and filling in the gaps and not having any silence. But what that does, it actually slows everything down. Because if we're filling in and we're conscious of just filling in the silence, we are most likely to be bringing in new information, going off on tangents, not listening properly and getting sidetracked. And what we're trying to do in a sale or a negotiation is get to the quickest, find the straightest route to the end. And the way to do that is to slow down the conversation, because we want to be able to do that, ideally in the least amount of interactions possible. You ask a question or piece of information, ask a question or learn something about you and answer appropriately. Not tell his story here, fill something in here, then we're going sideways and it takes us a lot longer to get to the end outcome. So really important when you're asking a question, recognise you've asked it and then stay silent. The first person who speaks loses.

It's really interesting when I am teaching or guiding someone through the game of chess, I say there's really four levels of learning. One is you got to learn the rules. You can't even get to the metaphors till you know the rules, which Is really funny when people start throwing chess cliches out, and I'm like, have you played chess before? Right. So the first thing you learn are the rules, and then you learn the principles. So one of the opening principles is control the center. We always talk about having dynamic. I call it dynamic balance. Right. That life is always going to throw you off. It's like riding a surfboard. Your goal is to say in the center, center of the surfboard, but the waves are constantly tossing you back and forth. So in the game of chess, one of the things you have to do is really, well, at least in the beginning, is strive to control the center of the board, because that's where all the action is. And what that does is allows you to pivot very quickly, whether you're going king side to the left side of the board, depending on which side you're playing with, or you're going to the right side of the board. So when you control the center, I always explain it's like being the goalie in a soccer. In a soccer goalie is that you don't know which way the ball is going. And you got to be able to go both ways. If you're too far off balance, you're not gonna be able to adjust quickly. Like that is one of the values. And one of the opening principles, another one that's really simple. I was gonna explain a little bit about my story is you need to use all your pieces as quickly as possible. Right. One of the first mistakes people make is they only use their queen or they only use their. Their horsey, their knight. Right. Or they're just pushing wing pawns, which means they're pushing pawns to the edge. So one of the challenges we do is in the early games, we say you need to touch all of your pieces at least one time. Right. And I just think about that principle applied to my life, that I've had a very zigzag career path. Right. It's very unorthodox, very non traditional, and I'm so grateful for it. It can create challenges at times, but for those who don't know me, I studied biomedical engineering at the Ohio State University. It's called where Kwame and I got connected. And then out of engineering, I just realized that wasn't really my passion. I didn't put a lot of thought into it. I finished because I didn't at that time, I didn't allow myself to feel like a quitter. So I dragged myself across that finish line and got that degree, but then got out of school, pivoted into financial services, spent five years doing some financial coaching, which was really interesting, but also picked. I was working on commission, so I picked up some sales skills. I did a lot of sales development, and then I pivoted into youth workforce development. Right. So there's a lot of pieces I'm picking up along the way. And now in my life, I'm able to use all these pieces at the same time. One of the principles, the last principle I'll mention now is the idea of a coordinated attack. Right. It's so beautiful. Stringing all the pieces together. I actually enjoy when I'm playing people taking well, depending on who I'm playing. If I'm playing Kwame, I'm keeping queens on the board, but, you know, I'll take a queen off the board. For those who don't know, the queen is the most powerful piece. And I say the power in chess all has to do with options. The more options you have, the more powerful you are. In the game of chess, the queen has access to the most squares because it can move as far as it wants in any direction. But I like taking the queens off the board and figuring out how to coordinate attacks or what I like to call the dance or plays is with knights and bishops and rooks. Because you have to learn to work together. You have to use all your pieces. You can't rely on your gift. For those who have seen Enkanto, spoiler alert. Enkatso is a super, really cool movie where you learn how to work together. You don't have to just rely on one power piece all the time, you know, so those are example of principles in play. You know, in Kwame, it would be interesting. We talked a little bit about this is what do you do when your principles conflict? What do you do when you're not sure what to do?

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Sa.